in the maze of her imagination

So I was supposed to be productive on the book today, and I completely failed. I woke up this morning at a reasonable hour, took a shower, and went grocery shopping -- the lack of food in my fridge was becoming critical. Then, Felicia came over; my hermitage has been such that even though she's been back in the area for months, I had not seen her until today. We went to my favorite place in my neighborhood (Leland Tea Company) so that I could expose her to the fabulousness that is my inexplicable neighborhood. This tea place is both next to and across the street from two porn DVD rental shops, but once you're inside, you wouldn't guess it (unless you looked out the window at the people passing by). We had tea sandwiches, scones, tea, and a lot of good conversation before we settled in to work on our laptops for awhile. It was all quite lovely, although I didn't work on the book; instead, I finally wrote the self-assessment for this quarter's review period at work, which was due a week and a half ago.

After Felicia left, I spent a couple of hours sorting through the tangle of my finances. I've gotten rabid about tracking all of my expenses, but not rabid enough to do it every day, and since I was in San Diego last weekend, it's been two or three weeks since I've reconciled everything. It was important to take care of it now, since I've had some writing-related expenses in recent weeks -- or so I told myself. Really, it was just a great procrastinatory method, since I could tell myself it was vital and therefore not feel guilty about not writing.

My parents called around four, and I talked to them for a little over an hour. Then, I was getting ready to write (I swear!) when I got a call from someone at work and had to spend a couple of hours putting out a fire. That kept me occupied until almost 9pm, and at that point, my interest in writing totally fizzled out.

So, no more procrastinating! I must work on the book this week, and am going to take Friday off to make it happen even more effectively. But today, sadly, was a wash. If that continues, please a) tell me to get cracking and b) stop inviting me to things until I shape up.