scar tissue that i wish you saw

I'm back in California, curled up in my own bed, listening to the foghorns in the distance. I wasn't precisely ready to leave Iowa, but I'm excited to be back for all sorts of fun times this weekend, as well as as much writing as I can squeeze in. But first, I must sleep a lot; I got less than six hours last night, which made this morning a rough and brutal slog so that I could catch my plane on time.

But I did catch my plane; my parents took me to the airport and helped me take in my bags (which I had to redistribute some weight in; the first bag was over by 2lbs, so I had to move a couple of books to the other bag, bringing them both in at 49lbs). Then we said goodbye, and I went to my gate to board my flight to Denver. All in all, my trip was uneventful -- there was a lot of turbulence in and out of Denver, and there was a screaming child on my Denver/San Francisco flight, but I still managed to write nearly ten pages (yay).

When I got to San Francisco, my old friend Claudia picked me up at the airport. Careful readers will remember that Claude doesn't live here and hasn't for nigh on half a decade, but she's in town for the holiday to see her mom and brother (who live in San Jose), and so she picked me up on her way to have dinner with Adit and Priyanka. It was super nice of her to do so, particularly since we then had to drag my suitcases up to Adit's apartment so they wouldn't get stolen from her car while she parked, and then had to drag them back down when we left, and then had to drag them up to my apartment when we got here. She's a trooper.

So we met Adit and Priyanka, who were leaving tonight for DC, and had a quick, lovely dinner at Little Chihuahua in Noe Valley. It's a clean, modernized version of a taqueria, and it was really tasty. It was also good to have some family time with Claude, an original family member, particularly since I won't see Adit and Priyanka for awhile longer. After dinner, Adit and Priyanka left for the airport and Claude brought me home. We spent another couple of hours hanging out while drinking bai mudan (a white tea that tasted vaguely of mint, since I'd made mint tea in my teamaker earlier), and it was great to catch up. Terry showed up sometime with one of her friends in tow, so we all hung out for awhile before Claude went back to San Jose and I realized I'm flipping exhausted.

And so, it's time for bed. Tomorrow holds laundry, grocery shopping, and a shitload of writing -- goodnight!