this feeling won't go

My thumb is twitching. This is a bad sign; my thumb hasn't twitched since I went on leave last year. It was a year ago right now that I was loading up my Rav4 for the drive across the Great American West, and I was just beginning to recover from the physical and emotional trauma of my job. At that point, both my thumb and my eye were twitching, so I'm still better off than I was then. But it's clear that my Hawaiian odyssey is coming none too soon, since I need to get a grip on my work/life balance before it gets any more of a grip on me.

Work was totally fine, but I didn't have much free time today and so am still v. behind. I left at four p.m. because I needed to write my short story; but as Terry can attest, since she saw me at 3:45, I had just burned out my last reserves and was practically incoherent, and I quickly realized that driving back to the city in that state would be a v. bad idea. So rather than continuing, I detoured to downtown Palo Alto and brainstormed my short story while injecting myself with vast quantities of caffeine.

I finally came up with an idea, and the excitement of brainstorming kept me wide awake on the rest of the drive home. But when I got here, I collapsed again, and ended up napping from 8pm to 10:30pm. I managed to rouse myself and write a two-page short story; I'm satisfied with it, although I think my last two pieces were better, but considering that it's one a.m. and I need to be on campus at Stanford in eight hours, I'm throwing in the towel.

The rest of the weekend should get better though. Class will be good, and then I'm using my one social excursion of the weekend on dim sum with Natasha and Chris (Chris was in India with me, I'm becoming better friends w/Natasha, and they recently got engaged!). After that, I intend to sleep some more and get caught up on work work so that next week isn't so brutal. Perhaps Sunday I'll work on the romance novel -- or perhaps I'll stare at the wall in an effort to get my thumb to stop twitching. Either way, I'm looking forward to it. Goodnight!