I rolled over at 1:49 a.m. Sunday morning, awake and rather frustrated about it.

I was in Cincinnati, in an unexpectedly plush hotel, wrapped in sateen sheets, a feather bed and a comforter so thick the lumps of my feet didn�t show through. Street noise was 21 stories below and the walls were thick and upholstered � upholstered! I felt cozy and coddled.

And I couldn�t sleep.

At some point, who knows when, I�d started lying to myself. It must have started months, maybe even years, ago. Maybe out of self preservation, I�d begun telling myself that I didn�t need. People. Things. Love. Most of all love.

Love was what got you hurt. People leave, people change, people die. They stop loving you, etc. The smartest thing to do is to ration love out. To be stingy with it. I can count on two hands the number of people I let get that close. And then there�s Grendel � and he still fits within the two-hand arrithmatic.

It�s all very Zen I�m sure. But it�s also a bunch of bullshit.

I couldn�t sleep Sunday morning because I missed my boyfriend. I missed him snoring and talking in his sleep and stealing the covers and waking up to kiss and cover me back up and then go back to sleep with his arm around me.

I missed Grendel and his hot breath in my face while I�m trying to sleep and having to push him off the bed because he takes up too much space and hearing him woof! while he dreams of chasing imaginary squirrels.

Somewhere along the way, my boyfriend and my dog have become habit. I couldn�t sleep Sunday morning, because I was having the love DTs.

I need them. It�s a scary place to be, but there�s no sense in lying to myself about it.

Grendel, I pretty much take for granted. He�ll keep loving me so long as I feed him and scratch his butt with any regularity. If I�m very lucky, I have 10 years before he breaks my heart and dies on me.

Manchild� Well, hopefully, I won�t screw things up, and I�ll have Manchild around for a while.

�Cause the truth is, I need him.

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