time to raise hell or walk on by

I had a v. nice day, all in all - it certainly could have been terrible, because it was grey and gloomy all day, and my house was slightly too cold and I felt like I should be hunkering down for the cold front that is moving in. But I was determined to not let that overly affect me. Granted, I had to take a nap at three, which I haven't had to do for awhile...and I'm going to doom myself to that again tomorrow if I don't go to bed immediately.

But I woke up in time to meditate and journal a bit, and also read and make coffee, and also wash my hair, so that was all a lot of accomplishment. My coffee is from my beloved Philz in San Francisco, and I had ordered a bag of a darker blend that I used to love - I wasn't loving it so much this week, but then I remembered that I used to get it 'sweet and creamy'. So I added sugar and some heavy cream that I happened to have in the fridge, and suddenly I was transported back to Palo Alto, circa 2009, when I would stop at the Philz there to write at 6pm with an ill-advised nighttime coffee to wait out traffic before heading back to the city of sin. Ah, memories.

However, the sugar probably started a sugar spike/crash cycle that continued all day, since I was craving M&Ms after my nap (I really don't crave sweets). But I had leftover chicken and potatoes at lunch, and for dinner I roasted some excellent green beans to go with the last of my (unfrozen) leftover ham balls and potatoes gratin from last week. Thus properly restored, I did a bunch of stuff this evening, including making a batch of sweet potato hash for breakfast the rest of the week, which will hopefully keep me from sugar crashing the rest of the week. I also finished a writing book that Veronica had recommended (courtesy of Anne) that I thought was excellent, so I'm looking forward to playing with some of those techniques tomorrow.

But if I'm going to do that, I need to go to bed right now - goodnight!

hands, knees, please, tangerine, sugar, honey, sweet

It's amazing how much time I have at night if I don't cook something elaborate. Today was pretty good, overall - I got more sleep than I had been getting, and I did some tidying up around the house while drinking my first cup of coffee, which was good. I slogged most of the day, but a bunch of meetings got canceled, so it wasn't too onerous. I had time to make some poached eggs for lunch to go with some leftover potatoes/chard. And I stopped at five, looked at the weather, and realized that it might freeze tonight - so I drained the water from the main sprinkler pipe and put insulation around the backflow preventer. I was thinking I could make it another week before blowing out my sprinklers, but that may become an activity for Sunday....we shall see.

Then I ate some leftover shepherd's pie, which was much better today than it was last night. I also took a walk and listened to a podcast - it was v. chilly and getting dark and winter is definitely coming, which feels grim in a world of rapidly spiking covid cases and working from home. But tonight wasn't grim - I got a whole bunch of personal shit done, did a tiny bit of day job stuff, ate a funfetti cupcake with rainbow chip frosting (seriously, keep unfrosted cupcakes in the freezer and a can of frosting in the fridge, it's the best), and generally felt uber productive. I've been uber productive for a few days, so I wonder when the crash is coming....but I'll keep going as long as I'm able to, and then I'll eat more cupcakes to get through the unproductive days instead.

And now I want to take a break from screens before going to bed - goodnight!

sugar coma

Nothing to report - I got up late because I'd stayed up late, and then I had lunch at Juno's, and then I wrote all afternoon. For dinner, I went with several people (including a new person, since apparently I have to keep making friends right up to the last moment) to Room4Dessert, which was tasty (again), but took waaaay too long. We ordered some regular food to start, and then we shared the 'full tasting', which was all nine desserts on the list - and rather than bringing them out smorgasbord style, they brought each dessert one at a time, with 10-15mins between each one, which took forever (so long we had to call our taxi and tell him not to come yet).

And then we got home, and I wrote for another hour, but I've hit the wall hard and need to sleep. Goodnight!

i gotta stay high all the time to forget i'm missing you

Allow me to start by saying that Katie is the oldest of best friends and the best of old friends, and that I shall love her until the bitter end. She is also a wonderful person with a hugely generous heart, and I enjoy watching how she is passing that on to her daughters. No matter how many miles separate us, I look forward to many future visits, and I hope that we grow to a fabulous old age together -- one in which we can still compare fashion notes, ogle firefighters, and reminisce about how awful junior high was, preferably while drinking delightful cocktails and wearing dark glasses and telling kids to get off our lawn. I've loved spending time with her this weekend, and I can't wait to come back.

That said, toddlers are fucking monsters sometimes.

I woke up at five a.m. to shower so that I could assist in the get-out-the-door process (where my assistance was mostly limited to eating the scrambled eggs that James made, and making myself some iced coffee to survive the trip). We were headed to Pikes Peak and had tickets for the 8am train to the top, and we couldn't be late. The drive down was almost lovely - the sun was coming up, and there was no traffic, and there was the possibility of a great day ahead.

But then Julia threw up approximately ten minutes before we reached our destination (car sickness is no fun, as I know), which set things off on a swift decline. We made it onto the train (after some cleaning occurred), but I'm sure Julia wasn't feeling all that chipper, which was a bummer. The train ride up was really pretty - the scenery is gorgeous, with lots of waterfalls and rock formations and aspen, etc.

Pikes Peak itself, though, was a frozen hellscape. They had closed the highway up because of wind, if that's any indication...apparently the winds were gusting to fifty miles per hour (I believe it), and the windchill factor was 17 degrees. This was way too fucking cold. Also, at 12,000 feet, altitude issues kick in pretty fast, and I was feeling somewhat woozy and lightheaded by the end of our forty minutes at the top. The girls didn't wander outside at all, and we mostly spent the time huddled in the snackbar at the top, where James bought $11 lollipops out of pure desperation, and the temperature of my ovaries quickly dropped to match the temperature outside.

So then we took the train down, which was still lovely, and it was gorgeous in Manitou Springs by the time the train pulled into the depot. I was still feeling pretty delighted at this point, and we went to a brewery in town for lunch - the food itself was average, but I had a glass of wine and we sat on the patio and enjoyed the sun/shade, and that was all great...

...until we got back in the car and it was going to take almost twice as long to get home as it took to get there, and Julia threw up approximately ten minutes into the drive, and we all began to melt down. I shall draw a veil over the rest of it, because it's a memory best left behind, but suffice it to say that we got back to Katie and James's a little before four and promptly fell apart (and by that I mean the adults were all wandering around like soulless zombies and the children were refusing to acknowledge that they were tired).

At some point I realized I really needed to get out of the house or I was going to go mad (I'm not used to not walking, and also I had recklessly eaten a Kind bar and had part of a Sprite and ordered corn tortilla tacos for lunch, so I think my body was flipping out over corn/sugar). I thought about seeking out a wine store so I could take the edge off (recommended dose: two bottles), but thought better of it and went to Black Eye, where I restored my equilibrium with a dose of hipster life by sipping a cold brew iced coffee in an uncomfortable rocking chair (mission accomplished). James and the girls went on a walk and joined me for a bit, and then they left, and eventually I returned to the house and the remainder of my visit.

Katie was going to cook dinner, but I convinced her to order takeout instead, which I think was the right call. The girls stayed up relatively late since they weren't tired after the naps they took this afternoon, but eventually they went to bed and order was restored. Katie and I then retreated to the basement, where we watched the first half of the remake of 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E." However, we couldn't finish it since we're beyond tired, so I'll have to watch the rest of it myself.

And so ends my visit - it really was lovely, and I had a delightful time. Tomorrow it's back to the grind - and while my life hasn't seemed like a grind the last couple of months, summer is over and playtime is over, too.  San Francisco and a lot of writing await - goodnight!

hanging out the passenger side of his best friend's ride

I think I need to call it a night early - I didn't get nearly enough sleep after last night's drive, and the sleep I did get was fitful (the combo of sleeping in a new place + it's hard for me to sleep past eight even if I'd like to sleep until ten or eleven). Also, altitude is not my friend, and the combo of the altitude + my sugar detox seems to be totally draining.

However...despite the bleakness of all of that, today was pretty fucking great. For one, there's sun in Tahoe - lots and lots of glorious sun to help me get over the gloom of San Francisco (where it apparently only got over 70 degrees once in August, which explains a lot of my malaise). For another, while I didn't write new scenes, I had a fantastic idea for the hero...which translates into a fantastic idea for a new series. So fantastic that even Barbara was excited about it (and she doesn't get excited about historicals, for the most part).

That idea came in the shower, which is where many of my best ideas come from - so I'm glad I took a break in the middle of the day to shower, since I might not have had the idea otherwise. But I spent the rest of the day (before and after the shower) either talking to Barbara and Lisa or messing around in my journal/on my laptop while playing with the story, and I'm feeling happy about all of that. But I'm at the point now where I just need to pick a path and start writing - I have a month before I have to turn something in to my editor, and I'd rather not fuck around anymore.

So I think I'm going to play in my journal for a bit longer and then go to bed and hit it again tomorrow - goodnight!

one night samba

I'm strangely exhausted...I don't know if it's because I'm still recovering from staying up until three a.m. the other night reading, or if it's because I haven't had any added sugar in the last four days and my body is probably reaching peak withdrawal. Either way, I hope my body gets its shit together soon, because I've got stuff to do and I don't have time to indulge my inner octogenarian right now (or maybe I should say my inner toddler...the octogenarians I've known probably get less sleep than I do).

But despite that exhaustion, today was a good day. I woke up at nine and scrambled to get ready, then left the house and walked down to Yerba Buena, where I went to my beloved Samovar. I was there to meet up with Lisa, who used to report to me at my old job (she left before I did and went to business school, and recently graduated and started working). We only had an hour, but it was great to catch up, and I forced her to watch me eat bacon and poached eggs since I hadn't had time to make breakfast before going there. An hour definitely wasn't enough time to catch up on everything, but at least it was better than nothing, right?

After we parted ways, I ran a couple of errands around there - I went to Target and got a cheapish white bedskirt since I'm planning to switch up my bedding (using stuff I already have + the lovely pillows I got as freebies from Ritu's wedding), and I went to Container Store to return something, and I stopped by CB2 and Crate and Barrel to browse and indulge in some homemaker daydreaming. Crate and Barrel made me super sad because I discovered that they discontinued the blush color of my dinnerware - I have a hodgepodge of light grey, dark grey, blue, blush, and white (all in the same pattern - they're intended to be mix and match) and I had intended to get some more blush, but that dream is now dead. It doesn't appear that they're going to discontinue the rest of it since they introduced a new color, but I'm still sad.

But I suppose that's a #firstworldproblem, so I'll move on. I took the bus back to my neighborhood and went straight to Peets, where I drank iced coffee and wrote for awhile. Then I came home and took a nap. And then I worked on a secret project, the results of which may be shared someday, but not today. But I had to stop doing stuff for myself then and walk over to Fillmore for dinner - I met up with Carolyn, who you likely won't remember.

Carolyn and I taught a summer class to high school students at Berkeley several years ago, but she was only out here for the summer, and then she went back to NYC. But she has moved here full time, and so we finally got together - it was supposed to happen in San Mateo today, but I bailed on writing down there and then also bailed on driving down for dinner. But while she's working down there, she's currently living up here, so dinner in the city ended up working out. We went to Gardenias (which I'd been to with Lauren once before), and it was a lovely place to catch up - we spent a couple of hours talking over wine and tasty food, and it was all delightful.

Then I walked home, and now I think I'm going to go to bed rather than trying to force myself to get anything else done. Goodnight!

it's all your fault i screen my phone calls

I had a great day, despite some initial sloth, and now that I'm staring down the beginning of Lucy's book in earnest, it's probably time to quietly keep reminding myself that a) I've written six books, so I can surely write a seventh; b) the beginning always feels like shoving through molasses; c) it's possible to accomplish a lot in one or two solid hours and I shouldn't hate myself for how I spent the rest of them (although it would induce more happiness if I spent the rest of them reading or wandering through the city instead of aimlessly scrolling through twitter).

But despite the early sloth, I managed to recover. I spent the morning cleaning up stuff around the house, and then I engaged in some sloth, and then I took a bath to reset (bathing/showering often helps me reframe and get into the story again, provided I'm not angry about something, in which case showering is an opportunity to plot murder). Then I ran to Whole Foods to pick up a couple of things for this afternoon - my timing was far less ideal than it was on Friday, so the lines were ridiculous, but I was in and out about as efficiently as I could have been today.

After the grocery store, I met up with Tom for a writing date at Quetzal. I don't actually like Quetzal, but they have plenty of space and are v. conveniently located between us (and my jasmine tea, since I was avoiding sugar and non-heavy-cream milk products and so couldn't get a coffee, was serviceable enough). Tom and I caught up for a little bit, and then I wrote for awhile and actually got three pages, which was better than I expected - hopefully that will give me some momentum for tomorrow.

But I had to end early - the Shedletskys were coming over for dinner/Olympics watching, and so I needed to come home and prep. I made chicken bouillabaisse, which is one of my go-tos for meat-eaters when I want to make something that looks/tastes impressive but is actually easy (and whose leftovers I will happily eat for a couple of days). There's something wrong with the rouille recipe to go with it - rouille is a mayonnaise, and while it came together flawlessly the first time I ever made it, I've never been able to get it to come together since then (although even the runny, oily mess is tasty, since it's full of oil and egg and garlic and lemon and salt and saffron). But the chicken and potatoes are out of this world delicious - and if it weren't for the cup of wine and 3tbsp of Pernod in the base, it would be pretty close to the paleo-type whole30ish thing I'm doing. So, at least for this time, I'm calling it a win.

Of course, drinking my share of two bottles of wine is not whole30-approved - but Shedletsky brought a v. nice pinot noir, and then I made the mistake of opening a bottle that I'd bought when we had our epic wine tasting afternoon in Sonoma last year, so of course we had to finish that as well. Ostensibly we were going to watch the closing ceremonies, but those seemed boring, so we instead flipped through some esoteric sports whose rules we didn't know (air rifle, handgun, skeet, synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, etc.), and that was super fun.

But they eventually left, and I ran the dishwasher and did some writing admin stuff and drank some water (and, admittedly, ate some ice cream - I never crave ice cream, but I've had it twice in three days since starting to kind of move toward this whole30ish thing, which is a little weird...but I'm going to blame it on all the leftovers in my freezer from my Olympics party, which I should probably toss). And now it's time for bed - I'm pretty recovered from the wedding and excited to move forward on Lucy's story, so it's time to get some sleep and hit it in earnest tomorrow. Goodnight!