mama said knock you out

After what was, in most respects, a fairly shitty weekend, I am suddenly in an excellent mood (perhaps even clothed in immense power, to quote my favorite movie trailer line from 'Lincoln', a film I never bothered to see). Not that there was any good reason why my weekend was shitty; I'm sure my red-wine hangover yesterday morning didn't help matters, since it destroyed my Saturday. But I was in a pretty foul mood for the past two days, and tried to avoid people so that I wouldn't get all snappish with them (a plan that mostly worked, unless you have to live with me). I think I was in a foul mood because I'm trying to plot out my writing goals and work goals and ALL THE GOALS for the next year and I can't quite do it because I don't quite know what my day job is and I also don't quite know whether my writing goals should continue as is (write a novel every nine months), or attempt to speed up (write a novel every six months), or go into overdrive (write a novel every six to nine months, plus some serialized stuff in between). And I can't decide the writing goals until I know the day job goals. And then I worry about becoming my old workaholic self, which only differed from my new workaholic self in that my new self was working for me and no one was paying for the health insurance necessary to deal with my workaholic-induced ulcers. Ha.

sssanyway, with all that uncertainty around goals, and with all my brooding over feeling trapped and settled and old, I was overdue for a couple of days of surly hermitville. However, I attempted to drag myself out of my surly mood today, and I walked down to Fort Mason to write for a couple of hours. I didn't write any fiction, but I did write several pages of notes about Prudence, and I felt like I made some real progress. Unfortunately, that progress led me straight to the realization that I need to do a lot of research for this story, so perhaps I need to spend the next month reading about the antiquities collecting world in Britain 1800-1820 (if any of you know of any resources on this, which I'm sure you don't, let me know). But writing made me feel better, and walking in the sun helped as well, so yay to that.

When I got home, I messed around with Photoshop some more (Prudence's cover is almost done!), then talked to the parents. Then I grabbed a burger down the street before coming home and talking to Terry for awhile, since I was in just enough of a better mood that I wouldn't inadvertently stab her in the face with my surliness. Then I came upstairs, messed around a bit more, and was struck with a sudden and blinding flash of insight about the whole Muses series...and so I spent an hour and a half brainstorming it. Let's just say that it involves serialization and Ferguson/Ellie's twin sisters...but I'm not going to say anything more than that because there's a good chance it won't happen because I may not be able to write the serial plan + Prudence's book in the next nine months (although I would love to try). Right now, though, I should probably sleep so that my subconscious can finally come out and scream at me that I need to focus on what I can do now, not add to my ridiculously Puritanical sense of guilt by piling more tasks on my to-do list that I can never accomplish. We all know the Puritan is going to win, but I can at least let my subconscious try to talk me into being a little more realistic. Goodnight!

try to stay away but you can't forget

My Friday took a strange left turn, which I should have expected, but it somehow blindsided me. I worked from home today, which was glorious; saving three hours of bus time is always welcome, and since I had no meetings that required my physical presence, it was a good day to work from home. Of course, the bad part of this was that my complex shut of water for ~4hrs in the middle of the day, but it was still better to live sans water than it was to take the bus.

I was quite productive from home, if I do say so myself, but I cut out at five to meet Terry at a bar full of old people and watch the ISU/Kansas game. It did not end as I had hoped, and because it didn't end as I had hoped, I had a steak and three glasses of wine. Properly inebriated, I berated Terry over her bedding choices, then went over to John and Jess's, where they were having some people over for dinner and game-playing. I didn't partake of any of the dinner, since I was beyond full of steak, but I did partake of wine (of course). The game was 'The Resistance', which is like mafia, and it was quite fun even if people mostly weren't paying attention. Anthony and Dormain were there, as were Barbara and her boyfriend (I hadn't seen Barbara in years, but it was good to see her again), and Adit and Priyanka (and Priyanka's sister) showed up at some point. This was bad for me, since Adit knew I was a spy (aka mafia) both times, but luckily he left and I was able to pursue my nefarious schemes. I stayed over there until one, and when it became clear that I wasn't going to convince anyone to go to a bar (probably a good call), I came home.

And now I must sleep; I want to write tomorrow, since I'm itching to work on Alex and Prudence, but I don't know whether it will be some desultory brainstorming or an all-day write-fest at Stanford library. We shall see, we shall see. Goodnight!

fallen empires

I'm kind of annoyed with myself that I'm not more interesting. That's of course not the real issue. The real issue is, perhaps, that I'm chafing against having commitments, even though I like having paychecks. And I'm feeling antsy about Alex and Prudence, even though it's unlikely that I would have started writing their story yet even if I didn't have a job. And I'm feeling antsy about my job, and wanting to accomplish all the millions of things I want to accomplish there, even though I know that ambition at work is inversely correlated to the amount of time I'll have to do my own thing.

I suppose that I'm feeling that vague sense of unease that I always feel when I suddenly feel like I've walked myself into a trap. Not that I'm trapped - and, if I'm trapped, I'm trapped in the most gilded of cages. But I'm committed to this job, and I'm committed to writing the next x books in this series, and I'm committed to my apartment because SF has gotten too expensive to move elsewhere. And all this commitment makes me want to blow everything up, chop off my hair, and go off the grid. But I won't, which I guess means that I'm growing up...which is another weight to add to the list of reasons why I want to blow everything up.

sssanyway. I worked all day, although it wasn't that brutal because I took my 8:30 meeting from home and then caught a 9:30 shuttle. I spent the day slogging, caught a 6:30pm shuttle, was home by 7:30, and had a burger and a glass of wine with Terry. Then I came home and was going to write in my journal, but instead redid the blue cover for the paperback version of MARQUESS, since I decided that using pink on the spine was too hard to read and I wanted to make it white (but had failed to save the correct version of Photoshop with editable text layers, so I had to recreate the whole thing). And now, I should sleep; I have to slog tomorrow, and I want to write this weekend, and I need to do all these things without going off the grid. Goodnight!

i can't go for that, no, no can do

If I want to avoid having to run to catch the shuttle, as I did this morning, I need to go to bed immediately. This morning didn't really matter; I was trying to catch the 7:25, but could have just as easily waited for the 7:35 with no harm done. But I have a meeting tomorrow morning that I would like to make it to, and that requires catching one earlier than either of those...which, given how much I like to sleep and how much I hate to wake up, could be a challenge.

Anyway, I slogged all day today in a v. serious and dedicated fashion, although I took a break to have lunch with Can (and the walk to and from helped to clear my head, even if my moccasins aren't made for a lot of trudging after running to catch the shuttle in them). I caught an early-ish shuttle, but I worked all the way back and then had a conference call from eight to nine - it's almost like I'm up to my old tricks! But the rest of the week looks a little more forgiving, which is good since I have grand plans to write this weekend.

Now, though, I must sleep, and dream up a way to be wildly successful at both my day jobs while still having time to socialize and sleep and occasionally do some laundry. Goodnight!

films about ghosts

I'm quite tired, but I can't tell whether it's a) daylight saving, b) residual post-bronchitis lethargy, c) stress from returning to the man, d) stress from publishing a book, e) the shuttle lifestyle, f) eating mostly low-carb, g) some combination of the above, which would actually be rather understandable, now that I've quantified it. I got ready with a lot of haste this morning, and managed to catch a shuttle thirty-five minutes after I got out of bed, which is a feat I don't want to repeat tomorrow. I got to work before nine, so I spent half an hour in a cafe eating breakfast and brainstorming Alex and Prudence - perhaps getting up early and writing before work (or at work, but before work hours) is the way to go. Of course, we've all heard me say I plan to get up early before and it never happens, but we shall see.

The rest of the day was a pretty brutal slog, with a break to have lunch with John. I left the office at 5:25 with plans to work on the shuttle, but the traffic was too stop-and-go to work without getting sick, and the guy in the seat beside me was annoying me, so I dozed off instead. When I got home, I had dinner with Terry; a steak and a glass of wine went a long way to cure what ails me. Then I came home, did the two work-related things that I really needed to get done tonight, and am going to pack it in right now so that I can get up at a decent hour tomorrow and get cracking again. Yes, I realize this post sounds like all the posts I used to write when I worked for the man. No, I don't want to hear it. Goodnight!

i dream i never know anyone at the party and i'm always the host

I had intended to go to bed an hour ago (yes, I realize that's the opposite of what usually happens during the transition to daylight saving time), but I ended up brainstorming Alex and Prudence for an hour, so I'll take it. I'm so far away from knowing how that book is going to turn out; Ellie was almost fully developed in my head before I started writing, and so it in some ways felt easy (even though it was not an easy book to write for a whole host of reasons). Then again, I just remembered that I had absolutely no clue at all about Nick's character, since he'd never been in any of the other books - at least Alex and Prudence have both been around for the last three books, so I have some vague slivers of character to go on. I'm trying not to freak out about this book and spend some time doing my due diligence on the plot, but as we all know, I'm not always good at being kind to myself and giving myself time to relax, so this plan is not going very well right now.

However, today was good; I made it into the office before nine, grabbed breakfast in an attempt to wake myself up, and slogged for several hours (with a break to have lunch with the team, yay). Then, I got an ergonomic evaluation, which seems like a silly thing to spend time on, but given that I'm so short, nothing ever fits the way it should. So, they're setting me up with a new desk chair, and the facilities people are going to lower my desk and install a keyboard tray, and it's all going to be smashing (and less strain-inducing for my shoulders). Since the ergonomics lab is in the same building where I catch my shuttle, I went straight home after that (carrying the keyboard and mouse they gave me, so it probably looked like I was making off with company property, but I'm taking it back in the morning). When I got here, it was still light out (lovely!), and I spent some quality time cleaning the kitchen before making eggs with peppers and chorizo for supper. Terry got home around then, so we hung out for a bit before I ran out to take care of an errand before bedtime.

And now that you're all caught up on the useless minutiae of my day, I should sleep. I made a list of everything I have to do tomorrow/this week, and it is daunting - but there's a lot more on the work list, which is actually a good thing since it means I'm getting ramped up and more engaged (or something). Goodnight!

bittersweet symphony

This weekend has involved more hanging out than my last several weeks put together (unless you count Tahoe, I suppose, but since I got bronchitis directly after that I've sort of forgotten that lovely interlude). Today was almost entirely hanging out, which I didn't exactly anticipate, but I think I'm glad for my sanity that I just leaned in and seized the day (do you think Sheryl wants us to lean in to our social lives too?).

The day started with sleeping until almost eleven, which was v. necessary. Then, I did some desultory grooming, etc., and Terry and I went over to the general Dolores Park area to grab lunch at one of my favorite cafes before going to a birthday party. The cafe was great, and I definitely had a pang of missing my previously carefree cafe lifestyle (even if these cafes are ones I have to pay for, where the cafes I eat in now are all free and mostly excellent). Post-cafe, we went to the park for Dan's birthday party. It was, quite ridiculously, set up in the midst of Bear Fest (or some such named event). If you're not in the know (because you haven't lived in SF or you didn't spend six months getting paid to review porn ads), you can read more about bears on wikipedia - suffice it to say they have nothing to do with ursine mammals and everything to do with large, hairy gay men, many of whom seem to enjoy being shirtless and growing beards and occasionally wearing leather. Dan had apparently gotten there and staked out an area in the park well before the bears showed up, but they set up all around us in an effort to seize the territory, and we refused to leave, so there was a cautious, if frosty, standoff for the rest of the afternoon.

But the party was delightful, even if I did see some dude (not a bear) lying on the ground and peeing into the grass (luckily for him, he was peeing downhill, but I didn't appreciate the visual, particularly since I saw it right as I was calling my mother to tell her that I wasn't dead even though I hadn't called at my usual hour). We hung out for several hours drinking wine and scotch, and I made some new friends (shocking, I know), and it was a perfect day to be in the park. Terry left at some point, as did John and Jess, but I went back to Dan's house (two blocks away) and played Cards Against Humanity for a little bit.

Sadly, I had to bounce, and I made it over to Adit and Priyanka's in time to have dinner with them at Nopalito. Dinner was tasty, and the company was delightful, even if it did remind me that I had dream last night that I had gone to work at Facebook and was trying to find a sweatshirt in the FB onsite store so that I could fit in there. Heh. They were v. kind and drove me home, which was lovely since I would have had to take a cab instead, so my day ended on a v. lovely note. And now, properly rejuvenated by a weekend of extroversion, I'm going to return to my introversion and try to get massive amounts of stuff done this week - wish me luck. Goodnight!

it's all been a pack of lies

I'm too tired to blog coherently, and I wish I could have gone to bed hours ago, so bear with me. I spent most of today being moderately relaxed; I say 'moderately' because even though I sat on the couch to be relaxed, I spent most of that time looking up research books for Alex and Prudence's story, and writing a newsletter to my fans announcing that the first two books in the series are only sale for only $0.99 for a limited time. Yay!

Eventually, though, I had to stop pretending to be relaxing and get ready for a dinner party. So, I took a bubble bath (lovely - why don't I take them more than once every six months), dried my hair, put on some makeup, and drove to the hated east by to have a birthday dinner for Heather (aka dear respected madam). One of her friends through it, and it was totally lovely - the decorations were great, the decor was amazing, and the food was delicious. But it's also clear to me that I'm becoming more of an introvert as I age - I had a great time, but I'm definitely glad to be home. Goodnight!

your words are empty air

I'm super sleepy; while I was able to sleep later than I might have since I worked from home today, I still got up at eight, and that was about two hours earlier than I wanted to get up considering that I read two books last night. It also may not help that I had two drinks with Terry, but let's pretend that has nothing to do with it. I spent the day slogging, with a lunch break to grab some sustenance down the street since I no longer keep any food in the house. Sometime in mid/late afternoon, I ran out to get my brows waxed and my bangs trimmed, and then I came home and worked until fiveish. Then, I hung out with Terry; she got back from Austin/SXSW yesterday, so we had much to catch up on. We did so over dinner at the fish place down the street, which was as tasty and wonderful as always. And then, I came home, procrastinated for two hours, and am now going to go to sleep.

As for tomorrow, I should have made plans to get up early and go to my romance meeting, but I have decided firmly that the proper course of action is to sleep in, wallow in my freshly remade bed, ignore all other pretensions towards work, and either read a book or walk down to the water and brainstorm Alex and Prudence. I know, Alex and Prudence sound like work. But at this point, after a month of not really writing anything, it sounds rather glorious to struggle with a story again rather than spending ten hours messing around with Photoshop or taking care of marketing activities. Goodnight!

lose sight of the ground and you throw her out

I'm thoroughly wrecked...which I suppose it to be expected, since I worked a full eight-hour day and also read two full-length romance novels to finish judging this contest. Ha. The first one was terrible, and I got through in it approximately three hours (one hour on the shuttle and two hours at dinner, not caring who saw me reading a paranormal romance with a not-very-subtle cover). Post-dinner, I drove home, took about ten minutes off, and then read the second one straight through in approximately four hours. That one, I must say, was excellent - I definitely saved the best of my batch for last, which was good since I needed a superhuman effort to get through this without just throwing in the towel and going to sleep. But it's done and my scores are submitted, so I can go to bed with a clear conscience.

And now, to sleep. I have plans this weekend, one of which is my monthly romance writer meeting - but I find myself very loath to go, since it would require getting up at 7:30 a.m. (my enemy), and then either staying in Berkeley all day or driving home and then turning around to drive back for a birthday dinner Saturday night. I want to see my romance buddies, but then again, it would be nice to curl up with a book that I'm not required to judge, or do some scribbling on the gargoyles or Alex and Prudence, or hit up Sephora for some palliative cosmetics, or really anything that isn't officially on either my out-of-control work to-do list or my out-of-control personal to-do list. Decisions, decisions. Goodnight!

it's the song that burns

Today was quite busy; I had to be at work by nine for a meeting (the horror), and then I slogged hard and fast so that I could skip out at 11:45 to see my CPA. Sadly, I thought I had to leave at 11:45, when really I was supposed to be there at 11:45 - but I realized it on the way out the door and called ahead, so she ordered my entree for me so that we wouldn't have to wait during the lunch rush. Also luckily, I'm only ten minutes away, so I wasn't that late, but it was still embarrassing. Then I went back to the office and totally overloaded on sugar; I haven't been eating much sugary stuff recently, but I made the ill-advised choice of getting an earl grey milk tea from Verde since I hadn't had one in forever, and then someone on the team was celebrating something and there were amazing cupcakes from Kara's Cupcakes - and the girl who picked them up got me a gluten-free one, which was impossible to resist even though I think all that sugar gave me a smashing headache afterward.

So, I slogged the rest of the afternoon, grabbed an early shuttle, and made it home in under an hour - it's a new record. Once home, I took out the trash, did some delicate-cycle laundry, took care of tings, made myself an open-faced sandwich (which sounds so much more classy than just saying I had tuna salad with Miracle Whip on toast), and read a romance novel for the contest I'm judging. I'm supposed to be done tomorrow and I still have two books left, so I'm not sure how that will happen - but at least one of the two is definitely a stinker, given the first two chapters that I've already read, so I plan to skim it on the way to work tomorrow and see whether it manages to suck me in or whether my initial assessment is correct. If I manage to stick to that plan, I can read the other tomorrow night and be done with it. I'm slowly reaching the tail end of this crazy book-launch period, so I'm hoping that with some quality mix of work and relaxation this weekend I can emerge on the other side slightly saner and more ready to focus on the next phase of all my projects. Yay, I guess. Goodnight!

like the future was supposed to be

I need to go to bed right away if I'm going to make it to work as early as I'd like to tomorrow. Today was good, though, even if I did spend every non-work/non-social moment reconciling receipts. I went to work (and did receipts all the way in), slogged quickly and efficiently all day so that I could take a break and have a nice old-school lunch with people who were at the Goog ten years ago (!), and left a little before six to have dinner with Heather (aka dear respected madam). Then, I came home, thought about going to bed immediately, and instead virtuously finished processing all my receipts. I really need to start doing a better job with receipts than just dumping them in a file (or labeling them 'taxes' in one of my five email accounts). But that's a task for another day - right now, I need to sleep. Goodnight!

i was born under a wandering star

Sorry (not sorry) for not blogging last night - I hit the wall really hard, and I couldn't bear the idea of opening my laptop. Yesterday was lovely, up to a point; I woke up after only six hours of sleep to have brunch with Lauren (aka Subz) and Terry at a place near Lauren's house. The food was delish (I had an open omelette with pulled pork and salsa), and the company even moreso, but the wait was quite long (although we were able to fortify ourselves with lattes from down the street). After brunch, I came home, did a couple of hours of work, took Terry to the airport, came home and called my parents, and then hit the wall. I'm so sick of staring at screens and troubleshooting technical issues and slogging through an endless to-do list, and it doesn't help that those descriptions apply to both my writing and zee day job right now. So, I took last night off. And that means I stared at the wall, took a nap, watched an hour and a half of nothing and more nothing on YouTube (on my phone - I was too lazy to find my laptop or one of my other five devices), and then went to be.

But I also spent an hour or so daydreaming of gargoyles - I got all my old gargoyle notebooks out and read through some notes, since that book is purely fun and entertainment right now, not something I must do. I spent some more time brainstorming today, and on the way home from work I read part of 'Plague: A Very Short Introduction' (yes, this is my idea of a break). Work itself was good; I got a lot of sleep last night, worked from home for a couple of hours, and then drove down in time for lunch so that I could have my car down there this week, which is a system that seems to work well for me. I left the office around six, got home around seven, made some tuna salad (so glamorous), tried to procrastinate for a bit, and then sorted three months' worth of mail and started organizing my receipts for my taxes. Boo. At least I watched some "Project Runway" while working on that inglorious task. Now, though, I'm going to go to bed rather than slog - I'm trying to be a bit more even-keeled this week so that I don't reach the weekend reeling in a state of utter exhaustion. Goodnight!

how many times can i break til i shatter

I stayed up way, way too late, but I suppose that was to be expected given how much I wanted to get done today. I woke up sometime after nine, showered, dressed up in something relatively cute (in an effort to remember that I had work to do), and ate some leftover steak from last night's dinner. Then, I slogged for eight hours to create the print version of Marquess. Needless to say, this task was mindnumbingly tedious. I took a break sometime to run to the store and grab some gluten free bread so that I could make peanut butter toast, and cream so that I could make coffee (and I seemed to have perfected the French press, after reading a couple of articles that strongly recommended weighing the beans and going for a precise bean:water ratio - this was the best coffee I've made at home, even if I don't have an expensive burr grinder like they say I need). But the day was divided between creating the interior of the book in InDesign (which is not as simple as just copying and pasting from word, if you want everything to look great and you don't want to have page numbers on pages with chapter headings, etc.), and creating the cover image in Photoshop (my cover designer gave me a significant discount because I said I would do the fonts myself, but this meant I also had to figure out how to do the spine).

In some ways, my strong self-confidence in my ability to figure out anything is a curse; it makes me too likely to sign up for stuff, such as saying that I could do the back cover design when I barely know Photoshop. But I think it turned out okay - we'll find out when I get the proof in a couple of days. Then, I created another stupid cover for the book, based on the original red cover that my first cover artist did, so that a few staunch supporters of the original cover can get a covert copy of that book to match the first two, even though they're going to have to break the habit at some point since there will not be a matching cover for Prudence and Alex. But even though that other cover was designed already, the back cover copy changed significantly enough that I had to do a hacking type fix on the jpg (where hacking implies usage of an ax, not l33t programming skillz).

Needless to say, by 6:30 I was just as bored with myself as you are now. But I got all the files uploaded to CreateSpace, so that was a major task off my plate. Next up is redoing the print covers for Heiress and Scotsmen so everything matches and no one buys the old covers in the future...but that's a task that can wait until I see the proof for Marquess and know whether I created a gem or a travesty.

At 6:30, though, I threw in the towel, and Terry and I walked down to Chestnut Street (home of the biggest scene in this neighborhood) to grab dinner. I suggested Delarosa, so we put our names in there, were told it would be forty-five minutes, and decided to grab wine down the street while we waited. But we were only halfway through our first glasses (including an awesome zinfandel for me, since zin continues to have a moment with me) when Delarosa called and said our table was ready. Crazy. So we went back, had inferior second glasses of wine, but had excellent food - we split the eggplant burrata, the polenta, the meatballs, and an awesome pork dish. We'd also ordered a salad, but that was clearly too much, and they boxed it for us without either of us ever touching it. I also broke down and had some bread, which was amazingly good - not sure whether it was good because it was truly good or because I can't remember the last time I had real bread, but either way, it was worth the punishment I have surely earned. When we got home, I immediately abandoned Terry and read another book for the contest I'm judging - it was better than any I've read so far, by one of the authors I used to read pretty regularly, but I always thought her plots were kind of slow and this one was way slow for the number of pages she used. Still, at least I enjoyed it. And now I must go to bed - with the print book out of the way, I can devote all of tomorrow to another fun topic (organizing a year's worth of receipts for my taxes). Goodnight!

roll a new love over

Today was long, but lovely. I was definitely dragging this morning; I had intended to catch the 7:15 shuttle, but ended up on the 7:35 shuttle, sans caffeine because I forgot to set up my teamaker last night. But traffic was great, and I looked respectable since I wore a v. Frenchish nautical-like skirt and top, and I blow-dried my hair, which has been increasingly rare. So, I rolled into the office at 8:45, grabbed breakfast, and slogged all day, with a nice break to have lunch with Heather (aka dear respected madam), Alaska Matt, his wife Alaska Kia, and their baby (Cali Ollie? not sure if he qualifies as Alaskan, despite his birthright). I also paused to have a v. long argument with someone about ebook discovery - not an important argument, since we were discussing hypotheticals, but one that riled me up nonetheless, since I like to get riled up about nonsense. Sadly, while my passion and industry expertise are high, my patience and new-hire credibility are low, so I'm going to have to keep engaging in this delicate balancing act between stating my opinions and biting my tongue until I've earned some respect and can unleash the beast (may God have mercy on their souls).

sssanyway, I left work shortly after five and made my slow, treacherous journey across the surface streets of the peninsula to meet up for dinner with Terry and her family in Palo Alto. Her parents are in town to see a student production of 'Othello' that her youngest brother is directing at Stanford, and since she and her other brother were going with them to see the play, they invited me to join them. I firmly and unwaveringly declined to see the play, but I joined them for dinner, which was lovely (both for the company and for the ribeye). Then, I drove home, checked my email, ignored my email as per usual, and read one of the books that I needed to judge this weekend. Verdict: decent characters and kept me engaged, but the writing was fairly poor and the conflict was underdeveloped to the point of being nonsensical. But I finished it and half-enjoyed it, so it wasn't a bad way to spend a few hours.

Now, though, I must sleep - I must do all the things this weekend, but I think ten hours of sleep is necessary first. Goodnight!

the bleeding love, the silent escape

I'm full-on exhausted...so much for taking it easy this week. But I slogged a full day at work, and slogged for a couple of hours before work to test the new epub/kindle files for Heiress and Scotsmen on all my devices, and start formatting the print version of Marquess since I'm woefully behind on that and want to get it in processing this weekend. Blergh. I'm 97% happy with my decision to self-publish, but the other 3% is a mixture of annoyance/regret that no editor loved me enough to buy me (yes, my self-worth is inextricably linked to what I've written), plus the exhaustion that comes from having to do all the hours and hours and days and weeks of work to create the whole reading experience rather than just writing the damn book and being done with it. I'm actually really good at the packaging aspect, and I'm pretty efficient at it...but I'm totally exhausted from it too. I'm hoping that I'll be done with all these stupid little tasks in the next few days so that I can focus on Alex and Prudence...

...but then I realized that I had blocked off this weekend in my head to a) read five books that I have to judge for a contest AND b) do my taxes AND c) format the print version of Marquess AND d) take a break. Hahahahahahahaha.

sssanyway. Today was brutal, since I slogged nonstop, then tried to catch a bus home, which was delayed ten minutes for mechanical issues. Since I think it was the same bus (or at least same time) as the bus that broke down on me earlier this week, there was no way in hell I was getting on it. So, I went to In-and-Out and had a protein-style double-double, which was slightly restorative. Then I worked at work for an hour. Then I tried to catch another bus, which was also ten minutes late, and which took well over an hour to get me home since traffic sucked.

By the time I arrived, I was in no mood to look at a screen, so I talked to Terry briefly, and then read a Christmas novella (not my usual cup of tea, but I have to judge it for that contest, and I actually really enjoyed it). And now I must sleep so that I can get up and do all of this again tomorrow - goodnight!

she's walking on fire

I should have gone to bed two hours ago, but sleeping for an hour on the shuttle gave me a second wind, which I put to good use reformatting my first two books. Since my attempt last night ended in utter failure, I started from scratch and formatted both books myself so that I can make changes whenever my heart desires going forward - and it looks like this attempt was far more successful. I need to check them on my devices just to be sure, which I will do tomorrow, but i'm glad that task is done.

The rest of my day was not noteworthy. I made it to the 7:50 shuttle, got to the office by nine, grabbed breakfast, and slogged all day (with a break to have lunch with Amy Mac, one of my coworkers from ye olden days). Then, I had dinner with Terry at Fiesta del Mar, since she was down in MTV for some work stuff, and it was extremely tasty, as always. Rather than drive back with a full belly, I dropped my car off at work and took the shuttle home (and took the aforementioned nap), and then spent the last three hours staring intently at my computer and formatting my books. And now, I must sleep; I need to slog more tomorrow, and getting up is going to be brutal if I don't go to bed immediately. Goodnight!

you live for the fight when that's all that you got

I must go to bed immediately - today was mostly positive, since I got to the office early, got a lot done, and had lunch with Becky and Christine in Palo Alto, but it took a strongly negative turn after I left the office. I left at five, thinking I'd get home and get some stuff done...but then the bus broke down halfway to the city, and we had to wait over half an hour to get picked up by another bus, which was already half-full. Luckily, I got one of the last available seats, leaving behind the poor fools who didn't get seats; unluckily, it was in the very back row, wedged in between two dudes, which was both extremely uncomfortable and mildly carsickness-inducing. I read for a little bit just to take my mind off my discomfort, but I had to stop as we approached the city. So, two hours after I left work, I was exceedingly glad to make it home.

Once I got home, though, there was no time for a break; I have so much to do, and so little time, and so I worked on covers and ebook formatting until now. I wanted to change HEIRESS and SCOTSMEN slightly to have updated buy links and to add the new cover plus excerpts of my other books, but since I paid someone to format those books, the source code isn't something that I can easily edit on my own. In fact, while those dudes are supposedly the tops in the industry and were recently bought out by another epublishing group, I'm rather unimpressed with their code. So, after spending two hours on it tonight, and after all of my attempts to load the new files onto my many and varied devices failed, I decided that I'm going to reformat HEIRESS and SCOTSMEN from scratch so that I can control the files going forward. This is good in the long run, but annoying in the short run, and I don't have time to do it tonight. Instead, I must go to bed so that I can get up in the morning and do all of this again (hopefully without the bus breakdown, since I might shank someone if that happens again). Goodnight!

up on the hill across the blue lake

I have absolutely nothing of importance to say (do I ever?) - I slept a lot, woke up, drove to work, slogged all day (while trying not to fall asleep at my desk), and took the shuttle home. Then I ate some leftover thai food, contemplated my to-do list, and instead looked up pictures of dresses from last night's Oscars. And now I'm going to crawl into bed and write in my journal for a bit; I used to journal pretty consistently, but it's been years since I was in the habit, and I'm feeling the urge tonight. Maybe I'm feeling the urge because I haven't written any fiction in a couple of weeks either - I'm itching to get started on Prudence, but I need to wrap up the last bits of work on formatting and promoting Nick and Ellie first. Blergh. But sleeping tonight is probably a better idea than staying up until four a.m. toying with photoshop, given that I wrote "SLEEP AND DON'T GET PNEUMONIA" on my to-do list. Sage advice, Sara. Goodnight!

fugue in some key or another

I shouldn't have left the house today. I should have stayed holed up, sleeping and coughing and working and coughing, and tried to rest in anticipation of going back to work tomorrow. Instead, I was lured out by that usual siren's call...Adit hit me up to see if I wanted to grab lunch, and I of course said yes because I was itching to leave the house and pretend that I'm all better. He had heard that I was sick, and since he wasn't feeling well himself, he suggested soup. But when I met up with him around 12:30, it turned out three more people were coming (including the lovely Katrina, so that was great), and the place we went to refused to seat us after we stood there for awhile, so we had to drive to another place, and then walk around some more, and then eat Vietnamese rice noodles (which were v. tasty, but not enough to rejuvenate my lungs). Then Katrina parted ways with us, and we walked even more to get superfluous ice cream before I got a ride back to my car.

The upshot is that I'm still glad I went out, and it was great to hang out and have some fun and take a break and etc., etc. - but even though I feel leagues better than I felt last week, I'm still pathetically weak and need to keep from pushing myself. So I got home at 3:30, called my parents, and then spent the rest of the night watching Oscars stuff with Terry - which was fun, but was not one of the hundred things on my to-do list I should have done tonight. C'est la vie. I was going to get up and go to work super early tomorrow and get a head start on catching up, but now that I realized how ridiculously stupid that idea is, I'm going to sleep until 7:45 and plan to roll into the office by ten (which is when the rest of my team gets there anyway). And maybe someday I'll stop whining about bronchitis, but it's not tonight. Goodnight!

to everything, turn, turn, turn

On a whim, I checked my blog for last February to see what I was up to and whether I've made any progress. And I discovered that, this time last year, I was in the midst of a mad scramble to get HEIRESS up and marketed everywhere after the Nook promo ended, while simultaneously recovering from a terrible cold/losing my voice after going to LA for a reader event. This was preceded, ten days earlier, by getting drunk with Adit and having to abandon my car after staying out with him until four in the morning (a night that involved karaoke, but ended with a drunken trip to Sparky's diner rather than cheese and egg sandwiches at his house). Clearly my Februaries follow a distinct pattern, and clearly I haven't learned from it.

sssanyway. I tried to pretend that I felt great today. I got up, showered, dried my hair (until I was too fatigued to keep drying), and put on a dress, thinking that putting on a dress instead of pajamas would trick myself into feeling well. Then, I went down the street to have breakfast, but the walk winded me (which it shouldn't, since I walked approximately a block), and I only ate half my breakfast instead of the 90% I can usually consume. Then I came home and chained myself to my desk. And, actually, I got through a lot of stuff that I had needed to do for awhile - I made a comprehensive list, then did all the things that only take five minutes and/or don't require actual thought. I also reimmersed myself in twitter, which, contrary to popular belief, isn't just procrastination for me - if I'm careful not to spend hours reading other people's updates, it's actually a great way for me to interact with authors and readers and (hopefully) promote my books. Yes, I feel like a douche for even saying that.

Around five, I bounded downstairs with all sorts of grand intentions of walking to the mailbox and grabbing coffee at Starbucks and taking out the trash and making chili for dinner...and then realized that bounding down the stairs had sapped all my energy. So, instead, I made tea, sat on the couch, and ordered Thai food. Clearly my albuterol and my codeine-laced cough syrup is making me feel better when I'm conserving energy, but I need to be careful for the next few days. I spent the evening messing around online, trying to read a book that I despised, and throwing it aside to read a quick novella by one of my favorite authors (verdict: I don't like novellas, which is challenging since I want to write a few - if there are any novellas you like, let me know, because I need to figure out whether I can do this successfully). And now, I should sleep and hope that I can do a few things tomorrow that require a bit more thought. Or, at least, hope that I can climb the stairs without running out of breath. Or, at least, hope that I won't be such a freaking drama queen. Goodnight!

mercy

The world ends not with a bang, but with bronchitis. I suppose it was inevitable that my heart and mind and even my ulcer-producing stomach would be eager to carry on with my war-on-all-fronts mentality, but that my lungs would reveal themselves to be, as they always have been, weak little traitors. Stupid lungs.

Needless to say, I did not go to work today. While my congestion is getting better (I think I only used half a box of kleenexes today, rather than a box and a half), my breath is getting more ragged, and despite sleeping for eleven hours last night I was too exhausted to contemplate dragging myself into the office, and too mentally deficient to do anything when I got there. So, I showered (a chore), ate some oatmeal (unappealing), and went to the doctor (even more unappealing), where they shoved a probe into my nasal cavity (HORROR) to determine whether I had the flu. I do not have the flu, but I do have nightmare-inducing memories of a nurse trying to pull my brain out of my skull with a sharpened stick. Instead, they determined that I have bronchitis, and they gave me a prescription for an inhaler and some drugged-up cough syrup, with instructions to come back if my fever spikes or I have any other signs of pneumonia. YAY.

I spent the rest of the afternoon being v. lazy; I dropped the prescriptions off, ate fries and a milkshake in an attempt to restore myself (mildly successful), and took a three-hour nap. Then I picked up my prescriptions, sent a few work emails, and spent the rest of the night reading a book and trying to not fall asleep and not check for new reviews of my book (a failing task, I'll grant you). And now, I should sleep, and then figure out a gameplan for the next 2-5 years that does not involve me collapsing of exhaustion every three months. Heh. Goodnight!

why are there no songs about coughing?

I can't come up with any songs appropriate for the blog title tonight because I haven't left the house, have run through a box and a half of kleenexes, and am thoroughly and utterly miserable. At least the internet is back; today would have been even more misery-inducing without it. But I woke up feeling just as awful as I did yesterday, and my symptoms didn't improve at all. You know it's bad when my own crushing sense of Puritanical guilt didn't make me do any work at all, either for the day job or for my not-so-secret writing pursuits. Instead, I laid around on the couch, watched three episodes of "Project Runway" and an episode and a half of Craig, read part of an awful vampire romance (emphasis on awful), and was generally mopey.

Anyway, if I don't feel better tomorrow I'm going to drag myself to a doctor, so hopefully all my incessant whininess will stop soon. And really, that's all I have to report - goodnight!

tell me baby do you do more than dance

The internet is back (thank heavens), but I still feel like death, so I'll keep this brief. I had to go into the office today because there were things that I had to do at all costs, and the internet wasn't up this morning. So, I shuffled my way to the shuttle, got to the office around 10:30, and slogged fitfully and without enthusiasm until four. Clearly no one else wanted me there either, and I tried my best to stay away from all of them, but the lure of the internet was too strong.

Then, I came home, slept all the way back, and arrived to find that the new modem had arrived. Yay! But I tried to set it up and couldn't finish until Terry got home, since the Comcast account is under her name. I suppose I could have tried to hack into her Comcast account, but given that they would probably try to charge us to resolve that issue was well, I refrained. When she finally got home, I managed to get the modem hooked up and the wireless router turned back on. And then I promptly, woefully retreated to my room and tried to read a book, but I'm too congested to enjoy anything.

Oh, did you not realize that you'd been invited to a pity party when you opened this post? My bad!

sssanyway, I'm going to go to bed now, and unless I feel utterly restored in the morning (which will only happen if it turns out that my body now requires a constant wireless internet signal to function, which actually would not surprise me), I'm going to work from home and hope that this is the last time I get sick this season. Goodnight!

too busy writing your tragedy

No blog tonight either - the illness that began last night seized me in earnest today, and I stayed home to nurse myself back to health. However, the illness that seized our Internet last night was also not cured, so we still have no Internet in our apartment, which means I have to type this on my iPad. Worse, I had to drag myself into the San Francisco office for a couple of hours to take care of some urgent stuff, since I couldn't go to a coffeeshop for fear of being the person to accidentally leak trade secrets (or, more likely, get rained on while walking there). At least we have an SF office, and I managed to convince myself that paying for parking there was about the same as driving to my regular office and back, so I suppose it all worked out, even if I was in quarantine mode and didn't seek out any of my friends while I was there (hi Katrina!).

But now I need to sleep; since our Internet will still be out tomorrow, I'm going to the office unless I feel markedly worse than I do today. Great idea, right? Goodnight!

a deceitful country

No blog tonight - our Internet went down around 4pm and never came back, which is super annoying and awful, and I don't feel like typing this on my iPad. I especially don't feel like typing this when I'm pretty sure I'm getting some awful throat/lung disease - which will be even more unpleasant if I can't work from home tomorrow. Boo. So I'm going to go to bed and hope that when I wake up none of these calamities have befallen me. Goodnight!

til now i always got by on my own

I'm back from Tahoe, which is good - I had an awesome day and an awesome trip, but I'm really excited to sleep in my own bed and get some downtime tomorrow before going back to work. Today was lowkey, but it ended with a four-hour drive (well, 3.5hrs, plus time at In-n-Out), so I was destined to be tired no matter what I did today. The four of us had brunch at a restaurant in Kings Beach, and my huevos rancheros were super tasty and restorative - almost like eggs over easy on top of a plate of nachos, since the base of the dish was tortilla chips rather than corn tortillas. Yum.

Post-brunch, when we were all feeling a little bit more human, Lauren (aka Subz), Terry and I went down to the village, where Terry and I hung out at Starbucks for awhile while Lauren looked at ski boots. Then they went to the gym and I went to the adult rec center, which was basically just a room full of couches where I could work while I waited for them. I didn't get a ton of work done, since I had my usual Sunday call with my parents, but I contacted a couple of reviewers and dealt with some cover issues, so that was all good. Then we went back to the house, hung out in the hot tub for awhile, packed up, and were on the road by sixish. Terry and I spent most of the drive back dissecting a book I had made her read (POISON PRINCESS), which morphed into a discussion of career/life, which is always interesting and intense at the same time. And now, I'm super exhausted and must go to bed immediately - goodnight!

time can do so much

I continue to be in Tahoe, which should not surprise you, since no one comes up here for the night (except for the time I came up with John just to drop off the top to his convertible and have a sandwich with his dad before turning around and going back to Stanford, but obviously that was one of the many strange and bad decisions I made back in the day, so we'll leave it at that). Today was lovely, though; I was in desperate need of a break, as should be obvious from the increasingly frenetic language of my previous posts. And today was totally a break. We had a v. leisurely breakfast in the cabin, despite me being called out for my overly controlling nature in the kitchen/life (I'm just trying to hack y'all, you know - it's not a judgment, just an attempt to unearth the most optimal outcomes). Then, Subz and Terry went skiing while Nathan and I retreated to our separate corners with our laptops. I had intended not to work, and I didn't *really* work - but I did do some Prudence/Alex brainstorming, and set up some marketing campaigns, and answer some email, and tweet some tweets...

...so yeah, I continue to suck at taking vacation. Sorry, me. But it was all lowkey, and Nathan and I took a coffee break, which was nice. Eventually, we met up with Lauren and Terry at the village for some apres-ski action (that's 'drinking', for those of you who don't speak French). We had some fantastic tacos at some Mexican place, and then we found seats by a fire pit, where I indulged in a glass of wine and a fantastic hot chocolate with vanilla vodka and butterscotch liqueur, which may have been too sweet, but I was past the point of caring. We came home, spent some quality time in the hot tub, and eventually went back into the village for a late (and, consequently, hurried) dinner at the sushi place in the village. We had to get our act together because it turns out the shuttle closes at ten p.m. - this is such a family establishment that it's apparently unheard of for anyone to want a drink past 9:30. Crazy. But the sushi was fantastic, and the company was even moreso.

And now, after much hanging out and merrymaking and winedrinking and all the rest, I should go to bed. My only regret is that I couldn't do this weekend twice; Pincubus was in San Francisco today, but I got my dates mixed up and double-booked myself, and so I missed him. Sad, because I love him, and also because today looked like an amazing day in the city. Sigh. But Tahoe has been lovely, and I really needed a break, so I'm looking forward to another day of fun tomorrow. Goodnight!

i never really cared until i met you

I'm officially taking this weekend off. Or, I'm taking it off as much as I can allow myself to take it off - I may respond to a few emails. And the books I hope to read are books that I need to judge for a contest, so that's sort of half work. However, reading a couple of books and answering a few emails is like a blissful vacation compared to what I've been up to, so I'm pretty psyched.

Oh, and I'm in Tahoe. Yay. Today was a brutal slog to get here, though; I had a lot of work to do, and I was v. productive even though I worked from home. I spent my lunch break looking at stock photography for the redo of Malcolm and Amelia's cover, which was fun, but also work. Around four p.m. I threw in the towel and took a v stressful drive downtown to get my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed by my two favorite hair/brow professionals - the brow lady also does makeup, and if I get my headshots redone (which I'm considering, since I think the bangs are here to stay and I look different with them), I need to get her to do my makeup, since she's done amazing things for my brows. Yes, I've become that kind of person.

Post-beautifying, I stopped at Whole Foods, endured the torturous drive back home through rush hour traffic, and then had a fishy Catholic dinner with Terry at Nettie's Crab Shack. Then, I threw a bunch of stuff in a bag, and we left for Tahoe at around 8:30. I belted out 80s power ballads all the way up, which she mostly slept through, so either my singing is great enough or terrible enough to fall asleep to. We got up here a little before midnight, and spent an hour drinking wine and watching Siberian meteorite videos with Lauren (aka Subz) and Nathan, whose house we're staying in. Even though I have no intention of skiing or doing anything else wintery, I'm super psyched to take a break - I only brought my chromebook with me, so I can neither do work for the man nor get sucked into spending the weekend formatting the print version of Nick and Ellie's story.

But now, I should really sleep - may you all sleep safe from meteorites (and, more importantly, not wake up to find yourself in Siberia). Goodnight!

you begin to wonder why you came

I'm super sleepy, and I've totally hit the wall - I suppose that's to be expected since I did nothing but work today. I got up relatively early and was on the shuttle by 7:15, worked on my book stuff until I got to the office, and then I slogged very brutally and without much of a break until 4:30, when I left to come home. Unfortunately, the shuttle took over two hours; I expected this, since I figured there would be insane Valentine's traffic, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite that bad. But I got my reader newsletter out while sitting on the shuttle, so I suppose that's a good thing.

When I got home, I had intended to grab a burger at Roam, but the line was really long, so I ate a sad frozen enchilada instead. Then, I did some work for the man for a couple of hours. Then, I was going to do more stuff for my book, but I'm too tired to think, and I should have gone to bed half an hour ago. Boo. Hopefully tomorrow I can be slightly more well-rested, but since I'm going to Tahoe for the weekend and have to work a full day first, I kind of doubt it. Goodnight!

the a team

There is a day when I will not stare at my computer for sixteen hours in a row, but it is not this day. Actually, that's a lie; I drove to work and back, so I didn't stare at my computer for approximately two hours today. That's a positive thing, right?

So today was good, despite the fact that I've had a smashing headache since approximately my third day back at work. I had a nine a.m. meeting, but rather than scramble to get up this morning, I took it and the meeting after it from home, then drove down to the office. How civilized, right? Then I slogged nonstop until six and felt v. pleased with myself for it. Post-slog, I went to Palo Alto and had dinner at one of my favorite cafes (they were v. surprised to see me at night, and even more surprised when I ordered a steak and a glass of wine, since they only see me eat scrambled eggs). While eating dinner, I drafted newsletters for my readers and for my friends and family - the life of a writer never stops. Then I drove home, tackled the kitchen, folded laundry, and should have just gone to bed, but I decided to get my friends and family newsletter out instead. I also uploaded the content for the reader newsletter, but since this is now going to 1200+ people, I need to test it a bit more aggressively than I tested the friends/family one. But hopefully I can send it out tomorrow...and then move on to the next ten tasks on my to-do list.

And now, I must sleep. I don't know if I can continue to be insanely productive in all areas of my life (the answer is no, unless I also want to be productive in the realm of ulcers), but if I can just keep it up through the end of the month, I should be more clear on my job and also through the initial crazy phase of the book launch. Of course, that means I'll be up to speed and ready to do real, labor-intensive things at work just as I'm starting the real, labor-intensive work of trying to figure out what Prudence and Alex's story is...hmm. Wish me luck, I guess? Goodnight!

starships are made to fly

I'm super, super tired - please remind me not to make plans two nights in a row now that I'm working again. Of course, it doesn't help that things are speeding up at work just as I'm in crazy launch mode with zee romance novel. But, this is what I signed up for, and I'm actually much happier this week, when I'm too busy, than I was my first week, when I had nothing to do except go through trainings I'd already sat through half a decade ago.

Anyway, before I go any further, I realized I made a classic rookie marketing mistake and told you that my book was out, but failed to tell you where to go if you care to buy it. Right now, you can get it on Kindle or on Nook for the low low price of $3.99. The print version is coming in a couple of weeks. Kobo (I know none of you know or care about Kobo), AllRomance eBooks, and Google Play are coming whenever we get around to uploading to those sites (yes, I realize the irony of backburnering Play).

So, on the whole my day was lovely, but it started and ended with feeling carsick, so that kind of put a damper on things. I was too aggressive in my attempts to work on the shuttle this morning, and the drivers was too aggressive in general, and there was an accident on the freeway that created too much stop-and-go traffic, and the woman sitting next to me had heavy perfume and was eating something that smelled revolting, so I arrived at work feeling incredibly nauseated. I calmed my stomach with some breakfast, slogged hardcore until noon, took a break to have lunch with John, and then slogged again until 5:45. Then, Heather (aka dear respected madam) picked me up, and we went to downtown MTV to have dinner with Denise, who was a director way way back in the day when I was involved in doing quality for the temp program. Ah, the memories.

Post dinner, Heather dropped me off at work, where I caught a shuttle home. But since I didn't get here until 9:45, and I have more to do than I can shake a stick at, I made only a brief attempt to slog before deciding I would be better served by nine hours of sleep. So, I'm going to go to bed immediately - goodnight!

book birthday

And so, in an utterly surprising, rather anticlimactic turn of events, my latest book came out today. Color me shocked. Also, color me exhausted. My agent uploaded to Amazon and Nook this morning, and both systems have gotten faster, so they were live by noon or 2pm. Yay!!! And now begins the waiting game of seeing how it does in the rankings, and waiting for the first review, and hoping the first review isn't from someone who f'ing hates it. I'm a little nervous because I don't feel like I had enough time to promo it, and I have virtually nothing lined up...but what I do have lined up is good, so hopefully I can pull some more stuff together and go into overdrive to get people to read it.

And if nothing else, it's done. So if you were sick of hearing me bitch about Nick and Ellie, get ready for the names 'Prudence' and 'Alex' to burn themselves into your retinas - I apologize in advance for the next eight or nine months.

Anyway, I was nonstop-on today, which is probably when I'm at my happiest, so that was good. I spent the whole shuttle ride updating my website, uploading to Apple, taking care of business, etc. Then, I slogged hardcore all day; I'm done with training and starting to answer customer questions, which is actually kind of fun, even if it's something I did nine years ago and had long since graduated from. I also had lunch with Ziv, whom I managed back in the dark ages, and coffee with Alana and Joy - Alana is a longtime blog reader (yay) and Joy used to work for the big boss with me, so we all go way back. And then I caught a shuttle to the evil city, dropped my backpack off at home, took a taxi to the movie theatre, and met up with Lauren (aka Subz) to watch 'Argo'.

The movie was totally awesome, although I feel just a little weird that the last two movies I've seen have involved me eating tasty snacks while watching regime change/torture in the Islamic world (although this was way, way less intense than 'Zero Dark Thirty'). But, go 'merica, right? The real revelation in this movie for me was Ben Affleck -- not that he can direct (although the movie was fantastic), but that he's so freaking hot. When did that happen? The beard and the slightly world-weary look in his eyes makes a huge difference. Or maybe it was half a bottle of zinfandel (although I maintain that the zin was medicinal and an attempt to disinfect my stomach while eating movie theatre ceviche). But seriously, dude can rescue me from Tehran any day of the week. Also, did the Argo crew find Kyle Chandler asleep in the CIA set that they borrowed from Zero Dark Thirty and ask him to play a bit role, or was it the other way around?

And now actually seriously, I'll say that the movie was v. satisfying (well written, well paced, well directed) and also made me deeply, deeply wish that I had grown up in the seventies. Also, I wish that I were Alan Arkin - Subz told me that I could pull off his attitude, but I think that while I may have the wit/sharp tongue, I don't have the killer instinct to tell someone to go fuck themselves. Perhaps this would be a good area for development for me. Or perhaps I like having friends. But then, if I told people to go fuck themselves, I wouldn't end up getting my breasts massaged in India. This is a tradeoff that will haunt me, I'm sure.

Enough of this nonsense - it's time for bed. Clearly I'm giddy and irrational because my book is done and I can contemplate not writing for two or three days - yay. But now, I must sleep; hopefully my dreams are a little less psychotic tonight, since last night I dreamed that I was a hostage on some tropical island, which turned out to be the tip of a peninsula that developers wanted to take over, and Seeley Booth, the sharpshooter/FBI agent from Terry's beloved show 'Bones', came in to rescue us, which was super hot. Also, the guy holding me hostage really liked my glasses, so that was nice, but he was a total dick and not really a good person, so I'm glad Booth came in to rescue me. So maybe I do hope my dreams are psychotic again? We shall see, we shall see. Happy book birthday to me, and hopefully tomorrow I'm a little less insane (unlikely, right?). Goodnight!

css sucks

I am v. pleased to report that Nick and Ellie are officially, finally done. YAY. I finished inputting my post-proofreading edits this morning, then took a break, then talked to [censored], who had been gracious enough to [censored], which was super helpful. I also talked to my parents at some point, and I ran out to grab a burger with Terry (not quite the same as the lovely French restaurant we had discussed going to last night, but at least it was food, and at least I left the house).

But the majority of the afternoon/evening was spent finishing the formatting, which I think turned out really well - we'll see if I get any major complaints about usability issues. I reverse engineered another ebook to figure out why my ebook was having some weird inter-paragraph spacing issues on Nook; while I didn't figure out why it was only doing it on Nook and not on iBooks or Kindle, I did figure out how to fix it, so score one for that. It involved changing a bunch of css stylesheets and copious amounts of testing to make sure I hadn't broken something else, but it looks good on all of my devices and web reading apps, so I'm hoping there aren't any edge cases where it fails unexpectedly.

Anyway, I sent it to my agent around nine, then spent some quality time emailing people who had won copies of it in previous contests to let them know it's done. And then I said a brief farewell to Terry, who is leaving for NYC tomorrow (and is likely glad to have a break from me, since she said I reached a nadir sometime this afternoon - I was v., v. cranky from formatting, and apparently this crankiness leaked out more than I usually let it). It's sad that I reached a nadir, but that could have been the aftermath of this morning's champagne - we had book club at Lauren's, which was awesome and lovely, although I didn't even start to read the book because I had intended to take a break and do it this weekend and instead I spent the whole weekend reading css stylesheets and being hungover. Stupid. But it was good to see the book club people, even if I was woefully unprepared.

And now, I must sleep at once - I have this other job that I have to go to tomorrow, and I'm planning to get up at six a.m. so that I can make it into the office before traffic becomes atrocious. Goodnight!

in the waiting line

As you might guess if you have read the blog post I wrote this morning, my day was just a little bit brutal. As much as I'm glad that I enjoyed myself last night, and as much as I don't regret hanging out, it was still rather dumb to wreck myself when I am still recovering from whatever weird illness I had last week and am also trying to get my next book ready to go live. But then, I did the exact same thing with Adit ten years ago this spring, when I went out to a lowkey dinner with him the night before my honors thesis was due that turned into a night filled with port and ping pong - so it's either comforting or intensely sad that we've all changed so little.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon recovering, but I wasn't surly, just sickly. And i managed to finish proofreading the whole book and get about halfway through inputting all the edits I wrote down, so I'm feeling good about the book. Luckily, I didn't hate any of it on this readthrough, so I think it's ready to go out into the world! Beyond that, I did nothing; Terry and I were going to have roommate dinner tonight, but she wasn't feeling well and I was hungover and trying to finish proofreading, so we ordered in instead. And I left the apartment briefly this afternoon for some restorative huevos rancheros that were only mildly restorative, but they were facing an uphill battle that they couldn't win on their own, so they gave it their best shot.

And now, I should sleep; I have brunch plans, and then I must slog hard and fast to get the finished ebook to my agent (easy) and start building all my promo campaigns and listing out other tasks to do this week (hard). Goodnight!

born to run

Obviously, I should have posted this last night - I never post at eleven a.m. But last night ended sometime after five in the morning, and when I finally got to my laptop, I was capable of neither thought nor typing, so a blog post didn't happen.

However, I feel it is imperative to verify that I am still alive. Last night started, as all of my bad decisions do, with a v. low-key, romantic dinner with Adit (some people call him the cat). Or rather, I had intended to have a low-key dinner (my original suggestion was Korean hot pot), but it turned fancy when we ended up at Central Kitchen, a place that sounds like it should be part of some food court full of off-brand chains, but is actually the kind of place that has the gumption to charge $23 for an "entree" where the main ingredient is celery root. Wtf, man...wtf. Also, there were more white people there, in a higher white:nonwhite ratio, than I've seen anywhere since eating at a buffet-style restaurant with my sister at Christmas, which is bizarre and unusual in San Francisco.

But the food was good, albeit overpriced and pretentious - although if I were to have a low-key, romantic dinner in the future, I'd rather go to Mission Beach Cafe for that level of expenditure. The ambiance was cool, though. I'm pretty sure our waiter was drunk, but he seemed like a nice dude. And he asked us if we were in the food industry, so I must have looked hip enough with my weird sweater poncho to not drag Adit down, since Adit always looks hip (do kids still say 'hip' these days?) - the chef asked the waiter to ask us, since the chef thought he recognized Adit. Ha.

The wine was excellent, though...and that's where my troubles began. We split a bottle, which was an aggressive move on what I had intended to be a low-key night. But I was destined for trouble anyway. I was in a celebratory mood, since I seem to have fought off the flu (which will undoubtedly sneak back in and try to kill me since I let my guard down last night). And more importantly, my next book is suddenly, awesomely/regrettably coming out next week - the Nook people want to feature it as part of their Valentine's Day promo, which is fantastic news, but also means I need to work all weekend. But I hadn't taken a break, or hung out for an appreciable length of time, or done anything beyond the occasional dinner, in what feels like months...(but maybe hasn't been months, although I feel like a total hermit)...and so that half-bottle of wine turned into the beginning of a fun, slow-motion trainwreck.

Post-dinner, we joined Chandlord, Katrina, and Raja at the adjacent bar, where the drinks are printed on a booklet of Pantone paint chips (I love/hate SF) and had a cocktail. Then, we went to another bar, where I asked Adit to order me a vodka cranberry and he came back with a whisky ginger, which are two of my least favorite things...and yet I drank the whole damn glass. Then Katrina and Raja parted ways with us, and Chandlord, Adit and I continued to a third bar, where Adit and I each had two drinks while the three of us played Jenga on the bar (and we were surprisingly good considering our levels of inebriation). Then, since Chandlord had stopped drinking hours earlier and yet was somehow still up for hanging out with two drunken fools, she drove my car to Safeway, where we bought cheese and gluten-free bread, and then we went back to Adit's and made grilled cheese and egg sandwiches. Of course, we had to open a bottle of wine to go with that (mistake #20 of the night)...and then we did whisper karaoke until five, which started as real karaoke until Adit found out, via angry text, that his neighbor was still home rather than gone for the weekend like he had thought. Oops.

sssanyway, Chandlord dropped me off at home, then took my car to her place, so I'll have to retrieve it at some point - but going to her place to get it is much more convenient than going to 20th and Harrison, so I'm v. glad she has it. And now you're all caught up, and I need to get over my headache so that I can proofread - have a lovely day!

lips and teeth to ask how your day went

It's possible that I shouldn't have gone to work today. In fact, it's probable. But I felt like such a slacker for calling in sick during my third week of work, even though it's not my fault that my immune system can't handle being around people again. And when I woke up, it merely felt like I had been hit by a rickshaw rather than a truck, so I took that as a sign that I should go into the office.

However, I had a smashing headache all day, which made it hard to concentrate on what people were saying to me. Usually I can at least feign interest even if I'm having trouble concentrating, but I don't think I managed even that basic little bit of subterfuge. Also, my teammates could tell I was not feeling well and harassed me about coming in, saying that no one cared whether I came in and that everyone else would have stayed home in this situation. So, good to know that my team is not the kind of team to force you to work when you're dying...this could come in handy.

But I managed to get through the emails I hadn't read/responded to for a couple of days, and I took care of some other tasks that I'm glad I tackled. I'm totally wiped out now, though, and I think I'm going to go to bed immediately rather than stay up and try to work on anything else - I have a feeling that I would be better served by sleeping for ten or eleven hours tonight than I would be by working on either the day job or my writing stuff. Goodnight!

all this fighting with aching joints

I ended up staying home from work today. I know, being sick three weeks into a new job is ill-advised. I woke up and tried to convince myself to go to work, and had even showered, but the longer I stood up, the dizzier and more nauseated I got. So I ended up calling it in around eight a.m. Terry was also sick, so it's not like I could bask in the luxury of being home alone (ha), but perhaps I felt less like a hypochondriac since she has the same symptoms. Or perhaps we're both hypochondriacs together. But given that I have a splitting headache and everything aches, I think it's a good thing I stayed home.

So, I was online and feigned an attempt at work this morning, but by noon, I decided I was better off sleeping, so I took a three-hour nap. Then I messed around on my computer the rest of the day, alternating between browsing the internet and watching "30 Rock" with Terry. And now, even though it's only 9:20pm, I think I'm going to go to sleep - I want to try again to go to the office tomorrow, since I feel like a total slacker (and, more importantly, I'm out of food here). Goodnight!

she's just a girl and she's on fire

As is usual with me, the fact that I finished my book last night was pretty anticlimactic. Perhaps I would have celebrated tonight, but I'm worried that I'm coming down with something (either the flu or old age, although WebMD tells me I have a combination of an ACL injury and hepatitis). I'm sure this isn't helped by the fact that I didn't get enough sleep last night, although I slept the whole way to work and the whole way back, so that should have cured what ailed me.

Anyway, work was good; I had some meetings, and I had a delightful break for lunch with Elisabeth and Wendy, who were on my team in days of yore and have now moved on to bigger and better things. Happily, they still had time for me, so we caught up over free food rather than meeting and paying for wine (barbaric) like last time. I slogged until five, then caught a bus home, where I sat on the couch and contemplated nothing for an hour, and then spent the rest of the night figuring out how to format the book I just finished. It's something that is definitely within my ability to do, but I need to take some time to really learn the coding on the backend so that I can make sure it looks as perfect and professional as possible, rather than just spitting out a shitty conversion from some of the free software that a lot of the self-pubbers seem to use. Yes, I'm a snob. But I'm only a snob because I am so very picky about things like fonts and line breaks, and since it's my book, I can be as picky as I want to be. I got to a good first attempt by the end of the night, so I think I can wrap up the formatting for the advance copy for reviewers tomorrow night, and then spend a couple of weeks learning xml and css before proofreading a final time and formatting the for-sale copy.

Yes, I'm that boring. But you knew that. And now, I shall go to sleep and hope that the fever I seem to be developing is simply the result of being overly-excited by xml coding -- goodnight!

i get a little bit older

I just sent Nick and Ellie to my agent. I would be much more excited about this if I hadn't just burned out the last little bit of my brain - and if I didn't have to get up in less than seven hours. But I'm pretty excited regardless; I think the book turned out well, if I'm not too much of a crackhead now to accurately judge my own work. And hopefully we can do some cool promo stuff in the coming weeks, but that's a battle for another day.

Beyond the book, today was good; I made it to the office by 8:20ish, had breakfast, and slogged without break until noon. Then I snuck out of the office to check my mail over my lunch break, grabbed some food on the way back (at a cafe in a building that is not mine), and slogged for another couple of hours. Then, I had a series of meetings with people in partner organizations that I will be working with; they sit in different buildings than I do, so I ventured out to a different part of campus, which was fun. And at the end of my last meeting, I promptly caught a shuttle, and traffic was so miraculously good that I was home by six. Yay for everyone being too hungover from yesterday to go to work today. So I sat around here for an hour (and by that I mean I cleaned up from yesterday and ate some leftover chili), and then worked on the book until now (with a brief break to talk to Terry). I sent it to my agent at exactly midnight, which seemed auspicious. And now, I'm out of words and my fingers hurt from typing and I think the adrenaline is going to make me sick if I don't sleep immediately -- so, yay me! and goodnight!

when the lights go down in the city

There is sadness in San Francisco tonight. Granted, the pragmatic, doesn't-want-to-die prepper part of me is glad that the 49ers fans didn't burn the city down to celebrate winning, but the competitive side of me is v. sad that we lost.

But today was lovely. I woke up around 8:30, showered, made myself some breakfast, and wrote for about three hours (and by 'wrote' I mean 'edited', if that matters to you). Then, I talked to my parents earlier than usual before going downstairs to help Terry with the preparations for her Super Bowl party. In normal circumstances we would have both invited people, but a) I care about football whole orders of magnitude less than I care about the Olympics, and b) as you may have gathered from a read between the subtle lines of my blog, I'm trying to finish writing Ellie and Nick's book. So, I didn't invite anyone myself, but I love the people she invited (Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, Fred, Jamie, Angela, and Lauren/Nathan's friend Mary, who wasn't invited formally but was a v. welcome addition). Terry pulled together the vast majority of the party, including some delish crab dip, her homemade guacamole, and other appetizers. She also made a baked potato bar, which was winning. I contributed a pitcher of mojitos (dangerous, since I think I drank half of them), my verging-on-famous chili (which I made a double batch of, so I'll be eating it later this week), and I grilled the lemon chicken skewers that she had skewered earlier in the day while the chili was cooking, since it was better for me to stay in the kitchen where I belonged than to pay attention to the game.

But I missed less of the game than I might have, since the infamous power outage happened while I was pulling the last bit of stuff together. And the post-power outage comeback was magical, and would have been truly epic if we had won. Unfortunately, not winning put a damper on things, and everyone pretty much left immediately, although Nathan and Lauren chose to watch an episode of "New Girl" with us until Terry was ready to drive them home so that they weren't subjected to outrageous surge-level pricing on Uber (a transportation/cab app, for those of you who don't live in SF/NYC). Although I suppose I should mention that we did watch more of "Puppy Bowl IX" than I had expected before everyone left. Also, I'm a little glad that the Ravens won, solely because the Ravens' owner looks like a true mafia don who would have killed John Harbaugh on the field if he had lost. As much as I would have liked to have seen that, I suppose it's best if both Harbaughs live to fight another day.

And now, I must sleep; apparently I have to go to the office or something tomorrow? Ridiculous. Goodnight!

she can ruin your faith with her casual lies

omg so tired. I think I worked on Nick and Ellie for twelve hours today, which is about ten hours longer than I normally have the mental capacity for - so it will be interesting to see whether I can be a functioning adult tomorrow, or whether I will be a gibbering mess. I'm rooting for functioning adult, since I'd like to put another six or eight hours in on the manuscript and also enjoy at least some of the Super Bowl, but my track record does not make 'functioning adult' seem like a probable outcome.

But I'm pleased with what I accomplished today. I finally rewrote the end, which, as you know, has been killing me for months. And, I made copy-edit type changes to the first third of the manuscript, and combed through the rest of it fixing little plot threads and dangling issues. There are still a couple of plot threads to weave back into the mess, and then I need to do copy-edit type changes to the last two thirds (this means word-choice type things, not wholesale rewrites), and then I need to proofread it and format it and send it to reviewers and and and...

It's enough to just focus on finishing the edits for now, and worry about all the rest of that later (i.e. Monday). I'm so freaking close, and I like the way the end came together today even if I wish it had come together for me three months ago. So, I'm going to try to stay focused on the positives, hopefully fall asleep in the next five minutes, and then dream about waking up refreshed and reenergized so that I can achieve the same zen-like flow I did today. Miracles happen every day, and I'm hoping this miracle happens for me. Goodnight!

now i'm dying to forget you

I have nothing positive to say about Nick and Ellie, so I won't say anything at all. In fact, I wasn't going to blog tonight, but I haven't missed a night in 2013 yet, and I want to see if I can keep that trend going since I missed thirteen days in 2012 (inexcusable, I know). So, here's a brief recap. I worked from home today, which was lovely, although I must say that I have already forgotten what it's like to feed myself all the time, and so today was challenging. I was pretty productive, though, and I dialed into a two-hour training and also had a video chat with another writer, so that was fun. But when it finally came time to knock off work, I was ready to - I went to the grocery store to get some tings to sustain myself for the weekend, and then came home and started contemplating Nick and Ellie.

And really, it's not as bad as I made it sound earlier; I just need to power through my inevitable end-of-book doubts and get to the point where I can comfortably say that it's finished. Hopefully that happens this weekend, because I'm pretty much ready to be done with them and move on to something else. So, in order to make that happen, I'm going to go to bed so taht I can get up tomorrow and write - wish me luck!

this place that has me now

I have nothing of particular interest to report today - everything of interest was social, not work-related, which I suppose is a good thing? I took a later shuttle this morning, since I felt it was important to get eight hours of sleep rather than six. But, there were no consequences for my sloth, since a) most people get in later on my team and b) my boss is out of the office, so even my inner Puritan didn't care that I got in at ten. I was productive all day, though, meeting with people on my team to find out what they do, setting up meetings with more people, etc., etc. I also had lunch with Cody, whom I managed for a hot minute years and years ago, and that was lovely - not only was it good to see him, but I had an awesome spicy Thai chicken and coconut soup that made up for all the subpar meals I've had this week. Ridiculous, I know.

I eventually left and came back to the evil city, where I sat around for a bit before walking down to the Marina proper, where I had dinner and drinks with Jenni. We hung out for almost three hours, which was great, since I haven't seen her alone in a couple of months. She was in good form, and the food and drinks were great; I had two excellent glasses of red (a Spanish blend and a cab) and a glass of dessert wine, plus a burger (sans bun) and some of the burrata mozzarella (sans bread), so I was in a v. happy place on the way home.

And now, I should sleep; I have a bunch of meetings tomorrow, which I'm going to take from home to avoid Friday evening rush hour, so that's v. exciting. Goodnight!

dynamite with a laser beam

So, as you know, I stayed in San Jose last night. This meant that getting ready was slightly less streamlined since I had to do it out of an overnight bag rather than my well-stocked cabinet of potions and beauty aids, but I think I pulled it together. And the lack of streamlined efficiency was made up for by the fact that the commute (especially since Heather drove me back via the carpool lane) was less than half an hour. Magical. So, I was in time for my nine a.m. meeting (barbaric), and then I slogged pretty hardcore all day. Or maybe it just felt hardcore because I barely ate anything; I didn't get a chance to grab breakfast other than a gluten-free snack bar, which was half the size of a normal snack bar since zee man is apparently trying to cut our calories (the days of gallon-size m&m dispensers are long, long gone). And when I went to the nearest cafe to grab lunch, their only entree option had gluten in it, so I had to have a v. subpar salad that made me feel sad and vaguely ill. Yes, first world problems - but I do not like not getting enough meat, and this all upset me.

So, when I was done slogging for the day, I went to Starbucks and successfully wrote for an hour (surprising, right?). Then, I met up with Joann and Jane for a friendship renewal dinner (sans Tolu) at my favorite Mexican restaurant near work. And I continue to have an odd relationship with the wait staff there, in particular with one of the waiters, who rather inappropriately rubs my back when asking if I want a margarita. But, he comped our drinks and brought guacamole on the house...which makes me wonder if this is the equivalent of whoring myself out. I don't know. All I know is the margaritas are awesome and I don't think he's ever going to roofie me, so I'll keep going. Yay.

Anyway, Joann and Jane were in good form, and we had a lot to catch up on, so that was super fun. Then, I drove my car home since I didn't want to have to drive it back tomorrow, and I meant to write...but I'm a bit too tired for it. So I cleaned up several scenes, made some notes of tiny things I need to fix, and took care of some promo stuff. And now, I must go to bed immediately so that I can catch the shuttle tomorrow - goodnight!

reasons unknown

I'm sleepy and must go to bed promptly, but today was good. I worked from home until ~11:30, since my landlord was coming over to check out the leak situation from my shower to the dining room. Miraculously, it didn't cause any visible damage, since it was somehow leaking through the window frame in the window directly below the shower, and the wall or paint wasn't damp or anything. Bizarre. Anyway, the landlord was v. much relieved, since he had visions of tearing out the plumbing, and instead just had to run to the hardware store for some corrective grout or caulk or whatever. Yay.

Thus relieved of my renter's duties, I left him to his devices and drove to work, taking with me all the stuff that I had packed up and taken home on my last day at work two+ years ago. I haven't opened those boxes since I left, so it will be interesting to see what stuff I decided to keep. When I got to campus, I grabbed lunch at a mexican-themed cafe (sans gluten), then went to my building and trained/slogged/trained until ~5:30. Then, Heather (aka dear respected madam) picked me up, and we had a v. lovely, v. delicious dinner in San Jose. As it turns out, there was a hockey game in SJ tonight as well, so the first half of our dinner was packed with Sharks fans - but they cleared out as we were finishing our entrees (steak, yum), and so we had the place nearly to ourselves while she had creme brulee and I had coffee. Awesome.

And now I'm about to go to sleep in her guest room; this plan worked out v. well, particularly since I can't use my shower at home tomorrow anyway. We came back to her place after dinner, talked to Salim, and watched the season premiere of 'Project Runway', which I may keep watching if they don't make me sad and bored again like they did tonight. And now, I must sleep so that I can make it into the office early tomorrow (or at least earlier than today) - goodnight!

i know more of the stars and sea than i do of what's in your head

Hello, friends. I am still gainfully employed. I suppose the shock of this will wear off at some point soon, but it's still just a trifle bizarre that this is the case. However, today was lovely; I woke up at six and promptly reset my alarm to sleep for another hour and a half, since I'm freaked out about the possibility of getting the flu and wasn't feeling all that great last night. I woke up for round two at 7:30, and got up in time to get ready and out the door for a shuttle that got me to work at 9:50am. Yes, this is the benefit of working in tech - I wasn't even the last one to arrive, so if my job was the Amazing Race, I would live to go another round.

I worked on the shuttle on the way in, and then slogged an appropriate amount the rest of the day, going through a training on privacy policy that seemed v. familiar to what I'd learned on the last time around, plus going through trainings on the projects I'm working on and meeting with my manager for some quality time. I caught the shuttle back to the city at 5:45, but it didn't get in until 7:20 because there was an accident on the freeway, which was rather unfortunate. I think I either need to go in early and leave early, or go in late and leave late, but going in late and leaving at the right time is the worst possible move.

However, I had to leave when I did, since I had a 7:30pm dinner date with Terry, Lauren (aka Subz), and Annie, one of Terry's v. awesome coworkers who is unfortunately moving to Sydney. I say unfortunately because I think I could be fabulous friends with her, which, as you know, is very rare, since I hate most people on sight. I kid, I kid (mostly). Still, she seems to be a wonderful person, and I wish she weren't leaving. But if she must leave, I'm glad that we had dinner tonight - the four of us split two of the best bottles of wine I've had at a restaurant in quite some time, and we had many and varied tapas (although not so varied as the waiter might have liked, since we didn't have either of the specials, one of which was frogs' legs and the other of which was octopus). So, dinner was lovely, and the company was even lovelier. And now I must go to bed so I can do it all again tomorrow, sans half a bottle of wine - goodnight!

my eyes don't recognize you no more

Apparently this job thing expects me to go into work again this coming week, even though I just spent, like, four days doing it. What is up with that?!

So I spent today working on zee romance novel since I have to go into the office all week. And I basically worked from 11am until now, with a break to call my parents, talked to [censored], and eat some leftover chili for supper. Oh, and I went to Starbucks and to the corner store, so I wasn't a total hermit (ha). But, thanks to my endeavors, I finished answering all the research questions that were still open in Nick and Ellie's book. These questions covered everything from how much a painting might cost (Joshua Reynolds, a premier portrait artist, was charging eighty guineas for a full-size portrait in 1780, which is before my story's time, but probably a good approximation for what Ellie might get for a masterpiece), to whether words like 'lucre', 'marathon', and 'snake oil' were used then (yes, no, and no), to what Nick might have worn (note: if a tailcoat is blue, it always has gold buttons; otherwise, it mostly has buttons covered in the same fabric as the coat).

This research is fun, but mildly exhausting, and since I was hunched over my desk I now feel like I was hit in the back by a truck. Or maybe I'm getting the flu. So, I just took a preemptive NyQuil and am going to go straight to bed - goodnight!

divine intervention

I'm super sleepy, and I'm a bit paranoid that I'm going to catch the flu that has been going on, particularly since I seemed to get sick whenever I left the house for extended periods of time over the past two years. My immune system is not accustomed to the bugs of this many people swirling around me, but hopefully I shall survive.

Anyway, today was a good introduction to this concept y'all call a 'weekend'. It didn't start out great; a few minutes after I woke up, as I was considering going back to bed, I got a notification that my twitter account's password and email had been changed. Since I hadn't been on twitter in a week, this meant someone was in the process of hacking me. Luckily, I got it stopped before anything untoward happened, but I was too awake to go back to bed after that. So I messed around, showered, did some laundry, and grabbed breakfast down the street, since I have no food in the house. Then I came home and worked for a couple of hours before going downtown to my salon...

...which should have been v. easy to get to, but it turns out there was a pro-life rally downtown, and all of Market Street was closed for several blocks. This was horribly annoying, since I'm north of Market and my salon is south of Market - and there was no way to get there. I got deflected off of Market and had to head back north, but luckily I knew of a nearby garage, where I parked and then hustled my way through the protest to the salon. Being ten minutes late was hardly the relaxing start I had intended to have, but my stylist and my brow lady made up for it, since I heart them both. I got a haircut and a v. fab blowout (the only downside of which is that the way she did the part of my hair revealed new strands of white that I hadn't noticed before), and then I got my brows waxed, and I had fun and entertaining conversations with both of them.

Thus restored to my feminine best (well, really, it's kind of a mixed bag, since my hair looked awesome but the skin around my eyebrows was angry), I retrieved my car, went to the grocery store, came home, and spent a couple of hours on a silly marketing task (setting up a v. small contest to solicit thoughts on my new vs old covers - you can see it on my sararamsey homepage if you're so inclined). Then I made chili, which Terry and I ate while watching figure skating - Scotty Hamilton is still in prime form, but there was no Dick Button in sight/earshot, which made me sad. We are all born to die.

And on that cheerful note, I should sleep so that I can keep slogging through my historical research minutiae tomorrow so that I can finish Nick and Ellie - goodnight!

weary eyes and dry throat

My first week of work is over. It was 20% shorter than a normal work week due to the holiday, but since I'm unaccustomed to having to think about holidays and things like that, it's still a little strange. I caught myself thinking something along the lines of 'you mean I have to do this again next week?' when I got home tonight, but it wasn't out of dissatisfaction or anything - it was just that I miss my desk, and being home when it's daylight, and all the other many and splendored perks of working for myself.

That said, I'm feeling good about the change and excited about my new job, so that's a plus. Now if I can just get Nick and Ellie to my agent and all the reviewers, I would be a happy camper. I got into the office a little before eight today (shocking), met with my manager, spent the day ramping up on stuff + seeing dear respected madam, and got home around six. Then, Terry and I had roommate dinner; we went to a sushi place a couple of blocks away that I've been meaning to try for ages, and I really liked it, so I see some v. dangerous takeout ordering in my future (since it would be trivially easy to call in an order from the shuttle and pick it up on my way home...).

And now, I should sleep; I accidentally took a nap at 9:30 instead of working on Nick and Ellie, and then I messed around on the internet until now. But tomorrow I must be productive, and so now I must bid you goodnight!

and you're still probably working at a nine to five pace

Day 3 was not quite as productive at Day 2, but perhaps I just feel that way because the shuttle ride home made me fairly carsick, which meant I got home and just needed to sit for a bit rather than getting into gear on Nick and Ellie as I had planned. And once I hit the wall, it stayed hit; there was no getting work done after that.

However, the day was great up until then. I got up at six for the third day in a row, which is ridiculous - I'm going to try for number four tomorrow. That shuttle ride didn't make me sick, and I even spent most of it answering emails - clearly the takeaway is that I should aim for shuttle times with low traffic, not to save me time but because stop and go traffic will make me deathly ill. Once at work, I spent most of the day breezing through trainings I've gone through before, but it's good to get a refresher and look out for stuff that has changed since I left. I ended the day at a meeting where new hires are made to stand up and wave to everyone else, and I ran into at least four people there who didn't know I had come back - clearly the email I sent out didn't have a broad enough distribution, since I was happy to see them all and yet had somehow left them off my goodbye email years ago.

After that, I caught the shuttle home, but since it was six p.m., traffic was miserable. I mostly bummed around until nine, but Terry got home and we chatted about work stuff (easy since we both work at the same place). And now, I should sleep - getting up at six a.m. is either going to get old real quick, or I'm going to figure out a way to be productive enough from 7pm to 10pm to make it all worth it. I think it might be the latter, and I have some ideas for ways to get writing done a couple of nights a week - but that's a story for another time, and probably something I don't need to be focused on during my first week. Goodnight!

hungry like the wolf

Day two was great, and much better than day one, if only because I spent almost all of it either getting to know my new team or plowing through my v. long orientation to-do list. I also took the shuttle, which was amazing. Granted, I got nothing done because I decided to try just sitting both ways to avoid getting carsick (success). But I think I'm at the point where I'll accept that the shuttle may take an extra ten or fifteen minutes due to walking + extra stops, in exchange for the fact that I showed up at work relaxed and not full of adrenaline from hating on other drivers for an hour. I'm going to try reading or doing email tomorrow and see where that gets me; hopefully for the sake of camaraderie it doesn't get me puking all over the person next to me.

Anyway, I cut out of work, came home, grabbed a burger at Roam since I have no groceries in the house, and then was theoretically going to write - but of course that didn't happen. Instead, I played with the new Nexus 7" tablet that someone on my team handed me today - this is how they wow you into giving up your soul. And I've gotta say, the tablet is pretty incredible - especially for the price, I don't know why anyone would buy the iPad over the Nexus 7" at this point, unless they truly need a much bigger tablet device.

Yes, I've drunk the koolaid. But I'd already drunk the koolaid, so this is more of a refresher than a new thing. And now, I'm going to go to sleep at this absurdly early hour so that I can catch an early-ish shuttle in the morning - this is all v. strange and surreal, but I want to see if this get-up-at-six thing can work for me. Blergh. Goodnight!