Today was a v. long day, most of which was fun or at least passably interesting. I set my alarm for six a.m. so that I could register for the romance conference right when the site opened; while I've registered for the past couple several months after registration opened and had no issues, I was a little panicked by people on Twitter speculating that the conference hotel room block might sell out v. early. It's true that the room block almost always sells out and that people end up in random overflow hotels, which has not yet happened to me -- but since the conference hotel is in NYC and is a v. v. good rate for the heart of Times Square, it would make sense that the block would sell out fast, since no one would be able to find cheaper alternative accommodation anywhere nearby.
So, I woke up at six, registered, got my hotel taken care of, and promptly went back to sleep for an hour. Then, I dragged myself out of bed and made it to the gym by eight a.m., where Alyssa tortured me to the point of nausea. This was not her fault at all; I was doing bicycle crunches, which involve way too much stuff at once -- crunching, lifting alternating legs, moving elbows -- and somehow if I have to keep track of maintaining too many different types of proper form, I forget to breathe. In fact, this rather reminded me of the difficulties I have swimming; I *can* swim, I just don't like it because I sometimes forget to breathe and then start to panic (and also, I can't touch the ground, but that wasn't a problem while doing crunches). The short version is that I'm physically retarded, but she was v. nice about it, and I promised to practice breathing while doing bicycle crunches at home. Lame.
Anyway, after I got my breath back and no longer felt like I was going to faint or throw up on her feet, we finished the workout, and then I showered, came home, ate some oatmeal, and did some more brainstorming on zee book until it was time to leave the house. I met up with John for lunch at my old place of employment; they've opened up yet another cafe since the last time I was there, so we checked it out. As it turned out, the food was pretty good and I liked the ambience; also, it was good to see John, and you can thank him for harassing me into bringing back links for the names (unless you hate links for the names, in which case you should comment and outvote him!)
After dropping John off at his building, I went to the building where I used to work and had a bona fide meeting (ridiculous, right?) -- this girl Sophie, whom I quite like, accepted the "visibility opportunity" of planning the leadership summit that I planned last year (on top of her regularly scheduled day job), since the big boss still hasn't hired someone to replace me. So I met with her and the big boss's admin for an hour and "downloaded" (to use the corporate speak I've abandoned) my memories from last year's conference. Amusingly (where I'm using "amusingly" to mean "not amusingly"), they apparently forgot about the 26-page document I wrote before I left that included all the information one would need to plan a conference, so I basically just showed that to Sophie. But, I drank a diet coke there, took an iced tea for the road, and stuffed two more diet cokes into my purse, so that's adequate compensation for an hour of my time, right?
While there, I did get to say hi to the big boss, which was lovely; I haven't had a single regret about leaving my job, but seeing her again was the first time I felt a twinge of "I miss this", since I basically had a big hero-worship work crush on her, and I was trying to teach someone else to plan a conference, which was one of my favorite things to do. Sigh. She also told me that the annual feedback around communication was v. positive for the past year; I left right when the survey results were being analyzed, but I'm happy to hear that it sounds like my job may have made a slight difference after all. I also spent a little bit of time with Joy, said hi to all the guys on the finance/ops teams, and then made my escape.
So all that took way too much time, and I was quite happy to come home and write for an hour, which I did. Then, I got back in the car and dragged myself to Sunnyvale for my every-six-weeks Friendship Renewal Dinner (tm) with whichever members of my friends from the old temp program happen to be living in the area on any given week. We did it at Tolu and Kristina's new house this time, which was lovely to see; Jane was there when I got there, and Sarah arrived a bit later (now permanently returned to California after a two-year stint in Asia). Joann showed up way late, as she had a late conference call (another thing I don't miss at all). I'm glad I got to catch up with all of them, as I missed the holiday edition of the Friendship Renewal Dinner, and I'm glad to have Sarah back in the area, even if that gives me less incentive to try to go to Japan in the next year or two.
I finally made it home around 10:15, and I forced myself to write for another half hour before calling it quits. I didn't quite get to four pages today, but given how little time I spent at home, I feel pretty good about it. Tomorrow will be another packed day -- gym in the morning, lunch in the evil city, supper with friends in the glorious south bay -- so I should go to bed. Goodnight!
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