I really should be asleep now (again).

I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran Friday night. My next non-digital book will be volume two in the Hell's Library trilogy, The Archive of the Forgotten. I'd planned on beginning it yesterday, but I needed to swap out the lamps in my bedroom, both of which have ceased to function. I extricated the two in the living room which have stood idle since we set up my work-from-home office two years ago and needed the outlets for my laptop and peripherals.

They provide less light than the bare 100W bulbs of the other lamps. (I like BRIGHT! So sue me.) And the base of one has begun to disintegrate. But they will do for now.

Sleep has been problematic. I went to bed about 1:00am yesterday and slept fitfully until 9:00. While playing my usual AARP wake-up games at this computer, I kept dozing off. I finally gave up and went back to bed and slept until about 5:00. Woke up with an extremely full bladder after a series of bizarre and inappropriate dreams. We were living in the old house. The kids were mostly adults but also kids, and their father was in and out of the house (just enough to be annoying), although we were no longer married and I was widowed from Beloved. In the dream, I went clubbing with friends and started feeling frisky and ended up engaging in consensual romps with thankfully nobody I know in real life, to their content but not my own. A bunch of us drove back to the house, coming in around 5:00, and I sent the guys off to a nonexistent spare room to sleep it off while I chased a toddler who refused to stay in bed.

The last thought I remember from that dream was, "I'm going to have to explain this to Beloved and to my bishop."

I miss the daily, incidental touch even more than I miss playing mommy and daddy with Beloved. The bipolar bears are good about giving hugs if I ask, and sometimes they will say, "I think you need a hug. Is now a good time, or do you want a rain check?" One of the blessings of living with empaths. I'm not feeling lonesome at the moment, but my skin is hungry for him. And I miss his laughter and his mischief and his cooking.

Right now I feel as if I am serving a senior mission, and my mission field is a party of two: my beloved bipolar bears. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has entrusted them to me. I have several temporal goals that I want to achieve in the years that remain to me. And I am feeling this mortal body slow, and my thoughts go deeper, and Home seems just a bit nearer.