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Penelope slumped down on a couch and yawned. She always found it odd how, whenever her life was busy, she couldn't wait for the chance to go do something fun... Like taking a trip to a beach, or a forest, or at least visiting the nearest park. And yet, when it finally came to a point where things slowed down and she actually had the time to go fulfill these desires ... all she felt like doing was sleeping. A lot.

She flipped open her bag and removed a book. She had been wanting to try reading "Wicked" ever since she had seen the musical, and had even managed to go buy it from a used book store in her spare time, but as yet it had merely sat around, serving no other purpose than to make her bag heavier than it already was. However, seeing as there wasn't anything else going on... and as she felt a complete lack of compulsion to go out and actually do anything, now seemed like as good a time as any to crack it open and actually begin to read.

Thirty minutes later, she set the book down, her face pale, but her cheeks flushed. The contents of the novel were... a little bit more mature than the musical adaptation, even as early in as the first few chapters. Glancing around quickly, as if expecting someone to be watching this slightly flustered moment, she stuffed the book back into her bag, with the intent to donate it later. She had never been really good at coping with... Naughty things, even in film and literature. They just made her feel incredibly uncomfortable, so she tended to avoid them. Of course now this meant that she didn't have anything to do again. Great. She leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. She had a bit of a love hate relationship with doing nothing it seemed. She really liked lounging about and relaxing... but felt guilty for being so unproductive.

Of course, it must not have bothered her too much, because within a few minutes she was fast asleep.

Penelope stirred, her eyes fluttering open as she turned to blearily look at... whatever it was that had just woken her up. She stared at Trisha's face for a good five seconds, a completely bewildered look on her face, before finally realizing what it was that she was looking at. Slowly, her eyes widened, and her face began to flush bright red. She quickly turned and faced forward, embarrassed and incredibly flustered. "...Hi." She fidgeted with a lock of her hair. "I g-guess I um... I guess I fell asleep. I... seem to have a... I kind of have this... I mean, it's not really a habit but... I think I tend to fall asleep in places I really shouldn't. I-I probably should have... should just go to my room- our room! I mean... to sleep... yeah."

She dropped the lock of her hair and placed her hands in her lap, trying to take a moment to relax. It seemed a bit foolish to be fumbling around with her words when talking to Trisha, the one person at this school she had gotten to know well enough to not be nervous around... albeit, that was mainly because of the forced (though not unwanted) intimacy being roommates with someone entailed. "... My hair's getting long." She said simply, still staring ahead. "A-and... It's getting... you know, sort of warm out. Maybe I should get it cut..."

Penelope could feel the tips of her ears start to burn as Trisha talked. She had used the word "pretty" quite a few times in the past several... seconds, hadn't she? It wasn't generally an adjective Penelope used when describing herself, or one that other people had used to describe her in the past (fidgety, jumpy, or lanky were more common) but of course, that didn't make it any less nice to hear. She shifted in her seat, her hands seeking some object to fiddle with as she tried to keep her face from turning the color of a fire hydrant. Trisha liked her hair long? Well... Penelope did valued her opinion... Her roommate always seemed so... fashion forward. Was that the description she was looking for? Fashion forward? Something like that. If she thought her hair looked good long... well, maybe it did? Penelope was never really happy with the way her hair looked. She had had it cut and dyed in a wide variety of ways over the years, but had always thought it didn't really change much. No use changing the hair if you don't like the face underneath right?

"W-well..." She began, still staring fixedly ahead. "I mean... If... If you like it long... Well... I mean, that is, I don't mind... Not cutting it, i-if you know, you like it. I think you have... um... you have good fashion sense so... Because well, you always look so beautiful- I-I mean, you're hair always looks really pretty so- No no wait, I just mean you always look so good- I mean I just think you have a really great understanding of fashion and so I respect your opinion on how my hair looks because I mean you always look so... crisp!"

She had lost the fight to keep herself from blushing. But really had she ever had a chance to win that contest in the first place? Her face felt like it could give anyone sitting in the nearby vicinity a suntan. crisp? really? She wished she had the ability to melt into a little, embarrassed puddle... either that or erase short term memory, she would be fine with either.

Penelope blinked. What had they been talking about? Sometimes, Trisha talked so fast (or so much) that it was... difficult to keep up. She found herself getting lost just trying to make sense of the wall of dialogue that would assail her ears, and while this instance was really not all that unmanageable, she had been too flustered to actually attempt to register what it was that her roommate was saying until she reached the part about salad. How long had she been talking before that? Penelope really needed to take... classes or something, on how to function like a normal human being. At least she didn't seem to be offended or upset by anything she had said, though really, knowing Trisha, what exactly were the odds of that? She couldn't understand why she had let herself get so flustered before. What was wrong with complimenting a friend's looks? She should be able to do so without heating up like a kettle, especially since, despite what Trisha might say otherwise (huh, seems she was listening after all, at least partially) Penelope thought she had beautiful hair... And well, a really pretty face... and, and...

Her face reddened again, and she fidgeted, embarrassed by her stupid brain. "U-um... Hair. Hair I think... Is... Is what we were talking about." She said, attempting to draw attention away from her obviously flustered countenance. "I mean, we might have been talking about soup and salad bars b-but I, I'm pretty sure there was something about hair in.... in the conversation... at one time... H-hopefully not at the same time as, as-as the... the salad."

Any color that had been on Penelope's face seemed to flee, as if driven away by some supernatural force, until her countenance was so pale that it could have, quite possibly, blended in with an arctic snowdrift. A... Date? A date?... A date? Her mind seemed to have shorted out on the word. Of course, it wasn't as if she couldn't tell in what context it was meant. Trisha had obviously been using date as in: two friends going out and doing things together, not in the context of an actual "date" date. There really wasn't any reason to be getting so... flustered over such a thing.... Was there? No! It was just a figure of speech for crying out loud!

Meaning or assumed meanings of any words aside, the fact remained that spending a day shopping with Trisha, which would quite possibly consist mainly of her energetic roommate dragging her from one shop to the next, sounded so appealing to Penelope that it made her feel embarrassed. She liked being in public, and around people, so looking for clothes was never much of a problem... Talking to store clerks or purchasing things she wanted on the other hand, was a bit of a challenge, given her slightly nervous disposition. It would be rather nice to have someone she knew hanging around, though wait... didn't she just want a haircut? Where had... Where had clothes shopping come into the picture? Not that she wasn't interested in doing that too, especially if it was with Trisha... But she literally could not remember at what point that idea had come into the picture... probably when she was paying attention to how her brain felt like a hard boiled egg cooking in its shell. Oh! right. It was brought up in the context of making a day out of things, having a day out instead of just getting a haircut, like a date... a date...

Penelope realized quite suddenly that over a minute had gone by in silence, and that during that time, the only thing she had managed to do was stare at her roommate, a panicked expression on her face. There had been so much going on in her head that it had almost felt like she had said something... But she hadn't. Response... she needed to respond! Abruptly, she burst into nervous laughter, which just as suddenly faltered as her face turned red once again. Laughter? Why? She tried to ignore how stupid she felt and turned instead to the currently intimidating task of remembering what words were. "..." Her mouth opened, then closed. Nope. Nothing doing. Instead, she managed to nod her assent. It was probably for the best that she was hopelessly speechless at the moment. Who knew what sort of bizarre things would come out of her if she could actually speak?