a tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies

I'm super tired and should have gone to bed an hour ago, but I've been dozing in my living room (yay Saturday night). Today was lovely, though - I slept in, thanks in large part to my new mostly-blackout blind in my bedroom, which was an excellent investment. Then I messed around, made coffee, talked to Katie, ate some leftover pizza, and spent a few hours doing stuff in my basement. I'd been letting the stockpile get a little unruly down there, since it's pretty easy to just take groceries down there and never put them away. So I reorganized, put everything on my shelves, made a list of things I need to stock up on (I am down to one can of coconut milk, which just won't cut it in the apocalypse).

Then, I took a shower. And then I unpacked my gorgeous new kitchenaid mixer - I got it in a lovely creamy yellow, which looks great in my kitchen. I made a test run of chocolate chip chewies, which turned out perfectly - I'm really not sure why I waited this long to get one, but thanks Aunt B for the gift!

As soon as my cookies were done, I took them + a bag with ingredients for moscow mules over to Katie's house. We had a proper backyard hangout/dinner - she made roast beef, mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots, all of which were perfect, and we had moscow mules and many many chocolate chip chewies while the kids ran around and watched a movie. Chocolate chip chewies are delightful in part because you can cut whatever size you want, which often results in fun 'fooling yourself' moments in which you cut a thin sliver all the way across the pan to pretend that you didn't really have a cookie.

Eventually, though, we were all tired, so I came home and exhibited commendable restraint by freezing some of the chewies immediately rather than leaving them out to gorge on tomorrow. And now I need to sleep - goodnight!

i'm faded

I'm sleepy. Today was fine, but it involved more meetings than I wanted to have - but since I wanted to have zero meetings, any number of meetings was going to feel like too many. However, I slogged pretty steadily from nine until five, and then I snuck out to run to Whole Foods and stock up before the weekend. Dairy and eggs are back, and I got antibac kitchen spray for the first time since before quarantine, and most other things were available - but Cinco de Mayo cleared out limes and cilantro, and the continued disaster unfolding in the slaughterhouses meant that a lot of the meat was gone. Luckily I didn't really need meat (although I opportunistically bought some chicken legs, and I also bought some lunch meat, and also some scallops (which maybe don't count)), so I left feeling in pretty good shape.

Then I came home, put my groceries away, and reheated some carnitas and rice/beans for a carnitas bowl. Then I talked to Riturani for quite awhile - she was in fine form, and her daughter sang some songs to me, and it was all v. lovely. I could have kept talking all night...but instead I think it's time for bed. Goodnight!

all alone in space and time, there's nothing here but what here's mine

I had a v. hermity day at the end of the world. I did, however, still manage to shower and put on pants, so I think I'm #winning. Of course, they were comfy joggers rather than actual pants, but I'm going to count them.

I spent most of the day doing stuff around the kitchen - first up, of course, was setting up my new coffeemaker, which is identical to my old coffeemaker, which is nice since now I have an extra carafe. I also chopped up a ton of veggies - I bought fresh produce last week and knew I couldn't cook all of it before it went bad, so I made a whole bunch of different packets of stuff for future soups and instant pot meals. So now my freezer has the ingredients for four batches of chili, two batches of palak paneer, a couple of packets of peppers for stirfrys, and some of the ingredients for chicken tortilla soup. I still need to chop up some carrots and celery, and I want to make chicken and wild rice soup and also chicken chile verde with the rest of the veggies in my fridge over the next few days, but I'm feeling pretty well stocked.

I did take a break to sit on my patio even thought it was somewhere around 46 degrees; one of my awesome outdoor blankets made it almost bearable, but I talked to my mom while I did it, and eventually my phone-holding hand got too cold to stay out there. So I came back in to wrap up the conversation. And then I spent some quality time reorganizing my pantry - you can tell that isolation and low-level brooding over pandemics is yielding some weird results, since I would rarely choose to spend my Saturday night organizing my pantry. And then I binged six episodes of Schitt's Creek, which I've heard good things about but never watched - this is another sign that weirdness is simmering, since I never binge watch tv.

But I drank two moscow mules while doing that, so at least I had that going for me - I'm making cocktails until my limes run out, then switching to wine, so I think I'm prepped for awhile. And then I did some day job work for the last hour, since days and hours are meaningless now. And now I'm going to go to bed and see what mysteries tomorrow holds - goodnight!

on top of this, i ain't ever gonna understand

Today was more productive than yesterday, which makes sense since I am starting to feel under the gun in terms of getting ready for my trip. I got up earlier than I have been (which is by no means early, and is also unlikely to be repeated tomorrow), and I took care of a bunch of stuff (including setting [censored] up with [censored], which [censored] probably won't use because [censored]). I also packaged up a bunch of returns from a bunch of online shopping mistakes and took them into the post office. The post office was a breeze (no lines ever!), but I accidentally got gas right as a horde of high schoolers flooded the convenience store (where I used to work!) to get snacks before boarding a bus to an away basketball game. This would normally not be a problem, but paying outside was broken, so I had to go inside, etc. Yes, my life is hard.

Then I came home and unpacked most of the rest of my clothes so that I could repack them into plastic containers or my closet or possibly into my suitcase to take to Bali. I stopped doing productive stuff in time for supper (cheeseburgers and homemade french fries courtesy of my mother), and then we played two games of Ticket to Ride. One was the highest scoring game we've played so far, and one was likely the lowest, which made for an odd combo. [censored] won the first one, and my dad won the second on a tie-breaker, so really, what do I have to live for now?

So I came downstairs after we were done playing, and I put away a bunch of food stuff, and then I plotted out my trip itinerary for the past couple of hours. I keep things online anyway, but I think I need some printouts in case customs officials have questions, and my family needs some vague sense of where I am so that they don't alert the authorities in the wrong country if I go off the grid.

But now I really should sleep - I have a ton that I want to get done tomorrow, and tomorrow will start late given how late today is ending. Goodnight!

and you would hide away and find your peace of mind

Today was a really long day, filled with much socializing, much to the detriment of Rafe and Octavia. I woke up this morning shortly before the earthquake...actually, I woke up at 4:30 and dozed fitfully after that, but I was out of bed when two quick jolts reminded me that I really need to stock up on water again.

But I crawled back into bed and tried to sleep a little longer, since I really didn't sleep all that well last night, and I certainly didn't sleep well the night before. It was a lost cause, though, so I got dressed in a very surly fashion and went to the cafe, where I worked for an hour and tried to get the coffee flowing through my system so I wouldn't die (success, I guess, since I'm still alive, but I was still pretty tired despite the caffeine).

Then I went to the south bay to train with Alyssa. My body was moving worse than it has in months, which is an alarming and immediate side effect of not getting enough sleep and spending too much time this weekend sitting on my couch and staring at my laptop. However, Alyssa had also done a training/certification this weekend and clearly wanted to practice some of the stuff she learned, so we did a lot of breathing/motion exercises. I eventually did a bit of kettlebell work, but barely enough to break a sweat. But given the fact that everything hurt this morning when I woke up, this was probably a good thing.

Anyway, I left Alyssa, showered, and then sped over to my old place of employment for a quick lunch with Lillian (whom I went to India with in February, if you recall). Then she escorted me into my old building, where I crashed a party for Tomas and Andrew; things have really gone downhill, since I would have had champagne at such a function (instead of bread pudding, which I obvi can't eat, although everyone else seemed to enjoy it). But it was good to hang out for a little bit and say hi to the people who were around.

Then, I dragged Tomas, Viviana and Jen over to coffee lab with Dave, which felt v. strangely like old times. These are the moments when it's hard to believe I left three months ago, rather than three days ago. So the five of us had coffee and gossiped (two of my favorite things!), and then Viviana and Jen left us, and then Tomas eventually tired of telling me that he's never going to hang out with me, so he left as well. But Dave gave me a ride back to my car, thus sparing me from having to walk a couple of blocks in wedges in 90+-degree heat, and I made it off campus at a respectable hour...

...but then I had to kill a couple of hours in Mountain View before dinner. I was supposed to write, and I did a bit of writing at Starbucks, but Starbucks was way too hot and way not conducive to writing. Eventually, I was able to leave that terrible place and meet up for pho with a bunch of super-oldschool people from my former place of employment. My usual friendship renewal dinner was supposed to be tomorrow, but I'd asked them to move it to today so I wouldn't have to drive down again, and that inadvertently meant merging it with another old-school group of similar tenure. We calculated, and between the ~10 of us who were there, the cumulative length of time we've spent employed at the goog is ~94 years. Lol.

sssanyway, it was great to catch up with the usual friendship renewal suspects, and to weirdly catch up with the people in the other half of the mega-dinner whom I never see. Some of us stayed after for shaved ice next door, which was tasty (but maybe not worth the lines). And then I drove home as fast as I could without getting pulled over, since I'm desperate to go to sleep.

But tomorrow is way less social, and way more writerly, with a massage thrown in there somewhere to try to fix my woes. Goodnight!

and the wind catches your feet and sets you flying

I'm back in San Francisco, in my own bed, after a day of triumphs and tribulations (as per usual). I awoke in Iowa earlier than I wanted to but later than I should have, and I did most of my packing and took a shower before brunch was ready. My father made bacon, eggs from his chickens, and fried potatoes (I typed 'friend' by accident and almost left it), and we discussed life and mortality and all sorts of other fun and interesting topics. Then I finished packing, did some photo stuff with my mother, decided to repack, and left approximately fifteen minutes later than planned. Oops.

But we got to Des Moines in plenty of time to have an early supper at Johnny's (I plan my flights around mealtimes there), so I had prime rib to fortify me for the voyage ahead. I needed to be fortified mainly for the walk from the truck to the terminal, as it turns out, since it was ten degrees, I'd already packed my winter coat in my suitcase, and I was slightly damp from having [censored] hose me down with Febreeze in the parking lot. But I survived and have not yet caught pneumonia, so that's good. I checked in, verified that my suitcase was under weight (at forty-eight pounds, I should have put two more things into it, but c'est la vie), and then bid a fond farewell to my parents and [censored]. No one kissed me on the nose Ox-Cart-Man-style, so I guess they weren't sending me off to be worked to death and/or slaughtered, so that's a good thing.

But I may work myself to death anyway. On the plane, I read a book on self-publishing that I've toyed with reading for awhile, and while I didn't learn all that much, it got me fired up for the next phase of my career. I also wrote out my goals and dreams and focus areas for 2014, which I need to revisit and refine over the next couple of days. And I read a long chapter from an interesting book on the War of 1812 (the thesis is that the War of 1812 was a civil war between the US and Canada more than anything else, which I find intriguing), so this may go down in history as the dorkiest plane ride I've ever taken.

When I got to SF, the plane was almost thirty minutes early, which excited me, until I got to baggage claim and found that the carousel they were routing four planes through was broken, so it took forty minutes to get my bag. I was filled with foreboding when I picked it up since the ziptie I'd used to close it was gone, and I was worried that the fine folks at the TSA had confiscated my hatchet. This would have been a fitting close to the day, since I'd gotten word from Terry that she found the box for a package that got delivered to me after I left here, but the box was open and the two dresses inside were stolen. Stupid cities and their stupid thieves. This would never happen in Iowa! Okay, it could totally happen in Iowa. But probably not.

sssanyway, the TSA didn't take my hatchet, but my quart jar of sweet pickles was rewrapped in its protective bubble wrap and covered in TSA inspection tape, so I wonder what they thought the pickles were. But otherwise everything seemed to be intact, so that's a good thing; we'll find out more tomorrow. And now I really must sleep if I'm going to get up and get ready for all the festivities I have in store for myself while also writing a million words - goodnight!

feliz navidad

Merry Christmas! I just realized that I stayed up way too late tonight...as per usual, I was exhausted at eight and almost went to bed before getting a second wind. Oops. But today was lovely, even if my introverted hermity side didn't get enough alone time. I woke up at 7:30 and the four of us had a delightful time opening presents. My list of gifts continue to be absurd, and I think I'm prepared to survive an apocalypse and then document it after, if you consider the hatchet, fountain pen ink, and wine decanter (among other things) that I got from various members of my family. I also got a fake rat, so that's something.

And then the rest of the day was spent socializing rather than getting to play with my ink; Mark/Kathy/Drewbaby came out after we had finished breakfast (which was yummy), and we hung out for a bit until my sister showed up. After her kids arrived, we opened presents, then ate supper, and then thought about playing Cards Against Humanity, but the timing didn't work out since they still had presents to open at home. So they left, I got out my laptop with the intention of doing a few tings, and I did those few tings (plus a million more) while listening to the Cyclones game on the radio (needless to say, the Cyclones weren't on CBS). But then I continued to work, which was good for my to-do list and very bad when I realized that I spent three hours working on Christmas. Luckily it was on stuff for my writing life, but still - that's pretty sad. I need to check myself before I wreck myself. Or not. Whatever.

Now that I'm turning incoherent, I should sleep. I hope all of you had lovely holidays, full of great times with your families/friends, great presents, and limited quantities of food poisoning. Goodnight!

will you hose me down with holy water if i get too hot

Merry Christmas! I should have blogged last night, of course, but I was tired and doubted that anyone would be too disappointed. But then, [censored] told me that he was worried when I didn't blog, despite the fact that [censored], so perhaps I should have. But I had a v. lovely Christmas Day with the family. We woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 (to be fair, my parents had been up since five or something ridiculous) and started opening packages around 8. Since we go one at a time, and since we tend to give many smaller packages rather than one or two big gifts, this ritual took a couple of hours, and it was all v. merry. I got my usual haul of strange and interesting items, with an odd mix of writing gear (lovely fountain pen ink, some moleskine notebooks, a book on storytelling/craft), cooking/kitchen stuff (two cookbooks, a butter dish, iced tea spoons, etc.), survival/earthquake prep gear (leatherman, fire starter, emergency tent, and other gifts from my dad), etc., etc. After opening gifts, my dad picked up my grandmother and brought her out for lunch, and then I took a nap before the four of us finished our game of Rail Baron. [censored] won, much to my dismay, since I had been in a pretty good position to win it in another five or ten turns. Boo, hiss.

Today was utterly uneventful by contrast. I slept late, then spent the rest of the day in my pajamas, alternating between doing stuff online, playing solitaire (such an addictive waste of time), reading, and watching tv. Tonight was the Kennedy Center Honors, which is one of my favorite things to do during the holidays - this year they honored Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, Led Zeppelin, and two people I'd never heard of. The Letterman tribute was pretty hilarious, and the Led Zeppelin tribute was awesome, with a great rendition of 'Stairway to Heaven' featuring the lead singer from Heart and a huge backup choir. I am reminded that writers aren't eligible for the Kennedy Center Honors, which is a shame, but I suppose I can survive without having that as a stretch goal.

After that concluded, I watched the news, then most of Letterman, then came downstairs, filled one of my favorite pens with my new ink, and started reading the storytelling/craft book I got for Christmas. Verdict: excellent so far, but I've only read the warmup, so we'll see how I feel over the next four hundred pages. And now I should really go to bed so I can keep reading this book tomorrow (or maybe do some writing if I feel particularly adventurous) - goodnight!

back to plan b

You will be disappointed to know that I did not win the Powerball jackpot. Had I won, I would have immediately shut down this blog, gone into hiding, lawyered up, and taken preemptive measures to protect myself and my family and friends from the degradations and disasters brought on by extreme wealth. And by that I mean I would have bought three hundred million dollars' worth of MREs and a 1972 Ford Bronco to serve as my bugout vehicle so that I could escape into the wilderness and evade anyone who might want to harm me for my winnings (see: prepping).

But I didn't win, so no bugging out, at least not today. Actually, I kind of did the opposite of bugging out - I left my parents' well-stocked country paradise, where there are no people and plenty of deer to eat (see: opposite of the Donner Party), to come to this godforsaken city, where there are plenty of people and I think I have half a jar of peanut butter and some potentially-moldy cheese to get me through a disaster. Yay. I woke up at 6:40, which is something I would normally only do when bugging out, but this was solely so that I could shower before random dudes showed up to steal our water (this really is sounding kind of apocalyptic, right? if your version of the apocalypse is fairly boring, I suppose). But I hadn't slept well last night, most likely because I tried to go to bed too early - so I got up at 6:40, showered, half-dried my hair, and went back to bed from 7:10 to 8:40. Then I got up again, dressed, made myself up (second rule of prepping: a natural disaster is no time to let yourself go), finished packing, and then went to Des Moines with my parents.

We had lunch at Johnny's, which was v. tasty - a cheeseburger sans bun and garlic fries were the right start to my journey. We also bought Powerball tickets, like everyone else in the convenience store was doing, although it was to no avail (at least for me, although I think I won $4). Then my parents kicked me out of their truck and I made the hard journey back to California. It was made harder by getting upgraded to first class on the first leg, which totally spoiled me for the second leg, where I wasn't even able to get economy plus (I swear, the people back there were savages!). I had an hour and a half in Denver, which turned into two hours, but I'm glad I got to SF, since we're in the middle of a torrential downpour system (so far I haven't seen any rain, but I read about it...in a book).

Terry picked me up, and we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in San Bruno, where we tried to catch up under/over/around/through the din of some singer caterwauling various Spanish hits + "Hotel California". We also dreamed about winning the lottery, since I had bought a second set of Powerball tickets to split with her at the foreign exchange booth in Denver airport (which was probably having its busiest day since the day when everyone realized it's cheaper/easier to get money out of a foreign ATM rather than exchange it in the US). But we didn't win, so we moped around the rest of the night. And now, I must sleep; I did some good work on Nick and Ellie on the plane, but I have grand plans to get much more done tomorrow. Goodnight!

that dog won't hunt

I have arrived in Iowa, after a v. long day of traveling that was made longer (in emotion, not duration, since it ate into a layover rather than an arrival time) by the ineptitude of TSA, which had made some sort of error with baggage screening in San Francisco and so held all the planes in our terminal for an hour. This of course caused a traffic jam on the runways when they finally released everyone, so we were an hour and a half late getting into Denver. Boo. But luckily I had closer to three hours in Denver, so that still left me with time to get something to eat and check my online world, etc.

All in all, though, things went smoothly; Terry and I left the apartment at 6:45, as planned, and traffic was v. smooth, also as planned. Security was not as smooth, since it took twenty minutes, but I still had time to grab a latte before boarding my flight (which then sat on the tarmac, as mentioned above). And I made it to Des Moines a few minutes early, where I met my parents, grabbed my bag, and went to Johnny's for a ribeye to celebrate my dad's birthday (which is today!). Of course, we would have gone to Johnny's for a ribeye whether it was his birthday or not, but the fact that it was his birthday made it even better.

Then we came home, and a deer tried to kill us - while coming close to hitting a deer is sort of standard operating procedure for any drive home from Des Moines, this one was the closest I'd been to actually hitting one in a very long time. Not that I would have hit it; my dad was driving, so a) it wouldn't have been my fault if we did and b) he saw it in time to stop, although the tires squealed and we were only a couple of feet from it when we stopped. Fucking deer. Anyway, after that excitement, we made the rest of the drive unscathed, and then my dad and I talked in the kitchen for another hour or so before my parents fell asleep and I came downstairs to unpack my suitcase.

And now, I should sleep; while I can't promise to switch to Iowa time while I'm here, I'm going to try to get a little closer to it (and write a book in the process). Goodnight!

can't you see what you've done to my heart and soul

The rain is coming down in San Francisco, thus ending our lovely October summer. Or perhaps it's not the end - but it feels like it must be. And I, for one, am glad to be free of our tyrannical sun overlord, since I like huddling up under down comforters and have a lot of flannel pajamas to rotate through.

I would have done more huddling today, in fact, but a) it wasn't raining yet and b) I had commitments. No writing got done, but I did spend some quality time with my roommate. True to our forms, I talked to her about survival gear and preparing for the apocalypse, and she dragged me to Bloomingdale's so she could buy a sweater and some boots. I may be able to keep us hydrated, but she's clearly going to look hotter while we're dying. Bitch.

The preparation book I started reading this morning is hilarious - as I told Terry, my decision was to buy a prepper book by one of the crazies, and then tone it down to fit my own views on the likelihood of an apocalyptic event that requires me to leave the city immediately. This book is all about building a 'bug-out bag' (BOB) with stuff needed to survive the first seventy-two hours - at which point you should have reached your 'bug-out location' (BOL), which you have already prepared as a safe haven. Nowhere in the book does he discuss that there are plenty of emergencies where having a BOB is a great idea, but where it's also going to be fine to hang out in your home (or near it) while services are restored. Apparently, in his view, whenever there's a disaster, you make a run for your BOL and then ask questions later.

What I would find particularly hilarious is that if all these people who have built secret hideaways in the Rockies/Utah/Idaho/Nevada were all prepared for a major cataclysmic event...and then that event turned out to be the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, which would bury all of them under several inches/feet of ash. But I digress.

Anyway, the book is interesting, and at some point I'll figure out what's useful vs. what's crazy and start planning from there. Eventually, Terry and I went to the mall, then came home, and then I drove to the glorious south bay and had dinner with Alaska Matt, his wife Kia, and their (relatively) new baby, which was awesome - I hadn't seen them in ages, so it was good to catch up. And now I'm home and desperately need to go to bed; writing *must* happen tomorrow, and I must also go back to my short-lived vow to avoid phone and laptop since my neck is killing me. And how am I going to carry a BOB from here to my BOL with a sore neck? Goodnight!