Sunday, October 04, 2015

seconds ticking killed us all a million years before the fall

I didn't write today, but I'm okay with that...way back in the day, when I quit my job and thought I had everything figured out and knew how to plan for my writing life (lolololol, sigh), I had told myself that I should take at least one weekend day completely off from writing. And I think I was right about that, which makes me wonder what other things I had said to myself then (see movies! go to museums! read books! drink with strangers!) that I haven't actually been doing, and which I need to revisit and actually follow through on. Considering that the two nights I drank with strangers since leaving the day job (Joe and the thirty-five dollar shot of gin; the tattoo artist and copious amounts of whiskey) were two of the most perfectly serendipitous nights of my summer, and considering that I haven't been to a movie or museum in months....maybe Past Sara was onto something in terms of what I should be doing with my free time (i.e. things that aren't mindlessly surfing the internet to avoid thinking about the book)....

sssanyway. As I said, I didn't write - but I woke up this morning full of intention, and full of the desire to focus on what's in my control and let go of what's not. So I made some iced coffee and sat at my 'desk' (dining table) and made a bunch of lists, and contemplated my calendar, and sent some emails, and generally figured out where I need to focus. Then I did some menu planning, ate some breakfast, and eventually vacated the apartment to go grocery shopping.

The grocery shopping and menu planning, and later house cleaning, were for a dinner party I hosted tonight. It was the first time I'd cooked anything substantial for people in my new place, and it was a little hit-or-miss - I'm definitely not as comfortable in my kitchen as I was in my old place, probably because I have less counter space and almost infinitely fewer drawers. I also chose to make a new recipe that I'd never tried before, which was probably a mistake - Mario Batali fucking lied to me, and the tomato sauce that was supposed to cook down in thirty minutes eventually, after nearly an hour, needed an immersion blender taken to it to make it into a sauce. But I think I was unhappy with the outcome because I used gluten free pasta and it just wasn't as good...or maybe the pasta was okay, but the gf bread crumb substitute was too weird. I don't know...all I know is that the baked pasta with eggplant and cheese was edible, and okay enough, but not something I would ever make again.

sssanyway again. I didn't know that before the dinner party - I was just trying to get ready for it. So I spent the afternoon arranging flowers like a boss, cleaning, cooking, napping, etc. The dinner party was smaller than what I usually cook for, and also a v. different group - Adit and Priyanka comprised the 'college friends' half, and Anne and Matt comprised the 'writer friend' half. Actually, Anne is the only writer in that half (I've gone to Montauk and Tahoe with her, and am about to go to Tahoe again), but her husband worked with Adit years ago, which is why it seemed like this dinner party needed to happen.

As it turns out, the company was delightful, even if I wasn't pleased with the pasta. We sat around nibbling on cheese and meat while waiting for the pasta to bake, and we had ice cream after, which was delish. Adit gave them the choice of 'candle ceremony' or 'dramatic reading' to end the evening, and they chose candle ceremony, which was probably the right call - I'm not sure how a dramatic reading of a sex scene would have played out with another writer in the room (although there was a threat of doing a dramatic reading from my journals instead of my books, which would have been a next-level disaster). So we went around and answered questions and blew out candles, which was an appropriately bizarre end to the evening.

Anne and Matt had to leave at ten to rescue their babysitter (or rescue their son...jury's still out), but Adit and Priyanka stayed to help clean up, and then Priyanka and I discussed baby names while Adit napped on my bed. Eventually, they left me to my own devices, so I came promptly to blog about the experience since blogging is sooooo hip and modern.

And now I need to sleep, since I intend to write tomorrow - goodnight!

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