So we've unleashed the Gameboy Advance upon the little boy...

and it's a rousing success. He now carries it everywhere, and he's learning to *evenutally* put it down, although he's not abandoning much yet. He's sitting here right in front of me, as a matter of fact, and he just set it down at the end of a level so he could wipe the sweat off his wet little hands, then he stretched a minute, then picked it back up. See, he's ok with it!

Erin's back over here - she's come back. We've had a slow yet destructive lack of communication on all three of our parts, but we've identified it now - and identifying it is more than half the battle. So we put the bonus/living room away (Ed moved all of his stuff yesterday) and Natha and I are half-watching Pirates of the Carribean while Ed & Erin are off talking about something in another part of the house... We're finally learning that we don't have to be right by each other all the time - Ed and I especially have drastically different perceptions of how to unwind and get ready to go to bed - he watches the Daily Show and reads stuff on the internets, while I read and have quiet time after Natha goes to sleep before I go to bed. I also need to have more sleep than he - so I'm usually in bed before he is. It doesn't bother me at all that he comes in later, after I'm settled in most of the time. I actually prefer it - I get my 'Leigh' time and then I'm refreshed to be around him again. I also started doing yoga again saturday - I'm going to try and fit in a few sun salutations before I get in the shower in the morning, then a longer routine at night before I go to bed. I've got a really good place to do yoga in our bedroom, which is nice. That's where I prefer to do such things, really.

I've got a big week in the preparation department this week - next week I've got a bunch of stuff to to prepare for the week after. I've also realized that I'm going to a conference in Florida in 3 weeks - I've done a bunch of reading in preparation so I know who I'm going to be meeting and their work. *Then* I get to brown-nose appropriately.

Ed and I went to the mall this morning so he could get his hair cut after we ate breakfast at IHOP - when we were on the escalator, I saw him differently than I had before - it was completely obvious for us to be together, meaning together was the default. Let me explain a bit more - before when we didn't live together, the default was for it to be me by myself of me with Natha. Anyone else's presence was an addition to my presence - not bad, just an additional person or persons. This morning on the escalator, I looked at him and we were one presence. He even looked like a different person to me - our relationship is obviously different than it was even 2 weeks ago. Now when he's not here it's a deletion of the previously whole presence that was the two of us. Not a bad deletion, just a deletion.

Well, I'm about to lose this since I'm not plugged in - I almost exclusively use laptops now... It's also about time to cook dinner and it's time to change the laundry over. I'm not sure when I'm going to clean the house - I mught start here in a minute, if they'll occupy the kid...

TTYL!