Right now I'm the best kind of tired - happy tired from swinging, sliding, laughing, climbing, running... Yay for friends and acting like a kid.

Food for a barbecue for 40+ people = expensive. And leads to a very, very full grocery cart. Whee.

A rather up and down day, overall. Get to work early - up. Feel crappy and leave after an hour - down. Sleep - up. Still feel nauseous - down. Deal with people - down, then up. Boo to stupid people, but yay for friends. Especially friends who cheer me up by staying up late with me and making brownies.

The downside of no longer having a niche: when I'm bored, there's no one I can go to and say "I'm bored, let's do something." Actually, there are more downsides than that, but that's the one that's currently bugging me. The boredom and desire for people to do things with is heightened by the fact that I actually have been doing things the past few nights - hanging out and talking until the wee hours, playing a board game here and there, etc. But the people I'm closest to this summer have all gone away for the weekend, and while there are people still here that I'm getting to know better, they're not yet the sort of friends I feel comfortable bothering uninvited. Even with close friends I've always preferred to be the one that got called, rather than the one that does the inviting. I don't know - I have rejection issues or something, I guess.

I could (and should) do research stuff and whatnot. But it's Saturday night! And also, I just don't feel like it. I'd consider wandering outside and into the woods or over to the playground to swing, but it's still raining. And while walking and moping is something I'm fine with doing, walking and moping in the rain is a bit too much.

Bush vetoed a bill to increase funding for embryonic stem cell research. I'm doing research for my internship and reading about lovely things like people publishing white supremacist newspapers and defacing tombstones in a Jewish cemetery by painting them with swastikas. I don't even want to glance at the headlines of the NYTimes. All in all, I'm just swimming in happy, uplifting news. Excuse me while I attempt to distract myself by... oh, hell, I don't even know. Grr to the world.

I think I may be a horrible person. I am, at the very least, a very large chicken. *mope*

And now to deal with the leak in the bathroom ceiling.

Problem guy outdid himself this morning. Around 3:30 am, I hear a knock on my door. Still half-asleep, I don't respond right away, hoping I'm dreaming or something. More knocking. I stumble out of bed, open the door. And there's problem guy. He asks me where he can find a vending machine. Yes, he woke me up (when my door sign said "Sleeping - disturb for emergencies only") to ask me where he could get a snack. Sadly, I was too bewildered and groggy to make any sort of witty retort about how having the munchies is really only an emergency if a) you haven't eaten in days and are quite literally starving or b) you're diabetic and going into shock. Instead, I just asked him to repeat himself and then mumbled that there were vending machines in the bike room... I didn't add that the dorm isn't that big and that he could have found them by wandering around for about 15 minutes, tops.

I don't think he even apologized for waking me up. Usually people apologize profusely for waking me during a nap or even just knocking when my door says "busy" - and they generally have real issues, like being locked out or having a smoke detector going off or something. I like those people so much more.

Swimming didn't happen, because the pool wasn't open. Then I was supposed to go to the gym on Monday, but didn't - I couldn't convince myself to go back out after walking home from work in the pouring rain. The weather has been sucky for the past 3 or so days - rain off and on, humidity, greyness, etc. It was sunny for a bit this afternoon, I think, but I only saw it through the window as I was shifting books. Whee.

Good news: the Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins in the Ville is now open, so I can procure ice cream. Yay ice cream. Also, in about 20 minutes I'm getting my hair chopped off - not all of it but still more than a trim.

This evening has actually been pretty nice. I had a good, balanced meal for once - salad and ravioli - and then hung out with people, only a few of which I actually know well. But they were all very nice, and we played Apples to Apples, and I did well and acquired adjectives that basically added up to being a sexy secret agent. I also got to eat lots of fresh butterscotch cookies. Too many, I think, but they just kept appearing.

Tomorrow: swimming. Now: lazy lounging.

Today was the trip to the Mütter Museum. The museum was interesting enough - though Body Worlds was much cooler - and I learned why Legionnaire's Disease is called that (It first appeared among people staying at a Philadelphia hotel; many of the guests were there for an American Legion convention, hence the disease was named for that). The boy was nice, and I will probably see him again at some point, even if it is just as friends. Because friends are good things to have.

I got back to Swat around 5:50, and it was starting to drizzle. I was torn between going home and picking up groceries; the groceries won, mostly because I'm running low on things to eat. By the time I was done at the store, the drizzle had become actually rain. So I got to make my way back to ML with my messenger bag on one side, two paper bags of groceries in one hand, and my umbrella held in the other. It was not a fun trip, but at least the bags didn't fall apart in the middle of the walk.

Now to cook dinner using my newly purchased food. Yum.

Today I woke up feeling horrible, so after emailing in sick to work, I went back to bed. I didn't go grocery shopping like I needed to; I didn't even make it over to Mary's for dinner and a movie. No, I just slept and loafed, ate grilled cheese for dinner, and have begun to read Eats, Shoots & Leaves (which is now making me rather paranoid about my punctuation, I must admit). Blarg to sickness. Grr to summer sickness, especially. Things like soup and snuggling in bed are not the same when it's massively humid out.

Today has not been a good day. It hasn't exactly been a bad day, either... just... blah, for the most part. I don't know. I think I need to take a break from reading plays for work; most of them aren't exactly happy. The last one I read was really good, but also really sad.

I need to go buy groceries (though it's too late today, unless I want to hike over to Geunardi's). I need to get a hair cut. I need to do research/dramaturgy stuff. I need to make phone calls.

I don't want to do any of it.

Today I took a crowbar to a ceiling.

My main summer jobs don't seem like they should be very heavy when it comes to manual labor. And yet... Yesterday I spent most of my morning hauling metal shelves around at the library; today at the theatre we began the process of refurbishing the room next door that we're taking over. This involved moving things and tearing out the old ceiling. It was kind of fun, though getting coated with plaster and dust wasn't great - especially because it didn't want to come off very easily, which meant I got to remain partially dust-coated on my walk back to the train. Fun fun.

At this point, I don't feel very guilty about not making it to the gym. Between the ceiling destroying, shelf moving, book shifting, and all the walking I'm doing, I feel like I'm getting plenty of exercise. It's exhausting, at the very least.

Sign number one zillion that I have issues: I think going to the Mütter Museum is a swell plan for a first date.

I really need to stop shifting books for the entirety of my work day... Today I spent the morning working on periodicals, then spent the afternoon in the rare book room. So now my arms and back are less than happy, and I crashed when I got home... Which, of course, has led to me not having a real dinner. Because once 8 pm rolls around, it becomes hard for me to convince myself to actually cook... Which is no good, since I really should eat more substantial dinners than I have been. (Well, Saturday I had a very substantial meal - cider, lamb, and cake at a restaurant - but that's the exception rather than the rule lately.)

Tomorrow: probably more book shifting (hopefully with some other stuff mixed in) and then a gym date with Mary.

Megan stopped by today on her drive homewards and took it me out to lunch. It was fantastic and fun and made me very happy. Then I headed into the city to do a bit of work - i.e. sit in the office, read plays, and pet Gomez. I managed to get to the office and back to the station without getting turned around or lost once - a major accomplishment for me, giving my horrible sense of direction.

It's beautiful out right now. I just got back from Philly, so part of me wants to crash, just like I always do. Another part of me thinks I need to take advantage of the weather... I haven't been into the Crum for a while now. And I need to break out of this napping habit, I think. I mean, it works, but it's got me on a weird schedule. So stroll in the woods it is, after a quick snack.

Swarthmore now has a mascot: the phoenix. Not really a surprising outcome, given that it's the name of our newspaper and all. I was kind of rooting for the griffin, though, because Garnet Griffins is rather catchy - alliteration is just nice. So now the question is - are we the Garnet Phoenixes? Is phoenixes even the correct pluralization of phoenix? You usually don't hear about multiple phoenixes, so...

You wouldn't think that working in the library would really count as exercise, but after spending 6 hours stack shifting today, my muscles feel otherwise. Ow. On the plus side, there is something very satisfying about stack shifting and seeing how nice and orderly everything is.

Also, today I got to see one of the library's prized possessions - a first edition copy of Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. It doesn't look like much, but I silently geeked out over it anyway.

I'm on my second mug of hot chocolate of the day. The first one, this morning, was to help myself warm up after a cold shower -- the hot water has been out for almost 24 hours now. This one is just to warm me up in general. I've been cold lately, at least in my room. Outside, things are fine. In my room, it can be a bit chilly. I suppose it's better than being miserably hot, but still...

I hate people.

The latest: two guys are living in a room that they're not supposed to be in - they've both been assigned to other rooms. In fact, someone else is suppose to move in there, only she can't, because all their shit is in there. In addition, they have an AC unit (not allowed), the smoke detector covered (really, really not allowed) and they have a hookah (technically, possibly allowed, but not if they're using it in the room). They also haven't picked up their keys to their real rooms, so the only way they can get into the dorm is through less than legal means.

Which brings me to my second reason for hating people: propped doors. I just got back from checking every door I could think of, and I think all of them were propped open. I understand wanting to let the breeze in, I really do. And I'm fine with the front door being open during the day as long as someone is around. But every door in the dorm? Of a dorm that's in a residential area, where anyone could easily walk in? Swat's not exactly a crime-laden area, but thefts in ML do tend to increase in the summer, and it's partially due to stuff like this.

So now all the doors have been closed (except ones that have been broken - thanks people!). And I really want to talk (ie, berate) the two guys, only they're not home. At least I got to turn off their AC and uncover the smoke detector. Perhaps a bit bitchy, but sometimes, it's got to be done.