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!