okay ladies now let's get in formation

Today was a wonderful way to kick the Olympics off in style. Of course, now I'm tired and v. happy that I have tomorrow to be completely hermity before a week of craziness - but today was #worthit.

I got up at 8:30 and immediately baked two cakes - a lemon cake and a blueberry cake (both gluten free). The Olympic Rings Cakes (tm) are traditionally five cakes, and are traditionally full of food coloring - but the last time I baked all five cakes, I ended up throwing away the equivalent of two cakes, and also we're all much classier than we used to be and are somewhat averse to food coloring. So I didn't dye the blueberry cake blue, which I think was a sign of great forbearance on my part (and also the cake looked way better than it does when it's blue).

After the cakes were baked, I did some other things to get ready - I went to Whole Foods to buy fancy cheese and dairy products, and I went to BevMo to stock up on rum and cachaça (where I ran into Julie and Brian, who were stocking up for their own party tonight - too bad we accidentally booked over each other), and I took a shower, and I prepped a gallon of mai tais and a pitcher of mojitos. Shockingly, though, I was mostly on time in terms of getting things ready for the party - usually I'm still cooking when people show up, but this time I was basically done when people arrived, so I was able to enjoy myself.

And it turns out that that's a good thing - far more people arrived than I had anticipated, which means that I actually had a mostly-accurate amount of food for the first time ever (we got through all six fancy cheeses! and a ton of guac, and two and a half bags of chips, and most of the cake, and all the mojitos/mai tais). I had only gotten confirmations from ~12 people as of last night, and somewhere around 25 people showed up (not counting infants), which made for a super fun, super crowded situation. I live in a studio, which is probably not designed for 25 people - but it all felt lovely despite that.

John and Jess (and Ian) were the first to arrive, and they were followed shortly thereafter by Oniel, whom I hadn't seen in years (possibly almost five years, although I think I saw him another time in the intervening half-decade). Walter and Carson and their baby showed up right before Oniel, although their baby was the youngest of the child army and so mostly slept through the whole thing. There was a flurry of arrivals after that - Adit and Priyanka came (with Vihaan), and Anthony (whose hair is reaching peak 80s band), and Dan (whom I hadn't seen in ages), and Vidya, and Justin, and Marco (Claude's brother), and Terry (still in town, although she leaves in the morning), and Lauren and Nathan (and Finley), and Claudia and her boyfriend Sam, and Sheila and Rajiv (Sheila is perhaps the only person who was as excited about the Olympics as I was).

That all turned into a full house, and some people absconded to the terrace with their wine, while others (mostly John/Anthony/Dan) talked about the Guns 'n' Roses concert that they're going to, and we all drank mojitos and mai tais, and Anthony and I very ill-advisedly tasted both the cachaças (turns out that the one he brought is infinitely better than the one that I bought this morning, but they are both terrible). Also, Adit left and then came back and then kept saying goodbye for an hour, as he does. Also, John did inappropriate things with my fake baby (Prom King), including putting him up on the skylight over my bed (which is reachable from my terrace). Also, Lauren's son unexpectedly tried to eat my nose, so if he has any diseases in his saliva, I'm pretty sure I inhaled all of them.

The party started to clear out around six (with a temporary clearing earlier when Vidya and a couple of others went to Taco Bell, although they came back), but then the second round of the party happened - just when it was down to Rajiv/Sheila/Justin, Jesse and Maya showed up, and so did Raja, and also Katrina and Annie. Round two was more lowkey (or at least it had a higher average age, since there were no children), but no less fun - we talked about a variety of ridiculous things, and Raja made some entertaining pronouncements about how easily we could all do gymnastics, and we cleared out the rest of the cheese and mai tais, much to my relief. And Jesse gave me an Olympics medal, which was v. sweet (especially after he had basically forced me to give him one with his crazy eyes - I award medals mostly at random, but it was nice to get one back).

Everyone left around nine, and I ran the dishwasher and watched gymnastics and vegged and inadvertently napped until now. And now I am going to go to bed and revel in the fact that I don't have to set an alarm tomorrow and don't have to do anything or see anyone or cook anything or prepare anything - the full extent of my ambitions is to clean the kitchen (almost done anyway), get coffee, watch some olympics, and maybe read a book about gardening. Yay. Goodnight!

erdy flerdy borg borg borg

I finished the weekend in style, let me tell you. I went to the grocery store relatively early this morning, where I threw money at the problem of tonight's dinner by buying fancy cheeses and jams and wines so that I could hoodwink my guests into thinking I had expended some effort toward the task of entertaining them. Then I went to my favorite mani/pedi place, where I threw money at the problem of trying to look like a real girl instead of a crazed hermit troll. And then, once I looked like a real girl again, I went to the florist and threw money at the problem of trying to make my home look like a home instead of a cave where I hide from sunlight.

sssanyway, after throwing money at a lot of problems, I had a v. late lunch, threw some more money at the problem of not having plaid pants (solved!), and then came home, cleaned my room, folded some laundry, and talked to my parents. And then I prepared for the main event - family dinner to celebrate the launch of my latest book.

Family dinner was the same as always, which meant that it was a special and highly ridiculous evening full of merriment, embarrassment, and general contentment with life. We had a full house (Terry (obvi), Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, Chandlord (aka Chandlord), John, Jess, and Adit), and the conversation was all v. entertaining (particularly when Nathan, in all seriousness, suggested that I write choose your own adventure romance novels, which left everyone else dying since Adit has been pushing this idea for over four years without Nathan realizing it). Then, to honor (or debase) my book launch, they took turns reading part of one of the sex scenes - this is almost becoming a tradition of sorts, which is v. strange and v. funny. Jess tried an Australian accent (A for Effort), John programmed his section to be read by a Stephen Hawking voice (which will live on in my nightmares forever), Adit critiqued every line as he read it (excruciatingly funny), and Nathan went Swedish Chef on it, which was just bizarre. So, while I was laughing so hard that I was crying, and I might have been crying because hearing a sex scene read out loud makes it all sound weird and uncomfortable, it was all v. funny.

Sadly, though, all things come to an end, and I must sleep so that I can go to work early tomorrow (stupid day job - after tonight, I either want to write Rafe's book immediately or crawl under a rock and hope no one ever reads my sex scenes again (but I think the right answer is Rafe - I happen to like my sex scenes, even if they don't stand up to the Stephen Hawking test)). Goodnight!

groove is in the heart

I deeply regret not blogging last night, mostly because it means that I must blog tonight or I may be faced with a mutiny of all hands (or at least a mutiny of my mother, which is far scarier). But today was lovely. Since I will be accused of burying the lede if I don't share my good news straight away, I'll share my good news now: thanks to some pricing experimentation + a well-timed ad with an ebook daily deal newsletter, my first book (Heiress) suddenly became the #1 Regency romance on Amazon, B&N and Apple at the same time. Shocking! It's in the top fifty overall on Amazon, top twenty on B&N, and top sixty on Apple. This spike won't last forever - maybe a couple of days, and then it will taper dramatically - but hopefully it will lead to more name recognition and better sales of the other books in the series.

Needless to say, that was pretty much all I cared about this afternoon, which made me pretty useless, so it's good that I worked from home today. I snuck offline early to get a much-needed pedicure (yes, it's a need, not a want), and then I came home, dolled myself up, and sped out the door to meet up with Kathia for drinks and dinner before my corporate holiday party. I had planned to take Terry, but she bailed for another engagement, and luckily Kathia was up to the last-minute challenge. So we had two glasses of champagne at Nectar to continue celebrating her book launch and my advertising success, and then we had a delicious dinner next door, where we gorged ourselves on peppers and animal flesh and met a v. entertaining couple (the husband claimed that he ripped seven bodices today when he found out that we write romance).

After dinner, I would have happily continued to drink wine anywhere else, but we were good sports and grabbed a taxi to go downtown to the party. As it turns out, I'm super glad we went; the music was pretty good, the drinks were strong (and the bartender was way entertaining about the fact that Kathia had to drink Old Crow whisky if she didn't want to pay to upgrade), the dancing was fun (even if Kathia pulled me out onto the floor early, when the only other person dancing was the VP of the whole group), and I saw most of my fellow teammates who were in attendance, so it was all quite winning. And we adjourned around 11:30 so that we could catch a cab before the rush, and then went to Brazen Head, where we split some escargots and had awesome bailey's cappuccinos. Her husband joined us there and we hung out quite happily for an hour or so before I decided that I had to come home and go to bed.

And now I really must sleep - goodnight!

settle down, it'll all be clear

YAY OLYMPICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So today was my Olympic Rings Cakes party, and it was a smashing success. It all came together beautifully; baking four of the five cakes yesterday no doubt helped, as did buying stuff for nice sandwiches rather than attempting to make supper. By the time the first guests showed up, everything was basically in place and done and lovely (and my hair was tinseled with the Olympics colors) - perhaps I'll post pictures tomorrow, but tonight I'm too tired to figure out zee technology.

However, I was delighted with both the quantity and quality of the attendees - approximately thirty people showed up, which was approximately enough to eat half the cake I baked. We officially cut the cake at eight p.m., but people started showing up two or three hours before that and stayed until after midnight, so that's quite a showing. And there was much watching of Olympics, much rejoicing over eating cake rather than training for decades for small, fleeting bits of glory, and much drinking of rum and other beverages. I made a giant pitcher of mojitos (which were utterly delish), and a vat and a half of mai tais (involving six cups of rum - I usually don't measure mixed drinks using my 4-cup pyrex measuring cup, but it was quite helpful for this party). Once the food coloring started pouring, shit got real, although we only did one shot this year (and that one was diluted - more like half a shot) - a rum/club soda shot with a squeeze of lime and a bit of salt, dyed light blue like the ocean, with one single drop of black food coloring diffusing through it, which was called the Deepwater Horizon. Not yummy, but certainly entertaining enough to deserve a medal.

Speaking of medals, I had twelve or so that I gave out whimsically and capriciously - for such things as arriving first (Felicia), parking the farthest away (Oniel), knowing an Olympian (Chandlord), wearing all five Olympics colors (Adit - who else?), saying that if we can't be Russia we might as well be out of the volleyball competition (Tom), etc. It is entertaining to watch people get mildly competitive over something with no rules and no tangible monetary value - but I'm sure I would have been striving for a medal had I not been the equivalent of the IOC (and like the IOC, I allowed myself to be seduced by my own power and ended up giving myself a medal, yay).

As I said, the last group left around 12:30, and I might have been tempted to go with them - but I was quite happy at my current state of inebriation, and since I'm on deadline and need to write furiously tomorrow (and all next week), I decided to be a good girl and stay home so that I wouldn't die. After they left, I ended up cleaning the apartment - perhaps I should have just gone to bed, but I was just drunk enough to not mind cleaning, and not tired yet, so I put everything away. I need to run the dishwasher in the morning, wash a few handwash only things, and scrub down the counters (after I buy paper towels, since I made a rookie mistake and forgot to buy more before the party) - but cleanup was super easy, and now I don't have to dread getting out of bed and facing the kitchen in the morning.

So beyond cleaning, I really can't recount how delightful of an evening I had - and I didn't even really get all that drunk, despite the vat of delicious mai tais, because I was just so darned excited for zee party that I kept forgetting to drink my beverages. I'm already planning for my Sochi 2014 party - I believe borscht is a requirement, and I'll have to do vodka drinks instead of rum drinks (not that rum is really a British drink, but Britain does still have Jamaica as part of the commonwealth, and there was a lot of rum drunk by the British navy, so I'm making a tenuous connection there). Anyway, it will be super fun - so save the date for February 15, 2014. Goodnight!

into the afterlife of you and me

Hmm. So I feel slightly better today - still weirdly and dangerously vulnerable, and on the very knife-edge of tears, but I did a lot of things to drag myself into a better mood. I made it into the gym even though I had no desire to get out of bed, and I trained with Alyssa whilst watching the gym televisions. She and I are going to assess my recent progress on Tuesday, right before I leave for a roadtrip and undo it all. Hopefully I don't actually undo it all; progress is slow, but it's also steady, and I'm at least feeling a difference in terms of what I'm capable of at the gym even if I'm not noticeably skinnier. After the gym, I showered, came home and changed (since I was running too late this morning to put together an outfit to take with me), and then went to downtown Palo Alto to have lunch with someone at Reposado. My lunch date was the woman who is temporarily filling in for my old job part-time; since they haven't hired anyone to replace me, they finally broke down and got a part-time consultant to take care of stuff while they continue the search. I still don't know whether to be flattered that I'm so irreplaceable or concerned that my job apparently wasn't that important, but you can guess which way I've decided to judge it. The woman who's filling in part-time also writes mysteries, and so we spent just as much time talking about writing and the publication process as we did my old job, which was lovely.

Lunch wrapped up around 2:15, and I left Palo Alto and drove down to the southern edge of San Jose, which is where Jenni's parents live. They actually live just a little ways away from Vidya's parents, and Chandlord went to the same high school as Jenni and her sister. Anyway, I had emailed Jenni last night and didn't hear from her, as I expected, but I also emailed Lauren (my old old boss from several years ago, who became more of a friend than a boss and is Jenni's best friend), who told me I should stop by the house since Jenni was doing better if people were around. So, I spent a couple of hours there; Lauren's brother Scott, who also works at our place of employment, was there, as was his wife (whom I met on the epic wine tasting adventure that we did in Napa for Jenni's birthday a year and a half ago). I'm glad I went -- it was good to see people who knew him, and I'm so glad I saw Jenni. She said she kept thinking of the dinner the three of us had last week, because he started feeling sick in the middle of the night after that -- which is unbelievable that I hung out with him on basically the last night before everything started to change. But, it wasn't a heart attack -- it was a pulmonary embolism, and would have been difficult to catch, particularly since he also seemed to have entirely unrelated flu symptoms as well.

Anyway, Jenni was doing about as well as one could in this situation. I'll probably go over again on Monday, since I'm guessing she'll have plenty of people around this weekend but may see the visitors trickle off during the weekdays. But I eventually had to leave her house because I was hosting a Blood of Lincoln evening at my house, and I had to be here to let people in. Luckily, we had already decided that I was not cooking, and so John and Jess picked up salads on the way over. John, Jess and Chandlord all stayed for three and a half hours or so, which was totally lovely even though they are all weirdos. To illustrate: we watched YouTube videos of tap dancing, John made me knit a row of stitches on my first and only knitting project, which he for some reason seemed almost angry to see, and we made far too many jokes about Easter. Both Chandlord and Jess expressed interest in chocolate chip chewies (which I had intended to make, but I was out of eggs and time). So, we went to the grocery store, bought eggs (and Chandlord suggested putting noodles in the cookies, which made no sense), came home, and everyone watched me be a domestic goddess while I mixed up the cookies and got batter all over my shirt. Then, we ate a ton of cookie while it was still hot, which was both enjoyable and sad, because the fuller we got, the closer the cookies got to cooling and becoming what we actually wanted them to taste like.

But now, I should go to bed; there's a lot to do this weekend if I'm going to get ready to go to Iowa, since I need to pack, clean out my car, take care of a bunch of writing-related stuff, etc. Goodnight!

this is happiness, dig yourself right back out

I'm almost too tired to blog, which is a shame; for the first time in days, something has happened beyond going to the gym, reading, and thinking about zee romance novel, and you should benefit from my temporarily expanded horizons. However, in deference to the fact that my twelve-hour absence from my house made me incredibly tired, I'm going to try to keep this brief...

I managed to get out of bed by 7:30 -- too late to allow for hair washing and drying, but early enough to get to the monthly meeting of the San Francisco area romance writers in Berkeley without missing the beginning (or, more importantly, the breakfast waiting in the back). They were v. kind about acknowledging my recent award finaling, which was nice, and the discussion today was quite lively. The guest speaker hailed from Ottumwa; no one from outside of Iowa would know where that is, but since half my readership is from Iowa, it's perhaps worth mentioning. She talked about the differences between men and women when it comes to communication and body language so that writers can try to write believable characters of both genders. It was quite informative, although a lot of it was stuff I already realized for myself (particularly in the context of realizing that I have some "masculine" traits, like not wanting to talk about my feelings until I have them mostly sorted out; thinking that someone venting to me wants solutions, not just a shoulder to cry on; and avoiding eye contact when in the throes of some deep emotion or difficult conversation). But, it's all handy as I'm thinking about character development for my next book, so it was worth it.

After leaving Berkeley, I took the bridge (which was annoyingly crowded) to the city of sin, where I went out for lunch with the gracious and lovely Chandlord. We walked down to Arlequin in Hayes Valley, which is a wine bar with some passable foodstuffs; Chandlord only had a glass of wine, while I had a grilled ham and cheese (or a 'croque monsieur', since Arlequin tries to be all fancy) and a glass of Chardonnay (uncharacteristically, since I prefer reds, but it was quite nice). We sat on the back patio, which felt more like a lovely garden, and it was awesome despite the chilly San Francisco weather. Then, we walked up to Nob Hill -- and the walk, while not totally ridiculous, reinforced the fact that Hayes Valley and Nob Hill are named rather appropriately, since the walk was steep (and made worse by a wind rushing down the traffic corridors that made walking difficult). We met up with Tom (aka Tom Foolery) at a cafe called Contraband, which served a delicious latte that I enjoyed while catching up with him about writing and life. He self-published a memoir a few months ago and is working on something new, but he's basically about three years behind me in terms of general life path (he's interested in writing full time, but he's doing really well in a sales job that pays him plenty of money, so he's not ready to leave). It was great to see him, and we have high hopes of getting together to do some writing soon.

After parting ways with Tom and Chandlord, I rushed over to Beretta -- or rather, virtually crawled over, since traffic was terrible. I was twenty minutes late by the time I got there, but luckily I arrived before the guest of honor -- my friend Natasha's birthday is tomorrow, and her husband Chris planned a surprise birthday party for her. It was great to see her and Chris, particularly since I hadn't seen them in awhile; it was also great to eat some of Beretta's totally delicious flatbread pizza with burrata mozzarella. After an hour, I debated heading back down to the south bay, but then Kevin and Ashley showed up; they're getting married in July, and they both worked at my former place of employment for ages. Kevin actually trained me on how to do email support way back in the day, and we also overlapped for some amount of time in India, which shows how long he's been there. Anyway, I ended up staying until 7:45 catching up with them, and with Natasha when she escaped from her other guests.

All in all, it was a lovely party, and a great end to a lovely day. I felt vague, fleeting regret about moving out of the city and into the suburbs, but by the time I came back to my log cabin, changed into my pajamas, and curled up with a book, the regret flared out. And now that I'm done with my book, I have turned my ringer off and am going to go to bed sans alarm, hoping to get a decent sleep for the first time in days. Goodnight!

super sad true love story

I don't think I can do justice to the awesomeness that was today, because I'm still hella impacted by the vast quantities of champagne and rum that I downed. The rum and champagne is because I rather ridiculously recreated someone else's wedding 'signature cocktail' for my own party - the "coming up roses" cocktail that I had at Pete and Bridget's wedding (reminder: that entry is here). It's 2oz of raspberry rum, 0.5 ounces of rose-flavored simple syrup, 2-3oz of champagne, and a lime wedge - delicious enough to go down easy, strong enough to make you regret having seven or eight of them in the morning. There are six empty champagne bottles and an entire empty handle of raspberry rum sitting on my counter, so I'm not the only one who had a good day!

sssanyway, the lead-up to the party was rough; in my unemployment, I'm not used to getting up before eleven a.m., and so I wasn't able to wake up much before 8:30 to get ready. I spent the morning running errands, swiffering up the errant wampdevils, making maidrites, etc., and getting prepared for zee party. Zee party was technically from 2pm to 7pm; there was a group of people who showed up around 3pm, and another group who showed up around 5pm, so the general flow of the party was quite nice. I made maidrites (aka sloppy joes - only Ritu, who also grew up in Iowa, knew what the hell maidrites were), baked beans, deviled eggs, potato soup for the vegetarians, lemon cake, and chocolate chip chewies. And, I made the 'coming up roses' cocktail described above - it was a huge hit, although I will definitely be feeling the pain tomorrow.

This was one of the few times that I mixed a couple of friend groups; I never do this, since I believe in keeping my private life private, but I mingled my old Stanford friends with some of my (relatively) new work friends. I say relatively because Tolu and I have been friends for seven years, Chris and I were in India five years ago, and I've known Natasha for two or three years, but given that I've known John, Oniel, and Jav for eleven years, two years is nothing. So Shedletsky, Chris and Natasha, Tolu and Kristina, Chandlord, John and Jess, Javier and Sylvia, Oniel (aka Fauxneil, whose girlfriend still boycotts half my parties because I once threw and Olympics party in honor of the subjugated Chinese factory slaves), Josh (who was in India with me as well), Ritu, Roopa, Connie, and their friends Ronak and Jasmine all showed up, and a good time was had by all.

But seriously, I can't do justice to it all. My brain cells are still dying with every champagne bubble bursting in my stomach, and while I love the feeling of my brain cells crying out for assistance before slowly succumbing to a bottle of Gloria Ferrer blanc de noirs and a bunch of Bacardi Razz, it doesn't help me to formulate proper sentences. I had a wonderful time, though -- this was a wonderful way to celebrate my emancipation from the day job. In fact, Chandlord declared this an Abe Lincoln party (since I live in a log cabin), which resulted in a lot of discussion of emancipations and proclamations, as well as John making a drink called "Body of Lincoln, Blood of Lincoln", which involved eating a tater tot and then drinking something involving Courvosier, champagne, food coloring, etc. Since I supply food coloring as a standard mixer, this was an easy drink to make; someday, perhaps, I will grow up, but until then I will buy food coloring for every party I host as a matter of course.

Anyway, I made a whole vat of chai and then pushed everyone out the door to attend their Stanford reunion parties (if they hadn't left already), and Chandlord claimed that she was only going to take a nap before going to a different party she needed to attend, but I'm pretty sure she's out for the count. So, I'm going to go to bed, spend tomorrow cleaning up the champagne aftermath, and then seriously devote myself to writing starting Monday morning. And I must say that I can't wait -- while I love love LOVE champagne, I'm in love with words too, and the writing is going to have to take precedence for awhile.

And so, goodnight! Starting tomorrow, I will stop killing brain cells quite so recklessly, at least for a few days. Yay.

check out the hook while my dj revolves it

RWA 2010 has come to a close; I've had a fantastic time, but I'm really looking forward to getting back to California and diving headfirst into my book. My day started far earlier than I would have liked, with a ten-minute pitch session at 9:20 with an editor from Harlequin. It went pretty well, but since I already have an agent, it wasn't a make or break scenario -- and, since I'm in a complete shake-up in regards to Ferguson's character, it was hard to be completely clear with the editor about where I'm going. But, since I promised to get the book done by October, I need to get cracking.

After the pitch, I did some manuscript work in my lobby, then came back to my room and packed so that I could see whether I would need to ship anything. I managed to fit about ten books into my luggage, only sacrificing two that I know I'll never read. I need to finish packing tomorrow morning, but I think I'm going to make it without having to stand in the insanely long line to ship things home. I met up with Grace and Tina for lunch, where I fortified myself with a cheeseburger before attending a two-hour rehearsal for the Golden Heart/RITA presentation. It was quite exciting to be sitting in a room with not just my fellow winners from last year who were presenting this year (five of us total), but romance superstars like Stephanie Laurens, Teresa Meideros, Meg Cabot, Victoria Alexander, Sabrina Jeffries, etc. I then dashed back to my room, took a nap, showered, blowdried my hair, carefully applied my makeup -- and just barely made it downstairs by six p.m. to walk over to the awards ceremony.

They seated presenters and finalists at six p.m. and started serving our food then, so we were done eating by seven, and the awards ceremony didn't actually start until eight. The dinner was pretty standard hotel fair -- an okay salad, a chicken breast entree, and a chocolate dessert. But, while most of the women at my presenter table were fellow Golden Heart finalists (Darynda, Jeannie, Kelly, and their dates), we were also joined by Roxanne St. Claire and Kresley Cole. Roxanne was presenting and Kresley was up for a RITA for paranormal (for a book I adored -- and she ended up winning!). Roxanne at some point had made friends with the hotel's general manager, and he sent several bottles of Veuve Clicquot to our table -- which I stayed away from before presenting, but hit liberally when I was done, since I adore good champagne more than virtually any other drink.

So my presenting went well -- I didn't fall, stumble, stutter, slur, or do anything else to embarrass myself. It's possible that I grimaced more than I smiled, since smiling is not my face's natural resting state and I was trying to force myself to smile while listening to the winner's speech, but I pulled it off regardless. Then, I drank several glasses of champagne while watching the rest of it (including Julia Quinn getting her third RITA). The lifetime achievement award went to Debbie Macomber, who has 75 million books in print, had one of her books turned into the Hallmark Channel's most-watched movie of the year, has a tie-in with a lot of knitting books and supplies, etc., etc. When she finally got up after all her many accomplishments were listed, she thanked like seven agents -- her fiction agent, her non-fiction agent, her merchandising agents, her tv and movie agents, and some other agent that I'm forgetting. Basically, she sounds like the sweetest woman, and she left me feeling simultaneously inspired and incredibly daunted by what she's accomplished.

After the awards ceremony was over, Grace, Tina and I met up with Sharon and Amy from Charleston and went over to a dance club at the Disney Boardwalk. It was a ridiculous, no-cover, all-ages-over-21 (although the door 'man' was 20) establishment, where the DJ was more of a VJ, since he played the videos for all the songs, which I found really distracting and wonderful. I had a blue hawaiian there, so while I'm not soused, I'm definitely lightly lubricated.

Unfortunately, I need to go to bed; my flight's a little after 3pm tomorrow, but since Orlando is full of screaming, overstimulated children, all of whom will likely trying to be getting home on Sunday (in addition to the squealing, overstimulated writers who are leaving the conference), my shuttle is picking me up shortly after 12pm. That means I need to get up and finish packing, and since I'd like to have breakfast with Grace and Tina before I go, sleep is imperative.

I shall leave you with two pictures: me in my fancy-pants dress before the start of the awards ceremony, and Kresley Cole's RITA award for best paranormal novel (with champagne in the background). Since a RITA award and a lot of champagne would be one of my biggest dreams come true, I'm going to take this photo above my desk until I get a RITA of my own. Goodnight!

tonight's gonna be a good night

I'm exhausted; I somehow packed a lot of unpacking and a five-hour wedding into the same day, which probably shouldn't have happened. I got up around eight and proceeded to unpack, arrange, and rearrange for the next five hours. The good news is that all of my books are finally unpacked and organized; the bad news is that there is still a lot left to be done. But, the progress that I made today was good, and I'll try to keep slogging ahead with it after work this week.

Eventually, though, I had to stop unpacking so that I could get ready to go to Tolu and Kristina's wedding. In terms of pure effort required to attend, this was perhaps the easiest wedding I've ever gone to; the venue was ten minutes away, and I was only invited to the reception. Since it started at 3pm, the attire was slightly less formal (although I did blowdry my hair in honor of the occasion), so I wore a fun dark pink jersey knit dress with a built-in 'belt' with some big purple jewels on it. Trust me, it looks better than I just made it sound. So I got to spend some quality time with Joann, Lizzie, Jane, Jen, and Justin -- these are some of the people that I do the "friendship renewal dinners" with every six weeks or so. Lizzie has been in the area for all of them, but is moving to Seattle in August and so will be dead to us; Joann just got back from a two-year stint in Singapore; Jane has been in the area for all of them as well, although she no longer works at the same company that Joann, Tolu and I do; Jen left the company a couple of years ago and has just finished business school (so I haven't seen her in ages, since she was spending all her time at Duke); and Justin displayed the most dedication that I've ever seen in a wedding guest. He left the company long enough ago that he's now entering his fourth year of med school in Portland, and he's doing rotations that start at 6am. Since he didn't have tomorrow off, he flew down here today, got to the reception right as it started at 3pm, and then left at 7pm to catch the last direct flight back to Portland. That's friendship right there.

The reception was lovely, and Tolu and Kristina are a great couple. Since I've been watching a lot of "Say Yes to the Dress" (and apparently missed a doozy of an episode last night, since both Joann and Aunt Becky made it a point to tell me about it), I felt more equipped to have an opinion on Kristina's dress, and it was absolutely beautiful on her. So, I'm glad that I was invited and got to hang out with my work peeps and with Tolu and Kristina well -- I love weddings!

When I finally got home, I watched a bunch of different on-demand episodes of a variety of reality shows (Throwdown with Bobby Flay, even though I hate him and the premise; Ace of Cakes; and a couple of episodes of Design Star) while continuing to clean and organize. And now, I must go to bed; I'm running up to the city tomorrow to take care of a couple of errands, but I need to get back down here in time to go to a birthday party, and I would like to get some writing done tomorrow. Goodnight!

i've been waiting my whole life for this one night

I am in no shape to blog excessively tonight, so I shall only hit on the highlights. Today was Adit and Priyanka's wedding, and it was just as beautiful as I expected it to be. The day started off on an entertaining note with me and Vidya taking the ol' yellow Volkswagen Beetle to Lowes (let's build something together!) to get some plants that Adit wanted us to pick out. We made a clandestine stop at a coffee shop to get bagels before returning to the hotel and immediately eating south Indian breakfast (dosas, etc.) After breakfast, we had rather limited time to get ready; Vidya had to wrap approximately eight peoples' saris (including mine, which looked gorgeous thanks to Chandlord's careful ministrations).

Then, we went downstairs to participate in Adit's baraat -- everyone on Adit's side of the wedding started in the parking lot and danced and clapped their way (v. v. slowly) up to the main entrance of the hotel while Adit rode a horse behind them. It was super fun, particularly when the horse urinated prodigiously towards the end of the baraat. But, that was the only gross thing that happened (at least until much, much later at the afterparty) -- the rest of it was perfectly lovely. Adit and Priyanka both looked v. happy, Priyanka's outfits were gorgeous, and the venue was v. nice and well-decorated.

I would go on and on about this, but I'm losing steam and must go to bed so that I can make it through tomorrow before getting on the plane to London. Suffice it to say that we all had an awesome time, the catfish of my youth made a reappearance (and is likely now lost to the ocean of time), and I v. stupidly drank both a 'muffin shot' (a Sri concoction in which you bore a hole in a mini-muffin, fill it with rum until it starts to disintegrate in your hand, and then dump it in your mouth) and a 'Sugarcane Drain' (a John concoction of Coors mixed with sugar, in a red plastic cup, with a hole bored through the bottom so you have to shotgun it). But, since those drinks were what actually gave me my second wind and allowed me to stay at the party until three a.m., I suppose I should be grateful.

And now, after a wonderful day with almost all of my favorite people in the world, it's time for me to go to bed (which I am sharing with Santy Claude, yay). Congratulations, Adit and Priyanka!!

you can't start a fire sitting around crying over a broken heart

Today was totally awesome, and judging by the fact that I'm writing this post at 3:35am, it's clear that typing will be the ultimate challenge. I woke up around eight, refreshed by twelve hours of sleep (perhaps someday I will write the 'lost post' of what happened on Friday and why I didn't blog last night), and Adit and I watched "The Royal Tenenbaums" while drinking tea and trying to avoid confronting the day. Finally, we successfully confronted it, and went to brunch with Julie, who was in town from Seattle with her fiance and their friends. Brunch was totally delicious, although I paced myself by eating a piece of toast with cheese and fruit since I was leaving brunch to immediately go to lunch. It was good to see Julie; I don't think I had seen her in at least three years, but she appeared to be similar to her usual self, even if she is grappling with a different situation now.

I left brunch to meet up with Irish Matt for lunch. I took him to Tadich Grill, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in San Francisco; they have a ton of seafood dishes, as well as steak, and so I hoped that it would appeal to Irish Matt's tastes. It lived up to his desires, so we had a lovely lunch. Then, we walked around the Ferry Building before walking all the way back to Union Square, where we sat in the park and were inadvertently extras in some amateur film about a makeup artist (or something, it was really hard to tell).

I came home around five, and I ended up taking a nap, which was dangerous but I rallied sufficiently to hang out with and hopefully entertain Vidya when she came over around nine. I was supposed to have dinner with Alaska Matt and his wife, but they rescheduled, and so I was able to spend some quality time with Vidius Chandicus. She fell asleep while I changed my clothing and freshened up my makeup, so it was no surprise when she parted ways with me as we went in search of cabs.

I ended up rallying enough to meet up with the boys for Folkman's thirtieth birthday; they had been out to dinner (which I missed, thinking I had other plans), but I found Folkman, Adit, Jav, Oniel, Timmy Timer (real name: Peder), Lily, Caca (real name: Ed) and others at the Liberties. I proceeded to do all the drinking that I intended to do last night; not to make a big deal of it, but I got promoted last week, and I was in the mood to celebrate. After a shot of Fernet, a white peach cosmopolitan, a pomegranate mojito, and three watermelon mojitos, I was definitely in a celebratory mood, and we ended up walking over to a late-night taqueria after last call, where I had a carnitas super burrito and we peer pressured Folkman, Jav and Caca to do the worm breakdance move on the floor of the restaurant.

So, a good time was had by all, and I'm glad I abandoned my responsibilities for one night. Now, it's time for bed; I anticipate that I will feel miserable tomorrow, but there's no rest for the wicked. Goodnight!

take my hand, we'll make it out of this mess

Well, Aunt Becky is successfully hitched to Uncle Brian. The wedding was v. lovely, and the reception afterwards was quite a party. The bride looked gorgeous, the groom looked happy, and a good time was had by all.

I would love to explain this all in a lot more detail, but I'm far too tired and I need to go to bed immediately if I'm going to make it into town for breakfast tomorrow morning before continuing the cleanup at the barn. Suffice it to say that the barn did not fall down, the food was excellent, and I wore the teal dress (dress #2) before switching into more country-appropriate clothes after dinner was over. Since the wedding was a mile from our house, it was quite easy to go back and forth, particularly since I refrained from getting very far into the Templeton Rye (a whisky-type drink that was incredibly smooth; after my Three Wisemen shot that Adit bought me on a fateful night a few years ago, I can't drink whisky, but this was quite good). And I saw all sorts of relations, many friends and acquaintances from the area, and met several of Aunt Becky's friends who have been forced to listen to stories about me over the years. So, that was all very fun, and I'm happy for Aunt Becky and our new uncle.

But, tomorrow promises to be more work as we get everything out of the barn and hauled back to our house. Hopefully I'll get to spend a bit of time with my family (and by that I mean the people who live in this house) tomorrow afternoon, since I leave for San Francisco on Monday :( It's too bad, but c'est la vie; I'll just have to make sure I get back here once before Christmas, since six months between visits is too long.

Okay, that's all -- wish the person next to you a happy Aunt Bridezilla day! And now, it's time for bed.

way down yonder on the chattahoochee

Today was excellent, although I hit my traditional Friday afternoon slump and had difficulty rousing myself from it to the point that I could enjoy the evening like a normal twenty-seven-year-old. Work itself was pleasant enough, capped off by having cake in a conference room for Natasha's birthday. Because of the people she works with, the ten people in the room were a weird mix of the top directors of the department, me, Terry, Joy, a couple of others, and her boyfriend Chris (who is also my friend from my time in Hyderabad). It was entertaining, of course, but nowhere near as entertaining as the evening festivities.

Terry and I left around six to have dinner at Fiesta del Mar; it became clear that my energy was dropping precipitously, so we also stopped at a Starbucks and got me some caffeine. Then, we progressed to Natasha's chosen venue for her birthday party -- the Saddle Rack in Fremont. It's a country-western bar that offers line dancing lessons if you get there early enough (which we did, although I did not participate in the lesson), and the band they had tonight was pretty good. I mostly hung out and watched the dancing while drinking a Smirnoff Ice (I haven't had one of those in ages), but I did dance for a bit towards the end. The people watching was *excellent*, though; the number of fully bedazzled belts alone was enough to keep me entertained for much of the evening.

Now, though, I really must go to bed -- I intend to make substantial progress on the book this weekend, so sleep is a necessity. Goodnight!

return of the chandlord

Chandlord is currently sitting on my couch with me; we are recovering in the aftermath of the first annual Chandlord Festival that I hosted at my/our apartment tonight. Apparently the Chandlord Festival includes rituals such as creating a Mii for each person at the party, and performing really poorly while playing Rock Band. Before the party descended into complete aural hell, it was quite lovely -- Adit, Vidya and Katrina showed up within a short period of time and we hung out in a laid-back way, and then Oniel, Kathryn, Tom, Julie, Shari, and two of Shari's friends showed up separately two hours late. I made four pizzas, a greek salad, cookies, and lemon cake; the pizza and salad were in appropriate quantities, but as usual I went overboard on dessert, so hopefully Chandlord will take some home with her tomorrow!

So today was a lovely day! I v. much like my friends, and I tend to prefer social gatherings that revolve around hanging out and eating rather than those that involve alcohol, pounding music, and strangers. Granted, the music at my party was bad -- I tried to be culturally-inclusive by creating a Pandora mix of Christmas, Hannukah, and bhangra music, but it was just terrible. But all in all, it was a smashing success! And Chandlord will still be here when I get back from Christmas in Iowa, so we shall see each other again before she returns to the beast coast.

Okay, I have to be at work by eight tomorrow morning, which is going to come much too fast. Goodnight!

king of wishful thinking

Tonight was my company's holiday party. I can barely type, due to the fact that someone on my team bought me a kamikaze shot shortly before the party ended -- but I had an excellent time. Adit was my date, which was v. lovely; he seemed to enjoy talking to Pete and Pete's fiancee Bridget, and so we had a good time. I met up with Pete and Bridget for a drink before the party, and then hung out with them off and on throughout the evening. Since Pete was part of the first invasion of Iraq while I was taking winter finals at Stanford, he has little patience for my complaints about the quality of parties, microkitchens, perks, etc., which is a good check and balance even if I'm annoyed that my 'war stories' can't compare to his actual war stories.

I must say, many things were different between tonight's party and the parties of yesteryear. For one, budgetary cutbacks were evident, since we each got one drink ticket (instead of an open bar) and there were cookies and plastic-wrapped candies as food instead of the lavish dinner spreads of yore. For another, I either directly or indirectly managed 50+ people at the party -- that's about 1 out of 20 employees there, or 1 out of 35 or 40 when you count guests. Since I sent out an email this morning suggesting that they remember that this is a work function, it would have been hypocritical of me to go over the top.

But, I survived, Adit survived, my team seems to have made it through unscathed, and Katrina successfully crashed the party before giving me a ride home. So, all is good! It's bedtime for me, though -- there's a lot to do this weekend if I'm going to make it home on Thursday. Goodnight!

Olympic Rings party photos!

The infamous Olympic Rings Cakes! (blueberry, lemon, chocolate, green funfetti, and red coconut).

The Olympic Rings Dips (blue sour cream, salsa con queso, black spinach/artichoke dip, guacamole, salsa)

The Olympic Rings Fruits (blueberries, pineapple, chocolate sauce, kiwi, strawberries)

The even more infamous blackberry shot (rum, splash of soda water, black food coloring, and a single blueberry)

sara's big city adventure

Today was my birthday, and I did not participate in any of the obligatory somber national mourning. This is not out of any lack of respect/sympathy (although I have been accused of lacking both at various points in the past), but because if I don't celebrate my birthday, the terrorists have won.

I had a truly excellent day! I talked to several family members on the phone, as well as Katie, Lauren, and Irish Matt. I received a multitude of v. kind emails, e-cards, text messages, and Facebook posts, which was quite nice. I also spent most of the day lamely engaged in cleaning out my closet and doing laundry, but I'm happy that I did so because now I can focus on the book for most of the rest of the weekend. And, Charles the doorman just rolled his eyes when I received not one, not two, but FOUR packages today!

Three were things that I had ordered myself: a dictionary of English surnames (to go with the dictionary of English Christian names that I already received), a few great notebooks, and a brand new fountain pen that is my birthday present to myself. It's a sky blue color with 'stars' embedded in it, and I've wanted it for well over a year, so I'm quite happy. But the fourth package was the best -- Aunt Becky's promised package arrived, and I eagerly dug into it. I soon questioned what kind of trouble she expected me to get into on my birthday -- the package contained a mini sample kit of Bobbi Brown cosmetics, a sample eye cream, a sample night moisturizer, and one pair of underwear. Strange, but v. entertaining. She also sent me a gift card to Sephora, my favorite place in the world, and addressed it to my romance novelist pen name, which was a sweet touch. You'll be pleased to note that my scandalous activities tonight did not involve me losing my panties, but I'm sure I'll make use of the rest of the gift in the near future.

The official birthday festivity was a low-key dinner at Osha Thai on 2nd St. John, Oniel, Oniel's gf Kathryn, Terry, Julie, and Tom. When I picked the restaurant, I was only remembering my experience there with Irish Matt in July, when we had a cozy, boozy lunch for two; during lunch, we sat at a table with real chairs, and I loved it. But the chairs made me forget the experience I had at Osha Thai before that, and that we had again tonight -- if you're in a group, you have to sit at the seats that are basically broad, backless, cushionless benches, which, while fun and trendy, is not exactly comfortable.

However, the company, the food, and my two green tea mojitos more than made up for it. It was the first time I'd seen Tom since his going-away party in February, but like me, he's back in the area, and I think we're going to meet up at a cafe and write tomorrow afternoon. It was also the first time I'd seen Oniel's girlfriend since Chris/Connie's wedding, since she was boycotting the Olympics and incurred some serious wrath/skepticism from me as a result. My friends were v. nice and not only paid for dinner, but got the staff to dim the lights and bring out some fried bananas with a candle while singing 'happy birthday' (my friends each used their own preferred nickname, so I doubt strangers could understand who the song was for). There was one ridiculous moment where Oniel claimed that I had never verified that we were friends before, which is patently ridiculous since we've known each other for nine years, and then that gave me a moment's pause when I realized that I've known John and Oniel for nine years, Terry for seven, and Julie and Tom for six. Crazy.

True to form, I pre-judged something (in this case, the pumpkin curry that John ordered, which in my defense sounded disgusting, mostly because the 'shit in a pot' dish that we had at our hotel in Ukraine was filled with nasty stewed pumpkin) which turned out to be my favorite thing. My curse is truly a curse -- anytime I claim that I don't like something or don't want to do it (moving to the city, working for my current employer, getting a blackberry, staying in California, eating pumpkin curry), I inevitably end up doing a complete 180. Now Oniel's holding out for me to do the 180 on my refusal to go to business school and my refusal to support him via a cushy fake job after the fact -- and given my track record, he's making a reasonably safe bet.

After dinner, we parted ways, and Oniel and Kathryn showed me the mysterious intricacies of the bus system. I walked the 1.5 miles to the restaurant because I like that walk (through the Tenderloin, where I saw someone peeing against a wall, and straight into the upscale Prada, Burberry, Tiffany, etc. stores lining the blocks around Union Square), and I intended to take a taxi home, but the bus was significantly cheaper even if it also took longer. That's fine for now, but now that I'm 27, I can't keep wasting time like this or else I'll die without accomplishing anything.

On that extremely melodramatic note, it's time for bed. When I wake up tomorrow, it won't be my birthday anymore :( At least I'm taking the day off so that I can mourn!

arrrrlympics

I'm probably too drunk to blog effectively -- it's not quite to the point of the infamous 2005 ski trip, for those of you who remember that ridiculous drunk blog post, but it's almost there. I had an excellent day! If you don't know that the Olympics started today, please stop reading my blog, since we're officially not friends and you're completely cut from the program. The Olympics are something that I look forward to with rabid enthusiasm every two years, and this year is no exception. In fact, because of the political climate and the human rights issues and the general sense of unease, I'm looking forward to these Olympics even more than I was looking forward to Athens -- which is saying something, since Athens was a complete clusterfuck from an organizational standpoint (to use more vulgar language than I do when I'm sober).

Ssss...anyway, I had a party in honor of the opening ceremonies. This was a good thing, since it encouraged me to unpack. I went a little overboard on the theme -- I baked the requisite five Olympic Rings Cakes (tm), but I added on this year with Olympic Rings Dips (salsa, guacamole, cheese, sour cream dyed blue, and spinach/artichoke dip dyed black), and Olympic Rings Fruits (pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, strawberries, and chocolate sauce). I also made cosmopolitans and mint juleps, and had ingredients for mojitos. Unfortunately, drinks are not my strong suit, but the cakes and dips were quite delicious.

The party itself was lovely. I had a good mix of old Stanford friends and new(er) work friends, although the work friends are pretty much old friends at this point. There were just enough people to feel like a party, but not so many that it was overcrowded. And some of my more ridiculous friends showed up, which is why I'm rather inebriated right now -- John and I relived old memories by drinking whatever we could come across (in this case, a 'blackberry shot', which started off as a shot of rum, club soda, black food coloring, and a single blueberry), and Adit refined the idea with some concoctions of his own (still with black food coloring and a blueberry, but I don't know what else he put in it). After two cosmos, one mojito dyed blue, four 'blackberry' shots, and then the drinks I had at the Geary Club afterwards with Adit and Oniel, I'm quite a happy camper. Tomorrow I will be a sad camper, but I will deal with that when it arrives. And I probably won't be as sad as John -- he showed up with a pirate hat, and then added to it by painting a mustache on his face w/black food coloring, but food coloring doesn't wash out easily. Too bad for him, but v. entertaining for the rest of us.

So the party was excellent. Special shoutout to Alaska Matt and his wife Alaska Kia -- they claimed this was the best party that they had been to in months, which, considering the fact that they said this after Matt was subjected to a mint julep and then watched me dye my mouth black with all the 'blackberry' shots, says a lot about their social life. I think a good time was had by all, and I'm looking forward to the games kicking off in earnest tomorrow. I tivo'd the opening ceremonies, so I'll probably have to watch again when I'm not playing hostess, but I'm glad I got to hang out with my friends.

After the party ended at midnight, Oniel and I met up with Adit at Geary Club. We hung out there for an hour and a half, which was fun, before Oniel walked me home. Initially we said that this bar was someplace we should take my parents...they actually allow smoking, which I don't understand how they can get away with in California, but whatever. However, on the way home at two am, we walked past a lot of sketchy people, including a guy walking around in pink tights and a camouflage speedo. So we decided that perhaps it wasn't safe to take my parents out in the neighborhood when all the crazies are out. But Oniel kept me from getting stabbed in the kidney, and now I'm turning in for the night. Happy Olympics, everyone!

embrace the chaos

Adit's contribution to my to-do list - he determined that all of it could wait, or never be done at all, and that I should enjoy my time off instead.

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After a journey of >1000 miles and seven nights spent sleeping in unfamiliar beds, I'm back in Palo Alto. I was on the road straight from 10am to 6pm yesterday, made a brief stop at my apartment to talk to Adit and change clothes, and then drove up to the evil city to spend some quality time with my former expat friends (the 'former' applies to our expat status, not to the quality of our friendship).

Those same friends exhorted me to be more concise in my blog posts, and complained that I give them too much to read. That's too bad! If I'm more concise, you would have no way of knowing that they tried to convince me to use 'Baroness von Swampler' as my pseudonym, or that (at the behest of Nathan) I got some more mileage out of the story about the time that I saw that live sex show - and some amazing muscular control involving a Sharpie and John's chest - in Amsterdam. You also wouldn't know that I got to spend some quality time with Heather, Salim, Arod, Jenni, Shadie, Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, Alaska Matt, and Kia. And wouldn't your life be just a little bit emptier if you didn't know the minutiae of my life?

Anyway, I spent the night on Heather and Salim's couch, came home this morning, and had a late breakfast with Adit, in which he tried to convince me that I should relax and live my life rather than making lists. Instead of accomplishing anything or living my life (whatever that means), I took a nap, had dinner with Terry, and read a romance novel. Appropriately enough, the romance novel ('Breathing Room' by Susan Elizabeth Phillips) was about a woman whose self-help empire crashed around her because she was too controlling and too unable to deal with spontaneity, who finds redemption in the arms of a gorgeous movie star during a sojourn in Tuscany. Not that I think I'll find a gorgeous movie star anytime soon, but I could probably spend a little bit more time thinking about how to let go, rather than trying to plan everything in my life down to the smallest detail.

Letting go will have to happen after I take care of all of the errands involved in packing up my stuff and moving to the Midwest. Even then, living in my homeland will likely not encourage me to let go of anything, except responsibility for my own laundry and perhaps my tendencies to apply makeup every day. It should be interesting regardless!

this really is the year of a million dreams

Newport Beach - even the sea birds there are wealthier and more svelte. This is one of the least mangy sea birds I've ever seen!
















Fireworks over Snow White's castle at Disneyland.















Sorry the photo is blurry - but when have you ever seen the sign for Space Mountain (one of the most popular rides at Disneyland) say 'Approximate Wait Time: 1 Minute'?!

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I don't think there are any words to describe how blissfully happy I am right now. I think it's quite likely that I've burned out some key pleasure receptors in my brain and will never be this exhaustedly thrilled again. And I didn't even have a single alcoholic beverage - I'm drunk on sheer pleasure!

The day started off tame, but lovely - Joy, Katrina and I set off for Newport Beach, where we wandered around for a couple of hours and had lunch. It turns out we could have left earlier - all three of us acted like hermits last night, and so were up early today, but assumed that the others would sleep in later after having partied the night before. The beach was quite pretty, and it would be nice to live in one of the little beachfront homes in that area, if I had millions of dollars. After spending some time there, we came back to Anaheim and went to Disneyland around 4pm. I was expecting to ride some rides, eat some food, and turn in early. Boy, was I wrong.

I have become quite spoiled and jaded by the parties my company throws - at the last Christmas party, Oniel was v. impressed, but I thought that there weren't enough food varieties or DJ options, etc. However, my childlike wonder returned today, full-force, in time to make this the most surreal last day one could ever have before a sabbatical.

This may help to explain: I rode Space Mountain SEVEN TIMES!!!

I've never been to Disneyland before, and I don't think I can ever come again - this has completely spoiled me for the normal Disneyland experience. When I got there around 4pm, I hung out with Katrina and Joy - we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, where there was no real line, and enjoyed ourselves, but they didn't want to go on any rollercoasters. I decided that I wanted to go on at least one, so I parted ways with them. I proceeded to hit up virtually every major ride in the park, most of them several times.

Basically, my company rented the park out after 7pm - everyone else was kicked out at 7pm, but we all had special wristbands that enabled us to stay until 1am. Also, after 8pm, all the food in Disneyland was free (free!). They also did a fireworks show at 9:25pm. And because there were about 15x fewer people there than normal, the most I waited for any ride was five minutes; the biggest pain was just getting off the exit of a ride and walking the five minutes back to the start of the ride to do it again.

My ride tally was:
Space Mountain - 7 (including two 2-peats)
Pirates of the Caribbean - 4 (on the last one, some guy in my boat actually got of the boat - he was clearly drunk, but surprisingly didn't get escorted out)
Thunder Mountain - 3 (including one 2-peat)
Matterhorn - 2
Splash Mountain - 1 (I was the only person on this ride, which was really creepy - no other humans, just a bunch of insane-looking animatronic beasts)
Haunted Mansion - 1
The Star Wars ride that almost made me throw up - 1, miserably
Some astro-shooting game - 1
Rather lame 'Honey I Shrunk the Audience' - 1, only because it was right by Space Mountain and I needed a break so I wouldn't vomit

I quite luckily spent some quality time with some of the people whom I've either worked the most closely with or been friends with for the longest at work - I ran into Tolu, Joann, Jen, and Joann on one of my Space Mountain rides, and spent several hours going on a variety of rides with them. I also spent some quality time with Sean, Fred, and Evan. And, it was great to hang out with Joy and Katrina - I want to be much better friends with both of them, and the afternoon with them was v. lovely. However, none of it was really bittersweet, which I think is a good sign - I'm going to miss these people, but I'm also quite eager to begin the next chapter of my life, even if the chapter after that brings me back here.

But I can't really think about the future, when I am still completely and utterly in love with Space Mountain. I am not so in love with how weird my stomach feels after having been on so many rollercoasters from 6pm to 1am, with a break only for french fries, fried chicken, and half a hot dog, but seriously - closing out my job by riding Space Mountain two times in a row at 1am with Fred and Sean was enough to blow my mind.

Okay, I will never capture how amazing this whole evening was - it was like being a little kid, only there were no lines and so the gratification was instant and awesome. But even though I want to be a writer, my words completely fail me right now. You'll just have to trust me that it was a truly magical experience, and a crazy, perfect way to start my sabbatical.

Now, it's time to go to bed, if I can actually get to sleep - I am driving to San Diego tomorrow to see Tammy, which is guaranteed to burn out my pleasure sensors if Space Mountain hasn't done it already. I hope you are all having a smashing week!