I'm in Boston and it's almost three a.m., and I've had more than my body weight in alcohol, which should not surprise you since I'm visiting Ritu, who is perhaps the only true rival Adit has in terms of consistent ability to push my liver past its limits. [note: I don't actually hold either of them responsible; clearly the strange, wonderful alchemy of our friendships encourages us to keep going long past when we all know we should stop, because who would want such a wonderful thing to stop? it's just that in most of my relationships, the other person is smart enough to call a halt after the fifth drink rather than getting a crazy light in their eyes and going all in....]
sssanyway. Today was pretty much perfect, although I only got five and a half hours of sleep. I was so disoriented when the alarm went off at 5:30am that I bolted awake, thought 'I don't go to work anymore and no one owns me!', and almost went back to sleep before remembering that I had a plane to catch. So I hustled through the shower and out the door, and I made it to the airport in time to eat a proper breakfast and get an iced coffee before boarding, which was perfectly timed.
The flight was super uneventful (after they got the boarding door closed, which looked dicey for about five minutes), and I actually wrote 3200+ words, which is close to my record for a non-end-of-book day. Apparently knowing that there is no internet to check is good for my creativity; who knew. And that was even with some breaks to enjoy my coffee and play sudoku on my phone.
When I got to Boston, I discovered that Ritu was working later than planned. At first I bought a coffee, but then I realized that I was about to have a heart attack from so much caffeine, so I threw it away and went to a bar, where I had a glass of wine and wrote some more. I got another 800 words in and finished the scene, which was super awkward - awkward because I was writing the prologue (which I'd been putting off until today, when I have a flash of genius insight and realized that the prologue needed to be Lucy's grandfather's death, not Lucy in London or any other time), and to conjure the emotion needed for the scene I was channeling my own grandfather's death, which I have mostly ignored/not processed/refused to acknowledge for the past fourteen years. So as I was writing, I would occasionally write a line that made tears streak down my face, which looked SUPER DRAMATIC since I was sitting in an airport bar (pre-security, where not a lot of people hang out), drinking wine and looking at my laptop and silently crying. Oops.
But the scene is great, so #noregrets. Then I took a cab (after an uber fiasco) to Ritu's, where we proceeded with our glorious reunion. She's great, as always, and we're great together, and everything is great. We started with dinner at La Voile, where we split a bottle of wine (I chose it poorly, or else it was bad, but we drank it all) and had foie gras with duck and lardons (super super rich, obvi), and then I had a ribeye with french fries. I only ate eight of the ten ounces, which was probably for the best...because as soon as we were done there, we went to Eastern Standard (where we've been together before) and had second dinner.
Second dinner has become a tradition of ours, but usually second dinner happens when first dinner is ~5pm and second dinner is at midnight. Tonight, first dinner was at 8:30 and second dinner was at 11, which was waaaaaay too close together - especially since, for second dinner, we split another steak. Lolololol. But I had a cocktail named Inca Tea (or something similar), with pisco and tea and all sorts of other goodness, which was delightful. Then, I switched to the Dutch Courage, which was mostly like an old fashioned, and I loved that as well.
At some point, Ritu's friend Steph (yet another Steph from the other two friends of Ritu's whose names are Steph) joined us, so Ritu and I had to stop congratulating each other on how great we are and incorporate her into the fold. Luckily, she was wearing a great shirt covered in elephants, so she fit right in. We finished off the steak (rather abruptly), and had dessert, and I declared that we weren't ordering a third drink because otherwise we would have had ten more. But our waiter, who adored us (okay, maybe he didn't adore us, but he humored Ritu for several minutes while she tried to convince him that 'Bread and Leather' would be a great title for a romance novel - and it's such a bad title that the single guy sitting next to me interjected himself into the conversation to say it was awful), took my joke about a shot-like cocktail to heart and ran with it, so we ended up with shots for the road (so welcome, so not necessary). Steph had had a drink called 'The Long Goodbye', and I had said that it would be great if they had shots called 'The Short Goodbye' - and he came back with our bill and three shotglasses of something that they chose to call 'The Final Word'. Apparently my ability to charm waitstaff into drinks spans timezones....
Then Ritu and I came home (with a truly weird lyft driver, but c'est la vie), and I am desperate for sleep. And I'm not as drunk as I thought I was, since typing wasn't much of a challenge tonight...but I'm sure I'll rectify that on Sunday (Ritu is working tomorrow night, so the liver gets a reprieve). Goodnight!
sssanyway. Today was pretty much perfect, although I only got five and a half hours of sleep. I was so disoriented when the alarm went off at 5:30am that I bolted awake, thought 'I don't go to work anymore and no one owns me!', and almost went back to sleep before remembering that I had a plane to catch. So I hustled through the shower and out the door, and I made it to the airport in time to eat a proper breakfast and get an iced coffee before boarding, which was perfectly timed.
The flight was super uneventful (after they got the boarding door closed, which looked dicey for about five minutes), and I actually wrote 3200+ words, which is close to my record for a non-end-of-book day. Apparently knowing that there is no internet to check is good for my creativity; who knew. And that was even with some breaks to enjoy my coffee and play sudoku on my phone.
When I got to Boston, I discovered that Ritu was working later than planned. At first I bought a coffee, but then I realized that I was about to have a heart attack from so much caffeine, so I threw it away and went to a bar, where I had a glass of wine and wrote some more. I got another 800 words in and finished the scene, which was super awkward - awkward because I was writing the prologue (which I'd been putting off until today, when I have a flash of genius insight and realized that the prologue needed to be Lucy's grandfather's death, not Lucy in London or any other time), and to conjure the emotion needed for the scene I was channeling my own grandfather's death, which I have mostly ignored/not processed/refused to acknowledge for the past fourteen years. So as I was writing, I would occasionally write a line that made tears streak down my face, which looked SUPER DRAMATIC since I was sitting in an airport bar (pre-security, where not a lot of people hang out), drinking wine and looking at my laptop and silently crying. Oops.
But the scene is great, so #noregrets. Then I took a cab (after an uber fiasco) to Ritu's, where we proceeded with our glorious reunion. She's great, as always, and we're great together, and everything is great. We started with dinner at La Voile, where we split a bottle of wine (I chose it poorly, or else it was bad, but we drank it all) and had foie gras with duck and lardons (super super rich, obvi), and then I had a ribeye with french fries. I only ate eight of the ten ounces, which was probably for the best...because as soon as we were done there, we went to Eastern Standard (where we've been together before) and had second dinner.
Second dinner has become a tradition of ours, but usually second dinner happens when first dinner is ~5pm and second dinner is at midnight. Tonight, first dinner was at 8:30 and second dinner was at 11, which was waaaaaay too close together - especially since, for second dinner, we split another steak. Lolololol. But I had a cocktail named Inca Tea (or something similar), with pisco and tea and all sorts of other goodness, which was delightful. Then, I switched to the Dutch Courage, which was mostly like an old fashioned, and I loved that as well.
At some point, Ritu's friend Steph (yet another Steph from the other two friends of Ritu's whose names are Steph) joined us, so Ritu and I had to stop congratulating each other on how great we are and incorporate her into the fold. Luckily, she was wearing a great shirt covered in elephants, so she fit right in. We finished off the steak (rather abruptly), and had dessert, and I declared that we weren't ordering a third drink because otherwise we would have had ten more. But our waiter, who adored us (okay, maybe he didn't adore us, but he humored Ritu for several minutes while she tried to convince him that 'Bread and Leather' would be a great title for a romance novel - and it's such a bad title that the single guy sitting next to me interjected himself into the conversation to say it was awful), took my joke about a shot-like cocktail to heart and ran with it, so we ended up with shots for the road (so welcome, so not necessary). Steph had had a drink called 'The Long Goodbye', and I had said that it would be great if they had shots called 'The Short Goodbye' - and he came back with our bill and three shotglasses of something that they chose to call 'The Final Word'. Apparently my ability to charm waitstaff into drinks spans timezones....
Then Ritu and I came home (with a truly weird lyft driver, but c'est la vie), and I am desperate for sleep. And I'm not as drunk as I thought I was, since typing wasn't much of a challenge tonight...but I'm sure I'll rectify that on Sunday (Ritu is working tomorrow night, so the liver gets a reprieve). Goodnight!
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