Now, of course, I'm trying to remember why I ever gave up my afternoon nap. I was never a huge napper, really, but there was a period in college in which naps became a semi-essential part of my day. The music building at WVU had couches in the lobby and in the bathroom. When I first enrolled, I was puzzled over their presence; as time went by, I began to understand their invaluable purpose. I became accustomed to dropping onto one when I had a break between classes, often pausing to place a sign beside my body that read, "Wake me at 2:30."

Toward the end of each semester, it became increasingly difficult to find an available sofa. People actually began hijacking them and moving them into practice rooms and secluded nooks where only they could find them. (And let me tell you, when somebody found and reclaimed the one I had stashed in the computer lab, I was ticked.) When there was no sofa available, we began sprawling across tables and on the floor. It was a pretty safe bet that, in the weeks before performance juries, there would always be at least one comatose form in the lounge at any given time.

"Hey, how do you know when it's jury week?" the old joke ran. Answer: "There's toothpaste in all the drinking fountains!"

I could probably get away with napping over lunch here at the library if time were the only factor. Unfortunately, it's not. One of those odd male librarians comes into the lounge every day to make his lunch, and the odor of his food is what usually drives me to dine in my office: sauerkraut and polish sausages, Hungarian goulash, and other pungent "delights." Additionally, there's the social factor; people here at the library are just not as kind to sleeping cohorts as other students were. They want to know why you're sleeping. They want to discuss how you could get a better sleep at night, where you could buy a better mattress, tell you how their husbands snore to wake the dead. Politeness be damned, people, please go away!

The sofa will not fit in my office. Don't think I haven't thought about it.

But today is Friday, and there are only a few librarians on staff. The lounge was blessedly empty, and I was free to recline and close my eyes for a while, dreaming happily. When I woke, only half an hour had passed, and yet I felt as rejuvenated as if I had slept an extra night. Hence the happy smile you see above. Trust me, the picture I snapped before my sleep, as well as the entry I attempted to write, was nowhere near as pleasant.

That being said, you may well understand that the fact that a robin has, for the past two days, been trying to enter the window directly behind my desk has put me dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. Well, maybe not that close, but I'm definitely not happy about the whole matter. He repeatedly butts his head and flaps his wings against the glass, unable to comprehend the barrier separating him from his desired habitat. It's one-way glass, too, so the false image of grass and flowers in the window has him even more confused.

I've tried banging on the glass, which startles him away, but only for a few minutes. Placing pictures of snakes and larger birds by the window doesn't work; he can't see them. There's really nothing to be done but sit here and quake. The other librarians laugh and think he's cute; if I could, I'd build him a nest myself in a tree across the street, just to keep him away from me.

If you're a bird lover, please try to understand. I don't want anything bad to happen to this bird; I honestly wish him a happy life with lots of worms. I just don't want him to live that life near me. His presence gives me goosebumps in unpleasant places.

Even funnier, though, is the Microsoft Help Wanted Essay. Eric laughed for a few hours after seeing this one.