let me live that fantasy

Ah, Monday, how I loathe thee. I actually made it out the door by 6:30 this morning despite last night's (mild) debauchery, and so I had an hour to write at the cafe on campus before my first meeting of the day. And I maybe, kind of, had an idea for Octavia that I didn't totally hate, although it's still too early to say whether I will continue to not hate it in the morning.

Thus feeling somewhat accomplished and highly caffeinated, I progressed to my building, where I had several hours of meetings in the morning. Then I canceled on lunch with Jenni and the Heathers (that sounds like an 80s band) because I had too much work to contemplate leaving my corner of campus and socializing for the ninety minutes such an endeavor would have taken. I then had more meetings from 1pm to 4pm, but at that point I was totally over it, so I snuck out (and by 'snuck out' I mean that I said goodbye and waltzed merrily out) and drove home.

I was rewarded for my slackerness; the drive only took an hour, which is nearly miraculous. When I got here, I did another hourish of workish, and then I abandoned all screens and walked up to Lafayette Park and back down. When I had returned to the lowlands, I abruptly went for sushi in my neighborhood, where I enjoyed some tasty fish while unexpectedly exchanging chat messages with Walter (aka Harold, aka the Talbotross), who seemed to be in fine form (and whom I hadn't spoken to in months). Terry ended up joining me late, so we caught up while we waited for her take-out order before heading home.

And now I must sleep so that I can try to write again tomorrow before work...wish me luck. Goodnight!

take off all the thoughts of what we've been

Today started off super lowkey, and ended as many of my Sundays do...with family activities to cap the week off right. I slept somewhat late after watching 'Thor' last night, and then I grabbed breakfast down the street before getting my nails done. The nail situation took awhile, since they had to scrape off the gel from last time and I wanted to let the regular manicure I got in its place dry for an exorbitant amount of time so that I didn't screw it up as soon as I left the nail salon. Yes, I know it's important for you to know this.

sssanyway, the manicure left me sleepy, so I came home, bailed on a writing date with Kathia, and napped a little bit - I'm still recovering from this stupid cold, and I'm sleepier than usual. Then I called my parents, who were in fine form. And then I went to a concert! I know, shocking! Jess was performing in a concert of German lieder, and it was truly lovely. The performance included her as the soprano + a pianist + a clarinetist + a violist, and they performed a mix of songs (mostly traditional, but also a new set composed for the event). I know very little about lieder, but Jess's voice was awesome, so it was fun to watch.

Of course, I also had three glasses of champagne over the course of the concert, since they were handing it out like candy before the concert and during the intermission. Sadly, the champagne didn't make the German any more intelligible to me. I sat next to Adit, which went about as you would expect, and in front of Lauren (aka Subz) and Nathan, so I got to talk all of them up a little bit. I also saw Anthony (the guy who threw me into a bush at Lauren's wedding), who now has long hair and looks a bit like he might be a vaguely famous European, and his wife Dormain, who is definitely pregnant. And I hope to catch up with John and Jess sometime soon when they're not in the middle of a performance / hosting all their myriad family members.

After the concert, Lauren and Nathan adjourned to a quiet dinner on their own (good call), and I went with Adit, Misha, Omar, and some other girl (Michelle? I hate names) to dinner at Zuni Cafe. I hadn't been to Zuni since the epic night Adit/Chandlord/I had there many years ago, so it was good to make my acquaintance with their rabbit again (and by that I mean I ate a rabbit). Priyanka met us there as well, so it was sort of like a more upscale-than-usual family dinner, sans some key players (although Omar and Misha are both totally amazeballs ridic and so can do in a pinch).

But I can't recap anymore because I need to go to bed immediately if I want to not die tomorrow - goodnight!

your trojan's in my head

I had a v. hermity day, so there's nothing interesting to report to you. I spent the morning sleeping in, the midday writing at Goody, the afternoon taking care of sundry tasks, the evening writing more at my favorite Greek place, and the nighttime watching 'Thor'. All of this was in the service of trying to continue recovering from my cold; while I probably should have gone to bed two hours ago, at least I'm feeling better today than I was earlier in the week.

But the only way my recovery will continue is if I get a massive amount of sleep tonight, so I'm going to bed - goodnight!

i'll find strength in pain, and i will change my ways

My cough continues to wrack my body, but I slept for eight hours last night, which was so glorious that I almost called in sick so I could keep sleeping. But I pulled myself out of bed and went to the south bay to train with Alyssa. It might not be fair to call it training since it was pretty low-key given my general lack of energy, but it was good to see her and attempt to move again.

Then I went to the office, where I took a couple of meetings, ate some lunch, and then promptly threw in the towel and drove home so that I wouldn't hit traffic. I took another couple of meetings from here before ending sometime after four, at which point I cleaned out the fridge and then took a v. necessary nap.

I probably should have canceled all social plans and kept sleeping, but I rallied and had dinner with Terry at Aix since I needed a steak frites fix and can't get it at Des Amis anymore. When we got home, I took another nap, and then I rallied again and went out for drinks at Upcider, so named because it's upstairs and serves mostly cider. But drinks (well, one drink for me) sapped the last of my remaining energy, so I left the group around midnight and came home to the comfort of my bed and the Mucinex I just bought at the pharmacy, which I'm v. much looking forward to enjoying. And now I must sleep so that I can consider Rafe and Octavia tomorrow - goodnight!

when you're feeling low on love, i'll be what you're dreaming of

I feel surprisingly good considering that the cough woke me up a couple of times last night, to the point that I only got five hours of sleep...but I made it through the work day without dying, so that's exciting. I even made it down to work early, where I did some brainstorming for Rafe and Octavia before grabbing breakfast and watching our group's all-hands meeting with some teammates. This promptly devolved into a side conversation over instant messenger amongst some of us who'd gone to Frankfurt together, which was perhaps not entirely appropriate, but was hilarious enough to keep me awake and engaged despite the fact that I was already crashing.

But all fun things must end, so I spent the rest of the morning doing real work, and then the whole afternoon in meetings. All work must end too, though, so I cut out around 4:30 to go to a team happy hour. The team happy hour was supposed to be a giant group of people, but I arrive to discover that Dave was the only other person from our smaller team (part of the larger group) who had shown up. So we stood off to the side and drank cider and refused to mingle, as is our wont. Ravi eventually showed up as well, so we continued to gossip (er, socialize) until it was time to part ways...

...and then Heather (aka dear respected madam) picked me up, and we had an awesome dinner + time to catch up in Mountain View. I hadn't seen her since saying goodbye to her in Hawaii, which was far too long ago, and so we had much to discuss. But I eventually had to leave her so I could come home and hope to recover overnight. We'll see whether I sleep, but hopefully my exhaustion overrules my lungs and keeps me asleep so I can do all of this again tomorrow. Goodnight!

there's a little bit more that has to be said

Perhaps I shouldn't have gone to work today...my voice is still a wreck, and my cough appears at inopportune times. But on the whole, the day was good. I was going to get up early and write, but I reset my alarm for 7:30 (although I coughed more than I slept in those extra hours) and didn't get into the office until ten. Then I basically had meetings and talked all day long. My team had lunch at the Indian place on campus, where I was v. unwillingly vegetarian since they had lamb curry (the only meat I don't eat), but the chai made up for it.

Speaking of Indians, I saw Chandlord this afternoon, rather unexpectedly - she was sitting at my desk like she owned the place when I returned to my cube after a meeting, and she continued to squat there for a couple of hours this afternoon. It was lovely, if a bit odd, to see her amongst the people I usually see at work, but it was more on the lovely side - so much so that I wish she could join my team rather than working out in the hinterland like she currently does. But it's probably for the best that I'm the only one who can tell my team stories about what I get up to outside of work (but then, if they secretly read this blog, they basically know that I work all the time, with the occasional Adit-fueled bender to take the edge off).

sssanyway, I had meetings all afternoon, and my voice continued to disappear throughout. I was done with official meetings by five, but I had to talk to a coworker about a project after that, and that turned into a two-hour side conversation about work and life (which was good, both as a conversation and as a way to sit out the traffic that would have eaten my soul if I'd left at five). Then I grabbed supper on campus before driving home and talking to Terry.

And now, I must sleep if I have any hope of doing this all again tomorrow - goodnight!

another shot of whisky, can't stop looking at the door

My cough is reaching rather epic proportions. I actually feel totally fine otherwise, but the cough + the general lack of breath meant that I canceled on Alyssa this morning...after I'd already driven to work and made the choice not to shower this morning because I thought I'd be training with her. Oops. But the lack of a training session in the middle of the day meant that I was quite shockingly productive this morning - I didn't get much done on Rafe and Octavia because I wasn't really feeling it, but I did day job stuff that will hopefully make the rest of my week more sane.

I spent the afternoon in meetings, gradually sacrificing my voice to The Man, and then I did a bit more work before meeting up with Jen, Joann, and Jane for our friendship renewal dinner. We went to Paul Martin's, which was pretty nice; the San Antonio Shopping Center area is completely unrecognizable from what it was in our youth, since the Sears store has been replaced by this fancy steakhouse-type place. But it was a great place for us to catch up for a couple of hours, and to laugh at a bunch of memories (including how much of a mess I was at Jen's wedding - which is really par for the course with me at weddings, since I tend to get weepy and then get way into the party afterward). Also, Joann and I continue to discuss our spinster honeymoon, which is going to be the most decadent trip in the history of spinster honeymoons.

But that's a story for another time - I must go to bed immediately so I can do this all again tomorrow. Goodnight!

spending saturday night in your arms

Despite the fact that I'm getting the black lung, my three-day weekend was very nearly perfect. Today I continued my generally slothful peregrinations - I lazed in bed for quite awhile before eventually showering, making some eggs, and going to Rapha to drink hipster coffee and scribble in my notebook about Rafe and Octavia for awhile. I'm still not quite sure what to do about them, and I think a trip to Stanford library may be necessary sometime this week or weekend to check out some books about the time period and look for inspiration.

But they're a problem for another day. I eventually came home and talked to my parents (I know it's a Monday! but holiday weekends always throw me off), and there was much to catch up on - the death of one of their neighbors, the selling of the minicows, and other various and sundry updates. But eventually I had to part ways with them so that I could reconnect with the other family...

...and that started with tea and late-afternoon snacks with Claudia at Samovar. I beat her there by half an hour or so, so I did some more brainstorming over chai before she arrived. Then, we caught up on our generally ridiculous work situations and life situations while enjoying some lazy afternoon tea time. When we were done enjoying our tea, we adjourned up the hill to Adit and Priyanka's house, where we exchanged pleasantries for five or ten minutes before we all commenced working on our own projects like we were in a study hall instead of a social gathering. But that was fine by me, since I had many emails to answer (did I answer all of them? of course not.), and many research books to look up.

Eventually, though, we put away our work and met Katrina at Mama Ji's for family dinner (tm). It was one of the more ridiculous family dinners we've had in awhile (I know, I say they're all ridiculous, but that's not a lie) - everyone was in particularly fine form, and the conversation delved deeply and awkwardly into people's personal lives (as is appropriate for a family). My life was more of a focus than usual, but I successfully got out of my story and turned the spotlight on Katrina, who came v. close to flipping the table over to deflect attention (or to vent her displeasure). But it was all v. v. fun, with such pearls of wisdom from Priyanka as 'it sounds like everything has changed, or nothing has changed', and one of Adit's usual pronunciations that I'm in a complete regression (which is, frankly, way better than a local minima, so I'll take it).

In short, I'm #blessed. Goodnight!

but everything looks perfect from far away

Today was somewhat lowkey, but perhaps not as lowkey as it should have been to effect my recovery. I slept pretty well until sixish, at which point I woke up at started coughing...but then I found an expired inhaler from the last time I had bronchitis, took a couple of hits, and promptly went back to sleep again. I felt somewhat okay this morning - this cold has been odd in that it went from sore throat straight to cough without any sort of nasal congestion in between. I mean, I'm not sad that I missed the nasal stage, but the sore throat and cough could go away anytime now, thanks.

Anyway, I took care of some email stuff, took a shower, and eventually left the house at 11:30 to grab breakfast/lunch down the street, since I didn't feel like cooking anything. Then I rendezvoused for this afternoon's plans - Lauren (aka Subz) picked up me and Terry, and we went to San Gregorio/Half Moon Bay to hang out on the beach. San Gregorio was awesome - I hadn't been in years, but I used to go there a lot when I was at Stanford, and I miss the place. We walked quite a ways up the beach, and the weather was perfect for it. Then we drove back north of Half Moon Bay and went to Moss Beach Distillery, where we had drinks on the patio next to the fire pits before eating dinner upstairs as the sun set over the ocean.

So that was all quite idyllic - so idyllic that I immediately forgave Lauren when it became clear that she has the same illness that I have, although hers showed up a day earlier than mine, and it's possible she gave it to me at dinner on Tuesday. So I'm glad I didn't cancel hanging out with her today in an effort to not get her sick, since it would have been wasted martyrdom. But we all spent some quality time catching up on life, etc., and it was awesome to spend some time by the water.

I could have spent more time on the water tomorrow since I got an invite to go sailing, but I decided to be prudent and turn it down in the interest of continuing to recover - six or eight hours of water/wind + general debauchery would probably be the death of me. So instead, I crawled into bed at seven and watched 'Iron Man 2'. And now I'm going to sleep and hope my cough subsides tomorrow - goodnight!

back in black

Today was as slothish as it should have been, given that I'm trying to keep this cold from becoming something worse. I seem to be succeeding thus far; I've skipped a lot of the nasal congestion and have moved straight on to the 'black lung' phase, which will undoubtedly linger. But I slept for nine or ten hours last night, spent the morning lazing in bed, had some tea with Terry, and then lazed around some more.

I did leave the house eventually, since I was hungry and thought going outside might be a fun and interesting endeavor. So I went down the street and ate huevos rancheros, which helped - and the owner (Tony) brought them to my table and sat with me while I ate, which was as entertaining and delightful as always. Then I came home and did absolutely nothing for several more hours (okay, not nothing - I messed around on the internet and took a nap).

The evening was more of the same - I was going to order thai for supper, but my favorite place to order from (Osha on Union) apparently closed last week. WTF is going on with my favorite restaurants in the Marina?! So I ventured out again and ate some mexican food (vaguely mexican, vaguely decent - it's usually better, but the meat was a little overcooked for my liking). Then I came home and made the utterly unusual choice of watching a movie in bed, which I never do - but I watched 'Iron Man', since I've been meaning to binge watch the entire Marvel universe of movies and it seemed like there was no time better than tonight to start. I really enjoyed it, but that should surprise none of you. I think it came out around the time that I stopped going to the movies because my friends who see movies with me had all disappeared, so hopefully I can catch up at some point.

But now I'm going to sleep and hope I'm recovered enough tomorrow to enjoy my weekend - goodnight!

shaping up and shipping out

The illness that has been lingering on the edges of my body for the last week hit me today, fulfilling all my hypochondriac fears. Sadly, I had to go to Mountain View for my seven-minute presentation, but the drive down was fine (and I didn't leave home until eight), I got a decent breakfast and lunch for my troubles, and I drove Chandlord home with me at 1pm, so that was all just dandy. Then I sat at my desk at home and worked for a couple of hours before deciding that work wasn't helping my recovery.

So I sat on the couch, drank some coffee, and read a bit of a book on the many and varied languages of rural France in the period between the Ancien Regimé and WWI, as one does when one is sick. But I rallied to have dinner with Terry, which was good even if I wasn't feeling well enough to continue on to the birthday party she was going to.

And now, in deference to my sore throat and my advanced age, I'm going to bed - goodnight!

i sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker

Alyssa tortured me this morning, so I'm excited to see how I feel tomorrow...she had me doing kettlebell windmills, which were the exact exercise that another trainer in the gym had mentioned on Tuesday when telling a story about how his friend showed up drunk at his apartment while the trainer was doing kettlebell windmills, picked up a far-too-heavy weight to mimic him, and dislocated his shoulder. Heh. However, the weight I was using wasn't too heavy, even if the whole exercise is slightly ridiculous.

sssanyway, I then went to work, where I had meetings basically all day and felt like I accomplished absolutely nothing. Then I abandoned the office a little after five p.m. to have dinner with Joann (of friendship renewal fame). We're planning an extravagant spinster honeymoon to the South Pacific (this is the plan I referenced a few weeks ago, which I was invited on because I'm single/fancy/like beaches), so we discussed destinations and dates over some delicious foodstuffs at Shell Shock. If all goes according to plan, it will be quite ridiculous, but I'm looking forward to ridiculous.

Now, though, I need to sleep; I have to drive to the south bay tomorrow to give a presentation in person that I've been allotted exactly seven minutes for because they won't let me videoconference in for it, and you can imagine how thrilled I am to be doing this. But I'm leaving the south bay and returning home as soon as I'm able so that I can stop working (on day job stuff) and spend the weekend relaxing/seeing friends/sleeping/brainstorming. Goodnight!

wanna put my tender heart in a blender

More of the same, more of the same. I got up super early, but I broke my vow and did work when I got to campus at 7:30 instead of writing (which I guess is also work), since I had meetings all day and several things that urgently needed to get done before that. But my work was accomplished in due course, and my meetings weren't all that onerous (and produced what may be my new favorite saying when someone, when I pressed for details on something was that he hadn't done yet, said 'it's in the cloud', which was neither true nor believable - sorry, that's probably not funny to you, but it was hilarious to me and another person in the meeting). And I had lunch with Heather (the Heather who used to work with me and Pete, not dear respected madam), whom I hadn't seen in like two years, and it was so great to catch up with her again.

Then I had more meetings, but I managed to get out of campus by 3:45 and into my apartment by five, which I'll totally take. And I did some brainstorming/journaling over wine and chicken skewers at my favorite greek place, which also helped me to relax since it's a decently-long stroll there and back. I should probably work tonight, but I'm refusing to fall back into my bad old habits (or, I'm totally a workaholic, but I'm trying not to let either job get too demanding compared to the other one), so I'm going to bed instead. Goodnight!

driver roll up the partition please

Eight hours of sleep isn't going to happen tonight if I don't go to bed immediately. But today was mostly good - I spent a stupid amount of time in my car, but I did a teensy bit of brainstorming before my 8:30am meeting, so at least there's that. Then I slogged all morning, snuck out to train with Alyssa (deadlifts and kettlebells, so we'll see if my back feels punished tomorrow), and then had meetings most of the afternoon. But one of the meetings involved a walk to the coffee place, so at least I got enough caffeine into my system to survive the torturous drive home...

...and I got back just in time to take care of ten minutes of stuff before going to dinner with Lauren (aka Subz). We met on Fillmore, and while the service was pretty terrible, the conversation was good and it was as great as it always is to catch up with her. But we parted ways relatively early because we're old, and now I'm going to sleep and hope that I can get to work in time to do some serious writing beforehand - goodnight!

don't act like i never told you

I successfully staved off illness for another day, but my goal tonight is to sleep for eight hours in hopes of pushing it forward another day. Or my goal should be to stop being a hypochondriac. Unclear.

sssanyway, today was a good start to the week - I made it into work by 7:30 and spent an hour brainstorming Rafe and Octavia before beginning the day job. I may be at the point where I need to pick some vague target and start writing toward it, knowing I'll have to rewrite some stuff - but the last book benefitted from having the semblance of a plot first, so maybe I should do a fake outline and then begin. Decisions, decisions. All I know is that I don't know very much about them, and there's something wrong with the setup (which I hope to god is not that they shouldn't be together, because I'm already committed there). But hopefully some more brainstorming this week will help.

Then the day job commenced with a gift of bacon from a coworker (funny how free bacon wins me over...but there was no meat in my building's cafe for some reason, so a delivery from another cafe was quite appreciated), followed by a series of meetings that were mostly good. I also had lunch and coffee with several coworkers, which was a good break from the meeting grind. And I left at 4:30, which wasn't totally optimal for traffic, but I rocked out to a 90s playlist and so didn't particularly care that I was sitting around doing nothing.

Once I got home, I ate some of last night's soup (even better the second day) while doing day job work and watching most of the national championship game with Terry. And now I shall sleep, and you shall hope that tomorrow is more interesting for all our sakes - goodnight!

i don't wanna be your hero

Today I canceled all my plans and embraced my inner hermit, because my inner hermit is worried that she's coming down with something dreadful and wanted to batten down the hatches. So I ate breakfast, ordered groceries instead of going to the grocery store, and cleaned my room instead of pursuing my original afternoon plan (hanging out/writing with Claude). I did get my nails done, since even my inner hermit is vain, but that was my only attempt at feigning normalcy, and I felt rather ill while I was doing it.

So I abandoned the other plan of the night (opera on tap, alas) and stayed home and made chicken tortilla soup (which was amazeballs, if I do say so myself, even though it took two hours). Claude ended up coming over, and so she and Terry and I ate the fruits of my labors while watching the Golden Globes. And now I'm going to sleep and hope that whatever I am getting is actually hypochondria and not the flu. Goodnight!

when you think of love do you think of pain

I had a lovely Saturday, thanks for asking! It helped that I slept for nine hours last night, which is a feat I hope to repeat tonight (although I'm less than optimistic, since last night I went to bed at nine and it was kind of a struggle to stay asleep this morning). But I got up in time to shower and walk down to Fort Mason to meet Kathia for a writing date. It wasn't as productive as it usually is; I basically spent the first hour texting and messing around with my phone, which was the opposite of productive, to the point that I apologized to Kathia for being a slacker even though it had little impact on her.

But I did do a bit a quality brainstorming, so I'll take it. Then I walked back to Union Street and had brunch at my favorite place, where Tony decided that I was 'Evil Sara' today because I sat at the bar, ordered something I've never ordered before (poached eggs on salmon with hollandaise, sans the baguette it's usually served on), and got oddly engrossed in the Kentucky/Texas A&M game. But Evil Sara and Tony had fun making fun of the other patrons, so that was all hilarious. Then I came home and spent some quality time cleaning my room...

...but I gave myself a break and went to a late afternoon showing of THE IMITATION GAME with Terry. This was a movie I was destined to see; while I've moved far away from my artificial intelligence roots, Turing remains a towering figure. Also, I've moved far away from my WWII history roots, but the Enigma codebreakers are still fascinating to me. The combination of both of them threatened to make my heart explode. Also, at some point in the future I need to stop writing historical romance and move on to any number of other types of stories (as Terry pointed out over dinner)....but that movement will not happen today.

Anyway, I thought the movie was totally awesome, and I highly recommend it. Of course, it was helped along by the bottle of wine we split, since we saw it at the Kabuki in the 21+ balcony area. After the movie, we had a quickish supper at Fresca, and then we came home, where I spent the last hour refreshing myself on what was factual in the movie and what was fictional.

Now, though, I must sleep so that I can be somewhat productive and also somewhat relaxed tomorrow - goodnight!

check me in and check me out

Today, like most days, is likely supremely uninteresting to you. I woke up around 6:30 and spent an hour or so making slides before driving to the glorious south bay to train with Alyssa. Unfortunately, traffic was suboptimal, and so I was fifteen minutes late; also unfortunately, I was weirdly tight and was having trouble with my form on the kettlebell snatches, but I think I survived. Then I went to work, showered, had a meeting to present the slides I'd made earlier, grabbed lunch, and then met a coworker for coffee to discuss some work stuff in a more congenial atmosphere than our cubes (although my flashing disco desk makes my cube v., v. congenial!).

But I was able to wrap everything up by two, and I promptly left to return to the evil city. Once here, I got my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed before coming home and taking a v. necessary nap. Terry and I then adjourned to dinner, which was a very long, very protracted sushi affair at the place around the corner, which makes excellent sushi v. slowly. Because of the (lack of) speed, I had two glasses of wine + most of Terry's second glass, so I came home in a lovely mood.

Now, though, sleep beckons - I'm meeting Kathia to write in the morning, and I have high hopes of getting my room into some semblance of order this weekend, so all that progress needs to happen. Goodnight!

this body is yours and mine

I stayed in San Francisco today, which was totally glorious. I stayed in bed until seven (I know, so decadent), and I still made it into the SF office by 8:30. Then I grabbed breakfast, got through a bunch of work, had meetings from 11-12:30, grabbed lunch, and then had a very lovely hour of coffee and catching up with Gyre (remember him?). I hadn't seen him in over a year, I realized - since before his fourth kid was born, and since she's thirteen months old now, that was quite awhile ago. Stupidly, we saw each other a lot more when I wasn't working, since we had a standing triweekly lunch on calendar for years...but since I rarely go into the SF office and he's based up here full-time rather than going to MTV, our paths never cross.

But we were really good friends back in the day, and I'm pleased to say it was just like old times. So we caught up on life and all its varied and ridiculous happenings, and while an hour wasn't enough, it was a great interlude. We had to part ways since we're both very important and had meetings to go to, but I survived my meetings without any serious drama. Then I left early to get a facial and repair the dryness caused by Iowa + air travel (or to just indulge my inner princess).

And then I rendezvoused with Kathia - we were going to write, but she was over it and I had no desire to actually do any more work, so we had dinner at Verbena. Kathia recently moved to Russian Hill, which is closer to me than her old place, and it's opened up a whole new world of coffee shops and restaurants on Polk Street that we never went to when the central location between us was somewhere in the Marina. It's stupid that I've never really spent much time on Polk Street since I live three blocks away from it, but the hill from Van Ness to Polk is just steep enough that going to the restaurants on Chestnut always seems easier (even if Chestnut is infested with bros).

But the food at Verbena was yummy, and seeing Kathia was good for my soul, as always. And now I'm going to pull a total octogenarian move and go to bed at nine so that I can get up at six and make slides before going to work - goodnight!

you appear to face a decision i know you fear

My body is completely unaccustomed to getting less than nine hours of sleep, so getting ~7 for the last three nights has been quite destructive. Luckily I'm working from the SF office tomorrow, mostly so I can sneak out and get a facial before having dinner with Kathia, and so I'm destined to get more sleep (if not better sleep...I think I need a new mattress).

But even though I'm super tired tonight, I had a decent enough day - I got to work in time to write for an hour over my latte, and my ideas were coming a bit better than the other day when I thought of making Octavia a woodworker, so that was good. Then I had a breakfast meeting, followed by some work time, followed by a team lunch at a new part of campus (verdict: food was good, conversation was ridic - I'm beginning to realize that while it's nice to be part of such a stable group, there's danger in everyone getting to know each other too well). I then had meetings straight from 1:30 to 5ish, did a bit of work, sat in traffic for a long time, and ate a frozen enchilada for dinner to cap off a whole day of sugar-rich attempts to stave off exhaustion (#protip: that never works).

Now, though, I must sleep and try to recover - goodnight!

you got me begging for thread

Today was v. similar to yesterday, all things considered. I left the apartment by 6:20, and so I was able to squeeze in forty minutes of coffee drinking / brainstorming (the priority of those should have been reversed, but Rafe and Octavia are in early days and I'm still totally lost as to what to do with them) before beginning my meetings for the day. I had quite a few of them, but not so many that I couldn't catch up on email while hanging out in the couch area. And while I'm only two days into the new year, they were two better days in a row than I had in most of November/December, so I'll take them.

But maybe they were better because I left again at ~4:30 and spent the evening being pretty quiet and hermity. I got home a little before six, and I intended to look up books about Napoleonic spies, but I got sidetracked by looking at flights to India and Tokyo - it looks like I might have to go to India/Tokyo for ten days, leaving approximately four days after I get back from spending a week in NYC in February, which pretty much screws my whole vow to travel less in 2015 since I'm going to be out of commission for most of February. Lol.

sssanyway, I didn't really care that much about booking a flight tonight, so I abandoned my laptop and grabbed dinner while reading a bit about the French/British/Spanish/Portuguese battles in the Iberian Peninsula in 1807(ish). But the book I'm reading is too heavy on battle tactics and too sparse on high jinks, and it's high jinks that might inspire me for Rafe's character rather than tales of incompetent generals ordering suicide charges up steep ravines. So I tried to find more books about spies and drew a big blank. This might require some quality time at Stanford library in the next couple of weeks, if I can coerce myself into spending an evening there when all I want to do is go to bed early.

Speaking of, I need to go to bed right now so I can repeat these wondrous feats tomorrow - goodnight!

said i broke your heart...but it hasn't happened yet

I had kind of told myself to stop complaining so much about the commute, and lo, the commute rewarded me with drives of less than an hour each way. Magic.

Of course, that magic came at a price; I woke up at 5:30 and was out the door by 6:15, and so I was able to put in some quality time with Rafe and Octavia at the coffee shop on campus before it was time for my meetings. I'm still figuring out what their deal is (I kid you not, I considered making Octavia a woodworker...a real woodworker, not even a double entendre for something sexual), and it's slow going, so I mostly sat and drank my latte and daydreamed and scribbled things like 'no orphans' in my notebook. Progress.

Progress was interrupted, however, when one of my coworkers showed up at the coffee place, and so we caught up post-holiday before grabbing breakfast and going to our building so I could make my nine a.m. meeting. When I got there, I discovered what some of my delightful coworkers had done to my desk over the holidays - and I actually am, oddly, totally delighted and not in any way thinking of retaliating. Dave (one of the guys on the German trip, whose desk I saran wrapped awhile ago) installed the equivalent of undercarriage lights under my desk, so there's now a soft, not-at-all-subtle glow oscillating between red, green, yellow, and blue at all times. He was eventually kind enough to give me the remote so I could control it myself, and I'm totally charmed - and my team has already voted that I should use it as a signal to them of my current mood (i.e. green = go, red = run for your life). Again, magic.

But not everything was magic - I had to work, after all, even though it was mostly desultory. And, I peaced out around 3:30 and did a totally ridiculous thing - apparently there's a truck that shows up on campus once a month with a dunk tank where you can get your body fat measured, so I did that. It was tres awkward, since it involved wearing a bathing suit and getting on my hands and knees in a tub full of water in a trailer with a single dude monitoring the situation, which all sounds like the start to a really low-budget porno (actually, I don't think it's sexy enough for porn - maybe it's the start to Saw XVII). Whatever. It was interesting, and a good baseline for me and Alyssa as she continues her nefarious kettlebell agenda...

And then I drove home, went to the gym (Alyssa is in Hawaii until the end of the week and has left me to my own devices...and like in Saw XVII, I'm apparently torturing myself now), took care of my own, less nefarious waxing agenda, and grabbed food on the way home. Then I hung out with Terry before realizing that I needed to go to bed immediately if I have any hope of recovering so I can do this all again tomorrow (sans crawling around in a bathtub with a stranger watching, hopefully). Goodnight!

that's a fine looking high horse

Vacation has abruptly come to an end, which I'm suddenly quite sad about. Today felt like a last breath before chaos strikes - I'm anticipating the next couple of weeks at work will be mostly ridic, given that it's the start of a new quarter and new year, and I also want to start writing Rafe and Octavia's story. But today was v. quiet. Perhaps too quiet - and I can blame that on the wine I had last night, which did no favors for my head this morning.

But I eventually rallied and met up with Claudia so that we could renew our love affair with Hong Kong Flower Lounge. Neither of us eat gluten anymore, but we took our chances with the rice noodle dishes (a far cry from the feasts of our youth, but better than nothing). It was lovely to catch up after the holidays, and the dim sum remains as good as always. I got home around 2:30, stared at my room in a stupor, and eventually finished unpacking and took care of a lot of laundry. Yes, I'm fascinating.

I stopped even that tentative attempt at progress to call my parents; we had nothing new to share since I just left home two days ago, but Sundays require calls regardless. Then I messed around a bit more before escaping the apartment and going to my favorite greek place for supper; if I hadn't left, I would have been tempted to take a nap, which would have wrecked me for tonight. So I ate some chicken and wrote in my journal while chatting up the bartender, and it was all a perfectly peaceful end to a quiet weekend.

But now, in anticipation for tomorrow, I'm going to read a bit and go to sleep early - wish me luck that the next quarter at work is better than the previous one. Goodnight!

oh christ she's not alone

I have returned to my hedonistic San Francisco lifestyle, where 45 degrees is considered cold and my veins are well-lubricated by red wine. I slept as much as I could this morning (which wasn't quite enough), then got up and took care of some tings before showering and going down the street for breakfast and a reunion with Tony, the owner of my favorite breakfast place. Tony and breakfast were both great, thanks for asking!

Then I came home, talked to Terry for awhile (this was our first rendezvous of 2015!), and spent a couple of hours procrastinating, doing laundry, etc. Then I ventured to Polk Street and bought lingerie at the French lingerie store (okay, it was only three bras, and they were mostly basic, but still, this is far more decadent than anything one can find in my home town, unless the used goods store has started carrying French lingerie). And then I went to Des Amis for one final hurrah - as I mentioned the other night, they're closing for good tomorrow, which makes me tres sad.

However, my tres sadness turned into tres drunkenness, since I had four glasses of wine to see them out in style. The first was on my own; the second and third were with Terry when she joined me there; and the fourth was provided compliments of the restaurant, who in my mind didn't apologize nearly enough for leaving me. C'est la vie, as they say.

Having left them in style, I came home, took a seventeen-minute nap that was all that stood between me and certain death, and then smeared some eyeliner on my face in an attempt to look glamorous before going to Kathia's new place for a combo cocktail party/housewarming. It was lovely to see her, although our mingling was brief; I spent most of the night hanging out with Josie, who also writes, and she gave me some life-coach type lessons that were by turns illuminating and hysterical.

But because I had been at Des Amis, and because I'm not over my jetlag yet, and because I have high hopes for being a productive member of society tomorrow (or at least going to the gym), I left the party relatively early, and I'm going to go to sleep immediately (or after I get rid of the eyeliner I smeared on my face earlier) - goodnight!

does this mean you're moving on

I am in my bed in San Francisco, having survived an utterly uneventful pair of flights from Des Moines to Denver and Denver to San Francisco. Today's travel was very nearly civilized...there were only two people ahead of me at security in Des Moines, I was upgraded on both flights, I had ample time between flights (so much time that I got my boots shined!), and since I was traveling with only a carry-on, I was able to saunter out of the airport immediately upon arrival. If only it were always so simple...

The rest of my day was also lovely. I spent one last morning luxuriating in complete sloth, although I caught the tail end of my parents' breakfast and so made myself some eggs to go with the bacon I stole from them. Then I packed, showered, and generally hung out until it was time to leave for the airport. We got to Des Moines early so we could have supper at our usual restaurant before they kicked me off at the airport curb, where we said our farewells.

And now, I'm going to sleep; I slept almost all the way from Denver to SF, so I'm hoping that + whatever sleep I get tonight will be sufficient without totally wrecking the glow I've got going from ten days of nine hours of sleep a night. But I've got big plans for the weekend, and those plans require me to get out of bed at some point, so getting at least some sleep now is imperative. Goodnight!

from the balcony you call my name

Tonight's my last night in ye olde Iowa for awhile. I'm not precisely ready to leave, and I'm certainly not ready to go back to work. But I am looking forward to getting back into the writing routine, if nothing else - Rafe and Octavia are beginning to shimmer in my head a bit more, trying to lure me into writing them. Yeah, I know that's crazy, but it's true.

So today was my last chance at sloth, and I fucking owned it. I stayed in bed late, went upstairs when the desire for bacon and coffee overcame my desire for sleep, and hung out with the parents. I also did some desultory tasks on my laptop while talking to them, because I have difficulty being truly slothful, but none of it was particularly crazy. Then I showered and went into town with [censored] to visit our grandmother, which was a mostly-depressing experience (except for imagining her playing kickball, which is entertaining, and also hearing her claim that she used to walk over to the swimming pool to swim, which is certainly not true). But she's in a good place and is well cared-for, which is the best you can hope for.

Then [censored] kidnapped me to show me [censored] before returning me to the safety of our house. Once here, I messed around on my laptop a bit more before dinner, and then enjoyed bratwurst while scowling at the over-the-top ridiculousness that is 'Inside Edition', which plays on the CBS affiliate here every night at 6:30 (just in time to spike my rage and ensure I eat the extra helping of whatever to avoid throwing my plate at the screen). Then we watched a bit of tv before playing hearts - we hadn't really played games over this break, but we managed to get in one game of hearts before bedtime. [censored] won at the last minute, much to my chagrin, but it was fun regardless.

And now, after having spent part of my New Year's Day reading more about that book on willpower like a fucking stereotype, I'm going to sleep - goodnight!

every little thing she does is magic

Happy new year!

Today was a quiet, easy slide into 2015. You can probably guess that I slept for nine hours. Then I spent the afternoon taking care of various tings, such as packing up a couple of boxes to send to California (but they won't ship until Friday, since UPS wasn't picking up ground packages, per the phone call my dad made to his UPS driver (whom he of course has on speed dial, because why not)). I also bought a variety of foreign currencies from my dad, which was fun. It was also timely, since I got an invitation to a fun activity from someone who described me as 'single, fancy, and likes beaches', which should probably be my new tagline on every social media site ever. And that fun activity, if it materializes, will require foreign currency, so yay for that (and so much for my vow to travel less in 2015 - but we all knew that resolution was going to fail, right?).

Eventually I did a kettlebell workout in my room, and I showered just in time for supper, which Katie would be pleased to know was ham and bean soup (with gluten free cornbread muffins in deference to the discovery that at least half of us should never eat gluten again). Then I spent the evening drinking a couple of hard apple ciders and watching new year's coverage with my mom (and with the occasional accompaniment of my dad's snores). I could have watched with people closer to my own age, since a couple of [censored]'s friends came over, but I left the young'uns to their own devices.

All in all, 2014 was a pretty crazy year globally, which affected my mood somewhat because I spend too much time on social media - but for me, it was mostly sweet, with some stresses that were almost entirely self-inflicted (or externally inflicted, but exacerbated by my tendency to overanalyze everything to death). So, as per usual, I want to be kinder to myself next year - and while that's something I've said before, I feel closer to it this year than I have in the past. Yes, there is always hope*.

I hope you've all had a lovely and happy new year's eve, and I look forward to sharing more of my inane ramblings with all of you lurkers in 2015! Goodnight!


*or not always hope - I found out from Katrina that Des Amis is shutting down this weekend, which has rocked my world to its foundations. but I think I'll survive. maybe.

every claim you stake

I don't think I can keep describing my sloth levels accurately. Today was epically slothful, although I did a bit of work in the afternoon. But I took the evening off from all responsibility to eat supper with the family (crab legs!) and then enjoy one of my favorite television nights of the year - the Kennedy Center Honors. I wasn't quite as moved by this year's performances as I've been in past years, unfortunately...but I always like Sting, and Tom Hanks and Lily Tomlin are v. interesting, so that was all good.

Then I started reading a book on willpower, which is proving to be quite interesting - it's heavy on research rather than on motivational statements, which is my preferred type of self-help/nonfiction book, so I'm enjoying it for now. But I'm going to go to bed and hope to continue my trend of getting nine hours of sleep, since getting enough sleep is probably more important than anything else for improving willpower (or at least for improving my general mood, which has been highly successful over my last ten nights of nine hours of sleep each). Goodnight!

it's not like we were both on tour

It's possible today was the most slothful day of vacation yet. That's not really true...I should rephrase to say it was perhaps the most hermity day yet. I stayed in bed until eleven, showered, ate some leftover soup, and spent the majority of the rest of the day working on romance business stuff, browsing the internet, talking to the family, and watching some fine CBS programming (I'm kind of liking 'Scorpion', and I have always been a fan of 'NCIS:LA').

But vacation is quickly coming to an end (not really...I'm here until Friday night, and not going back to the office until Monday), and I am in many ways eager to start 2015 even if I'm not eager to get back into the crazytown situation of managing the day job while writing a book and trying to sustain my relationships. However, I think I'm better prepared for that eventuality than I was this time last year; last January, if you'll recall, I came close to a nervous breakdown over the thought of doing all of this, and it totally threw me off my game. But I survived and wrote what I think is my best book, while feeling a bit more balanced in terms of time spent with friends (okay, maybe there's never enough #familytime) and also getting promoted at work. When I put it like that, 2014 was a really great year, even if I was somewhat bruised and exhausted by the end of it - and since I'm cutting back on travel next year, that will hopefully help me to manage my energy better.

sssanyway. Despite my not-so-humble bragging above, I have a massive to-do list that I'd like to make a dent in this week, and I'm itching to start Rafe and Octavia's story, so it's unlikely that I'll remember this lesson very well or very long. But hopefully I can see out the rest of 2014 in good spirits, and great 2015 with a bang (or at least champagne when I get back to cali). Goodnight!

tie me to a post and block my ears

The last of the Christmas festivities ended today, which was perhaps for the best as I was feeling a wee bit Scroogy (in a v. accurate definition of the word Scrooge, since I really just wanted to get back to work on my writing stuff rather than taking yet another day off). Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Drewbaby were here most of the day, which was delightful, although I squashed an attempt to play Rail Baron because I refused to be the banker (which essentially chains me to the table for six hours) and no one else cared enough to pick up the heavy mantle of responsibility. Instead, we sat around, talked, stared at devices, ate leftovers, and watched football. For me, at least, that was perfect, so hopefully other people had fun too!

sssanyway, the northern branch of Wamplers left around fourish, and I spent the rest of the day indulging my desires...napping briefly, then working/messing around online most of the evening. In perhaps-related news, I may be getting sick, but I'm hoping some vitamin C/zinc/puritanical work ethic will stave it off. And now I'm going to sleep for a million hours and hope my sore throat passes so I can do all sorts of work tomorrow - my plan for this week is to get on top of some romance business-related stuff so that I can have a clean slate with which to plot Rafe and Octavia's book next week. Yay. Goodnight!

you know i love the players

Today was Wampler Family Christmas (tm), which meant I spent it entirely with Wamplers (and one bland guy formerly known as the scandalous pirate boyfriend). I didn't get out of bed until some of the guests had arrived, as is my wont, but I eventually made my appearance, and the whole day was smashing. We ate a veritable smorgasbord of carnivore delights, enjoyed (or endured) the same handful of questions from my grandmother, and opened packages with a bit of an interruption from a stampede of deer. And Aunt B, as usual, made us work for our gifts, and so [censored], Drewbaby and I had to figure out a puzzle consisting of paper towels, toilet paper, and kleenexes in order to retrieve our prizes.

The rest of the day was mostly consumed by Cards Against Humanity; everyone but Brian and Gram played most of the afternoon, and when Aunt B/Brian/Gram left after supper, the rest of us started a new game and played until ten. The new game was somewhat influenced by the bottle of wine I opened and the gallon of whisky my brother drank, but we all survived it without learning more than a few horrifying things about family members' sexual preferences (sour cream, anyone?). And now I need to sleep; Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy are at the motel in town and Drewbaby is on our couch, so I'm guessing that means I'm going to have to begrudgingly get out of bed before ten a.m. tomorrow like some sort of peasant. Ugh. I'll survive, though, particularly if I go to bed now - goodnight!

take me to church

My introverted heart is still worn out from yesterday, but I got some relaxation in today...and by that I mean I did basically nothing. I stayed in bed until after ten, then got up, messed around, ate lunch, and daydreamed/wrote in my journal. Around 3:30 I went to the park and walked for forty minutes or so - I would have walked at home, but there were bow hunters nearby and I didn't want to end up as a casualty in the Hunger Games. But it was good to get outside - today was probably the last day in the next week when the temperature was above forty degrees, and I will not be walking outside when it drops to fifteen next week.

The rest of the day was more of the same - I showered, ate supper with the family, lazed about and watched tv, and then made chili for tomorrow's family gathering. I read a bit while I waited for it to cool off, and now I should go to bed so that I can get enough sleep tomorrow to avoid being surly in the morning (which is impossible for me, since I'm always surly in the morning). Goodnight!

offer me that deathless death

Merry Christmas! My family had a lovely day, thanks for asking! I awoke at 7:20am (a feat I hope never to repeat in the remainder of 2014), and we spent a desultory couple of hours opening presents. I don't know how much our Christmas morning routine differs from other families' routines, but I would gather that it's unusual - no one can open presents (or even dig through stockings) while anyone else is opening anything, and gifts from my mother are numbered and given in a strict and well-considered order. For instance, she made sure that when my brother and I opened our seventh package each, his was an angle grinder and mine was a coffee grinder (a burr grinder because I'm a fancy bitch now and can't just use my regular blade grinder, since I'm not a fucking peasant). Also, we immediately clean up everything as soon as we're done, since paper on the floor is strictly verboten.

But that makes for a long, leisurely Christmas morning with a lot of laughter and entertainment, particularly since we all like to get each other ridiculous things. [censored] put a lot of thought into my gifts, which means I got something to make fire, an unmentionable gag gift (okay, I'll mention it - it's a DIY kit to freeze my own eggs, which is obvi a joke), some dog tags that are funny enough that I'll probably wear them occasionally, as well as an Aeropress coffee maker that will work equally well in my apartment or during the apocalypse. I also got some lovely things from my parents, which I shall not bore you with the details of.

Post-Christmas, we ate breakfast, and then I napped in the living room for an hour and a half to make up for my aborted sleep. Eventually, I showered, and then my sister and her brood arrived to continue the celebration. I spent a couple of hours hanging out with my grandniece, who is five and quite adorable (albeit sticky enough that I told [censored] that he could return the egg kit). We all opened packages before supper, and then Sammi and Jaicee (the grandniece) had to leave. But Jackie, Shawn, Zane, Allie, and Zane's girlfriend stuck around, and we ended up playing Cards Against Humanity, which is always wonderful and terrible.

And then I washed dishes while my mother dried and my father and [censored] provided (weak) moral support. And now it's time to go to bed - Christmas isn't over yet, but I hope to recover in some sort of introverted haze tomorrow before engaging in more Christmas with my dad's siblings on Saturday. Goodnight!

i'm killing every second til it saves my soul

If you've read my blog over the past several days, you can pretty much guess what I did. I slept for ten hours, then had breakfast before doing a kettlebell workout in my bedroom. It was more challenging than usual, probably because I felt like I was overheating - a heated, carpeted bedroom is by default warmer than a cool, concrete-floored gym. Or it was more challenging because Alyssa said it was supposed to be challenging. Either way, I survived it, and it's good that I have kettlebells here since it's probably going to get too cold for me to do anything outside next week.

After that, I showered, ran into town for one final thing I'd forgotten for Christmas, and then wrapped presents for most of the late afternoon/evening. [censored] kept me company, and I may have [censored], which took us both by surprise, but we survived. The wrapping finished right before supper, which [censored] and I ate with our parents. This was, I believe, the first time we've ever had Christmas Eve without other family members in attendance - usually my sister comes over on Christmas Eve, or we have my dad's siblings here, but today was just the four of us, which was a little bizarre. I've got to say it doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet, despite all the wrapping and all the decorations - but I have a feeling that will change tomorrow.

Anyway, supper was prime rib, which means we benefitted from not having anyone else over since there was plenty for the four of us. Then I watched some fine CBS programming with my parents. And now I should sleep so that Santa can come (or so that I can still get nine hours of sleep and yet get up before my family wants to kill me/issue a delay of game penalty) - goodnight! And Merry Christmas to all of you!

the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile

First things first - unless you're reading this in your email, you may have noticed that I changed the template. I haven't changed the template in approximately six years, but there was something janky about the sidebar that had bothered me for a long time, and so I finally decided to fix it. Since I'm probably the only person alive who blogs like this every day, I decided to go for broke and make it pinkish-purplish. You're welcome.

Now that that's settled...today was precisely as lazy as I wanted it to be. I got ten hours of sleep again last night (I think my UP band thinks I've got some terminal disease that's keeping me bedridden), and so I had a v. leisurely and desultory breakfast long after the rest of my family was awake. Then I did an hour or two of work for the day job, which I spit on. When that was over, I went to the (former) state park and walked around for forty minutes. The pros of going to the park were that I wanted to go for a walk after being cooped up in the house and the park has a paved road instead of the muddy mess of gravel outside my house; the cons of going to the park were that it was only 37 fucking degrees and the sky was attempting to spray a wintry mix all over my face (that sounds vaguely dirty). Also, I was the only person there the whole time, which was mildly disconcerting given my hectic city life. But I saw two deer while I was walking, and I nearly killed some wild turkeys on the way home, so that was a great brush with nature!

After getting home, I showered, made and guzzled coffee to combat my sudden, splitting caffeine-withdrawal headache, and generally hung out. I was v. sloth-filled tonight and didn't write or read or do much of anything else, but I was trying to avoid looking at my ipad screen before bed, so I'll take it. And then I undid all my good work by staring at my laptop for the last half hour playing with my blog. Oops. But now I must sleep so that I can wrap gifts and continue my general slothfulness tomorrow - goodnight!

i'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife

Today was something of a repeat of yesterday, and I have no regrets. I got approximately ten hours of sleep, which means I missed breakfast, but my parents had saved some bacon for me and left the skillet out, so I made some v. tasty eggs and enjoyed my carnivorous breakfast on my own. Then I spent an hour or two taking care of some tings; the most important ting was renewing my passport, since it expires this spring and I don't want to be caught without it. The other most important ting was mailing some books to the romance writers group for entrance in the RITAs; while the competition is stiff and it's probably a waste of time and emotional investment, I actually still really like Thorington's book (shocking, I know), so I sent them off with more hope than I probably should have.

But I went into town around two to accomplish all of the mailing, along with going to the bank and going to the grocery store to take care of some other tings. And then I came home and promptly slacked off the rest of the day. I spent the majority of it reading the third book in Sarah MacLean's series, and I may be overdosing on historical romance as a result - three in three days, when I haven't read one in months, is quite a bit. But I enjoyed it, even if staring at a tablet for that long is probably a bad idea.

I did take a break for supper with the family - my mom made french fries in lard, which are as insanely delicious as you might expect (if you eat lard, which you probably don't). And I also watched bits and pieces of fine CBS programming while reading, so that was nice. Now, though, I plan to go to bed so that I can accomplish some wrapping of gifts, some swinging of kettlebells, some typing of emails, and some reading of books tomorrow - grand plans, I know. Goodnight!

i'll bet the odds against it all

Today was precisely as lazy as I wanted it to be. I got ten hours of sleep last night, which wasn't quite the million that I wanted, but it was something close to what I felt like I deserved. I made it upstairs just in time to con my father into making eggs for me (okay, he insisted) so I could eat them with the bacon and potatoes he and my mother had graciously left over for me. Then I lazed about some more, showered, and finished reading the book I started on the plane yesterday (Eloisa James's latest), which I really liked a lot. It was the first historical romance I'd read in ages, since I tend not to read them when I'm writing (and I'm always writing)...but if my vacation goes as planned, it won't be my last.

Then, I went into town with my dad, where we examined the new grocery store (awesome!) and visited my grandmother (depressing!). We returned to the safety of the country, where my mother made zucchini lasagna (in deference to our general gluten-free lifestyle), which we all enjoyed while watching '60 Minutes'. I spent the rest of the evening plowing straight through another romance novel (the second book in Sarah MacLean's Scoundrels series, which I got woefully behind on due to the aforementioned tendency to avoid historicals while writing). I really liked it as well, although I wasn't so engrossed that I couldn't take occasional breaks to exchanges texts and Facebook messages (mostly stickers) with the family I left behind in San Francisco.

And now I intend to repeat the same astonishing feats of sloth tomorrow, which requires going to sleep - goodnight!

blank space

I'm in Iowa, safely tucked into my childhood bed (which actually doesn't resemble my childhood bed at all, since it's queen-sized and is in a room with central heat - good thing since my blood is now mostly Californian and I would freeze to death sleeping in the non-centrally-heated bedroom of my youth), after the smoothest day of travel I could have wished for. I made it to the airport early, which was a good thing since the lines were v. long, but I still had time for a (somewhat rushed) breakfast before boarding my flight to Denver. I spent the flight napping and reading, which was perfect...

...and then things were even more perfect when I left the secure area of the Denver airport and met Katie in the terminal for a long, leisurely, somewhat tasty lunch. We had a little less than two hours together, which can never be enough but was sufficient to catch up better than our brief, sporadic phone conversations. She brought Julia (the new baby) with her, who was adorable, and who seemed quite content to let me hold her for long stretches of time, which made my ovaries greedy until my liver (and the glass of wine I had with lunch) put them back in their place.

sssanyway, it was awesome to see Katie, even if getting older sucks and our problems aren't as fun as the problems we had in our youth. We eventually were forced to part ways, and so I went back through security, boarded without incident, and flew to Iowa. My parents and [censored] picked me up, and we had supper at our usual steakhouse (although I made the excommunication-worthy decision to order salmon, since it's unlikely I'll have any fish in the next two weeks). We made it back to the southernmost part of the state without incident, and now I'm going to hopefully sleep for a million hours. My plans for this break consist of nothing more than reading a lot of books, beginning to think about Rafe and Octavia's story, and perhaps doing some kettlebell workouts...all of which sounds better than staring at a screen for hours on end. Goodnight!

i tried to do handstands for you

I can't blog excessively tonight, since I didn't sleep enough last night (blame it on the alcohol, which was limited, and the construction that started IN THE RAIN at eight a.m., which was far more unlimited than I would have liked). And I have to get up at six-ish to go to the airport for my flight back to ye olde Iowa. But today was mostly good; I worked from home, which gave me an opportunity to pack and take care of random tings. And I got a v. restorative late-afternoon massage to kick my vacation off right, so that was awesome.

And the day (and my year in San Francisco) ended with dinner at Lauren and Nathan's house. Terry and I went over around seven, and we were treated to a v. California feast of roasted chicken, brussels sprouts, and a kale (and other greens) salad that was really quite tasty (don't tell anyone I said the kale was enjoyable). The company was, of course, excellent, even if I do recognize Subz's attempt to stave off my usual January/post-Christmas/post-Iowa malaise about how much I hate San Francisco. For now, at least, I love it.

But now I must sleep if I have any hope of making my flight - goodnight!

how am i gonna be an optimist about this

First and foremost, happy birthday to two of my favorite people: my mother (aka Jeanie Baby) and Chandlord (aka Vidius Chandicus)! Such an auspicious day!

Second and lessermost, I gave a presentation at eleven a.m. today, which went as well as I could have hoped...and as soon as it was over, I basically went into vacation mode even though I technically still had the rest of today and tomorrow to work. But it's been a really long quarter, and this was the last major thing on my agenda, and so I threw in the towel. That meant walking back to my office (and running into Dontae, who I managed a lifetime ago, and realizing that he also knows Viviana (a current member of my team), which was a surreal connection), and then having lunch with Dave at the new salad place on campus (verdict: I made a lot of bad choices, but it somehow turned out okay despite my inability to pick a course and stick to it...so despite having both chicken and carnitas, I somehow enjoyed it). And then I spent the afternoon taking some desultory meetings, leading another meeting (to which I brought champagne to celebrate being done with the presentation), and generally finishing things up and socializing with a variety of coworkers.

The late afternoon/evening was a shitshow; traffic was awful, as per usual, but I went to downtown MV to pick up something, talked to my mother for awhile, went to my favorite coffee place in PA to fortify myself for the drive, and finally left the south bay at 7:15, which meant I made it home in an hour and fifteen minutes (I know, so awesome). I sat at home and stared at the wall and ate some scrambled eggs and tried to decompress, but there wasn't enough decompression before it was time for the main event...

...and the main event was Chandlord's birthday party at Martuni's. She was in fine form even though she's now old, and I had an excellent time despite overheating and dying since I wore the sweater I wore to work rather than changing into something more bar-appropriate. Claude was there, which was delightful. Terry was also there, which was a lovely surprise, although she left two hours before I did. I also saw Maya, spent some quality time catching up with Jess, hung out with Adit and Priyanka, got relationship advice from Omar, and briefly chatted up Katrina and Rajiv. Yay.

I made it to midnight, but only barely...and now I must sleep if I have any hope of crushing my massive to-do list before leaving for Iowa. Goodnight!

you oughta know

I got home after ten, so this must needs be brief. But today was mostly good despite the fact that I spent no time in my house - I was out the door at 6:40, on campus by 7:50, and spent an hour catching up on general stuff at the coffee place on campus before going to my building and beginning the slog. However, it was less brutal than it's been in a long time - I only had a couple of meetings, and so I was able to plow through a bunch of emails and other random things that I'd been ignoring for days/weeks.

And at the end of it, I left the office and had a v. delightful friendship renewal dinner with Joann, Jen, Jane, and Tolu. Downtown Mountain View has turned into a total scene, and getting off campus at night is a train wreck, so we were all late (even Jen, who doesn't work where the rest of us do anymore). But we tried a new restaurant (Shell Shock), which was excellent - so excellent that we somehow spent an exorbitant amount of money because we ordered a shocking amount of food. But that was sufficient to sustain us while we discussed all manner of ridiculous occurrences that various members of the group have experienced since our last meeting five or six weeks ago.

Now, though, I must go to sleep. The other exciting thing, which I barely kept track of (okay, that's a lie, I was refreshing Amazon through every meeting I had today), was that I ran a BookBub on Alex and Prudence's book, which was sufficient to get it into the top 100 on Amazon, Apple, and Nook. So that's exciting! Hopefully that leads to more sales of the other books (at full price instead of the discount on this one), but either way it's a good thing. And now I'm really going to sleep - goodnight!

turn away and slam the door

The presentation I had to give today went mostly swimmingly (other than some vague disquietude over gender politics, which I've felt more in my current group than I felt in previous groups since there are fewer female leaders as I continue to climb the ladder (a ladder I never intended to return to, incidentally)). But that means that all that stands between me and two weeks of vacation is a few mostly pointless meetings, one more presentation, and some attempt to clear my inbox before ignoring everyone. I'm pretty sure I can survive for that long...

But at least today was mostly better than yesterday; I got up at 5:30 again, but I was able to leave at three, so that's something. Sadly, it started to rain just as I pulled out of the parking lot, and so it took an hour and a half to get home. But I made it, ate an apple, talked to [censored], did a bit of shopping, and then had dinner and a drink (well, I had two drinks and she had zero drinks) with Terry at my favorite French place. And while I plan to get up dreadfully early tomorrow as well, I'm in the home stretch and I don't expect anything dramatic to happen (knock on wood). To accomplish that, though, I must sleep immediately - goodnight!

save your advice cause I won't hear

I'm feeling substantially less #blessed tonight; I was at the office from 8am to 8:30pm, and very little of it was fun. In fact, perhaps the only fun I had was three minutes of whispered conversation with Eugene (the guy who put the noisemaker in my car, who is secretly extremely funny) while we were in a meeting together. Sigh.

But it's all okay, and while the downside of staying at work til 8:30 was that I had popcorn and string cheese for dinner, the upside was it took forty-five minutes to get home. And now I must sleep so I can do it again tomorrow (only with more giving of presentations and less writing of presentations). Goodnight!

happiness hit her like a bullet in the back

I rather wish I'd gotten more sleep than I got this weekend, but since it was all fun and I'm going to have two weeks to sleep in Iowa, I'm not going to regret any of this. Well, maybe I'll regret the fact that I have to commute tomorrow, since it just started raining again, which is going to doom me to misery.

But today was a lovely cap on a great few days before I have to return to the office again. I woke up of my own accord around eight, tried to sleep a bit longer and failed, and did some stuff online before showering and going down the street to have breakfast. Then I went to BevMo to buy gifts for some people at work (and champagne for myself) before getting my nails done. The nail-doing excursion took almost two hours, which was an hour longer than I wanted to spend at it, but that was my fault because I got a regular manicure instead of a gel one, and so I spent an extra thirty minutes sitting around reading while I waited for my nails to get extra dry so I wouldn't mangle them like I always do. Yes, that's an important thing to note here for posterity.

Then I grabbed coffee at Philz, came home, and spent most of the afternoon dealing with family stuff - I talked to both my siblings about Christmas and both my parents about life, all of which was v. necessary. Then I was going to go to the gym, but it turns out I should have gone earlier and talked to the siblings later, since the gym closed at five today. Thwarted (but secretly grateful, since I wasn't feeling great and wasn't eager to be there), I came home and finished the book I started last night (A PROMISE OF BLOOD, which I recommend to anyone who likes fantasy with some strong military elements - it's sort of a French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars with mages, and while it started a little slow, it was great by the end and I already bought the sequel).

Then I put on real clothes again and ventured to the Inner Sunset (I know, who goes there?) to have family dinner. We rendezvoused at Enjoy Vegetarian, and it was the usual suspects for family dinner (+ Claudia (aka Santy Claude during the holiday season), who was always part of the family but is now back full time). Chandlord, Katrina, Claude and I all showed up within ten minutes of the original start time (7), while Adit, Priyanka, John, and Jess were ten minutes late for the revised start time (7:30), so the first four to arrive split some appetizers and soup while waiting.

But then the eight of us gorged ourselves on fake meat and real hardhitting conversation (the origins of purple drank; Gilmore Girls; the recent photos of Prince George; Instagram; Claudia's tragic love affair with the viola; Mike Huckabee; mericles). We tried to convince Chandlord to do an opera bonfire for her birthday, but she'll probably just end up at Martuni's as per usual. We also checked out the Claudemobile. And we shut the party down (and by that I mean we were basically the only people there, and they were very eager to see us go when the restaurant closed at nine).

And now, feeling very #blessed, I must go to bed - goodnight!

we could be heroes

I'm too tired to blog (although not as tired as last night, when I was completely incoherent). This is probably to be expected, since I got less than five hours of sleep last night. And I had intended to go to bed at nine and sleep for nine or ten or twelve hours, but I accidentally stayed up reading until now.

However, today was just the lowkey day I needed - I ate lunch at the cafe down the street, went down to Fort Mason and read for a couple of hours while drinking tea, came home and messed around on the internet, and then went to Mezes and read for another couple of hours. And now I'm going to go to bed...I unfortunately have to do some day job work tomorrow, and I need to take care of my Christmas shopping before it's too late, but that's all eminently doable. Goodnight!

uh, about last night...

I rarely clarify posts, but after waking up and reading what I wrote as I was falling asleep last night, I feel that perhaps I didn't really do the evening justice. Also, I have no idea what I was saying when I said something about my soul betraying me. Also, I have no idea why I used a tag called 'predators', which I've never used before.

sssanyway. I actually wasn't particularly intoxicated when I wrote the post, but I was actively falling asleep as I was typing - I haven't stayed up until four a.m. in a million years, and since I've been getting up at 5:30 or 6, my body (rather than my soul) betrayed me. So I was clearly hallucinating while I was typing and thought that it made some semblance of sense. Or maybe the hallucinations were from the absinthe...but I get ahead of myself.

So to recap. Yesterday, as I kind of said, I worked, went to the gym, worked some more, and got my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed. Then I came home, lazed about, and got ready for my company holiday party, which was the first (and way more sedate) stop of the evening. I took Chandlord with me as my date, which made it as fun as it could be considering that we got there basically when it started and left before anything debauched occurred. The food was decent, the drinks were okay, and the line for absinthe was way too long and not worth it (although it was theoretically interesting to watch them pour it the way they're supposed to, with burning sugar and all that). And the cheese was, frankly, the best thing there, even if the French VP of the group thought it was only good enough for American peasants (my words, not his).

And then the evening went sideways, as I knew it would. If you read last night's post, Adit wasn't mentioned, but observant readers could probably guess his involvement. He and Priyanka had a holiday house party, so Chandlord and I arrived fashionably late and proceeded to party until the bitter end. All the usual suspects were there - I v. briefly saw Kristin and Folkman, whom I hadn't seen in ages, and I should have made it back to the yard to talk to them more, but I got distracted (probably by the punch, which we called 'purple drank' for a reason). Katrina was there, rocking some lovely hairstyle. John and Jess were obviously in the mix, as expected. Claudia (aka Santy Claude) is fully back from Yale, and it's still weird and wonderful to think that she's now here full-time. And there were all sorts of other characters from Adit's life, including his young cousin who wants me to write about NBA infidelity for my next romance novel (uh...), Omar (the only other person besides Adit to have visited my family in Iowa), and these guys named Rajiv and John who've never been mentioned here before, but with whom I spent much time in the kitchen continuing to spike the warm apple cider and throwing bread at Chandlord.

By three a.m. the party was more than over, so we left Adit and Priyanka to their own devices and Chandlord/John/Rajiv/I went to Sparky's. I'm getting to the age where I keep thinking that every three a.m. excursion to Sparky's is going to be my last, but when I start feeling old, I just need to tell myself, "You got this, girl," (as one drunk girl said to an even more drunk, stumbly girl while encouraging her to walk down the ramp to the exit). Then I got home at four, was sober enough to take off my eye makeup so that my eyelashes wouldn't glue themselves to my face forever, made an ill-fated attempt at blogging, and slept for three glorious hours before the construction started outside my window. Heh. So I put in earplugs and slept until ten, which is later than I thought possible at my advanced age.

So now you know what really happened. Maybe my soul did betray me last night, but we'll never know.

i'm up all night to get lucky

I haven't stayed up this late in ages...it's more likely that I would be getting up somewhere around this time, which is a scary and sobering thought. But I had to work today, so I took the necessary meetings from home, worked out at the gym, trained some more, and took a final group of training sessions before throwing in the towel.

My company holiday party was tonight, but I had Chandlord with me (lucky emo!} place. And that means hiding/playing dead until my soul betrays me.  Goodnight!

your face is all that i see, i'll give you everything

I scoffed at the #stormageddon this morning when I woke up at 6:30 to light rain and the pressing need to finalize edits on my slides and take a shower before my eight a.m. meeting. It's a good thing I did the slides first - just as I was about to blowdry my hair at 7:20 so that I could do some final prep with a coworker over videoconference at 7:30, my power went out. And it stayed out. That meant no internet, obvi. So I did the presentation, which was ostensibly the most important meeting of my week, partially on videoconference on my work phone (jhoke), and then over the phone after they dialed me in when my video failed (double jhoke). But I survived it, so that's good.

And then I debriefed with my coworker after the presentation, considered going to the SF office before my next meeting, and realized I couldn't get my car out of my garage. So I did another meeting over the phone, then canceled the remaining stuff I had on my calendar since it was ridiculous at that point. Happily, someone pried the garage door open then, so I vacated my house in search of a neighborhood with power and food. The power outage affected most of the north half of the city, so I rescued Kathia and took her to Morning Due, which I hadn't been to in ages. Happily I got a couple of good hours of work done, which I'll take. And when I got home at 1:30, my power had just come back on, so I think I'll survive the stormageddon. I also got my first parking ticket in San Francisco ever (it's a miracle I've made it this long) because they were actually doing street cleaning in the middle of the storm, which is a triple jhoke.

Then I came home, napped, worked some more, etc., before walking down to the Marina and meeting Kathia for another writing date. Then I had dinner with Lauren (aka Subz), which was v. lovely and v. overdue; I'd seen her a couple of times this month, but I hadn't seen her alone in a month and we had a lot to catch up on. So we spent two and a half hours lingering over our wine and talking about life, which was pretty much perfect (the conversation, not our lives, obvi). And then I walked home in the continuous, albeit light, rain, and now I'm going to go to sleep and hope that my power stays on tomorrow. Goodnight!

i'm thinking out loud

In a return to the bad old days of my day job (which I haven't experienced in ages), I just stayed up until midnight working on slides. Stupid. Since the meeting I'm presenting them in is at eight a.m., I'm not going to regale you with tales of my commute (horror show), nor will I bore you with any other whined recriminations about my work experience. Instead, I'm going to go to bed and hope that stormageddon doesn't wake me up before I'm ready to wake up - and that my internet doesn't go out during my presentation, since I fully intend to work from home. Goodnight!

place your head on my beating heart

The day job has been an endless progression of misery the past few weeks, and today was more of the same...so the less said, the better. If I didn't like the people I sit with so much, I would probably take the spear someone gave me last week and go out in a blaze of glory (and by that I mean I'd probably accidentally throw it into my own foot before resigning petulantly). But I do like my immediate coworkers a lot, and so I shall continue to slog despite my dreams of running away and going off the grid.

So, nothing else of interest happened; my commute was 90mins at 6:30am and another 90mins at 6pm, so that was miserable too. At least I trained with Alyssa. And at least I had a brief meeting with Chandlord. And at least tuna salad is a comfort food for me, since I had nothing to cook and didn't feel like going out. And at least these are all #firstworldproblems. And now I'm going to bed - goodnight!

tell me little girl is your daddy home

Today was a pretty horrible slog...I got to work at 8:15, had some meetings, had some other meetings rescheduled, spent far too much time brooding over various interpersonal fiascos, and tried to catch up on email.

Then I came home, did not pass go, did not collect two hundred dollars, and went straight to Des Amis, where I spent three hours formatting the print version of Thorington's book. It's done except for the cover, which I hope I can finish tomorrow...but I have meetings pretty much straight from eight to four, and I have two slide decks to make, and I'm a v v cranky camper as a result.

But this too shall pass, and I only have nine working days left before vacation, so I'm sure I can survive it. Goodnight!

kiss me under the light of a thousand stars

Today was less hermity than yesterday, which was probably a good thing, although I would have liked a bit more sleep to have started it off. But I slept badly last night, woke up cranky, and eventually forced myself to rally so that I wouldn't be as annoyed as I was most of last week. That meant making eggs for breakfast, then meeting up with Kathia for a writing date at Goody. I officially started working on Rafe and Octavia's story, which was oddly quite exciting - I have no real idea what happens, and obviously this is a long journey that begins with a single step, but it was nice to spend a couple of hours writing out thoughts about their characters and what they might become together.

After that, I went to the gym and did some kettlebell-type stuff (weird, I know) and had a late lunch at the new cafe next door. Then I came home, talked to Katie (the queen of my heart), and talked to my parents (also important to my heart). And then I showered and went straight to dinner - I met up with Lauren (aka Subz), Nathan, and Terry at Dosa, which is tasty but rather overpriced Indian food on Fillmore. We had a lovely time catching up before Lauren and Terry went to the movie they'd bought tickets before, and Nathan and I stayed behind to settle up the bill and talk about careers and real estate like all thirty-somethings do.

And now, even though it's barely past nine, I'm going to go to bed to catch up on last night's abysmal sleep, then hopefully get up early so I can do some of the stuff I should have done this weekend. Goodnight!

then you jerk it out

I had a v. quiet, v. hermity day today, which was mostly what I needed. However, I did make it out to have breakfast down the street, and I made it out again to take a long walk around the neighborhood (during which I ran into Julie, which was awesome!) and grab an iced latte. And the highlight of the day, of course, was having dinner with Claudia (aka Santy Claude) - she was good enough to drive to my neighborhood, and then we had supper at my favorite Greek place, which was delightful. We ended up having tea at my place before she drove home, and it's so great that she's back in the area so that this will be a much more regular occurrence.

But now I need to sleep - I have actual stuff to do tomorrow and I should really buckle down and get it done, so sleeping in advance of commencing with the slog is imperative. Goodnight!

and now my eyes are open, and now my heart is closing

Today was not really the kind of day I want to repeat...I'm feeling v. meh about work in general and all the things on my to-do list in particular, and I wasn't happy to be in the office. Since I didn't get to leave until 3:30, I feared the worst in terms of getting home, but I survived the commute and managed to have dinner and (bad) drinks with Terry, so that's good. And now I'm going to pursue the oh-so-exciting plan of reading a book and going to bed - goodnight!

you better kiss me before our time has run out

I'm feeling a bit stressed tonight, and my morning was not smooth enough to set me up for total success, so this is going to be brief. I woke up at 5:15 as planned, which meant I was able to get ready in time to leave at a reasonable (translation: insanely early) hour, but since I had trouble sleeping last night, that wasn't as pleasant as it might have been. Also, my smoke detector went off for no reason at 6am, so I had to spend several ear-shattering minutes dealing with that. Thus already in a surly mood, I drove to work, where I spent an hour and a half working on the paperback version of Thorington's book while drinking a latte, and then spent many hours slogging.

Of course, it wasn't all bad (since my perks are ridic); I had lunch with several people at the Indian place on campus, and we stopped at one of the baristas after. Since I'd had tea and a latte in the morning and had two cups of chai at lunch, I refrained from having more coffee - which is probably all that saved me from having a heart attack, since I was wildly jittery all afternoon. Caffeine, combined with anticipation of more possible pain to come at work in the next few days, made for a crazy afternoon, and I crashed as soon as I got home. But my attempt at a nap was thwarted by my racing thoughts, so I walked down to my favorite Greek place on Chestnut, where I've quickly befriended the bartender, which resulted in extra wine (and a long conversation about my romance writing, since I divulged my not-so-secret profession to him and so had to explain all of it while eating my chicken skewers). The wine + some brainstorming in my journal helped to soothe my thoughts, so I came home, took care of some tings, and am now going to sleep. I have to go to the south bay tomorrow to train with Alyssa + take some meetings that could be either horrible or great, so we'll see how that goes. Goodnight!

ay amor, me duele tanto

My plan to wake up at 5:15am and go to work super early to beat traffic was successful, so I'm going to go for it again tomorrow. Granted, even at 6:15 it still took an hour, but that's so much better than any other morning commute I've had recently that I'm going to take it. And that was with continual rain + flooding on some streets, so really, it was as good as it could have been.

Yes, I know it's boring that all I talk about is my commute, but it's rather top of mind right now. Getting to work at seven meant that I was able to slog pretty relentlessly all day, leave at 3:30, and still feel like I'd put in everything I was required to put in. So I came home (traffic back was good as well!), ate a snack, took a long walk to make up for the fact that I'd chained myself to my desk during the day, and then ate leftover fish for supper. I'm living the dream.

But now I'm going to go to bed and try this all again tomorrow - but I think I'll do some of my own stuff in the morning (either format the paperback of Thorington's book, or work on my secret non-gargoyle young adult book - I was rereading some of it tonight and want to try to work on it on the side while I write the next romance novel). And I have a team lunch tomorrow at the Indian place on campus, which was rather unfortunately referenced when attempting to explain to a girl on our team what 'sharting' is (the people in my cube are highly professional). And then I may try to sneak out early, unless I get dragged into anything, at which point I'll probably decided to stay in the south bay until judgment day. Wish me luck with all of that - goodnight!

a sky full of stars

It's not quite nine, but I'm going to bed and am going to force myself to get up early tomorrow. The commute today was brutal, even leaving at 9:50 and going down 280 to train with Alyssa - I heard horror stories of 2.5hr commutes from some of the people on my team, and I would rather die than go through that tomorrow (note: that's a slight exaggeration). So going to bed early is crucial.

But today was pretty good despite the commute. I took some meetings from home, ate breakfast, and trained with Alyssa, who was in fine form (and I finally seem to have figured out how to do proper kettle bell snatches, so that's exciting). Then I went to work and slogged for a couple of hours, but I knew traffic back was going to be awful too, so I left early. That put me back in the city in time to buy groceries and cook supper for the first time in forever...I made a v v tasty tilapia with a topping of tomatoes, onion, olives, capers, and spinach, which made me super happy.

Then I took care of business, read a bit, and started to fall asleep over the book, which bodes well for my octogenarian bedtime schemes. Goodnight!

she says you're like a disease without any cure

So much for my attempt to get back onto my absurdly early schedule. I'm pretty sure Hawaii completely obliterated the post-Frankfurt early-to-rise situation, which is not the end of the world...but despite my attempt to wake up at 5:40 (which turned into 6:15), I didn't make it out the door until seven, which meant it took ninety minutes to get to the office. Boo.

But the office was fine, as such things go; I made it through some email, had a couple of meetings, and had lunch with Alaska Matt, which was the highlight of the day and the only reason I even bothered to go into the office. He was in fine form, and we caught up over our usual Mexican food in the corner of a cafe where no one can overhear us. Then I slogged some more, but I left a little before four so that I could try to beat traffic, and I miraculously made it home in an hour. Since I got home early, I took the highly unusual move of going for a walk, since I was trying to increase my steps after a v. sedentary day. The walk did me a lot more good than staring at my sales rankings would have done (even though the sales are good, tanks for asking).

Then I took a v. quick shower, put on real clothes again, and met up with Chandlord (aka Vidius Chandicus) for dinner at Nob Hill Cafe. We both had gnocchi and wine, and it was delightful to catch up in a secluded, slightly strange, highly delicious environment. Then she dragged me to a free concert that she'd been invited to by her former real estate agent (weird, I know) - it was in the Masonic Center, which was cool to see inside of, but the concert was extremely sparsely attended (too bad since the band was actually okay), so we only stayed for a couple of songs (mostly to watch the videographer, who was filming the band while skating around on roller skates, which I suppose created a poor man's tracking shot). Then Chandlord showed me her new apartment, which is gorgeous. And then I walked home from Nob Hill, which was luckily downhill, so I survived it.

And now I must sleep so I can try again tomorrow - but I already doubt that I will get up early, since I decided not to try to get into the office before my eight a.m. meeting. I'll have to go down later to train with Alyssa, but attempting to get up at five tomorrow is a fool's errand. Goodnight!

i guess that's deja vu

Another rainy, boring (for you) day that left me feeling v. content with how much I got done and what I'm up to in general. Yes, that's a sentence fragment - clearly I'm not ready to start writing Rafe and Octavia's story yet. I slept until eightish, took care of some stuff online, got dressed, chatted with [censored], and then went out into the rain to get a manicure (so wonderful, so unnecessary). After I was properly painted, I grabbed lunch, then came home and worked on stuff all afternoon. This mostly consisted of taking care of tings in and around my desk; I'm still not through my horribly massive to-do list, but I'm happy with what I got done today.

I had intended to be social tonight (and I actually had three potential plans, which is three more than I usually have), but I was committed to hanging out with Terry since she's going to NYC tomorrow. However, she's also deathly ill, so we had a v. low-key evening and stayed close to home so she could recuperate. And when we were done catching up, I gave up on the idea of being more productive (see: attempting to be kinder to myself, Day 1) and instead put some face products on my skin and read a book for the last thirty minutes.

But even though it's only nine p.m., I'm going to go to bed and hope that I can miraculously readjust to my weird early-to-bed, early-to-rise ways from pre-vacation - as bad as the commute has been, getting up super early is my only hope. Goodnight!