2007-11-16 Sleepless

Claudia is off in Leukerbad with a friend. Being alone helps me stay calm. One of the biggest differences between me and her is that I am drained by company while she is energized by company.

Leukerbad

As soon as I come home, packing is on my mind. I usually pack two to four cardboard boxes. Then I do one or two extra tasks from my list. Find the next tenent. Somebody signed yesterday! Yay! Pick one of the three offers for the movers. Be angry at the management of the new flat for putting the pressure on us regarding the deposit, while squandering our time: They sent the contract by low priority mail (instead of high priority and registered), and the payment order still hasn’t arrived. These things make me nervous, and so between packing and eating and doing the laundry, I check my mail, try to calm myself by fixing an Oddmuse bug and chat on IRC, and I worry.

These last four nights I wrote a letter to Claudia. She loves getting old-fashioned handwritten letters. I send them to the hotel and she reads them two days later. The first letter I wrote around half past one in the morning. Then next a quarter past two. Then half past three. Today I’m not going to write a letter because she’ll be back on Saturday. It’s half past four in the morning and I’m still awake.

And all this time I’ve been getting up between eight and nine in the morning. Not bad compared to my usual early morning performance. But I wonder. Where do all the sleepless hours go. Will I have a system crash once we have moved? Will I get the flu and spend a week or two in bed? I’m probably as energized as I was during exam time at University.

I had forgotten how messed up we were. Living on borrowed time.

Every night I imagine myself pouring a glass of Port. I love Port. I like sipping it and eating some cheese and olives, listen to what Claudia tells me about her day, or just our fingers touching. But now I’m alone and sleepless. Drinking now would set a bad precedent, I fear. And so I brew some tea. Green tea. Darjeeling with some cream. Or when I feel in the mood, I cook some water with cinammon bark, cloves, and cardamom. After a few minutes I add the Darjeeling, and keep adding milk little by little as it boils up again and again. Add some sugar, maybe add some black pepper or a few slices of Ginger (although lately I enjoy it more without the Ginger) – I love my chai.

chai

Damn.

Still not sleepy.

​#Life