all of the lights

I must go to bed immediately (or, rather, two hours ago, but that appears to be an impossibility) -- I worked from 9:00 until now, which was good for, y'know, productivity, and bad for my beauty sleep. When I awaken looking like a black-eyed hag, you shall know why.

I wasn't as productive this morning as I intended to be -- probably because I shut off my alarm and promptly slept until 10:30. I eventually woke up, puttered around, showered, etc., and was putting on my makeup when my agent called. So, my foundation ended up caking since I answered mid-application, and my bangs dried ridiculously, but business trumps beauty (right?). There's nothing of import to share there other than that the final final version of Madeleine/Ferguson's book is back from the formatter, and so she wanted to discuss strategy for getting it out to potential reviewers.

After that was all done, I finished getting dressed, did the dishes downstairs, ate some leftover egg/spinach/goat cheese frittata-casserole, and then brought a leftover scone back up to my room to eat while contemplating my manuscript. The scone was great; the writing wasn't; somehow, the balance was okay even though clearly my manuscript is more important than a little brick of gluten-free deliciousness slathered in butter and jam. (on a completely unrelated note, Alyssa is going to hate me tomorrow).

But I did get some writing done before leaving the house and meeting Claudia and Tammy at Samovar in Yerba Buena. They went to the SFMoMA, which I had no desire to visit, but we all met up for some delightful tea and snacky-snacks. I couldn't have my old favorite, since I can't eat the gluten in the quiche anymore (depressing), but I had some coconut rice pudding that tasted quite good with my masala chai. I also split a Kenyan white tea with Claude, which was good too. And Tammy and Claudia were both in fine form -- we didn't even drive any patrons away, so I consider it a success.

After we finished there, we met up with Tammy's boyfriend for dinner at Osha Thai. The food was delicious, although I suspect I ate a bit of gluten -- not enough to kill me, but enough to notice. I also had a green tea mojito (another strike against me in Alyssa's book), but I consider that necessary to wipe away the memory that we came up with a game called 'fuck, marry, oliphant' (don't ask). Once we'd had all the fun we could have, I dropped Claude off at the Caltrain station (after subjecting her to an unnecessarily long, awkward hug in the 5th and Mission parking garage elevator) -- she's going back to Yale (Jail) tomorrow, and I won't see her again for ages and ages, which makes me sad. I'll likely see Tammy later this week, which also makes me sad, but you can't have everything.

That last sentence was a jhoke, of course. When I got home, I said a quick hello to Terry's friends, who were eating dinner at our dining room table, before coming upstairs and working. And I got all sorts of things done -- I sent a lot of emails that I needed to send, paid a bunch of bills, registered the copyright for Madeleine/Ferguson (so if you steal it/pirate it, I'm protected legally, even though the heartbreak of having one of my friends steal my book might be the death of me), worked on a business school rec for a friend/fellow employee, and generally worked like mad. And now I really, really need to sleep -- I have to be in Palo Alto at eleven, and up well before then to finish this rec so I don't ruin some poor kid's chances of getting out of here. Goodnight!