she is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel

I really need to stop listening to my custom Ellie and Nick playlist; even though I'm not writing right now, I'm listening to their playlist nonstop to get myself in the proper frame of mind, and the proper frame of mind is apparently fucking bleak. Ellie's theme song is "She's Always A Woman" by Billy Joel, for what it's worth, and I totally adore her -- but this book is going to be super heavy going emotionally, so expect more rending of garments and gnashing of teeth (or passive aggressive attacks and oddly aloof behavior) in the next couple of months.

sssanyway, I was pretty productive today, all things considered. I made both breakfast and lunch at the same time by making scrambled eggs in one skillet and cooking chicken in another -- great plan, since when I made a salad for lunch, it took approximately three minutes (and since it was lettuce, chicken, gorgonzola, walnuts, grapes, and homemade vinaigrette, it was a pretty awesome three-minute meal). I also did a couple of loads of laundry, then sat up on the roof and tried to tackle my out of control email situation. I got to absolutely nothing with my personal email, but I took care of some tasks for a variety of volunteer things I'm doing (all romance related), answered some fan mail (ha), and carefully crafted and sent a newsletter to my non-friends-and-family group. All of that was v. necessary, so I'm glad I finished. I threw in the towel around 6:30, though, and changed out of my sweats into something more sophisticated (you know you are a hermit when more sophisticated = jeans) before going to my old neighborhood for dinner with John (note: I realize that 'old neighborhood' could be four or five different places; in this case I mean the place where I lived with Adit in 2010).

We ended up at Canela, which was totally lovely; it's a tapas place that wasn't there when I lived there, more's the pity. We split a carafe of white sangria and a few tapas -- an incredible scallop, a fantastic pepper stuffed with goat cheese, and a v. satisfying Spanish tortilla (potatoes and egg, for those of you uninitiated in the ways of the Spanish tortilla). We also had cafe con leche and briefly fell into a v. college discussion of whether we were drinking out of a cup or a mug (unanimous verdict: cup). Then we walked back to his place and he gave me the tour; it was lovely, and while I have absolutely no desire at all to move, I do see the appeal of living there. I had to leave before Jess came home, since I was running out of energy, and I should have just gone to bed when I got home since I've been pretty useless since then. But Terry got home from New York an hour ago, so I went downstairs and chatted with her for a bit, so that was nice. And now, it really is time to go to bed -- perhaps tomorrow I shall write. Goodnight!