someone's gonna tell you lies, cut you down to size

Today was a brutal, endless slog at work, hampered by the fact that I was crankier than I've been in recent memory (with the possible exception of how cranky I was yesterday). It probably didn't help that my boss was fasting for a Ramadan/diversity awareness event, and by the time we met at 3pm, she was starving and cranky and I was over-caffeinated and cranky, so it was all pretty much a wash. I eventually had to put my headphones in and crank up the volume just so I wouldn't hear anybody else; the new building I moved into is lovely, but the concrete floors, while stylish, are hellish from an acoustic standpoint since there are too many people running around in heels. I somehow need to figure out how to stop being cranky, since it's neither useful nor attractive -- hopefully I can get myself back in check tomorrow. If nothing else, I'm spending the morning in my (carpeted) old building and then having lunch with Gyre, so I have high hopes that I'll revert to some semblance of good cheer.

After slogging basically nonstop from 8am to 6:45pm (with a quick break to eat a baked potato), I left the office and went to Cafe Borrone, where I forced myself to work on zee romance novel for a couple of hours while enjoying a sandwich and an overpriced glass of wine. I spent some quality time moving scenes around and fleshing out which scenes need to be built, and then I made myself just sit there and write, netting exactly 1000 words before deciding to come home. By the time I got here and took out the trash for tomorrow's pickup, I was desperately in need of a break -- so I watched tonight's "Top Chef" without even turning on my laptop. Since all I used my laptop for today was writing, I've netted the best productivity rating I've ever had -- let's see if I can keep it up.

Now, though, I should go to bed; getting sleep would probably help me be less cranky, but since I have an 8am meeting, I need to go to sleep asap. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 1000 (50.0% of goal)
Productive time: 1.25hrs
RescueTime productivity rating: 1.99 (global average: 0.89)

they stand up in the palace like it's the last of the great pioneer town bars

I am simply not meant to only get six hours of sleep a night. I don't understand the people who can routinely get five or six hours and still function -- Adit is one of those people, and it was always bizarre to me how he could be up and ready to go before me when he had come home long after me. Perhaps he feeds off of other peoples' energy like some sort of social vampire, recharging himself through socializing while I would rather just go to bed. Tonight is definitely one of those 'must go to bed immediately' nights; even though MOCKINGJAY arrived at my office today, I left it there because I knew that if I brought it home, I would open it, and if I opened it, I wouldn't put it down until I was done. Instead, I'm going to sleep tonight, and read it tomorrow to celebrate being done with the presentation that has been killing me this week.

I sustained another fatal dose of powerpoint today; the big boss met with me at 11:30 and reconceptualized several of the slides that we showed last night, which meant that I had to work some powerpoint "magic" all afternoon to get them done in time for tomorrow morning's presentation. I could quite happily never use powerpoint again, but there are probably still some slides in my future. However, the deck is pretty close to done (just waiting on a final round of edits from the big boss) -- but I'm going to go to bed shortly, and do them in the morning.

So work was fairly uneventful, consistently mostly of powerpoint and a restless search for new and varied means of caffeination to keep myself awake. I had lunch with the Heathers, which was a nice interlude, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office, listening to music and being glad that at least I was in an airconditioned environment for my powerpoint hell, since it was over 90 degrees here yesterday and today. On the way home, I grabbed some sushi, then came back and read (not MOCKINGJAY) for a bit.

And now I'm going to read a bit more to put my brain to sleep -- but I'll read something I've already read before, so that I don't get swept away by my curiosity, and I will set an alarm so that I don't keep reading forever. Clearly I did no writing today, but once this presentation is done, I should be able to devote the weekend to Madeleine and Ferguson. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: --
RescueTime productivity rating: -- (global average: 0.34)

motivation, such an aggravation

I have such a headache that I can't possibly come up with a simile to match how I described the headache that I had last night, so you can pack your bags and come back tomorrow if you don't want to wade through the rest of this hoping that it gets better.

I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the office this morning; my first stop was for allergy shots, which always make me surly, since I basically have to hold still while my body is injected with three different serums that it does not like and is not eager to build a tolerance to. Then, I slogged, with a break to have lunch with Heather (aka dear respected madam), whom I hadn't seen in a couple of weeks. It was baked potato Tuesday, and I hadn't seen Heather in a couple of weeks, so even though I should have been slogging, I took a break and caught up. Then, I slogged relentlessly for another couple of hours, met up with the big boss to do what was supposedly the final runthrough of the slides -- and of course had to spend the next five hours frantically changing stuff before the meeting that they were presented in. I did have some moments of levity with Alan (my former big boss from when I went on sabbatical, but my current big boss is bigger) and Joy (why do girls named Joy often not seem so joyful?), but I didn't have dinner, and so I made do with some string cheese and a Coke Zero (they were even out of Diet Coke, the horror) at the start of the meeting.

It went well, although as soon as the slides were presented I noticed typos that I had never seen before, so I made notes of the various things to fix. I had also made a perfectly hideous slide involving an aerial view of a soccer field with some clipart of two princesses in ballgowns chasing down a soccer ball, but the big boss seemed to like that one best of all (which may be why we get along so well). And then, at 8:30pm, the meeting was over, I promptly came home...

...and read DEMON FROM THE DARK straight through until now. It's the latest by Kresley Cole, who writes my favorite vampire/werewolf/demon/Valkyrie/etc books, and it released today. It for some reason got here before MOCKINGJAY, which is the other book I'm relentlessly excited for, and so I read it all tonight. I should get MOCKINGJAY tomorrow, but I'm going to try to have a bit of restraint and self-control -- I desperately need to write tomorrow night, and I'm also going to desperately need to sleep if I'm going to recover from three nights of six hours each so that I can make it through my early meetings on Thursday.

So now, having warned you in advance that this was going to be boring, I can go to bed with a clear conscience despite having written a totally useless post. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: --
RescueTime productivity rating: -- (global average: 0.19)

make it work

I have oh-so-briefly fallen back into my old wicked ways -- I was at the office by 8:00, stayed until six, grabbed a sandwich on the way home, and then proceeded to work for the last seven hours (well, with a one hour break at 11pm to let my laptop recharge while I watched the fourth episode in a row of "Project Runway", thus getting caught up on the new season, even though I'm so far disappointed that none of the designers seem to rival Emilio or Seth Aaron from last season). I'm in my own private powerpoint hell, iterating through what is currently a 42-slide deck (ignoring the 60 or 70 slides that will be in the appendix that I have to have done by Thursday) with the big boss, and we have to be done by Tuesday night at 7:30pm, when she has to present it via conference call to the Asia teams. Then, I'm sure she'll want changes before presenting it again to the Europe and Americas teams on Thursday morning, so I don't expect the next couple of days to be any better.

What would make my life better is if people could make their own damn powerpoint -- that 42 slide deck only has 8 or 10 slides that I should have been responsible for, but I got some of the ugliest damn slides you've ever seen from people who were responsible for other bits of it, and since I was the one the big boss gave all the feedback to, it took quite some time to get that feedback back to the responsible parties, and in many cases was easier to just do it myself. I know, that's a bad collaborator, but frankly I don't care (as evidenced by the fact that my chat status at work currently says "i would be totally willing right now to pick up powerpoint, walk for a few months, and attempt to cast it into the fires of mount doom").

But, luckily this too shall pass, and then I should have a powerpoint lull for awhile, unless I get roped into doing the deck for the big boss's trip European sales conference at the beginning of October. It's just too bad that this is all happening this week, given the insane number of books that are releasing like RIGHT NOW that I want to read all at once, and given the insane number of words I want to write for my own book to get myself on track. Suffice it to say that I didn't write today; I debated writing during that hour while my work laptop was charging, but since my brain already feels like there are thirty-three Chilean miners trapped inside it, defecating all over everything while trying to chisel their way out, I don't think that writing would have improved the situation much.

On that incredibly disgusting mental image, I'm off to bed -- and I smartly rescheduled my 8:30am meeting tomorrow so that I could get an extra half hour of sleep. I was running so late this morning that I didn't even bother with makeup (I put it on in the bathroom at work after my first meeting). And while I was in that first meeting (thankfully over videoconference so that I could zoom out and they weren't frightened by my hideous un-made-up visage), I vaguely noticed that my arm was wet...and then realized that my hair was still so wet that it was actually dripping on the table. That is one advantage of working for the big boss -- I may sometimes look completely ridiculous, but most people are so scared of talking to someone five levels above them that very few people would have the courage to go up to her and rat me out, so the fact that I consistently show up in the mornings looking like a tired teenager has never come up between us. Yay. And now, goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: -
RescueTime productivity rating: - (global average: 0.34)

lips and teeth to ask how my day went

I pride myself for having a way with words, but there are no words to express the utterly dismal feelings I had when returning to work today after two weeks off. I should have come back relaxed, rejuvenated, and ready for new challenges ahead; instead, I came back surly and dissatisfied, with absolutely no desire to vanquish the beasts lurking in my inbox. I did manage to get through my inbox and take care of some other tasks, but it wasn't my most productive day ever. Of course, it was good to have free food again, and I said hi to a couple of people I hadn't seen since before I left, but other than that, it was a rather lackluster day.

When I left work, traffic was backed up because of a Rush concert at Shoreline, which meant that it took me ten minutes to get out of the parking lot (the perils of sharing a single access road with one of the area's major amphitheatres). I swear that I could smell marijuana from the parking lot, which was a good half-mile away from the amphitheatre itself. But, I finally escaped, and made my way to Starbucks, where I wrote for a bit. Between that writing session and the writing I just did, I wrote ~800 words tonight, revising and mostly rewriting a scene in the second sequence of my book. I'm pretty happy with it, although we'll see if I feel the same way tomorrow when I tackle the scene that comes after it.

I spent some quality time this evening procrastinating on Twitter and Wikipedia; I should have read a book, but I wasn't in the mood to think about what I wanted to read next. And now, I should go to sleep; I need to be a bit more productive at work tomorrow so that I can get out early and write before having dinner with a friend. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 811 (40.55% of goal)
Productive time: 2.5hrs
RescueTime productivity rating: 0.51 (global average: 0.34)

i'm a thief, a liar, an angel in the fire

I need to go to bed immediately, as I'm now destined to get less than four hours of sleep tonight -- that's the price you pay when you spend all day Sunday playing and all day Monday working, and still somehow expect to get packed and ready to go in your off hours. Ridiculous. It doesn't help that I had to be at the office at 7am this morning, and in an attempt to get through everything I could, stayed until 5:15pm -- and still wasn't done with everything. This led to me drafting emails while getting a pedicure, since my toes were horrendous and not worthy of the eight or nine pairs of cute shoes that I packed. Then, I grabbed a burrito, came home, packed while watching three episodes of Craig, and did another two hours worth of work for zee day job. But this means that I'm going to be able to get on the plane tomorrow without my work laptop for the first time in ages - YAY. And then I can spend the rest of the week focusing on all sorts of lovely romance writerly stuff, which will be absolutely wonderful. But now, despite giving you nothing of interest, I must go to bed. I shall blog when I get to Orlando!

all the vampires walking through the valley move west down ventura boulevard

Today was lovely, although it was a nonstop slog from the time I got to the office at 8am until the writing group that I hosted left around 9pm. I had to be 'on' the entire time I was at work, since I had meetings straight from 8am until 2:15pm. I did about an hour of work at my desk, then realized that I was going to be horribly behind schedule with my personal life, and so dashed out the door to grab some things at the grocery store before coming home and cleaning furiously. It was too late to unpack anything else, but I did clear off my kitchen table of all the hundreds of notes to myself about my romance novel, and I swiffered all the little wampdevils off the floor (although without Adit here to call my hair detritus 'wampdevils', is that what they are? and oddly, they don't accumulate here they way they did in our apartment, so perhaps moving out of his place has exorcised the wampdevils). Somewhere in there, I had a half-hour call with a friend of a friend who is applying for a job at my company; I don't know if I was particularly helpful, since I was distracted by dusting, but she seemed pleased enough.

By seven p.m., I had accomplished just enough that I wasn't totally embarrassed by my lack of unpacking. The writing group all showed up within ten minutes of each other. It's a bunch of students from that creative writing class that I took this winter, and they've been getting together once a month since the class ended. This is the first time I was able to make it, and since it was at my house I couldn't flake at the last moment -- good strategy, right? The same people don't come every time, but tonight four of them came, and we workshopped two stories. They were both excellent; one was a standalone story that I thought was publishable and wonderful (not always the same thing) with minor edits, and the other was a chapter in an ongoing book-length story that will need a lot of additional writing to get to the end of, but the woman is working with a really fascinating historical setting and storyline (based on a Frenchman in colonial India). And, we had a really good discussion about balancing historical accuracy with the expectations/beliefs of modern readers -- in this case, about a guy acquiring a ten year old girl whom he later (unknown how much later) has sex with. At the time, ten was still a bit too young, but it wasn't unusual for teenagers to get married -- but ten now is pedophilia land, no questions, and so how do you write a story that is compelling and has a character that you can relate to if he's picking up a ten year old girl to adopt and later sleep with?

Anyway, I digress. When my guests left, I felt very energized about my writing again; even though this class has nothing to do with romance novels, I really like the people in this group a lot, and I'm glad we're still getting together after the class is over. The key for me is to translate that energy into finishing my damn book. I wanted to write tonight, but I needed a break from the grueling day. However, I need to get up quite early tomorrow and really focus on rewriting the intro so that I can get the weekend off to the right start.

If you have any books you've been reading and loving, I'd love to hear about them - please leave a comment. Otherwise, goodnight!

she said 'i'll turn you on, sonny, to something strong'

Gah. I should have written tonight, but I'm dreading rewriting the opening to my book, and so I did some work for the day job while watching television. Granted, the television was fun (I watched the pilot of 'Covert Affairs' and an episode of 'Design Star' where some dude shot himself in the thumb with a nail gun before the judges sent home my least favorite designer), but I really should have written instead. Ah, well, there's always tomorrow, right?

Work was fine today; I spent four hours in a training related to a job that I no longer do (and will do the same thing for nine hours tomorrow and nine hours Wednesday), but it was entertaining, and I like all the people on that team, so it wasn't time entirely wasted. Then I slogged the rest of the afternoon, with varying degrees of success. Chandlord called me around 6pm, just as I was packing up to go home, and we ended up meeting for Thai food in downtown Mountain View. The yellow curry was too bland, the eggplant was aight, and Vidya ordered an appetizer consisting entirely of soy protein moulded to masquerade as chicken (with a peanut sauce accompaniment) -- if you had told me ten years ago that I would willingly eat my fair share of soy protein, I would have thought you were retarded, but miracles do happen. It was lovely to see Chandlord, as usual, and we strolled around Mountain View briefly to let the bad curry settle before parting ways. Then I came home, turned on the tv, and you know the rest.

And on that note, I should really get some sleep; I shouldn't be late to the start of training tomorrow, as much as I like to stroll in three minutes late, so getting some sleep now is imperative. It's particularly imperative so that I can write my heart out tomorrow night; goodnight!

i let my enemies slide for the meantime

Today was wonderful, despite the fact that you're going to have to get that stick out and beat me for not writing tonight. My strategy of getting more sleep last night paid off, as my mind felt much clearer and more prepared to speed through and make guesses on the multiple choice test I had to take this afternoon. I made it into work for my eight a.m. meeting, and then studied for the exam from 9am to 12pm; the exam was about display advertising (image ads, video, etc.) + YouTube advertising, which is a pretty fascinating subject that would serve me well in terms of publicizing my books someday, but that I've really had very little practice with at work. So I read the study guide, took some notes, watched a few YouTube videos as 'research', and then grabbed lunch before the exam. The exam was technically from 1pm to 3:30pm, but I finished 110 questions in a little less than an hour; I ended up with an 87% (passing was 70%). I was totally pleased with that, as I tied the big boss's score -- I'm competitive enough to acknowledge that all I really care about is winning, not whether this exam had anything to do with my core job (it didn't, but I was required to take it anyway). And now I'm all done with these exams, which is fantastic news!

After finishing the exam, I had some milk and Oreos while prepping for a 1:1 with the big boss. We had a really good conversation, which was useful since we're not going to meet again for a month (she's out half of next week and we're both out the two weeks after that, so we won't meet again until sometime in August). If I wanted to work fifteen hours a day, I easily could; instead, I'm going to have to triage, prioritize, and figure out how to make myself more productive during the work day so that I can accomplish all of the great ideas that we had for what I can work on this quarter. One of them was making our communications as funny as the Old Spice YouTube campaign was this week -- I made the big boss watch several of the videos, but I don't think that either of us is cut out to compete with the Old Spice dude. If you didn't see any of them, check out the Old Spice YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/oldspice#p/c/484F058C3EAF7FA6 -- be prepared to waste an hour, because this guy is incredible.

But the best thing that happened today was that I discovered (by getting a newsletter from Gavin Rossdale) that Bush is reuniting! Yes, the band behind such great songs as 'Glycerine', 'Comedown', and 'The Chemicals Between Us', which broke up around 2003, is getting back together (although it's really only Gavin and the drummer - they replaced the other two) and releasing an album this fall. I downloaded the single this afternoon and listened to it approximately 40 times; I like it, but I was also the only person to buy his solo album, so I'm perhaps not the best judge.

When I got home, I cleaned the kitchen, took care of some sundry necessities, and made dinner (the last of my chicken fajitas, yum). I then sat down intending to write, but I failed; instead, I set up my Tivo box in preparation for the Comcast guy to come this weekend and bring me a cablecard so that I can get HD programming on the Tivo. It's really annoying that they have to send a technician to do it; I'm pretty sure I could install it myself, but I'm also pretty sure that since Comcast is legally required to provide a cablecard to any customer who asks for it, they're trying to recoup some of it by charing me a $16 professional installation fee for what amounts to slipping a credit-card-sized card into my Tivo unit and punching in a code. Whatever; I'm just excited to get my Tivo fully set up so that I can start recording Craig again.

So now, I'm going to go to bed so that I can get up, finish my work quickly, and do some serious writing. Goodnight!

i used to cry, but now i hold my head up high

I will admit that I woke up angry this morning; there were no stories springing fully-formed from my mind like I had hoped. Even if there were, I didn't have time to write them down; as it was, I ended up putting my eye makeup on in the car ("luckily" there's a stoplight near my house that I routinely get stuck at for three minutes) and showing up nine minutes late to the big boss's staff meeting. Since the big boss was ten minutes late, she was none the wiser, and the presentation I had to give went pretty well. I made the wise tactical move of dressing up (grey sheath dress with big white polka dots, black cardigan, four inch stiletto heels), which made me sit up and feel confident, and served to mask my utterly surly mood. The four inch stilettos also kept me chained to my desk, which was good for my productivity; I only really left the desk for a couple of meetings + lunch with Gyre, and when Gyre and I walked across the courtyard to a nearby cafe, I was taking hobbled, constrained steps like a Chinese concubine. This led to him taking hobbled, constrained steps as well, which I found much more amusing than it really was, and now I have bored you with that detail as well!

I had my usual one-on-one with the big boss this afternoon; perhaps the answer to all my surliness last night is to take a quarter to just work fifteen hours a day for the day job, since that would keep me from stewing about my writing. There's certainly plenty to do to keep me busy this quarter, and while I've been proud of myself for having more of a life than I did before I went on leave, some of my old workaholic tendencies are flaring up in the face of my negative feelings about my writing. After all, I could throw my entire heart and soul into my job until there was nothing left of me, and it could just keep taking...and I will admit that there is a not-insignificant part of me that enjoys being a martyr and would get quite a bit of masochistic pleasure out of overachieving at work and selling myself in the process. I won't do it, but thinking of all the things I could be doing for the big boss if I was willing to sublimate myself for the good of The Man sometimes tempts me.

Anyway, things got a bit brighter after I left work; I had dinner with Chris and Natasha at their house, and Chris grilled a lot of meat for us while we sat out on their deck. They are a v. amusing couple, both solo and together, and they were bickering quite a bit tonight, which I found v. entertaining. They both work for my company, and so we talked a bit of shop, but for the most part we just relaxed, hung out, and caught up. It was a great break, and I'm glad it stopped me from brooding for a few hours. I got home around ten p.m., fired up the work laptop, and worked for the last couple of hours (although there was a good fifteen minutes or so where I fell asleep over the keys while trying to make some slides).

Thanks to those of you who read my post yesterday and didn't roll your eyes (and thanks even to those of you who did roll your eyes) -- while i'm still annoyed and less than thrilled with myself, I'm not in quite such a bad place as i was last night, and I'm sure that it will get better when I figure out how to break through this next set of scenes. Now, though, I desperately need to sleep; I'm only going to get six hours at this point, which is not enough. Goodnight!

i know he thinks you're fine and stuff, but does he know how to wind you up?

This is a four-minute post. My life has returned to some semblance of normal; Adit is sleeping in my couch, which is lovely, even though it's only for one night. The conference is over, and I can start trying to settle into my house some more. And I'm not drunk or hungover, so both of those are good things.

The rest of the conference today was great; I skipped the morning sessions to do work for the big boss, but then participated in the afternoon session that she was kicking off. Her speech went well, although we didn't have a chance to debrief since she left after her speech and I stayed for the rest of it. But staying was well worth it; the content of the afternoon was great, with the major highlight being the former CEO of Domino's Pizza, who started his speech by handing out free pizza for everyone (smart guy), and ended up being one of the most engaging speakers I've ever heard.

Anyway, the only downside was that the session ran way, way over; it was supposed to end at five, and I didn't leave until after 6:30pm. Granted, I talked for a bit to Pete and Durand, but still. That gave me just enough time to make it down to the glorious south bay for dinner with Adit, Jav, Chris and Connie at Chris's favorite Mexican restaurant in Mountain View; we somehow put away at least five baskets of chips, and we all had drinks and cleaned our plates too. Needless to say, it was totally delicious, and it was great to have some family time before Adit leaves for his cross-country trek. Unfortunately, John and Jess couldn't attend because it turns out that John has whooping cough -- I may have been really, really annoyed that I got the tetanus/pertussis vaccine in January because it made me so sick and put me out of commission for several days, but now I'm glad, since John and Jess were here this weekend and I'm apparently safe from their contagion.

Now, though, I should really go to sleep; I have more work than ever for the day job and so need to go into the office tomorrow morning, but then I need to come back here to await delivery of my furniture! And then I'll probably go back to the office and also work this weekend, but at least my place is starting to come together. Goodnight!

harder better faster stronger

I failed to write today; the day job was rather consuming. It always is on Wednesdays -- between the big boss's staff meeting and my standing weekly 1:! with the big boss (today stretched to ninety minutes instead of sixty), I have more meetings than usual, and those meetings inevitably result in a mountain of follow-up work. Today was no exception; it's clear that the next few weeks are going to be a little more horrendous than usual for the day job. This may be a good thing, since before my travels I was starting to get bored -- but with my workaholic tendencies, I need to be careful what I wish for.

So I was at the office from 8am to 6:25pm, and then I left (ten minutes later than I should have) to meet up with Tolu, Jane, Lizzie and Joann for sushi (ironic, since I was just in Japan four days ago). Joann just moved back to the States after almost two years in Singapore, and Lizzie is moving to Seattle (she leaves tomorrow to look for apartments), so this was the only chance for all five of us to get together (until Tolu's wedding in July, of course). It's great to have Joann back, sad that Lizzie is leaving, but at least we're maintaining balance in the number of people who go to these dinners. It was great to catch up with everybody, and we had a fairly ridiculous conversation in which I decided I should write a book about a werewhale (a hot pirate who, at sunset, becomes a whale). Yes, it's ridiculous, and no, I'll probably never write it, but it made me laugh so hard I almost cried, so that was good for a few minutes of amusement.

After dinner, I came home just in time to watch the season premiere of "Top Chef: Washington DC". I didn't focus on it totally because I had work to do, but I watched it just closely enough to form some opinions about some of the chefs. Then, I watched an episode of "Dinner: Impossible" while wrapping up my slide making, and now it's time for bed.

Unfortunately, I have to be in the office at 8am tomorrow, and then I have a five hour break between the end of my last morning meeting and the 5:30-6pm meeting I forced upon myself. I really need to write tomorrow -- I'm not going to be silly like I was this morning and set my alarm for 5:45, since I'll inevitably just reset it in the morning, but I'm going to slog my hardest at the office so that I don't have to do anything when I get home other than write. Luckily the big boss is gone tomorrow afternoon and all day Friday, so that should give me a bit of a breather -- Madeleine and Ferguson were left in quite a state of, shall we say, frustrated need in their carriage, and I should get back to them sooner rather than later. Now, though, it's time for me to sleep -- goodnight!

girl i gotta watch my back, 'cause i'm not just anybody

This is a four-minute post, not because I don't have time to write, but because I have absolutely nothing of interest to share. The argument could be made that I have nothing of interest to share about 90% of the time, but if you're still reading this blog, you've come to terms with it and persevered in spite of it, so I'm not going to apologize.

I woke up around 7:30 and successfully packed, finished things up around the house, and got out the door in time for the taxi to the airport. The only fly in the ointment was that my brand new trash can from Palo Alto utilities is going to smell like dog shit for the rest of its life; I took the garbage out last night hoping that the garbage collectors would come before my 9:15am departure (I was told I should have it out by six a.m.), but when the time came to leave, they still hadn't been there. I couldn't leave it sitting on the street for two and a half weeks, so I debated taking it into the garage rather than leaving it in the outdoor enclosure (where I figured raccoons might knock it over) -- but when I opened it to see that the garbage hadn't been taken, I discovered that some asshole had tossed a couple of baggies of dog shit into it. I'm sure they meant no harm, but there was nothing I could do -- I'll just have to spray something in there and hope the smell dissipates someday.

Anyway, I made it to the airport with a ridiculous amount of time to spare, and so I bought a couple of small things (travel-sized moisturizer and eye-makeup-remover pads) at Sephora, and then had scrambled eggs at a cafe in the terminal. My flight took off on time, and sadly I worked for the day job the entire flight -- it was wonderful to have wireless on the plane, but in some ways I miss the disconnectedness of my youth. The big boss ended up requesting something urgent, and so I sat on the floor of baggage claim for half an hour after we landed to wrap the thing up before finding the rental car shuttle, picking up the car, making a stop at Chipotle (I was starving and couldn't order food on the plane because the food-service screens in my row weren't working and there was no other way to pay for the items), and checking into the hotel.

I've spent the last ninety minutes or so wrapping up some more work stuff and retinseling my hair for the big event. And now, my four minutes are up, and I'm going to go to bed so that I can go into the city and sightsee a bit with Ritu before bringing her and Vidya back to the hotel. Tomorrow night, the festivities begin in earnest -- I will attempt to emerge from this weekend with my liver intact. Goodnight!

imma be rockin' that good life

My day was fantastic until I suddenly had an awful headache while driving home -- I occasionally get these weird tension things where it seems impossible to relax my forehead, which makes me tempted to pull a Nicole Kidman and get enough botox to permanently erase all signs of emotion. Tonight was one of thoese nights, which was unfortunate; when I talked to Adit earlier, I was intrigued by the possibility of going to a wine bar, but I'm going to go to bed instead.

As I said, though, today was quite good; I was v. productive at work, with a break for lunch with Rico (one of my former teammates whom I haven't seen in awhile). Today was take your child to work day, which was totally ridiculous; there were over 2000 kids on campus (yes, two thousand, that's not a typo), which meant there were kids absolutely everywhere, adding a substantially strange element to the day. Also strangely, the cafe in my building served tacos in the grown up line and halibut in the kiddie line, which seemed to make no sense (although I was thrilled, since I would much rather eat tacos than halibut). Luckily, I had my headphones on, and so I rocked out all day to the sound of Lady Gaga rather than children screaming.

So I was at the office from 8am to 6:30pm (I don't think I'm returning to my former wicked ways, but since the big boss is out all next week and I'm out for three days, I have a lot to get through before then). I then left the office and dragged myself over to Cafe Borrone, where I wrote six pages of Madeleine and Ferguson's story before tossing in the towel. In retrospect, with the amount of staring at a computer and thinking/writing I did today, perhaps it's little wonder that my headache is so awful.

On that note, I really really need to sign off and go to bed -- goodnight!

imma be, imma be, imma imma imma be

I was remarkably productive today, particularly considering that I got up late and drove down to work late to avoid the worst of the rain-soaked commute. Once I got there, though, I got a lot done; I slogged all day, with a break for lunch with Regina-madam, one of the expats from the old India crew. It was great to catch up with her, and hopefully I'll see her sooner than the amount of time between this lunch and our last lunch. Then, I slogged the rest of the afternoon, but I managed to get out of there a little before six to do some writing.

I don't know why, but I've had multiple conversations in the last week (none initiated by me, I assure you) about what was going on with my dating life and when I might get married so that I can start popping out children. Apparently I'm suddenly hitting the age where these questions are logical and somewhat urgent. Rather than confronting the dating issue, I ordered several different trial eye moisturizers from Sephora.com, in the hopes that if I reduce the dark circles under my eyes, I will suddenly look twenty-five again and these conversations will stop happening with such frightening regularity. I'll let you know how that strategy works out for me.

Anyway, after being thwarted by Cafe Borrone last night, I wanted to give it another shot, so after work I went over there and had a sandwich and a mocha while writing about four pages of zee romance novel. I finally threw in the towel around eight p.m., drove back to the evil city, and did about an hour of work for the day job (the big boss is in town this week, hence the slightly longer hours -- but I also went in late, so this was totally fine). Then I typed up the work that I had done at Borrone, and now it's time to go to bed so that I can get to work in time for big boss's staff meeting. Goodnight!

some bloodshot forget-me-not says daddy's within earshot, save the buckshot, turn up the band

I'm exhausted; it feels a lot later than 9:18pm, and so I'm going to go to bed as soon as I'm done with this post. I think my brain is fried from writing so much today -- not that I wrote anything for zee romance novel, but my agenda document for my one-on-one with the big boss stretched to four pages (single spaced), and there were several other documents, emails, etc. attached to it that we had to review. I came back from vacation and walked straight into a minefield of communications that need to be delivered in the next week, which means I'm thinking through communication strategies nonstop at work...

...and then I come home and try to write a completely different set of communications. Tonight I left the office, got home in time to do a load of laundry (vital if I didn't want to wear a skirt tomorrow -- which I didn't, since I wore my killer 4" heels today, which I adore even if they make me walk like a Chinese concubine in the early stages of foot-binding), ate some Amy's enchiladas, and then worked like a fiend for several more hours. The biggest nonwork task was editing and polishing the blog post that I wrote for the romance blog that I'm a part of with my other fellow romance contest finalists (linked to from my Sara Ramsey blog above); editing blog posts when you're trying to make them coherent and not just the random stream-of-consciousness crap that I produce here nightly takes way more time than you would think.

Anyway, even though I have no real reason to be this tired, I always get to this stage when my brain has been going nonstop all day. Since I have to be in the office at 8am again tomorrow, I think some extra sleep tonight would go a long way toward restoring me so that I can do it all again in the morning. Goodnight!

soon there's gonna come a day, baby, i'll be back again

Even though it's relatively early, I'm going to go to bed as soon as I'm done with this post; I slogged hard all day today, then came home, ate too much while watching two episodes of "Project Runway", and finished packing for my trip, so I'm a little tired, and I have to be at the office for my usual Wednesday eight a.m. meeting that I'm chronically late for even though it's my only important meeting of the week. So, sleep would be good; I may not be able to do my usual routine of zoning out on the plane because I'm traveling with the big boss -- while we're not sitting together, we are only a few rows apart, and so I may have to make an attempt at being productive on the flight (sad).

Despite the slogging, I did squeeze in some social activity; Vidya came for lunch, and surprised me by bringing along her friend Rich's wife Lauren instead of Rich. It didn't impact me tremendously, since I'd only met Rich once before and had never met Lauren, but it was fun nonetheless; I liked Lauren, and I still tolerate Vidya whenever necessary (jhokes!) We ate outside, since it continues to be absolutely gorgeous here. While things are improving weather-wise in the midwest as well, I'm a little sad to be leaving all this glory for the dreary post-melt landscape of the heartland.

When I got home, I changed out of my work clothes, walked around the block to the grocery store, and bought a sandwich from the deli counter and a bag of chips. The sandwich would have been outstanding if the bread wasn't a little stale, but the chips made up for it. I watched two episodes of "Project Runway" while eating, which was lovely; I'm caught up on this season again, in time to miss the next two episodes while I'm traveling, but I enjoyed my sloth immensely. Then, I made copies of stuff that I needed to make copies of, finished packing, and generally took care of loose ends.

Now, it is time to sleep - wish me luck with my travels tomorrow!

you are believing your own story

Apologies again for the lack of a post last night; I tried, I really did! However, I'm home tonight, and so I shall blog even though what I really want to do is go to bed.

Cirque du Soleil last night was absolutely awesome. I went with my friend Chris (of Chris and Natasha fame; Chris was also in India with me) because Natasha had a work event and couldn't go. We went with Natasha's brother and his girlfriend, so it was kind of funny that I was there, but the show was so amazing that it was worth it. Chris had gotten tickets through work -- even though we work in the same place, there weren't tickets for everyone, only tickets for one specific group. Chris got amazing ones, though -- six rows back, right in the center, so we could see everything. I'd never been to a Cirque du Soleil performance before, but it was incredible -- I don't understand how humans can do some of the things they do, particularly not night after night after night. If you have a chance to see this particular show ("Ovo"), I highly recommend -- it was really cool!

As mentioned before, I spent last night at Chris and Natasha's place, which was v. nice since it gave me a chance to see Natasha, and also meant that I slept for six and a half hours instead of five. The sleep was key, because I slogged like a maniac today; the big boss is on a productivity kick, which means I have to go on the same kick, and so I had a ton to do. I took a break late in the afternoon to meet up with Vidius for coffee and get her expert help picking out a pair of glasses (I have extra flex spending money left over from last year that I have to spend by Saturday, and glasses seemed like the easiest, most useful way to blow it). Then, I drove back to the city of sin, where I slogged for another three hours while watching an episode of Craig and an episode (from a few weeks ago) of "Project Runway". Hopefully the big boss will be satisfied with what I've done sometime soon -- but luckily I'm going to Ann Arbor in a couple of weeks and then taking a week off to go home after that, so I'll get a break regardless.

And now, I must go to bed -- luckily I'm working out of the city tomorrow, meaning I get another good night's sleep, but this weekend is critical for making forward progress with the book. Goodnight!

caught in a good romance

I had a fantastic day and am now utterly spent. I managed to sleep for seven hours last night and still pull off everything that needed to get done today to make the summit finish successfully; I've gotten really good at making just-respectable-enough slideshows in less than five minutes during breaks, so it all worked out. The feedback from both days was really good, people seemed to enjoy the summit and each other, the energy in the room was pretty good, and we seemed to accomplish all of the goals we laid out at the beginning. Most importantly (to me), the big boss was happy, and at the end of it all she thanked me (using a slide I made, of course), but then gave me an official Team USA sweatshirt from the Vancouver Games, and also told me to take the day off tomorrow without counting it as a vacation.

So, I feel very good about all the work that I had put in over the past six weeks to pull this off, even if it nearly killed me. I left work about an hour after the summit ended at 4:15pm, grabbed a Philz Coffee on the way home, and then spent the evening on the couch finishing the bottle of sauvignon blanc that was in the fridge while watching the Olympics and wrapping things up. I had to catch up on email and finish a couple of small things, and send my initial impressions to the big boss so that I can write the official post-event summary on Monday, but I finished around nine p.m. and focused on the Olympics after that. I'm glad that the timing worked out this way -- the ladies' free skate was perhaps the best skating competition I've ever seen, given the number of virtually flawless performances, the incredible skating by the top three, and the heartwrenching performance by the Canadian girl who lost her mother unexpectedly last weekend. So, like Scotty Hamilton (who just said on the latenight coverage that his father died sixteen years ago tonight) I cried like a baby throughout her performance, and throughout the medal ceremony. It was incredible...and now I'm spent.

I believe it's time for bed; even though I'm taking tomorrow off, I need to get up earlyish so that I can go to the spa for some deep, deep relaxation. Goodnight!

we live the masterful life that's mythical

I'm too exhausted to blog for long, but I'm happy to report that despite a series of minor disasters throughout the day (starting with facilities failing to set up the room), the summit is so far going very well, and I manage to maintain my outward zen calm successfully enough that most people have no idea how much the summit balances on the edge of a knife. I've gotten a lot of positive comments on the agenda and activities so far, and I am hopeful that tomorrow will be as good (if nothing else, it ends at 4pm instead of at 9pm, so that's an automatic upgrade).

I will say that it's been nice the past few weeks to feel like I'm doing something I'm pretty good at; when I switched jobs last fall, I switched into something that I intuitively understand but haven't done that much of in the past, and it's been hard not to feel like I know my shit. However, even though this is a different type of event than anything I've planned in the past (and I was much more heavily involved in the content creation, and even got to design and facilitate a Stanford-style Crossing the Line exercise), I am quite good at anticipating and averting problems, which is what this slapdash summit planning experience has been all about.

So, short version is that I'm surviving, perhaps even thriving, but since I only got five hours of sleep last night, I really need to go to bed so that I can get seven hours of sleep tonight. Wish me luck tomorrow -- it's almost over, and then my three-day weekend awaits!