i'm on a hovercraft to paris with my former best friend

The family reunion is over, and if I ignore the fact that we now have to spend two days driving back to Iowa, it was all pretty great. We started this morning off v. similarly to yesterday morning - I got ready and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was totally adequate for a free hotel breakfast. Then, [censored] and Drewbaby and I drove out to the ranch together, with a v. necessary stop at Starbucks to fortify ourselves for the long drive through miles of scrub and rocks.

When we got out to the ranch, we were there fairly early, so I snuck away to a lounger by a small pool and hid from everyone so I could write for a little bit. My mom joined me there, so we had a nice catch-up before the sun got too hot. Then, everyone had lunch, followed by an afternoon of lazing about, playing more dominoes (I won this time, after spending more time strategizing and less time drinking than I did yesterday), etc. We took a break to go tour David and Melissa's house, which used to be Wendell's house - it's 'near' the reunion site, but back along the crazy long ranch road, so getting there took a bit of time. But it was nice to see how they've updated it - they have an amazing infinity pool and outdoor kitchen overlooking the ranch, and it was almost enough to convince me that I should make a lot of money and move to Texas (but that is almost certainly not the plan).

Dinner was excellent - my dad and Aunt B catered it from a barbecue place in town, and it was one of the best barbecues I've had. The brisket was great, although I was almost more into the sausage (that's what she said), and the potato salad and cole slaw were surprisingly excellent. And then we made our long, slow round of goodbyes, which also included hellos to people I didn't get a chance to talk to, as well as a rather entertaining intro to David's neighbor, who was v. excited about me and where I work even though I am not a celebrity for that (or, arguably, if I am a celebrity, it's for my writing career and not my tech career, but this guy is more into SEO than sexytimes, so I guess to each his own).

sssanyway, eventually we'd said all our hellos/goodbyes, and [censored]/Drewbaby/I drove back to town. This time others had cleared the path for us, so we only saw a few javelinas and a ton of deer. I left the reunion feeling like I would want to come again (since I always love it), although I probably would rather fly and not drive all the way to/from Iowa ever again. Hopefully, Future Sara remembers this and plans accordingly. And now, I should sleep so that we can begin our epic drive north tomorrow - goodnight!

pale prophecy

Last night's break from the social whirl paid off, even though I had a bit of regret when I heard that the plan I bailed on turned out to be quite fun. But really, I had no regret - I needed nine hours of sleep and a bunch of water instead of whisky, and that's exactly what I had. So I got up a little after eight ready to hit the day, and I showered, made myself some iced coffee, and was at my desk (and by desk I mean kitchen table, but I live in a studio so that's the best I can do) by 9:15.

First up on the list was a video chat with Kathia - we hadn't caught up since before the holidays, although we had exchanged some emails/texts, so we had a lot to say. Her life is more dramatic than mine at the moment, especially since she's contending with a blizzard, so it was good to talk (and to catch her up on my usual drama, which is not particularly dramatic at the moment). After we finished talking, I made myself an omelette with my new omelette pan and John's omelette technique, and it was so fucking good. Granted, I included some delicious (and deliciously overpriced) ham, and mushrooms and green onions, and monterey jack cheese, so it wasn't just the eggs that were good - but all together, it was totally perfect and now I want to eat an omelette every morning for the rest of my life (except on the mornings when I want to have salmon and cream cheese, of course...or the mornings when I'm hungover and go down to the marina so Tony can make me some huevos rancheros).

And then I got a pedicure, because my toenails were looking beat and I'm too much of a princess to neglect them. Then I worked for a couple of hours on a secret project, and I'm still debating what to do about this secret project, but we shall see. Then, I had my usual phone call with my parents - we talked health and politics and weather and Iowa State basketball on their side, which is pretty par for the course, and we talked writing and ridiculousness on my side, which is also pretty par for the course - but it was good to talk to them, as per usual.

After that, I worked on Rafe and Octavia for an hour. Then, I accidentally took a ten minute nap, and then woke up with a start and realized that I needed to leave immediately. So I put on real pants and ran out the door to meet up with Katrina. We had a quick, healthy, reasonably priced (ish - for SF, at least) dinner at Spinnerie, which is the rotisserie place near me - while we have seen each other pretty often since I got back from Iowa, we hadn't really had much of a chance to catch up on our own, so it was great to have a bit of a lowkey hangout.

We continued the lowkey hangout at Hemlock, where we had a hot toddy and talked while waiting for the main act of the evening - a comedy show hosted by Anchor Brewing, which included a performance by Sean Keane, who is friends with Vidya and Katrina and a bunch of other mutual people (although I haven't really crossed paths with him much). John showed up before the show, and he's friends with Sean as well, so Sean ended up talking to us before his performance (the whole thing was running like an hour late).

Then we went into the room where the show was happening, and there was a bizarre bit with the Anchor rep, who was asking people if they had any questions about beer or brewing or anything else, while ignoring the fact that the crowd clearly wanted to get to the comedians and the band. John later called the guy 'Beer Santa', which should give you a picture of what he looked like. But he finally left, and the first performer started (Caitlin Gill), and she was totally awesome and told a great story about stripping in front of a group of strippers whose holiday party she was performing for.

And then Sean performed and he was great too, and I loved his story of accidentally becoming a river troll while high on shrooms, but John later told me that his story about a proposal at a baseball game was all made up, so now I feel like the whole world is a lie and that I can't trust anyone ever again. Sad times. But I laughed a lot and wondered why I don't go to comedy shows more often, and then I remembered that I went to this one because it was free and less than two blocks from my house, and then I stopped feeling bad about my past decisions.

Eventually, though, it ended, and we all parted ways, and now I am writing this to you so that you will not be mad at me tomorrow when you check the blog and discover that I didn't post. You're welcome. Goodnight!

said i broke your heart...but it hasn't happened yet

I had kind of told myself to stop complaining so much about the commute, and lo, the commute rewarded me with drives of less than an hour each way. Magic.

Of course, that magic came at a price; I woke up at 5:30 and was out the door by 6:15, and so I was able to put in some quality time with Rafe and Octavia at the coffee shop on campus before it was time for my meetings. I'm still figuring out what their deal is (I kid you not, I considered making Octavia a woodworker...a real woodworker, not even a double entendre for something sexual), and it's slow going, so I mostly sat and drank my latte and daydreamed and scribbled things like 'no orphans' in my notebook. Progress.

Progress was interrupted, however, when one of my coworkers showed up at the coffee place, and so we caught up post-holiday before grabbing breakfast and going to our building so I could make my nine a.m. meeting. When I got there, I discovered what some of my delightful coworkers had done to my desk over the holidays - and I actually am, oddly, totally delighted and not in any way thinking of retaliating. Dave (one of the guys on the German trip, whose desk I saran wrapped awhile ago) installed the equivalent of undercarriage lights under my desk, so there's now a soft, not-at-all-subtle glow oscillating between red, green, yellow, and blue at all times. He was eventually kind enough to give me the remote so I could control it myself, and I'm totally charmed - and my team has already voted that I should use it as a signal to them of my current mood (i.e. green = go, red = run for your life). Again, magic.

But not everything was magic - I had to work, after all, even though it was mostly desultory. And, I peaced out around 3:30 and did a totally ridiculous thing - apparently there's a truck that shows up on campus once a month with a dunk tank where you can get your body fat measured, so I did that. It was tres awkward, since it involved wearing a bathing suit and getting on my hands and knees in a tub full of water in a trailer with a single dude monitoring the situation, which all sounds like the start to a really low-budget porno (actually, I don't think it's sexy enough for porn - maybe it's the start to Saw XVII). Whatever. It was interesting, and a good baseline for me and Alyssa as she continues her nefarious kettlebell agenda...

And then I drove home, went to the gym (Alyssa is in Hawaii until the end of the week and has left me to my own devices...and like in Saw XVII, I'm apparently torturing myself now), took care of my own, less nefarious waxing agenda, and grabbed food on the way home. Then I hung out with Terry before realizing that I needed to go to bed immediately if I have any hope of recovering so I can do this all again tomorrow (sans crawling around in a bathtub with a stranger watching, hopefully). Goodnight!

in the daylight we'll be on our own

My Puritanical instincts are telling me to stay up all night and keep working, but my stomach and my gluten fatigue are telling me to go to bed. Today was far more tiring than I had expected it to be, but Alyssa thinks that eating gluten again when I haven't had much of it in almost two years and clearly have a lot of difficulty processing it is making me way more tired than I should be. The theory makes sense; I've gotten almost nine hours of sleep every night for the past three nights and I still required a nap tonight before I could get down to business.

Anyway, I went to work this morning in my gym clothes and slogged from 8:30 to noon without pause. Then I sped over to the gym to train with Alyssa, who made me do more kettlebell swings than my arms were in the mood for. Then I returned to work, sans showering, and inflicted my stinky self on the coworkers who had scheduled meetings in such a way that prevented me from taking a break and showering. I finally got out of there sometime around four, which was later than I had hoped, and so I sat in traffic until I reached my home at 5:30.

And then I took a nap, laid around for a bit, took a long-overdue shower, and schlepped myself over to my favorite french place, where I had a steak and a glass of wine that didn't have the restorative power to overcome the two slices of bread I forced myself to eat with it. They are no longer serving my favorite wine by the glass, but since the manager, the sommelier, and two waiters apologized to me for taking it off the menu, I suppose I shall forgive them rather than filing a lawsuit. I should probably add that the apologies were completely unprompted - I think they like me and don't find me particularly frightening, although since I often come in looking half-crazed, perhaps they're more frightened of me than they let on (but I somehow doubt it).

Anyway, I got some work done there, came home, was going to work some more, and then realized I would be better served by sleeping for nine hours and considering Thorington in the morning. So I sent the first half of Thorington to my editor and will finish making notes on what I'm doing on the second half tomorrow - which means I should stop dallying here and go to bed. Goodnight!

pucker up for heaven's sake, there's never been so much at stake

I need to write another 2000 words, but screw it, I'm going to bed. I've been working nonstop all day (well, I suppose I stopped when I drove, and I stopped when I had coffee with Gyre, but that's fairly negligible from a time standpoint), and I need to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, so sleepy time it is.

So I was supposed to go down to train with Alyssa today, and was even in my gym clothes...but I got an email this morning saying that the designer could do the bookmark/trading cards that I wanted to order for the conferences I'm going to this spring, but if I wanted them in time for the event I'm going to in Long Beach at the end of the month, we must do them *right now* so they can go to the printer on Monday. I forget that getting things printed takes time, since I'm used to all e all the time (that means electronic, not ecstasy, my hyper mood notwithstanding). Since she was doing me a favor by saying her team could do it this weekend, I didn't want to delay -- so I canceled Alyssa and spent an hour figuring out what to put on a prospective bookmark. Fun.

I had to send her the bookmark and leave the trading card questionnaire for tonight, since I had a lunch meeting with my CPA that I didn't want to cancel. It was lovely to see her, as usual, and we discussed my writing situation and whether I should set up an LLC (which I will likely do -- yay for incorporating). Oddly, the lunch meeting then turned into a discussion about whether I should/could get involved in this startup she's involved in, which came completely out of left field since I didn't go into the meeting expecting to discuss job opportunities. But it's totally right up my alley and is writing related, so we'll see (in a way that doesn't take focus away from Malcolm and Amelia, since I must. finish. them. immediately.).

Anyway, after that, I went directly to my former place of employment and had coffee with Gyre, since we haven't gotten together in awhile and he's headed to Dublin next week. We caught up for an hour, which was v. nice. Then, I went to Stanford library and worked from four to nine, with a break for supper (an aight cobb salad from Coupa). I still managed to obsess over Heiress's rankings (holding steady ~#120), but I also wrote fifteen pages. Not the twenty pages that I promised to write yesterday, so I guess you'll have to shoot me, but given that I spent so much time on the bookmarks/trading cards, I'll take it. Then I came home, talked to Terry for a bit, came upstairs, and spent the past three hours finishing the trading card stuff. Yes, my life is amazing.

And now, I must sleep -- Malcolm and Amelia await tomorrow, salivating for yet another attempt to kill me, and I must not let them win. Goodnight!

can't stop til we get enough

I'm in the new apartment, blogging on my laptop via bluetooth connection to my smartphone since the cable guy doesn't come until tomorrow. And I must say, the new apartment is totally awesome; in the late afternoon, the light is incredible, and so even though there's tons to do and the place is nowhere near put together, it was quite enjoyable to sit for a few moments and simply stare at the walls. Terry bought champagne to celebrate, so we took a champagne break around five p.m., ordered a pizza that came around 7:00pm, and took another break with more champagne then. Then, I forced myself to keep unpacking until ten, took a shower, and am now lazing in my glorious bed and ignoring how much I have left to do to clean up zee log cabin before I can kiss it on the nose and bid it farewell.

The start to the day was rough; I slept about as poorly last night as I ever have, and so even though I could have gotten seven hours of sleep, it felt like much less. But, I successfully got up around 6:15am (shocking, I know), showered, and got most of the stuff done that I wanted to finish before the movers arrived at 8am. They were all super friendly, and the lead guy's mother writes women's fiction, so I gave him my romance card and said she was welcome to contact me. That's the thing with movers - maybe you shouldn't give info to strangers, but they already have your address and your phone number, so what's the harm in giving him my romance email address as well? Besides, he mentioned that he was reading something like his fourteenth novel by Emile Zola, and I have a weakness for guys who are better (or at least differently) read than I am.

sssanyway, the poor bastards had to repack the whole truck because Terry's movers weren't exactly incentivized to economize on space. They filled every square inch of that truck, although we weren't able to get the rocking chair, the patio chairs, or two of Terry's boxes of clothes. Still, they worked wonders, we tipped them well, and then they left, glad that they were not the ones who were going to have to unload the truck and haul all that stuff up 2-4 flights of stairs in the new place (two flights = from the street to the front door, although there's an elevator for the first part of that, which they made use of; then there's another flight from the living room to the bedrooms, and a final flight from the bedrooms to the roof deck).

But, Terry got a call from her movers right after that to confirm the time, and recognized the voice -- and it turns out that, unbeknownest to anyone, we had independently selected the exact same movers, and those poor bastards were on their way to unload us. Ha. They stopped for lunch (as did we, at Joanie's - the staff may have been surprised that I showed up with someone else for once, and that I was completely slovenly today, but they took it in stride), and on the way to the city they dragooned a fourth dude into helping them. Amazingly, they unloaded the entire truck, put together the beds, set everything up, etc., in three hours, which proves yet again that hiring movers is worth every single fucking penny.

What is dubiously worthwhile is paying for a towaway permit; when we got here, every single space in our properly-designated, signed towaway zone was filled. I called SFPD and they sent a parking cop over, who promptly ticketed all of them -- but, the street we live on isn't particularly busy, we were already double parked and unloading without being hampered by the cars, and so I told the parking cop that they wouldn't have to be towed as long as our moving truck wouldn't get a ticket for double parking. He agreed to that, and we weren't harassed at all during the move, so I suppose the cost of the permit was worth it even though it didn't work exactly as intended.

So the movers finished around four, and Terry and I took the truck back to the Uhaul (on one of the sketchiest streets I've seen in the city -- so sketchy I refused to leave my car unattended, so Terry had to go into Uhaul alone), and then came back and started unpacking. All told, I've already unpacked almost all my books. Turns out that unpacking books goes a lot faster if you remember that the goal is to empty boxes, not to organize every book alphabetically by genre. Unpacking the books and my bedding/towels cleared out enough boxes to let me move my desk and file cabinet into the proper positions, which means that I'm equipped to unpack the items that go into those pieces, which means I can make even more progress in the coming days.

But now, I desperately need to sleep; I'm training with Alyssa at 10am, so Terry and I are leaving here around 8:30 to go to the glorious south bay, where she will work out too before we go back to my place and grab another load of stuff. Yay. Goodnight!

try to slip past his defense without granting innocence

Even though I slept a reasonable amount last night, I was exhausted today; I felt like falling asleep in the big boss's staff meeting, even though doing it from Dublin meant that I could call in from the much more reasonable hours of 4-6pm rather than getting into the office early. I would have gone to bed an hour ago, but I'm trying to return to my old diligent workhorse self, and so I agreed to do a 10:30pm conference call tonight to discuss some pressing issues with one of the projects I'm working on.

Woe is me, I know. Today wasn't all bad; in fact, other than my exhaustion and my lingering cough (sniff sniff), it was quite good. I had some time in the morning to catch up on email, and then I had a lot of good meetings, including lunch with a guy I work with pretty closely but usually only see on videoconference, and a catch-up cup of tea with my old friend Darragh (he's 'grand', as they say here). Then, I managed to get out of the office a little after 6:30 (after a frustrating 6-6:30pm meeting that got completely hijacked by a different agenda item, and when I finally asked at 6:25 whether we were going to get to the item that I was there for, the person running the meeting said, "I'm meeting with the big boss about this later today, so let's table the discussion until tomorrow." I would have reached through the VC and killed him if it were technically possible and I wouldn't go to jail (I'm convinced I would not do well in prison).

Anyway, after getting out of work, I met up with Alaska Matt and his lovely wife Kia for an extended dinner at a restaurant overlooking Grand Canal, ideally located between the office and my hotel (and only a few steps from their apartment). Long-time readers will remember that Alaska Matt was one of the expats in India with me; he later went on to spend significant time in India and Japan, and he and Kia have been in Dublin for almost a year at this point. We had a lovely dinner, with much discussion of the relative merits of Alaska and Iowa, a lot of burning jealousy on my part regarding how much they've gotten to travel, quite a few ridiculous jokes and stories, etc. However, the most random part of the meal was the waiter. The first glass of water that he brought me was cracked, so he brought me another one -- and this glass turned out to be pretty badly chipped on one side. I probably would have drank it anyway (or not drank it, since I hate water), but Matthew looked askance at that idea and I realized that what I thought was an ice chip on the side was actually a glass chip. Finally, I gave in to pressure, and when the waiter came by again, I started to say, "I hate to say anything, but..." at which point he cut me off and said, "then don't say anything," and walked away. And I mean *really* walked away -- it didn't come off as a joke when he walked away and didn't return for five minutes. But, when he did come back, he asked me what I was going to say, and he did bring me a third glass of water, so I guess we made up.

So dinner was lovely, although it made me miss them more than ever. We parted ways a little after nine p.m., and I came home and did my conference call (in my pajamas, with a sweater over them to mask the fact that I was in my pajamas, since it was a videoconference). Now, after slogging a bit more, I really need to sleep; I only woke up in the middle of the night once last night, and I'm predicting that I'll do so again tonight, but hopefully I'll get to sleep again quickly. Goodnight!

mr. and mrs. man, to you, a son: ice!

I'm falling asleep over my keyboard, so this will necessarily be brief; but the highlight of the day was that Vidya came over and finally succeeded in making me watch "In the Loop". It's ostensibly a satire about the lead-up to the Iraq war -- but it was also the funniest movie I've seen in months, if not years. The British humor was perfectly done, and there were some extremely memorable characters (the violently angry Scotsman and his little angry-Scots assistant, for example). You can also expect that the blog titles for the next few nights will be quotes from the movie -- I'm in love!

I rest of the day was v. lazy; I did drag myself out of bed at 8:30, cleaned up, took the muni (which was experiencing ridiculous delays) to the mall, had a latte to wake myself up, and then checked in for a massage and a facial at the place I went to in February. It was perfectly relaxing and I like that masseuse -- I've had her twice now, and she's excellent even if I do feel bruised afterward. The facial appears to have helped my skin, but oddly enough the aesthetician spent two-thirds of her time massaging me rather than cleaning my skin (even though she knew that I had just gotten at legit massage from someone else).

Anyway, after the spa, I went to Borders in the mall and picked up a couple of paragraphs (plus an introductory history of the Crusades), and then had a leisurely lunch at the cafe inside Nordstrom. I eventually made it home, where I talked to my parents for quite awhile. Then I spent some time doing research for my book before Vidya came over -- and now I'm going to bed! I'm working out of the city tomorrow, so getting up early isn't totally vital, but I do have a lot to get done if I'm going to make it to Cancun. Goodnight!

the calliope crashed to the ground

Strangely, I don't feel like blogging tonight. Maybe it's because I've spent about fifteen hours on my computer, most of it drafting emails, making slides, etc. Perhaps fifteen hours is an exaggeration; I've only been up for 13.5, which would be the first clue, and I did shower, take a break for lunch (at Duboce Park Cafe, with a yummy turkey and pesto sandwich), and clean my desk (unearthing the surface and dusting it so that I could work at it for the first time since I got back from India almost two months ago). But still, it was a lot of time spent writing and typing, and I'm a little tired of staring at the screen.

I worked from home today, as you might have guessed from the chain of events outlined above; this saved me from the waterlogged commute, and was also good for my productivity (sort of -- I wasn't really in the mood to get back into the day job since it felt like I didn't have a weekend, so productivity was hard to find today). I'm going down to the office tomorrow despite my original plans because I want to look at an apartment down there, but I'm going to try to go down early to write and then leave early to avoid traffic on the way home, so hopefully my plans all work out.

It wasn't all completely dull and cheerless in here, though; I watched an episode of Craig from last week (in which he made fun of the blind guy who climbed Everest by saying that his friends just put him in a freezer on a Stairmaster and told him he had climbed Everest -- mean, but I laughed because I actually saw that guy give a motivational speech to my team two years in a row, and he seemed jealous that an amputee or some shit who also climbed Everest was starting to horn in on his motivational speaking gigs), and then I watched tonight's "Big Bang Theory" (another fine CBS show!), so that was all good. And now, after painting perhaps a sadder portrait of my life than I meant to (did I tell you I ate a frozen pizza while watching Craig?), it's time for bed!

take me back to constantinople

I had a great day today; the only fly in my ointment was that I had still not recovered from the lack of sleep the night before, and so I inadvertently took two naps. One was from 11:45-12:40, when I should have been taking a shower; the second, even more embarrassingly, was while I was sitting on the couch with my nieces and nephew. This is yet more proof that not only do I not have any problem whatsoever falling asleep when I'm full of caffeine, but I can actually fall asleep in the most non-conducive situations.

My sister and her kids came over for lunch, which was delicious (hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans, and chocolate cake for Allie's upcoming thirteenth birthday). We spent the afternoon hanging out, and I seem to recall promising Zane that I would blog something about him, but I think I made the promise as I was falling asleep, and now I can no longer remember what that thing was. I'm a horrible aunt. Perhaps I'll be a better great-aunt; Sammi's baby is three weeks old, and I got to hold her for awhile (although she slept through virtually the entire afternoon). I will say that, while the kid is cute, I'm very glad that I don't have a child of my own -- someday I will get the urge and it will be bad, but right now I like not having any responsibilities.

After they left, I accomplished nothing, then ate dinner (my dad made some rotisserie chickens on his super-duper new grill, and my mom made potatoes that looked like they had been boiled in butter). I saw a raccoon on the back porch, but it was raining and so my dad gave the coon a reprieve. Then, Michael and I watched some videos on YouTube; the best video, hands down, was the opener of a Craig Ferguson episode that I missed earlier this week. It's another one where he lipsyncs and dances to a song, and you really must watch it:



Goodnight!

yippee-ai-oh mini sirloin burgers

I have the song from a Jack in the Box commercial stuck in my head -- this ridiculous commercial where Jack sings about the midget cowboys who herd the miniature "cows the size of schnauzers but they're cattle" used to make their new mini sirloin burgers. It's so stupid, but it's one of the few commercials that I won't fast forward through on TiVo.

Today was okay, although not as productive as it could have been; I only had an hour and a half of meetings, which was practically unheard of, but I had trouble willing myself to be productive. Tracy showed Pete my blog, so he found out about my tricks for staying awake yesterday -- but I managed to stay awake today while having lunch with him even though we were inside and I wasn't wearing my sunglasses, so I'm pretty proud of myself.

After work, I went to Phil'z Coffee and read through about 200 pages of my romance novel flagging places that I might want to insert a couple of small details. I think I'm really close to done with my edits, and I'm hoping to finish this weekend so that I can start querying agents. Then, I drove back to the evil city, made some supper, did some laundry, and watched an episode of Craig, in which he had an awesome interview with Jean-Michel Cousteau. Now, after one of the more boring blog entries in recent days, it's time for bed; there's much to accomplish this weekend, and sleep is vital to make it happen. Goodnight!

smack my bitch up

I had a fabulous day in San Diego! Whether any of my companions had a fabulous day is up for debate -- I forced Tammy, Walter and Julia to go to the Maritime Museum with me, which none of them seemed particularly excited about (more on that in a minute). But I had fun with my friends, the weather was perfect, and the day was a nice blend of hanging out and seeing stuff (albeit stuff that tends to be more popular with the octogenarian set, as is usually the case with my vacations).

The day started with brunch at Hash House; the place serves absolutely gigantic portions, such that Walter's "flapjack" was three quarters of an inch thick and the size of a dinner platter. We far outstayed our welcome given that a) the place was packed and b) we were talking loudly about a variety of inappropriate things, as usual, but a fun time was had by all.

But, brunch only lasted until 1pm, and then we needed to find something else to do. I made a push to see the Maritime Museum, which got a nod of acceptance only because the sole other suggestion on the table was the model train museum. So, we drove down to the harbor and spent a couple of hours looking around four ships that they have there -- the Star of India, which is the oldest ship still in operation (built in 1863 and they still sail it); the Surprise, which was used in the filming of Russell Crowe's "Master and Commander"; a Soviet submarine that was active during the Korean War era; and the Berkeley, which is a steam ferry. I had a fabulous time; I fully intend to write some pirate romances in the future, so I feel like I need to take all possible opportunities to conduct a bit of research. But while the ships were more useful for my future, the Soviet submarine was probably cooler -- if "cooler" is the right word to describe the discomfort caused by walking around in a metal tube that still held the lingering odor of seventy unwashed sailors and their borscht-based diet.

After the Maritime Museum, Walter and Julia had had enough of my antics, so we dropped them off and headed back to La Jolla. Tammy and I sat on a bench and people watched in La Jolla Cove, spending an inordinate amount of time speculating about our fellow beachgoers (including one woman who was wearing an incongruous combination of a t-shirt modestly covering her top, and a thong bikini bottom which she chose not to cover up even when she left the beach and walked away down the public sidewalk). Then, we had dinner and caffeine at the same cafe (the Living Room) that we stopped at last night before returning to downtown San Diego.

Tammy had tickets for a performance of one of Mendelssohn's violin concertos, and so she invited me to come along. It was fabulous; while the lead violinist seemed overwhelmingly arrogant (perhaps with good reason, or perhaps because he never learned better -- he got his Ph.D. in mathematics and music at age eighteen), I had a total crush on the conductor, who had fabulous hair and conducted v. expressively from memory. They also played two other pieces, and all in all it was great. I especially enjoyed the first flautist, who made me wish that I had stuck with the flute (even though I would never reach this level in a million years), as well as the percussion section. I'm sure that the visual impressions of the performers are not what I'm supposed to be taking away from the performance, but c'est la vie.

Now I need to go -- Tammy and I are going to attempt to watch "Quantum of Solace", although I think there's a reasonable chance that I will fall asleep. Goodnight!

i just want, i just want love

I'm all packed up and ready to go back to Iowa. Whether Iowa is ready to receive me is another story -- there is a chance of an ice storm tomorrow, which hopefully won't overly delay my flight into Kansas City, but may impede my parents' ability to pick me up.

But, if and when I get home, I'm looking forward to really relaxing for a couple of weeks. Even though I was just home a couple of weeks ago, the last three weeks have been ridiculously hectic. I'm feeling the need to get back to my roots -- or, at the very least, stop thinking about my corporate life and all the petty betrayals and economic worries that seem to be affecting everyone.

I'm also super excited to start refocusing on my romance writing. I intend to use the break to fully plot out book #2 (or at least as fully plot it as I can without writing the thing -- challenging, since I tend to not know what the characters are going to do until they do it). I also want to get ready to start aggressively querying agents in January, in the hopes that the post-holiday good cheer will a) make them more receptive to my work and b) make me less sensitive to their rejection.

Pete got me an awesome gift today -- a book of thirty postcards of romance novel covers. The artist who painted the covers is clearly incredibly talented. I took photos of three of my favorites:




















I love this montage: any book in which a riverboat and a mountain lion figure prominently is a winner. In fact, I read a book with a riverboat in it once; I wonder if there was a mountain lion...

















WTF is going on here?? Is the guy raising his hands to the heavens over the car the same guy who is facing right? Is he some sort of mild-mannered office man who turns into a race car god? How is any of this romantic?
















This one may be my favorite: a car accident AND a UFO sighting. Super hot!

I really hope that my cover turns out half as nice someday. But right now, it's time for bed!

in the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream

Today was a great day, despite spending almost three hours in traffic because I went down and came back at peak rush hour. Actually, most of the cold, hard facts would indicate that I had a bad day; the trip to work took an hour and a half, I got three allergy shots, I didn't have time for lunch until finally eating a sandwich at 3pm while sitting in another meeting, it took an hour and a half to get home, and then I spent two hours working.

But, it was still good -- mostly because I successfully led a team meeting, which was entertaining because I got to subject 500 people in four different offices to random Iowa trivia. For this particular meeting, the meeting organizers compile a deck of slides from all the presenters, but they rotate who actually leads the meeting, and the meeting leader has to introduce each speaker. For whatever reason, the meeting leader gives some trivia between each topic -- and I told the organizers that I wanted my trivia to be Iowa related. So they put together slides with Iowa features and supplied some trivia (John Wayne's birthplace, Iowa beating Penn State last weekend, etc.) I also supplied my own trivia -- in particular regarding the Honey Bee War with Missouri.

I think I was generally polished, but I did have one slip-up. One of the trivia facts was about where the name "Iowa" came from, and the answer of course was from the Ioway tribe. Unfortunately, my monologue went something like this: "Iowa was named after the Ioway Indian tribe, who was led by Chief White Cloud [pictured]...I probably should have said Native American, but we still call them Indians in Iowa...yeah, I shouldn't have said that" at which point I passed the mic abruptly to the next presenter. Other than that, though, it went swimmingly, and as long as no one complains to HR about me, I think it was a success!

So forcing that many people to learn more about Iowa pretty much made my day. The other thing that made my day is that it was effectively my Friday -- I'm taking tomorrow off, and I'm going to finish this book if it kills me! Despite the relatively early hour, I think I'll go to bed so that I can get up tomorrow and get started. Goodnight!

hello taiwan

So I'm procrastinating again (after picking up my car, for which they amazingly charged me only $10 -- at a licensed Toyota dealer, no less).

Check out my friend Joann's blog -- she transferred to the Singapore office a few months ago (I'm jealous but reminding myself that I want to have a life in the States for awhile), and keeps this awesome food blog with close-up shots of all the crazy stuff she's eating in Asia. She went to Taiwan with some friends recently, and posted this: her experience at a Hello Kitty-themed cafe. Given that my Hello Kitty calculator is prominently placed on my desk, I loved this entry.

Now back to work...

saved by the naked homeless man

Robin McKinley's newest book, 'Chalice', drops tomorrow -- but thanks to Amazon preorder, it arrived today. At least, I think that's what arrived today; I didn't actually get the package, but more on that in a moment. As frequent readers who are good at retaining random facts will remember, I absolutely adore McKinley's writing, and read whatever she writes, even though much of it is technically marketed to the young adult crowd (although from what I've read of 'Chalice', it's not exactly young adult -- and her book 'Deerskin' was absolutely not young adult, nor was 'Sunshine'). The quality of her writing is outstanding, in that she creates very lush, very detailed worlds that have soothing similarities and jarring dissimilarities with our own. As I've said before, I sometimes reread her books in the way that some people walk the medieval cathedral labyrinth paths -- they help me to spiral in to a more meditative place and focus my thoughts, mostly because the writing is so pure and perfect that it does a great job of fully sucking you into the story.

So after work, I had to go to Palo Alto for dinner with some friends, and I intended to go to a cafe and work for an hour before dinner. But, I parked behind Borders, and as I was cutting through Borders to get to the other side of the block, I found myself upstairs, in young adult, where I read the first portion of 'Chalice' standing up for an hour. I meant to save the book for this weekend, take it down to Union Square, and read it at Samovar in Yerba Buena Gardens, but I couldn't help myself tonight.

I didn't buy the book at Borders because it was preordered through Amazon and delivered today. So when I got home tonight, I debated whether I should pick the package up from security -- I knew that if the book was in my apartment, I'd be tempted to read it even though I need to go to bed. But when I went to security to pick it up, I ended up telling Charles not to worry about it and that I'll get it tomorrow, because he couldn't leave his post due to the fact that there was a naked homeless man in one of the stairwells. This was shocking, but didn't make me feel unsafe, since the stairwells are fire-escape-only and can't be used to reenter the residential areas, but I thought that it was an omen that I need to not pick up the book and rush through it just because I'm impatient.

Dinner tonight was with Lizzie, Sarah, and Shawn. We ate at Vino Locale in Palo Alto -- it's a bona fide member of the Slow Foods movement, which is apparently a marketing scheme in which restauranteurs give themselves the option of having incredibly slow service and food prep because they can just sniff at you disdainfully for your wasteful, fast-paced suburban immorality if you seem annoyed at the slowness of things. Slow food is actually about locally-grown, organic foods, and while the service was weird, the food and wine were quite good. I had a chorizo panini (mmm) with a glass of v. local cabernet, and we also split a cheese plate appetizer and a few chocolate truffles for dessert. Lizzie was kind enough to treat us to dinner because Sarah and I both had birthdays recently, which was nice of her, and since we avoided most references to politics, everything went swimmingly.

Now, though, it's time for bed -- three nights of staying in the south bay for dinner is enough for one week, and I'm looking forward to getting up here tomorrow at a reasonable hour. Goodnight!

hazardous

Two jhokes that I forgot to blog last night that I wish to share with you:

1) I ordered some stuff from Sephora last night, due to the fact that I don't have time to go to the mall and pick up some necessities, and encouraged by the additional fact that by shopping online I don't waste time or money by trying scores of new products. When I was selecting shipping, the system told me that I could only ship my order via ground service because my order contains a HAZMAT product. WTF?! It makes me doubt a bit whether I should really be using any product on my face or hair that can be considered a hazardous material. I mean, I'm pretty sure that the culprit is the spray bottle of dry shampoo, but what if the hazardous part is the chemicals in it and not the fact that it's a spray? Then again, even though I love cosmetics, I'm not using anything with white lead (like all the foundation-type concealers back in the Regency period) or belladonna/nightshade (which Italian women used to distill and put into their eyes to make their pupils attractively dilated, seriously increasing their risk of blindness).

2) Driving through Mountain View last night, I saw an apartment complex that was advertising a "2 bdr, 1 bat" unit. I wish I had had my camera. Do you think the bat is kept out in the open, or does it hide someplace and then come out to terrorize you randomly? If it's like my childhood home, it comes out randomly, but this is California, and people are crazy about pets here...

bitch don't just stand there with your nose up

So John looked up 'wamp' on Urban Dictionary to find out what it means in the 'Wamp Wamp (What it Do)' song that we were listening to last night. While there, he found this definition for 'Wamplerosis': "The feeling of extreme persecution that results from the knowledge that somewhere, someone disagrees with you." Now, this may be accurate since I definitely hate it when someone disagrees with me...but he really didn't need to snort when he read it, or vote for that definition along with the eleven other people who had already agreed with it.

This is the first time I've had actual internet access in a week, which is v. exciting. I'm sitting in a fancy room at the InterContinental in San Fransisco, reimmersed in the fun expense-account life; I just got back from dinner (at Pazzia, where we had the memorable Vidya-birthday dinner at which my car got broken into) with a couple of my manager friends from the Michigan office, and the ability to expense dinner meant there was no question about whether to have wine, salad, and entree, and dessert. I may go out again to get a drink with Irish Matt, and I will valiantly attempt to prevent one drink turning into five like it usually does when I'm around Matt.

So all in all, this was an incredibly awesome weekend. I feel like a little kid after a day at a theme park; tired, cranky, but so excited that I probably still can't sleep. Actually, that's how I felt after I went to Disneyland six months ago -- I can't seem to grow up properly. But I have my manager pants and my stylish pumps ready to go for tomorrow's manager conference, so I'll fake it 'til I make it. I'm excited to see my manager friends, but I'm less excited about faking knowledge about the business, so we'll see how it goes.

The drive up from Pasadena was fine; I left there at ten and got here a little before five, with a longish break for Taco Bell and another couple for gasoline, so that's not bad. And it's nothing compared to the drives I took for four days last week...this was like a nice Sunday afternoon drive by comparison. I must admit, though, that I'm glad I don't have any day-long drives coming up in the near future. Now I'm going to take care of some more internet stuff before my drink with Matt; have a great night!

Day Sixteen - Highlands to Edinburgh

Today was the last day of my bus tour, alas. We spent most of it on the bus, with a brief stop at Eilean Donan castle (which I considered to be a disappointment when I learned that it was reconstructed in the early 20th century, although they did a fairly faithful reproduction and it's quite lovely), and a lunch break at Loch Ness. I did not see the monster, unfortunately, but I did have a nice moment of serenity while sitting on the rocky beach looking out over the water. I also thought fondly of Tammy's irrational fear of the monster, but was still careful not to actually touch the water.

I'm not going to write a long post tonight because I need to get up v. early so that I can go to the airport for my flight to Amsterdam and Walter. The pictures I posted below will have to tide you over until I write a longer post via blackberry tomorrow night. However, I will say that my hotel experience tonight has been quite entertaining -- Kim, Darragh, Jenni, etc., would be amused to know that I'm staying in a brand-new Novotel for the second time in my life (the first being our week-long trip to Hyderabad in August 2006). And while this one is somewhat to be preferred because the staff aren't knocking on my door every five minutes to see if I want a newspaper, in other ways it's shockingly similar. The staff is all v. eager to please, but don't quite know what they're doing -- I went downstairs to ask if they have a hotel guide (like the book that tells you how much calls cost, when room service is served, etc.), and they didn't know what a guide even was, let alone whether they had one. And the room is trying so hard to be stylish that some of it, particularly the bathroom, is incomprehensible. But on the whole it's nice, twice as big as any of the other rooms I've had, and less expensive than my hotel in London, so I'm willing to put up with the endearing trainee-mode staff.

Now, after a less than stellar blog post, it's time for bed. But first, happy birthday Michael! For those of you not in the know, Michael is my brother, and he's another year older today. Whether he's another year wiser, I will leave up to him to judge. But hopefully he's out having fun tonight!

Days 12-16 pt. 2 - Scotland

The sheep on Neist Point are much more courageous (or stupid) than I am.















Self-portrait at Neist Point.















The shower in my Edinburgh hotel room has settings for 'female', 'male', and 'two small lesbians'.