Saturday, January 24, 2009

are we human? or are we dancer?

Today was truly excellent. My creative writing class started this morning, so I had to wake up at 6:30 so that I could make it down to Stanford in time. I think the class will be hard and a bit intimidating -- for example, we spent today writing two in-class exercises, which we then had to read out loud, and I don't like sharing rough drafts of anything. But the teacher is excellent, and I was pleased to see that none of my classmates seem to be men in midlife crises, nor will they attempt to write lists in excel and attempt to pass them off as stories -- instead, they all seem to be reasonably decent writers. So I'm glad I signed up -- but we'll see if I feel the same way when I have to do my assignment this week.

After class, I spent a few hours at Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, getting jacked up on caffeine while working on my romance novel and later hanging out with Terry. I had my favorite gouda/turkey/caramelized onion sandwich on focaccia, as well as a glass of wine, a chai, a mocha, and an iced tea, which explains why I felt a bit ill and jumpy the rest of the day. But, I wrote >1000 words -- not great, considering how long I was there, but progress nonetheless. And, Terry came over for the last hour or so that I was there, so we got to catch up a bit before I drove back to the evil city.

I had dinner with Adit and Katrina tonight, and a truly winning time was had by all. We went to some Korean place in the Richmond district, where they serve boiling hot soup that you can crack a raw egg into -- which was a bit over-the-top considering that I also had a whole shrimp, complete with eyes, sitting in my soup and glaring at the egg. Mmm. It was quite yummy, but my caffeine overload had not quite subsided (and wasn't helped by the addition of a Diet Coke), so I wasn't particularly hungry.

But, as far as family time goes, it was quite successful. We had a series of rather ridiculous conversations, and almost decided to adjourn to Katrina's apartment to watch a movie and drink a bottle of port. But, port is not my friend (and in fact has been my companion at the brutal end of some of my worst drinking nights), and so while I'm committed to having port with them next weekend, it's probably a good thing that it didn't happen tonight. Katrina managed to drop me off at my apartment after dinner despite the tears in her eyes from laughing so hard from our shared hysteria, so hopefully she and Adit made it home!

I have big plans for tomorrow -- I want to write 5000 words (since that's 20 pages, it's a major stretch), and I have to run errands, vacuum, clean out my fridge, and call my parents. So I suppose it's time for bed. It's amazing that I can sleep at all, ever, given how caffeinated I usually am -- but I'm ready for sleepy time despite it all (keep in mind that I also had a travel mug of tea and a 20oz bottle of Cherry Coke Zero in class). So, goodnight!

But one more thing. If you like ridiculously awesome stuff, and aren't willing to watch terrible movies with me but can sit through four minutes of procrastination, check out the Killers' video for their latest single "Spaceman". It looks like several exotic birds exploded and then adhered to Brandon Flowers' back, forcing him to put on a red jumpsuit and hang out with some extravagantly-dressed crackheads. Awesome!

No comments: