aaah....Justin

Can I just tell you (whoever you might ubiquitously be) how wonderful my fella is? He got home from work a little before midnight after working a 12 hour shift in the E.R. Earlier in the day, I had some trouble with some files on the computer. If you know me, then you know how sadly common an occurrence this is. So he comes home, schleps up the stairs to the apartment, showers, and sits down at the computer to try to figure it out. He finally comes to bed and a few hours later, he wakes up to comfort me after a nasty nightmare that had left me sweating and seriously creeped-out. A few hours after that, I get up and hop in the shower. When I get dressed and emerge, half ready to face the day, I find that he has gotten up and cooked me a hot breakfast. His plan is to go back to bed after I leave for work so he can get a few more hours of sleep. I know I don't deserve to be with someone like him. Being on opposite schedules sucks, as you might well imagine, but he is making it easier than I thought it would be. Here are a few of the crazy things we do to cope:

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  Dry-erase markers on the bathroom mirror. "Can you have lunch with me and mom on Friday? Check one: yes/no/maybe". Gotta love the throw-back to the third grade.


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  Lunchbox notes. Reminders to take vitamins. Encouragement of various persuasions.


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  Coming home to a clean apartment. I can't tell you how many times I've come home to find that before he left for work, he's vacuumed or put away the dishes or some such.


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  God bless the public library! To distract myself from the fact that I'm home alone a lot, I'm reading like crazy. On the nightstand today: Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq war as seen by NPR's correspondent by Anne Garrels.


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  Candles. As silly as it sounds, when I am up and getting ready for work and he has just gone to bed, I use only candlelight to dress, do my hair, etc. No comment on the questionable results. He has done the same when I've already gone to bed and he's just getting home.

Those are just a few of the things we've figured out. We have less time together, but in many ways, it's still sweet.