ince neither Malaya or me had ever lived with anyone else (other than our parents, of course) before we moved in together, there were bound to be some trouble spots in the early days. And perhaps the middle days and late days as well, given the sort of shit you commonly see married couples throwing at each other. Fortunately for us, we're smarter and more mature than everyone else, and can therefore always resolve our differences and issues with objective discussion. And if you believe that, you no doubt thank your email every day for introducing you to your new best friend and business partner from Nigeria.

I moved in here in mid-July, 2003, and since I'm writing this introduction in August 2004 and we're still together and loving it, things are obviously going well enough.  This page collects various blog entries on the subject of living together. Good stuff, bad stuff, weird stuff, and general observations on the topic. You may also enjoy the Moving in with Malaya page, which collects numerous blog entries on the initial moving in process.

More recent additions are on top.

August 1, 2003

After 2-3 days of feeling like shit, pretty much all the time, my cold suddenly ended early this yesterday morning.  I'd slept very late Tuesday, and then took a short nap Tuesday evening, while doing nothing but sitting around the house all day.  Even with all of that rest, and while taking various vitamins and supplements for a short term boost, I felt just awful the whole day.  Playing D2 for a couple of hours before bed, as well as blogging, I kept getting attacks of the shivers, while feeling hot and sweaty.  When it came time for bed I was shivering madly while my skin felt like it was burning up to Malaya, who was snuggling up beside me trying to keep me warm under a very heavy down comforter, in a room that was not at all cold.

Our normal body temperature levels are quite varied, in times of non-sickness.  Generally speaking, she is cold, or would prefer the temperature to be hotter than I like it, while I'm always hot and want it cooler.  This applies to temperature in the condo as well as outside, while driving, in stores, etc.  The odd thing is that her skin, to my touch, almost always feels hot.  Her feet are like hot water bottles to my feet under the covers, etc.  So conversely, I feel cool to her touch, even while I'm complaining about how hot I am.

I bring this up just because it underscored to me how unusual it was for me to touch her, and not feel like I was leaning on an oven.  Or at least a freshly-microwaved pastry of some kind.

Anyway, that was my state at bedtime, around 2am.  I'd slept like 13 hours the night before, and then had a nap, so I was quite well-rested, but it was still all I could do to play D2 from midnight until about 1:30, and I was leaning against the wall while brushing my teeth and waiting for Malaya to take out her contacts.  It was somewhat reminiscent of the infamous drunken Scrabble night, though that time I had to literally hang onto a door frame with one hand while I brushed my teeth, or I'd have fallen right to the floor.  And probably broken something, as fast as the room was spinning around me that night.

So fighting for balance while I brushed my teeth, feeling cold and shivery while Malaya was warm in a t-shirt and panties, and then shivering and trembling once I was in bed, totally covered in goosebumps, even with Malaya spooning me from behind and a sheet and thick comforter tucked over my entire body up to the tops of my ears.  It wasn't real pleasant. I did eventually warm up enough to stop shaking, and with Malaya holding me and stroking my hair and all of that motherly stuff, I fell asleep.

One thing that always lets me know if I'm sick is that I have a lot of really bizarre dreams, ones that make zero sense later, from what disjointed little of them I can remember.  I suppose that I might be having those sorts of dreams all the time, since I generally remember about one dream per week, and that it's mostly the fact that I'm waking up suddenly, often in a cold (or hot) sweat while I'm sick, that enables me to remember them better then.  But whatever the case, I had a ton of weird and crazy and disturbing dreams the last few days, and I remembered them all very clearly the minute I woke up. And 2 hours later I'd forgotten 98% of them, only remembering a few of the most unusual elements and how disturbing they felt to me at the time.

In a more perfect world I would have written them down at the time, and I could now type them into the blog and analyze them for your amusement and my edification.  However since this isn't such a world, I have only vague memories of them now, none of which are enough to bother posting anything about.

What I do remember clearly is waking up at 6am yesterday morning, wide awake from a sound sleep, and realizing that I wasn't sick anymore.  True, recovering from a couple of days minor virus isn't exactly the equivalent of popping out of a 9-year coma, but I so hate to feel bad or out of it mentally that realizing I no longer did was quite the revelation.  I wanted to leap out of bed and race around the house in joy.  However I realized that I'd only slept for 4 hours, and even with all the naps and such the day before, that was probably not enough.  And that more sleep, no matter how little I felt like I needed it, was probably a good idea.

So I laid back down with just a sheet over me, happy to no longer be hot-shivering or waking up in a cold sweat, and of course fell immediately back to sleep.  However when I next opened my eyes and saw that it was 8am, and still felt not-sick, I could no longer remain beneath the covers.

Our bedroom window has two layers of thick curtains, and the hallway door is open, but we have curtains on all the other windows in the condo, so even at 8am it's quite dark in there, especially on a cloudy day.  I sleep on the right side of the bed, and the hallway is on the left side, so I have to either slide across, or get down on my side and walk around, hugging the bed to avoid a dresser, futon thing below the window, bookshelf, and small upright wooden chest of drawers that's next to the hallway opening.  This isn't exactly difficult, but since Malaya was sure to need another two hours of sleep and I didn't want to wake her, I got out of bed carefully and tip toed around the foot of the bed, heading for the bathroom, eager to shower away the sweaty residue of my night's tossing and turning and bad dreams.

The surprise came when I got to the other side of the bed and aimed for the hallway opening, when my foot came down on something soft and warm and fleshy.

I automatically lifted my foot back up and fell forwards, to keep from putting my full weight down on the mystery object, and landing on my knees with my feet up on someone's bare body, I was stunned to hear my sweetie's voice exclaim in pain and surprise about how I'd just trampled her butt.

"You stepped on me!" she said, all sleepy and shocked and in pain, and I kissed her and helped her back into bed and apologized, but she was 4/5ths asleep and in no mood for anything other than "I'm hurt!  Don't touch me and hurt me further, you big oaf."  So I tucked her back and left her to sleep, and went to shower and marvel at how not-sick I felt.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and semi-dry, I returned to see if she was back to sleep and found her still complaining once there was someone in ear-shot to complain to.  Complaining about how I broke her ass and how she was crippled and how I wasn't sorry at all.  In the cutest, sleepiest, most accusatory voice you can ever imagine. I kissed her little forehead and patted her and wished her sweet dreams, and went off to work on the computer while letting her sleep a while longer.

She did, and only got up around 11 when the alarm went off, and before I saw her she had changed into her gym outfit and was putting on her shoes, sitting on her broken ass and looking pouty.  She's amazingly-cute when she pouts, which is always a dangerous state of affairs.  Her first words of the morning?

"You broke my ass."

Delivered in the most adorable sad little voice, with a puffy lower lip and mopey expression, all while she's struggling into her cute little light blue gym shoes, sitting on the hallway by the front door.

Of course the mystery to all of this is... why was she on the floor, in a dark bedroom, without warning, lying practically in the hallway that leads out of the bedroom?  There was no way I could have seen her there, she's never laid there before as far as I know, and she was utterly silent, at least until I stepped on her.

Actually, it's not a mystery, she was there to stretch out her back, the lower portion of which is usually sore, and I of course felt worse for having stepped on my poor sore sweetie, and so near the part of her that was so sore.  But at the same time, let's be a bit mercenary -- you lie on the dark floor, practically in the doorway of a bedroom, hidden by the side of a bed, you might be asking for a foot in the butt.  Am I crazy here?

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.