turn and run when all i needed was the truth

I spent too many hours staring at a screen today. I made it to my nine a.m. meeting without incident, and since that meeting was a two-hour training-type thing where laptops weren't allowed, I at least got a break then (although I not-so-surreptitiously checked my phone too many times). But after that, the fun began - two different meetings with my boss, and the rest of the day spent slogging over spreadsheets until my eyes bled. I caught a shuttle around 6:30, made it home by 7:40, and ate some beef dish that I'd ordered from Munchery on Monday - and it was totally delish (Cuban beef with black beans), so I think I'm going to have to do this again next week.

After supper, I was theoretically going to take a break and not look at screens...but instead, I made a mug of chai, put some Craig on in the background, and slogged on personal stuff for the last three hours. This included starting a Kobo account and putting my books up there, which was surprisingly straightforward - they should be live in the next three days. I'm still beyond woefully behind on email, and my to-do list is still cringe-inducing (or stroke-inducing), but I'm slowly, slowly starting to feel like the end of this particular tunnel is in sight. I'm sure I will feel differently after I take a week off, since I'll be out of town for a week for Puerto Rico/Vegas...but I can keep pretending for now.

And now, I must sleep - I'm predicting more spreadsheets in my future tomorrow, so resting my eyes is imperative. Goodnight!

when i am with you, i feel a little brave

The first day of the Nick and Ellie Death March went according to plan; I plan to finish a rough draft of their book by the end of June, which means 2000 words per day, every day. I got 2011 words today, which I will totally take. To make it official, I contacted the freelance editor I hired for SCOTSMEN (actually, she emailed me today, which was perfect timing) and told her I'd get her a draft by July 15 -- it will be rougher than the almost-finished draft I sent her of the previous book, but I think she could provide a lot of insight that would help me during the revision process. And I'll need all the insight I can get, particularly since this book makes more extensive use of flashbacks (Nick and Ellie were lovers a decade before the book starts) and also has a suspense/murder subplot, which I've never written. Ugh. Next time I won't try two completely new techniques at once (ha -- you know that's not a promise I'll keep).

So anyway, May turned into a total vacation (if vacation is the right word; not sure my dad feels like it's a vacation), and June must be a death march to compensate. So I got up this morning (at 9:30; I'm not turning over every new leaf), unpacked and did some laundry, showered, etc., before going to Morning Due to work/eat/work. I wrote longhand since that seems to work for me, but I had to take a longer break than I expected to talk to a potential speaker for the SF romance chapter; I thought it would take a few minutes, but it ended up taking half an hour, which made me surly even though he was a nice guy who will put on a good program. When my second two-hour parking spot was done, I came home and worked some more. Terry got home at some point, and we reunited and caught up over dinner at Tortilla Heights, where we got the pitcher of margaritas in honor of happy hour, but I sipped mine and conned her into drinking almost all of it. Ha. Then we came home, watched two episodes of Craig from the week he was in Scotland (awesome), and then some So You Think You Can Dance while I worked on my laptop. I should have gone out, but I'm tired and feeling hermity, so no parties for me!

And now I should go to bed; I'm going to a sleepover tomorrow night, so I need to get my 2000 words in early. Goodnight!

let's delay our misery

The morning was lovely, but my energy has crashed along with my caffeine levels, so I shall keep this brief. It was rather a godsend that the time changed last night, since I'm not sure I would have survived going to brunch if it hadn't. While I certainly didn't drink as much last night as I did on Halloween, I still felt like crap, and dragging myself out of bed and into the shower required a Herculean effort. However, I left the apartment on time and sped over to my old neighborhood for brunch with Dontae, one of my former employees who wanted to ask me some questions about business/life. We were going to go to Mission Beach Cafe, but after I spent twenty minutes looking for parking and finally made it over to meet him, we were still well over an hour away from getting a table. So we promptly abandoned it as a lost cause and went to Chow, where we were immediately seated on the patio and enjoyed a delicious breakfast (and three cups of coffee, which started my rapid ascent and even more rapid crash).

After Chow, we went to Four Barrel for coffee, and the latte certainly didn't help my caffeinated state -- I was utterly twitchy by the end. But we enjoyed catching up on life while watching the unbelievable hipster scene happening around us, and it was all quite fun. We spent approximately five minutes talking about what he wanted to ask me and three hours talking about a wide-ranging variety of other topics, which was a lovely way to recover from my hangover. When we parted ways, I came home, took care of a couple of things, and led Terry to the observation that drunk Sara and overcaffeinated Sara aren't too dissimilar -- I'm still remarkably coherent in both states, but there must be some sort of wild look in my eyes that gives me away. The caffeine crash was abrupt and awful, and so I took a nap before calling my parents. Eating some leftover chili for supper helped to stabilize me, but I was still pretty useless and only managed to write a couple of pages tonight -- c'est la vie.

I did, however, enjoy some fine television programming with Terry. We watched last week's "Once Upon a Time", which is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows, and I can't wait to see tonight's episode. We also watched the Halloween episode of Craig Ferguson, which featured Zooey Deschanel (just a day or two before her separation from the "Death Cab for Cutie" lead singer was announced -- and there were markedly no questions about her personal life) and Neil Gaiman (who is my idol when it comes to being a superstar writer). We wrapped it up by watching "Next Iron Chef", which is absolutely astounding to me -- it's truly nailbiter television, to the point that Terry was curled up in a ball on the couch refusing to visually watch the end while I sat in openmouthed horror with my hands covering my mouth as the finale went down. They've picked ten amazing chefs (tonight got it down to eight) who are culinary gods in the kitchen, and the difference between victory and defeat can come down to a sauce being just a bit too thick. It's fantastic viewing for anyone who likes cooking shows, and I highly recommend. In fact, I think that after the new year (I would start now, but I just don't have time), I'm going to challenge myself to make one new, interesting recipe a week, since I love to cook and don't do nearly enough of it, and have also fallen into a rut when it comes to what I make when entertaining. I'm excited for it, and I think Terry's equally excited (as should all of you who want to eat the fruits of my labor).

And now, I must sleep; I have to go to Palo Alto tomorrow as per usual, and then write a million pages. Goodnight!

disappear in the golden sands

My head hurts too much to even attempt to be witty tonight. Oddly, I'm actually in a better mood despite the headache, which doesn't seem quite fair. But, I suppose I'll take it, and if my slowly improving mood is any indicator, maybe I'll actually get some serious writing done tomorrow.

Because I stayed up too late, I didn't have a lot of time to get stuff done this morning -- unfortunate, since I woke up to a super annoying email telling me that the deadline I was on track to meet for submitting awards ceremony theme proposals had, at some point in the past, and without notification, changed from October 30 to October 14. So instead of being early (shocking for me, but I'm trying to come in early on the ceremony rather than hitting the deadline day-of), we're suddenly ten days late. Ugh -- I hate people and their stupid deadlines. Properly miffed, I drove down to Palo Alto and got slowly unmiffed (that sounds oddly dirty) with Alyssa. Our workout was half workout, half therapy session; she consistently tells me that I'm too hard on myself (wherever did she get that idea?), and so I took most of the rest of the day off at her suggestion.

It wasn't entirely her suggestion; the day would have conspired against me anyway. I ate a quick lunch at the gym cafe, then drove up to the evil city and saw Susie for a bang trim; she told me a quick and dirty story of a guy she'd gone on a date with, so I left with a bounce in my step and the ability to see without my bangs scratching my corneas. I proceeded from there to Nordstrom, where I bought a bag that was virtually free because I've been hoarding Nordstrom Notes; I had to buy something since some of my notes expire at the end of the month, so I got a lovely red bag that will hold all my myriad notebooks and tings when I go to the library. I need another bag built for notebooks like I need another lipgloss or pair of shoes or hair tie or comforter or Starbucks mug...I think you get the idea. But I love it, so screw you for judging my hoarding ways.

I stopped at Whole Foods after Nordstrom and stocked up on gluten-free goodies -- and that phrase wasn't actually as sarcastic as it sounded. It turns out that my beloved, adored Amy's enchiladas are gluten free; Alyssa doesn't like me eating things that I don't cook myself, but if the choice is between Amy's enchiladas and a whole jar of trail mix, I have a feeling the enchiladas would win. With that slightest, briefest glimmer of happiness, I drove home and made the roasted tomatoes that I make for my favorite caprese salad -- that salad is gluten free and also delicious, so it's a nice thing to have.

While the tomatoes roasted in the oven, I listened to the first half of my cousin Drewbaby's football game on the internet. They ended up winning handily (42-7, I believe), but I stopped listening when Drewbaby's team clearly had it well in hand. It's still a bit odd to me that the kid is athletic (and a senior in high school), but I'm sure it's odd to him that I'm a romance novelist, so c'est la vie. After I turned off the game, I wrote a page of the romance novel -- and it didn't go too badly, but I let myself off the hook when the tomatoes were done. I cooked some hamburgers (one for tonight, three for subsequent meals over the next few days), cut up some fresh mozzarella, and ate my delicious gluten-free feast while watching last week's episode of Craig Ferguson in which he and the robot have a Connery-off to see who has the best Sean Connery accent (Craig won handily).

Terry showed up shortly thereafter and made me a cosmo, at which point I was done for the night. So we watched two episodes of "Bones" as part of my continued directed reading to get me caught up on the series in time for the premiere. While I'm not quite as fanatical as Terry is (and I do sometimes wonder if she will turn into a cannibalistic serial killer out of absolutely nowhere as an homage to the show), I will say that the writing is quite good and the chemistry between the main characters is excellent. And David Boreanaz is hot hot hot, particularly when you picture him as an ex-sniper FBI agent rather than a cheating bastard of an actor.

After "Bones", I felt suitably calm enough to deal with the deadline issue from this morning, and now I really must sleep. If my brain doesn't explode tonight, I have high hopes for tomorrow's writing session. But if I don't write a million pages tomorrow, I must remember that it's not the end of the world. Goodnight!

i feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

I had a mostly lazy day today, which I think is allowed given how productive I was this week, but tomorrow will return to our regularly schedule brutal programming. I lazed about in bed until after ten, then eventually stumbled into the shower, etc., etc. Priyanka texted and asked if I wanted to meet up in a cafe and work, which I did; but the cafe she was at didn't have food, and by the time Terry came back from her workout and was ready to go at 1pm, Terry and I were both starving. So we abandoned Priyanka and went to Morning Due, where I had some awesome eggs benedict and worked on some stuff for zee romance blog. Terry rightly pointed out that I have a prioritization problem - or rather, I'm not improperly prioritizing things, just that there are so many things that are now direly important that I am having trouble staying focused on one or two or five things at a time. Getting my blog going is not as important as finishing Malcolm and Amelia's book, but it's an important long-term goal that I need to have going on the back burner as I work on Malcolm and Amelia at the front. Sigh.

We left Morning Due so that I could call my parents, as per usual. They were in fine form, and didn't mention anyone dying or having catastrophic health problems last week (not that those things are usual for my family, just that someone's always dying in a small population of mostly-elderly people), so I considered it a positive conversation. After getting off the phone, I messed around with some online promo investigation (looking at other authors' blogs and twitter feeds to see what I could learn), but I was getting distracted by v. strangely familiar music coming from whatever Terry was watching downstairs. The fact that I couldn't figure out what the music was bothered me so much that I finally went downstairs -- and discovered that she was watching "How to Train Your Dragon". No wonder the music was familiar; I listen to that soundtrack while writing all the time, but since I associate the music with writing and Green Library rather than the movie now, I had trouble placing it. So I watched the last half of the movie with her, which was wonderful. I really do think it's one of the better children's movies I've seen in a long, long time, and I highly recommend it. And it has Craig Ferguson, so really, what could be better?

After the movie ended, Terry and I got takeout from Blue Barn, then ate supper (you might call it dinner) while watching last week's "Project Runway." And then I procrastinated until now, but I think I shall read for a bit and then go to bed. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone known as Malcolm and Amelia's book, with some training with Alyssa thrown in. Goodnight!

i got the moves like jagger

I was v. productive today - I don't expect the rest of the week to fall in line like today did, but I'll take what I've got. I didn't get out of bed until almost ten a.m., but I still managed to write 3029 words (12 pages), do two loads of laundry, work out, watch "The Highlander" (the movie, not the series, starring Sean Connery in a supporting role in which he plays an Egyptian/Spaniard who sounds like Sean Connery) as research for my book, respond to a whole bunch of email that I'd been shamefully neglecting, and read a chapter of "The Secret History of the World," which is all about conspiracies and thus v. good for my young adult non-gargoyle romance. I also watched the last episode of Craig's trip to Paris from last week, which was an excellent culmination of a fantastic series of shows. And I even showered somewhere in there, so I'll count that all as a smashing success. If I could write 3000 words every day...

...but I can't, and I shouldn't be going there because then I will be horribly disappointed with myself when I don't do it again tomorrow and will end up ironing my hands or something as punishment. Tomorrow will not be nearly as productive since I'm going to be running around the entire time -- I've got training with Alyssa, followed by a doctor's appointment to find out what's going on with my ulcer friend, followed by a dentist's appointment that I've already rescheduled three times, followed by the potential for dinner in the glorious south bay. If you didn't discern any appreciable writing time in there, you would be correct. So, I'm going to go to bed now and try to get up early to write before going to the gym. I know, if you had a nickel for every time you heard me claim that I was going to get up early, you could buy a whole *chain* of hotels in Bratislava. But really, I might actually do it this time. Goodnight!

i blame myself for being too much like somebody else

I wrote six pages today; I'm not in love with it, but it will do for now. I'm in this weird dead-feeling patch of the manuscript where I need to set up whatever the main quest is for the rest of the book, but since I don't know what the quest is, they're sort of wandering around talking and failing to get to the point. That means I know I'll edit a lot of this out, but if they don't wander in the wilderness, I'll never figure out where they're going, and the story will die on the vine. Isn't that dramatic?

So I got out of bed sometime after ten, showered, ate some appropriately invalid-y food, made a lot of tea, and tried to fix our internet router. While I was fixing the router, I also installed the expanded hard drive for the Tivo, so we have an additional terabyte of storage -- yay for more saved episodes of Craig Ferguson in my future. I managed to write in the afternoon despite almost getting sucked into watching tv with Terry's sister, who was hanging out here this afternoon -- my fortitude at walking away from a television was amazing. I threw in the towel on the writing when it was time to call my parents, and after talking to them, I slunk back to the tv and watched an awesome Craig episode in which he visited Versailles. Then, I walked down to the heart of the Marina to pick up a salad (verdict: would have been great if the dressing hadn't been chock full of dill, which I still can't eat without having bad flashbacks to Ukraine), came back, watched some "Mad Men" and "Bones" with Terry, and then pretended to write for the rest of the evening. I say "pretended" because I would look at the manuscript for a bit and then conveniently remember something that I needed to do, so I didn't add many words.

But, I shall add words tomorrow; I'm not going to Palo Alto, so I have the whole day ahead of me to write as much as I please. I expect that means I will write nothing and be severely disappointed in myself, but I will attempt to avoid my usual fate. Goodnight!

i had my spit glands removed during the war

Today was a v. productive day culminating in an awesome Craig episode and a mild resurgence of zee ulcer, so overall I'm counting it as a victory. I drove down to the glorious south bay to train with Alyssa, and I was on time despite taking time to eat breakfast this morning, which was rather miraculous. It was v. good to see her; the advantage/disadvantage of being on time is that she can force me to do more exercises, and while it felt good to work out (shocking, I know), my still-recovering cold/ulcer-ravaged body was quite winded/overheated by the end of it. Still, it was good to be back. We're going to reassess and set a new baseline on Friday and come up with plans for the next month, and I'm excited to have some sort of routine. Also, according to the scale at Equinox, my ulcer helped me to lose six pounds whilst in Germany, so I'm going to start calling it my ulcer friend until my doctor tells me otherwise next week.

After working out, I took a cooling shower, dried my hair, and went to Joanie's Cafe (the love of my life) to have a cobb salad and brainstorm what happens next in my gargoyle romance novel (sans gargoyles). Then, I went to downtown Palo Alto and checked out the liquidation sale at Borders, which made me quite depressed. Borders was my absolutely favorite store as a child, and I basically hoarded whatever money I could get so that I could buy books there whenever my parents took me to the one in Des Moines. So, I'm quite sad that they couldn't get their act together. The liquidation sale isn't in super final closeout mode yet, and so the books I got were only 20-30% off, but I still walked away with an odd mix of history (mostly middle ages/secret societies), romance, and young adult, all of which will feed into my eccentricities. I also ran into Alana, an old coworker (in the 'we worked together for seven years' meaning, not the 'elderly' meaning) who is currently on maternity leave, so we caught up briefly in the dying light of the store (which is cutting back on A/C and lighting and no longer offers bathrooms, which I suppose is another way to cut costs). I'll have to go back next week and see what's been priced lower, but at this point I just hope it dies quickly rather than lingering on in pain.

My stomach felt pretty queasy after lunch, and so I bailed on the v. tentative plan I had to have dinner with Jessica and instead came back to the evil city, where I nursed my vaguely pain-filled stomach while writing in bed. I later relocated to Starbucks to eat a plain bagel for an early dinner, since I didn't think my spaghetti sauce from last night was going to make my stomach happy, and I kept writing until a little after seven. All in all, I wrote ten pages today, which was enough to make me feel quite smug. That meant that I could veg in front of the tv tonight without feeling guilty. And veg I did...

...and I saw the best thing ever, which was last night's episode of Craig Ferguson in Paris. He's in Paris all week, and if last night's episode is any indication, this whole week is going to be a winner. He really is an amazingly funny, inventive dude; rather than having a stage or a location or whatever, he did several interviews outdoors on card tables set up in random spots, and also did interviews on an open-top bus and in a restaurant (replete with a waiter setting and clearing plates around them as they spoke). It was the most awesome thing I've seen in forever, so you know what I'll be watching the rest of the week. Then, I watched a rerun of "NCIS: Los Angeles" that I hadn't seen, did some stuff online, and am now going to go to bed. I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, but I want to see if I can hit ten pages again -- a girl can dream. Goodnight!

i'm only gonna break break br-break break your heart

My productive hermitage continues uninterrupted; today was not quite as productive as I intended, mostly because I reached a point where I could not physically look at the screen any longer, and so I took a break and didn't finish inputting edits from the paper copy of my manuscript to my computer. But, I will finish tomorrow, and then the edits begin again (much like Michael Finnegan).

I got a lot of sleep last night, which was nice; when I woke up, I messed around and did some procrastinating before going to Joanie's Cafe for lunch. While I was there, I read a story that I was critiquing for someone, then came home and intended to type up the critique, but instead sat around and avoided it because I needed to let my brain mull over the words for a bit (which is my strategy for dulling the sharpness of my critiques, since if I say what I think as soon as I think it, I tend to draw blood -- I had to do the same thing with performance reviews too). I called my parents as well, as is my wont, and today we talked for two hours, which was nice (albeit depressing, since they told me about some goats that burned up in their neighbor's shed).

After getting off the phone with them, it was five o'clock here, and I proceeded to start working on the edits. I worked for five hours straight, with a break to eat some frozen pizza (which will earn a questionable look from Alyssa, although she was happy with what I ate last week because I didn't go out and so was limited to the generally healthy stuff I had stocked my fridge with). By ten p.m., my head was pounding, my eyes were crossing, and I couldn't stand the thought of typing anymore -- so I watched television (a tivo'd recording of Oprah's post-Oscar episode and an episode of Craig, plus five minutes of a v. disturbing CSI:Miami (yaaaaaaaaaaaah!)) while practicing my knitting. I've got a ways to go before I'll feel confident enough in my knit stitch to move on to purl, and from there to the fingerless gloves I want to make in abundance, but my rows are generally uniform and there are no noticeable holes, so I think I'll get there. Then, from midnight to one a.m., I typed up that critique that I had been avoiding, and now it's time for bed.

Tomorrow brings more of the same - edits and hermitage. If you're sick of reading about edits and hermitage, just think - you only have to read about them for three minutes a day, but it takes me sixteen hours a day of edits/hermitage to generate the content for this post. I'm doing it for you, dear reader. Goodnight!

running up that hill

It's time to go to bed, but I'm slightly distracted by the extreme squeaking of the bed in the room above me (which I assume is due to people have sex, not a poltergeist). So, I've been watching some Craig and teaching myself how to knit -- isn't that a lovely juxtaposition to whatever is going on upstairs?

Today was okay; I didn't get as much done as I should have because I got caught in another Wikipedia hole (my version of the Bermuda Triangle, which I fall into and lose all track of time and can't ever seem to extricate myself). I did get up and have lunch in a different part of town (Pacific Grove), at this cute little diner that I would have enjoyed more if I had remembered that I don't particularly like omelettes. I also stopped by a knitting supply store to get needles and a skein of yarn. Then, I worked on zee romance novel this afternoon and evening, making some more progress on Ferguson's storyline. I wasn't feeling quite as good about it today as I was yesterday, if only because the amount of work is rather daunting (not in terms of how much I have to do, but rather how to organize it so that I make the changes in an order that makes sense and doesn't create more work for me in the long run). But, I'm plowing forward, and I'm eager to get the latest changes knocked out so that I can move on with my life.

And with that, I have nothing else of interest to report, so I think I'll try to sleep. Goodnight!

forbidden friendship

I'm v. distracted and don't quite know how to blog right now; Chandlord is drifting off to sweet slumber on my couch whilst watching tivo'd episodes of Craig, and so I am having trouble concentrating. Craig has the absolute most awkward guest ever on his show right now -- the first guest was Emily Deschanel from "Bones", who was quite lovely, but the second one is an awkward disaster. Chandlord said it would be like having me on the show, which hurt my feelings, but since she refuses to leave, I think I'm stuck with her.

The first two-thirds of my day was fine, although not particularly wonderful; I set my alarm for eight, and then somehow managed to turn it off and so slept until ten. I forced myself out of bed, procrastinated for a couple of hours, went to Starbucks and successfully rebrainstormed the scene that I'm currently struggling with, wasted some more time in the afternoon, and finally forced myself to write approximately four pages before Chandlord showed up a little after five p.m. We had planned to go see a literary event at Stanford -- a conversation between Tim O'Brien and Tobias Wolff. Tobias Wolff is a famous offer who heads up the Stanford creative writing department; Tim O'Brien is a famous author who has written numerous acclaimed stories, including "The Things They Carried", a story about the Vietnam War that Katie may remember from high school English. So, Chandlord and I ate a frozen pizza and split a bottle of wine, and then walked over to the event, since I basically live on campus.

We were approximately 12 minutes early, but we got there just as they ran out of seats. I thought that we were fine, but I forgot that the really popular events do fill up; the talks I've gone to at Stanford over the past few years have been related to medieval studies, which, as you might suspect, ain't so popular. So, we ended up not seeing it -- instead, we got coffee at the new Coupa Cafe (which has replaced Moonbeans, where we used to get coffee as students a decade ago), browsed through the Stanford bookstore, and then walked back to my place (taking a detour to swing on a tire swing). We would have gotten fine latenight cuisine (aka mozzarella sticks), but it was only 7:30pm, which wasn't exactly late.

So we got home, chatted over some herbal tea (which is really just herbal tea, not code for anything), and Chandlord decided to stay here rather than driving back to the evil city. So, we watched a tiny bit of "The Bachelor", then started watching episodes of Craig. Now, she's asleep on my couch and I should go to bed so that I can go to the gym tomorrow morning, and then write like the wind so that I can feel better about myself. Goodnight!

the sound of settling

So I made it to the gym by nine a.m., trained with Alyssa, came home, did laundry...and promptly let the rest of the day slip away from me. The only thing of interest was that I ran into my neighbor who lives in the studio above the garage and we showed each other our places; she's managed to fit a baby grand piano in there, in addition to a ton of other stuff, which is quite remarkable. But then, I messed around on the internet, took a nap, messed around some more, made dinner (pasta with some arrabiata jarred sauce made by Mario Batali, to which I added a bunch of chicken), and ate dinner while watching Craig Ferguson. He had Salman Rushdie on, who was quite entertaining, and who also manages to write critically-acclaimed, award-winning novels despite an addiction to iphone games.

Bottom line, I should have just watched a movie or read a book, but I stayed on my computer while telling myself that I would start writing in ten minutes, and the hours just slipped away. I must find a better system than this asap. So in an effort to kickstart that better system, I'm going to bed now (eleven p.m. - shocking!) so that I can get up early tomorrow and write/go to the gym before I hit the afternoon doldrums. Goodnight!

i'm gonna rock you like a baby while the cities fall

So I was successful in finishing my Golden Heart Entry in time to send it this afternoon; I still sent it overnight even though I could have sent it second-day air, mostly because I'm paranoid and could send another copy tomorrow if today's copy somehow gets lost between here and Houston. I'm glad that it's over, even though I wrote the cheesiest epilogue in the history of romance novels (except for the great '80s novels where the heroine was seventeen and married the guy who kidnapped/raped her at the beginning of the book -- ah, the memories). I didn't feel as elated as I thought I would, though, since the last half is more like a an alpha version than a beta version, and I've got a lot of work to do to turn it into something that can see the light of day.

That's all in the (near) future, though; after mailing my entry, I went to Stanford, had some dinner (at 4pm, not because I'm old, but because I had rice cakes for lunch because I didn't want to take a break), and then went to my blogging class. I'm going to spend the next week doing a thorough revamp of zee romance blog, which is much needed even though I've been putting it off. Then, I came home, watched a great episode of Craig (which included Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson telling how he bought a car from a crackhead when he was fifteen, and Paula Deen cooking up an amazing Thanksgiving feast while Craig made dirty innuendoes), and started getting organized for all the stuff I want to do before I go home in two weeks.

I was going to treat you to one of those long, rambling posts full of bittersweet mumblings and self-absorbed realizations (I know, your fave!), but I'm out of words and I need to get some sleep before starting the word games afresh tomorrow. So you escape this time, my friends -- use your reprieve well. Goodnight!

what you've got, what you love, what you need, what you have is real

Thanks for the wonderful birthday wishes, everyone! I will have to respond to some of those wishes separately, but right now I'm barely capable of typing, so I'm going to call it a night. I made it to Berkeley (ssssss) just in time for the RWA monthly meeting, which was good, and then Grace bought me lunch afterward in honor of my birthday. Then, since I was so exhausted, I came home, talked briefly to my parents, and then slept for almost two hours. This resulted in me being fifteen minutes late to Vidya's, but we were still able to have a lovely dinner at Arlequin (after our first plan to act suburban and go to CPK failed because the restaurant closed).

Craig was dreaming; having now seen him twice, I think I prefer when he's in my living room (albeit on Tivo). But, he was still hilarious, and he brought along a couple of his opening standup buys, including the black dude who shoes up in every musical number, and the little bondage dude who also shows up everywhere. And, at the end, Robin Williams came out unannounced, which was amazing.

Now, though, I'm falling asleep on my keyboard. I successfully drove home tonight, since I intend to write all day tomorrow and I'll get more done if I start off with a solid chunk of sleep in my own bed. So, goodnight

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: --
RescueTime productivity rating: n-

what a fantastic tuscan voyage!

Sincere apologies for not blogging last night; I intended to blog, and then intended to let Vidius Chandicus guest blog, but I threw up as much red wine as I could get out of my stomach and went to bed instead.

So yesterday was quite good, and today would have been lovely if I wasn't in so much pain from yesterday. I managed to go to three Starbucks yesterday -- I had a doctor's appointment in Palo Alto in the morning, so I went to Starbucks near Secret Safeway and wrote for an hour; later, I met up with the owner of the house I'm renting to sign the lease at the Starbucks on Charleston; and I ended the day by having coffee with Natasha (later joined by Kim and Terry) at the Starbucks on Shoreline. It was quite a Starbucks overload, and no doubt contributed to the disaster that was my evening because I drank a lot of caffeine but really didn't eat much of anything throughout the day (always a bad idea when drinking later).

The owner of the house was quite nice; he's a semi-retired real estate agent who has this property as an investment. When I met him at the open house we were both in a rush and I didn't feel like we really clicked, but we had a nice conversation about the tech industry before signing the lease, and so it's nice to feel like I have some sort of tenuous connection with him (and that he seems put together and sane, which is always good in a landlord). I'm likely going to move the 9th or 10th, which means I'm going to have to pack the week after I get back from Cancun -- sooner than I had planned to move, but it will save money in the long run, and I'm also super super psyched about the place. This means that I only have to commute to the peninsula for twelve more work days before I move -- isn't it insane how fast this has moved?

Anyway, you don't care about that -- you likely just want to hear about the alcohol. When I got home, I had a few minutes to change and talk to Adit before Vidya and Peder (aka Timmy Timer) showed up. We opened a bottle of v. nice wine and sat around talking for an hour. When the time came to decide where to eat, Adit suggested the Olive Garden in Stonestown Galleria (inconveniently located on the other side of town, but conveniently located right on a MUNI line that goes past our place). This was clearly a joke, although the seed had been planted awhile ago because I kept saying that Adit and I should have a roommate dinner there -- but we essentially all dared each other into going, and no one backed down. It's funny; I used to like Olive Garden and think it was special (and celebrated my seventeenth birthday there with my high school friends and a waiter we nicknamed Al Fredo), but now that I've been exposed to genuine, delicious food of all varieties, Olive Garden is never high on the list of places to go.

ssssanyway, after deciding to go to the Olive Garden, we decided to go big, and we quickly drank another bottle of (vastly inferior) wine before catching the train. Adit also insisted that we take "roadies", which meant that Adit and Timmy had bottles of beer with them and Vidya and I each had mini bottles of champagne that I had been keeping in the fridge. Unfortunately, Vidya didn't want to finish hers, so I drank all of mine and half of hers, which is where things started to go downhill for me.

By the time we got over to Stonestown (likening it to a trip to Tuscany), we were all quite cheerfully drunk, and the waiter tolerated us quite well even though they sat us in a back corner of the restaurant. Adit promptly ordered two more bottles of wine, which we proceeded to drink while our conversation turned ever more absurd (and I kept dipping my breadsticks in Vidya's soup). One of the best moments was when Adit toasted us with "Prego!", the traditional Italian toast, and Timmy toasted back "Classico!", thinking that we were toasting with pasta sauce names. Ha.

Anyway, I was so focused on drinking wine and talking with my friends that I somehow forgot to eat most of my entree, and so I really didn't have dinner even though I picked at it (helping to ensure that I stayed wildly drunk). Katrina showed up at some point, and since she couldn't drink she offered to drive us home (which was v. much appreciated). Once home, Adit promptly passed out, and the rest of us watched some Craig Ferguson before I decided to throw up the contents of my stomach. Vidya left after that (note, I did make it into the bathroom and aimed properly -- I wasn't super sick, just aware that there was no good reason to leave that much wine sloshing around in my belly), and I somehow managed to inflate the air mattress and find some blankets for Timmy Timer before stumbling off to bed myself.

Needless to say, this morning was quite painful in that dizzy, spinny, dehydrated sort of way that my hangovers often are. I was not sick to my stomach this morning (another trait of my hangovers), but there was a very real risk that I was going to have to cancel my brunch plans. I somehow rallied, though, and cleaned myself up so that I could drive over to Pine and Laguna and meet up with Terry, Fred and Jamie (I just realized that Terry and Jamie are both gender-neutral names -- in this case, they're both women, as I'm sure you know about Terry because she was a regular on the blog before she went off to business school). I haven't seen Fred and Jamie since Terry left for school, but they recently bought a really cute apartment in a Victorian building over near the Fillmore area, which was adorable. We walked over to Fillmore and had brunch at a place that miraculously didn't have a line; I had a Coke and huevos rancheros in an attempt to get sugar and grease into my system to jumpstart my recovery. I was only moderately successful, and still felt like crap when we parted ways (on a high note, after discussing my plans for twin children named Mason and Dixon), but at least I was on the upswing.

After leaving them, I met up with Vidya, and we went a few blocks away from her place to have a latte (for her) and an iced tea (for me) at a place called farm:table. It only has one table inside, a communal affair that can seat 6-8, but we managed to get the corner by the open window, and so we spent some quality time catching up over delicious drinks, with sunshine streaming in through the windows. Eventually, though, we had to part ways, and I came home, talked to Adit, decided to throw in the towel on any attempt to repair the ravages of last night (there are still wineglasses all over the living room and an utter mess in the kitchen), and took a nap instead.

I'll try to be brief and wrap this up -- suffice it to say that after my nap, I freshened myself up, drove down to Palo Alto, and had coffee/dinner/coffee with Terry. I was v. glad that I got to see her by herself; the other two times I saw her this weekend were fun, but it's always nice to get some quality alone-time with friends. We met up at Coupa Cafe, where I had a tiger spice chai and she had a Chardonnay, and then we walked down University to the oddly-named Pasta?, where we had pasta, of course. It's quite funny that I managed to go to Olive Garden and Pasta? in the same weekend -- but the food was good, and of course the company was nice too.

We browsed around Borders for a bit after dinner, then went back to Coupa Cafe, where I attempted to write while Terry worked on a business school assignment. We talked for another hour or so after we both threw in the towel, and then I made the very boring drive back to the evil city.

So, it's been an action-packed couple of days! Tomorrow will be substantially less action packed; other than cleaning the apartment, the only other plan I have is to hide out and do some serious writing. Wish me luck -- and now, it's time for bed.

make a circle in the sand, make a halo with your hands

I'm going to go to bed early again tonight; instead of overdosing on wine, I overdosed on chicken pot pie at Marie Callendar's. Yes, I'm geriatric.

I got up early today and made it down to the office in time to cram like mad for my exam. Other than my meeting from 8:30-9, and a quick lunch from 12:40 to 1, I studied the entire rest of the morning, watching a ton of webinars, taking eight pages of notes, rereading the notes I'd already taken yesterday, etc., etc., etc. The topic was Analytics + Website Optimizer + Conversion Optimizer -- all of which I find quite interesting, and I actually use Analytics for the romance novel blog, but unfortunately those products all launched after I stopped having any interaction with clients, and so I never really bothered to learn much about the stuff.

The exam itself is rather intense (it's proctored, and we have to take it via a special browser that locks out access to the rest of your computer during the exam). However, I managed to score an 85 (passing was 75), which was totally fine with me. Ironically, I tied with Gyre, who was sitting next to me; it would have been better if one of us beat the other one, but I'm claiming it as a partial victory because he still meets with clients all the time, and so theoretically should know more than someone who just sits around and writes emails and blogs all day.

After finishing the exam, I was pretty wiped out (and strangely euphoric), so Joy and I snuck out of the office to see a movie. We ended up watching "How to Train Your Dragon" -- my verdict is that I liked the animation, Craig Ferguson's voice was nice (as was Gerard Butler's), and while the storyline was mostly predictable (in fact, it exactly follows the story structure we analyzed in the class I took last weekend), it was still enjoyable enough. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it was a good way to get out of the office for a couple of hours.

I dropped Joy off at the office when the movie was over, and went back to my desk for awhile before meeting up with Heather (aka dear respected madam) for supper. We decided to go to Marie Callendar's, where we spent an hour and a half catching up over chicken pot pies. I took her home, then drove back to the city of sin, where I should have written for an hour; instead, I'm going to go to bed now and attempt to get up early so that I can write before work.

However, the commute will not continue for much longer -- I got the place that I was so excited about, and I'm meeting the rental agent tomorrow afternoon to sign the lease and give him my deposit. The place is totally adorable (see below for what it looks like with the current occupant's furniture), and I'm v. excited about the shorter commute. However, I'm not excited by the fact that I'm suddenly moving in about three weeks (targeting May 10), which means I'm going to have to pack at some point after I get back from Cancun and before I go to Adit's wedding + Europe. My only saving grace is that while I have a lot of stuff here, most of my stuff is already packed and sitting in storage, and so the amount that I have to do to move is a fraction of what I had to do at Vidya's. Granted, it's still going to be a lot of work, but it could be a lot worse.

Now, though, it's time for bed -- enjoy the pics of my new place below. Goodnight!

that stained glass curtain you're hiding behind never lets in the sun

I had a slightly lazier day than I should have allowed myself to have, given that my father and I leave for Singapore three days from right now -- but I accomplished the most pertinent things at the day job that I needed to do today (namely, several meetings), and then came home early with the intention of writing for a few hours. Instead, I failed to write; but I did make another porkchop and reheat some of the polenta from Wednesday (still delicious), and I watched one of the funniest episodes of Craig that I've seen in awhile. Eddie Izzard was the main guest, so he was of course hysterical. Then, Craig did a segment with a barbecue chef from southern Georgia, and it became apparent that neither of them could understand each other's accents, which made for comedic gold. I also watched another episode that started with Rosie O'Donnell and the puppets lipsyncing 'Addicted to Love' while Craig and three of his cronies wore tight black outfits, wigs, and overly painted red lips while pretending to play guitars. So, none of that was productive at all, but it was a v. welcome break.

I also made a list (an unfortunately very long list) of all the things I have to do this weekend to get ready for my trip, and I made a list of the things I need to pack, and I made a list of the things I need to buy/procure/steal. I love to make lists, so my current state (planning a big event a work + planning a two-week trip to India/Singapore) has put me in listmaking heaven. I also love crossing things off lists, but doing the things required to get to the crossing-off stage can be a bit annoying, so this weekend is going to be a hard slog. But it will be worth it when I pick up my dad at the airport on Sunday night and we get on the plane on Monday -- and I will have more than enough time on the flight to Singapore (via Hong Kong) to relax.

I suppose at this point I should go to bed, since there's nothing on my list that I either want to or can do tonight. Goodnight, and wish me luck this weekend! And just think...in a few days you'll start getting travel posts, which have been sorely lacking since I haven't left the country in almost two years. I'm glad that I'm rectifying my foreign-travel drought -- here's hoping that I have a lot more foreign travel in my future in the coming year!

good morning starshine

The tetanus shot is still wreaking havoc; I spent most of the day sweating, with a two-hour block of chills late this afternoon. However, I survived the chills better today because I remembered that I got a heating pad for Christmas last year, and applying heat directly to my spine kept me from shivering myself to death. I went into work despite all of this because the big boss had a big meeting that I wanted to attend, but I left around two, stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some chicken noodle soup, and spent the rest of the afternoon, evening and night curled up on the couch, alternating between wearing a tshirt and flannel pants or wearing tshirt/sweatshirt/flannel pants/sheepskin slippers/all-encompassing blanket depending on where in the fever/chills cycle.

I shall stop complaining about my health now because it makes me feel even more like an octogenarian (although I just had the awful realization that I officially qualify as 'woman living alone with the cat', if you accept Adit's preposterous claim that some people used to call him 'the cat') -- although I think my complaints aren't entirely ill-justified given that I have a red welt the size of my entire hand on my upper left arm. But, as Adit so kindly pointed out, given my allergic reactions to everything I likely should have been weeded out of the evolutionary genepool long ago, so I will be thankful for what I have.

So in my utter sloth tonight, I watched three episodes of Craig, part of Jeopardy!, and the movie "Sunshine Cleaning" that I wanted to see when it came out last summer. It starred Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin, which made me v. excited -- although it ended up being a bit more depressing than I was expecting, and while it was good, it wasn't exactly the sort of trash that I was in the mood to watch. I then proceeded to waste some time on the internet and was getting ready to write this post and go to bed when Adit and Priyanke showed up with their friend Johanna in tow. We ended up talking for a couple of hours, which was fun (lots about robber barons, gypsies, skin cancer, and midgets), and so now it's time for bed. Hopefully I will be better able to sleep tonight...we shall see. Goodnight!

springtime for hitler

This is a four-minute post. I was only marginally productive today; I'm trying to get my Christmas cards finished and mailed, but it's unclear whether it will happen tomorrow or not. I did write some this afternoon, but I had a smashing headache and ended up falling asleep for an hour. As a result, it's after three a.m. and I'm just now beginning to feel tired enough to go to sleep.

However, despite that the day was lovely, and my father made pizza for dinner -- it's delicious in a completely different way from Little Star. We then watched the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, which was better than usual; the performances in honor of Bruce Springsteen, Grace Bumbry (the first black opera singer to sing at Bayreuth), and Dave Brubeck (a jazz musician) were fantastic, and the tributes to Robert DeNiro and Mel Brooks were really funny (particularly when Ben Stiller interrupted his own speech about DeNiro to go off about how much he loved Bruce Springsteen, and then also pointed out 'oh yeah, the Nobel Peace guy', since Obama was sitting next to the honorees).

I continued to attempt to write Christmas cards while watching Craig with my dad, and then retired to my room around one a.m. to theoretically go to bed, but got lost in another Wikipedia odyssey. I tried to set a goal to stop wasting so much time on the internet for 2009, but I think I need to recommit and try again for 2010. Now, though, my four minutes are up, and I should really go to bed if I have any hope of getting up at a non-laughable hour tomorrow. Goodnight!

he said to only look up

I should have gone to bed ages ago, but I'm pretty congested and in no mood to lie in bed and swallow my own snot. I would refrain from discussing my illness (which so far appears to just be a nasty cold, knock on wood), but it's really the only thing going on right now. I did go into the office today because I had a meeting with the big boss that I didn't want to miss; but, I left shortly after three p.m., and came home and did v. little the rest of the evening. I decided to indulge my illness with some Chinese takeout, since you're supposed to feed a fever (although if it's a cold, I'm failing to starve it). I also watched the finale to "The Next Iron Chef" and was happy to see that Chef Garces beat out Chef Mehta at the end. Then, I watched an episode of Craig featuring Neil Patrick Harris, whom I adore; this led to some YouTubing of various great 'How I Met Your Mother' clips.

I also did some work that I absolutely had to get done; even if I stay home tomorrow, I will have to work most of the day to be ready for a meeting I have on Wednesday. I also inadvertently watched a video of my least favorite song (Guster's "All the Way up to Heaven") because I was excited to click on what appeared to be a wedding-related video sent to me and the boys by Chris (aka Boyd) -- bastard. But now that all the fun is over, I think I should probably get some sleep.

One final thing -- this is tremendously dorky, but I've started following Laura Ingalls Wilder on Twitter. She will only be funny to those of you who read the 'Little House' books as a child (television show viewers need not apply, since I thought the show was an abomination). Her twitter feed is here - http://twitter.com/HalfPintIngalls - and you don't need to be a twitter user in order to look at it. My favorite is that she created an Amazon wishlist for her Christmas; hysterical!

And on that note, goodnight!