working for the weekend

As I declared last night, I decided to take today off as well in an effort to further my recovery. I think this was a smart move - I got a lot of sleep last night, and my pain is in much better shape today, but I still tire easily and am sore (especially depending on how I sit). Of course, I may regret it tomorrow since I'm so far behind on work that it's laughable, but that's a problem for Future Sara to resolve.

sssanyway, I slept in this morning, then took it easy with tea and my journal and other distractions. At some point Sarah-Frances showed up bearing some gifts (in the form of frozen meals + iced coffee), so we chatted for an hour or so, which was a v. welcome break. Then I ordered some pho for lunch, messed around, took one meeting just to find out what's going on at work in case I need to know anything for tomorrow, and then messed around the rest of the day. I did force myself to do some house tasks just so that I could have things a little more tidy for tomorrow, and I also reheated one of the frozen meals that Sarah-Frances brought me (which was a winner).

At that point, things were already pretty boring, so I ended the day by finishing THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS AN EASY JOB, which was the novel I started a few days ago. I thought it was really nice, all in all - the vaguely supernatural elements didn't pan out quite the way that I expected them to, but it was a lovely book to spend a few hours with.

And now, even though it's only 10:13, I'm going to consider going to bed early so that I can get as much sleep as possible before having to start things tomorrow. Goodnight!

we're not gonna pay last year's rent

I really want to go to bed - today wasn't the optimal productivity day that I was hoping for, but it was still great, so I'll take it. I spent the morning messing around at home, although I got a little work done - I finished putting in the edits from my editor, which is a boring, thankless task, but I finally finished in time to go to my writing date.

My writing date was with Veronica at the Legion of Honor - we're continuing our museum writing date habit. I wasn't as productive today as last time, which was a little disappointing - but I really like Veronica a lot, and it was good to get some quality time with her. We chatted, then worked, then ate lunch (I had a curry that was surprisingly satisfying), then worked some more. And then we saw the special exhibit on the Brothers LeNain - they're a group of three French brothers who painted in the 1600s, and they're a little bizarre in that they seemingly purposefully obscured who produced what, which has led to some mysteries for modern curators. I enjoyed the exhibit immensely, particularly since they painted some children who looked incredibly dim-witted (like the Zoolander of the French peasantry), and they used the same models over and over, which made me laugh. Yes, I am not sophisticated enough for art.

We parted ways after four hours together, and I took a few moments to admire how gorgeous everything was outside Legion of Honor before heading home. Legion of Honor is v. close to the ocean, with a view of the Golden Gate from the west (as opposed to from the east/south, like most of the city), and it's tranquil and gorgeous out there - much moreso than my neighborhood, where I went to CVS and noticed a guy definitely stealing stuff. Thanks for the reminder that I hate the city, thief dude!

sssanyway. After I got home, I took care of a variety of tings (and by that I mean I procrastinated for ninety minutes before running my CVS errand, coming home, and eating dinner). I also scribbled in my notebook while watching a Project Runway episode from two weeks ago - I'm a little behind and I need to catch up.

But now, I'm desperate for sleep - I am way behind on my to-do list, and I am hoping to catch up on all the things tomorrow. Goodnight!

it's all your fault i screen my phone calls

I had a great day, despite some initial sloth, and now that I'm staring down the beginning of Lucy's book in earnest, it's probably time to quietly keep reminding myself that a) I've written six books, so I can surely write a seventh; b) the beginning always feels like shoving through molasses; c) it's possible to accomplish a lot in one or two solid hours and I shouldn't hate myself for how I spent the rest of them (although it would induce more happiness if I spent the rest of them reading or wandering through the city instead of aimlessly scrolling through twitter).

But despite the early sloth, I managed to recover. I spent the morning cleaning up stuff around the house, and then I engaged in some sloth, and then I took a bath to reset (bathing/showering often helps me reframe and get into the story again, provided I'm not angry about something, in which case showering is an opportunity to plot murder). Then I ran to Whole Foods to pick up a couple of things for this afternoon - my timing was far less ideal than it was on Friday, so the lines were ridiculous, but I was in and out about as efficiently as I could have been today.

After the grocery store, I met up with Tom for a writing date at Quetzal. I don't actually like Quetzal, but they have plenty of space and are v. conveniently located between us (and my jasmine tea, since I was avoiding sugar and non-heavy-cream milk products and so couldn't get a coffee, was serviceable enough). Tom and I caught up for a little bit, and then I wrote for awhile and actually got three pages, which was better than I expected - hopefully that will give me some momentum for tomorrow.

But I had to end early - the Shedletskys were coming over for dinner/Olympics watching, and so I needed to come home and prep. I made chicken bouillabaisse, which is one of my go-tos for meat-eaters when I want to make something that looks/tastes impressive but is actually easy (and whose leftovers I will happily eat for a couple of days). There's something wrong with the rouille recipe to go with it - rouille is a mayonnaise, and while it came together flawlessly the first time I ever made it, I've never been able to get it to come together since then (although even the runny, oily mess is tasty, since it's full of oil and egg and garlic and lemon and salt and saffron). But the chicken and potatoes are out of this world delicious - and if it weren't for the cup of wine and 3tbsp of Pernod in the base, it would be pretty close to the paleo-type whole30ish thing I'm doing. So, at least for this time, I'm calling it a win.

Of course, drinking my share of two bottles of wine is not whole30-approved - but Shedletsky brought a v. nice pinot noir, and then I made the mistake of opening a bottle that I'd bought when we had our epic wine tasting afternoon in Sonoma last year, so of course we had to finish that as well. Ostensibly we were going to watch the closing ceremonies, but those seemed boring, so we instead flipped through some esoteric sports whose rules we didn't know (air rifle, handgun, skeet, synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, etc.), and that was super fun.

But they eventually left, and I ran the dishwasher and did some writing admin stuff and drank some water (and, admittedly, ate some ice cream - I never crave ice cream, but I've had it twice in three days since starting to kind of move toward this whole30ish thing, which is a little weird...but I'm going to blame it on all the leftovers in my freezer from my Olympics party, which I should probably toss). And now it's time for bed - I'm pretty recovered from the wedding and excited to move forward on Lucy's story, so it's time to get some sleep and hit it in earnest tomorrow. Goodnight!

the floating world

The contrast between the chaotic intensity of India and the restrained perfection of Japan is crazy to experience on the same trip. Yesterday morning I woke up in Jaipur, got a massage, endured a five hour car ride in the rain, etc. Today I woke up on a plane, took a bus to the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo, and had a luxurious, pleasurable experience that would have made the geishas and artists of Edo's floating world proud.

Okay, maybe I didn't do anything pornographic. But I had afternoon tea in the gorgeous lobby bar overlooking all of Tokyo (the hotel is at the top of the tallest tower in the city), then got a facial to remove the worst of India's smog from my pores. After the facial, I hung out in a hot tub with floor to ceiling windows over Tokyo, which was gorgeous. Then I showered (it's amazing how great my hair looks when washed with water that won't poison me) and did some writing over a burger and a rather delicious Japanese merlot in the lobby bar. As you can tell from this, I basically ditched my coworker as soon as we got to the hotel - we weren't supposed to go into the office this afternoon since we got in after three p.m., and I rather desperately needed some hermit time. Maybe I should have gone out...but at this point, Rafe and Octavia are screaming at me to start writing, and I'm feeling like obliging them.

Tomorrow, though, I have to go to the office and do the job I was meant to do here, and I'll probably get roped into have dinner somewhere in Tokyo rather than getting to write tomorrow night. C'est la vie...I'm only here tomorrow and Wednesday, and my flight leaves Wednesday night, so I suppose it won't kill me to be social one more day. Goodnight!