a shredded leg that still bears the scar

I am beyond exhausted - I'm pretty sure that my inner introvert used every last shred of remaining social energy to hang out in the bar after last night's awards ceremony, and so this morning there was nothing left to get me back to San Francisco. Luckily I powered through on an unholy mixture of latte, diet mountain dew, diet coke, and earl grey tea, and I'm writing this from my bed, which I don't want to leave again anytime soon.

However, as I believe came across even though I was writing from my ipad the entire week to avoid paying the $13/night wireless fee at the hotel, I had an absolutely fabulous time at the conference. I think I left it feeling better than any of the others I've attended, with the possible exception of the year I won the Golden Heart -- and in some ways those experiences mirror each other. It's like those medieval circular labyrinths that you walk on to meditate -- I've reached a similar point in the cycle that I visited before, but I have new insight this time around. I have a similar feeling of promise and excitement and eagerness to tackle the next project, but this time it's tempered by the failures of not selling my previous two books traditionally, and yet also buoyed by the sheer number of well-known writers whom I spent some quality time with this week.

Long story short, I feel good about where things are, even if it's going to be a nailbiting photo finish to see if the writing earns me enough to prevent me from ever having to get a real job. I was out of the hotel by ten a.m. this morning, but the drive back took a surprisingly long time, since I5 construction/congestion was worse than it was on Monday, and it was also the Gilroy garlic festival, which means coming back up through Gilroy to see Heather was a mistake. But I made it to her house around 5:30, and she fed me supper while she went through the 40+ free books that I brought back so that she could read them. We also watched "First Position", a documentary about young ballerinas, which was interesting. Then I came home, found Terry and Terry's brother Tom holed up on the couch watching Olympics, and even though I was exhausted and had seen spoilers for two of the biggest outcomes tonight (because Tom Brokaw, that asshole, was discussing them on NBC Nightly News when I walked into Heather's house).

And now that I'm home, I really must sleep - it will be interesting to see if my extreme Olympics-related social media blackout helps me write as much as I plan to write this week. Goodnight!