At the gatehouse

I was sitting out at the gatehouse today (to collect entrance fees, etc. of people coming into the park) and noticed a bunch of those ants with wings hanging out in one of the corners by the window. Some of them were dead, and the non-winged colony members carried their deceased compatriots to the edge of the counter, hoisted them above their heads, and let them tumble lifelessly to the floor below. A drop of 3.5 feet! This was repeated many times. The cement floor was riddled with bodies and one stuck stubbornly to my shoe.

The weather today is really nice, sunny and cloudless, 80 degrees or so. Someone exiting the park stopped at the gatehouse, looking rather puzzled, and said, "Uhh.. did you know there’s a shirtless guy lying in the road that goes back to the lake? I asked if he was okay several times, and he was clearly very drunk". Not a very good thing, especially with 90-ish kids here on a field trip. I guess he ran into one of the school groups and promptly threw his arms into the air and prayed loudly, told the kids to go jump in the lake, and swerved and stumbled his way to the park shelter where his bottle of wine patiently waited. From my cozy seat in the gatehouse I only heard some yelling in the woods and saw a few police cars enter the park. He was taken in by the coppers and rode, probably hiccuping, into the horizon.

I’ve gotten four mosquito bites at work today. Is West Nile still something that we’re afraid of? I haven’t heard anything about it in a long time.

Tom originally thought we were getting sick from his old apartment (a decades-old building with a crumbling ceiling because of water leaks, and major renovation going on next door… dust and debris everywhere, and heaters that were painted who-knows-when and full of dust), and then whatever was still in the bed when he moved into the new apartment. I couldn’t concentrate (which led to some memory isssues) had joint pain, nausea, and felt irritable and lethargic. We’ve been sleeping on my bed for the past week or so and there has been a huge improvement with the way we feel. I feel like I’ve been pretty lame lately. For the longest time I felt neither creative nor imaginitive, but I’ve been slowly feeling those things again and I’m really happy about that. I have felt more descriptive in conversation and have even had the concentration to read a lot again. I finally finished reading An American Tragedy, a 850-ish page book written in 1925 that was a little difficult to follow because of the old timey writing style. It was really good though and I’m glad I read it, and have now moved onto something else. It’s really nice to be able to concentrate again.

I’m getting pretty burnt out from working so much. I know I shouldn’t complain because I don’t have to do it, and it usually isn’t a problem aside from being a little sleepy or irritable (and not providing the best customer service). I’m wondering if I should quit one of my jobs? I’m a little scared to do that though because I’m terrified of being broke again/giving up a job after being unemployed for 3.5 months after moving back to Indiana. We’ll see though. It’s not that either of my jobs are really difficult, I just like complaining sometimes. It’d be nice to have some time to be a real lazy ass with no schedule though!

Hmm… well, I’m at work and should probably stop hanging out online.