My poetry group met for the first time in about 5 months last night, and I have to say, it was good to see those women. I was able to attend because yesterday was such a light day at work (I had almost nothing to do)that I was able to really work on my paper during the day. By the time I left the office for home, most of it had been written.

Today is the day of the great shelf exchange. The delivery is between 1:30 and 4:30, so I'm leaving the office at noon (or thereabout) and will work from home the rest of the day. I am so excited. This means about 3 or 4 boxes that have been lingering can finally be unpacked. Speaking of boxes, I really need to break some down and throw them away. In the corner of my office, I have a stack of empty ones to deal with.

I continue to feel run down and my cough is back. Really back. I just took a dose of some homeopathic, over the counter medicine that's meant to treat flu symptoms. I'm hoping that the aches I'm experiencing, which are fluesque, will go away. I think I have a virus of some sort.

Well, outside of what I had planned for myself this summer, my sister will be with me again. I wasn't looking to do the Hotel Krupnik thing again. But, I also wouldn't deny my sister the ability to work here at the company where she can make a decent wage while living with me in relative peace (as opposed to the constant state of stress she's in when cohabitating with my mom). But I'm also worried about having my vision for my space be usurped by someone else's things, someone else's moods and motivations,and I'm feeling selfish. I'm feeling like I just finally got all the space I want, and that now it's not going to be for me. I just feel like I'm being asked, on some level, to justify having the space when people start spouting off ways that they can help me use it. Like my mom, in jest, says that she'll come stay with me for two weeks. Um, right. I didn't get a big apartment so that I could have guests and roommates. I got a big apartment, because I, as an unattached, clutter-free person, do not want to sacrifice the peace of mind that living alone brings me until I absolutely have to.

And I know that a lot of people frown on this idea, but I am more and more convinced that maintaining a separate residence even after marriage is a tremendous idea.