turn up the lights in here baby

Ugh. While today would qualify as Not Bad, it would also qualify as Not Good. I did a bit of unpleasant but necessary work this morning before driving down to Palo Alto to train for Alyssa, but I didn't quite finish what I should have done, and now I'll have to finish tomorrow. Alyssa was in fine form and was the highlight of the day; it says something when the highlight of the day is spending an hour with someone who enjoys torturing you, but I legitimately enjoyed my workout even though I shall be sore tomorrow.

My workout was an hour later than usual since she had a DMV appointment, so by the time I ate a late lunch, ran a bunch of errands, talked to my dad to make up for missing his half of the usual parental call yesterday, and took care of some emails, it was after five p.m. So I ate an early dinner at Chipotle in an attempt to fuel myself for a marathon nighttime writing session, but it didn't work. I got to Stanford library and sat staring at the manuscript, and slowly slid into a dark and desperate place where I was convinced that everything I'm doing to Malcolm and Amelia's book is futile and that I should abandon the whole thing and start up a yak-milking business in Tibet instead. Nevermind the difficulty in getting visitor permits to Tibet - I could probably make more money smuggling yak milk out of Tibet and selling it to Whole Foods than I ever will as a writer. And if I don't get out of Tibet, I could write a memoir in fifteen or twenty years about my experience in China's secret political prisons.

That was an unexpected tangent. Anyway, I sort of pulled myself out of that dark and desperate place, but I only made it to the dark and desperate place's grey and grim anteroom before throwing in the towel and driving home. The anteroom is better than the full-on horror show, though, so I'll take it. When I got home, I read part of the monthly romance writer magazine and loathed every single article, which points to me still being pretty cranky. I also talked to Terry, who was having a cranky day of her own, if the fact that she was drinking $4 malbec was any indication. And now I'm going to put the laptop gently aside before I toss it out the window, pick up one of my notebooks, and attempt to write my way into a better mood. Goodnight!