If I could predict when I would fall asleep and when I would just lie there, wondering if I ever would sleep again, it would save me a lot of hours of angst and worry. Such is the situation tonight.

I’m just plain lonely. J and I do stuff together, we love each other. I love her. She loves me. And yet…

If I knew why one minute I think the world is coming to an end and the next minute I realize life isn’t so bad after all, well, I guess you could call me enlightened. This is one of those days.

What was special about today is that I knew I needed to be around people. So I went to AA, just to see and be seen. I shared some thought on the topic of freedom. I quoted a line from Me and Bobby McGee, by Kris Kristofferson. “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” (If you remember Janis Joplin had a hit with it.) so it is with not only our physical possessions but our emotional attachment to things.

We aren’t really free if we have to hold on to our status, our prestige, our fear of losing somebody’s “love”. (Never mind that true love can’t be lost.) But there I was, chillin’ with my drunk peeps. Not. Feeling. Lonely. The moral of the story: Get out the house, to AA, The Y, Daily Mass.

Speaking of The Y, I went right after the meeting. I swam 1800 meters and felt good. I saw my friends Pat, Steve, and Greg. The only exciting news was that Steve had somebody tear the door off his locker and steal his wallet.

Now I am home, waiting for J, reading blogs, getting caught up here.

This morning, as I was getting dressed, I just lay back in bed, beneath an open window and felt the morning breeze on my naked body. It felt incredible! Further exploring the realm of gratuitous sensuality, I went commando this morning, feeling the fabric of the shrink to fit 501’s against my, uh, personal bits. (Note to self, Do THAT more often).

That’s about it.

I don’t really have insomnia. I just find sleep to be so unfulfilling. I sleep for two, three hours, then awaken and contemplate what I could do or should be doing.

I should be crying right now, out of frustration. I should write more often. Right now, I am listening to Glenn Gould perform J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. What is a more satisfying activity this side of Heaven?

I spent the day recharging my batteries. I feel a lot better. J is home now. It is warm and my jeans feel like they’re holding sweat next to my skin. I was going to write more in this post, but I think I will return to relax mode.

I want to cry, but I’m not sad about anything. I think I just get overwhelmed by….stuff.

By stuff, I mean the things that happen in life, like waking up in the middle of the night, sports scores, fixing lunch, staying busy and everything just accumulates, from physical tiredness, to grief, to sexual frustration, to body pain.

And I can’t bear the thought of going anywhere. Now pain is starting to register in my lower back.

The NFL Sunday regular season begins today. That’s nice, I suppose.

About 830 I asked J if she wanted Stauffer’s Mac & Cheese. She said yes. So we ate about an hour later, because I use a conventional oven. I have no microwave. That is our go-to comfort food.

Then, after sitting a bit, I fixed her favorite chicken salad, and prepped her lunch for tomorrow.

Now I’m sitting some more, winding down. She is in bed. I am not sleepy. Think I will watch something on DVD.

I am watching street scenes of Mumbai filmed in January 1929. It was called Bombay then. Guy Jones is the name of the You Tube channel. I have difficulty in thinking of ninety years ago as the distant past. I have known plenty of people who were alive in 1929. Almost all of them are gone now, but they shared their memories and experience with me.

Today was about getting back on schedule after Holy Hour at 4:00 AM.I slept til 10, about four hours, after I arrived home.

I did some housework. I watched cricket. I went swimming. I swam five times in this first week of September.

Now I am getting ready to put ice on my shoulder. J is doing some administrative work for her job. I will join her in a second.

I went to Holy Hour. I made it through, contemplating the Nature of Love. In retrospect, I could have taken the spiritual needs of TZ (from yesterday) and others to Our Lord with a bit more zeal.  I’m afraid the vanity of staying awake won out.

But I made it home, fell asleep for four hours, feel pretty good. J is at work on her other job. I did some house work, laundry, took out the trash to the rubbish bin.

J is working her last store for the day. She should be home by 4:00 PM. I shall stay here before I go to the Y to see if she wants to have dinner, go to Mass tonight or what.

England is struggling in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Old Trafford. The Aussies declared at 186/6. Then, when England came to bat, Pat Cummins took two quick wickets before England had even scored a single run. As I write this, it is nearly 7:00 PM in Manchester. England trails by 369 runs. It is 61°F(16°C) in Manchester now. The players all have sweaters on and I am longing for autumn more than ever.

I tried to sleep, fell asleep for a couple of hours, then woke up. I could not fall back to sleep. I came back down here to see if I could get back to sleepy time state.

Remember I have to be up for Holy Hour at Three.

Here I go again.

It has been hot. The AC has not been working optimally. The end of Summer has been quite robust. To cool down the other night, J wore a black camisole top with spaghetti straps. Quite sexy. I praised her to no end. It was a surprise. She hasn’t worn anything this overtly feminine in years.

Today she had her annual mammogram. She got the result by this afternoon. A negative. Everything is OK. To celebrate we went to Bone Fish Grill, where she had her favorite scallops and shrimp. I had fish and chips, in keeping with my Mancunian Wannabe sentiment. We are drawing closer, in a seemingly natural and effortless glide.

I have First Friday Nocturnal Adoration this morning at 4 AM. It seemed only fitting I had a chat with a woman after the AA meeting about things Catholic.

I have known TZ for several years. Attaining long-term sobriety has been elusive. This tenuous period, after a decade-plus of sobriety before her first of several relapses, has been her most successful of recent attempts.

I had not been to a meeting in several weeks. I had cookies to give away, so I went to this meeting, cookies in hand. There were cookies remaining after the meeting. I offered them to TZ and she took them.

She is handcrafting greeting cards and I bought one. It had a verse from Scripture, “For we see not with our eyes, but with Faith.” We got to talking. She had been raised Catholic, but has left The Church. I am a convert to Catholicism. She cited the lack of Biblical teaching in Catholic Schools. The Church had failed her in her spiritual formation, one of thousands that the Church has so failed. I told her my conversion was based on the great spiritual teachers of the Church, Teresa of Avila. Francis de Sales. Francis of Assisi, That moment of connecting after the meeting made my day.

After the meeting, I went swimming. I put in a mile. I came home, did a wash and waited for J.

I am tired. Today I got out of the house. I need to sleep. Adoration, you know.