brownies and a clam

    Today was a good day, disguised as a bad day. I was tired and emotionally wiped last night, so I went to bed early. I also woke up a little later than anticipated. In the end, all that meant was that I got more sleep than usual. I love to sleep, so all's happy there. While I got ready for work, I popped one of my windows open to check the weather. It wasn't hot, but the humidity was already pretty steep at 7:45. While I gazed out on the haze that covered this little town, I noticed a van from a local appliance store parked out front. That reminded me of the note posted to each apartment door on Monday, letting residents know that our washing machines would be repaired on Wednesday morning. Click--it was Wednesday morning! I dashed to the laundry closet, sprang it open, pulled the miscellaneous stuff (e.g. my duvet, which I've yet to find a storage spot for, and my outgoing dry cleaning) off of the machines and hauled it to my bed. Then I jumped into the bathroom to start the hair & makeup routine (which takes all of 5 minutes total) and realized that my blouse wasn't completely buttoned. I felt very lucky to have noticed and remedied that, because as soon as the final button was fastened, the door buzzer went off. The repairman had arrived--for me! I let him in and finished my preparations for work (made a PB&J [for those who may have missed it, it's creamy on one slice, chunky on the other, with either raspberry or strawberry low-sugar jam], covered the caramel chunk brownies that I made last night with foil to take in to work, covered the non-caramel brownies and left them here, packed my bag [which involves something that makes me nearly laugh and clap for my own cleverness--I wear Oakley molded sunglasses {not wrap-arounds, but the kind with the curved front} and they require a rather large, hard case. When I wear my sunglasses and want to carry my cell phone, I often put the phone inside the empty sunglasses case, which is exactly the right size for it and sort of looks like a little phone coffin. But I digress.... The case makes it possible for me to toss the phone in my bag and not worry about it getting even more scratched up.]) stepped into some shoes, told the guy to lock up when he left, and left. Yeah, I probably should've worried about leaving some random dude in my apartment, but I'm just not like that.
    I got to work only 2 minutes late, which is almost alarmingly early for me. If I manage to leave here before I'm supposed to be at work, it's quite out of the ordinary. I was working with coworker T today, and she's been in her element for intrusiveness lately. Every day is twenty-questions, and they're usually the sort of questions that even a therapist wouldn't feel comfortable asking. I had a good laugh when the Smelly Coworker was even more intrusive to T than she had been to me for most of the morning. A battle of the snoops, and Smelly won. Tee hee.
    As the day dragged on at a snail's pace, there were some highlights. The Harry Potters arrived, much to the delight of 80% of the staff. (The other 20% of us don't give a rat's ass except to foresee great circulation of other materials while the hordes of people who want to read it wait for their names to come up on the holds list.) I processed my little fingers to the bone, but not literally--no broken fingernails, and no stabbings-with-razor-blade, which are all too common for me. Oooh, I forgot about the best thing: my supervisor is on vacation, so the place was remarkably happy and upbeat, yet quiet. Mmm, the peace that the mice enjoy when the cat's off doing whatever cats do. My favorite coworker was in attendance, being wonderful and generally making the place happier and 'better.'
    When I came home for lunch I sent an overdue email message to my mom (complete with pictures, which guaranteed happiness for a few more hours than a simple message would've). And ate lunch. And put together a plate of regular (non-caramel-chunk) brownies (dusted with powdered sugar, though) for the SWC guys. I think the guys are generally cool anyway, and deserving of the occasional brownie, but it's also self-interest: it can't hurt to keep a fleet of 20- and 30-something men happy, when I might need to have furniture moved or a tire changed at some point while I'm in residence.    
    My head started to hurt about midway through the day. Today was, as indicated earlier, very humid, and the pollen count was through the roof. I popped a couple of Excedrin Migraine while guzzling a Coke, though, and felt quite a bit better before I'd even left work.
    I came home to a happy surprise: a guest, here just because. We spent a couple of hours watching The Simpsons, season 2 on DVD. ("I don't remember you being so bea-BURP-utiful!") And looking at pictures. And laughing hard.
    After he left, I toodled back to work to talk to DJN for a bit, and ended up staying until closing, and then walking out with her, and then standing next to her car for an hour and a half while we blabbed at each other like we haven't talked for a month, rather than since, oh, 3:00. It was fun, a flashback to many, many entertaining and meaningful conversations we've had over the last year, plus.
    And now, home, to my smells-like-brownies apartment, listening to Sjako's "Hurt (I Wish)" on RealAudio, of which I became aware thanks to Peter. I'm a freak for new music anyway, but learning about something "new" that's actually from my chosen era (i.e. the 80s and 90s) is so totally cool. I'm a happy clam.