like a madman laughing at the rain

Man, I need to go to bed. Today was v. long, filled with all sorts of writerly delights. I stumbled out of bed, threw on some gym clothes, packed my gym bag, and ate some breakfast before leaving -- and in my pre-caffeinated disaster mode, I had yet another run-in with that failed pie crust from last weekend, which managed to piss me off a final time. When I tried to make it, I'd split it into two batches and put both in the fridge, as instructed. I took out the first batch and later tossed it when it failed to turn into anything other than a big pile of loose flour, but I had left the second batch in the fridge. And when I reached into the fridge to grab something this morning, I knocked the second batch out -- and rather than being a blob of dough wrapped in saran wrap, it was a pile of flour wrapped in saran wrap, which promptly came undone and spilled it all over the floor. Ugh. So I cleaned it up as best I could, but it was a rather inauspicious, unpleasant start to the day. Not as unpleasant as the day had by the people who had an accident on the freeway about two minutes ahead of me -- when I drove by it, the cops weren't there yet, traffic was barely backed up, but a taxi looked to be missing its entire front bumper, and there were people milling about on cellphones surveying the damage. In comparison, a bit of flour on the floor is nothing.

So I made it down to the gym and trained with Alyssa, which went well. Then I showered, ate a salad, and went to Stanford library, where I wrote ten pages, then checked out some books on the economic history of the Highlands (fascinating, I know). I left the library around six p.m., grabbed dinner at Chipotle, and then went to the monthly meeting of my historical fiction writing group. Five of us were there, which was a nice size, and we had a good discussion of the two pieces that were up. After the writing group, my friend Chris asked if I could take her home, which I was happy to do -- and when our conversation was clearly nowhere close to over by the time we got there (since it was a five minute drive), we readjourned to Starbucks and talked until 10:30ish. I'm glad I'm getting to know other writers -- while I wouldn't trade (most of) my friends for anything, it's nice to talk to people who are going through the same gutwrenching, nervewracking process of trying to get one's stories published and out into the world.

Needless to say, though, by the time I got home, it was almost 11:30pm, and I still needed to take care of some emails, fold a load of laundry, prep for tomorrow, etc. And so now I really must go to bed. Tomorrow is another hectic, v. writerly day, so hopefully I have the stamina to survive it. Goodnight!