The Mystery of the Missing Man in the Morning

Just when I was getting comfortable with the whole morning-after routine, the dealer throws a new card. Or, in this case, no card, no note, no nothing when I woke up the next morning, to not only find him gone from his bed, but gone from his house as well. There's this one extremely hilarious moment in which a woman, still fuzzy with sleep, reaches over to the other side of the bed, and feels the mattress palm-down to determine if it's still warm, or at this point, cold. It's like playing Sherla Holmes, Detectivette.

Sex and the City did not prepare me for this. Carrie never sat down at brunch one morning and said, "Hey, girls, the oddest thing happened this morning-- I woke up, and Mr. Big was gone to work, with no note!" We never discussed what to do when you are left with bedroom carte blanche! I WAS NOT EQUIPPED FOR THIS. No one, it seems, has ever given much thought to this situation before, or at least, not thought of it as an issue that needed any forethought. We all know, at this day and age, what to do the morning after. But what do you do when you're the last person left the morning after?

There are common-sense general perimeters for this sort of case-- don't still be there when he gets back, because that would mean that I would have slept in...for another 6 hours; pick up and lock up after yourself; and for god's sake, don't snoop!-- but I still was wobbling between secure and frantic now that my training wheels had been taken off. Good sign? Bad sign? Indifferent sign? Maybe he just didn't feel like having to go through any early morning shit-chat today, you know: "How's the weather/What are you up to later/What are the headlines?" Or maybe he just didn't want to have to share breakfast.

So, like Carrie does with Miranda and Charlotte and Samantha, I turned to what I supposed was my best hope for a second opinion: two of my girlfriends, one in a committed relationship, and one committed to having lots of relations with lots of different men, for advice on time frames for sleeping in more and if I should text when I left or not. After echoing each other-- "No note?! Well, at least he's comfortable enough with you to leave you alone with all his things," (I certainly would never leave anyone alone in my room for more time than they could get in trouble in,)-- they came through with the same answer: you should be able to sleep in for at least another hour, but after that, leave quickly, and text to let him know. Done, and done.

On my walk home in bright sunlight and the gently drifting downward leaves of late fall, I was caught between reveling in my extra hour of sleep and worrying. I liked it, being left to my own devices, to wake, dress, and go home at my leisure on my day off. Was I supposed to like it? Or did I really want to be woken up and said goodbye to, properly? Or do I really love uninterrupted sleep more than waking up and having to fit some logical puzzle pieces together to solve the mystery of the missing man? Was comfort a good thing, or a bad thing? And most of all, why had no one ever pulled us aside before, like your girl friends did when they first discovered orgasm, and gave you the play book? Why did they never tell us that this was a situation to prepare for? Who had the answers before this morning? Who still doesn't have the answers?

XOXO

Pillow Talk and Bed Partners

For as long as I've owned them, I've always had this thing about cats sleeping on my head. I'm not ok with the concept. Maybe it's the fact their little feet, which step in their litter box, get into your face. Maybe it's because I used to be allergic to them and hair on my pillow meant an eternal runny nose, multiple sneezes, and puffy eyes. Maybe it's just because I'm really particular about how I sleep.

Regardless of the reason, for whatever matter, my track record in following through with this personal preference rule is abysmal. My oldest (and now dead and decomposing) cat, a devotee of my dad, kept his thinning hair covered at night with her calico pelt. The first night I spent over at a guy's I used to see, I asked specifically if his territorial cream-colored she-beast was prone to staking her nighttime claim around his pillows. He said never, but the next morning, I woke up to her nesting quite contentedly in my hair. As I reached up to move her, she bit me. That is what you get for taking another woman's pillow, apparently, even if she's not the same species.

Nicholai la Citta (pronounced "NEEK-o-LIE la CHEETA), aliases "Nicco," "Piccolo Niccolo," "Raccoon Cat," and when annoying, "The Whiny Pussy," with a name much longer than his body-- Nicholas the City, when translated out of Italian like his namesake-- sleep exclusively on my pillows on the nights I have cat custody: First, the ones of the right side of the bed, and then on mine.

Evidence.

I share. This may be because he's growing up so fast, and as I said wistfully to Alli and Emily yesterday, "Sometimes I wish he needed me more." As they say, cat people thrive on rejection.

XOXO

The original Nicholai, head waiter of Coquinarius in Florence. Small, dark, a fan of cigarettes, and with entirely too

much energy for someone that small and sprightly. Exactly like the cat. Exactly why we named him after our favorite Itai.

The Young and the Restless

There are 2 types of people who can't sleep: The genuinely not tired, and those who are being kept awake by their thoughts that are too loud. Lately, I've been one of the latter. Granted, I've never been someone who kept up with a solidly respectable sleep schedule-- I'm more of a "night-owl and sleep until noon" person, myself. But when it's your fifth night in a row pressing the lighter side of 4 AM face-down in your bed, rest nowhere to be found and utterly restless, it's time to face facts:

One.

There is no one you can call or go see at 4 AM for a good limb-entwined sleep. There may have used to be. But there is no longer. And granted, you may have all sorts of friends to call on: Friends to drink with, friends to dance with, friends to discuss literature with; friends who will cook for you and go on drives with you and will lend you ten or twenty dollars in a pinch, but there is no one really who you can call, wake up, and say in that hesitant low voice that needs to be specially reserved for hours after 1 AM, "Hey, what are you doing? Can I come over?"

Two.

This may be what's keeping you awake.

Three.

You may be in mourning.

Four.

Every morning.

This is one of those times where you realize, yet again, that some aspects of being single suck. I've had, most of my adult life since the age of 16, someone handy to share a side of a bed, or, in the case of the small and cramped college extra-long, extra-narrow mattresses, a whole bed. Or, in other cases, the downward tilt of the mattress and the wall. And for the first time, I find myself, a grown girl of modest means, with her own new bed, most everything she could wish for or desire, with scads of experience and options, realizing that all that doesn't mean much unless you can get a good night's sleep. For which, apparently, my egg-timer of sleeping sand has run out, and all my trains have left the station.

Humph.

Is there a service for this sort of thing? A bed companion? A room-share? If it would cut down on the rent, that would help, too.

XOXO