I had an excellent day, but I'm definitely ready for bed. It was the perfect mix of class, shopping, chores, reading, and family time -- the only thing that would have made it better was if the chores had been replaced by a couple of hours of writing, but I was pretty drained after my class and was in no mood to switch from talking about deep craft and mechanics issues to writing light-hearted frippery.
I'm really glad that I'm taking this class, despite the inconvenient hour and the amount of time that it takes to do the assignments. The teacher is *fantastic* -- it's clear that she has an actual passion for teaching creative writing, and is not just using teaching to finance her writing career. Class ended up going over by twenty minutes because we got into some very long-winded and detailed discussions about point of view, narrative vs. scene, the Catholic influence on Flannery O'Connor's work, etc., and then still had to read the first two pages of twenty people's stories (which took longer than it should have because apparently less than 25% of us read the instructions around using typed, double-spaced formatting with one-inch margins and a readable font size, so some people had two pages of single-spaced, 10-point font text with half-inch margins, ugh).
I felt like I learned a lot in just one class. I'm still vaguely happy with the story I wrote last night, but if I were to rewrite it, I would play around a lot more with point of view, so perhaps I'll see whether this week's assignment offers that opportunity. I left class feeling quite buoyant, decided to have lunch and work on my book at Cafe Borrone, and got there to discover a ridiculously-long line just to order, let alone to start scrambling for a table. So I walked across the street to Stacks, where the waiter flirted with me shamelessly, and even if he was almost forty (he looked younger, but made me guess his age and told me he puts avocado on his face every night), the female vanity that I usually keep under lock and key was still pleased when he asked whether I had been at the Creamery (his other job) recently, then dismissed it because he could 'never forget my eyes'. Ha. 25% tip for you, kind sir!
I wandered around Palo Alto for awhile, window-shopping in my favorite stationery stores, and finally buying a Cross ballpoint pen on clearance for 66% off -- completely unnecessary buy, except I love the pen and can use it forever. Then I came back to the city, cleaned my bathroom, took care of my mail, and did some other random things.
I made the mistake of finally opening the package I got last week -- Kresley Cole's latest book, which I will say without a trace of embarrassment is called "The Kiss of the Demon King". Yes, demons. Not evil demons, though -- just a hot, honorable demon king and an evil sorceress who isn't as evil as she seems. I read the previous five books in the series over leave, and was eagerly awaiting this one -- but knew that as soon as I got it out of the box, I would want to read it in one sitting.
So it was with extreme forbearance that I put it aside to meet up with Katrina, Adit, Katrina's roommate Patrick, Folkman, and three of their other friends for dinner. I did take the book with me, which was helpful as I stood waiting for the bus. This bus runs up Van Ness from Market, through the Tenderloin, toward the bay -- and attracts more than its fair share of crazies, which was entertaining. Dinner was quite fun; Katrina gave me a good update on what's going on with her situation, we had a good conversation about the Minotaur, and the phrase "bone time" was used far more than it should ever be used outside of a seventh-grade locker room.
But by the time Katrina decided to go home and the other people were headed off to a club, I decided to throw in the towel on socializing and come home, where I did end up finishing the book. Now I really, really must go to bed -- tomorrow is the only morning I can sleep in a bit, but I need to write a lot tomorrow, as well as do a bit of work for my day job, so it's time for sleep. Goodnight!
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