Thursday, I wake up at about 7:00am not having slept that well the night before, which was all the more frustrating considering how little sleep I'd been getting the previous few nights. I don't understand why a lack of sleep so often means less sleep, but I estimate I only got about three hours worth. My body is physically sore from it, but when I lie down, nothing comes. I've never dealt with any sort of insomnia before, but am finding it a bugger to cope with.

I trace back part of the problem ot the fact that Topher has two cats, to which I am fairly severely allergic; I took medication for it, but all I noticed was the non-drowsy Sudafed in his medicine cabinet, and I think that non-drowsy antihistamines just pump a tone of caffeine in to counteract the soporifics. Regardless, it's not a good night. When Topher gets up, we break out the War of the Ring board game that we like to play when I'm visiting (great fucking game - big and complex and balanced, with multiple strategical and tactical facets to make optimal play a very cerebrally challenging task). We play three games throughout the day, which take an average of about three hours each, breaking for dinner, which was pizza from Papa John's. We're really in just "hanging out" mode and that's always where we've been at our most comfortable as friends. Of the three games, the player playing the shadow side wins all three, with the final game taking place in crazy fashion, with me as the fellowship trying every trick in the book to stave off a relentless war in the north, and finally getting to war in Gondor and completely emptying Minas Tirith to invade Mordor, something we had NEVER managed in playing the game. In the end, I took two Mordor strongholds, but Topher grabbed a massive five points on the final turn, and he won because the shadow military victory outweighs the free peoples military victory on the priority list. Crazy game.

We got to bed around midnight, when I finally collapsed. I slept a little better the second night, getting about seven hours.

More later, but I'm finally crashing. Work will suck tomorrow, but what else is new about work?