whatcha say, that you only meant well...well of course you did

I'm exhausted, but at least I'm fully moved out of the cabin. I got all sorts of stuff done today and even managed to squeeze in a bit of socializing, so I really can't complain (even though I would like to, of course). The day started on the wrong note; I accidentally turned on the wrong burner on the stove, which meant that my water didn't heat up for my oatmeal, and so I had to forego the oatmeal and just eat a leftover cheeseburger (strange, I know). Then, I left to go down to the glorious south bay for my training session with Alyssa, but there were two accidents on the freeway and I was 15mins late. I'm going to have to plan to leave earlier, and on the days when I get their absurdly early, I'll just have to do some cardio before we start. Doesn't that sound like fun?

But, Alyssa and I reassessed my progress, as we do every six weeks or so. I held pretty steady on the weight/bodyfat/measurements, although I'm getting stronger based on the intensity of my workouts (and the fact that the move didn't destroy me, despite all the stuff I've carried up and down several flights of stairs). So, all in all it was neutral/positive, and while I think that some of this protein/fat diet that I'm on is ridiculous (I'm not going to carry around coconut oil to pour on top of things to increase my fat intake), it does seem like something that I can tweak and meet my goals with fairly easily.

After we did an abbreviated workout (which still managed to make me sweat), I showered, dashed to Chipotle to inhale a burrito bowl, and then went back to the gym for a massage and eyebrow wax. This may seem like pure relaxation, but it was technically an action item on my list; my eyebrows were looking v. old-mannish, and my shoulders and upper back have been killing me for the last week or two. So, that was all v. nice, although I left when it was done and went immediately to my old house, where I proceeded to clean the kitchen for a couple of hours. It was 80 degrees indoors and approximately 96 degrees outdoors, so the last thing I wanted to do was clean, but it needed to get done.

I took a break, though, and ran to the Stanford Shopping Center to pick up a couple of things for the conference. I intended to get a new shawl/something to jazz up my old formal dress, but as I was browsing, a different dress caught my eye. I tried it on and fell in love with it, so I bought it; I'll have to try it on again tomorrow and make sure it's as good as I thought it was before I decide to keep it. I also used some Nordstrom rewards to buy another absurdly large cocktail ring; this one is silver with a 1.5" x 0.75" concave oval littered with metal and crystals. I tried to tell Heather that it was more 'neutral' than my other cocktail ring, since the other ring is pinks/purples and doesn't go with everything, but she wasn't buying it. I'll have to wear it on my middle finger, since they didn't have a smaller size, but it looks too awesome to give up.

After Nordstrom took my money, I ran to JCrew to get a replacement black cardigan for the one that I love but that is fading after too many washes; then, I went to the Gap and got a replacement pair of jeans for the pair I always wear, which is starting to rip. I stopped back at home to pick up two boxes of documents (more on that shortly), picked up my dry cleaning, and then went to my old place of work to pick up Heather for dinner.

Before dinner, she kindly helped me to shred the two boxes of documents I dragged with me (that's the sign of a true friend). Then, we went to The Counter in Palo Alto and had delicious burgers while catching up for a couple of hours. Salim picked her up around 8:45, and then I went back to the cabin, where it took me three times as long asI thought it would to load my car and wrap up the tiny last-minute details. But, it's done, and even though my car is crammed fully of stuff, at least that's one less thing to worry about between now and my trip.

I got home around 11:15, and then wrote a couple of pages of notes regarding my young adult 'gargoyle' series, since I was brainstorming during my drives today. And now, I need to sleep desperately; tomorrow holds more personal grooming stuff, like a mani/pedi, getting my jeans hemmed, etc., along with the mandatory empty the car game. Goodnight!

boogie woogie bugle boy

I'm sort of ready for the move in the morning -- everything of note is packed, but you know how you get to that point where you think you have an hour's worth of work left and it's probably actually five? That's where I am. Luckily, I'm basically ready for the movers to show up, but I'm going to have a lot to do to get the house itself cleaned up and emptied out of all the stuff that I've purged during the move.

Still, given the amount of stuff I have, I got done in a relatively painless matter. I woke up this morning, ate some oatmeal and enjoyed some tea from my teamaker, took care of some romance business, and then started packing. I took a break to grab some lunch, came back, and was finishing up with the packing in my bedroom when Terry's dad showed up with her moving truck. Terry was shortly behind them, so I chatted with both of them before she took him to the airport to send him back to SoCal. When she came back to my place, she graciously helped me pack some boxes of dishes before she took a nap and I kept going with the kitchen. Eventually, Terry ran out to pick up salads from Sprout (which I will miss when I move to the evil city), and we ate and refreshed ourselves with a couple of glasses of wine while watching some Daily Show. I finished the kitchen after that, and now Terry and I are watching 'The Voice'. The movers are coming around eight a.m. tomorrow, and once they get us loaded, we're going up to the city to unload and start the whole process again in reverse. Yay.

So, I suppose I should go to bed, but I'll leave you with news of Sean Bean (aka Boromir in Lord of the Rings) getting stabbed outside of a bar and letting the bar staff give him first aid so that he could finished his drink. And now I'm going to enjoy my last night of slumber in the log cabin. Goodnight!

i'd give it all away just to get you back

I didn't get as far with the packing as I intended today; while I did get out of bed by nine, I didn't do any packing in the morning. Around 11:30, I rallied and left the house to buy day parking permits for the moving truck, Terry's car, etc., and grab lunch at Sprout (which took longer than usual; they must have had a huge to-go order, because I showed up before the lunch rush with almost no one in the restaurant and the wait for a salad was already twenty minutes). Then, I ran a couple of errands in downtown Palo Alto, drove to Mountain View to buy some packing supplies at the Uhaul location there, got gas, rewarded myself with an earl grey milk tea from Verde, and finally made it home sometime after two p.m.

Then, the packing started. Really, the blog doesn't get any more interesting (or less boring) than it already is, so if you're already bored, feel free to leave and come back tomorrow.

If you're still here, I did two loads of laundry, finished packing my living room, all of my office supplies, a variety of fragile mementoes, my files, etc. I sorted as I went, which made things slower, but I'm getting rid of stuff, which is good. I also packed all my shoes, most of my clothes, and my handbags and laptop bags. So, my bedroom and coat closet are basically done; I need to decide whether to fold everything neatly into plastic crates and send it up to the city with the movers, get wardrobe boxes tomorrow, or risk wrinkles and just dump it all in a few containers and drag it up to the city myself.

I'm actually in okay shape; the major task left is the kitchen, with another half hour or forty-five minutes of sorting and packing of the remnants of my linen/makeup closet. But Terry's getting up here early tomorrow afternoon, and I'd hoped to get done enough to run up to the city with her and take a few things to the apartment, which is unlikely to happen at this rate. We'll see how far I get by noon. Since the movers arrive in 31 hours, packing down here is a higher priority than taking stuff up to the apartment. But, I'm excited, both to be done packing and to move into the new place, where I likely won't run into a spider every time I turn around. Goodnight!

forever may not be long enough

The teamaker got me out of bed this morning, which is a v. good thing - I'm more likely to get out of bed for hot tea, apparently, since hitting snooze on the alarm is way too easy. And, I did get stuff done today - I packed the rest of my books, culled another box of them, and sorted all the clothes in my closets and in the garage to decide what to keep and what to take to Goodwill. I purged 20+ pairs of shoes, if that says anything about how actively I'm trying to rid myself of little-used/unused possessions (although since that was less than a third of my overall shoe collection, it's not like I'm going to end up barefoot anytime soon). And, I talked to my parents, which is my standard Sunday afternoon activity. And, since I'm out of food (and, more problematically, the meat I'm supposed to be consuming in vast quantities), I ran to Chipotle for dinner; I had intended to have hamburger for lunch, but after I cut up the potato and onion for homefries (which were delicious, btw), I discovered that my hamburger was just a little bit over the hill. As it was cooking it smelled a bit funky, and I ultimately decided not to risk eating it. So, my potato lunch wasn't nearly enough protein, but Chipotle solved that problem quite nicely.

I intended to keep going with the packing after dinner, but instead I got distracted by thoughts of starting my own freelance editing business. I think I have a decently workable plan in place, with some ideas for how to market myself, how much I need to charge to make it worth my while, and who I need to connect with. I can't let it get in the way of my own writing, or else I might as well just go back to work full-time, but it would be nice to build something that could help pay the rent while I continue to write. So, I came up with a name for my business, registered the domain, and ordered some business cards so that I can have the cards in time for the romance conference in two weeks. I didn't order a lot of cards, and there's obviously a lot to be done before I can hand them out (namely, setting up my site), but at least I have them in case I make the right connections at the conference.

Of course, that was brilliant procrastination on my part, since it's something that I've needed to do for awhile, and so I could pseudo-justify doing that instead of packing. But I need to finish as much of the packing as I can tomorrow; the end is in sight in both my bedroom and my living room, but I haven't touched the kitchen or my linen/makeup closet, so I need to get cracking. And to that end, I'm going to set up my teapot, go to bed early, and get started earlier than noon tomorrow. Goodnight!

i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take

I woke up earlier than ever today; Chandlord woke me up at seven a.m., as we had agreed the previous night, so that we could enjoy breakfast together before she went off into the wide world and I stayed in my hermitage. Breakfast consisted of strawberry shortcake (with half-and-half, of course), as well as tea from my new teamaker (which I only used three times today -- everything in moderation, right?). Strawberry shortcake is definitively not on the list of approved breakfasts based on my high-protein/high-fat/low-carb diet, although drenching it in half-and-half at least upped the fat content. Surprisingly, I wasn't particularly hungry all morning/afternoon and didn't eat lunch until after two p.m., but perhaps I was in such a sugar coma that my body couldn't contemplate eating real food.

Anyway, Chandlord and I had a lovely hour of chatting before she went to work. As soon as the door closed behind her, I crawled back into bed and went back to sleep. Perhaps this was counterproductive, but since the major task on my to-do list was to clean the garage, it's understandable why I procrastinated. But I did eventually get up, get myself dressed in something good for the spider-infested ruins of the garage, make some more tea with my teamaker (yay), and go out to tackle the garage. And, I succeeded in breaking down all the boxes that needed to be broken down, corralling all the styrofoam and other non-recyclables into garbage bags, and identifying which items in the garage I will likely take to Goodwill, which ones I need to sort through before moving, and which ones are packing materials that will be useful for my upcoming move. I also did two loads of laundry and swept the garage, so that was all great -- and even though I killed several gigantic spiders and let several others get away, I appear to have emerged unscathed.

After I finished the garage, I came in, ate the last of the leftover Thai food from two nights ago, showered, and tidied up the bedroom and living room in preparation of my landlord showing the place. Several people showed up, including a girl who lived in FloMo when I was a freshman there and who later worked at Google (which was just bizarre), although it seemed like there were fewer people this time than there were when I rented the place a year ago. But, since he's raised the rent by almost $500, that would weed some people out. Some of them seemed interested, though, so hopefully he gets a new lease signed. Either way, I'm moving out next week, and now that he's shown the place, I can start destroying it by packing in earnest.

My landlord left a little after six; at some point later, a straggling couple showed up, and I showed them around even though I wasn't particularly obligated to. Then, I made some supper -- a boneless pork chop and some extremely delicious home fries (consisting of one potato, half an onion, and a whole ton of butter to meet the required fat content of the meal). The pork chop was about a third the thickness of a classic 1" Iowa Chop, but it was still tasty. And then, I procrastinated a bit...

...but eventually dragged myself out of my procrastination to write several pages of notes/brainstorming related to my top-secret gargoyles project. It's going to be awhile before I'm ready to write those books in earnest, but I need to start gathering my thoughts and researching what I need to research in order to plot them and create a viable world/structure/ruleset for what happens. While I intend to stay focused on Ellie's story, it was fun to work on something else for a couple of hours. But now, I should sleep; I'm training with Alyssa in the morning, and then I'm driving up to the evil city to meet one of the new landlords, get the keys to the new place, and measure every inch of the apartment to determine how to arrange my massive amounts of stuff. Goodnight!

i'm standing alone in a crowded room

I was rather hermity today, indulging in the uniquely hermitlike feeling that the log cabin can so easily incite. That's the cabin's greatest strength and its greatest weakness -- when I'm in a good mood, it's heaven, but when I'm in a bad mood or too pressed down by solitude, it's all exacerbated by the shadows lurking around the beams and the strange noises that make it all too easy to imagine that I'm about to die in some horrifically gruesome way. It's the kind of place where I could spend my entire life, or ache to run from at the first opportunity. So perhaps that explains, to those of you who know that I've loved it here, why I'm both eager and sad to leave, why my mood is swinging between 'oh my god I can't wait to live in the city' and 'why am I abandoning the cabin?'. Granted, right now, with some unknown thing scratching into the leaves in the deep trench between my house and Stanford Avenue, I'm in fullblown city mode. But I'm sure I will continue to oscillate until I've moved and settled in, and then my fickle affections will latch on to the new place and I will view this place with scorn and disdain.

Anyway, I slept in, then made myself some oatmeal and bacon, then settled into my task for the afternoon -- sorting through my books and deciding what to discard. I ended up culling about 100 books, which would be a large number for some people, but for me made a barely-noticeably void on my shelves. The task took longer because I made a spreadsheet and listed them all out to allow my nearby friends to say whether they wanted any of those books before I donate them later this week, but hopefully the books all find a good home. Then, I sorted through my closets and culled anything that I haven't worn recently, know I won't wear again, or have had for a decade (with incomplete success on that last criterion). I still need to go through three or four plastic bins of clothes that I believe can be almost entirely tossed, but this was all good progress.

While I was sorting and culling, my landlord came over, cut the grass, and cleared the patio of leaves. It took him over three hours, but it looks lovely now -- a little less like an overgrown fairy-tale cabin, but a little more habitable. As soon as he was done, I left the house in search of an early dinner, and had a cheeseburger (sans bun, per Alyssa's orders) at the Counter. Not per Alyssa's orders, I also had a glass of wine while writing in my journal and doing some desultory watching of the NBA finals. Then, I came home and talked to my father; I'd talked to my mother earlier in the afternoon, but since my uncle and aunt and cousin were over, I delayed talking to my dad until they were gone and I was back from supper.

I didn't feel like cleaning or sorting tonight, and I'm not going to start packing in earnest until my landlord shows the place on Wednesday(ish), so I decided to read a book. I finally picked up Deanna Raybourn's DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING, which continues the stories I was reading before my roadtrip of the Victorian-era daughter of an earl who falls in love with a private investigator of v. mysterious backgrounds and quite prodigious talents, and of the dangers she gets herself into as she gets involved in his investigations. The whole reason I started the series was because I loved the title of this one, and I wasn't disappointed; the first half was a little slow, but the second half was uniformly excellent. Needless to say, I inhaled the book and finished it tonight -- not the best habit in the world, but one that I haven't figure out how to break myself of.

And now, I should go to bed; I intend to tackle the garage tomorrow, go to the gym, and have dinner with Heather (aka dear respected madam), so sleep is essential. Goodnight!

and she only reveals what she wants you to see

I was more productive today than I was yesterday, although I eked out victory by the skin of my teeth (and, more relevantly, a massive overdose of caffeine). I spent the morning dawdling and cleaning my house; it was already clean, but I wanted it sparkling because my landlord was coming over to see what needs to be done before he rents it out again. He wasn't here very long, as it turns out. The only thing that needs fixed is a blind in the kitchen that fell down very early on in my tenancy and that I never bothered to have fixed because I almost always left it wide open anyway. And the only other thing that needs done is clearing the leaves from the patio that I left untouched -- while my allergies are much better than they were in my youth, raking leaves would have left me coughing and wheezing for days, and I'd never needed the patio enough to overcome my aversion to breathlessness. But, he's going to do that himself on Sunday, and he'll likely show the place next week while it's still mostly done up with my (admittedly excellent) furniture and decorative elements. He seemed sad to see me go, but he's going to raise the rent and will refund me if he is able to rent it out before the end of the month, so that's a win-win for both of us.

After he left, I ran to Chipotle and grabbed some protein-y, v. late lunch (does 3pm still qualify as lunch?), then procrastinated far longer than I intended to, but I finally rallied myself and went to Stanford library to write for the evening. My writing is still going far slower than I would like, and I'm averaging half as many words per hour as I was during the endgame of Madeleine and Ferguson's story. But, I managed to write 2100 words of Ellie and Nick's story, including their explosive (if I do say so myself) first kiss after a decade apart. This story may well kill me, but at least I'm making progress. There's no way that I can have a rough draft done by the romance conference (which is less than a month away now - yikes), but I passed the 10,000-word mark, which means I'm approximately an 1/8th of the way through the rough draft (although my final draft will likely be ~90k). All I can do now is keep going, and I'm going to try my best to force myself to write even during the move process, since it would be way too easy to tell myself to spend the next month packing, moving, and unpacking without writing a single word.

I got back from Stanford sometime shortly after eleven, and now I should probably go to bed; I need to get up and fax/email the signed lease on the new place to my new landlords, and then I'm going up to the evil city to have brunch at Katrina's. Driving to the evil city should be a big ball of fun since we're in the midst of a weekend-long rainstorm, which is both highly unseasonal and highly unwelcome, but I shall survive. Goodnight!

we'll help you party down

Today was one of those days that you shouldn't worry your pretty little head about - there was nothing to see here, and you should just go about your internet browsing without reading this post. It's 99% official that I'm moving to the evil city; all that remains is signing the lease. Oh, and moving, which is a daunting prospect given my extreme amounts of stuff. However, because I just happen to move every year through circumstances mostly outside of my control (okay, this circumstance is entirely within my control, so I'm not complaining), I have my moves down to a precision that almost approaches Seal Team Six levels of timing and coordination. Hopefully I will not crash my chopper into the wall of my new condo, but regardless, I think I'll likely be saying 'mission accomplished' within the next two weeks.

So I spent most of today anticipating the move and starting to mobilize. That meant tackling my garage, which was not high on my list of things I wanted to do, and so I indulged in some procrastinatory efforts (including three loads of laundry and remaking my bed). The problem with the garage is that it has a single bare lightbulb, was full of cobwebs before I ever moved in (and has only added more swathes of cobwebs in the last year), and is also full of cardboard boxes that I need to slice up, flatten and recycle. Of course, it's also full of cardboard boxes that I intend to use for my move, which is great since I doubt I'll have to buy any boxes - but when I had furniture delivered from Crate and Barrel last fall, I just dumped all the packing materials in the garage rather than flattening the stuff then. If you've ever ordered anything from Crate and Barrel, you know that they pack things in twice as much cardboard and styrofoam as anyone else, so the packing materials for my kitchen table, four chairs, and queen-sized bed are rather frightful.

But, I made good progress with my box-cutter, so I'm pleased with that. I also met my goal of filling up my garbage bin and my recycling bin for tomorrow's pickup, since I don't want to waste any opportunities to dispose of stuff in the next few weeks. I'm letting go of things more than I have on previous moves - I recycled a whole crate full of old romance writing magazines, nearly all of my DVD cases, a blender w/a rusted blade, a bunch of cardboard, etc. I also cleaned out my fridge and freezer and dumped some of the stuff in my pantry, so all in all it was quite a productive afternoon.

I had to stop just before five p.m. to see Bart about my progress with the high protein diet; overall it was decent, except for when I went out, which was about half of my meals last week. Oops. So this week I'm supposed to be more strict, which I will endeavor to do. That meant that I went to Whole Foods straight after seeing him and bought hamburger and sweet corn, and I had a cheeseburger and corn for dinner. Yum. And then I thought I would write, but my energy died just as I sat down to the laptop (funny how that happens), so I caught up on industry gossip instead.

And now, it's only ten p.m., but I think I'll crawl into my freshly laundered sheets and read for a bit before going to bed. Alyssa awaits in the morning, and then I need to carve out some time to write before I do some more move-prep - Ellie and Nick can't wait for me to move, go to NYC, and go to Germany before I start writing again, or else they'll be old and grey before I ever get to chapter four. Goodnight!

this means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear

I had more plans today than I ever do on a Sunday, and I somehow survived them all - yay for being able to emerge from my hermitage and return to it unscathed. When I awoke, I was in Heather and Salim's guest room (which was a good thing; since I fell asleep there, I would have been horrified to wake up elsewhere). Their guest room is lovely, and I slept wonderfully as a result - so wonderfully that I didn't particularly want to get out of bed. But, I managed to drag myself into the shower and then into some clothes so that I could go up to the evil city and leave them to get on with their day.

But before I left, Salim made an incredible breakfast - his chocolate chip pancakes (while not Alyssa-approved) were the best pancakes I've ever had. I don't even like pancakes, and I could have happily gorged myself to death on these. He also made me eggs to increase my protein intake to balance out the pancakes (impossible, but nice attempt), and bacon as well, and Heather brewed some looseleaf black tea just how I like it. They're basically the best hosts ever, since all we did was talk about books, watch bad movies, and eat. Yay.

After I left them, I drove up to the evil city and looked at an apartment with Terry. In a rather abrupt 180 from my previous plans, I agreed to consider moving in with her when she moves to the city; she's almost done with business school and is starting a job in July, and she's been hinting for months about getting me to move to the city. I was rather opposed initially, mostly because I love my log cabin, but all love is temporal and fleeting, right? Or, at least, the old urge to pick up and move has been clawing at me with increasing severity over the past couple of months, and moving back to San Francisco seems more prudent than giving in to the competing urge to put everything in storage and run away to Thailand. So Terry got through my defenses at just the right time, and I agreed to look at the apartment that she'd already seen on Friday. She was putting her application in with or without a roommate, but I couldn't make a decision without seeing the place, and the agent was holding another open house today.

The place was lovely; it has two master bedroom/bath suites, a rooftop deck, private laundry, a nice-sized kitchen and living room, and two parking spaces in the garage. And the lighting was really great, which is important to me since I spend more time inside than anyone other than a vampire should. So, we'll see; if we're able to get the place, I'm going to do it, but if we don't get it, we'll see whether another apartment is able to overcome my love for the cabin.

After Terry and I parted ways, I went to Chandlord's, and she and I went downtown and had mimosas (and a diet coke for me) at a cafe/bar with a rooftop garden. Planning for our Germany trip continues apace, although we really only discussed that for ten minutes, and spent the rest of the time discussing the ridiculousness of life and friendship. Then, I abandoned her, came home (while talking to my mom on the phone - hands-free, of course), went to the gym like a good little client in an effort to redeem my pancake lapse, and then came home and took a nap. I spent the rest of the evening writing in my journal, taking care of some romance email stuff, and finishing a book that I started earlier in the week. And now, I need to sleep; I'm training with Alyssa tomorrow and have a barbecue to attend in the afternoon, so my life as a social butterfly continues. Goodnight!

i wish that i could have this moment for life

I was incredibly lazy this morning, mostly because I didn't want to go to the gym and so sat around doing nothing instead. I didn't drag myself out of bed until almost noon, which threw off my whole schedule (breakfast at noon, lunch at three, meaning that dinner at seven made me v. full). Then, I sat around and procrastinated before forcing myself to go to the gym around two; I promised Alyssa that I wouldn't skip any workouts this week, even though she changed my cardio programs to something sadistic (involving elliptical sprints, that bitch). I never skip her sessions, but I haven't been particularly diligent about my non-Alyssa sessions for the past six weeks or so, so I'm trying to be strict again. But, part of my procrastination was customizing a couple of playlists on my ipod to play appropriately paced music for the different segments of my cardio workout, which felt like utter uselessness while I was doing it but ended up really helping at the gym. Who knew?

Anyway, after I worked out and showered, I had a salad at the cafe (I'm down to the end of my groceries again), came home, and talked to my parents while tidying my house. Luckily, the house didn't need much, just some general straightening and swiffering. After I talked to them, I ran to the grocery store and picked up some salad ingredients, then came home and made chocolate chip chewies and a greek salad for my dinner guests. Adit (some people call him the cat) is in town, and so John, Jess, Chris, Connie and Javier came over for a pizza party. I declared pizza party because it's easy to get delivery pizza (and we got it from Patxi's, which is infinitely better than Dominos), but as usual I went overboard and made salad and cookies (although they were well-received and not exactly as far overboard as I usually go). Chris brought beer, and we all sat cozily around my kitchen table as much general merriment ensued.

It was lovely to see everyone, and even lovelier that Jessica and Connie prodded John and Chris to take the items down from my beams -- my pleas are typically met with fond amusement, but theirs generate results, which means that I can eat my oatmeal tomorrow rather than staring forlornly at its perch far above my head. Everyone left around ten, and then it took me around ten minutes to fully clean up -- the chief advantage of the pizza party is not just the lack of cooking, but the lack of pots and pans to clean up. I spent the last hour taking care of stuff and procrastinating online, and now I should probably sleep. I have grand plans to finish the last of the stuff that my agent needs before she starts shopping my book, and I want to start working on Ellie's story tomorrow (or, at the latest, Tuesday). Goodnight!

and though my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes

I'm utterly wiped out, but since there are people who claimed to be nervous about what I might share on zee blog tonight, I clearly had an entertaining day. It started with a training session with Alyssa -- or rather, it started at four a.m. when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, and then fell asleep only to have nightmares of a) Prince William's wedding and b) a serial killer coming after a girl who managed to survive him the first time. Needless to say, those dreams weren't particularly helpful, particularly since I live in a cabin that can somehow feel scary and secluded even though it's on a relatively major street. After I woke up for the final time, though, I got ready and dragged myself into the gym. It was good to see Alyssa, and I'm eager to get back into things more steadily than I have been over the past few weeks, since my insane writing schedule encouraged me to eat like crap and skip the gym.

After training, I went to BevMo to buy wine and Courvoisier, and then to the grocery store to get the required ingredients for tonight's feast. Then, I came home and cleaned madly, some of which I did while talking to my mother. My house is usually pretty clean, but it was quite cluttered from several weeks of focusing on my writing while neglecting everything else, and I decided to put in the time to make it immaculate. I mostly succeeded, and I'm glad that the house is up to my standards again. But, I should have stopped cleaning and started cooking half an hour earlier than I did -- the food took longer to prep than I remembered, and so even though I started cooking by 4:30, the food wasn't ready until 7:30 (and my friends were supposed to come over at 6:30). Oops.

But, we had a fantastic time regardless. The group was my oldest work friends, the ones who get together for a friendship renewal dinner every six weeks -- you may recognize the names, if I tell you that Tolu, Joann, Sarah, Lizzie, and Jane came over. We did this one at my house partially because Lizzie is back in town for spring break (she moved to Seattle last fall for grad school), and doing it at my house was far cozier than going to a restaurant, even if my 'service' was extremely slow. But, I had snacky snacks and plenty of wine to tide us over, and it was nice to have plenty of time to catch up. And, the boeuf bourguignon turned out v. well -- sadly for them, it will be even better tomorrow, but it was certainly edible tonight.

My friends left sometime after nine, and I forced myself to load the dishwasher and wash up the few remaining items before sitting down so that I wouldn't have a mess to confront in the morning. But now, even though it's only eleven, I'm going to go to bed -- I had several glasses of wine tonight, which always makes me sleepy, and I'm too tired to do anything productive now anyway. Goodnight!