Today was a bit brutal - I basically worked all day. I spent the morning running personal errands, such as buying packing supplies and going over to Adit's to measure my room and check out what kitchen implements he has and what I will want to move with me [example: I need my mixer and my bundt pans for the Olympic Rings Cakes(TM)]. Then, I took care of some more stuff around the apartment before settling in and working on day-job stuff for about six hours, with a brief break to eat a chicken schwarma sandwich from the Moroccan place down the street.

In less than twenty-four hours, I will be on a plane bound for our nation's capital. I still have much to do before I leave for the airport (laundry, packing, errands, more day-job stuff), but I'm getting really excited. It's been such a whirlwind few months, and while I trust that my writing career will continue beyond this week, it's only a week from now that this episode in the saga of my life will be over. This week promises to be very busy, but hopefully very fun -- what with the parties, dinners, workshops, and meetings that I already plan to attend, it is almost like I'm as heavily-scheduled as I am in my "real" job, but at least this stuff is all related to my hopes and dreams.

I would blog more about this topic, but I'm totally exhausted, and I can't sleep in if I'm going to finish everything in time to get on the plane. Goodnight!

I had an excellent day today. Sadly, I didn't get nearly enough real work done, and so I will need to work this weekend so that I can get caught up before I leave for DC on Sunday. But, all of my meetings were good, and I feel like the conference that I'm planning will continue to progress in my absence next week. I also had lunch with John at my favorite cafe; I ate way too much because of the temptation to have a full plate of salad and fruit salad while waiting for my sandwich. But, lunch was entertaining, and then we got ice cream and sat out in the sun and watched the crowd and for some strange reason ended up discussing children, which, given my aversion to commitment and my dislike for baby vomit, was an unlikely topic for us to end up talking about. It was still fun nonetheless, and it restored my spirits so that I could make it through the rest of the day.

After I got off work, I scurried home (with a quick stop at Whole Foods) and cleaned like a madwoman so that my place would be presentable for Lauren (aka Subz) and Nathan's visit tonight. Happily, I was totally successful, and now cleaning the apartment is checked off my list for the weekend. I also made a caprese salad using the recipe from a Barefoot Contessa cookbook -- it yields possibly the best caprese salad ever (and I know -- I also had caprese salad at work today, and mine was way better even if they were using special heirloom tomatoes).

Then, Subz and Nathan arrived, and we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate many exciting things -- Lauren's nonprofit foundation is launching next week and she's starting business school in less than two month, Nathan's start-up was featured in The New York Times, and I signed with an agent. We hung out for a couple of hours, taking our time and catching up. When we were slightly recovered from the salad, I made another recipe out of the same cookbook -- this one for tagliarelle with truffle butter. It was insanely easy and quick -- heat half a cup of cream, melt 3oz of truffle butter into it, add some salt and pepper, and keep warm. Then, boil the pasta for 3-5mins (depending on the directions), drain it, and stir it into the truffle butter/cream sauce. Sprinkle some chives and parmesan on top and you're all set.

I can't express how delicious this was -- even better, it took less than fifteen minutes start to finish, and yet was special enough to serve to my very important guests. So, I think Lauren and Nathan enjoyed the food, which was my goal. They also brought v. tasty desserts, in the form of individual carrot cake cupcakes.

All in all, it was quite nice to see multiple "old" friends in the same day, particularly since I intend to spend the rest of the weekend in hermit mode. And since I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, it's clearly time for bed!

On the surface, today was a bad day, but I'm actually in quite a good mood. I overslept and so had to rush to get downtown this morning; instead of going to the office as usual, I had to go to a hotel to do a site visit for the big sales conference that I'm planning for my department in August. I'm not in charge of rooms, transportation, or meals, which is awesome -- but I am in charge of content, so I needed to be there to say how rooms should be set up for different activities, etc.

It was a completely different experience, which I thought was kind of exciting; I've never done bona fide event planning before, so it was interesting to meet the hotel staff, security, the vendor we're using for the production, etc. Also, a big mental health conference was going on in the space while we toured it, so I saw some people whom I would politically-incorrectly label as "crazies". All in all, it was a good time, and since I'm planning it with Natasha, we had fun debriefing on the drive down to the south bay.

Once at the office, I worked for another 4.5 hours, with a brief break to talk to my parents. I had an absolutely awful headache for reasons unknown, but it slowly subsided, and was erased altogether when I had dinner with Adit, John, and Jessica. We spent two hours sitting in one of the cafes at work, which was quite fun; despite his insanity, I'm looking forward to moving in with Adit. And, since some people call him "the cat", and since all roommate pairs need a nickname, it's likely that our combined name will be "swampcat". Isn't it catchy?

After dinner, I sat in my car for a few minutes texting and taking care of some tings. Then, I whipped out of my parking space -- but the amount of time I spent texting meant that I forgot that I was parked next to a curb. My RAV4 is big enough to handle going over a curb -- but the unfortunate part is that the curb was protecting a tree. Luckily, the tree was fairly small, but I now have a lovely dent over the left front wheel well.

When I scraped my car against the garage wall last year, I wanted to throw up. When this happened, I basically shrugged it off; and, luckily, when I got home and used a wet cloth to wipe it down, I discovered that what looked like scratches was just dirt, and luckily I didn't break the headlamp. The dent is still there, of course, and it cracked the paint, but since the car's already been damaged once, I didn't take this one quite so badly (although I did feel stupid, of course).

I think the fundamental problem is that I drive my SUV like a sportscar. It has a V6 engine and plenty of speed, so it's possible to accelerate and drive aggressively -- but my downfall is that it doesn't have the turning radius of a sportscar even if it has great acceleration. So, when I speed out of a parking space, and the turn can't keep up with the speed, problems arise.

Now I really need to get it fixed, though -- one scrape is one thing, but two scrapes on different sides of the car make me look like a maniac. And while I'm not eager to spend the money on fixing a scrape and a dent and repainting multiple body panels, the bigger issue is that I just don't have time to take care of it, what with the romance conference, my upcoming move, the sales conference I'm planning, the time I want to spend in Iowa in September, and a likely trip to India right after that. Sigh. Thinking about all of it just exhausts me, so I suppose I should go to bed!

Today was quite an excellent day, helped along by the fact that I made a major breakthrough with the event that I'm planning for work -- I scored professional production help for all of the videos that we're playing between different speakers, thus minimizing one of the biggest headaches on my plate. After that unexpected coup, I was almost giddy the rest of the day. Even better, I took of at 5:15pm and went to Stanford Shopping Center, where I got more tinsel put in my hair in anticipation of next week's romance conference. I went with this dark reddish-pinkish (burgundy?) color that looks nice, although I think I may have liked the purple better. But it's still pretty cool, and I love the way it looks, so I'm a pretty happy camper. I also treated myself to a pedicure after the tinseling, and I'm glad I did because my feet were getting pretty hardened and nasty from my incessant flip-flop-wearing.

While I was getting a pedicure, I started reading a book about he power of Twitter on my Kindle. It's a lot of pressure to start twittering full-time as my romance novel alter ego; while whatever I do will inevitably contain glimpses of my real life, I need to start building content so that I can build followers. The book is good so far, although I haven't gotten into the real meat of it, so I'll keep you posted.

That's all for now - I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, which is a v. bad thing. Luckily I get to sleep in a bit tomorrow, as my first meeting is in SF at 10am. Goodnight!

This is a four-minute post. I'm totally exhausted, and unfortunately I've seen that stupid trailer for "The Orphan" too many times - I'm sure the movie is dumb, but they made that little girl look totally creepy.

Anyway, I worked all day today -- I got to the office at 8am, left at 5pm, spent a couple of hours driving home/talking to my parents/eating frozen pizza, and then watched a couple of episodes of Craig and an episode of "Rescue Me" (which I've never seen before) while slogging until midnight. How sad is that? I've officially relapsed to my old awful ways, what with my 200+ unread-message count, my to-do list the length of my arm, and all the other personal things that I desperately need to take care of and don't have time to.

But, it will get better eventually -- and if nothing else, I'll be in DC next week, which is totally exciting! So, I'm going to go to bed and dream about it, and hope that the next three days go quickly. Goodnight!

This is a four-minute post. I made a critical error tonight -- rather than going home and working as intended, I had a two-hour dinner with Adit and Vidya instead. I don't actually regret it; I hadn't seen either of them in awhile, I had a lovely time, and they're two of my closest friends (luckily, since I'm living in Vidya's apartment and shortly moving in with Adit).

The downside is that I didn't get home until ten p.m., and now I'm too tired to slog through the hundreds of things on my to-do list that I intended to make a dent in tonight. That just screws me for tomorrow...but rather than stay up another hour and then sleep for six hours, I'm going to sleep for six hours and then get up. Neither option is particularly appealing, but that's how I roll these days.

Luckily I prewrote a post for the romance blog over the weekend, so I was still able to post there tonight without expending any energy. But as for this blog, my four minutes are up, so it's time for bed!

I had an excellent day, but I'm totally exhausted and it's not made any better by my dire contemplation of the week ahead. I only slept for six hours last night, which didn't help matters. But, I successfully dragged myself out of bed and onto the bus down to the wharf, where I met up with my uncle/aunt/cousin for a helicopter tour of the bay. It was totally awesome -- for starters, we took off from the executive helipad/jetway at the San Francisco airport, which means we got to hang out in the executive lounge. The rich really do live differently from everyone else, judging by the lounge space. Then, the tour took us all over the city (I spotted my apartment building from the helicopter). The best, though, was that we flew over *and under* the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't know you could fly under it, but we did; luckily I took Dramamine beforehand, or else I might have vomited. Finally, the pilot dropped us off in Sausalito, and a van was waiting to take us back to the city.

So, the helicopter ride was cool. After that, I parted ways with the family and made my way back to my apartment, and from there down to Samovar in Yerba Buena Gardens. For once, I didn't go by myself; instead, I met Tammy and Shedletsky, and we had a totally awesome, very relaxing, almost coma-inducing two hours of tea and food and more tea. I had my usual English service with smoked salmon quiche, salad, fruit, scone, and masala chai; Shedletsky had the same; and Tammy had a delicious-looking tea soup with some oolong tea. I followed that up with a pot of lapsang souchong, so it's a sign of how tired I am that I'm contemplating going to bed now despite the massive caffeine injection.

It was great to hang out with both of them, particularly in such a fabulous setting, and I appreciated that it felt just like old times as we spent a couple of hours brainstorming how to find me a rich husband so that I could have someone to support my writing (and, if we're lucky, them as well). My favorite idea was trying to score a thoroughbred owner at the Kentucky Derby, but I'm not sure I'm up to the task. After all that, we went to Nordstrom, where Shedletsky acted as a consultant while Tammy and I each bought a handbag. We then parted ways, and I managed not to cry over the thought of not seeing Tammy again for an unknown period of time :(

I came home around 5:30 with the intention of getting stuff done, but instead talked to my parents, did a bit of mindless surfing, ate some enchiladas, watched a bit of Craig, and read the latest edition of the RWA magazine. My brain's just too fried to work right now -- so I'm going to go to bed super early (it's still dusk here), then get up early tomorrow to start cracking on the week. It's going to be a mad dash to wrap stuff up before I get to DC, so we'll see how successful I am. Wish me luck!

I had an absolutely fabulous Fourth. Tammy and I successfully dragged ourselves out of bed and down to Millbrae, where we met up with Shedletsky at our favorite Chinese restaurant/opium den for a delicious dim sum brunch. We totally gorged ourselves on multiple types of shrimp families and pork goodness, to the point that we all felt somewhat uncomfortable and bad about ourselves. Following the epic dim sum adventure, Shedletsky dropped me off at my apartment, where I did some work and inadvertently napped for half an hour. Then, I went to Peets, where I had a delicious iced latte and did some more stuff for zee romance novel.

So, the afternoon was not a complete waste. Things picked up again in the evening; I met up with my family at seven p.m. to get in line for the boat to see the fireworks. It was a good thing that I left early, since the bus service cut off seven blocks early and I had to walk the rest of the way to their hotel. We stood in line for the boat for 45 minutes, then waited half an hour on the boat for it to take off, and then cruised around the bay for over an hour waiting for the fireworks to start. Spending an evening on the deck of a ferry in San Francisco Bay is possibly one of the coldest ways in the continental US to spend Independence Day. But, I went below to stand in line for an overpriced, non-standard "cappuccino", and both the enclosed space and the warm beverage helped me to get through the rest of the voyage. I wasn't even as bad off as some -- I was wearing a short-sleeved dress over a long-sleeved thermal, with a jacket on top of that, but there were some fools in tshirts and shorts. Still, the rule of thumb should be to dress for cold and then add an extra layer beyond whatever you think you'll need.

Despite the chill, the fireworks were quite lovely. They were slightly marred by the idiot next to me who kept trying to photograph the fireworks with a flash -- a complete exercise in futility that ensured that every awesome firework would be marred by his bright flash going off in my eye. I almost harassed him about it, but decided to bite my tongue; if he can't recognize that he could a) enjoy the fireworks more without trying to photograph them, and b) that he will never ever watch that footage again anyway, then my words wouldn't change his stupid mind.

After the fireworks, the boat docked, I said goodbye to my family (and ignored their concerns about whether I should walk back alone), and met up with Tammy and Shedletsky again. They v. kindly offered to pick me up, and while I still walked ~14 blocks to get to them so that they could avoid the worst of the traffic, it was a totally welcome gesture. We went back to Shedletsky's friend's place, where we drank some delicious mixed drinks and listened to music. All in all, it was quite a lovely evening!

Of course, knowing me, something absurd had to happen -- and it came true in the form of my cab driver. He told me in halting English that he didn't know where I live (even though I live on one of the most major thoroughfares in the city, and my cross-street is pretty well-known as well) and that he was new to the city. Thank goodness for my iPhone -- with the help of the map that uses my phone to pinpoint my exact location, I was able to direct us home despite my lack of directional sense. He also flirted with me, expressing shock after discovering that I'm 27 because he said I only look 20 or 21. So, despite his complete incompetence as a cabbie, I still tipped him well.

Okay, I have to get up at eightish so that I can meet up with the fam again. Goodnight!

I'm a tired camper and I'm going (back) to bed immediately -- I had accidentally fallen asleep, but I just got back-to-back phone calls, so hopefully I can fall back to sleep. Yes, it's totally lame that I'm going to bed at 10:30pm on the Friday night of a three-day weekend, but I can't help it that I want nothing more than to fall into my fabulous bed and stay there until sunrise.

Today was great, but very busy, which likely explains why I'm tired. I woke up around 8:30, talked to Tammy for a bit before she left to spend the day with Shedletsky, and then puttered around the apartment. I rendezvoused with Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Andrew at noon, and proceeded to take them on a tour of my place of work. After that, we went over to Stanford and spent some time walking around my favorite places. I took them into downtown Palo Alto for ice cream at the Peninsula Creamery, but this ruined our appetites for an early dinner, and so we drove over to Half Moon Bay. We spent half an hour or so on the beach watching the waves, which was quite lovely; then we took the Pacific Coast Highway up through Pacifica to Daly City before switching over to the faster freeways to get back to my apartment.

They made the mistake of letting me pick where to eat, and so we ended up eating Thai food. I made the mistake of thinking that I remembered which block the place was on, since I usually order delivery service from them and have only been to the restaurant once, which had the unfortunate consequence of adding six blocks to the two-block walk. It turns out that Drew ain't exactly the most adventurous eater out there -- so the net result is that while everyone walked away supposedly full, I also have plenty of leftovers for the weekend :)

I dropped them off at their hotel around 8:30, and I've been decompressing ever since. Tammy called and asked me to come and hang out with her and Shedletsky, but I refused; if I don't get some serious sleep tonight, I'm going to be really cranky tomorrow, and crankiness is not my friend. So with that, it's time for bed!

Today was fabulous. Work was highly stressful, but I survived my three p.m. meeting regarding the big event that I'm planning at work, and I appear to be doing well (although at the end of the meeting the head of my department mentioned that she was going to watch her toddler's swimming lessons and I mistakenly told the "amusing" anecdote about the time that I fell off a kickboard and almost drowned during a swimming lesson -- it was clear she wasn't entertained).

But, after work was over, I had the great pleasure of reuniting with Tammy, who is visiting me this weekend. We've had a fabulous time so far -- her whole reason for coming up here (other than to see me, of course) was to see "La Traviata" at the San Francisco Opera. So when we got up here from the glorious south bay, I quickly dolled myself up (Tammy was already looking quite lovely), and we walked to the opera. It's only six or eight blocks from my current apartment -- and of course I've discovered a newfound love for the opera now that I'm moving out.

The opera venue is quite lovely, despite its insalubrious surroundings. Tammy and I had a glass of champagne before going in, which provided for some good people-watching. As it turns out, Tammy selected excellent seats -- we were in the second row on the left, and so we had excellent views of the performers. Also, unbeknownest to us, tonight was the last performance led by the current principal conductor; he has had the role for seventeen years, so there was quite a bit of clapping for him at various points in the evening.

The performance was absolutely stellar, and I am so pleased that "La Traviata" was the opera that made me lose my opera virginity. The main performances by the soprano, tenor, and baritone were all great. And, the music combined with the great casting and the tragic story line ensured that I cried throughout the second and third acts. It was embarrassing how much I cried, particularly when I started audibly sniffing -- but the music was so moving, and the singers so fabulous, that I couldn't help myself.

So, perhaps I will need to start going to more opera in the future. Tammy insisted that we ask someone to take our picture, but we did it *after* the opera, which means I look all puffy and ridiculous. Then, we went to Mel's Diner and had a late dinner, catching up on each others' lives and discussing the opera in-depth. Now, though, it's time for bed -- I haven't been up this late in awhile, and I desperately need sleep. Goodnight!