golden teeth, crooked track

I spent the day doing more stuff around the house, but really I spent the day listening to several videos from the Vegas conference and then going down a rabbit hole with other videos from one of the conference speakers. The speaker is a certified Clifton Strengths coach (formerly StrengthFinder) and has built a community of writing coaches...and she has made a bunch of 45-60min videos discussing each of the 34 Clifton strengths in detail from the perspective of how those strengths impact / influence a writer's craft and career.

I took the test way back in the day, and I've come back to the results a few times - mostly because literally all of my top five strengths are in the 'strategic thinking' bucket and I don't have any 'execution' strengths in my top ten, which is probably part of why I don't get things done and would rather just read / talk / brainstorm / daydream all day. The videos were surprisingly super helpful, though - obviously there are a lot of writing benefits to being able to generate a lot of unique ideas and then game out what would happen along a million different paths if an idea came to fruition (my top two strengths are Ideation and Strategy). And my third strength, Context, is a lot about knowing everything about the past to predict the future + people's future behavior, which is spot-on and also ties into why I need to know so much about characters' backstories before I can really write them.

So, I only watched the videos for my top three strengths, but I think I'll go through my top ten and see what they have to say. All in all, it was a v. worthwhile exercise, and I'm looking forward to digging into it some more.

Beyond that, I have v. little to note - construction continued, and Randy is making excellent progress. It was 29 degrees and windy, and is the warmest that it will be in the next ten days, which is unwelcome. I went to my parents' house with a tub full of dirty dishes to run through their dishwasher (partially because I'm lazy, partially because I wanted to disinfect from [censored]'s covid) and chatted with them for awhile. And I decorated my Christmas tree, which sparks a lot of joy - maybe I'll leave it up until February since I put it up so late, but we'll see.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

i remember her, i don't remember me

I had a nice, quiet day, but it sure would be nice if the pandemic ended. It's too easy for me to fall into mindlessly scrolling twitter because nothing else is going on. But I managed to avoid that temptation for most of the day - I slept in a bit, made coffee, read one of the new cookbooks my parents gave me for Christmas, and then made scrambled eggs since I didn't have the ingredients for anything I might have made from that book. I then spent some quality time this afternoon trying to get my house back in order here - this mostly meant doing a bunch of laundry, organizing things in my bedroom, etc.

At some point, I had a long phone chat with California Barbara - we hadn't talked in a couple of months, and she texted me about something, so we ended up talking for an hour. That was a delightful break, and also made me deeply miss my California writing crew. Then, I made a new-to-me recipe for chicken enchiladas - they weren't from the cookbook I read, but rather from a reliable recipe website. I wasn't at all sure how they were going to turn out because the enchilada sauce tasted a little too oily and my corn tortillas were a week past the expiration date (despite having been purchased four days ago) - but they were really delicious and I would totally make them again. I also spread them across three different smaller baking dishes rather than making a 9x13 pan, so I can put two in the freezer and have a couple of meals each when I thaw and bake them at some future date. All in all, Future Sara is v. lucky that I had this foresight.

While I was cooking, and for a couple of hours after, I watched most of a Masterclass by N.K. Jemisin (author of some totally amazing fantasy novels). I signed up for Masterclass last week on a bit of a whim, thinking that watching some writing-related classes might replace the inspiration that I used to get by attending conferences - and while Masterclass can't replicate the real magic of conferences (aka sitting in the bar and getting industry gossip), the lecture itself was pretty thought provoking. There are a ton of interesting writing classes available, so we'll see what I get through in the next few weeks / months.

And now, I should go to bed - but first, allow me to document that yesterday I had a v. long, luxurious dinner with Katie at Bar Dough. We hadn't seen each other in almost two months, so we were very overdue - and I was able to snag a reservation for a private greenhouse, which is a totally enclosed space with heaters and a bluetooth speaker to play your own music. The reservation was supposed to be for ninety minutes, but they let us stay almost three hours - so we had burrata, and then a completely delicious pasta (I ate every bite despite the server selling it as 'big enough for leftovers'), and then a glass of fernet for dessert in homage to my San Francisco life. Then we left and sat in my car outside Katie's house talking for almost another hour. It of course wasn't enough to get fully caught up, but it went a long way.

And now, I'm going to bed for real - goodnight!

wish i could turn my mind off for a month

I was pretty productive today, although I hit a wall this evening. But I got up this morning in time to write for an hour before work (mostly from bed - I was at my desk and actually crawled back into bed to brainstorm, since I hadn't showered yet, and it was great). And I slogged all day, mostly successfully.

When I finished work, I threw together a spicy red pepper/chipotle aioli from Barefoot Contessa's latest cookbook (which is a winner so far!) - this just involved chopping up some garlic and chipotle, chopping some jarred roasted red pepper, and pureeing it in my food processor before adding a cup of mayonnaise. The aioli took five minutes but really jazzed up the salmon that I made later, and it would also be amazing with sweet potato fries, or on a sandwich, or in an effort to jazz up many other foodstuffs.

After I did that, I had a quick call with Terry and Lauren (aka Subz) - we were overdue for a three-way catchup, so we made it happen tonight. Then I finished making dinner - I cooked some salmon, roasted some fingerling potatoes, and also roasted some broccolini with sharp cheddar cheese (broccolini also from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook). All in, this took <30min - everything cooked at 400 degrees for varying times, so while it took some careful timing to get everything done at the same time, I pulled it off and the end result was completely delicious.

Then I messed around on Instagram, caught up on Twitter, and did some romance novel business stuff. And now it's only ten p.m., but I'm determined to go to bed in the next 15-20min - I should have done some day job stuff tonight and did not, so I need to get up early and work in the morning. Goodnight!

pour a little salt we were never here

I had a surprisingly productive day, which I suppose is what happens when you get up at 6:30 on a Saturday - and probably also explains why I felt like going to bed at 5pm but have managed to stay up until ten (and am now considering going to sleep immediately). I spent most of the day watching videos from a virtual writing conference - while I am still deeply sad that I'm not in a fancy hotel drinking a fancy cocktail with my fancy friends, I am guessing that I saw way more actual content today because I watched a bunch of sessions rather than slacking off to hang out with people. Some of it was a hit, some of it was a miss - but overall I'm feeling more energized about the business side of writing than I have in ages, and I'm making plans to translate that into actual progress at some point in the near future.

But I couldn't bear to stare at screens all day, so I also took care of a bunch of stuff around the house. I finally put garland and lights along the banister leading upstairs, so my hallways looks delightful. I decorated my mantel and put a bunch of stuff away, so my living rooms feels perfectly cozy. I set up a couple of temperature sensors that I've been meaning to set up (one for the garage and one for my fridge, in addition to the one in the basement) so that I can remotely keep an eye on how tings are doing in the house when I'm gone (which is never these days, but someday will happen). I got a chip in my windshield fixed.  I washed my sheets and swapped out my duvet cover, and I'm counting remaking my bed as an aerobic workout due the challenges of switching duvet covers.

I also treated myself to delivery from Ash'kara, which was delicious and I wish I could sit at the bar and drink a cocktail with Katie. I gave myself a gel manicure (red, to match the season). And I'm wearing a new velvet sweatsuit, which feels utterly ridiculous and wonderful.

And now, after recounting a list of tings I did and absolutely nothing about what I learned in my conference, I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger (someone at the conference said to do that) and go to bed. Goodnight!

and now my problems got problems of their own 'cause they're growing up

I had a really delightful Thanksgiving, which might not have been expected given that I didn't go anywhere or see anyone. But I definitely made the most of it. I slept in a bit (but not too much), then spent the morning messing around the house, eating, showering, etc. I then spent the afternoon mostly putting up a Christmas tree - I've never put up a Christmas tree of my own volition before, although I was coerced into several by Terry. Given that 2020 is truly a weird year and it's important to find all the joy you can, I bought a tree - a relatively small (i.e. not very girthy, since I have no room for a large tree) prelit fake one, which looks pretty good despite being small and fake. I spent most of the afternoon 'trimming' it, as ye olde Victorians would say - since I'd never had a tree before, I also had to buy ornaments, but I'm pretty happy with the assortment that I acquired over the last few weeks. I also hung up some Waterford crystal ornaments that I bought in Ireland like fourteen years ago and never had a place to hang, and they look great. And I bought an ornament that is a merman, which is totally ridiculous and yet I love it.

In between trimming sessions, I took a walk while it was still daylight out and called my parents to wish them a happy thanksgiving. I also took a break to make dinner - I made a potato fennel gratin from Barefoot Contessa that turned out super good (although weirdly undersalted - I usually trust her recipes, but I should have trusted my instincts on this one and quadrupled the salt), along with pork chops and brussels sprouts. Not exactly a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but a very tasty one nonetheless. And I tested out a blended margarita with cranberry juice (and cute cranberries and mint on top as a garnish), which was a total winner.

After all that, and after finishing the tree, it was 8:45pm and I could have just curled up with a book and gone to bed. Instead, I kept the festivities going for the last few hours - we had a family dinner Thanksgiving, in which "family" = "my college friends". It happened by accident, since Jess meant to set up a zoom for her actual family and accidentally invited us instead, but when she caught the mistake we turned it into a real zoom for us anyway.

Of course, the conversation was utterly ridiculous. There were some shocking revelations, including Jess getting bitten by rat mites for the past few years (apparently rat mites are translucent and the size of a period, and apparently they had rats in their attic, and apparently an exterminator ran into the house with a handgun of the bb variety and shot a bunch of the rats). We also learned about raccoon latrines, which I did not know were a thing. We learned about a book called 'All Joy and No Fun', which Jess is reading about parenting. We learned about Adit's ongoing credit/debit card fiasco in a choose your own adventure where nothing actually happened. We learned that Adit's children want to sleep with Priyanka every night, but see sleeping with him as a punishment. We learned that Ritu was at work, but Bill still dialed in from bed, where he mostly judged who had the best joke (Vidya was in the lead for a poop joke, but Jess had a surprise zinger that I have now forgotten but that encouraged her to leave the call on top). We learned that Claudia's cat excels at killing mice, and Claudia's baby excels at crying. We learned that if you dial into Zoom from your phone, everyone on the call can tell when you switch away from the Zoom to look at something else online because your camera turns off. We learned that Priyanka has been engaging in retail therapy, which I sympathize with since that's my only therapy too. And anyway, since I am wearing a nap dress that I bought solely because I loved hers and succumbed to the instagram marketing, I can never judge anyone for their covid spending habits.

There were other shocking revelations, and other not-shocking revelations, and it was all quite entertaining. But now, Thanskgiving is over (although my gratitude is not!) and I need to sleep - goodnight!

better nix my summer plans

Today was pretty good, although I was tired by the end of it - I didn't get enough sleep, and I intend to rectify that posthaste. But I dragged myself out of bed in time to write, so that was a delight. And then I showered, slogged all day, took a break to eat a poke bowl, and took another break to have class with Alyssa. When that was over, I made dinner while talking to [censored] - he was good, but my porkchop, polenta, and brussels sprouts were even better.

Then I was tired, so I doomscrolled and cleaned my kitchen. And then I had an 8:30pm meeting with someone in India and did another hour of work right after. But now I've gotten through what I need to get through, and I'm going to read a bit and go to bed - goodnight!

with auburn hair and tawny eyes, the kind of eyes that hypnotize me through

I had a pretty lazy day....or rather, I got quite a bit done, but it was all in service of the goal of making a curry, which took hours of effort. Luckily it was one of the tastiest things I've made in quarantine, and I would actually 100% make it again, so no regrets there.

I got up slightly later than planned this morning, and I bummed around the kitchen making coffee and cleaning up and meditating. I also made a grocery list - while I'd gotten most of what I needed at the Korean grocery store the other night, their dairy section wasn't up to the task for what I required, and I had also forgotten to get lemongrass for the thing I wanted to make today. So I cut up the beef for tonight's curry and covered it in paprika/turmeric/salt to marinate, and then I showered, took care of some tings, ate some leftover frittata, and ran to the grocery store (with a stop at the carwash, and an abortive attempt to return something to Nordstrom Rack before I realized that I had no desire to stand in any sort of line that wasn't distancing).

After the grocery store, I came home, put tings away, and then made a beef and potato curry. You can see it on zee romance blog - it wasn't hard at all, but it involved dicing a lot of onion and mincing almost two full heads of garlic, which is time consuming. It also needed to simmer for at least ninety minutes, and then another thirty after adding the potatoes, so it really took quite a long time.

But I got to talk to my parents for quite awhile while I was occasionally stirring the curry. And the end result, as i said, was excellent - would definitely make again.

And now, it's time to head toward bed so that I can write in the morning before work. Goodnight!

only got bad things on my mind when i'm with you

Work was surprisingly stressful today; Fridays are usually pretty chill, but I had meetings all day and was trying to prep stuff for more meetings, and I had to present to a couple of VPs, etc., etc. So, it was not exactly the calm end of the week that I wanted...but the presentation went well, so I guess it could be worse.

As soon as I was done with meetings, I made a run to H Mart up in Westminster. I'm feeling eager to get back into cooking ridiculously elaborate meals that are too much for one person (but perfect for instagram), and I want to go deeper into the Burma Superstar cookbook (among others). H Mart is a Korean grocery chain and I didn't realize they were in Colorado, but I'm glad I found them. It was kind of a trick to find everything on my list because I didn't know the store layout, I didn't know what some of the jars and bottles and things would look like or what section they might be in, and many things were imported and so occasionally not in English. But it was pretty fun to explore, they had a ton of produce for way cheaper than Whole Foods, I did finally find pickled green mango, I saw more variants of rice noodle than I realized were possible, and all in all it was delightful. And now I know where I can get gallon jugs of beef blood if I ever need it (I don't). It also wasn't very crowded at 5pm on a Friday, which is good to know.

Of course, by the time I got home, I didn't have time to start an elaborate recipe. So I put my groceries away and ate leftover chicken and wild rice soup instead. Then I played with my new gel manicure light -- I haven't had my fingernails done since the apocalypse started, and I was really missing that little bit of fanciness, and then a coworker friend gave me a light and the top/base coat for gel manicures for my birthday. So I did my nails, and I took the time to file my nails, soak my cuticles, etc. While I was doing my nails, I watched a couple of episodes of TASTE THE NATION (Padma Lakshmi's culinary show), which I adore. And my nails turned out pretty well, so we'll see how the polish holds up.

Then I picked up the book I started last night (BIG SUMMER) and read later than I planned, but managed to put it down and not finish the rest of it. There are still superficial similarities to some of what I'm writing, but the twist in the middle is definitely not what I plan for my book, so that's a relief. And now I need to go to bed, because I have a big day planned tomorrow - goodnight!

cockles and mussels alive alive oh

Definitely time for bed - I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I was dragging this morning. Today was mostly good, although it was a lot of talking...and then it ended in a team activity, which involved eating a lot of fried food full of gluten + doing a lot of Irish dancing. Irish dancing, it turns out, is not my strong suit, but this wasn't a surprise. It was actually pretty fun, all in all - but after several days of nonstop people time, I'm ready for a break.

Of course, I won't get that break tomorrow, although I think I can sneak away after six...but I'm headed home on Saturday, and I intend to be as much of a hermit as I can possibly be on Sunday, so that will probably save me. And now it's time for bed - goodnight!

flies in the vasoline we are

I'm in ye olde Iowa for the weekend - I wasn't ready to take off today from a work standpoint, but I was definitely ready from a life standpoint. Or maybe I wasn't totally ready...I barely made it to work in time for breakfast because I had to finish packing, take out the trash, etc., etc.

Once I got to the office, I should have slogged really hard to get through as much stuff as possible, but instead I spent some quality time joking around with people. I learned that this guy Mike grew up in Germany as a small child, where they apparently have something called Krampus (the opposite of Kris Kringle) who eats bad children's families at Christmastime. This convinced me that instead of doing a Secret Santa at work this year, we should do Secret Krampus and just play pranks and steal people's stuff. Sounds like a great idea, amirite?

So, after learning a lot of facts that explained a lot about Mike, I did manage to do a bit of work. I also had a meeting w/my VP, but it all went smoothly, so that was good. Then I ate a quick lunch, left for the airport, and drove all the way through snow (I maintain it was snow; one of the Californians I sit by thought it might be hail, but I was pretty convinced that none of them knew any of the words for the myriad forms of frozen precipitation). I worked for an hour when I got to the airport, then boarded my tiny plane. I read the whole way to Iowa, which was lovely...

...and then my parents picked me up and we went to Johnny's for our usual post-airport supper. I had a pretty tasty ribeye and a baked potato, which was great. Then we successfully made it home, and I stayed up later than I should have talking to my parents (and even later than that unpacking and messing around online). But now I need to stop messing around and get some sleep - goodnight!

you got a fast car, i want a ticket to anywhere

I had a lovely day in the city of sin, despite being at work (or work-related activities) from 8:45 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. I spent the day at the San Francisco office - a different San Francisco office than I usually go to, since my company keeps expanding and swallowing new buildings whole. This was a summit, which, as you know, means that I had one all-day meeting rather than 12-18 30min meetings - somehow, staying engaged for a single day is weirdly more tiring than switching contexts every thirty minutes. But I revived myself at lunch with some polenta (which I picked the asparagus out of, since I still hate it despite being an adult now), and I had some v. entertaining interactions throughout the afternoon (even though the subject matter was not entertaining), so that was all fun.

After the summit, many of us went for drinks at a tiki bar called Pagan Idol. The tiki bar had lots of fake smoke and real koi, which made for a weird atmosphere, but my drinks were tasty and the company was super fun. We welcomed some crashers who have left the team, which was super fun (even more fun because we couldn't really talk about work) - and I learned that the great-grandmother of one of my coworkers was a famous artist in France (during a time when her whole life was a study in luck, fate, and the ability to survive, since she was a Jewish woman who left Ukraine and ended up in France right before WWII). Of course, a lot of the conversation was waaaaay less high-brow than that, but it was all pretty fun.

A core group of us left the bar and had dinner at La Fusion, which I had been to a few months ago with Jenni. We had sangria and lots of meat, and I was feeling high on life...but I have a lot of work to do tomorrow, so I bid them all adieu after the restaurant and came back to the hotel. And now it's definitely time for bed - goodnight!

love and darkness and my sidearm

I was going to complain about the fact that I just had a 9:30-10pm meeting on my ninth day back in the office...but my first paycheck just deposited, which shut me up right quick, as they say. #getitgirl

Work continues to be good - I'm finding that I'm actually pretty curious/interested/engaged in the learning process around the new job and what I'll be responsible for, which is a rather wonderful development since I had a sneaking fear in the dark of night that I would have trouble reengaging under the yoke of corporate whoredom.

However, going back this time is different because I actually have very few preconceived notions of the product/work space I'm entering - it's all about communities and social support, which I have a lot of personal fascination with (writing an honors thesis about German resistance movements in WWII has surprisingly more to do with this job than you might have guessed, at least from an interest standpoint). Last time, I had more technical knowledge about books and publishing, and so I had very strong, very early opinions that shredded any semblance of a honeymoon period. This time, it's just fun to learn something new...and the fact that my new team seems pretty engaged. They made me a hardcover photo book about themselves as a welcome gift, which is so over the top that you have to love it.

So anyway. I spent the whole day in meetings, but I took a break around 3:30 to have coffee with an old friend (Jason, who I knew forever ago), and than I saw Vidya (aka Chandlord) at 4pm. Then I got in my car and spent over an hour driving the 17mi to Belmont, which was a great reminder why I moved away. I had dinner with the Shedletskys at Vivace - it was a delish Italian restaurant, and we had a delightful time catching up. But I had to leave earlier than I wanted to so that I could make it back for my late meeting - and now I must sleep so I can get up early and pack up and vacate my airbnb. Goodnight!

colorado passes by like writing on a wall

I'm in Denver, safely ensconced in Katie's guest room, which has begun to feel like my room since I've been showing up here so regularly this summer. Sometime soon, I'll have my own place and she'll no longer be subjected to my presence...but let's not kid ourselves, I'll probably still come to her place for dinner and then end up spending the night anyway.

I woke up in North Platte this morning and was extremely loath to get in the car again, so I dawdled - I ate breakfast quickly, since the hotel breakfast wasn't particularly yummy (although their coffee was excellent), but then I sipped my coffee and wrote some emails, and so I didn't actually get out of North Platte until 10am. This was over an hour later than I'd intended, but it didn't really matter since I had no pressing plans.

The rest of Nebraska passed by in total boredom, although I had a bit of excitement wondering if I would run out of gas, since I had decided to press on and get gas at the westernmost Casey's that I know of rather than stopping when I should have. Casey's is a convenience store chain that is particularly beloved in Iowa (where it started), and has slowly been spreading its virtuous tentacles across the midwest. They also make the best convenience store pizza ever, for those of you who can still eat gluten. The westernmost Casey's that I've seen is in Ogallala, Nebraska - and I just checked the Casey's map, which indicates that Ogallala is tied with a small town in Kansas for westernmost Casey's.

This is of interest to none of you, so I'll move on. Spoiler: I didn't run out of gas.

Most of today's drive was through Colorado, which was also supremely uninteresting since I've made that trip several times. When I got close to Denver, I veered off and went to Boulder instead - I'm checking it out as a potential place to live (which is looking highly likely at this point), and I wanted to scope things out. After only a couple of hours there, I was in love - I had a nicoise salad while sitting in a restaurant overlooking a pedestrian shopping area, and the weather was perfect and everything was delightful (even the bluegrass buskers playing banjos and washboards on the sidewalk, which I normally don't love but was somehow into today). The only downer was the moment when, halfway into my salad, I had a sudden, intense fear that the pile of indeterminate shredded white matter was actually crab - but the waiter eventually told me that it was 'confetti eggs', which I've never heard of, but at least I didn't spend tonight throwing up everything I've ever eaten).

So, Boulder gets a big thumbs up - it actually reminds me a lot of Palo Alto/Berkeley, but with fewer Teslas and more potential for snow. I drove around a bit more after eating, then came to Denver, where I sat at Avanti and journaled until it was time to meet up with Katie. I got to her house before she did, and the nanny stupidly let me watch them until Katie got back, which meant that I let them draw all over themselves in an effort to buy their love.

Then we ate supper (delish pulled pork and sweet potatoes), and I made mojitos for me and Katie to enjoy in the basement while James got suckered into putting the girls to bed. And now I need to go to bed as well - goodnight!

i face in the direction i am bound

Apologies (to myself, mostly) for not blogging last night - when I'm home I tend to fall into some sort of torpor by 10pm, and blogging becomes increasingly difficult. Or maybe it's that it's been so long since I've been somewhere that counts as 'home' that I'm willing to abandon everything for the chance to lie in bed for as long as possible.

Either way, I should start off by saying that yesterday was great - although we didn't see the full totality of the eclipse because it was cloudy and kinda raining during the peak moment. Sadness. If it had been half an hour later, the skies had cleared enough for us to see it, but it wasn't meant to be.

Still, we had a delightful time - it was a family reunion of sorts, since we met up with Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy in a tiny, tiny town called Hale, Missouri. Living Wamplers were slightly outnumbered by dead Wamplers at this affair - this is the town where my granddad grew up, and his parents, grandparents, and two uncles and an aunt are buried there, all in a row in a small cemetery just outside of town. We spent most of the lead-up to the eclipse in a park in the middle of town, where there were picnic tables in a shelter house and a bunch of people from surprisingly far-flung places (aka Minnesota and Wisconsin). But just before the totality we loaded up (ourselves...we left the food and stuff on a picnic table) and went to the cemetery, where the six of us who lived stood and watched the eclipse with the dead.

It would have been even cooler if we'd actually seen the corona - but even with the clouds, it was obvious that the land turned dark as nearby security lights came on and dogs howled in the distance. And I hadn't been down there since my great-granddad died (when I was eight; my great-grandma died when I was twelve, but we were in Ukraine when she died and didn't come back for the funeral), so I'm glad that we made the trip.

After the totality, we went back to the shelter house and picnicked, which was delightful (helped along by the wine Kathy brought...I'm pleased to report that I'm not the only lush in the family). We also met a woman who works for the newspaper/museum/library (#smalltownlife) who knew our family name, so she opened up the museum for us so that we could take a look around. They had a picture of my granddad and his twin in grade school, as well as some other interesting relics, so it was worth a visit.

Then we drove home in a long line of cars headed north, but the only slowdown was in Chillicothe (home of sliced bread! according to a mural, and backed up by a fact-check on Wikipedia, which says they had the first bakery to ever use a bread-slicing machine). When we got home, we generally hung out, had supper (ribeyes and sweet corn), and then took a break while my parents went to a round barn meeting. Then we played a quick game of Ticket to Ride, which my dad won handily.

Today was a bit more lowkey - I got up later than I should have and earlier than I wanted to so that [censored] and I could deal with an issue with my [censored]. Then I spent the afternoon hanging out with my dad in the kitchen, saying [censored] to [censored] (who has to go back to work, alas), writing in my journal on the back porch, and eating supper with my parents (yummy pork chops and baked potatoes and green beans and watermelon). I also talked to Terry briefly, and I enjoyed some wine that I'd stockpiled here - if wine really is good for you, I'm losing out on a lot of health benefits while being here, so I figured I should medicate.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

find me and follow me through corridors, refectories

I am sitting in a hotel room in North Platte, Nebraska, which is a town I have driven through many times before. What I had not done before is drink thirteen ounces of so-so wine at Ruby Tuesday, which is what I did tonight - I was having some deep thoughts about Spinster Honeymoon, and by that I mean that I thought about journaling and instead spent too much time messaging people on twitter. But twitter is part of the plot of that book, so let's call it research and move on, shall we?

When I woke up this morning, I was still in Iowa. But it didn't take long to get ready to go - and it was all v. desultory since I wasn't on a specific timeline. So, that gave me time to have breakfast with my parents (my dad made hashbrowns in addition to the usual bacon and eggs, so I think he really does love me!). Then I said my farewells to them and headed west (well, north first, then west for hours and hours). The Iowa portion of my journey was entirely uneventful. Right after I crossed the Nebraska border, I discovered that tornadoes had passed through there recently - I saw some pretty gnarly remnants of what used to be machine sheds twisted into post-modern art shapes, and I had to take a detour because some of the electric poles had been blown into the highway. It's incredible what a tornado can do - one of the poles I saw had been snapped at the base, but then deposited, still vertical, in the field nearby, and the lines hadn't been severed. Bizarre.

After that, things got super boring - Nebraska is kinda the worst for scenery, and as I've said before, Nebraska has the longest stretch of interstate that is perfectly straight (seventy miles that doesn't deviate by more than three inches). But I took a break when I got to Kearney to see the museum inside the Archway - I've driven under it many times, since I-80 passes underneath it, but I've never stopped. They had some good exhibits about the history of the North Platte trails - the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails all went through Kearney (then Fort Kearney) to Fort Laramie, where they split off to their different destinations. And the transcontinental railroad and I-80 followed in the same path - so many decades of western expansion went through there, and they did a decent job representing it. It was a little heavy on theatrics and light on facts, but it was really nicely done and I'm glad I stopped.

Then I drove to North Platte, where I decided to spend the night - I could have pressed on, but I was tired and the pickings between here and Denver are slim (although I like Ogallala as much as the next girl, I guess). So I checked in and walked next door to Ruby Tuesday, where I ate some chicken and drank the aforementioned wine, which was better than I expected and not as good as I wanted. Then I came back here and talked to Katie for an hour, since it was too much to expect us to wait to start catching up until we see each other tomorrow. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

she gave me a night, that's all it was

I'm working like mad to take care of all sorts of things that I've neglected over the last month. Today, that meant accidentally waking up at six a.m. (hi, jetlag), and then working in bed until my battery died around ten. At that point I was desperate to eat anyway, so I went upstairs and hung out for awhile, and I also showered and went to town (exciting stuff) to get some groceries.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in photoshop - I was designing some collateral for an event I have next week (v. belatedly), and it took many hours, but I was pleased with the results. I finished just in time for supper, which I enjoyed, and then I watched some fine PBS programming (not CBS! mostly because Wednesday is Criminal Minds night, and so we watched a documentary on the Nazis' extermination of the Jewish population of Vilnius, Lithuania, which was not the most uplifting subject, although the people who survived were rather astonishing).

Then I came downstairs and talked to [censored] about [censored]. And then I worked for another hour. And now I must sleep - goodnight!

lemons and desperation

Venice continues to delight, and I continue to be v. v. tired - almost hungover with the elated exhaustion of finishing my book. Today I tried to be mindful and in the moment even though I'm distracted by book release stuff. The writing exercises this morning were great - we spent some time wandering around and observing things, and Rachael pointed out that a lot of my little pieces have involved vessels full of water (cups, mugs, cisterns, wells), which was interesting, although I don't know what to do with that bit of wisdom...

After we were done for the morning, I took advantage of some downtime to wander the quiet sidewalks and ancient canals between here and San Marco. San Marco itself is awash in tourists, but I found a restaurant that served surprisingly good risotto for being in such a touristy area. So I sat and people-watched and ate my risotto and drank my wine, and it was all a perfect moment.

Then I met up with the other writers at the Doge's Palace - we had a 'secret itineraries' tour, which took us through the secret wings of the Doge's Palace. That includes the prison cells for the highest-ranked prisoners, the areas where the secret police and the Council of Ten did business, the area where Casanova escaped from, etc. It was cool to see, especially since the tour guide was a great storyteller.

Then Lisa and I split off from the group, took a vaparetto (water bus) back, and had a couple of drinks and snacks near our hotel so we could catch up properly. Then I took a twenty minute nap that could have happily lasted two hours. And then I had dinner with Rachael, Veronica, V's husband Adam, and their son Owen. We went back towards the neighborhood where I had such a lovely dinner last night, found a great little restaurant with the perfect outdoor seats, and enjoyed a lot of fun conversation and some delicious food (they had gluten free pasta!). And my time here is all too rapidly drawing to a close...

Which means, I suppose, that I should sleep. Going to bed now would go a long way toward restoring my sleep deficit, which means I'll probably play sudoku for an hour, but I'm hoping sanity wins out. Goodnight!

london bridge is falling down

Today was great, except for the fact that I got up too late to get much done in the early morning hours. However, I did get a lot of great stuff done despite that. I wrote for several hours in the late morning/early afternoon, and then I left the house to go to a museum. I'm glad that I prebooked the ticket - I wouldn't have gone today if I hadn't, but it turned out that today was totally gorgeous - the warmest day we've had since I got here, with enough sunshine to start replenishing all the vitamin deficiencies that have caused some surly moods.

My destination was the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, which is quite far from here (six miles is an eternity). I decided to take the Thames Clipper there - the ferry down the Thames is about as fast as any other option and faaaaaar more scenic, although it only runs every twenty minutes and so may not be as efficient if you mistime it. But I timed it perfectly, and it was a gorgeous day to take a boat down the Thames, even if I had a few moments where I feared seasickness. But it was #worthit for sure, since I saw all sorts of London landmarks while enjoying the sun.

When I got to the Maritime Museum, I went straight to the special exhibition on Emma Hamilton, who was the infamous mistress of Admiral Nelson. You of course allllll know who Admiral Nelson is - he was the hero of the British Navy (although he became much more of a hero after his death, since it's easier to deify people who die tragically and are no longer able to insult you in real life). He'd lost an arm and an eye in previous naval battles over his long career, and spent many years thwarting Napoleon - he fought the Battle of the Nile against Napoleon way back in 1798, where he destroyed most of Napoleon's hopes of becoming a new Alexander the Great and conquering Egypt before going on to conquer India (I read a lot about this in 'Napoleon in Egypt' several years ago, which I'm sure I waxed lyrically about at the time).

But the exhibit wasn't about Nelson - it was all about Emma, a poor working-class girl who rose to the height of celebrity and infamy in the late 1700s. She became the mistress of Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples, after his nephew (the guy she was previously sleeping with) sent her to stay with Hamilton without telling her that he intended for her to become his uncle's mistress instead. Gross. She was furious, of course - but there wasn't much to be done about it, since she was already in Naples when she figured it out.

Whatever happened next, she did seem to eventually fall into genuine love with Hamilton (not the same Hamilton who got shot by Burr, obvi), and they finally married many years later, which was *not done* back then. But she was on her way to respectability...and then she fell for Nelson when he came through Naples. Sir William seemed to be okay with this, as the three of them traveled together to get back to London in ~1802, and she split her time between the men going forward.

But things don't work out well for mistresses. Sir William died, and left her money but not enough for her lifestyle...and then Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar, cementing his place in British history and leaving her out to dry. She was barred from attending his funeral, and the British government gave all sorts of honors/money to his estranged wife (whom he hadn't seen in eight years) while giving Emma nothing. She lived for a few more years, increasingly desperate, before dying in poverty in France.

So...now you know. You're welcome.

The exhibit was really cool, but I was pretty angry throughout - she was a very intelligent woman (she was fluent in French and Italian within a year of reaching Naples) who had the misfortune of being born poor in a time when women had very few rights, and she suffered all the consequences of the Nelson affair while he became the hero of his age. Ugh.

Anyway, to wrap this up, I then did a speed tour through a couple of other sections of the museum (which I've seen before), then left when they closed at five. At that point I was starving, so I went to a nearby restaurant and had a steak and a glass of wine while writing in my journal and contemplating the things I'd seen. Then I took trains and tubes back to my neighborhood, and when I got here I did some solid writing for a couple of hours (when not talking to [censored]).

And now I need to sleep so that I can repeat these feats of writing and cultural exploration tomorrow - goodnight!

all the castles in the sky

I had a really long day - it was great and I saw some cool stuff, but I'm totally wiped out. I made a day trip to Lincoln today - it was one of the most important cities in England a thousand or so years ago, but it's faded in prominence quite a bit since then. However, it's home to one of the best-preserved Gothic cathedrals, which was the tallest building in the world for at least a couple of hundred years. It also has a castle, and since I like castles and cathedrals and am also looking for ideas for my young adult book (which I'm planning to get back to asap), I decided to take a day out and explore it.

So I got up early, went to Kings Cross, and caught a train to Lincoln. This was all uneventful, and I wrote some on the train (I took my laptop with me to facilitate this, which means I had to drag it around with me all day - which was a lot of dragging, since fitbit says I took 20000+ steps and climbed 45+ flights of stairs). When I got to Lincoln, I had breakfast before climbing up an appropriately named street called Steep Hill (it is v. steep; also, people weren't always all that creative).

My first stop was the castle. There's a pretty extensive exhibit on Victorian prisons, since part of the castle was turned into a prison at some point - I could write a lot about this, since I actually know some stuff about Victorian prisons, but I'm too tired to write it up right now. The exhibit was interesting, though.

They also have one of only four surviving copies of the Magna Carta - the Bishop of Lincoln was one of the signatories, and he brought his copy back with him in 1215 and the cathedral held onto it ever since. It's now loaned to the castle, since the castle has a special subterranean vault specifically for the Magna Carta (plus the Charter of the Forest, which was signed in 1217; Lincoln is the only place in the world that has both). So it was pretty cool to see that, especially since I was basically the only person in the vault - I've seen one at the British Library before, and also seen a slightly later copy in DC, and in both cases the crowds were insane. Being almost alone with it was nearly goosebump-inducing.

Then I walked around the medieval wall surrounding the castle grounds. Then I went to the cathedral, which was astonishing - and it helped that it was also mostly empty, unlike similarly impressive cathedrals like Notre Dame. Then I had an amazing gluten free tea in one of the shops below the castle, which made me happy.

But the day went a little downhill from there. I was ready to leave town by four, but my train wasn't until 6:15, so I killed time at a bookstore (and bought a book). But then my train was delayed by half an hour, so I missed my connection to London, so I didn't get back to London until nine. By then I was starving, so I had a late dinner in St Pancras and wrote for an hour while I sat there just so I could get some more stuff done - which means I didn't get back to my hotel until after eleven.

So now it's time to sleep, dream of castles, and hope that I'm recovered so I can write a lot tomorrow - goodnight!

this town was meant for passing through

Today was good, but I'm feeling cranky and annoyed at having to spend time with other people - even though I like everyone I currently have to spend time with. I woke up and decided to go downstairs and make tea and breakfast before writing, and this ended up taking over an hour because people were talking and then one girl (Mari) gave an impromptu viola concert (she is v. talented since playing the viola is her job, but it's hard to walk out in the middle of someone performing their heart out, even if they're in their pajamas).

So then I came upstairs and wrote, and I was deeper into the story than I've been in ages, and it was flowing and feeling good...but then I had to stop because I'd agreed to go to a museum with Penny (a documentary filmmaker from Australia). We went to the Science Museum so she could see a small exhibit on a Russian female cosmonaut, and then we walked around some other sections while talking about life and fertility, which was all interesting and grim at the same time.

Then we came back here, and I inadvertently took a nap and wasted time - I think it was actually because I'm at my introvert wall where people are draining my energy, and so even a trip to a museum (which I love) was enough to knock me out. Then I went downstairs to make tea, and I decided to make supper rather than ordering in. What I made was quite tasty - I turned some bacon and a red onion and a jar of pasta sauce into a knock-off version of the spaghetti alla amatriciana that I make at home, and it was really deliciously satisfying. But people came in and harshed my mellow, and it took almost two hours to escape.

So then I came back upstairs and worked, but that also involved rereading my gargoyles book, which I really need to either write or let go of forever. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!