vampire bat

I had a surprisingly delightful day in Chicago, especially given the temperature dropped twenty degrees and I had to slog unceasingly all day. But I got some decent sleep, took a nice shower, availed myself of the v tasty free daily breakfast that I got by booking with Amex, and then did a bunch of work from a nook in the lobby. It rained for a few minutes right as I needed to grab coffee, but I borrowed a hotel umbrella for the incredibly difficult walk down one block to a Starbucks, so I survived. 

Then I slogged in my room for six hours, but I had the best salmon poke bowl from room service for lunch, so it wasn't all suffering. And then I ran an errand to return a sweater I bought in New York (it had some defective stitching, and the maker has no stores in Iowa, so bringing it to Chicago seemed like the most efficient solution). And then I had a v tasty gluten free pasta at a random Italian place, where an even more random guy told me his life story even though he decided not to order any food or drink and just finished his free glass of water. He said at one point that he couldn't believe he was telling me all this stuff, and I thought "I can't believe no one told me their life story on Sunday or Monday because this happens to me all the time".

Anyway, after that I needed to regroup, so I grabbed a glass of wine at my hotel bar, eavesdropped, and journaled quite productively. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

it's always a good time

No blog tonight - I got up this morning after sleeping fairly well, and then I slogged basically all day (over breakfast at the hotel, a late salad that I picked up at Potbelly down the street, and continued late afternoon activities). But I took a break to get my nails done, which was long overdue. Then I grabbed a steak, came back to the hotel and journaled for awhile, and then worked for another hour+.

And now I need to sleep if I have any hope of getting tings done tomorrow - goodnight!

good morning and good night, i wake up at twilight

I had quite the eventful weekend, and so I'm entering the week feeling quite content and not at all rested.

Yesterday, Mom and I went up to Des Moines for Sammie's baby shower. It was a bit of a struggle to get up... which I'm assuming was true for everyone, since everyone in the family had stayed up until midnight on Friday watching the Iowa State game. But I successfully roused myself, made coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, showered, wrapped my gift, etc. And then Mom and I drove up early so that we could meet Aunt Kathy and Aunt Becky for lunch. Becky came in just for the shower, and so the four of us met up at Palmer's and had a delightful lunch while catching up over sandwiches and salads.

Then we went to the shower, which was held at the community center of a retirement home that several of Sammie's family members live in. The shower itself was really nice, and Sammie's friends put a lot of effort into the decorations and food. We had fun hanging out and playing games and celebrating the mom-to-be, and I think we're all excited to see another Wampler join the family. 

Then Mom and I drove home, with a stop in Indianola for me to wash my car, which was long overdue. Once we got back, I spent the evening tidying up the house, eating leftovers, and watching some of last night's basketball games. None of them were as exciting as the Iowa State game, and I also felt a little bit torn because I didn't really want to root for Iowa and yet was still sad that they lost. But Arizona won, which made me happy since I'm hoping that the Big 12 somehow redeems themselves.

I woke up this morning and spent quite a bit of time finishing my preparation for today and also taking care of all of my various plants. Not only do I have a lot of indoor plants, thanks to the various things that I've acquired over the past year, but the seeds that I started the other night were germinating at a rapid clip. I had spent some time on Saturday night after getting home from Des Moines setting up a grow light for the tomatoes, which had already germinated after only four days. This morning, my eggplant were also ready to go, and so I swapped things out from the heat mat to the grow light, watered everything, and generally tried to praise my little seedlings so that they would continue to grow in my absence.

"My absence" is burying in the lede - I ended up driving to Chicago today so that I could treat myself to a solo work/writing/vacation retreat. I can't take the whole week off because I have way too much to do, but I really want to try to take off Thursday and Friday. I decided that the most efficient use of my time was to drive to Chicago today, work from here Monday, Tuesday, and possibly Wednesday, and then spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday writing / going to museums / refilling my creative well. Oh, and probably shopping and also eating in a lot of great food, which is what I always want from my vacations.

So I spent the rest of the morning packing, cleaning up my kitchen, etc. I also got outside and helped [censored] pick up sticks, which I felt pretty responsible for, given that it is my yard. Since [censored] usually takes care of the lawn care, though, he often gets suckered into picking up sticks, especially because I usually try to schedule trips during these springtime weekends. But we got my yard pretty picked up, which is great, since the fact that it's already been over 80° several times this month and looks to continue that trend means that the grass is growing at a rapid clip.

I left my house around 1:00, which was a couple of hours later than I planned, but since I drove pretty much straight through, I made it to Chicago by seven. I spent the drive drinking coffee, eating snacks, and listening to a variety of podcasts, which did a lot of good for my mental state. When I got to Chicago, I checked into the hotel, got fully unpacked, and grabbed dinner at the hotel bar, which was a delight. And now I should go to bed so that I can get as much done tomorrow as I intend to - goodnight! 

rollies that don't tick tock

I've had an absolutely insane few days of work and now I'm about to go to bed later than I would like, especially since I have more plans tomorrow. Wednesday was not as much of a slog as it usually is, but that's mostly because I took Mom to Chariton to go to the eye doctor. I did get up and do a bunch of work before taking her, and I managed to eat something before we left - which was a good thing, since her appointment took a lot longer than expected. It was scheduled for 12:10, but they had to do various measurements and dilate her eyes, and she didn't actually get seen by the doctor until like 1:30. Other than the lateness of the appointment, though, everything went smoothly. And when I got home, I spent the rest of the day catching up on work, doing more work from my balcony, and eating random things that I found in the freezer. And then [censored] got home after a more traumatic day than I had, so we caught up on life before it was bedtime.

Thursday was another slog. I spent a ton of time working, which is beginning to be a bit annoying, but I suppose that's what they pay me for. But I slacked off around 6:00, and then Mom and I went into town to the museum's annual meeting / fundraising dinner. I've never been, but I want to spend more time at the museum this year, and I thought the speaker sounded relatively interesting. We bought tickets and ate a very tasty meal of ham balls and cheesy potatoes, which was served by a new Seymour restaurant that is open for breakfast and lunch. Luckily, when we got to the museum, there were two seats empty next to Margaret and Shelda, and so we had quite an entertaining time talking to them. All in all, there were about 60 people there, which was a pretty good turnout. I have to say that our county's historical society must be one of the best run and supported historical societies for a community of our size. And they have grand plans to get the mastodon exhibit finished this year, which will be pretty exciting to see.

Anyway, the speaker was a guy who lives in Iowa City but has met at a point to travel to all of Iowa's counties and write a poem and also run a mile in every town that he visits. He was kind of a kooky guy, which you might expect given his goals, but he gave a really interesting talk and seems to have built a following around this. So I'm glad I went, even though I'm sure that I got glutened by the meal and also came home and ended up doing some combination of unwinding/working until almost one a.m.

When I woke up this morning, I started working pretty much immediately...although I did have to tell somebody that I couldn't think about their question until I actually made some coffee and got some caffeine in my system. I spent the morning working, and then I snuck out around 2:00 to go to town and go to my garden club meeting. I usually skip garden club because it's on Friday afternoons, which is prime working time, but I happened to have the program this time - so I felt like I had to attend.

Garden Club was at Outlaw this time, and we had the back room, which was perfect for the ten or twelve of us who showed up. We had a good business meeting and talked about plans for the town gardens this summer, and then everyone ate dessert pizza while I gave a very brief program on how to use silica gel to preserve flowers. It seemed to be pretty well-received, and I think I was careful enough when pouring the silica gel that I didn't accidentally give anyone exposure to anything that might cause them lung disease in the future - but we shall see.

Then I picked up some groceries, came home, slogged relentlessly until after six (well, as relentlessly as I can claim to slog when I spent an hour of it talking to Adit), and then realized that if I didn't make some food, [censored] and I would starve. So I took a break to throw together this orzo chicken pasta bake that I've made before, which is extremely tasty and also pretty easy - although the fact that I modified the recipe to add sautéed onions and mushrooms makes it take a little bit more time. Then I wrapped up a little bit of work, did some laundry, and when the pasta was done, [censored] and I ate dinner while watching this week's episode of Scrubs, which continues to be a delight.

Unfortunately, what did not continue to be a delight was the Cyclones basketball season. We watched the game tonight, and it was pretty sad to watch them go down to Tennessee - it probably would have been different if Jefferson had been able to play, but as it stood, they didn't seem to have a lot of opportunity against a team that was so much bigger than them. However, they had an amazing season, and it was really fun to watch all of them this year - especially Tamin Lipsey, who I hope go on to do great things.

But the game didn't start until almost 10pm, and now it's 1am and I have to get up in the morning in time to go to Des Moines for Sammie's baby shower (+ lunch with my aunts beforehand). So I think on that note it's time for bed - goodnight!

but soon as all that money blows, all the pigeons take flight

Sadly, the fact that I worked this weekend didn't mean that I got to relax leading into the week itself. Instead, everything else that is typically part of my job caught up to me, as did another time-sensitive and labor-intensive project that I have to get done absolutely immediately.

I don't actually like working this hard, and I'd rather be spending my time right now figuring out how to use AI to do my job for me, but unfortunately my main skill in corporate America is to bring order to chaos... and since I work someplace where there is always chaos, there are always new and interesting ways for me to attempt to enforce order. But I would like to do it in a way that doesn't make my brain feel like melting quite as much as it has the past few days. 

sssanyway. I slogged yesterday until [censored] left, and then I took a long evening break to journal and otherwise unwind before doing a bunch of work from 10pm to 1am. This morning I woke up and had to start working almost as soon as I was out of bed, which was rough - and I worked from 9 to 7 pretty much without any break at all. I did manage to reheat my leftover ribeye from the other night and make some sweet potato fries while I was prepping for a meeting, so at least my lunch sustenance was better than it usually is.

And as soon as I closed my laptop at 7, I was done done. So done that I couldn't even think about what to eat. Instead, I rather manically started planting seeds in set of seed-starting cells so that I could try to get a jump start on my garden. I can always buy plants at the greenhouse if this seed experiment doesn't work out. But I really wanted to try more peppers than I seem to find around here, as well as some varieties of tomatoes that are less common.

I planted my seeds, and then I took a break to eat the last of my leftover fish tacos for dinner. I then spent quite a bit of time scrolling on Reddit, which I have no regrets about since my brain had already fully melted and I didn't really have much energy for anything else. And then I tidied up the house and unfortunately did about an hour of work just so that I could be caught up going into tomorrow morning and not feel quite so much pressure to get up and do stuff. And now it's time for bed - goodnight! 

it's a kangaroo court

There were many personal things I intended to do today - perhaps journal or write, or reflect on my parents' anniversary, or start some seeds, or repot some plants. Instead, I did day job stuff for many hours. This is extremely unusual, since I pretty much refuse to work weekends - but in this particular case, it couldn't be helped. This was especially true because this project required concentration that I simply could not muster during the usual work day, when I also have many meetings.

I did sleep in until almost nine, but then I made coffee, tidied up the kitchen a bit, and got to work. I worked until around 1:30, and then I took a quick shower before taking a break to watch the Iowa State / Kentucky game. Luckily the second half was much (much) better than the first, and so watching it was quite enjoyable.

Then I did a bit more work, prepped some accoutrements for dinner tonight (mostly making slaw and pickled onions and mixing up the marinade for some tilapia), and worked some more. I ended up spending almost four hours on call with Adit to work through the final sprint on various bugs, although I did take a break to cook the tilapia and eat fish tacos with [censored].

We wrapped up and launched our ting around 10pm my time, which was an extreme relief since this project has been an albatross for months. And now I need to unwind so I can get some sleep - goodnight!

keep me young forever

I have had an absolutely brutal few days at work, which has made blogging fall down to the bottom of my priority list. Even when I do blog, I tend to forget things -- like the fact that on Tuesday night I said that my day was quite boring, but I completely forgot that I had spent an hour talking to Heather (aka dear respected madam), which was a real bright spot and worth documenting.

sssanyway. Thursday was brutal, and I was completely brain-dead by the end of it, which means that I spent the evening eating leftovers and then attempting to recover with limited results. I was so brain-dead that I even picked up a book in an effort to relax, which is very unusual for me these days. I started reading "A Cautious Traveler's Guide To the Wastelands," which is a pretty entertaining version of a journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad set in an alternative world where Siberia has been completely walled off by China and Russia due to an unknown (to me, at this point in the book) contagion of monsters or something. Hopefully I'll pick it up and finish it sometime soon, but in the meantime I've had to return to slogging.

So yesterday was more of the same, and I worked an absolutely insane number of hours, especially for a Friday. I was also the only person in my family who couldn't watch the Iowa State basketball game because I was stuck in meetings, although I'm glad that I didn't have to see video of Joshua Jefferson injuring his ankle. At the end of the day, I forced [censored] to go to town with me to eat Mexican at the restaurant rather than picking up takeout, as we usually do. Unfortunately, it was the slowest service that we've ever had there -- and so while the food was good, I feel like [censored] somehow claimed the moral high ground in terms of whether we would have saved time by picking up versus eating there.

Today was unfortunately even more of the same, made slightly more apocalyptic because it literally reached 90 degrees, which it should not do in March. I woke up this morning and spent a couple of hours doing my own things, but then I had to sit down and keep working on a project for work that we're trying to launch this weekend. I did most of that work while sitting outside on my balcony, which at least means that I got some fresh air and sunshine, but it wasn't quite the same as being able to putter around the yard and do my own thing at will.

Finally, at 4 p.m., I took a shower, and then, as I was finishing getting ready, [censored] showed up and told me about the fire that was burning in the field east of Mom's house. I ended up going out there with him so that we could drive around in the gator and inspect the property. We couldn't really see much since the fire had burned towards the east and north of us, which means that we weren't able to see the damage beyond the ridgeline of the back of the property. And luckily, it appears that the fire department was able to put it out, which I'm sure was a relief for them since there were multiple grass fires around, given the high temperatures and even higher winds. It was probably also a relief for them because they probably accidentally started it, since they had burned the field at Becky's a couple days ago and it's possible that they didn't get it entirely put out. But it was a nice day for riding around in the gator, so I was happy that we took the opportunity to go back and check things out.

After that, I finished getting ready, and then [censored] and I picked up Mom and went to Seymour for dinner. Mom and Dad's anniversary is tomorrow, and we celebrated their anniversary last year in Seymour, which was the last time he went out to eat before his final decline. So it was a little bittersweet, but it also didn't feel at all the same - I seem to remember that last year was pretty cold, but this year was super hot, and because they had just turned on the mini splits for the first time this season, the AC above our table seemed to be blowing some black crud on the table at regular intervals throughout the meal. I might have been disgusted at another time, but for some reason tonight I just found it on brand and oddly charming. And my ribeye and fries were excellent, so no complaints there.

Then we came home, I spent some time relaxing and reading reddit and watching basketball, and then I sadly did another ninety minutes of work. And now I must sleep - goodnight!

we gonna party like it's the end of the world

I have very little to report. Work has gotten quite busy over the past couple of days and so I feel like all I've really done is slogged, much to my chagrin.

Yesterday was quite boring despite my busy situation, and I ended the day by making spaghetti for me and [censored]. Today was even more brutal in terms of the amount of work done, especially since I thought I would have all morning to work and instead woke up to an invite for a 9:30 meeting that I didn't know was happening. Of course "invite" implies something you can turn down, which is not actually true in corporate life, so I forced myself to get ready in time to attend. 

But I survived the day, and then I took a break in the evening to run to the grocery store so that I could make chicken chile verde in the instant pot for dinner. [Censored] liked it more than expected, perhaps because I pandered to him and used chicken breasts instead of thighs. But it was quite tasty, and we ate while watching Scrubs, which was fun. 

And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

it's gonna be a big night

I have done nothing of interest the post couple of days. Yesterday we had a but if a blizzard, and so I hunkered down, cleaned my office, and made tater tot casserole for dinner (which would have been better if my tater tots weren't suffering from freezer burn). Today, I unfortunately had to work - I did not feel in it to win it, but I accomplished just enough to not feel terrible, so I'll take it.

After work, I made a triple batch of Grandma Barb's spaghetti sauce - I do not have a Grandma Barb, but whoever did really was lucky to have that recipe. This resulted in six jars of sauce for future meals + sauce for dinner tomorrow night, which is great. And Ritu fortuitously called while I was cooking, so we talked for over an hour, which was fantastic and long overdue. 

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

you and i flying on an aeroplane tonight

I had a nice day despite getting up much earlier than I wanted to on a Saturday. I had a haircut booked in Des Moines at 10, and I left my house right on time... But I did not realize that the St Patty's Day marathon was being run on a course that directly impacted my salon downtown. Luckily this is Des Moines and not Boston, and so even though I was basically at the finish line, I was able to quickly detour and find parking within two blocks of the salon. So I ended up five minutes late, but they were understanding. 

As for the haircut, I was pretty happy with it - I'm cheating on my other salon and stylist bc she's out getting married, and also bc the salon moved into this new space that is both gorgeous and feels too much like an office park. Tbd on whether I fully switch, but today was a good test run (no marathon pun intended).

When I was done, I went to West Des Moines and met Drewbaby and Sammie for brunch at Homegrown. The wait was surprisingly quite long, but it was worth it - they had excellent gluten free pancakes, as well as a variety of other tasty things. The cousins were in fine form, and it was good to see them even if I did walk away with a box of old plat books that I had forgotten to expect. 

Then I stocked up on wine - I was down to the last dregs of my pre-Christmas stockup, which only lasted this long because we had one fewer day of festivities than I expected. I was going to go to whole foods after that, but I discovered that there's now a fareway west of Jordan Creek where there were empty fields a couple of years ago. It's quite nice, and I was able to get everything I needed (with the exception of chicken, because I don't like their chicken even though their beef is excellent).

So I came home with a couple of stops on Indianola to get gas and wash my car. When I got here, I unloaded, put things away, and made dinner for me and Mom and [censored]. I was too lazy to really cook, but I reverse seared some steaks and reheated some twice baked (now thrice baked) potatoes and made some green beans. Dinner was delayed by the end of the Arizona/Houston game, but it was pretty tasty overall. 

Then we said farewell to Mom, I cleaned the kitchen, and [censored] and I watched scrubs. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

standing in line to see the show tonight, and there's a light on

Yesterday was quite a busy day, and I was wiped out by the end of it. I had a bunch of meetings, followed by a library board meeting, followed by some more work when I got home. Eventually I had a chance to talk to [censored] before it was time for bed, and by then I had no desire to blog or do anything else.

Today I'd hoped to be #inittowinit, but when I woke up this morning, I had a crushing headache. Unfortunately, this happens occasionally, and while I often push through, I wasn't in the mood to even try today. I called in sick to work and spent most of the morning sitting on my chaise and trying to avoid looking at screens...which certainly helped the headache even if it didn't help my productivity.

I rallied enough to make myself a very tasty hot ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, which I ate while watching the second half of the Iowa State vs. Texas Tech game with [censored]. The game was almost as good as my sandwich, which should tell you just how good my sandwich was. Then I closed my eyes for a bit longer before deciding to finally do a couple of hours of meetings just so that tomorrow wouldn't be quite so brutal. I wrapped up the day by making dinner for me and [censored] - chicken and mushroom pasta, which was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And now it's time for bed - goodnight! 

by the way

I was busy, busy, busy today, as the people say. I had to wake up early this morning so that I could go into town for an economic development meeting, which was complicated by the fact that it was extremely foggy. The meeting went as well as they normally do, and then I had to go to the doctor's office to get allergy shots, which also went as well as they normally do.

Then I came home, took advantage of my only window in which to do some real work, and then sat in meetings from 12:00 to 5:00. This is approximately four hours of more meetings than I wanted to sit in, but at least they were decent enough. Unfortunately I didn't really eat at proper times and so my brain was melting by the end of it. Luckily it was fairly sunny out, so I decided to let my body melt instead - I sat out on the balcony and dozed a bit as I tried to recover.

Recovery was crucial because I also had a city council meeting tonight. I walked at downtown just in time to get started, and the meeting went about as well as can be expected. I also got a surprise tour of the back half of City Hall, which was wilder than you might expect. And then I came home, ate, did some work, did some laundry, procrastinated, etc. And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

and i your willing victim

It was far too beautiful today to be stuck inside, but duty called. So I spent my Monday in my usual slew of meetings with barely enough time to eat anything, which always gives me a bit of a headache. My headache was perhaps compounded by feeling the sun through the window as I tried to focus on my meetings, but I survived.

And literally as soon as I possibly could, I shut my laptop and took a walk downtown (if you can call it that) to drop off some food for the town play's concession stand later this week. Then I came home and sat on my balcony for the first time this season, where I journaled with a glass of zinfandel, which was just about perfect. Then I talked to Katie for an hour while I fended off the season's first mosquitoes, who seemed to be getting into the game early this year. The birds were all awake and there were a suspicious number of box elder bugs on the side of my garage, which makes me wonder what the season portends.

After I said au revoir to Katie, I procrastinated for a bit and then made myself a sandwich rather than cooking anything like I had planned. I then spent the rest of the evening sitting on my chaise and alternating between journaling, daydreaming, and considering work. Now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

the ultimate test in cerebral fitness

I'm back in Iowa and I spent the weekend recovering. Yesterday was a bit of a show mostly because I got unexpectedly delayed in New York. I had gotten up at 5:30 because I hadn't packed yet, and I made it to the airport in time to hang out in the Amex Lounge. My flight boarded on time and everything looked good...but because of turbulence somewhere between New York and Iowa, they decided that they were going to have to reroute north. That meant we needed more fuel. Somehow that took an hour and a half... but at least there was fuel, which seems like something that maybe I should be concerned for future air travel given what's happening in Iran.

sssanyway. I was 2 hours late getting into Des Moines and slightly hangry as a result, but I still wanted to run errands on the way home. I stopped in at a couple of stores in Indianola, got groceries, and made it home just in time to unpack everything before having dinner with Mom and [censored]. We picked up takeout from El Vago, which was tasty, and it was good to hang out for a bit. Then [censored] and I came home and watched the latest episode of Scrubs, which was quite funny. It's pretty amazing that they've managed to pick up right where they left off, with seemingly no issues around chemistry or writing.

Today I of course intended to do all the things and of course didn't do most of them because I was too busy recovering from my trip. I made coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, did a bit of unnecessary organizing of my mug collection, and then helped [censored] with the cleaning out of the garage fridge. It's been having a bit of a crazy buildup of ice ever since I bought it, and we finally decided to tackle the issue. Of course by "we" I mean that I cleaned out what was in the freezer and then [censored] did basically all of the work, including removing the back panel and figuring out what was going on with the blocked drain. But hopefully it's fixed and I can continue with my hoarding of food as I desire.

I spent the rest of the day procrastinating, buying groceries, fixing dinner, and repotting a bunch of plants that I had meant to repot over the past year. [Censored] and I ate dinner while watching last night's SNL, which was fairly funny despite some weird moments. Now I need to go to bed - goodnight!

montepulciano

I have nothing to report tonight - I had a long but productive day at the office, and then a 1:1 with Finn turned into a happy hour for six of us at a wine bar near the office. Someone actually called Adit "the cat" without knowing that supposedly some people call him the cat, which was the most ridiculous moment I've experienced in awhile.

And now I'm going to go to bed early since I need to pack and go to the airport tomorrow - goodnight!

calling out across the line

No blog tonight - I had a lovely day, with plenty of sushi for lunch and a fun dinner with Emily in Brooklyn, but I'm exhausted and already falling asleep. Goodnight!

tyger tyger burning bright

I had a very nice day in New York today. I woke up early enough to get out of the hotel before the elevator apocalypse happened, and then I worked at a Starbucks for a bit before meeting my friend Sherry for brunch down around Union Square.

This was quite the surprise because neither Sherry nor I live in New York, but Sherry had reached out to me last week asking where I was. It turned out we were both going to be in the city this week. She was here for much more exciting reasons than I, since she was accepting an award for best mystery novel from Libby while I'm just here to sit in a conference room with Adit and talk about spreadsheets. I let her buy me breakfast since it was a) really on Random House and b) she felt that perhaps it was deserved for me to partake in her breakfast, since her book had something to do with both rural Iowa and crypto. When she was finishing it in 2024 I was literally the only beta reader she could ask to review both of those things, and so I'm delighted that the final product was a winner. 

After brunch I went to the office, where I slogged for about eight hours straight. Then we all adjourned to Tyger, which is a Pan-Asian restaurant down around Soho. We had a semi private room for a belated Lunar New Year celebration for the New York office. This turned out to be quite fun, and I hung out and ate way too much food while discussing a variety of topics with the people at my table. And now, after a very delightful evening, I'm ready to go to bed - goodnight!

time ain't on my side, time i'll never know

I had another v. busy work day in the city that never sleeps. Unfortunately I slept slightly too long, which resulted in hitting the elevator at peak time, which resulted in a mild bit of claustrophobia because we literally stopped on twenty different floors (and were full within the first six), and it took almost ten minutes to get to the lobby. But I escaped before I totally panicked, and then the cold rain/sleet of New York washed away my nerves. I hung out at a starbucks and worked for an hour, and then I went to the office and spent another long slog sitting in the same conference room with the same people I spent yesterday with.

So, there's nothing to report there other than we made some progress and I still like them. I left the office around 6:30, walked toward my hotel, and stopped for a slightly decadent dinner at Zaytinya (a Jose Andres establishment, with v. tasty scallops and equally tasty halloumi cheese). This delayed my arrival at the hotel long enough that I was the only person in the elevator going up, which was v. welcome. And now I need to go to bed so I can get up early and pursue tomorrow's plans - goodnight!

time everlasting, time to play b sides

I had an excellent day in NYC. I woke up fairly early, got ready, and walked to a nearby Starbucks, where I worked for an hour and a half before going to the office. I tried a new workflow of recording a voice memo to myself while walking, then using AI to translate my thoughts into clear bullet points, and then putting those bullet points into slides. I'd say it saved me a couple of hours, which was a decent return on the rain forest I burned down to fuel the data center needed to achieve this. 

Then I went to the office, where I spent eight hours in a conference room with Adit (among other people) discussing audits (among other topics), which causes some subtle cognitive dissonance since no one there calls him Adit. But no one calls him the cat either, so at least that's consistent. 

When we were done, I did a bit of shopping, and then I had a solo dinner at the same place I went Saturday (no shame, they have the best gf pasta in the world). And now I'm going to bed - goodnight!

I might have lingered in purgatory

I felt a little off today, although I do not know what to attribute it to - but I got nine or ten hours of sleep last night and still needed a nap at six, so idk. I spent the morning messing around in my room, and then I met Terry for lunch at Le Petit Village in Greenwich Village. We had a delightful time - the vibe there was lovely, and then we adjourned to another spot around the corner and had a drink so we could keep the convo going. Unfortunately her plans changed and we couldn't prolong the festivities, but at least we got a proper catch up.

After we parted ways, I walked to Soho and did a bit of shopping. Then I came back to my hotel, took a nap, should have worked, and instead did basically nothing other than order sushi and chill. But now I'm going to go to bed so I can get up early and do the tings I should have done today - goodnight!