It’s almost that time of the month to get my blood-work done, and I shudder just at the thought of it. (Has anyone noticed how addicting ‘I would die for you’ by Garbage is? I currently have it on repeat, and can’t stop listening to it.) I really despise hospitals. How Michael can spend the whole day there tending to the sick and the dying is beyond me.

Given I’m a considerably sickly person-- and that is by no means an understatement, I assure you-- I constantly have to go to the hospital for regular checkups on my blood-count and what not. I’m severely anemic, and need blood transfusions on a regular basis.

This condition, where my body can’t produce enough blood cells, and it loses more blood than it can actually produce, renders me very, very ill at times. I’m constantly exhausted, I can’t really do too much of anything, and I’m always very pale.

I’d previously considered attending college courses at some campus nearby, out of curiosity, more than anything else. Despite the fact I’ve never actually set foot in a school, I am very well educated, thanks to Michael’s constant tutoring, and a lust for knowledge and research on my part.

This, of course, would be an impossibility. First of all, my love can’t stand the idea of losing me to college, and while this would usually trigger feelings of anger and rebellion on my part, provided I’ve never quite enjoyed being on a leash, I agree with him-- he’d feel the same way I feel when he leaves to work, and then I only see him in the evenings, and I’d never want him to feel that way.

Second of all, neither my mind nor body would be able to take the stress. Michael thus suggested online courses, adding the fact that he’d really love to help me out with my homework as another sort of ‘bonding’ activity for us to have.

I really like the sound of that. The only reason I’m even contemplating college is to fulfill my own curiosity. It’s really not like I need it. I mean, given my current situation, I’d never in my life make use of a degree of any sort.

Might as well continue being an armchair student, being guided by my obsessions and applying my obsessive compulsive research of literature, history and art into my amateur writing.

I’m still relatively nervous about Michael reading what I have of the story I’ve been writing (after much insisting, I’m finally letting him read the whole manuscript). I don’t quite know why, but I get extremely self-conscious, and fear how he might react. Any sort of disappointment or disapproval on his part is enough to break my heart.

I don’t understand why I shy up so easily around him in certain situations. I never let him tend to me at the hospital. I always have some other doctor care for me, out of some unwonted feeling of shame and humiliation.

Which is ridiculous, considering he always plays the role of the Doctor at home when tends to any scratches bruises or bites, and I even do the same for him. I suppose it all stems back to that same sense of shame and humiliation that comes when one is flawed. My condition I see as yet another flaw-- another hassle, and so I refuse to bother him with it; refuse to make him a part of it.

After much discussion I’ve allowed him to be the one doing the procedures. It’s terribly hard to let go of these irrational and idealistic expectations of perfection, but I suppose for Michael I could make an effort and try.

Tonight we started The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I’m very eager to see his response to it. He even said he’d give Henry a chance (spoiled brat that he is, he fears the character will rob him of my affections). He even found a tape-recorder we can use so we can record his reading out loud.

I love that he’s willing to do this for me. That way I can be outside in the yard with Aloysious, tending to my plants, and listening to the book.