if the end comes soon i'll be here, i'll be here with you

It has been almost two full years since I last went into my office building, but I went back today and it was surprisingly glorious. My building had been undergoing renovations before the 'rona (which had been a thorn in my side, because I am involved in site stuff and had to deal with a lot of complaints because apparently people don't like it when ceiling tile dust falls into their food during lunch). But two full years with no one in the building meant that the facilities team could spend as much time and energy as they wanted in making the building better. And, since I'm still technically responsible for site stuff, my team ended up in a v. nice spot - facing the mountains, with outdoor balcony spaces on either side.

It was bizarre to go back, though - I weirdly almost teared up when I got there and saw some fresh macarons that the kitchen staff had made for an event I was hosting, since it's been so long since I've had any office amenities. I was hosting a welcome back event (optional) and it was great to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time - there are a lot of people I like whom I don't get to actually see in the meetings I'm usually in, so it was pretty energizing to see them.

Of course, I can revert to being spoiled and jaded easily; my lunch had too many vegetables and lentils, so that will take some adjustment. And don't assume I'm suddenly going in every day - I probably won't go in for another couple of weeks, since I'll be in San Francisco next week. But it was really nice to go in, so we'll see what happens.

I eventually drove home (rush hour reminded me that I don't like it, but it's not awful) and met up with a coworker for dinner. We were supposed to go to El Camino, but the line was 20+ minutes. So we went across the street to Mead Street Provisions, which I've never been to - but they had really nice gluten free bread, and I got a great gf sandwich and an excellent bourbon cocktail. My coworker and I have been trying to meet up for months, but between her relatively new child and my various issues, it has taken months to make this happen. So it was nice to socializing in person, even if I have definitely hit my people wall today.

And now I need to sleep so I can do a million things tomorrow - goodnight!

forget about what i said

I had a great day, even though I need approximately fifty hours of work time to catch up on the tasks I need to do, not even counting finishing the book. But I got some sleep, ate some breakfast, did some general administrative work, and then ran a few errands in the neighborhood (mostly mailing a package and buying lunch). Lunch turned out to be dangerous since I discovered that the deli where I usually get chicken and sweet potatoes also has a gluten free focaccia and other breads for gluten free sandwiches. You may not remember this about me, but I love sandwiches. So I got a sandwich with chicken, pepperjack, some sort of spicy chipotle spread, etc., and it was incredible.

Or maybe I would have thought anything was incredible in my burned-out state. So I threw in the towel and went to get a massage at the place that Kathia goes to. We were supposed to meet there and enjoy some relaxation first, but the directions from their website were confusing and I ended up trapped into getting on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge (luckily, I was able to get off at the last SF exit, but still). So instead of having twenty minutes before my appointment, I had four. But the spa is probably the best one I've ever been to, so it was worth the stress of getting there.

After relaxing, I came home, took a shower, did my makeup, tried on a whole bunch of clothes for my upcoming trip, etc. Then I met Kathia again for a birthday celebration; her husband had made other plans even though her birthday was today, so I got her all to myself. We went to Comstock with the intention of writing but instead talked for two hours over gin (me) and templeton (her). Then we went to our dinner reservation at 5a5, which was super fancy and delicious.

But now I really desperately need to sleep if I'm going to get everything done tomorrow that I need to get done before going to New Orleans - 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!

i feel my heart start beating to my favorite song

I had a mostly lazy day today, which I think is allowed given how productive I was this week, but tomorrow will return to our regularly schedule brutal programming. I lazed about in bed until after ten, then eventually stumbled into the shower, etc., etc. Priyanka texted and asked if I wanted to meet up in a cafe and work, which I did; but the cafe she was at didn't have food, and by the time Terry came back from her workout and was ready to go at 1pm, Terry and I were both starving. So we abandoned Priyanka and went to Morning Due, where I had some awesome eggs benedict and worked on some stuff for zee romance blog. Terry rightly pointed out that I have a prioritization problem - or rather, I'm not improperly prioritizing things, just that there are so many things that are now direly important that I am having trouble staying focused on one or two or five things at a time. Getting my blog going is not as important as finishing Malcolm and Amelia's book, but it's an important long-term goal that I need to have going on the back burner as I work on Malcolm and Amelia at the front. Sigh.

We left Morning Due so that I could call my parents, as per usual. They were in fine form, and didn't mention anyone dying or having catastrophic health problems last week (not that those things are usual for my family, just that someone's always dying in a small population of mostly-elderly people), so I considered it a positive conversation. After getting off the phone, I messed around with some online promo investigation (looking at other authors' blogs and twitter feeds to see what I could learn), but I was getting distracted by v. strangely familiar music coming from whatever Terry was watching downstairs. The fact that I couldn't figure out what the music was bothered me so much that I finally went downstairs -- and discovered that she was watching "How to Train Your Dragon". No wonder the music was familiar; I listen to that soundtrack while writing all the time, but since I associate the music with writing and Green Library rather than the movie now, I had trouble placing it. So I watched the last half of the movie with her, which was wonderful. I really do think it's one of the better children's movies I've seen in a long, long time, and I highly recommend it. And it has Craig Ferguson, so really, what could be better?

After the movie ended, Terry and I got takeout from Blue Barn, then ate supper (you might call it dinner) while watching last week's "Project Runway." And then I procrastinated until now, but I think I shall read for a bit and then go to bed. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone known as Malcolm and Amelia's book, with some training with Alyssa thrown in. Goodnight!

i'm sexy and i know it

There are no words to describe today. And yet, since I'm supposedly a writer by trade, I have to try to come up with some. So here's a list:

- grill
- clogger
- pinot gris
- dean and deluca
- lmfao
- patrick swayze
- eclipse (of the heart, total)
- failure to drink seventy bottles of water
- suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubz
- girl talk
- book club
- gondola for one
- what can men do against such reckless hate
- snickerdoodles
- some people call him the cat
- jess doesn't like it when people talk about her (like right now)


Really, there is so much more to it than that. I got up voluntarily before eight am., which is anathema to me, but it helped to ensure that we got off on the right foot. I took a shower, then ceded my bathroom to Vivi (not her real name) while I went to Safeway and bought bagels + three bottles of champagne + juice for mimosas. I then came home, changed out of sweats, and we started drinking around 9:45 am, which made for twelve hours of general drinking for me (I keep typing horus instead of hours, but Horus is the god of Egypt, not a measure of time, which means I'm totally fucking up). sssanyway, the bus showed up, and we were moderately late leaving because someone had an assplosion (as they like to say) at a particular apartment that shall remain nameless (meow) and so were late coming to my place. But it all worked out most wonderfully in the end. We went to Sterling first and were only fifteen minutes late, which mattered not at all, and we took the aerial tram up to the variety of tasting rooms/outdoor patios/etc. Since we lingered, we were a) sober and b) forced to skip the second planned winery altogether (luckily there wasn't a reservation at the second winery). So we got sandwiches at Dean and Deluca, then walked next door to our 'third' winery (Flora Springs), which turned out to be the best thing ever. We had their entire rooftop patio to ourselves for an hour and half, and after we finished tasting four wines, we got a couple of bottles to drink on the roof (which was key, of course).

We boarded the bus sometime slightly before five, and it took forever to get home -- a fact that didn't bother us at all, since we were too busy eating leftover bagels, chips, cookies, etc. and drinking the three bottles of wine we'd purchased for the bus. We got back to my place, Terry and her sisters promptly left to go to Stanford to catch the Stanford/UCLA game, and some of the rest of us (Chandlord, Can, Shedletsky, Bride of Shedletsky (he's not really married, that just makes me laugh), my friend Vivi (not her real name), Adit, Priyanka, and I) stuck around and had Thai food while watching "Date Night" followed by the last half of "The Two Towers" (yes, those movies were marketed as a package, since they really complement each other). We drank a couple more bottles of wine at home, which means I will be quite unhappy tomorrow - but it was worth it. This was possibly the most fun I've ever had in Napa, mostly because we chillaxed and had a lovely time while still managing to rage through a whole lot of wine.

And now, I must sleep; tomorrow is Sunday, which means some kind of brunch, some kind of hangover/regret, and some kind of phone call to my parents. Goodnight!

lie down in darkness

This is the latest I've stayed up (and, consequently, the latest I've blogged) in an age -- and I'm not even drunk, so good for me. I had a mostly lovely day; the middle portion of it was dominated by meeting up with Nathan at his newest startup and participating in a user behavior interview, which basically meant that I got to talk about myself for two hours (my favorite subject!) and I got a whole sandwich as compensation. Yay. It was actually fun, even if my description sounded sarcastic. While I love writing (some days) and publishing (...even fewer days), there is a part of me that misses the speed and excitement (and compensation) of the tech world, so it was fun to see an early startup in action.

After my interview ended, I came home, spent some quality time eating the second half of my sandwich and staring off into space, and then forced myself to work on zee gargoyle book. It was slow going trying to fight my way back into it, since it's been several days since I've written anything. I finally took the unusual approach of lying on my bed, on my stomach, with my head buried in a pillow and my arms stretched in front of me, typing blind. That prevents my internal editor from going crazy with the criticism and self-loathing ("you used that tired, cliched metaphor to describe her? ugh! you are such a poser, etc., etc."). I managed to get almost four pages out that way before the air was getting too stale in my pillow prison; when I came up for air, I started fixing typos, then I started despairing, and then Terry came home and rescued me from my despair. But upon rereading some of it later, it's actually not that bad, and at least I'm four pages further along than I was -- so yay for beating my internal editor into submission, if only for a couple of hours.

Once Terry got home, we decided to order dinner, so we picked it up from Blue Barn (a salad and sandwich place that is oh-so-very Marina), brought it back, and watched last night's "Project Runway" (verdict: Oliver is pretty much the worst, since he bitched about having to dress a real woman who has breasts, particularly because she actually tried to give input on the dress he was designing for her and he didn't want her to talk). The whole episode was pretty entertaining, though, even if I feel pretty lukewarm about the designs by most of the contestants and don't think the style level matches some of the previous seasons. After watching "Project Runway", we watched an episode of "Bones", since Terry still wants me to get caught up before the new season starts (probably a losing proposition, since I'm just now at the end of season two and we have four or five more to go before November -- and I'm not really a tv person). After that, it was ten p.m. and I intended to check my email, reread my gargoyle stuff a bit, and go to bed.

But I wasn't quite tired yet, and I needed to read THE HELP before Sunday morning -- we're having book club, and Terry picked that as this session's book because she'd accidentally bought it on her Kindle. So I downloaded the book and thought I'd read a couple of chapters before going to bed. And of course, as always happens with me, I read the whole damn thing. I was surprised at how much I liked it, although now I wonder how they made it into a movie since it's not the loudest story out there. It was certainly v. interesting to me from a storytelling/craft standpoint too, although those aren't topics that I usually discuss at bookclub. And it made me wonder, just a little, if I should be writing the book of my heart about southern Iowa, although I'm not sure about the angle that I would take into that story or whether I could go home after I told it. But maybe that's me not being brave enough...or recognizing that I don't have the talent for it...or just acknowledging that it's more fun to write romance and YA and leaving it at that.

sssanyway, enough brooding over my future writing career for tonight (or rather, this morning)...and enough parentheses, too. Goodnight!

kill you with my lyricals

I really have nothing to say tonight, and I'm tripping a little bit because Blogger redesigned the back end and so the comforting, familiar interface I've used for the last ~2200 posts is gone. I shall persevere, though, and say that I went to Des Moines this afternoon to do some shopping. I didn't leave as early as I had planned due to a) sloth and b) chatting with the family before leaving, and so I got up there around 1:30pm (too late to call my uncle and have lunch, alas). I stuck to my shopping list and my budget, which is a rare and miraculous thing, and got some cute tings to get me through the expected San Francisco summer (which starts in September and ends in October, unlike all the normal places in the Northern Hemisphere). I also spent an hour or so writing at a Starbuck - not enough time to meet my word goal, but two pages is better than nothing.

I was on the verge of leaving town since I was done with my errands, but I ended up getting in touch with Aunt Becky and having dinner with her and the scandalous ex-boyfriend (which sounds so much more scandalous than scandalous husband, which is what he is to her now). We went to Django, which is part of a growing empire of excellent restaurants in downtown Des Moines owned by a chef who started out with a bakery and expanded from there. His bakery roots showed in the quality of the bread basket and also in the excellent bread used on my chicken panini. And his general culinary skills showed in the fact that Brian (the scandalous whatever) said that it was the best burger he'd ever had, while my panini was quite good as well. We also started with a couple of goat cheeses with fig preserves, etc., which rivaled anything one might have in San Francisco. I mean, it's no Olive Garden, but it will do.

After dinner, I made the long drive home, stopping off at a grocery store to buy fresh mozzarella so that I can make my favorite caprese salad for my mom tomorrow. When I got home, my mother and I talked for an hour or so before I finally came downstairs so that she could sleep. And now I should crawl into bed as well; tomorrow's probably my last chance to get any writing done before going back to California, and my self-imposed October 1 deadline for a rough draft of the non-gargoyle book is fast approaching. Goodnight!

i'll drink to that

Actually, I won't drink to that; after last weekend's going-out-with-a-bang social activities, I'm attempting to adhere to the no-alcohol rule for the next few weeks. As a result, today was pretty lowkey. I slept somewhat fitfully until ten a.m. -- I had been sleeping wonderfully, until someone started scraping paint off the house behind my apartment promptly at eight a.m. when such noises are permitted in the city. Boo. Of course, he stopped just after I finally got out of bed, although he went back to it for most of the rest of the afternoon; I really hope that he decides to sleep in tomorrow, or else I will be quite annoyed.

The midday continued to be mildly frustrating; Terry had plans to go to lunch with some of her b-school friends, who were 90 minutes late to meet her (who does that?), which unwittingly inconvenienced me as well because I was holding off on showering until after they left because Terry was using their brute labor to bring her desk up two flights of stairs from our storage unit, and I didn't want to shower until I was done helping with that task and unpacking/repacking the storage room. However, I can't really complain (even though I just spent two run-on sentences complaining) -- they got the desk up here with minimal drama, which means the storage room has more usable space that I can promptly fill with the last couple of boxes from my room + Terry's bike. But by the time they left and I showered, made some vague effort to dry my hair, and left the house, I was an hour later than intended to Katrina and Geetika's joint birthday party in Dolores Park.

Dolores Park was the general ridiculousness that it always is, with people openly drinking and smoking pot, some illicit DJ putting on a random dance party, a dude wandering around selling pot-filled caramels, some guy spending an hour shaving intricate patterns into another guy's head (with a sarong as a hair cape), a bunch of frisbee players, Vidya being herself, and some people wearing animal masks. It was a cloudy day in the city, but it was still a nice way to spend a couple of hours, even if I did spend the early portion of my afternoon hating on one of the party guests whom I didn't know -- she was playing croquet badly and too aggressively for her skill level, and hit my foot hard with the ball twice and almost missed me twice more even though I kept trying to move away from her. I bitched about her unwittingly to her boyfriend, but I was annoyed enough that when he said she was his girlfriend, rather than apologizing profusely like I normally would (and like I did to the strangers who were assaulted by a rogue champagne cork from Katrina's first champagne-opening experience), I just told him "good luck with that". Ha.

Anyway, after the croquet set was put away and I felt like I was in a safe zone again (albeit a safe zone surrounded by strange people in animal masks), I had a good time. I hung out with Jess, Chandlord, Katrina, Adit, Raja, and a variety of other guests, including a girl who was John's aunt's friend's daughter and is visiting the city to decide whether she wants to move here. We ended up splitting from the group and discussing writing for awhile, since she's a freelance writer/writing teacher with an MFA and I'm a novelist (if one can call oneself a novelist if one hasn't sold a novel, bleh). sssanyway, the afternoon was lovely, but since I wasn't drinking because of the ulcer friend, I made my farewells, grabbed a sandwich to go from Morning Due Cafe (one of our old haunts from the days Adit and I lived together, which were less 'days of wine and roses' and more 'days of sandwiches and insults' - and wine, I suppose), and came back to the ultraevil Marina. Once here, I ate half my sandwich, and then Terry and I watched half of last week's Project Runway. She had to go out before the show was over, but I finished it like the trooper that I am, and now I'm contemplating going to bed early so that I can get some stuff done tomorrow. We all know how that story will turn out, so I won't leave you in suspense -- I probably won't get anything done, and will beat myself up about it afterward, which is why I have an ulcer. Charming, eh? Goodnight!

beating like a drum and it's coming your way

No writing today, and I just stayed up way too late messing around with my website -- shame on me. But, the day wasn't a total wash. I made it down to the south bay in time to train with Alyssa, so that was lovely. Then, I visited my doctor about my stomach issues; she wasn't able to diagnose me completely, and so I'm going to get some bloodwork done tomorrow, but she went ahead and gave me more acid blockers since I'd responded well to that before. The sad news is that I'm supposed to stop all alcohol, caffeine, mint, chocolate, etc. for the next few weeks, which is going to make me v. grumpy indeed. But, if this is fixed just by taking an acid blocker for a few weeks while my stomach heals, I'll do it without complaining (too much).

After the doctor, I grabbed a quick lunch and drove down even further into the glorious south bay - past the point of glory, actually, since I was down somewhere around Los Gatos. My dentist is down there, and even though he's now over fifty miles from my new house, I'm staying loyal. So, I got my teeth cleaned, and a clean bill of health with no cavities for something like the fifteenth year in a row. Then, I made my way back up to the evil city, where I procrastinated a bit until Terry got home. Neither of us felt like cooking, so we went over to Unwind, which is a bar/food place a block away from us (we're so adventurous). We caught up over sandwiches, then came home and ended up watching Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", which was kind of hilarious. Then she went to bed and I worked on my consulting website until suddenly realizing that I needed to sleep if I had any hope of making it down to the glorious south bay in time to get to the lab tomorrow.

So that's life for today - I will endeavor to be more interesting tomorrow. Goodnight!

zee germans

I slacked off today; it felt good to slack off in my own house, even if my bedroom isn't unpacked to the point that it totally feels like home. I woke up sometime around eleven and discovered that I was on the verge of getting a sunburn; I'd left the blinds open last night so that the open windows could promote a nice crossbreeze, and when the sun tried to wake me up this morning, I opted to put my eyemask on rather than close the blinds. In my sleeping haze, I forgot that the rest of my skin would still be exposed, and the mask plunged me back into enough darkness that I slept for another three hours as the rising sun traversed my body. Oops. Luckily, I didn't actually burn, and this is an interesting (albeit unsafe) way to get a deeper tan this summer, I suppose.

After I dragged myself into the shower, I realized that I was starving, and I had no food in the house. So, I walked down to La Boulange and had a sandwich while working on my young adult series; I spent the lunch hour plus another hour afterward analyzing the book that I read yesterday, continuing to brainstorm ideas, and dipping just a toe back into Ellie and Nick's story (which I intend to squeeze in a few pages of tomorrow). Sometime around two p.m., Terry arrived; she was in LA for the week and just returned today, so we were reunited after almost two weeks apart. We spent some quality time this afternoon catching up before I retreated to my room to take care of various tings, and then we went to the grocery store to stock up on food. She went to yoga while I did some desultory unpacking (which mostly involved shifting things around), and when she came home, she made me dinner (isn't that lovely?) before watching two episodes of "Covert Affairs".

And now, sadly, I realized that I need to go to bed immediately - I have to drive down to the glorious south bay to train with Alyssa and then take care of all sorts of annoying errands, so I should get some sleep. Goodnight!

you pretended you were horrified

I think I will make it onto the plane tomorrow with my suitcase and my sanity intact. Actually, I suppose it's technically tonight - the plane for New York takes off in twenty-three hours whether I'm on it or not. I will be on it, though; I'm too excited about the prospect of focusing less on moving and more on writing to miss it.

Today was reasonably productive. Granted, I stayed in bed until eleven, but I needed one morning of laziness after the last few days. After I got up, showered, etc., I dropped off a pair of jeans for an emergency hem job before my trip, then wandered down the street and had a late lunch at La Boulange, where I ate slowly while writing a few pages of notes about the gargoyle series. Really, it is wonderful to walk out the door and have all sorts of food options around me; I didn't stock up on groceries because I'm about to leave town for twelve days, but food is readily available all around me.

What's also readily available is a Sephora, which is less than four blocks away -- and if you know anything about me, you know that that's dangerous. I haven't bought anything from Sephora (other than one tube of tinted moisturizer) since early December, which is like a record for me, but that meant that I was running low on several things and so had to stock up. But, I think that overall my addiction is under control, even if I know that I'm always just a hair's breadth away from a relapse.

I dragged my post-Sephora-euphoric self back to my apartment, where I proceeded to take care of the remaining stuff in the living room. This included hooking up the DVD player and the Wii, unpacking my Rock Band set, hauling boxes downstairs, hauling things from my car upstairs, etc. The living room, dining room, and kitchen are now mostly done, and I'm going to get my last few things put away tomorrow so that Terry doesn't have to sidestep them for the next couple of weeks. Then, I alternated between watching episodes of "Bones" with Terry and her sister Mary Kate (who is staying here tonight, and was apparently here last night, although I got home after they'd both gone to bed) and packing for the trip. I figured out all the outfits that I need for both the conference (including daytime professional clothes and evening cocktail party clothes) and my general sightseeing/writing time before/after the conference. At one point, I had 23 pairs of shoes spread out on the floor that were all in the running for the conference. Right now, I'm down to 8 (10 if I take my tennis shoes and my flipflops), but I'm not going to winnow down further until I pack the suitcase and see how much room I have left.

I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but I took some quality time to tinsel my hair. It's been eight months since I last tinseled my hair -- which happened to be when I left my job, and I can't believe it's been eight months since then. So, I have some nice, 'subtle' strands of purple in my hair, with spare tinsel ready to go into my suitcase in case I start losing it before the conference. And now that I'm checked into tomorrow's flight and have a list of all the things that need to get done before I leave, I really should get some sleep. Goodnight!

running round leaving scars

I just realized that I need to go to bed immediately. The monthly San Francisco area romance writers meeting is tomorrow morning in Berkeley, which means I have to get up at seven a.m., which is akin to torture in my world. I also need to load up my car with some stuff that I'm going to drop off at the new apartment after the meeting (soap, towels, toilet paper, scissors, and other helpful items that it makes sense to have readily available as soon as we move in), so I can't dawdle in the morning like I normally do.

Today was decent, though; I didn't pack like I should have, but I took care of some errands and saw some friends, so it was all good. I made it to the gym in time to train with Alyssa, and we did our usual Friday workout, which consists of a lot of cardio and stretching while watching "House". I pulled something in my right bicep a couple of days ago whilst breaking down the boxes in the garage, and so we attempted to work that out with limited success. Then, I showered, dried my hair, and went to my old office to have lunch with Gyre, one of my oldest work friends. His wife is going to have their third son any day now, so I probably won't have lunch with him again for awhile, but I said I would venture to the wilds of the dirty east bay to see them once the baby arrives and they're settled in. So, we spent today catching up on life and gossip, and I got my fill of tasty free food, which was all quite lovely.

After lunch, I ran to Target and got a couple of things for the apartment, then came home and took a nap before cleaning up my kitchen. Then, I went back to the gym to meet with Bart, the dude who is encouraging me to eat more protein/fat and fewer carbs; the meeting went well, although he's a big fan of supplements and I have my doubts. Post-Bart, I dropped off my dry cleaning (an absurd amount, since winter basically continued until three days ago), came home, thought about writing, and instead procrastinated until it was time to pick up John and Jess at John's sister's house.

I somehow got suckered into taking them to the airport tonight (and by suckered I mean John vaguely asked and I less-vaguely agreed), and in exchange, they bought me supper beforehand. We went to Cafe Borrone, and all three of us had gouda sandwiches (best sandwich ever) while discussing live over/under the noise of a folksy band playing in the corner. One woman was playing a washboard strapped to her chest, which is the definition of folksy, right? Eventually, it was time to part ways, so I took them to the airport, came home, and caught up on a variety of stuff until now.

And now, I really must sleep; seven a.m. is going to come all too soon, even with my delightful teamaker to look forward to. I think I'll set the timer on it to brew the tea right as I'm waking up, which should provide at least nominal incentive to get out of bed. Goodnight!

the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had

First and foremost, happy birthday to Uncle Mark! I suppose it's no longer his birthday in Iowa, but I still have an hour and a half to say it in California, and I'm considering that good.

As for the rest of the day, I have nothing to report. I'll still keep going with this drivel, but you've been warned. I woke up and dragged myself to the gym, where Alyssa laughed at my pain -- but she did switch my workouts so that I did more cardio and stretching today, saving squats and lunges for tomorrow. I'm still walking rather ridiculously, so I don't think tomorrow will go well, but at least I survived today's workout. After the workout, I showered, came home, ate a leisurely lunch, messed around the house, and then went back to the gym to get a massage (my life is so hard). The massage was great, but it barely scratched the surface of all the tension that built up over my three-week roadtrip, and I'm basically sore all over, which made productivity over the course of the rest of the day quite challenging.

But, I did make a valiant effort; after the massage, I came home, grabbed my notebook, and went to Cafe Borrone, where I wrote for a couple of hours while eating my favorite sandwich and enjoying the people-watching afforded by the ridiculous suburban parents who frequent the establishment. I think I'm getting closer to understanding Nick's character, which is what's currently blocking me, so hopefully I can start writing scenes this weekend.

I eventually threw in the towel and came home, sent an email to someone that involved a lot of looking up of facts and figures on some of the writers I follow on facebook and twitter, and decided to watch some television. I picked the season finale of "NCIS: Los Angeles", which I tivo'd earlier in the week and hadn't watched -- and omg, it was amazing. I'm definitely hooked on this show, and now I need to go back and watch all the episodes I've missed (basically, any episode not shown during my forays in Iowa and my parents' CBS-only household). It was a great break from my writing, although now my mind is spinning with the desire to write thrillers (which, sadly, I don't think my authorial voice is cut out for).

And now, even though it's only 10:30, I'm going to go to bed -- I may not fall asleep immediately, but my back is too sore to slouch on the couch any longer. Yes, poor me. Goodnight!

in your eyes (the light, the heat)

Today was an utterly lazy day, which was exactly what I needed from my minibreak between finishing Madeleine/Ferguson's book and the two weeks I've given myself to plot the next one and send a synopsis to my agent. Terry surprised me by sleeping until nine a.m. -- business school (and the resultant late-night drinking excursions) has changed her. I won't say it's changed her for the better, but sleeping until nine was most certainly more welcome than waking up at six.

Anyway, after Terry got up, she made us coffee and oatmeal, and we sat around for awhile talking and watching basketball. We rallied and went to the gym, where I did stairclimber (during which I had a conversation with the woman next to me about my shoes (which are quite hot, even if they do have v. bright orange/tangerine colored soles) and treadmill (unfortunately next to a guy who randomly shouted jubilantly during his workout -- I'm pretty sure it was all self-directed/caused, since I couldn't determine any correlation between his excitement and either the basketball or 'Live Free or Die Hard' playing on the televisions). After Terry and I showered, we adjourned to a restaurant and I had a v. delicious sandwich (with carved roasted turkey, rather than deli-sliced coldcuts - yum) while we watched part of the UCLA men's basketball game.

We then proceeded to Pasadena/La Canada, where we spent the afternoon and evening with Terry's family. All of her siblings except for Tom are home this weekend, and so we spent the afternoon watching basketball (and taking advantage of the fact that every single game was on simultaneously on different channels - although flipping back and forth between all of them means I don't remember any of them, except for the awesome end to the Pitt/Butler game and the v. sad end to the Kansas St/Wisconsin game). Terry's dad grilled chicken and steak, and kept making us margaritas, so I basically sat around and ate and drank all afternoon. It was basically a reprise of Thanksgiving, only without Tom and with substantially more basketball. We eventually left around nine, came back to her place, promptly changed into pajamas, and watched some 'Raising Hope' and 'Modern Family.'

It's a bit funny that I drove all the way to LA to watch television and eat/drink, but it's been a really nice break -- I know that if I were home right now, I would be stressing myself unnecessarily. Tomorrow, the relaxation continues. I'm guessing we'll watching some more basketball, and then we're having lunch with Terry's family, hanging out with her sister Kasey before taking Kasey to the airport, and then having dinner with our friend Lisa. All in all, this has been a v. relaxing trip so far -- hopefully tomorrow is just as nice. And now, goodnight!

the taxman cometh

It's only 10:30, which means it is only 9:30 according to the old daylight unsaved time, but I think I'm going to go to bed. I had a v. long, productive day, starting with an eight a.m. alarm so that I could get up and out of the house in time to get new tires. Getting the tires was quite unremarkable; they installed them in less than half an hour, during which time I successfully edited a chapter of my book. I went straight from the tire place to the gym, where I did a desultory workout and ate a salad. Then, I went to Starbucks, where I edited for several hours amongst the various Stanford kids who are in the midst of finals week.

When I got home, though, I had to finish gathering my tax documentation since I'm meeting with my CPA tomorrow. This took hours and hours, with a long break to talk to someone from my former company who wanted some advice. The problem is that I was v. disorganized with my receipts this year, and so I had to locate all of them, print out stuff that had been saved as online confirmations, and enter them into the tracking spreadsheet. Theoretically I keep a running spreadsheet all year, but I hadn't entered a single thing into that spreadsheet until today -- oops. Fifty-some receipts later, I have the full list of deductions, and I also have all the W-2s, 1099s, 1098s, etc. that I need to submit.

So while I'm pleased that I'm done, it wasn't good for zee writing; I didn't finish until 7:30, and by the time I went out and grabbed a sandwich (my grocery situation is beyond dire), I couldn't bear to look at the manuscript tonight. Instead, I did some desultory wikipedia research, and now I'm going to sleep so that I can get up and edit tomorrow (preferably before my training session with Alyssa -- but since all I have for tomorrow are her and the CPA immediately afterward, I have all the rest of the day to work). Goodnight!

and as the two of us rebel and damn you all to hell

I'm quite cranky tonight; perhaps I should just recognize that Saturdays are typically exercises in frustration when it comes to my writing and plan accordingly. It seems that I get all cranky and self-loathing every Saturday, probably because I always think that I'm going to get so much done, and then when it doesn't happen I quickly spiral into a local minima.

Or perhaps I was doomed to begin with, because I woke up with a wine headache, and that is never a good start to the day. I managed to drag myself out of bed and into a restorative shower before going to downtown Campbell for lunch with Heather, Salim, Chris and Natasha at Sonoma Chicken Coop. I'd never been to downtown Campbell before; it was cute in pretty much the same way that the downtowns of most of the cities in the glorious south bay are. But my lunch was v. tasty (a chicken, avocado, and cheddar sandwich, which was much better than it sounds, if that's possible -- the chicken was fried, after all), and it was great to see everyone -- my three week sojourn in Iowa meant that I was separated from all my friends for a month or more, so it's been good to catch up. However, lunch last way longer than I expected; I got there at noon, and didn't leave until three. By the time I got home, it was after 3:30, and so I decided to take a quick, rejuvenating nap...

...and promptly, unexpectedly slept for two hours, since I failed to set an alarm. That pretty much scotched the rest of the day, since then I was cranky, headachy, and v. displeased about having slept so long, since I knew it would ruin my attempts to sleep tonight. I did managed to wrestle out about four pages of Madeleine and Ferguson's story after that (you will be happy to know that he proposed and she said yes!), eat a bowl of cereal for dinner since I was still full from lunch, and then manage to keep from wasting time on the internet by reading 3/4s of a Georgette Heyer book that I hadn't read before -- THE NONESUCH, which is one of her older hero/older heroine books (where "older" is 35 and 26, respectively -- I feel ancient). The hero and heroine are named Waldo and Ancilla, which I find ridiculous, but other than that, the book is pretty good.

Now, though, I should go to bed in an attempt to stop being cranky so that I can get up tomorrow, go to the gym, talk to my parents, and write the rest of the day. Goodnight!

how's it gonna be when you don't know me

I'm dreaming of foreign lands. All those old urges to pack up everything and move, to chop off my hair (and even dye it, which I've never done, some sort of flame-red Christina Hendricks color) and run for the hills, to endure months of that strange dislocation from reality that comes from extended, unrooted travel -- it's all coming back. I thought I had cured myself with my overly hectic travel schedule this spring, but it's easy to write off those experiences because I was deathly ill, and Paris just was not as fun when I couldn't walk for more than half an hour without taking a break to regain my breath. I also thought I had cured myself by moving into a wonderful, perfect-for-me Abe Lincoln cabin in Palo Alto -- and by quitting my job, which at the time felt like an ultimate act of lighting a match to my safe life and setting off into the unknown.

But I'm too much like Pa Ingalls, always ready to move off to the next place on the prairie (where prairie = Europe). The urge struck me hard during my blogging class tonight -- partially because I wanted to stab myself in the face out of boredom because I am way more familiar with WordPress and Blogger than my classmates, and since tonight's class dealt with such fascinating technical topics as "how to upload a photo" and "how to insert a YouTube video", I spent most of the time daydreaming rather than paying attention. I found an awesome WordPress blog theme for travel blogs, and spent the rest of the class thinking of all the places I could go, how long I could spend there, and which of my friends (that means you, dear readers) I could convince to meet up with me at various points along the way.

I don't know if this will come to anything; I need to finish this damn book first. But if it does, you will be the first to know -- and you'll benefit from months' worth of travel blog posts, rather than the inanities of my Palo Alto life, so you should be hoping that this happens!

Anyway, the rest of my day was productive, but not as productive as it needed to be; I got up at a respectable hour, did about thirty minutes of work for the freelance project, and worked on my book for the rest of the morning (plotting, not writing). I made a 4x6 notecard for every scene that I think happens between now and the end of the book, based off the brainstorming I did yesterday, and then stewed over the ideas while working out at the gym. When I got home, I gathered up my stuff and then went to the Stanford CoHo, which is basically unrecognizable due to all the renovations they've made, where I had a surprisingly good chicken sandwich and spent another hour and a half arranging my notecards so that they are in the right order and I know how the scenes are structured.

At the CoHo, though, they were playing hits from the early/mid-nineties, such as Nirvana and Third Eye Blind. While listening to Nirvana, I realized that for the freshmen at the CoHo, they were only one or two when Kurt Cobain died, and so it's sort of the equivalent of if I had gone to the CoHo as a freshman and heard them playing Pat Benatar, Bob Seger, Hall and Oates, etc. Granted, I love the '80s, but I was a little sad to realize that the music of my high school days is already becoming oldies.

After that depressing realization, I went to class, came home an absurdly long time after that, messed around on the internet and tortured myself by reading travel blogs, and now need to go to bed. Either tell me to stop thinking about traveling, or tell me you're coming with me!

you're just my toy and i can't stop playing with you baby

This is post 1901. It's hard to believe that I've come up with enough drivel to write 1901 posts, particularly given how absurdly long my posts are -- and yet I have no intention of stopping, so you're stuck with me.

For a funemployed person, I was ridiculously busy today. I didn't get out of bed until around 9:30 because my house was so damn cold and my bed was so toasty; my new strategy for tomorrow is that I'm going to take my laptop to bed with me so that I can write in the morning without having to emerge fully from my cocoon. We'll see if it works -- yesterday's plan to go to bed by midnight every night has already gone out the window, so perhaps I'm constitutionally incapable of setting a routine.

Anyway, after I got up, I immediately did some work for that freelance project, which carried me through until around 11:30. I decided to go to the gym then rather than waiting, which I duly accomplished; I spent as much of it stretching as I did working out, since my poor midget-proportioned muscles are not up to the task of trying to use machines that are sized for normal people. Then I came home, made a perfectly lovely sandwich for lunch, and did my homework for my blogging class, which took five hours. I had to peruse five blogs the instructor sent over (including two whose bloggers came to class tonight for a panel) and write a blog post for class, which took longer than I thought it would because I couldn't write the garbage that I serve you every day. I didn't even finish all the reading, but I eventually just had to go (after reheating some frozen chili and making grilled cheese, yum).

This class is really, really good; tonight she brought in two bloggers to talk about how they got into blogging, got a following, etc. The first is a professional life coach (Tammy - I can send you the details if you want to fire me and get a real person) who writes a blog as an effort to build a platform so that she can publish self-help type books. She was well-prepared, had a slideshow, and seemed quite thoughtful. The second is a 25-year-old guy who gave up his job to live a minimalist life and blogs about living without things or money. As expected, he wasn't nearly as polished as the life coach, and he seemed way into himself and pretty much dominated the conversation; but then again, he has 70,000 hits a month and she has <7000, so maybe he was entitled to dominate.

It's quite funny and hideously ironic that I spent most of the class thinking that the kid was completely clueless and a classic example of a fucking hipster millennial (he was wearing the classic fucking hipster uniform of scoopnecked tank top showing too much chest hair, absurdly tight jeans that were so tight that I couldn't actually tell whether they were jeans or women's leggings, and a hoodie -- three of the 57 items he claims are all that he owns). And yet, I've basically done the same thing, quitting my job to try to 'live in the moment', although I didn't give up any of my stuff. And clearly it's sad that I've become so jaded at the ripe old age of 29, and perhaps someone who is 33 looks at me and my naivete in the same cynical way I looked at this kid -- but I thought it was all just a bit too idealistic, particularly since I checked his "57 things" list while he was speaking and verified that his reusable water bottle with attached carabiner was not included in that list. Yes, I'm that troll who likes to tear down happy hipsters.

Anyway, enough about hipsters; I left the city to get away from them, but they're proliferating like Dutch elm disease and soon we're going to have to cull everyone under the age of 25. Sad. When I got home, I was pleased to see that my house was still hipster-free, and I settled in at my desk to do some work -- I did another hour of stuff for the freelance project, and then spent some quality time typing up everything I wrote yesterday. I had a brief, mad desire to stay up all night and write, but since I have to be at the gym before noon tomorrow for a training session with Alyssa, I think I'll sleep instead. Goodnight!

i'm wide awake and i can see the perfect sky is torn

After a week and a half of sleeping as late as I wanted, I almost slept through my dentist appointment this morning; when the alarm went off at 7:20 (so early, I know), I automatically turned it off, and just happened to remember in the split second before I went back to sleep that I needed to wake up. Sigh. But, I made it to the dentist, where I got a proper cleaning and had no cavities for about the fifteenth year in a row (yay - if it had turned out that I needed major dental work, my unemployed checking account would have been v. unhappy).

Because my dentist is in San Jose, I decided to combine the dental appointment with my once-every-two-months spa experience, since the spa I go to in SF has a sister spa on Santana Row. However, when I got to Santana Row at 10:30, I realized I had made a horrible mistake; they were doing some sort of trick-or-treat activity for the yoga moms and their obnoxious little children, and so the first two levels of the parking garage were full of women trying to wrestle strollers out of their huge SUVs, and the sidewalks were jammed with children (of both the pleasant and screaming varieties) and dogs (of both the small/yappy and large/prone to scare children varieties). It was a complete scene, and unfortunately not the kind of scene I usually seek out. So I ducked into the Container Store and then Crate and Barrel, since they were off to the side of the madness; I escaped both places after buying a small whiteboard for my desk, so I got off pretty easy given how much I love both places. Then, I grabbed lunch at Pizza Antica, where the pizza was delicious and I had even more time to consider how these little toddler tyrants seem to control the lives of their yoga mothers.

I spent an hour or so at the cafe in Borders, where I made a v. detailed list of what I need to get done in the next twelve weeks to finish my book, enter it into the Golden Heart, and get it polished up so that my agent can start shopping it. The goal setting was good and v. helpful, if a bit daunting, since it means that after I clean some stuff up this week, I'm going to have to write 15,000 words each week for the next three weeks to get back on track. No hill for a climber, but I'm going to have to put some effort into the climb (and get out of bed before noon) if I'm going to make it happen.

Then, I adjourned to the spa; the verdict is that I'm going to go there from now on instead of San Francisco, because the treatments are slightly cheaper, parking is free instead of like $7/hr, it's more relaxing to come out of a massage on Santana Row than in a pool of someone's urine on Market Street, and the setting was smaller and therefore more intimate. I got an okay massage and one of the best facials I've ever had (including some sort of cactus peel that left my skin red but v. v. soft), so that was all good.

I was just getting home when John called and asked if I wanted to have a quick dinner, so I suggested Borrone (of course). That turned out to be a bad call, because Jimmy Carter was signing books at the bookstore next door, and so parking was v. difficult. But Borrone itself wasn't any more crowded than it usually is, and they were serving the gouda sandwich tonight, so that was great. I did get waylaid by some strange woman who seemed very nice (if slightly batty; she was old) -- she was sitting at the table behind me, and we struck up a conversation when she asked me to watch her stuff so that she could get a coffee. She ended up talking to me while John waited in line to order, and I began to get the first small inklings of problems when she claimed that Google and Microsoft had designed her website and that it was projected to be bigger than Amazon someday. Then she wouldn't stop talking even after John came back, and it quickly devolved from entertaining to annoying to slightly scary and then back to annoying before I eventually stopped paying attention to her. As John said, this stuff makes for a good story -- but the problem is that you have to actually talk to the person to get the story, and in this case I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

sssanyway, after I turned my back on the "Amazon killer", John and I had a v. nice, quick supper, and I got caught up on the ten days that I have missed at my former company. It was also nice to vent to someone about the yoga mom phenomenon to someone who understands; I don't think his sister is a yoga mom (I haven't seen her in ages, and besides, she has a job), but he had just come from his nephew's fifth birthday party, so we had many anecdotes to exchange about how children are the devil. After he left, I worked on the book for a bit -- I'm slowly getting back into the story, and I think I've finally pieced together a scene that has been blocking me. I'm going to have to actually write it tomorrow, but I'm too tired tonight -- and I need to work on the assignment for my magazine class tomorrow as well, so we'll see how much writing I get done.

Now, though, i'm not going to keep myself up any longer as punishment for my unproductive day -- I'm going to go to bed and hit it hard tomorrow. Goodnight!

oh say that you'll be true and never leave me blue suzie q

For some reason, my favorite editing music of choice lately has been the "blues rock" station on Pandora. I never really listened to much blues rock, probably because it's been occasionally critically acclaimed and I tend to prefer things that have never been praised by anyone with decent taste. But, it's interesting enough to keep me awake, funky enough that I think it gets me into a different mood than the music I usually write to, and not so well-known to me that I think I'll stab myself in the ear if I have to listen to any of it again.

As a result of my Pandora love, I upgraded to Pandora premium. The totally awesome thing is that Pandora and Tivo made an agreement to stream Pandora via Tivo, so I can listen to Pandora through the better speakers of my TV and without burning through my laptop battery while working on my couch. It's the little things that make me happy these days.

I failed to get out of bed early as I had intended; instead, I slept until eleven. I'm going to have to start getting up earlier, but this week may be a wash. So I showered, dressed myself before I wrecked myself, took care of some email, and went over to Borrone for a late lunch. There, I spent a couple of hours doing the reading and homework for my magazine class, which meant that I didn't have time to write today. When I left Borrone, I bought some groceries (since this whole being responsible for breakfast and lunch is really hard when I have no food in the house), cleaned up my living room, took care of some stuff online, chatted with a few friends, and ate a v. quick sandwich before dashing over to Stanford campus for class. Class was good, and I need to spend some quality time on it over the next few days, since my big assignment (a feature story) is due next week. Sigh.

When I got home from class, I procrastinated online for awhile (you know you're procrastinating when you sit through an entire three minute video advertisement for a machine that automagically debones whole chickens, turkeys, etc. and extrudes the remaining meat product) and then read the first quarter of the current version of my novel. It's really the first half of what I've got, but when the novel is finished, this will be approximately the first quarter. Verdict: a lot of great stuff so far, but I'm struggling with including enough information to ground the reader without bogging down the plot, and I think I have too many secondary characters, and a couple of the really important secondary characters haven't even made an appearance yet. So, I'm feeling good, but I also have a ton of work to do.

On top of the work I have to do for the book, plus the magazine class and the blogging class that is starting in two weeks, I also volunteered to help plan the awards ceremony for next year's romance conference, and the president of the romance organization contacted me today asking if she could put me up as the candidate for assistant chair of the ceremony committee at the board meeting in November. I'm excited about this, since I like planning events and so am happy to give back in this way, but at the same time perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned my qualifications (which she said were 'impressive') and pretended that my only skill was cat-rearing so that I didn't end up with an assistant chair position. Oh, well -- we all know taking a back seat when I have the skills for a front seat doesn't make me happy, so I'm going to let my excitement about this win out over my laziness.

Okay, it's bedtime -- in addition to reading the rest of my manuscript tomorrow, I need to do some serious stuff around the house to start getting ready for the kids who are coming over on Saturday. Goodnight!