at some chinese restaurant in san francisco, my fortune told me i’m on the wrong road

Katie and I went out for an epic evening of margaritas, so I guess nature is healing or something. But before I got to the margaritas, I had a day of slogging. I was going to write this morning, but I got an email at 7:30am from my sprinkler guy asking if he needed to pick up an irrigation control box before getting to my place by nine. This was quite a surprise, since he had previously confirmed he would be here on July 19....and [censored] just replaced the box that the sprinkler guy was supposed to do. But I seized the moment, told him I didn't need the box but did need him to fix a broken zone valve and still fix some of the heads, so he got here around nine and did a great job fixing the rest of my system. So, that's a relief, since I can now leave my water on all the time without a leak and can also run my sprinklers from anywhere in the world thanks to my new control box.

Then I slogged for the entire day - I had a bit of a break at lunch, but not enough to feel luxurious. During my last meeting, I texted Katie and asked if today was the day that we would get margaritas together - we hadn't seen each other since late May, which feels impossibly long ago. I was in Iowa, and then she was in Iowa, and then unfortunately her grandmother passed away in souther Illinois, and so we've been as ships crossing in the night the last few weeks.

Happily, Katie succumbed to my lure of margaritas, and so we went to bartaco to catch up on the million things we've missed in each other's lives. This required many tacos, many margaritas, some tasty ice cream, some subpar churros, and a lot of conversation. We were there for almost four hours, and I think we made a valiant effort at scraping the tip of the iceberg of what has transpired in the last few weeks, but it will undoubtedly require some additional summit-level discussions to properly square all the many and varied topics away.

So in other words, it was a delight to see her and I feel v. grateful that my best friend from forever lives within ten minutes of my house. And I also feel v. grateful that my best friend from forever likes tequila and tacos, although I would still love her even if she didn't. And now, I need to consider going to bed since tomorrow looks like another epic slog - goodnight!

try, try, try to understand, he's a magic man

I have officially stayed up past my bedtime, which I will perhaps regret in the morning. Today was a slog - I had more meetings than I prefer to have on Fridays. But I stopped working at four and hung out with Katie - she came over for a backyard hangout, but we turned it into a front yard hangout because my backyard couches were too damp and the front yard gets more sun in the late afternoon.

So I dragged some folding chairs out front like we were sitting awkwardly at a wedding, and we ordered a quarter of margaritas + guac + tacos from El Camino. There are few things that I will miss about this wasted, wretched year, but getting a quart of margaritas delivered to my doorstep has definitely been a highlight. It was slightly too cold to be hanging out outside, but Katie and I have become accustomed to these hardships, so we shivered and talked and caught up for a couple of hours. We had much to discuss - I was in Iowa for the first three weeks of February and she was in Iowa for the last one, so we hadn't seen each other in over a month. And at least sitting in the front yard gave us a change of scene, even if we looked moderately trashy drinking margs and sitting on my front lawn.

After Katie left, I talked to my parents and also talked to [censored]. Then I thought about playing Civilization, or perhaps doing some other mind-numbing activity. Instead, I picked up a book called MAGIC FOR LIARS and then read it straight through in one sitting. It was basically a magical murder mystery set in a high school for wizards (but they are called mages in this book). It was certainly not the best book I've read this year, but it was entertaining enough to suck me in for a few hours, so I'll take it.

And now, I'm going to take myself off to bed and hope I sleep in long enough to make up for the lateness (but not long enough to keep me from being insanely productive tomorrow, which I need to be). Goodnight!

so come out of your cave walking on your hands

Today involved way more manual labor than I am accustomed to, but it was accomplished mostly successfully (although I think I sunburned the scalp under the part in my hair - I usually put sunscreen there, but I forgot, and the part of the day in which I wore a hat apparently wasn't enough to save it). To make a long story short, we have a cave in our yard - it was the storm cellar / root cellar for the old house, and while the old house is destined to collapse, [censored] and I would like to save the cave. I have a lot of fond memories of it - it was a great place to sled from, since you could get some quick speed to hit the driveway with. I also liked just sitting on it back in the day; occasionally we would throw sticks down the chimney, which would hit a metal bucket below (which I may or may not have told [censored] was a witch).

So anyway, the cave is v. picturesque, but the mortar between the bricks is crumbling out and the inner walls are heaving with a century of moving earth. We couldn't do anything about the interior; the dome actually looks good inside, but the entrance could used shored up someday. However, we were able to mortar the entire outside. This involved three bags of mortar, two trips to the lumber yard in town, the use of an old and little-used cement mixer that we happen to have lying around, and a bunch of kneeling on a treacherous slope to slap mortar onto the cave. The end result looks pretty great, if [censored] and I do say so ourselves; the cave won't last forever, but hopefully this prolongs its life.

After the mortaring, we were totally hot and gross - we got super lucky since it was windy and sometimes cloudy, but it was still over 90 degrees, very humid, and completely miserable whenever the sun came out. I took a bit of a break then, but then I helped [censored] with his plans to build a new door for the cave - the old door rotted long ago, and vines were covering the remains, but we want to make a new door to keep animals out. We got about halfway there, although I wasn't as helpful with building as I was with mortaring - with mortaring I was able to spread a lot of mortar (and also get into the cement mixer with my baby hands to scrape it out), but with carpentry I was basically reduced to handing [censored] his pencil and tape measure over and over.

But we made great progress, so that's all lovely. We were rewarded for our efforts with takeout Mexican food from our favorite (aka only) Mexican restaurant in town - Mom and Dad went to pick it up, and Dad knew me well enough to get me a giant margarita to go. So, dinner was great, and then I spent the rest of the evening slowly recovering (and taking a shower, which was even more important).

And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!

take all your fears, pretend they're all true, take all your plans, pretend they fell through

Quarantine continues, obvi. I woke up this morning and meditated and journaled before work, and I also took a full shower (with hair washing and leg shaving and everything), so I almost felt like a bona fide well-adjusted adult. I then slogged from nine-ish to five-ish, when I took a break to drive around the neighborhood and run to the post office (I should have walked, but the clouds were looking ominous - it was seventy degrees this afternoon, but it's going to snow tomorrow).

When I got home, I made a margarita (double margarita) and talked to Veronica for quite awhile - we were v. overdue for a catch-up, so we had a virtual happy hour and discussed a wide variety of topics (both writing and otherwise). Then I ate some leftover enchiladas and did a bit more journaling. And then I spent the last couple of hours working - I've been studiously avoiding work many nights, but I was feeling just enough behind that a couple of hours tonight were well-placed to alleviate some of my underlying puritanical guilt/stress.

Finally, let's all wish a v happy (in the midst of ongoing death) birthday to Ritu, the original master of disaster....and also a v happy birth to Claudia's baby! Goodnight!