I missed them before they left
I kept meaning to write everyone this weekend, but I've had a nasty cold and kept falling asleep. Oh well.

Last week my friends Dinan and Ron were here, and we had a pretty good time. They came up on Friday, Dinan's birthday, then left Saturday morning for a romantic weekend in Montreal and didn't return until Monday night. Due to a lack of cash, I spent the weekend making inventive new tags for Mr. Puck out of shrinky-dinks and playing with a digital camera borrowed from Simmons. Puck ended up with a tag that looks like a funky Egyptian cat-god cartouche, and I took more pictures to bombard friends with later. That was pretty fun.

When Ron and Dinan arrived back from Canada, we went out to see the sights, and along with Ryan went out to the theater district Tuesday night to see Blue Man Group. Later on we all ended up at a bar discussing the state of the South (what else?) and why almost everyone we knew was fleeing Tennessee for one reason or another. Ron and Dinan want to move soon, and they were here to compare Boston with Atlanta. They haven't made up their minds yet as to which would be the best place for them. Ron favors Boston, but Dinan longs for Atlanta's weather - so there's no telling yet where they'll end up.

Ron and Ryan got to see the Red Sox play the Yankees with their favorite pitcher Wednesday night. Ron scored obstructed seats right behind a concrete pillar for just $25 a piece. He said Ryan could see the left half of the field and he could see the right, and so by leaning one way or the other they got the whole game. Dinan and I opted to stay in - I was really tired from work, and didn't know it but was starting the evilest of all colds.

Thursday we hung out; Friday we went out to eat Indian food with Ryan again. I was really sick and shouldn't have gone, but I missed Dinan and Ron so much I wanted to spend all the time I could with them. Saturday morning they were off and gone. They bought Aral and I tofu dogs from the grocery store and a $7 end table from the thrift store across the street Friday as gifts for the free stay. Dinan also painted a chair of mine while I was at work, a chair Aral bought for $1.50 that was formerly covered in High School doodles. Dinan turned it into a work of art using a can of green paint I had and a bunch of my magic markers. I worship the chair now. I miss them both! I want them to be here to help me paint my apartment in July - Dinan and I used to paint dorms together back at MTSU. But they don't live here - not yet. Maybe one day soon they will.

Almost the minute they were gone I got really sick with the vicious cold I had been fighting for days. It's one of those colds where your head's full of cement and your throat's on fire. I totally blame the weather, which has been hot during the first part of the day and then cold later on with fits of rain. It's impossible to dress correctly for. Add to that the fact that I work in an archive that stays cold for preservation reasons and run in and out from the warmer weather, and you have the perfect genesis for a really nasty cold. Gross.

So I slept all weekend, and I feel a little better now. But I won't be running marathons for a bit. I feel sort of soggy and a bit run down. I think I need to spend some time in the sun, reading a book this weekend. I keep meaning to do that too, and still haven't yet. Aral made fun of me because I bitched about not getting things done this weekend. "You're not lazy, you're sick!" she laughed at me, and told me to go back to bed. She was right. I'm glad she's my roommate; sometimes I just need someone to tell me it's OK to lay down for awhile.