Certain people spend a lot of time at the Borders cafe. Their number includes me, I suppose. There's the old guy who never seems to leave. He takes books off the shelf and reads them as though the store is a library. Many people do that, actually, but few are as persistent as this man. Then there's another old guy who stops in occasionally between 6-8pm or so. He usually takes out a laptop and does something on it. I don't think he's writing. Perhaps a spreadsheet?

One chubby early-20s guy bustles in shortly after 5pm and sets up his laptop in one of the corners near a power outlet. He swiftly becomes immersed in his computer screen as he plays videogames over the wireless Internet. He never looks up, and he probably doesn't leave until closing time most days. I've only seen him leave once.

Various regular study groups and church Bible studies use the cafe to meet. One group of clean-cut, beautiful & handsome medical students was casually discussing the various methods of abortion a few weeks ago in the same way PHC study groups would prep for a Bio test. Abortion was to them just another medical fact to learn.

Last but not least, the creepy guy. I first mentioned him back in February. He's an odd-looking fellow, about 6' tall and a little overweight, with a pockmarked face and glasses. I see him every few times I come in. He always hovers around the cafe area, walking restlessly or paging through magazines. Whenever I glance up, he's staring at me. If I make eye contact by mistake, he leers at me. I get the feeling he has no purpose for pacing or pretending to look at magazines. He's staring at me! Today I didn't see him come in, and it gave me quite a turn to glance up from my laptop and see him peering at me with an insolent look over the counter with the sweeteners and spoons. I packed up my laptop and left as soon as he had wandered into the books and out of sight.

A few months ago, a few of the Borders employees mentioned that they had needed to speak to the creepy man because he was following a few girls around the store and staring at them. I'm not sure if I should do something about him, or what that might be. He hasn't pestered me. He just looks and sometimes grins in an odd way. It seems ridiculous to leave my habitual writing spot because of his weirdness.

Makes me wish that I knew some big, friendly guys who would come study with me. My brothers won't come, 'cause they need to do homework on computer, and they don't have laptops. Ah well. I'll be driving east in a month anyway.

That reminds me. The rest of summer will have disappeared by the time I blink. July 24-27 I will be helping in the mornings at a kids' drama camp my church is running. July 28-30 I will be attending the Homeschool Alumni National Reunion in Mount Vernon, MO. Ashlea D. will visit during the first week of August on the way back from Kansas. :) :) Then I drive east the week before I need to be at school, because my mom wants me to make a northern detour into New England with my younger brother so that he can visit a bunch of Ivy Leagues. Finally, I'll drop him with my grandparents in Boston so that he can fly back from there, and I'll head down to PHC for the August 18 check-in.

We're almost 2/3 through summer!  ¶ 9:25 PM