difficult difficult lemon difficult

Today was one of those rare days that I spent entirely in the city; had I not gone to Chandlord's nearby slum for dinner, I wouldn't have left my neighborhood at all. I woke up at eight, accidentally fell asleep, and woke up again at 9:15. Then, I worked for a couple of hours before taking a shower, which seems to be my norm when left to my own devices. My agent had sent me an email requesting some information from me, and I also got an email from a publicist I contacted a couple of days ago about the potential of working together, so I spent some time dealing with both of those emails. Marketing feels like something I could theoretically do myself, given my background, but I also want to get this launch right, and this publicist was a publicity director at a variety of publishers for 20+ years before forming her own company. So I'm excited to work with her, and hopefully it will get my books some good exposure.

After dealing with all of that (and eating the last of my leftover risotto for breakfast -- I'm sad to see it go), I finally showered, got dressed, etc. I took a break around one to make chili for a late lunch, and the chili was just as awesome as it was the last time I made it. Then, I spent the afternoon alternating between writing notes/plotting out scenes for Malcolm and Amelia's book and despairing about my prospects. The despair lifted by the time I threw in the towel at 6:45pm, though -- I went on a salvage mission through the original manuscript and pulled out a whole ton of scenes that I can use/reuse/recycle and put them in the appropriate places in the new manuscript, and discovered that there are now only 10-12 scenes that I need to write from scratch. The rest can all be cobbled together, hopefully without any Frankenstein's monster scars, from the best bits of what I already had. If I'm diligent, I might actually meet my deadline of having a draft of something to share with my betas before I go home for Thanksgiving next Monday (fingers crossed).

I eventually had to stop for the night so that I could fulfill my promise to have dinner with Chandlord. I met her at her place, and then we walked through the fringes of the Tenderloin to eat at some Burmese place at Larkin and Turk (somewhat insalubrious, but I only made Chandlord cross the street to avoid upcoming crackheads once, so that feels like a victory). The restaurant itself was decent, particularly with the first salad that we ate, and we ordered way too much food because it was all cheap (which meant we then proceeded to spend too much). After dinner, we went to the bar that replaced Lush Lounge; it opened three weeks ago, and Vidya wanted to check it out since she had loved Lush, but it was mostly disappointing. The bartender was eager to please but couldn't pronounce curacao or grenadine, which made him seem somewhat questionable. Also, I ordered a mai tai, which he made completely differently from the ingredients printed on the menu -- which isn't to say that his was worse, just that going off the menu for one of the only drinks on the menu seemed odd. However, the bouncer went to the convenience store across the street and brought back pretzels and M&Ms for the bar, so that was nice, right?

Since neither of us were feeling the bar, Chandlord and I went back to her place, retrieved her DVD of "In the Loop" and my car, and returned to the generally dull safety of the Marina. Lauren (aka Subz) was here, having a similarly lowkey night with Terry, and so we hung out with them for a bit before Subz had to go home (since she trains with Alyssa tomorrow at seven -- sucker). I put the movie in, but Terry started falling asleep almost immediately, and Chandlord fell asleep a bit later even though it was her idea to watch it. So I rousted her from the couch and took her home so that I could go to bed myself. And now I shall do that, so that I may go to Palo Alto in the morning -- goodnight!