every claim you stake

I don't think I can keep describing my sloth levels accurately. Today was epically slothful, although I did a bit of work in the afternoon. But I took the evening off from all responsibility to eat supper with the family (crab legs!) and then enjoy one of my favorite television nights of the year - the Kennedy Center Honors. I wasn't quite as moved by this year's performances as I've been in past years, unfortunately...but I always like Sting, and Tom Hanks and Lily Tomlin are v. interesting, so that was all good.

Then I started reading a book on willpower, which is proving to be quite interesting - it's heavy on research rather than on motivational statements, which is my preferred type of self-help/nonfiction book, so I'm enjoying it for now. But I'm going to go to bed and hope to continue my trend of getting nine hours of sleep, since getting enough sleep is probably more important than anything else for improving willpower (or at least for improving my general mood, which has been highly successful over my last ten nights of nine hours of sleep each). Goodnight!

it's not like we were both on tour

It's possible today was the most slothful day of vacation yet. That's not really true...I should rephrase to say it was perhaps the most hermity day yet. I stayed in bed until eleven, showered, ate some leftover soup, and spent the majority of the rest of the day working on romance business stuff, browsing the internet, talking to the family, and watching some fine CBS programming (I'm kind of liking 'Scorpion', and I have always been a fan of 'NCIS:LA').

But vacation is quickly coming to an end (not really...I'm here until Friday night, and not going back to the office until Monday), and I am in many ways eager to start 2015 even if I'm not eager to get back into the crazytown situation of managing the day job while writing a book and trying to sustain my relationships. However, I think I'm better prepared for that eventuality than I was this time last year; last January, if you'll recall, I came close to a nervous breakdown over the thought of doing all of this, and it totally threw me off my game. But I survived and wrote what I think is my best book, while feeling a bit more balanced in terms of time spent with friends (okay, maybe there's never enough #familytime) and also getting promoted at work. When I put it like that, 2014 was a really great year, even if I was somewhat bruised and exhausted by the end of it - and since I'm cutting back on travel next year, that will hopefully help me to manage my energy better.

sssanyway. Despite my not-so-humble bragging above, I have a massive to-do list that I'd like to make a dent in this week, and I'm itching to start Rafe and Octavia's story, so it's unlikely that I'll remember this lesson very well or very long. But hopefully I can see out the rest of 2014 in good spirits, and great 2015 with a bang (or at least champagne when I get back to cali). Goodnight!

tie me to a post and block my ears

The last of the Christmas festivities ended today, which was perhaps for the best as I was feeling a wee bit Scroogy (in a v. accurate definition of the word Scrooge, since I really just wanted to get back to work on my writing stuff rather than taking yet another day off). Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Drewbaby were here most of the day, which was delightful, although I squashed an attempt to play Rail Baron because I refused to be the banker (which essentially chains me to the table for six hours) and no one else cared enough to pick up the heavy mantle of responsibility. Instead, we sat around, talked, stared at devices, ate leftovers, and watched football. For me, at least, that was perfect, so hopefully other people had fun too!

sssanyway, the northern branch of Wamplers left around fourish, and I spent the rest of the day indulging my desires...napping briefly, then working/messing around online most of the evening. In perhaps-related news, I may be getting sick, but I'm hoping some vitamin C/zinc/puritanical work ethic will stave it off. And now I'm going to sleep for a million hours and hope my sore throat passes so I can do all sorts of work tomorrow - my plan for this week is to get on top of some romance business-related stuff so that I can have a clean slate with which to plot Rafe and Octavia's book next week. Yay. Goodnight!

you know i love the players

Today was Wampler Family Christmas (tm), which meant I spent it entirely with Wamplers (and one bland guy formerly known as the scandalous pirate boyfriend). I didn't get out of bed until some of the guests had arrived, as is my wont, but I eventually made my appearance, and the whole day was smashing. We ate a veritable smorgasbord of carnivore delights, enjoyed (or endured) the same handful of questions from my grandmother, and opened packages with a bit of an interruption from a stampede of deer. And Aunt B, as usual, made us work for our gifts, and so [censored], Drewbaby and I had to figure out a puzzle consisting of paper towels, toilet paper, and kleenexes in order to retrieve our prizes.

The rest of the day was mostly consumed by Cards Against Humanity; everyone but Brian and Gram played most of the afternoon, and when Aunt B/Brian/Gram left after supper, the rest of us started a new game and played until ten. The new game was somewhat influenced by the bottle of wine I opened and the gallon of whisky my brother drank, but we all survived it without learning more than a few horrifying things about family members' sexual preferences (sour cream, anyone?). And now I need to sleep; Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy are at the motel in town and Drewbaby is on our couch, so I'm guessing that means I'm going to have to begrudgingly get out of bed before ten a.m. tomorrow like some sort of peasant. Ugh. I'll survive, though, particularly if I go to bed now - goodnight!

take me to church

My introverted heart is still worn out from yesterday, but I got some relaxation in today...and by that I mean I did basically nothing. I stayed in bed until after ten, then got up, messed around, ate lunch, and daydreamed/wrote in my journal. Around 3:30 I went to the park and walked for forty minutes or so - I would have walked at home, but there were bow hunters nearby and I didn't want to end up as a casualty in the Hunger Games. But it was good to get outside - today was probably the last day in the next week when the temperature was above forty degrees, and I will not be walking outside when it drops to fifteen next week.

The rest of the day was more of the same - I showered, ate supper with the family, lazed about and watched tv, and then made chili for tomorrow's family gathering. I read a bit while I waited for it to cool off, and now I should go to bed so that I can get enough sleep tomorrow to avoid being surly in the morning (which is impossible for me, since I'm always surly in the morning). Goodnight!

offer me that deathless death

Merry Christmas! My family had a lovely day, thanks for asking! I awoke at 7:20am (a feat I hope never to repeat in the remainder of 2014), and we spent a desultory couple of hours opening presents. I don't know how much our Christmas morning routine differs from other families' routines, but I would gather that it's unusual - no one can open presents (or even dig through stockings) while anyone else is opening anything, and gifts from my mother are numbered and given in a strict and well-considered order. For instance, she made sure that when my brother and I opened our seventh package each, his was an angle grinder and mine was a coffee grinder (a burr grinder because I'm a fancy bitch now and can't just use my regular blade grinder, since I'm not a fucking peasant). Also, we immediately clean up everything as soon as we're done, since paper on the floor is strictly verboten.

But that makes for a long, leisurely Christmas morning with a lot of laughter and entertainment, particularly since we all like to get each other ridiculous things. [censored] put a lot of thought into my gifts, which means I got something to make fire, an unmentionable gag gift (okay, I'll mention it - it's a DIY kit to freeze my own eggs, which is obvi a joke), some dog tags that are funny enough that I'll probably wear them occasionally, as well as an Aeropress coffee maker that will work equally well in my apartment or during the apocalypse. I also got some lovely things from my parents, which I shall not bore you with the details of.

Post-Christmas, we ate breakfast, and then I napped in the living room for an hour and a half to make up for my aborted sleep. Eventually, I showered, and then my sister and her brood arrived to continue the celebration. I spent a couple of hours hanging out with my grandniece, who is five and quite adorable (albeit sticky enough that I told [censored] that he could return the egg kit). We all opened packages before supper, and then Sammi and Jaicee (the grandniece) had to leave. But Jackie, Shawn, Zane, Allie, and Zane's girlfriend stuck around, and we ended up playing Cards Against Humanity, which is always wonderful and terrible.

And then I washed dishes while my mother dried and my father and [censored] provided (weak) moral support. And now it's time to go to bed - Christmas isn't over yet, but I hope to recover in some sort of introverted haze tomorrow before engaging in more Christmas with my dad's siblings on Saturday. Goodnight!

i'm killing every second til it saves my soul

If you've read my blog over the past several days, you can pretty much guess what I did. I slept for ten hours, then had breakfast before doing a kettlebell workout in my bedroom. It was more challenging than usual, probably because I felt like I was overheating - a heated, carpeted bedroom is by default warmer than a cool, concrete-floored gym. Or it was more challenging because Alyssa said it was supposed to be challenging. Either way, I survived it, and it's good that I have kettlebells here since it's probably going to get too cold for me to do anything outside next week.

After that, I showered, ran into town for one final thing I'd forgotten for Christmas, and then wrapped presents for most of the late afternoon/evening. [censored] kept me company, and I may have [censored], which took us both by surprise, but we survived. The wrapping finished right before supper, which [censored] and I ate with our parents. This was, I believe, the first time we've ever had Christmas Eve without other family members in attendance - usually my sister comes over on Christmas Eve, or we have my dad's siblings here, but today was just the four of us, which was a little bizarre. I've got to say it doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet, despite all the wrapping and all the decorations - but I have a feeling that will change tomorrow.

Anyway, supper was prime rib, which means we benefitted from not having anyone else over since there was plenty for the four of us. Then I watched some fine CBS programming with my parents. And now I should sleep so that Santa can come (or so that I can still get nine hours of sleep and yet get up before my family wants to kill me/issue a delay of game penalty) - goodnight! And Merry Christmas to all of you!

the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile

First things first - unless you're reading this in your email, you may have noticed that I changed the template. I haven't changed the template in approximately six years, but there was something janky about the sidebar that had bothered me for a long time, and so I finally decided to fix it. Since I'm probably the only person alive who blogs like this every day, I decided to go for broke and make it pinkish-purplish. You're welcome.

Now that that's settled...today was precisely as lazy as I wanted it to be. I got ten hours of sleep again last night (I think my UP band thinks I've got some terminal disease that's keeping me bedridden), and so I had a v. leisurely and desultory breakfast long after the rest of my family was awake. Then I did an hour or two of work for the day job, which I spit on. When that was over, I went to the (former) state park and walked around for forty minutes. The pros of going to the park were that I wanted to go for a walk after being cooped up in the house and the park has a paved road instead of the muddy mess of gravel outside my house; the cons of going to the park were that it was only 37 fucking degrees and the sky was attempting to spray a wintry mix all over my face (that sounds vaguely dirty). Also, I was the only person there the whole time, which was mildly disconcerting given my hectic city life. But I saw two deer while I was walking, and I nearly killed some wild turkeys on the way home, so that was a great brush with nature!

After getting home, I showered, made and guzzled coffee to combat my sudden, splitting caffeine-withdrawal headache, and generally hung out. I was v. sloth-filled tonight and didn't write or read or do much of anything else, but I was trying to avoid looking at my ipad screen before bed, so I'll take it. And then I undid all my good work by staring at my laptop for the last half hour playing with my blog. Oops. But now I must sleep so that I can wrap gifts and continue my general slothfulness tomorrow - goodnight!

i'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife

Today was something of a repeat of yesterday, and I have no regrets. I got approximately ten hours of sleep, which means I missed breakfast, but my parents had saved some bacon for me and left the skillet out, so I made some v. tasty eggs and enjoyed my carnivorous breakfast on my own. Then I spent an hour or two taking care of some tings; the most important ting was renewing my passport, since it expires this spring and I don't want to be caught without it. The other most important ting was mailing some books to the romance writers group for entrance in the RITAs; while the competition is stiff and it's probably a waste of time and emotional investment, I actually still really like Thorington's book (shocking, I know), so I sent them off with more hope than I probably should have.

But I went into town around two to accomplish all of the mailing, along with going to the bank and going to the grocery store to take care of some other tings. And then I came home and promptly slacked off the rest of the day. I spent the majority of it reading the third book in Sarah MacLean's series, and I may be overdosing on historical romance as a result - three in three days, when I haven't read one in months, is quite a bit. But I enjoyed it, even if staring at a tablet for that long is probably a bad idea.

I did take a break for supper with the family - my mom made french fries in lard, which are as insanely delicious as you might expect (if you eat lard, which you probably don't). And I also watched bits and pieces of fine CBS programming while reading, so that was nice. Now, though, I plan to go to bed so that I can accomplish some wrapping of gifts, some swinging of kettlebells, some typing of emails, and some reading of books tomorrow - grand plans, I know. Goodnight!

i'll bet the odds against it all

Today was precisely as lazy as I wanted it to be. I got ten hours of sleep last night, which wasn't quite the million that I wanted, but it was something close to what I felt like I deserved. I made it upstairs just in time to con my father into making eggs for me (okay, he insisted) so I could eat them with the bacon and potatoes he and my mother had graciously left over for me. Then I lazed about some more, showered, and finished reading the book I started on the plane yesterday (Eloisa James's latest), which I really liked a lot. It was the first historical romance I'd read in ages, since I tend not to read them when I'm writing (and I'm always writing)...but if my vacation goes as planned, it won't be my last.

Then, I went into town with my dad, where we examined the new grocery store (awesome!) and visited my grandmother (depressing!). We returned to the safety of the country, where my mother made zucchini lasagna (in deference to our general gluten-free lifestyle), which we all enjoyed while watching '60 Minutes'. I spent the rest of the evening plowing straight through another romance novel (the second book in Sarah MacLean's Scoundrels series, which I got woefully behind on due to the aforementioned tendency to avoid historicals while writing). I really liked it as well, although I wasn't so engrossed that I couldn't take occasional breaks to exchanges texts and Facebook messages (mostly stickers) with the family I left behind in San Francisco.

And now I intend to repeat the same astonishing feats of sloth tomorrow, which requires going to sleep - goodnight!

blank space

I'm in Iowa, safely tucked into my childhood bed (which actually doesn't resemble my childhood bed at all, since it's queen-sized and is in a room with central heat - good thing since my blood is now mostly Californian and I would freeze to death sleeping in the non-centrally-heated bedroom of my youth), after the smoothest day of travel I could have wished for. I made it to the airport early, which was a good thing since the lines were v. long, but I still had time for a (somewhat rushed) breakfast before boarding my flight to Denver. I spent the flight napping and reading, which was perfect...

...and then things were even more perfect when I left the secure area of the Denver airport and met Katie in the terminal for a long, leisurely, somewhat tasty lunch. We had a little less than two hours together, which can never be enough but was sufficient to catch up better than our brief, sporadic phone conversations. She brought Julia (the new baby) with her, who was adorable, and who seemed quite content to let me hold her for long stretches of time, which made my ovaries greedy until my liver (and the glass of wine I had with lunch) put them back in their place.

sssanyway, it was awesome to see Katie, even if getting older sucks and our problems aren't as fun as the problems we had in our youth. We eventually were forced to part ways, and so I went back through security, boarded without incident, and flew to Iowa. My parents and [censored] picked me up, and we had supper at our usual steakhouse (although I made the excommunication-worthy decision to order salmon, since it's unlikely I'll have any fish in the next two weeks). We made it back to the southernmost part of the state without incident, and now I'm going to hopefully sleep for a million hours. My plans for this break consist of nothing more than reading a lot of books, beginning to think about Rafe and Octavia's story, and perhaps doing some kettlebell workouts...all of which sounds better than staring at a screen for hours on end. Goodnight!

i tried to do handstands for you

I can't blog excessively tonight, since I didn't sleep enough last night (blame it on the alcohol, which was limited, and the construction that started IN THE RAIN at eight a.m., which was far more unlimited than I would have liked). And I have to get up at six-ish to go to the airport for my flight back to ye olde Iowa. But today was mostly good; I worked from home, which gave me an opportunity to pack and take care of random tings. And I got a v. restorative late-afternoon massage to kick my vacation off right, so that was awesome.

And the day (and my year in San Francisco) ended with dinner at Lauren and Nathan's house. Terry and I went over around seven, and we were treated to a v. California feast of roasted chicken, brussels sprouts, and a kale (and other greens) salad that was really quite tasty (don't tell anyone I said the kale was enjoyable). The company was, of course, excellent, even if I do recognize Subz's attempt to stave off my usual January/post-Christmas/post-Iowa malaise about how much I hate San Francisco. For now, at least, I love it.

But now I must sleep if I have any hope of making my flight - goodnight!

how am i gonna be an optimist about this

First and foremost, happy birthday to two of my favorite people: my mother (aka Jeanie Baby) and Chandlord (aka Vidius Chandicus)! Such an auspicious day!

Second and lessermost, I gave a presentation at eleven a.m. today, which went as well as I could have hoped...and as soon as it was over, I basically went into vacation mode even though I technically still had the rest of today and tomorrow to work. But it's been a really long quarter, and this was the last major thing on my agenda, and so I threw in the towel. That meant walking back to my office (and running into Dontae, who I managed a lifetime ago, and realizing that he also knows Viviana (a current member of my team), which was a surreal connection), and then having lunch with Dave at the new salad place on campus (verdict: I made a lot of bad choices, but it somehow turned out okay despite my inability to pick a course and stick to it...so despite having both chicken and carnitas, I somehow enjoyed it). And then I spent the afternoon taking some desultory meetings, leading another meeting (to which I brought champagne to celebrate being done with the presentation), and generally finishing things up and socializing with a variety of coworkers.

The late afternoon/evening was a shitshow; traffic was awful, as per usual, but I went to downtown MV to pick up something, talked to my mother for awhile, went to my favorite coffee place in PA to fortify myself for the drive, and finally left the south bay at 7:15, which meant I made it home in an hour and fifteen minutes (I know, so awesome). I sat at home and stared at the wall and ate some scrambled eggs and tried to decompress, but there wasn't enough decompression before it was time for the main event...

...and the main event was Chandlord's birthday party at Martuni's. She was in fine form even though she's now old, and I had an excellent time despite overheating and dying since I wore the sweater I wore to work rather than changing into something more bar-appropriate. Claude was there, which was delightful. Terry was also there, which was a lovely surprise, although she left two hours before I did. I also saw Maya, spent some quality time catching up with Jess, hung out with Adit and Priyanka, got relationship advice from Omar, and briefly chatted up Katrina and Rajiv. Yay.

I made it to midnight, but only barely...and now I must sleep if I have any hope of crushing my massive to-do list before leaving for Iowa. Goodnight!

you oughta know

I got home after ten, so this must needs be brief. But today was mostly good despite the fact that I spent no time in my house - I was out the door at 6:40, on campus by 7:50, and spent an hour catching up on general stuff at the coffee place on campus before going to my building and beginning the slog. However, it was less brutal than it's been in a long time - I only had a couple of meetings, and so I was able to plow through a bunch of emails and other random things that I'd been ignoring for days/weeks.

And at the end of it, I left the office and had a v. delightful friendship renewal dinner with Joann, Jen, Jane, and Tolu. Downtown Mountain View has turned into a total scene, and getting off campus at night is a train wreck, so we were all late (even Jen, who doesn't work where the rest of us do anymore). But we tried a new restaurant (Shell Shock), which was excellent - so excellent that we somehow spent an exorbitant amount of money because we ordered a shocking amount of food. But that was sufficient to sustain us while we discussed all manner of ridiculous occurrences that various members of the group have experienced since our last meeting five or six weeks ago.

Now, though, I must go to sleep. The other exciting thing, which I barely kept track of (okay, that's a lie, I was refreshing Amazon through every meeting I had today), was that I ran a BookBub on Alex and Prudence's book, which was sufficient to get it into the top 100 on Amazon, Apple, and Nook. So that's exciting! Hopefully that leads to more sales of the other books (at full price instead of the discount on this one), but either way it's a good thing. And now I'm really going to sleep - goodnight!

turn away and slam the door

The presentation I had to give today went mostly swimmingly (other than some vague disquietude over gender politics, which I've felt more in my current group than I felt in previous groups since there are fewer female leaders as I continue to climb the ladder (a ladder I never intended to return to, incidentally)). But that means that all that stands between me and two weeks of vacation is a few mostly pointless meetings, one more presentation, and some attempt to clear my inbox before ignoring everyone. I'm pretty sure I can survive for that long...

But at least today was mostly better than yesterday; I got up at 5:30 again, but I was able to leave at three, so that's something. Sadly, it started to rain just as I pulled out of the parking lot, and so it took an hour and a half to get home. But I made it, ate an apple, talked to [censored], did a bit of shopping, and then had dinner and a drink (well, I had two drinks and she had zero drinks) with Terry at my favorite French place. And while I plan to get up dreadfully early tomorrow as well, I'm in the home stretch and I don't expect anything dramatic to happen (knock on wood). To accomplish that, though, I must sleep immediately - goodnight!

save your advice cause I won't hear

I'm feeling substantially less #blessed tonight; I was at the office from 8am to 8:30pm, and very little of it was fun. In fact, perhaps the only fun I had was three minutes of whispered conversation with Eugene (the guy who put the noisemaker in my car, who is secretly extremely funny) while we were in a meeting together. Sigh.

But it's all okay, and while the downside of staying at work til 8:30 was that I had popcorn and string cheese for dinner, the upside was it took forty-five minutes to get home. And now I must sleep so I can do it again tomorrow (only with more giving of presentations and less writing of presentations). Goodnight!

happiness hit her like a bullet in the back

I rather wish I'd gotten more sleep than I got this weekend, but since it was all fun and I'm going to have two weeks to sleep in Iowa, I'm not going to regret any of this. Well, maybe I'll regret the fact that I have to commute tomorrow, since it just started raining again, which is going to doom me to misery.

But today was a lovely cap on a great few days before I have to return to the office again. I woke up of my own accord around eight, tried to sleep a bit longer and failed, and did some stuff online before showering and going down the street to have breakfast. Then I went to BevMo to buy gifts for some people at work (and champagne for myself) before getting my nails done. The nail-doing excursion took almost two hours, which was an hour longer than I wanted to spend at it, but that was my fault because I got a regular manicure instead of a gel one, and so I spent an extra thirty minutes sitting around reading while I waited for my nails to get extra dry so I wouldn't mangle them like I always do. Yes, that's an important thing to note here for posterity.

Then I grabbed coffee at Philz, came home, and spent most of the afternoon dealing with family stuff - I talked to both my siblings about Christmas and both my parents about life, all of which was v. necessary. Then I was going to go to the gym, but it turns out I should have gone earlier and talked to the siblings later, since the gym closed at five today. Thwarted (but secretly grateful, since I wasn't feeling great and wasn't eager to be there), I came home and finished the book I started last night (A PROMISE OF BLOOD, which I recommend to anyone who likes fantasy with some strong military elements - it's sort of a French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars with mages, and while it started a little slow, it was great by the end and I already bought the sequel).

Then I put on real clothes again and ventured to the Inner Sunset (I know, who goes there?) to have family dinner. We rendezvoused at Enjoy Vegetarian, and it was the usual suspects for family dinner (+ Claudia (aka Santy Claude during the holiday season), who was always part of the family but is now back full time). Chandlord, Katrina, Claude and I all showed up within ten minutes of the original start time (7), while Adit, Priyanka, John, and Jess were ten minutes late for the revised start time (7:30), so the first four to arrive split some appetizers and soup while waiting.

But then the eight of us gorged ourselves on fake meat and real hardhitting conversation (the origins of purple drank; Gilmore Girls; the recent photos of Prince George; Instagram; Claudia's tragic love affair with the viola; Mike Huckabee; mericles). We tried to convince Chandlord to do an opera bonfire for her birthday, but she'll probably just end up at Martuni's as per usual. We also checked out the Claudemobile. And we shut the party down (and by that I mean we were basically the only people there, and they were very eager to see us go when the restaurant closed at nine).

And now, feeling very #blessed, I must go to bed - goodnight!

we could be heroes

I'm too tired to blog (although not as tired as last night, when I was completely incoherent). This is probably to be expected, since I got less than five hours of sleep last night. And I had intended to go to bed at nine and sleep for nine or ten or twelve hours, but I accidentally stayed up reading until now.

However, today was just the lowkey day I needed - I ate lunch at the cafe down the street, went down to Fort Mason and read for a couple of hours while drinking tea, came home and messed around on the internet, and then went to Mezes and read for another couple of hours. And now I'm going to go to bed...I unfortunately have to do some day job work tomorrow, and I need to take care of my Christmas shopping before it's too late, but that's all eminently doable. Goodnight!

uh, about last night...

I rarely clarify posts, but after waking up and reading what I wrote as I was falling asleep last night, I feel that perhaps I didn't really do the evening justice. Also, I have no idea what I was saying when I said something about my soul betraying me. Also, I have no idea why I used a tag called 'predators', which I've never used before.

sssanyway. I actually wasn't particularly intoxicated when I wrote the post, but I was actively falling asleep as I was typing - I haven't stayed up until four a.m. in a million years, and since I've been getting up at 5:30 or 6, my body (rather than my soul) betrayed me. So I was clearly hallucinating while I was typing and thought that it made some semblance of sense. Or maybe the hallucinations were from the absinthe...but I get ahead of myself.

So to recap. Yesterday, as I kind of said, I worked, went to the gym, worked some more, and got my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed. Then I came home, lazed about, and got ready for my company holiday party, which was the first (and way more sedate) stop of the evening. I took Chandlord with me as my date, which made it as fun as it could be considering that we got there basically when it started and left before anything debauched occurred. The food was decent, the drinks were okay, and the line for absinthe was way too long and not worth it (although it was theoretically interesting to watch them pour it the way they're supposed to, with burning sugar and all that). And the cheese was, frankly, the best thing there, even if the French VP of the group thought it was only good enough for American peasants (my words, not his).

And then the evening went sideways, as I knew it would. If you read last night's post, Adit wasn't mentioned, but observant readers could probably guess his involvement. He and Priyanka had a holiday house party, so Chandlord and I arrived fashionably late and proceeded to party until the bitter end. All the usual suspects were there - I v. briefly saw Kristin and Folkman, whom I hadn't seen in ages, and I should have made it back to the yard to talk to them more, but I got distracted (probably by the punch, which we called 'purple drank' for a reason). Katrina was there, rocking some lovely hairstyle. John and Jess were obviously in the mix, as expected. Claudia (aka Santy Claude) is fully back from Yale, and it's still weird and wonderful to think that she's now here full-time. And there were all sorts of other characters from Adit's life, including his young cousin who wants me to write about NBA infidelity for my next romance novel (uh...), Omar (the only other person besides Adit to have visited my family in Iowa), and these guys named Rajiv and John who've never been mentioned here before, but with whom I spent much time in the kitchen continuing to spike the warm apple cider and throwing bread at Chandlord.

By three a.m. the party was more than over, so we left Adit and Priyanka to their own devices and Chandlord/John/Rajiv/I went to Sparky's. I'm getting to the age where I keep thinking that every three a.m. excursion to Sparky's is going to be my last, but when I start feeling old, I just need to tell myself, "You got this, girl," (as one drunk girl said to an even more drunk, stumbly girl while encouraging her to walk down the ramp to the exit). Then I got home at four, was sober enough to take off my eye makeup so that my eyelashes wouldn't glue themselves to my face forever, made an ill-fated attempt at blogging, and slept for three glorious hours before the construction started outside my window. Heh. So I put in earplugs and slept until ten, which is later than I thought possible at my advanced age.

So now you know what really happened. Maybe my soul did betray me last night, but we'll never know.

i'm up all night to get lucky

I haven't stayed up this late in ages...it's more likely that I would be getting up somewhere around this time, which is a scary and sobering thought. But I had to work today, so I took the necessary meetings from home, worked out at the gym, trained some more, and took a final group of training sessions before throwing in the towel.

My company holiday party was tonight, but I had Chandlord with me (lucky emo!} place. And that means hiding/playing dead until my soul betrays me.  Goodnight!

your face is all that i see, i'll give you everything

I scoffed at the #stormageddon this morning when I woke up at 6:30 to light rain and the pressing need to finalize edits on my slides and take a shower before my eight a.m. meeting. It's a good thing I did the slides first - just as I was about to blowdry my hair at 7:20 so that I could do some final prep with a coworker over videoconference at 7:30, my power went out. And it stayed out. That meant no internet, obvi. So I did the presentation, which was ostensibly the most important meeting of my week, partially on videoconference on my work phone (jhoke), and then over the phone after they dialed me in when my video failed (double jhoke). But I survived it, so that's good.

And then I debriefed with my coworker after the presentation, considered going to the SF office before my next meeting, and realized I couldn't get my car out of my garage. So I did another meeting over the phone, then canceled the remaining stuff I had on my calendar since it was ridiculous at that point. Happily, someone pried the garage door open then, so I vacated my house in search of a neighborhood with power and food. The power outage affected most of the north half of the city, so I rescued Kathia and took her to Morning Due, which I hadn't been to in ages. Happily I got a couple of good hours of work done, which I'll take. And when I got home at 1:30, my power had just come back on, so I think I'll survive the stormageddon. I also got my first parking ticket in San Francisco ever (it's a miracle I've made it this long) because they were actually doing street cleaning in the middle of the storm, which is a triple jhoke.

Then I came home, napped, worked some more, etc., before walking down to the Marina and meeting Kathia for another writing date. Then I had dinner with Lauren (aka Subz), which was v. lovely and v. overdue; I'd seen her a couple of times this month, but I hadn't seen her alone in a month and we had a lot to catch up on. So we spent two and a half hours lingering over our wine and talking about life, which was pretty much perfect (the conversation, not our lives, obvi). And then I walked home in the continuous, albeit light, rain, and now I'm going to go to sleep and hope that my power stays on tomorrow. Goodnight!

i'm thinking out loud

In a return to the bad old days of my day job (which I haven't experienced in ages), I just stayed up until midnight working on slides. Stupid. Since the meeting I'm presenting them in is at eight a.m., I'm not going to regale you with tales of my commute (horror show), nor will I bore you with any other whined recriminations about my work experience. Instead, I'm going to go to bed and hope that stormageddon doesn't wake me up before I'm ready to wake up - and that my internet doesn't go out during my presentation, since I fully intend to work from home. Goodnight!

place your head on my beating heart

The day job has been an endless progression of misery the past few weeks, and today was more of the same...so the less said, the better. If I didn't like the people I sit with so much, I would probably take the spear someone gave me last week and go out in a blaze of glory (and by that I mean I'd probably accidentally throw it into my own foot before resigning petulantly). But I do like my immediate coworkers a lot, and so I shall continue to slog despite my dreams of running away and going off the grid.

So, nothing else of interest happened; my commute was 90mins at 6:30am and another 90mins at 6pm, so that was miserable too. At least I trained with Alyssa. And at least I had a brief meeting with Chandlord. And at least tuna salad is a comfort food for me, since I had nothing to cook and didn't feel like going out. And at least these are all #firstworldproblems. And now I'm going to bed - goodnight!

tell me little girl is your daddy home

Today was a pretty horrible slog...I got to work at 8:15, had some meetings, had some other meetings rescheduled, spent far too much time brooding over various interpersonal fiascos, and tried to catch up on email.

Then I came home, did not pass go, did not collect two hundred dollars, and went straight to Des Amis, where I spent three hours formatting the print version of Thorington's book. It's done except for the cover, which I hope I can finish tomorrow...but I have meetings pretty much straight from eight to four, and I have two slide decks to make, and I'm a v v cranky camper as a result.

But this too shall pass, and I only have nine working days left before vacation, so I'm sure I can survive it. Goodnight!

kiss me under the light of a thousand stars

Today was less hermity than yesterday, which was probably a good thing, although I would have liked a bit more sleep to have started it off. But I slept badly last night, woke up cranky, and eventually forced myself to rally so that I wouldn't be as annoyed as I was most of last week. That meant making eggs for breakfast, then meeting up with Kathia for a writing date at Goody. I officially started working on Rafe and Octavia's story, which was oddly quite exciting - I have no real idea what happens, and obviously this is a long journey that begins with a single step, but it was nice to spend a couple of hours writing out thoughts about their characters and what they might become together.

After that, I went to the gym and did some kettlebell-type stuff (weird, I know) and had a late lunch at the new cafe next door. Then I came home, talked to Katie (the queen of my heart), and talked to my parents (also important to my heart). And then I showered and went straight to dinner - I met up with Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, and Terry at Dosa, which is tasty but rather overpriced Indian food on Fillmore. We had a lovely time catching up before Lauren and Terry went to the movie they'd bought tickets before, and Nathan and I stayed behind to settle up the bill and talk about careers and real estate like all thirty-somethings do.

And now, even though it's barely past nine, I'm going to go to bed to catch up on last night's abysmal sleep, then hopefully get up early so I can do some of the stuff I should have done this weekend. Goodnight!

then you jerk it out

I had a v. quiet, v. hermity day today, which was mostly what I needed. However, I did make it out to have breakfast down the street, and I made it out again to take a long walk around the neighborhood (during which I ran into Julie, which was awesome!) and grab an iced latte. And the highlight of the day, of course, was having dinner with Claudia (aka Santy Claude) - she was good enough to drive to my neighborhood, and then we had supper at my favorite Greek place, which was delightful. We ended up having tea at my place before she drove home, and it's so great that she's back in the area so that this will be a much more regular occurrence.

But now I need to sleep - I have actual stuff to do tomorrow and I should really buckle down and get it done, so sleeping in advance of commencing with the slog is imperative. Goodnight!

and now my eyes are open, and now my heart is closing

Today was not really the kind of day I want to repeat...I'm feeling v. meh about work in general and all the things on my to-do list in particular, and I wasn't happy to be in the office. Since I didn't get to leave until 3:30, I feared the worst in terms of getting home, but I survived the commute and managed to have dinner and (bad) drinks with Terry, so that's good. And now I'm going to pursue the oh-so-exciting plan of reading a book and going to bed - goodnight!

you better kiss me before our time has run out

I'm feeling a bit stressed tonight, and my morning was not smooth enough to set me up for total success, so this is going to be brief. I woke up at 5:15 as planned, which meant I was able to get ready in time to leave at a reasonable (translation: insanely early) hour, but since I had trouble sleeping last night, that wasn't as pleasant as it might have been. Also, my smoke detector went off for no reason at 6am, so I had to spend several ear-shattering minutes dealing with that. Thus already in a surly mood, I drove to work, where I spent an hour and a half working on the paperback version of Thorington's book while drinking a latte, and then spent many hours slogging.

Of course, it wasn't all bad (since my perks are ridic); I had lunch with several people at the Indian place on campus, and we stopped at one of the baristas after. Since I'd had tea and a latte in the morning and had two cups of chai at lunch, I refrained from having more coffee - which is probably all that saved me from having a heart attack, since I was wildly jittery all afternoon. Caffeine, combined with anticipation of more possible pain to come at work in the next few days, made for a crazy afternoon, and I crashed as soon as I got home. But my attempt at a nap was thwarted by my racing thoughts, so I walked down to my favorite Greek place on Chestnut, where I've quickly befriended the bartender, which resulted in extra wine (and a long conversation about my romance writing, since I divulged my not-so-secret profession to him and so had to explain all of it while eating my chicken skewers). The wine + some brainstorming in my journal helped to soothe my thoughts, so I came home, took care of some tings, and am now going to sleep. I have to go to the south bay tomorrow to train with Alyssa + take some meetings that could be either horrible or great, so we'll see how that goes. Goodnight!

ay amor, me duele tanto

My plan to wake up at 5:15am and go to work super early to beat traffic was successful, so I'm going to go for it again tomorrow. Granted, even at 6:15 it still took an hour, but that's so much better than any other morning commute I've had recently that I'm going to take it. And that was with continual rain + flooding on some streets, so really, it was as good as it could have been.

Yes, I know it's boring that all I talk about is my commute, but it's rather top of mind right now. Getting to work at seven meant that I was able to slog pretty relentlessly all day, leave at 3:30, and still feel like I'd put in everything I was required to put in. So I came home (traffic back was good as well!), ate a snack, took a long walk to make up for the fact that I'd chained myself to my desk during the day, and then ate leftover fish for supper. I'm living the dream.

But now I'm going to go to bed and try this all again tomorrow - but I think I'll do some of my own stuff in the morning (either format the paperback of Thorington's book, or work on my secret non-gargoyle young adult book - I was rereading some of it tonight and want to try to work on it on the side while I write the next romance novel). And I have a team lunch tomorrow at the Indian place on campus, which was rather unfortunately referenced when attempting to explain to a girl on our team what 'sharting' is (the people in my cube are highly professional). And then I may try to sneak out early, unless I get dragged into anything, at which point I'll probably decided to stay in the south bay until judgment day. Wish me luck with all of that - goodnight!

a sky full of stars

It's not quite nine, but I'm going to bed and am going to force myself to get up early tomorrow. The commute today was brutal, even leaving at 9:50 and going down 280 to train with Alyssa - I heard horror stories of 2.5hr commutes from some of the people on my team, and I would rather die than go through that tomorrow (note: that's a slight exaggeration). So going to bed early is crucial.

But today was pretty good despite the commute. I took some meetings from home, ate breakfast, and trained with Alyssa, who was in fine form (and I finally seem to have figured out how to do proper kettle bell snatches, so that's exciting). Then I went to work and slogged for a couple of hours, but I knew traffic back was going to be awful too, so I left early. That put me back in the city in time to buy groceries and cook supper for the first time in forever...I made a v v tasty tilapia with a topping of tomatoes, onion, olives, capers, and spinach, which made me super happy.

Then I took care of business, read a bit, and started to fall asleep over the book, which bodes well for my octogenarian bedtime schemes. Goodnight!

she says you're like a disease without any cure

So much for my attempt to get back onto my absurdly early schedule. I'm pretty sure Hawaii completely obliterated the post-Frankfurt early-to-rise situation, which is not the end of the world...but despite my attempt to wake up at 5:40 (which turned into 6:15), I didn't make it out the door until seven, which meant it took ninety minutes to get to the office. Boo.

But the office was fine, as such things go; I made it through some email, had a couple of meetings, and had lunch with Alaska Matt, which was the highlight of the day and the only reason I even bothered to go into the office. He was in fine form, and we caught up over our usual Mexican food in the corner of a cafe where no one can overhear us. Then I slogged some more, but I left a little before four so that I could try to beat traffic, and I miraculously made it home in an hour. Since I got home early, I took the highly unusual move of going for a walk, since I was trying to increase my steps after a v. sedentary day. The walk did me a lot more good than staring at my sales rankings would have done (even though the sales are good, tanks for asking).

Then I took a v. quick shower, put on real clothes again, and met up with Chandlord (aka Vidius Chandicus) for dinner at Nob Hill Cafe. We both had gnocchi and wine, and it was delightful to catch up in a secluded, slightly strange, highly delicious environment. Then she dragged me to a free concert that she'd been invited to by her former real estate agent (weird, I know) - it was in the Masonic Center, which was cool to see inside of, but the concert was extremely sparsely attended (too bad since the band was actually okay), so we only stayed for a couple of songs (mostly to watch the videographer, who was filming the band while skating around on roller skates, which I suppose created a poor man's tracking shot). Then Chandlord showed me her new apartment, which is gorgeous. And then I walked home from Nob Hill, which was luckily downhill, so I survived it.

And now I must sleep so I can try again tomorrow - but I already doubt that I will get up early, since I decided not to try to get into the office before my eight a.m. meeting. I'll have to go down later to train with Alyssa, but attempting to get up at five tomorrow is a fool's errand. Goodnight!

i guess that's deja vu

Another rainy, boring (for you) day that left me feeling v. content with how much I got done and what I'm up to in general. Yes, that's a sentence fragment - clearly I'm not ready to start writing Rafe and Octavia's story yet. I slept until eightish, took care of some stuff online, got dressed, chatted with [censored], and then went out into the rain to get a manicure (so wonderful, so unnecessary). After I was properly painted, I grabbed lunch, then came home and worked on stuff all afternoon. This mostly consisted of taking care of tings in and around my desk; I'm still not through my horribly massive to-do list, but I'm happy with what I got done today.

I had intended to be social tonight (and I actually had three potential plans, which is three more than I usually have), but I was committed to hanging out with Terry since she's going to NYC tomorrow. However, she's also deathly ill, so we had a v. low-key evening and stayed close to home so she could recuperate. And when we were done catching up, I gave up on the idea of being more productive (see: attempting to be kinder to myself, Day 1) and instead put some face products on my skin and read a book for the last thirty minutes.

But even though it's only nine p.m., I'm going to go to bed and hope that I can miraculously readjust to my weird early-to-bed, early-to-rise ways from pre-vacation - as bad as the commute has been, getting up super early is my only hope. Goodnight!

just when you think that you're in control...just when you get on a roll

Today was entirely dedicated to getting through some long-standing items on my to-do list. This is all going to be entirely boring for you, so I'll gloss over it - I had breakfast down the street, did some banking-related activities, did some clothes-purchasing activities, came home and said goodbye to Terry's family, and then spent the afternoon cleaning out my linen closet. 'Linen closet' is a bit of a misnomer since it's also the closet where I keep my makeup, toiletries, first aid items, purses, and gym stuff, and it had all become a horrifying, unnavigable mess in the last few months as I kept dumping stuff into it and ignoring it in the interest of staying focused on my book. But it's clean now, and while I have to haul several bags of stuff downstairs tomorrow, this is all a good thing.

But I stopped at six, took a shower, and rendezvoused with Kathia for dinner at Aix and a drink after at Nectar. I hadn't seen her in three weeks, and the last time I saw her was the first time I'd seen her since before I went to Germany and she went to Italy, so we were v. long overdue for a catch-up. This was properly accomplished over dinner (I am appalled at myself for becoming someone who eagerly orders the beet salad), and we continued by drinking wine at Nectar (where they attempted to overserve us, but I walked away from a half-full glass so that I could maintain my intended limit in hopes of sleeping tonight and working tomorrow).

And now I must sleep; I still have a lot of random stuff that I want to take care of tomorrow, although the most important task is working on the paperback formatting for my latest release (which I can perhaps do before work a couple of mornings this week, but it would be a good idea to start on it tomorrow). Goodnight!

outside it starts to pour

Today was a perfectly relaxing day, but I think I shall start being productive tomorrow. I woke up later than I thought I would but earlier than I wanted to and drove to the south bay to train with Alyssa, since I'd already missed one session this week and didn't want to miss another. She was in good form, and she also forced me up to swinging the 24kg bell, which was an interesting experience (interesting in that it didn't kill me, so I think that's a good thing?). After training, we had lunch together at Joanie's since I didn't have to work and she was done for the day, and we caught up on life and my goals for the next few months, which was v. nice. Then I grabbed a coffee at Philz, drove home, talked to Terry's family, and immediately vacated the premises for a waxing appointment.

But my vacating wasn't long enough, and when I came back they were all still here [note: this is not actually a hardship, but since I'm feeling rather hermity, I like to pretend this is the biggest tragedy ever]. So I went with Terry and a couple of her female relatives to get pedicures, which was lovely. Then I vacated the premises again to have dinner by myself, since I really did need some solitude. I ended up at my favorite Greek place, where it became clear that I've successfully befriended the bartender since I only paid for two glasses of wine, but had something more like four glasses of wine + a tiny glass of dessert-style sweet Riesling (note: I did not ask for the extra wine or the 'dessert'). This was all much appreciated, of course. I also spent some quality time reading on my tablet; Alyssa recommended some self-help book that I'm still on the fence over, but it might be thought-provoking, so I'm going to keep going for awhile.

Then I came home, hung out with Terry's family for a couple of hours, and am now going to sleep so that I can attempt productivity tomorrow. I have nothing truly pressing, but I'd like to cross some longstanding life to-dos off my list, so we'll see what I can accomplish in the rain. Goodnight!

i hate the beach, but here i stand in california with my toes in the sand

I'm happy to report that I'm back from Hawaii, miraculously on time and somehow not sunburned despite spending four days doing nothing but subjecting my alabaster skin to the sun. As much as I was ready to go home, I will admit that it was a little sad that I didn't get to lie in the sun anymore today - I had to leave the hotel around ten to take Heather (aka dear respected madam) to her new hotel on the other side of the island before driving back to the airport and returning the rental car. But Heather and I had breakfast together before parting ways, so that was lovely. And the rest of my day was entirely uneventful - I was ridiculously early to the airport, which was sucked up by the place where I ate lunch taking 45mins to make my food, so I didn't really sit around at the gate before boarding. I had used miles to upgrade to first class, which was a totally winning move - that gave me five hours in a little cocoon of solitude to do some work and continue my daydreaming.

And now that I'm home safe in my own bed, with San Francisco's fog blanketing the city and erasing all memory of the sun, it's time for bed - I have grand plans to train with Alyssa tomorrow and then start repairing the shambles I've made of my life by ignoring everything but the book and the day job for the last two (three, four, six) months, so wish me luck with that. Goodnight!

we gonna party like it's your birthday

Today was a perfectly lazy end to an exceedingly lazy vacation. We woke up relatively early and had breakfast, and then I laid by the pool and didn't do anything other than reapply sunscreen until three pm. I think it's good that I'm going home tomorrow since I would get bored of lying around and being in my own head if I repeated this again, but this had been an awesome break from everything. And I'm definitely going to miss the sun, particularly since it looks like it's going to storm in the bay area this weekend.

But I'm ready to go home, and I'm ready to not travel quite so much next year (although I always say that, so let's see what I actually do). Heather and I ended the trip on a high note - we went to a luau at Lahaina, where they had a big buffet and a lot of awesome dancing. Heather's cousin works there, so our seats were in a great location...but unfortunately we shared a table with three newlywed couples, which was nigh on insufferable since they spent the whole conversation comparing notes about their weddings and engagements. Ugh. But the dancing was great and it was good to get out of the hotel area, so it was definitely worth going to.

But now I must sleep - my flight is at a reasonable hour tomorrow, but I'm taking Heather to another hotel across the island first since she's staying a couple of extra days, so I can't dilly-dally. Goodnight! And have a great thanksgiving!

i'm just gonna shake shake shake shake shake

First, allow me to say, if you haven't figured it out already, that all entries in Hawaii are typed on my phone. So if you see weird typos, don't assume I'm failing to shower you with my usual attention to detail!

Second, today was again incredibly lazy. Heather and I had breakfast, and then I laid out by the pool for a couple of hours, daydreamed about Rafe, and contemplated life. Then I had a spa treatment, which was completely perfect. Heather had gotten a couple as well, and we rendezvoused in the quiet room after and chatted until we were ready to leave. Then we had an early dinner/drinks in the lounge before coming back to the room and reading - I finished the latest Kresley Cole book, which I'd been looking forward to for four years and so was, sadly, a bit disappointed by.

But now I'm going to continue my relaxation and go to bed - goodnight!

or it can be over, or we can just leave it here

Today was exactly the repeat of yesterday that I had hoped for - I got nine hours of sleep instead of five, I didn't drink enough to get dehydrated, and it was all v wonderful. Heather and I had breakfast together, and then I took a walk (shorter than it probably should have been, but I felt smug anyway) before putting on my swimsuit, dousing myself in sunscreen, and worshipping Apollo.

That continued throughout the day, with a bit of reading (about Charlemagne, because I'm a dork), some drinking of pina coladas some pool time, some lunch, and a whole lot of listening to music and letting my thoughts wander. I came in around five (with only a bit of burn on my chest, which is a miracle), took a short, read, curled my hair, and generally got ready.

Our destination tonight was Nick's Fish Market, with was awesome - my snapper was perfect, and the wine was delightful. And the company was awesome too, of course. But now I feel like sleeping so I can hit the relaxation even harder tomorrow - goodnight!

but she still likes to dance with my punchlines

Today was an extraordinarily lazy day, even by vacation standards. It started far earlier than intended - I woke up at six, after 5.5hrs of sleep, and couldn't go back to sleep because my body is insisting on becoming a morning person. Stupid. So Heather and I hung out on the balcony for a bit, then had breakfast (mostly good, although they refused to serve me a mimosa because I'd left my ID in the room and I apparently look twelve without makeup).

And then we spent the entire rest of the day by the pool. I had 3.5 mai tais, and yet I managed to not burn myself (even when I fell asleep) or drown, and I had my usual call with my parents, so I felt like it was quite successful.

But I was wiped out from lack of sleep and dehydration, so even though I showered and made myself up, I was quite happy to encourage Heather to order room service instead. And I started reading a Kresley Cole book just to keep myself awake, since I desperately wanted to sleep at eight pm and knew that giving into that desire was madness. But now that I've made it to 10:30, I'm going to go to bed and hope tomorrow is a glorious repeat of today (but with more sleep and water). Goodnight!

caught in the undertow

I'm in Maui, bitches! Maybe that's not a kind thing to say to those of you who aren't here, but #sorrynotsorry. Today was entirely taken up with getting ready for and leaving on my trip. I got up reasonably early and packed, then had brunch with Terry at my favorite cafe (where Tony, the owner, gave us mimosas for thanksgiving). After brunch, I sped over to my nail place to get them to fix a premature chip in my manicure (I'm insufferable these days), picked up some last minute tings, and then did an hour of day job work to leave things in good shape for my absence.

And then I went to the airposte, sped through security, ate a late lunch, grabbed some coffee, and departed slightly late but mostly without incident. I spent the plane ride drinking a glass of champagne (well, cava, but I can suffer pedestrian sparkling wines occasionally) and reading a book - I got all the way through THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN, a vampire YA that I really mostly liked. I finished it at the Maui airport while waiting for Heather, who landed twenty minutes after me...and then our vacation began in earnest.

We found the rental car with nowhere near as much trouble as the experience I had picking up a rental car in Germany last month, then drove to our hotel. We are staying in a deliciously fancy place, where we had deliciously fancy cocktails and I embraced the fact that I may be the only person I know who genuinely enjoys mai tais. We also ate a late dinner while beginning to catch up - I've barely seen Heather (aka dear respected madam) in months, so our days of solitude together are long overdue.

But now it's 12:30am here, which is 2:30am in California, and I'm desperate to sleep so that I can spend tomorrow pursuing either cirrhosis or melanoma. Goodnight!

every second i waste is more than i can take

The only thing that matters is that I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow. YAY. My flight isn't until fourish, which is good since I haven't started packing and still have some work to do. But today was long and somewhat tiring - my workout with Alyssa was good enough that I'll probably be sore tomorrow, and then I slogged quite diligently until it was time to leave the office to beat traffic. And then I spent the evening running errands and having dinner with Terry, all of which was necessary to get me ready for my trip.

But now I should sleep - even though it's still early, I'm too wiped out to do anything effectively, and I'd rather get nine hours of sleep and then take care of business. Goodnight!

the cold never bothered me anyway

If every day was like today, I would probably quit my job and go off the grid forevermore. Not that the job itself was that bad (although it wasn't pretty) - the real issue was my commute, which took an hour and twenty minutes when I left my house at 6:30, and took another hour and twenty minutes when I left my office at 8pm. Ugh. The rain today was a good thing, but it made for a miserable day...

...but that's all you get tonight, since I need to do it again tomorrow. And then the next day I get to go to Hawaii, which will be infinitely better. Goodnight!

i'm friends with the monster that's under my bed

I had a fairly awesome day, all things considered - I was able to sleep until 7:30, and then I took a single meeting from nine to ten before calling my father to wish him happy birthday (happy birthday, Dad!). Then I left for my team's offsite in Half Moon Bay (with a quick stop to get coffee, followed by several stops to pick up various coworkers in the city on the way).

The offsite actually went smashingly, despite the weather - it rained for the first time in forever, which was v. poor timing, but everyone seemed to have a great time despite it. We had lunch at Sam's Chowder House - the food was delish, and we had a room to ourselves, and I enjoyed the wine (which makes sense, since I picked it). We also played a trivia game about the team, which was just enough enforced team fun to feel okay without being onerous. Then we adjourned to the beach for ten minutes to say we did it, but as it had begun to rain, ten minutes was more than enough. Instead, we went down the road to Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, where we hung out in the bar, and where some people played games while others talked and drank, etc.

So that was all perfectly lovely. We left Half Moon Bay around 4:15, and I was home by 5:30 (it would have been a lot sooner, since there was no traffic, but I had to drop all these fools off in different corners of the city). Then I had an hour to mess around before going around the corner to have dinner with Jenni - I hadn't seen her in many months, which is crazy, and so we were very long overdue for a catch-up. We accomplished this over wine and salad at Ottimista Enoteca, and are now committed to getting together and catching up again after the holidays. Then I came home, tried out my new curling iron (success), and am now going to take my curly-haired self to bed so I can get up super early and beat traffic. Goodnight!

come on baby in our dreams, we can live our misbehavior

My headache is still going strong after a week of mostly-headachy situations, but I'm hoping that some relaxation at my team's offsite tomorrow will help. Granted, it's probably going to rain and ruin everything, but at least I can sleep in a bit since I'm leaving from San Francisco rather than having to navigate my horrendous commute. Today was mostly okay, though; I took two hours of meetings from home, drove down and trained with Alyssa, showered, had lunch, did a bit of work, and then took some much-needed moments of solitude to grab coffee from another building. And then I had meetings the rest of the day, but I didn't murder (or even want to murder!) anyone during them, so I think that's a good thing?

But then I had a v. lovely dinner with Joann; we tried to go to our usual sushi place, but it apparently closed down, so we ended up with Chinese instead. Our conversation was by turns hilarious and heartwrenching, and it was great to hang out with her (as it always is). And now I'm going to try to get nine hours of sleep and hope it kills my headache - goodnight!

if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all

I had a smashing headache all day today, which was only relieved by taking four ibuprofen at lunch - but I can't keep taking that much ibuprofen or else it will destroy my stomach, so I'm going to have to find some other way to clear the stress. It probably didn't help that I only got six hours of sleep tonight, so I'm going to rectify that by going to bed at nine p.m. like an octogenarian.

But the day was kind of aight, I guess; I went in early and grabbed a latte before doing a bit of stuff for my own life, and then slogged through meetings, etc. until five. My team had a bake-off, which I didn't participate in since I was lazy this weekend - and I'm glad I didn't participate, since someone sabotaged the voting, which was annoying but also something I didn't really have the energy to intervene in. And to be fair, the voting process was very ill-defined and ripe for sabotage, but still. There were other, far more annoying things going on, but a bake-off is fairly non-confidential and non-controversial, so I'll just chalk that up as the only upsetting thing that happened and leave you in perpetual suspense about the rest of it.

The drive home took an hour and a half, but I didn't shoot myself, so that was great. Then I went to my favorite French place, which may have been ill-advised since I just wanted to get some work done and instead ended up talking to the manager the whole time. Oops. And now I'm going to go to bed and set the intention of waking up tomorrow without a headache so that I can get shit done and stop being annoyed. Goodnight!

erdy flerdy borg borg borg

I finished the weekend in style, let me tell you. I went to the grocery store relatively early this morning, where I threw money at the problem of tonight's dinner by buying fancy cheeses and jams and wines so that I could hoodwink my guests into thinking I had expended some effort toward the task of entertaining them. Then I went to my favorite mani/pedi place, where I threw money at the problem of trying to look like a real girl instead of a crazed hermit troll. And then, once I looked like a real girl again, I went to the florist and threw money at the problem of trying to make my home look like a home instead of a cave where I hide from sunlight.

sssanyway, after throwing money at a lot of problems, I had a v. late lunch, threw some more money at the problem of not having plaid pants (solved!), and then came home, cleaned my room, folded some laundry, and talked to my parents. And then I prepared for the main event - family dinner to celebrate the launch of my latest book.

Family dinner was the same as always, which meant that it was a special and highly ridiculous evening full of merriment, embarrassment, and general contentment with life. We had a full house (Terry (obvi), Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, Chandlord (aka Chandlord), John, Jess, and Adit), and the conversation was all v. entertaining (particularly when Nathan, in all seriousness, suggested that I write choose your own adventure romance novels, which left everyone else dying since Adit has been pushing this idea for over four years without Nathan realizing it). Then, to honor (or debase) my book launch, they took turns reading part of one of the sex scenes - this is almost becoming a tradition of sorts, which is v. strange and v. funny. Jess tried an Australian accent (A for Effort), John programmed his section to be read by a Stephen Hawking voice (which will live on in my nightmares forever), Adit critiqued every line as he read it (excruciatingly funny), and Nathan went Swedish Chef on it, which was just bizarre. So, while I was laughing so hard that I was crying, and I might have been crying because hearing a sex scene read out loud makes it all sound weird and uncomfortable, it was all v. funny.

Sadly, though, all things come to an end, and I must sleep so that I can go to work early tomorrow (stupid day job - after tonight, I either want to write Rafe's book immediately or crawl under a rock and hope no one ever reads my sex scenes again (but I think the right answer is Rafe - I happen to like my sex scenes, even if they don't stand up to the Stephen Hawking test)). Goodnight!

you take me by the heart when you take me by the hand

I did no work of any kind at all today, beyond making a to-do list. I am as shocked as you are.

I could probably leave it at that, since all of your heads have exploded from the impossibility of the earlier statement and I have no readers left, but I'll persevere for posterity. I woke up relatively early this morning and went to breakfast at my favorite cafe at 8:45ish, where I wrote the aforementioned to-do lists, wrote in my journal, and lingered over my coffee. But as I was paying, I got a text from Adit asking if I wanted to go on a hike. This is the kind of text that I usually ignore since I usually feel like I have to work, but since I was determined to relax today and knew I could only do it if I was forced to, I said yes. So he and Priyanka (and their friend Blake) picked me up, and we went over the Golden Gate to Mt. Tam to pursue our adventure.

It was a perfectly gorgeous day for this - a bit cool, but not too cool (and certainly not as cool as those of you suffering from polar vortices), and the forest was amazing. We parked and went ~3mi down Steep Ravine trail, which was, unsurprisingly, a trail down a steep ravine from the mountain to the ocean at Stinson Beach. It wasn't ridiculously crazy steep, although there was one point that required climbing down a ladder, but I was perhaps too focused on placing my feet in such a way as to not slip on a wet rock and die that I didn't look up at the redwoods as much as I probably should have. But it was a great outing, and none of us died, so that was a bonus.

When we got near the beach, we parted ways; Adit and Blake ran back up the other half of the trail to retrieve the car (fools, but I'm grateful they did it), while Priyanka and I took a leisurely stroll into Stinson Beach, split a vanilla milkshake, and sat on the beach talking about romance novels and life in general while we waited for our ride. I think we got the better end of the deal. Then we drove home, and I had exactly twenty minutes to shower off the worst of the sand and sweat before getting a massage. The massage was only aight, probably because I require a deep connection with my massage therapist and I knew within seconds that this woman wasn't it.

Yes, this entire post reinforces that I've become entirely too upscale-but-crunchy-California and must be euthanized.

sssanyway, after the massage I came home, showered again, and then dragged Terry to my favorite Greek place, where we befriended the bartender (Marco, whom I'd met before) and ate chicken and drank wine and discussed v. strange recurring nightmares. Then we came home, I finished THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS (also aight), and now I'm going to rest my legs (jawbone says I took 22000 steps today!) and sleep. Goodnight!

i still wake up, i still see your ghost

I stayed up much later than I intended, which typically only happens when I a) read a book or b) go out with Adit. In this case, I chose option a) THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS, which I'm enjoying so far - I'm about two-thirds in, and since I was in the mood for young adult fantasy, it's fitting the bill quite nicely.

It's also fitting the bill quite nicely for relaxing from my totally horrific and annoying week. Today was better in some ways, worse in others; I was able to sleep until sevenish (although I didn't quite accomplish that blessed feat), and I made it into the SF office by nine so that I could have breakfast and get some work done. My only scheduled meeting of the day went better than I expected it to (even if it means more work for me later), and then I spent some time working in the sun on one of the balconies before deciding to meet a coworker for lunch. Not the most satisfying lunch I've ever had, since I would have rather been at home (or at any of my favorite restaurants on Union Street), but I suppose the free bacon was worth it.

Then I came home with intentions to secretly slack off, but as soon as I got here I was pinged for something, which then plunged me into two hours of highly annoying conversations (interspersed with other work, since I couldn't follow up with everyone all at once). By 4ish I was nearly vibrating with anger, and I was just about to throw my laptop out the window and go on a bender when Terry arrived, fresh from NYC. We had agreed to have dinner tonight, which may have been a poor idea on her part given my general rage levels, but she rallied by five and we went to Sabrosa, where tacos and guacamole and margaritas went a long way toward restoring my equilibrium. Then we came home, I contemplated whether to do anything more fun (or at least more suitable for the life of a single person in San Francisco), and instead decided to follow my instincts and read instead.

And that's all. I was supposed to go to Portland this weekend, but I canceled in favor of doing some marketing stuff for Thorington + generally relaxing + maybe trying to get my shit together and get on top of things before I go to Hawaii next weekend. I'm v. glad I decided this - if my blog doesn't sound sufficiently relaxed this weekend, please smack me. Goodnight!

rumors follow everywhere you go

I had a v long day, but it ended well - after training with Alyssa, having a bunch of meetings, and doing some more work, I ultimately met Claudia for sushi at Wayo. It was delicious (albeit slow), and it was great to catch up again (and to know we can now catch up whenever we want!). Then we adjourned to Chandlord's, where we had wine with Vidya and Katrina while failing to help Chandlord pack.

But now I need to sleep even though I left out all the interesting parts - goodnught!

all the bad boys are standing in the shadows

Considering I worked from home today and was able to sleep in, I'm surprisingly tired - but I suppose that's to be expected since I didn't sleep much the night before. My day was mostly boring; I did a couple of meetings from home, worked on some stuff, and had a late lunch down the street at my favorite brunch place. I talked to the owner (Tony) while I was eating, whom I adore; he'd just gotten my newsletter announcing my newest book (I was supremely touched that he'd signed up for it), so he congratulated me for that, and then we talked for half an hour or so. He told me an amazing story about how his father, who was Italian but born in Australia, was deported from Australia along with his family at the start of WWII (when Tony's father would have been around six), and how they had to take a ship to Japan (on an hour's notice), followed by a train across Russia, etc., and it took them almost three months to get back to Italy. Crazytown.

Then I came home, slogged some more, and then snuck out (is it sneaking when no one cares?) to get my hair cut and my brows tinted and waxed so that I look like a real girl again. My stylist ended up curling my hair for me to show me a different way of styling it since she refused point-blank to chop it all off despite me being in the mood for it, and I liked it well enough that I bought a curling iron tonight. Ha. After the salon, I came home long enough to drop my stuff and take a power nap, and then I went to Des Amis and contemplated working but instead wrote in my journal and contemplated never working on anything ever again.

But now I must sleep if I'm to survive tomorrow - goodnight!

if i recover, will you be my comfort

Today was possibly the most brutal day I've had in months. I know it's hard to believe that, and even as I type it I'm not sure it's true. But after going to bed at nine last night like a geriatric, I woke up sometime right after midnight and didn't fall asleep again until at least three. My stomach was aching and my thought were churning, and that combination made for a night in which I got less than five hours of sleep. Ugh.

So, thus feeling not refreshed at all, I got out of bed around 5:40 and made it out the door by 6:15, which meant I made it to campus by 7:15 and had an hour to do work before starting my meetings. I also had time to grab a chicken hash with scrambled eggs, which was divine. Then I slogged through meetings before sneaking out to see Alyssa. She continues to press the nefarious kettlebell agenda, and I continue to secretly enjoy it even when I slam 12kg of weight into my wrists like an idiot.

After that, I went back to work, showered, had a couple of meetings, and then was surprised and delighted when my team brought champagne to celebrate my latest book's release. I was perhaps too tired and emotionally drained (book releases will do that to you, apparently) to fully enjoy the festivities, but champagne always makes things better (see Napoleon's quote: "in victory you deserve champagne, in defeat you need it"). Then I had another meeting before peacing out to drive home, where I took a six p.m. call that got on my last fucking nerve.

But the call ended, as all things that get on my last fucking nerve do. And so I took a ten minute nap, put on some prettier clothes, called an Uber, and met up with Lauren (aka Subz) for dinner at Troya. It was absolutely delish, although I probably would have thought Jack in the Box was absolutely delish if I'd had 2.5 glasses of zinfandel and an awesome conversation with Lauren. But I think the food was actually good, from what I remember of it. And it was so soothing to my heart and soul to hang out with Lauren, since she tends to help me find perspective on all the stupid side job stuff that comes up throughout life.

So that was all good. Then I walked home down the Fillmore steps (which always give me weird vertigo), washed my face, and then wrote this blog. And if you've read this far, you're all caught up - congrats! and goodnight!

it's such a pity, a boy so pretty

Today was ridiculously long - I left by 6:25am and didn't get home until 8:15pm, if that tells you anything. And the slogging was pretty brutal. And I'm far too tired to make sense of anything, or to be coherent, so I'm going to sleep and hope tomorrow is better. Goodnight!

if i ever did that, i think i'd have a heart attack

I know, I know - I said last night that I was going to celebrate, but I spent most of today working. Whatever. I want to get some marketing-type stuff done over the next few days so I can make the book more successful, and today was a good day for it since I didn't have day job stuff to do. So I slogged all morning and into the early afternoon - mostly updating my website, which is woefully out of date, which was an annoying but necessary task. I'm not quite done with the updates, but it's getting there. Unfortunately, I didn't get to all twenty things on my to-do list, but I have high hopes that I can get some of it done if I get to the office early...

...which means I need to go to bed right now. But suffice it to say that I didn't work *that* hard this afternoon/evening - I went to the gym, came home and showered, talked to my parents, and then met up with Kathia (remember her?) for a glass of wine. I hadn't seen her since before I left for Germany, since she was in Italy for most of the last month, and we were overdue for a catch-up. But one glass of wine turned into two glasses of wine and some champagne (mostly thanks to the owner, who kept pouring for us even though we didn't ask for it), and since I forgot to eat after the gym, I was suddenly tipsy and unable to focus on anything other than the fact that they were playing 'Gladiator' with Russell Crowe behind Kathia. Oops. But it was great to see her, and I'm looking forward to being reunited with her.

Now, though, I must sleep if I have any hope of beating traffic tomorrow - goodnight!

take it off now boy

I finally did it...Thorington is out in the wild where he belongs. You can get it now on Amazon or Kobo; the other vendors are taking their sweet time, as per usual, but it should be live everywhere in the next couple of days. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I am crossing my fingers that it does well now that I've kicked it out of the next. The next couple of days are a stealth release while I wait for it to go live everywhere, and then I need to do some massive promoting next week to make it soar. Or something.

So obviously this was the most exciting thing (pretty much the only thing) that happened today. I woke up before seven and started working straightaway, since I wanted to get through the last pass of changes and tweak all the epubs. I got the changes done and squared away before it was time to shower and meet someone for brunch - one of the romance readers I've hung out with several times at various conferences over the years was in SF this weekend, and so she and her sister and I met up for brunch at Park Chow. It was fun to see her, and I'm glad we got to interact now since I may be cutting back on my travel plans next year and probably won't be at any big fan-focused events for awhile (short story: I'm burned out on travel and don't think I get as much return on the investment of going as it costs me in time and energy).

After that, I came home and slogged straight through to get all the epubs tweaked, upload them to all my ereaders to check the formatting, and then publish them to the various bookstores. I'm pretty efficient at it at this point, so it wasn't a long or difficult task, just vaguely annoying. By the time I was ready to leave the house, it was already live on Amazon, which I suppose my mercenary side is happy about since that's where most of the sales are...

...but then it was time to stop thinking about sales and do the relaxing thing I've been looking forward to for weeks. I had a facial with my favorite aesthetician at my salon downtown, and I got there just in time. So that was a great way to get pampered and relax a little bit after the madness of getting the book out. Then I bought groceries, came home, messed around with book stuff a bit, and then grabbed dinner at Sabrosa. I probably should have rallied and gathered some people to go out, but I'm too tired to celebrate right now, and I have a million promo tasks I want to take care of.

But this time I'm definitely going to celebrate - I learned that lesson the hard way last year, when I failed to celebrate Alex and Prudence at all and then promptly burned out as soon as I tried to start Thorington. So if you see me working all the time and not doing anything fun over the next few weeks, please smack me. Goodnight!

beneath your beautiful

If all goes as planned, I'm going to hit publish on my book tomorrow. I KNOW. That means you might get a six-hour reprieve or so before I start bitching about how hard it is to write Rafe's story, which should really excite you! Or maybe you'll get a six-week reprieve as I go into hardcore social butterfly mode to feed my starving heart and my content-deprived soul, which should really excite you since my blog posts are always better when I actually leave the house like a real human girl.

Today, thought, was a slog with some lovely socializing at the end of it. I woke up at 4:45am, laid in bed until 5:45 trying to pretend to sleep, and then got up and went to work. Leaving the house at 6:30 on a Friday meant I got there at 7:30, which enabled me to meet a coworker for coffee and get v. v. close to finishing the proofreading. I probably would have finished it if I'd been perfectly focused, but it was all good. Then I went to the office, had meetings mostly straight through until 2pm (with a break for more coffee + some v. delicious sushi), and then promptly left the office to avoid the worst traffic. Leaving at 2:30 got me home by 3:30 through some miracle, and so I actually only spent two hours in the car today, which is nearly unheard of in the modern era.

Once here, I did a tiny bit more work, then abandoned my apartment (and the strong smell of paint from the ongoing painting project going on outside) to finish proofreading at Rapha. Since I only had a chapter left when I stopped this morning, that wasn't a very onerous task. And I have to say, even though I don't usually brag, that at the moment I really love this book. It may not quite overtake Nick and Ellie in my affections, but I really love it and think it's great. Or at least I do now - we'll see how I feel in a few days.

After I finished that and started adding the edits to my docs (over the third latte of the day, which probably should have given me a heart attack), I eventually came home, changed, and went out to be social (shocker). Very longtime readers may remember Claudia (aka Claude, aka Santy Claude, aka Claude the Fraude), who was my roommate freshman and sophomore year of college, and with whom I've shared many highs/lows, ups/downs, triumphs/tragedies, shrimp/feet. She has been sprung from jail (aka Yale) and has taken a job in the bay area, and this was our first rendezvous since she moved back last weekend. We had drinks and delish pulled pork tacos at ABV, and it was so great to know that we can now do this whenever we want.

Then we got into a car with some random people (aka Adit and Priyanka) and went to Central Kitchen, which is both delicious and beyond pretentious. Would you like fennel pollen? 'Hen of the woods', which it turns out is a mushroom instead of a wild chicken? Salsify? $300 bottles of wine? In that case, my friend, you've come to the right place. I had previously gone there for a v. romantic dinner with Adit a couple of years ago (editor's note: February 9, 2013, which I had forgotten was the start of a truly epic disaster of a night which somehow detoured through Trick Dog (where I recall Katrina saying my eyes lit up and I was suddenly going big), through a bar where Adit/Vidya/I played Jenga, and ultimately to Adit's house and whisper karaoke at 5am). Central Kitchen is still ridic, and I didn't go big tonight, but it was all delightful.

Katrina ended up joining us late, and John and Jess were theoretically supposed to come, but there wasn't any room at the inn for them, and so they cut their losses and stayed home. However, the company was delightful, particularly when we all pulled out our phones and started messing around with Instagram (well, those of us who've been living in the city and turning into tech assholes pulled out our phones; Claude stared off into space and no doubt wondered why we all suck). Then we all parted ways around 10:30, and now I must sleep so I can publish a book tomorrow. Goodnight!

sleeping is giving in

Today was perhaps the most brutal slog yet. I woke up too early and couldn't go back to sleep, and as it turns out I should have gotten up and left super early - when I left at 6:50 (which is normally fine to get to Palo Alto by 8 on 280), my commute ended up taking an hour and forty fucking minutes, so I missed the first half of my training session :( She still gave me a pretty decent workout despite missing half of it, and she gave me homework for the weekend, so at least I got something out of it.

Then I went to work, showered v. quickly, and slogged for many hours. I had my annual review this morning, which went as they all seem to do (short version: I'm pretty awesome). Then I had a team lunch, which we ate out on a patio, and where my hair was apparently perilously close to some dude's exposed crack (he was sitting at the table behind me, and none of the team saw fit to tell me to lean in (lean in physically, not in the Sheryl Sandberg way)). After, I walked over to another meeting to work, took a thoroughly useless meeting there, adjourned to coffee lab with Dave and Tomas (our triumvirate of fun has continued post-Frankfurt), and then had a team meeting...

...and then I really wanted to go home, but I had one more meeting, and traffic looked so fucking awful again (prediction at 5pm was that it would take an hour and fifty-six minutes to get home) that I just curled up on the couch at work and worked until ~7:30. This was probably the right call since I wrote the performance reviews I have to give tomorrow and sent some important emails, but I really kind of wanted to die.

And now I'm going to go to bed, hope I sleep excessively, and then get up super early so that I can go to work and finish proofreading before starting my day job. Goodnight!

possibility days are impossible

I can't blog - I woke up before five this morning and didn't get home until 10:20, so I'm beyond exhausted. And you can guess what I did anyway...write, work, get coffee, work more, write, have dinner and drinks. Pretty standard, really. I would tell you more, in excruciating detail, but I left my laptops in my trunk, I don't feel like typing on my phone, and I should go to bed anyway. Goodnight!

all i wanna do (bang bang bang bang)

Today was a lovely but brutal slog - I woke up, proofread for an hour (so close to done!), worked, voted, and then drove to the south bay to train with Alyssa. Then I had meetings and work all afternoon - work continues to be mildly to moderately annoying, but I think I'll survive.

But I left (slightly later than I should have) to have a friendship renewal dinner. It was the first time I'd seen Tolu since he had his baby, and it was the first time Jen was able to attend since moving back from NYC, so that was awesome. Joann and Jane were in attendance as well, and we had an awesome time catching up (and Joann gave a stirring rendition of the Gaston song from "Beauty and the Beast", which you probably had to be there for). It's hard to believe I've known them for eleven years, but it's true, and I'm glad the friendship renewal dinner continues.

But now I'm wiped out and need to sleep so I can get up early and work before work (sob) - goodnight!

every time you close your eyes (lies, lies)

No publishing today...I was hijacked by the day job and social activities after, which I suppose is to be expected. I got up at 5:30, made it down to work by 7:45ish, and proofread at coffee lab for an hour before grabbing breakfast and starting my day of meetings and other tasks. This wasn't all horrible, although I had more work than I wanted to do, which meant I actually worked until 5:30 rather than sneaking out and proofreading like I'd hoped. But I got in another working session at coffee lab (even if it was day job stuff, I'll take it), and the weather was lovely and my v. Mediterranean lunch was delish.

So that's all good, I guess. Then I went to Palo Alto for a going-away party for the big boss (remember her?), who is going off to greener pastures at a startup. It was like a mini reunion of all the bigshots from her time there, so I schmoozed with a bunch of directors and VPs (and by that I mean I ignored most of them and caught up with the people I actually know/care about). I also spent some quality time with the big boss's husband, whom I worked with way back in 2007-2008, and it was great to catch up with him. And Alana was there, who is a longtime blog reader, so shout-out to her!

I stayed there until 8:30ish, and then I sped home and did day job stuff for the last hour. And on that boring note, I must sleep; I'm going to prioritize sleep over getting up early, but I would like to proofread for an hour from home before doing work, voting, working out with Alyssa, and going into the office. Goodnight!

hit and run

I'm so fucking close to being able to publish, but I'm going to go to bed so that I don't wreck my week. I might have done it if I hadn't spent two hours this afternoon on day job stuff + two hours hanging out with Terry, but both things were v necessary for my sanity.

But I woke up and was working by sevenish, and I finished and did all the formatting before breaking to shower, have brunch, and do my day job. Then I started proofing the final copy at Fort Mason (where I ran into Can, oddly enough), before adjourning to talk to my parents and do more proofing at nectar. Terry met me there and we discussed life over champagne (yay). Then I came home and proofed until I realized my eyes were going to give out.

All in all I'm happy with what I've got, and the final proof looks really good overall. So I'm planning to finish tomorrow and upload tomorrow night, but that's all dependent on whether the day job continues to thwart me. But I'll have a better chance if I go to bed now - goodnight!

scare your sons scare your daughters

I'm so close to the end - paragraphs, perhaps - but I'm falling asleep in bed and there's no point in carrying on like this when I would be better served by finishing it early in the morning. So that's all you're getting out of me - which is all that's worth repeating, since I worked or played the hermit all day. Goodnight!

this woman is my destiny

I very wisely stayed home today, but even I think I might have been a bit too hermity. In my defense, it was raining for most of the day and I think I might be getting sick, and I had a lot of work to do. But since Terry ordered pizza for lunch and I ordered thai for supper, the only times I left the house were to go downstairs and greet the delivery guys. Oh, and I spent another twenty minutes tearing my car apart looking for the beeper that someone at work put in my car - it's now cleaner than it's been in years since I threw away everything nonessential, but the beeping persists. Lol.

The rest of the day was fine, although I didn't sleep that well last night and so was dragging a bit today. I got some important work done, then procrastinated on other important work by making an entirely unnecessary video to convince my coworkers to vote on the offsite idea that I'd like them to vote on (which may be moot, since I'm the one who's tallying the results, but I'd like to believe that my integrity will result in a democratic outcome rather than the military coup I'm considering). I had intended to write tonight, but I was sick of staring at screens and tired in general, so I reread a Kresley Cole book and dreamed of Paris instead.

And now, sadly, I must sleep if I'm to get anything done tomorrow - goodnight!

my discotheque juliet teenage dream

Today was actually mostly lovely despite the ongoing shitshow that is my job. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. I got up at 5:30 (pain), showered, and took more time than usual with my hair and makeup since I decided to dress up for Halloween. I recreated my prom queen costume from college (different dress, same tiara), with some awesome eye makeup and an appearance by Prom King (my fake newborn baby). All in all, I would say it was a success, but I felt a bit out of place since no one else on my team dressed up (beyond a sailor hat worn by one of the guys). Luckily, I rocked it, including in a meeting with a bunch of directors, none of whom were dressed up either. Heh.

But that was all good. I was in the office by 8:15, which gave me time to get coffee at coffee lab and breakfast next door (a recreation of yesterday, down to the poached eggs and the company) before my meetings began for the day. And if I'm honest, the day was not particularly onerous - yes, what I'm working on currently is highly annoying, but I took a two-hour break in the middle of the day to go to the indian restaurant on campus and then do some impromptu bowling with some of the team. Bowling in a short cocktail dress and tiara seemed to work for me, since I scored 100 - not a hugely impressive score, but respectable enough and totally worth whatever foot fungus I'll get from wearing bowling shoes without socks. I know.

Then I went back to the office and slogged for another four hours, mostly successfully. After that, I had grand plans to meet up with Jess, who works in the Seattle office but was in town for the week. Dave came too, and the three of us had an awesome dinner at Vive Sol. After that I was thinking I should go home, but Jess wasn't ready to go back to her sad corporate apartment yet, so we had a drink at Steins and continued the fun.

I dropped her off at 8:40ish, took Dave back to campus, and then spent ten minutes with him tearing apart the front half of my car - he spilled to me earlier that someone else in our group had planted a device in my car, which explains why I've been hearing an occasional, very brief, but very annoying high-pitched whine every 4-5 minutes for the last couple of weeks. I had just been thinking that I should probably not leave my keys on my desk as I usually do, and it turns out I'm right - at some point recently, when I went to a meeting, someone grabbed my keys and took care of business. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it despite digging through the center console, the glove compartment, and every other thing we could think of, so I got to listen to it on the way home and plot my revenge.

But now I am super tired and need to sleep if I'm going to survive work tomorrow - at least I can work from home, which is the only thing that may save me. Goodnight!