this light is contagious, go, go tell your neighbors

I've had a v. small town couple of days. Yesterday, I had a meeting about the mural project, which I'm pretty excited about - I think I have signed up for more than I would ideally like to do, but I also think it's pretty amazing that the county is getting 18 new/refurbished murals, so I'm #inittowinit. I also had dinner last night with Allie (my niece) and Chris (my soon-to-be nephew whose name I know with about 50% accuracy, but I like him more than that fact would indicate). We went to the Mexican restaurant in town, which I ate for four meals in the last seven days because I tend to have leftovers, and I'm sure the wait staff was surprised to see me with someone who wasn't [censored].

So, that was fun, and it was a good reminder that I am about to eat at a bunch of places where my alcohol bill alone will be more than my full meal bill here. #funfact I spent ~$50 in restaurants in February, so I would expect that most of my meals in SF/Seattle will exceed my monthly total in Iowa.

sssanyway. Yesterday I also spent some time saying farewell to my parents, although I saw them both today, so I guess yesterday doesn't count. Today, I met with someone about the mural stuff, then ran some errands, came home, ate leftover Mexican, and spent the afternoon packing. [censored] showed up early after taking the afternoon off, and my mom stopped by to get a tour of the plants that I need her to water while I'm gone. So, I packed with some low-grade interruptions, but I think I have most of what I need and can easily rectify anything I'm missing.

The reason [censored] came home early was to see the town play - tonight was the dress rehearsal, but it was open to the public, and since I couldn't go this weekend, we decided to go tonight. Dad went with us, while Mom went to a meeting that I skipped (and I saw someone else in the audience who skipped the meeting, but we agreed not to tell anyone we saw each other). Mom and Dad were in this play when it was first performed 41 years ago, and the town has done it several times since then - this was the fifth iteration. In a nice gesture, they read off the names of other people who have played each role in the previous iterations, which was a bittersweet trip down memory lane since there were a lot of names of people who have passed away (including my granddad).

So, the play was pretty entertaining - the play is an old Western, and they edited some of the gunslinging and replaced the guns with slingshots, but left in the questionable traitorous Native role (played by one of my high school classmates, who was definitely #inittowinit and told me after that I need to be in the play next year), so I'll give them an overall E for effort on the modernization. I'm glad I went, and I hope they keep the tradition alive, so we'll see.

Then, [censored] and I came home, sent Dad on his merry way, and watched a rather hilarious comedy podcast. And now I need to go to sleep - I am supposed to leave tomorrow, but I need to go to the airport early due to forecasted snow, and I still have some tings I need to do before I leave. Goodnight!

god save the queen

Today got off to a v. inauspicious start - the fire alarm went off at 7:30am, right as I was waking up and debating going back to sleep and skipping the community breakfast. So I stumbled downstairs, and it was a false alarm (probably someone else's shower), but since I was already up and Michelle saw me up, I decided I should probably go to breakfast.

This was a mistake. I should have gotten more sleep instead. I probably should never have kids, since I can't seem to function on less than eight (seven at the least) hours of sleep for more than one night a week. But I showered and made it downstairs by 8:15 to meet for breakfast. It seems that most people made better decisions than I did, since it was only Michelle and this guy Edgar (don't learn his name, he's leaving tomorrow). We went to Bluebird, which I've been to a couple of times before, and it was actually lowkey and lovely, but my energy was already flagging by nine a.m.

But I'd taken my laptop with me, so I abandoned them and stopped at a cute coffeeshop called Wanted Man that I'd been wanting to try. The coffee was good and I got a juice as well - I had a horrific headache for most of the day, and I was hoping the juice would help. It didn't, but I got some writing done, so that was good.

Then I came back here and worked more of the afternoon, when I wasn't nursing my headache or eating lunch. And at four p.m. I took a twenty-minute nap, which I probably should have done at ten a.m. since it went a long way toward restoring me.

Then I threw on real clothes and went to today's exciting adventure - a semi-private tour of Buckingham Palace. I've never been since the palace is usually only open during the summer when the queen is at Balmoral, and I saw this ticket by chance a month ago and bought it. I'm so glad that I did - the tour was only thirty people, and we were guided around for an hour and a half and shown all kinds of wonderful stuff. I'm obviously a suuuuuuuper dork about all of it, both the historical stuff (the guy who collected much of the stuff in the most impressive rooms was George IV, who was better known as the Prince Regent while George III was too mad to rule, and the Regency period is named after him) and the modern stuff (when we stepped into the music room, I immediately knew it was where a bunch of royals had been baptized, because I am crazy).

Anyway, I loved every second of it - picturing both the balls and soirees of Victoria's day and the pomp and ceremony of the present, and all the history in and around the building and its contents. The tour ended with a glass of champagne, which encouraged me to buy a mug in the giftshop (it's no Starbucks mug, but I'll be drinking tea out of it for a long time anyway). No photos were allowed in the palace, so you'll just have to trust me that it was super cool.

When I was done, I took a few pictures outside as the sun was setting, and then I came back to Roam, ordered some thai food (I was starving, so I ate it all), and hung out briefly with some people who were getting ready to go out to the pubs. I, however, am taking the virtuous path and going to bed right now so that I can get lots of glorious sleep before doing lots of glorious work tomorrow. Goodnight!

before you came into my life i missed you so bad

Today was v., v. writerly - if you think I'm a strange combination of Ernest Hemingway and a cougar. I slept late, which seems impossible since the fire alarm between me and Terry's rooms was apparently chirping since five a.m., but my ability to sleep is legendary. So when I finally rolled out of bed at an embarrassing hour, I checked my email, took care of some writerly tings, and then went to Safeway to buy a new battery for the alarm and some groceries for my tummy. I also went to Philz on Van Ness, since I was run out of the Philz in Palo Alto by an overly-chatty barista (I mean, I would go back there, I just can't anticipate getting any work done) and got a coffee + a pound of coffee beans to sustain myself through the next round of fierce writing/edits.

When I got home, I changed the battery (successfully, albeit semi-deafeningly), trimmed my bangs, showered, and took care of some more writerly tings. Then I took a taxi (because I am such a princess) to a cafe, where I met up with my co-teacher for this class I'm teaching at Berkeley so that we could plan the next two lessons. That mission accomplished, I took a bus (because I like to find out how the masses live - and they live crazily, judging by the guy who was ranting loudly to himself for fifteen blocks or so) up Fillmore and spent a couple of hours at the Grove, where I nursed a diet coke and wrote a few pages of Ellie and Nick's book. This is a crucial scene where he's an asshole (don't women love assholes? sales records would say yes), and since I'm about as conflict-avoidant as a person can be without being a total doormat, it's kind of tough for me to write this. But it's going okay (knock on wood), so I'm glad I made some progress.

Post Grove, I met up with Terry and Lauren (aka Subz) for an early dinner at Dosa, where I had two cocktails (remember my vow never to drink again? me neither) and some curry, and we caught up on all the many things that have happened to us since we saw each other twenty-four hours ago (answer: nothing). Then we went across the street and saw "Magic Mike", which I was required by all the laws of romance writerdom to see or else I would be kicked out of the sisterhood and forced to go write inspirational Christian romance instead. And I must say, I wish there had been more stripping and less tawdry drug-centered secondary plot. And I must also say, I wasted far too much of my youth trying to pause a VHS tape of "A Time To Kill" on exactly the moment when Matthew McConaughey sits down on the remnants of his blown-up front porch and trying to verify whether there was a hole in the crotch of his jeans, since he shows almost all the goods in HD up on the big screen in this one. My, how far I've come from my sad and misspent youth.

sssanyway, the movie was entertaining, even if I roll my eyes at all the women acting like innocent little girls, shrieking and blushing over things like "Magic Mike" and "50 Shades of Grey" - while some part of me is pleased that we may be reaching a cultural turning point and starting to objectify men (yum), there's another part of me that feels like this is all just a little ridiculous.

sssanyway again, we had fun, and now I should go to sleep and pray that I wake up sans hangover so that I can finish this scene and send the first third of the book off to my editor. Wish me luck (parenthetically, if you desire - apparently parentheses exceed even my love for the beloved em-dash tonight) - goodnight!

good girls don't but i do

It's either write some more or go to bed, so I'm choosing bed -- while I've written diligently tonight, it wasn't coming easily or quickly, and I'm too tired to gird my loins for a continued slog through the blown-out detritus of Malcolm and Amelia's story in my ongoing effort to superglue it all back together. However, today was generally good. I woke up at 8:15am (shocking, I know) and went to Berkeley for my romance writing chapter's Christmas party. It was really just our usual meeting, although it included lunch and involved a few inspirational speeches from within the chapter rather than a guest speaker. They had asked me to be one of the four speakers, and I must say that it went really well -- I got several nice comments afterwards, and I think that I struck a chord with some people, which is always nice. I'd like to do more speaking in the future at romance/publishing events, so this was a good baby step in terms of practice, and it was also fun since I really do enjoy this chapter way more than my averse-to-groups self originally anticipated when I first joined last year.

After the speeches were over, I had lunch with the people at my table (including two phenoms in the self-publishing world -- my friend Tina and another woman whose publishing name is either Bella or Lucy, depending on what she's writing, although her real first name is something else entirely). Then, I drove back to the evil city and spent some quality time hanging out with Terry. She may not have thought it was quality time, since we ended up watching the last half hour of "King Arthur" when she flipped through the channels and landed there -- yet another half hour of my life lost to the shame and crawling misery of knowing that I so eagerly anticipated that movie and was so bitterly disappointed, to the detriment of ever getting anyone to go to another movie with me again. Sigh. We eventually went to Starbucks and got coffee, and then we came home and I locked myself in my room the rest of the night (with a brief excursion downstairs to get a Diet Mountain Dew out of the fridge).

The writing is going okay, but I certainly didn't write nonstop for the past six hours, much to my chagrin. I did finally figure out what was blocking me, though, and once I figured that out, I made progress pretty quickly. I pray that tomorrow will continue along that line (the line where I progressed quickly, not the line in which I was blocked), but surely sleep will help. Goodnight!

my body don't lie

I kind of feel like death. I told Terry (when she knocked on my door to check on me - she heard me coughing tonight, but since I'd curled up in bed before she even got home, she hadn't seen verifiable evidence that I wasn't on the verge of death) that at least I wasn't as sick as I was when I got home from Germany, and she appreciated that I've developed a baseline. Still, I'm pretty miserable, and so I got virtually nothing done today, which annoys me.

That's not entirely fair to myself. I woke up and nine and cleaned my room, showered, made tea, took care of some business, etc., and then sped down to Mountain View to have lunch with Gyre. This was a journey fraught with peril, since I've been so focused on zee writing that I haven't seen or made plans with a lot of people at my former place of employment. And as Gyre and I walked into our usual cafe, I ran into my friend Jenni (who emailed me a couple of days ago and I hadn't gotten back to yet), but she gave me fair warning that she was about to have lunch with two other people whom I haven't seen (Heather, aka dear respected madam, whom I at least had dinner with a few weeks ago, and another person who's been trying to get together with me for ages and I've kept putting off in the interest of getting stuff done). So Gyre and I fled through the side door and went to another cafe, where the food was awesome and we caught each other up on all the developments in our respective lives (which were interesting and numerous, since I hadn't seen him for six weeks).

He had a one o'clock meeting that he couldn't skip, so I left campus as soon as we were done and went to the other campus of my youth -- namely Stanford. I was in the parking lot there and almost decided to come home instead, since I felt like crap and just wanted to lie down, but our cleaning lady was supposed to come today and I didn't want to lie about while she was here (so you can imagine my annoyance when I got home at seven and discovered she didn't come - grr). So I went to the library and did some legitimate slogging for an hour, then some daydreaming/sniffling for another couple of hours. I gave up around 5:15, grabbed a quick dinner at the CoHo, then came home and crawled into the bed I had wanted to be in all day. I should have written, but it was a losing battle, so instead I picked up a book...

...which is always my downfall. I read the whole thing, but since I started it at a reasonable hour, I'm done with it and can go to bed at 12:30am, which is pretty good for me. The book is a new release, and it's steampunk, so if you find all that ridiculous, you can stop reading the post for the night. It's called HEART OF STEEL, and is the sequel to THE IRON DUKE, which I read last year. I loved the book all the way through (really, truly loved it), and yet I finished it feeling slightly bemused. It's basically an alternate history/fantasy, and the premise is that the Mongols kidnapped Marco Polo and his entourage of scientists, then used them to create ghastly steam powered war machines to destroy cities, as well as nanotechnology that could either turn people into zombies or make them susceptible to control by radio towers (depending on the strain of nanotech one was infected with). Thus, when the Mongol hordes attacked the West, they weren't stopped at Vienna, and instead turned all of Europe, Asia and Africa into a landmass teeming with zombies and studded with fortified citadels inhabited by enslaved citizens. Cheery, right?

Anyway, I loved this book, possibly more than THE IRON DUKE -- but I realized after I put it down that I loved the characters (adored them!) and loved loved loved the intriguing, unique world (which fits all the characteristics of a world that lives on in the reader's imagination, since it's impossibly vast and can hold millions of stories), but I didn't love the plot/romance. I mean, I liked the plot/romance, and in any other book, they probably would have satisfied me. They just didn't live up to the amazingness of the characters and the world-building, which made them seem weaker than they actually will. Still, I'll keep reading the series and am utterly hooked, so it was a good use of a few hours.

And now that I've geeked out, I shall go to bed and hope that I feel marginally less like death tomorrow. Goodnight!

we're an american band

I'm not in my own house - I'm indulging in a sleepover at Heather and Salim's house. Today was quite lovely and friend-filled; I woke up and hung out with Terry, then spent some quality time with my laptop while she went to the gym. After she got back, we went to Sprout, where we continued to catch up over some delicious salads. Then, we went back to my place, where she worked on school stuff and I packed/read until it was time for her to go out for dinner with her parents and me to go down to San Jose to Heather and Salim's.

When I got here, Heather and I promptly discussed books for quite some time. I brought over a whole ton of books to loan to her, so we talked about them and a variety of other tings while Salim made dinner. He started us with a sweet potato bisque, and then he made stuffed pork chops with some roasted potatoes and apples. It was all utterly delicious, particularly since I didn't have to cook any of it. While we ate, we watched "Anchorman" on tv, and then I conned them into watching "Sahara". I couldn't believe that they actually fell for it, but they did, and Salim and I watched the entire thing. Heather went to bed at some point, although I'm pretty sure that she just went upstairs to read one of the books I gave her rather than continuing to watch "Sahara".

And now, Salim and I are watching some '80s teen vampire movie, but I'm pretty sure I need to go to bed and not get sucked into anything else. Goodnight!

looks like we're getting the band back together

I had a v. productive day today, which was good, since I was feeling distinctly unproductive most of the week. I didn't get up until almost ten, but have decided to try to stop feeling guilty about such slothful activity and just accept it as my nature. I ate breakfast, showered, spent my requisite time on the internet, grabbed some lunch, and then went to Stanford's Green Library, where I worked very steadily for the rest of the day (with one short, inadvertent nap and a quick break to go outside and grab some tea from Coupa Cafe). It was a gorgeous day here, and I probably shouldn't have spent it inside, but I'm glad that I did; by the time I got home at eight p.m., I had written fifteen pages. That is basically the two scenes leading up to the fantastic, climactic masquerade scene, and so I'm glad to be standing on that threshold and looking into the ballroom where all remaining plot threads will be tied up.

Of course, all that writing time meant that I was thoroughly sick of looking at my laptop (I can use my laptop at Stanford because I can't get wireless there, which makes it a safe haven and temporary respite from my gnawing internet addiction), and so I came home with the intention of not looking at my laptop again until it was time to blog. However, after eating supper (a bowl of the chili I made last night), I checked my email on my phone and discovered that Terry was requesting a chat, and so I logged on and talked to her briefly. Eventually, though, I couldn't bear to look at the screen anymore, so I turned it off in favor of my television screen instead.

I was utterly not in the mood for anything historical or depressing, and I did not want to read a book and look at more printed words after staring at my own all day. So, I rented a movie from Amazon (technology really is amazing -- I could download an HD movie to my Tivo box from Amazon in a few minutes, and it will automatically self-destruct in a couple of days). I had meant to see 'Red' in the theatre when it came out, since I have an admitted crush on Bruce Willis (ignoring the fact that he's older than my father) and thought the premise sounded entertaining. So, I decided to watch it tonight. It wasn't the best movie, or even best shoot-em-up movie, that I've ever seen, but it was entertaining and served exactly the purpose that I wanted it to serve -- namely, I got to watch scarily-proficient people kill other people and have a good laugh about it. Yay.

But now that the movie's over, I should go to bed; I want to knock out at least half of the masquerade scene tomorrow, which is possible since I've got no desire to watch the Super Bowl. Wish me luck!

battle without honor or humanity

I had an eight a.m. meeting this morning (only two more eight a.m. meetings left, provided no one schedules me for any more!) that I was extremely surly about having to attend, but luckily this too shall pass. After the meeting, I went to main campus to get my last set of allergy shots at work, and they all swelled up quite obnoxiously (I still have a hot, hard lump the size of my palm burrowing into my right arm) -- luckily, I'll be able to continue getting shots at the doctor's private practice, so someday I may actually be free of my allergies. Then, I went back to my building, did some work, welcomed back my friend Joy (who took the last month off), and then went to Big Table to have lunch with Katrina. After lunch, I did some more work until around 3pm, when I sloughed off early to get my eyes checked and order one last pair of contacts before my fancy schmancy vision coverage goes the way of all the other perks I'm walking away from.

I grabbed a pearl milk tea, came home, and did a bit of work and surfing on the internet until around seven. Then, I ate dinner (a baked potato -- I could live off of them exclusively, although with the small but viable possibility of potato blight it's probably not wise to get too attached to them as my only food source), debated writing, and decided to give myself a night off so that I can be more productive this weekend. So, I read a book that showed up earlier this week, called THE IRON DUKE by Meljean Brooks. It's gotten rave reviews amongst the people I follow on Twitter, and I would say that those raves are mostly justified -- but I'm not sure that I have any friends whom I would recommend it to, since it falls firmly into the steampunk genre, which not everyone amongst my acquaintance would embrace.

The only other time I mentioned steampunk on this blog (I just checked), I refrained from explaining what it was, but you're not going to be so lucky this time. In a nutshell, steampunk takes most of the flavor and ambience of Victorian (or in this case, I'm thinking Regency) society, but adds a shitload of crazy gadgets and machines powered by steam. "League of Extraordinary Gentleman", in addition to being a very unfortunate way for Sean Connery to end his long and illustrious (to me) career, was an example of steampunk, and Jules Verne could be seen as a loose precursor to the genre. So, in addition to having a somewhat more technical bent that most romance (since you have to have some scientific interest in machines to come up with steampunk inventions and get into the technical details of dirigibles, etc.), it also seems to deal with some alternate history -- if you've already altered history by giving people steam-powered armor or turning them into cyborgs, you might as well alter history entirely, right?

I've only read a very tiny bit of steampunk -- the SOULLESS/CHANGELESS/BLAMELESS series, and now THE IRON DUKE. The first series is basically Victorian England with vampires, werewolves, and steam-powered stuff; entertaining, but not super into steampunk land. THE IRON DUKE is much further down that road -- it's an alt-history look at what would have happened if the Mongols had kidnapped Marco Polo's expedition, forced the scientists to work for them, and eventually developed nanobots that could infect and control others, thus seizing all of the Old World and driving the refugees to the Americas. The book takes place nine years after a pirate (later given a dukedom) destroys the Mongol Horde's presence in England and frees the populace. I particularly liked that the Iron Duke in real life was Wellington -- and the author made this guys a sort of parallel of Wellington, only parts of him are actually made of iron. Ha.

So now I've gone into way too much detail and likely scared you off. Those of you who are still here should know that I'm not sure I would get much more into steampunk than I already have (although I would read more of both these series) -- but in terms of writing, it's a fascinating look at how to build a convincing and realistic world, and I thought the characters were quite strong. But in terms of my own writing, I don't think it will ever get into steampunk land; I would definitely write a dark dystopian alternate history, since apocalypses are kind of my cup of tea, but any dream I've ever had of the end of the world never involved a steam-powered weapon.

But now, it's almost two a.m., and I should probably make at least some attempt to get something done at the office tomorrow. I'll be unemployed a week from tomorrow and will have all sorts of time to sleep (or, hopefully, write) then. Goodnight!

who rides the wrecking ball into our guitars?

I need to go to bed immediately; I have to be at work at 8am tomorrow for the second day of the big boss's three-day staff offsite, and since the big boss's boss (who is, therefore, an exponentially bigger boss) is attending for an hour, I need to go to the trouble of drying my hair and dressing properly so that I don't call undue, unwelcome attention to myself. Today was the first day of the offsite, and it was generally good. We did this all-day training on leadership that said that one of our main objectives is to 'stay alive', which I actually didn't take too fondly to since I'm a big fan of dramatic gestures that risk ending in martyrdom. Obviously there are other objectives too, but I struggled with that particular one. But, despite the occasional annoying moments, I enjoyed watching some of my fellow participants get riled up, and I had a nice lunch with Alan (my former boss) and two of the guys from the Europe organization.

After work, I swung by Anthropologie to see if I could find something that would go with those ridiculous 5" heels that I bought in LA. I don't know if I succeeded -- I'll have to try the whole outfit on to determine my success level -- but it's clear that my taste is on a drastic, precipitous decline into extreme eccentricity. I bought one skirt that is relatively normal (grey wool with a lovely cream lace trim on the bottom) -- but the other skirt that I bought may be an abomination. Specifically, it's wool, but it is entirely comprised of brown, aqua, and orange stripes. I thought that the bangs would be the last stop on the train to weirdoville, but clearly they have just encouraged me to venture even farther down that path. And, my friends, I must say that I love it. I may not be able to go home for Christmas without digging some of the less eccentric items out of the back of my closet, since my brother called my style "hobbit Western" last Christmas, and I shudder to think what he would call this, but I'm super psyched for the fashion disaster that my autumn is shaping up to be.

Once I had done my damage at Anthropologie, I came home, ate supper, and consciously decided to not even make an attempt at writing. I had a very bizarre, almost scary dream as I was waking up this morning, which involved an airplane crash, an alliance with some sort of magical family (one of whom seemed to be my fiance), and an attempt to escape to a boat at the end of a dock lined with evil, ice-cold witches who all seemed to be wearing stripes. One of the witches bit off my fingers, which is approximately when my alarm went off -- but in the interest of relaxing and not stressing myself out to the point that I lose more appendages in my sleep, I decided to read a book tonight instead. The book in question was Gail Carriger's BLAMELESS, which I've been waiting for with wild anticipation since reading CHANGELESS in London in May and experiencing one of the most awful cliffhanger endings in recent memory. This one thankfully did not end of a cliffhanger (yes, I read it all), but it was quite good and has me eager for the next book (HEARTLESS) coming out next year.

And now, I should sleep -- the big boss and her even bigger boss await. It's going to be a long day tomorrow, since I have the offsite from 8-6, a going-away party for a couple of directors from 6-7:30, and then dinner and bocce with the offsite attendees until 10pm. Ugh. I mean, yay. Whatever. Goodnight!

Daily word count: 0 (0% of goal)
Productive time: --
RescueTime productivity rating: -- (global average: 0.34)

shorty got low low low low low low low low

I spent most of the day taking care of errands for my upcoming trip, procrastinating, and finally writing -- all in all, a good day, even though I could have been much more efficient. I picked up two dresses at the tailor's, then went to Nordstrom and returned a whole bunch of stuff that I bought at the anniversary sale. As the anniversary sale was still going on, and I had been 'good' and returned stuff, this gave me an excuse to buy some more stuff -- in this case, a pair of Converse sneakers to replace my worn-out, extremely smelly Pumas, and a pair of black pumps to wear with my dress for the awards ceremony. I picked up that dress as well, and the alterations came out well, so at least I know what I'm wearing when I go onstage to present an award in front of 2000+ people.

I also bought a ridiculously cool (or perhaps just ridiculous) ring that will really stand out and tie together my hobbit western outfit when I go home for the holidays this winter -- it's exactly the kind of ring that is going to make my brother question whether we are related and how I could have possibly changed so much after growing up in Iowa. I actually walked away from it at first, only to drive back to the mall five hours later and buy it because I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I saw it, I felt this strangely visceral tug to it, as though it had inspired in me some sort of lust that I've never really felt over a piece of jewelry before. I have a feeling that it's going to play a role in the inspiration for my Knights Templar/"gargoyle" young adult series in the future, if it doesn't give me carpal tunnel from trying to support the weight of it while typing. I've posted a picture of it below for your viewing pleasure, and you are welcome to make fun of it because I love it so much that I don't really care what you think.

Anyway, despite the time sucked up by that bit of folly, I still managed to finish my errands, grab a pizza at the Nordstrom Cafe, and come home with the intention of writing. Then I sat around for hours not writing, and just as I was about to write, I went back to Nordstrom to buy the ring. I had an Amy's enchilada when I got home, then settled in with my laptop -- and I finally got around to writing 1546 words of zee romance novel. This sex scene between Madeleine and Ferguson is turning into an epic; they're on the verge of finally, irrevocably consummating tings, but by the time they do, this scene is going to be close to twenty pages. That's not all sex; a lot of it is conversation leading up to sex, then quite a bit of detail about stripping each other out of their historical garb that I can likely cut. But I need to finish it so that I can move on to the rest of the book -- despite the fact that it currently sounds like a porn, there is quite a bit of plot that needs to happen after this (and, well, another sex scene in the garden of a masquerade ball) and I'm eager to get through it all. I can't keep wasting three hours on the internet for every hour that I spend writing, and I'm going to have to practice my self-discipline when I take my week-long staycation and try to finish this draft. If nothing else, the desire to finish so that I can move on to the next romance novel, and to the Knights Templar/gargoyle story, is growing by the day, so I really need to get through this one before I give in to the urge to move on to the next shiny thing.

And now, I should go to bed; I'm going to the city tomorrow morning to have brunch with Chandlord, and then I need to do laundry, pack, do some work for the day job, and make sure I'm prepped for my trip. And perhaps, if I get to it, Madeleine and Ferguson will finally finish their epic love scene -- miracles do happen, after all. Goodnight!

[and here's the ring]

i let my enemies slide for the meantime

Today was wonderful, despite the fact that you're going to have to get that stick out and beat me for not writing tonight. My strategy of getting more sleep last night paid off, as my mind felt much clearer and more prepared to speed through and make guesses on the multiple choice test I had to take this afternoon. I made it into work for my eight a.m. meeting, and then studied for the exam from 9am to 12pm; the exam was about display advertising (image ads, video, etc.) + YouTube advertising, which is a pretty fascinating subject that would serve me well in terms of publicizing my books someday, but that I've really had very little practice with at work. So I read the study guide, took some notes, watched a few YouTube videos as 'research', and then grabbed lunch before the exam. The exam was technically from 1pm to 3:30pm, but I finished 110 questions in a little less than an hour; I ended up with an 87% (passing was 70%). I was totally pleased with that, as I tied the big boss's score -- I'm competitive enough to acknowledge that all I really care about is winning, not whether this exam had anything to do with my core job (it didn't, but I was required to take it anyway). And now I'm all done with these exams, which is fantastic news!

After finishing the exam, I had some milk and Oreos while prepping for a 1:1 with the big boss. We had a really good conversation, which was useful since we're not going to meet again for a month (she's out half of next week and we're both out the two weeks after that, so we won't meet again until sometime in August). If I wanted to work fifteen hours a day, I easily could; instead, I'm going to have to triage, prioritize, and figure out how to make myself more productive during the work day so that I can accomplish all of the great ideas that we had for what I can work on this quarter. One of them was making our communications as funny as the Old Spice YouTube campaign was this week -- I made the big boss watch several of the videos, but I don't think that either of us is cut out to compete with the Old Spice dude. If you didn't see any of them, check out the Old Spice YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/oldspice#p/c/484F058C3EAF7FA6 -- be prepared to waste an hour, because this guy is incredible.

But the best thing that happened today was that I discovered (by getting a newsletter from Gavin Rossdale) that Bush is reuniting! Yes, the band behind such great songs as 'Glycerine', 'Comedown', and 'The Chemicals Between Us', which broke up around 2003, is getting back together (although it's really only Gavin and the drummer - they replaced the other two) and releasing an album this fall. I downloaded the single this afternoon and listened to it approximately 40 times; I like it, but I was also the only person to buy his solo album, so I'm perhaps not the best judge.

When I got home, I cleaned the kitchen, took care of some sundry necessities, and made dinner (the last of my chicken fajitas, yum). I then sat down intending to write, but I failed; instead, I set up my Tivo box in preparation for the Comcast guy to come this weekend and bring me a cablecard so that I can get HD programming on the Tivo. It's really annoying that they have to send a technician to do it; I'm pretty sure I could install it myself, but I'm also pretty sure that since Comcast is legally required to provide a cablecard to any customer who asks for it, they're trying to recoup some of it by charing me a $16 professional installation fee for what amounts to slipping a credit-card-sized card into my Tivo unit and punching in a code. Whatever; I'm just excited to get my Tivo fully set up so that I can start recording Craig again.

So now, I'm going to go to bed so that I can get up, finish my work quickly, and do some serious writing. Goodnight!

what a fantastic tuscan voyage!

Sincere apologies for not blogging last night; I intended to blog, and then intended to let Vidius Chandicus guest blog, but I threw up as much red wine as I could get out of my stomach and went to bed instead.

So yesterday was quite good, and today would have been lovely if I wasn't in so much pain from yesterday. I managed to go to three Starbucks yesterday -- I had a doctor's appointment in Palo Alto in the morning, so I went to Starbucks near Secret Safeway and wrote for an hour; later, I met up with the owner of the house I'm renting to sign the lease at the Starbucks on Charleston; and I ended the day by having coffee with Natasha (later joined by Kim and Terry) at the Starbucks on Shoreline. It was quite a Starbucks overload, and no doubt contributed to the disaster that was my evening because I drank a lot of caffeine but really didn't eat much of anything throughout the day (always a bad idea when drinking later).

The owner of the house was quite nice; he's a semi-retired real estate agent who has this property as an investment. When I met him at the open house we were both in a rush and I didn't feel like we really clicked, but we had a nice conversation about the tech industry before signing the lease, and so it's nice to feel like I have some sort of tenuous connection with him (and that he seems put together and sane, which is always good in a landlord). I'm likely going to move the 9th or 10th, which means I'm going to have to pack the week after I get back from Cancun -- sooner than I had planned to move, but it will save money in the long run, and I'm also super super psyched about the place. This means that I only have to commute to the peninsula for twelve more work days before I move -- isn't it insane how fast this has moved?

Anyway, you don't care about that -- you likely just want to hear about the alcohol. When I got home, I had a few minutes to change and talk to Adit before Vidya and Peder (aka Timmy Timer) showed up. We opened a bottle of v. nice wine and sat around talking for an hour. When the time came to decide where to eat, Adit suggested the Olive Garden in Stonestown Galleria (inconveniently located on the other side of town, but conveniently located right on a MUNI line that goes past our place). This was clearly a joke, although the seed had been planted awhile ago because I kept saying that Adit and I should have a roommate dinner there -- but we essentially all dared each other into going, and no one backed down. It's funny; I used to like Olive Garden and think it was special (and celebrated my seventeenth birthday there with my high school friends and a waiter we nicknamed Al Fredo), but now that I've been exposed to genuine, delicious food of all varieties, Olive Garden is never high on the list of places to go.

ssssanyway, after deciding to go to the Olive Garden, we decided to go big, and we quickly drank another bottle of (vastly inferior) wine before catching the train. Adit also insisted that we take "roadies", which meant that Adit and Timmy had bottles of beer with them and Vidya and I each had mini bottles of champagne that I had been keeping in the fridge. Unfortunately, Vidya didn't want to finish hers, so I drank all of mine and half of hers, which is where things started to go downhill for me.

By the time we got over to Stonestown (likening it to a trip to Tuscany), we were all quite cheerfully drunk, and the waiter tolerated us quite well even though they sat us in a back corner of the restaurant. Adit promptly ordered two more bottles of wine, which we proceeded to drink while our conversation turned ever more absurd (and I kept dipping my breadsticks in Vidya's soup). One of the best moments was when Adit toasted us with "Prego!", the traditional Italian toast, and Timmy toasted back "Classico!", thinking that we were toasting with pasta sauce names. Ha.

Anyway, I was so focused on drinking wine and talking with my friends that I somehow forgot to eat most of my entree, and so I really didn't have dinner even though I picked at it (helping to ensure that I stayed wildly drunk). Katrina showed up at some point, and since she couldn't drink she offered to drive us home (which was v. much appreciated). Once home, Adit promptly passed out, and the rest of us watched some Craig Ferguson before I decided to throw up the contents of my stomach. Vidya left after that (note, I did make it into the bathroom and aimed properly -- I wasn't super sick, just aware that there was no good reason to leave that much wine sloshing around in my belly), and I somehow managed to inflate the air mattress and find some blankets for Timmy Timer before stumbling off to bed myself.

Needless to say, this morning was quite painful in that dizzy, spinny, dehydrated sort of way that my hangovers often are. I was not sick to my stomach this morning (another trait of my hangovers), but there was a very real risk that I was going to have to cancel my brunch plans. I somehow rallied, though, and cleaned myself up so that I could drive over to Pine and Laguna and meet up with Terry, Fred and Jamie (I just realized that Terry and Jamie are both gender-neutral names -- in this case, they're both women, as I'm sure you know about Terry because she was a regular on the blog before she went off to business school). I haven't seen Fred and Jamie since Terry left for school, but they recently bought a really cute apartment in a Victorian building over near the Fillmore area, which was adorable. We walked over to Fillmore and had brunch at a place that miraculously didn't have a line; I had a Coke and huevos rancheros in an attempt to get sugar and grease into my system to jumpstart my recovery. I was only moderately successful, and still felt like crap when we parted ways (on a high note, after discussing my plans for twin children named Mason and Dixon), but at least I was on the upswing.

After leaving them, I met up with Vidya, and we went a few blocks away from her place to have a latte (for her) and an iced tea (for me) at a place called farm:table. It only has one table inside, a communal affair that can seat 6-8, but we managed to get the corner by the open window, and so we spent some quality time catching up over delicious drinks, with sunshine streaming in through the windows. Eventually, though, we had to part ways, and I came home, talked to Adit, decided to throw in the towel on any attempt to repair the ravages of last night (there are still wineglasses all over the living room and an utter mess in the kitchen), and took a nap instead.

I'll try to be brief and wrap this up -- suffice it to say that after my nap, I freshened myself up, drove down to Palo Alto, and had coffee/dinner/coffee with Terry. I was v. glad that I got to see her by herself; the other two times I saw her this weekend were fun, but it's always nice to get some quality alone-time with friends. We met up at Coupa Cafe, where I had a tiger spice chai and she had a Chardonnay, and then we walked down University to the oddly-named Pasta?, where we had pasta, of course. It's quite funny that I managed to go to Olive Garden and Pasta? in the same weekend -- but the food was good, and of course the company was nice too.

We browsed around Borders for a bit after dinner, then went back to Coupa Cafe, where I attempted to write while Terry worked on a business school assignment. We talked for another hour or so after we both threw in the towel, and then I made the very boring drive back to the evil city.

So, it's been an action-packed couple of days! Tomorrow will be substantially less action packed; other than cleaning the apartment, the only other plan I have is to hide out and do some serious writing. Wish me luck -- and now, it's time for bed.

i can't hold back, i'm on the edge

Today was entertaining, productive, ridiculous, and many other things; it was also longer than usual, as evidenced by the fact that I'm still up at 11:40pm when I usually go to bed at ten. I feel less pressure to go to bed because I don't have to get up early; my first meeting is in the San Francisco office at eleven, which is infinitely better than the Mountain View office at seven.

But the more embarrassing reason why I'm still awake is because I got so caught up in "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" that I didn't get enough work done. For whatever reason, the string of fine programs that Adit and I watched tonight included "60 Minutes", "Paul Blart: Mall Cop", and "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans". How embarrassing is that? I had actually been proud of myself for not going to see any of the "Underworld" movies in the theatres, thinking that that was a bridge too far; but now, I've broken the seal, and I'm sad and disgraced by the fact that I really want to see the others. Sigh.

In other news, I did manage to drag myself out of the office around 5:30, and I went to Cafe Borrone to write for a little over an hour. I was incredibly productive, writing 1897 words (two hundred more than the amount required to stay ahead of the game), which made me feel good about my progress even when I spilled my diet coke all over the counter and down my front when I got my free refill.

Upon further reflection, today was just a richness of embarrassments, given that I spilled all over everything and watched that stupid movie. I shall persevere, though; I wouldn't be myself if I didn't embarrass myself on a regular basis, so I shall survive. Now, though, I shall go to bed so that I can rejuvenate for a weekend of writing. Goodnight!