the most amazing things can come from some terrible nights

Sooooo...I'm not in Easter Island. Nor am I at the Four Seasons Bora Bora, which feels like a distant memory of perfection. Instead, I am in some strange netherworld of gloom and dismay known as Tahiti, thanks to LAN canceling our flight. But they didn't just cancel our flight....they had no announcement or signage at the Tahiti airport, and so we didn't find out until we had already sat there for three hours of our six-hour layover waiting for the checkin desk to open.

So, to recap: after being whisked by boat from the Four Seasons to the Bora Bora airport, we were dumped straight into tropical hell. The flight to Tahiti was uneventful, and we got our bags easily, and we found seats near the only open restaurant in the airport, so it seemed like things were okay (if not nearly as fancy as we were accustomed to). But after three hours we were well and truly exhausted...and then they canceled our flight, could only give us a room where we have to share a bed (but they tittered about how we're friends and it's so cute that we're traveling together, which was better than the spa at Bora Bora that tried to give us a couples massage today...but I digress), and then stuffed us in a van with the stinkiest Frenchman I've possibly ever encountered.

And now we're at the Pearl Resort, which is nice enough (and right on the ocean)...but it's so far from the Four Seasons that my mind can't comprehend how far we've fallen. Joann and I have to SHARE A SINK, which is barbaric.

Now, I must sleep, and contemplate how we're going to kill all of tomorrow, since our new flight doesn't leave until seven pm. Sadly, this costs us a day on Easter Island, but we'llcross that bridge after we cross the ocean. And on that incredibly stupid note, it's time for bed - may you not hear from me again until Easter Island. Au revoir!

service announcement

We're leaving Bora Bora in a couple of hours, and I won't have service until we get to our hotel in Easter Island many hours from now...and even then, service may be spotty (and entirely dependent on whether I want to go to the reception to use it, and whether it works...you know I'll go to reception because I'm a crazed addict, but I can't control the internet speeds when I get there).

So, I'll try my best, but I hope you can survive slightly more sporadic posting between now and Chile. Au revoir!

i could fill your cup...you know my river won't evaporate

It's my last night in Bora Bora. We may have achieved peak island today; by 'peak island' I mean that time has slowed, nearly to a stop, as all the experiences begin to blend into each other and all the drinks and meals and sunsets begin to feel the same. This is not a bad thing, obvi - it's possible that this has been the most relaxing trip I've been on in years, if not ever (although Cancun and Hawaii with Katie would give this a run for its money, and Sri Lanka will always live fondly in my heart).

But that relaxation probably stems more from within than from my surroundings...timing this break to happen the day after I left my job was perhaps the most genius thing I've done in awhile (beyond the fact that I have to pay for it without having a steady paycheck anymore). I feel completely, utterly at peace right now, as though this is a little bit of a breath before the next battle after having finally won the last one. I'm starting to write down what I need to do and how I need to focus to keep this sense of  calm/peace/grace when I'm writing full time...the hardest issue I faced the last time I did this was maintaining my sanity and forgiving myself when I felt like I should write all the time and didn't (and blamed it on procrastinating...even though it's not possible or useful to write all the time). I don't want to repeat those issues, and I think setting up some sort of rough schedule would help - a schedule that includes things like trips to museums, music/art stuff, movies, friends, etc., etc.

So I spent some time thinking about that early this morning, as the sun came up over the lagoon and I enjoyed the feeling of having nowhere in particular to be. We ate breakfast around eight, and then spent most of the morning/early afternoon lazing about on the deck. I got some sun, but not too much; I took a nap, but not too long; and I called my parents, which was unfortunately too brief and somewhat difficult technologically because of the bad wifi situation here, but at least I got to talk to them before leaving here.

Eventually, Joann and I left the bungalow and did a bit of kayaking - nothing extreme, but it was nice to get out and exert myself for a little bit. Then I took my time showering and putting myself together - I am kind of tired of being covered in sunscreen residue, and so it was nice to do some proper grooming after several days of stickiness. After that, I wrote at the bar for awhile while drinking a pina colada (journal stuff, not Rafe/Octavia - they're going to have to wait for SF, I think), and then Joann joined me and we had sushi (again) for dinner.

And now, I've packed most of my stuff, and I've downloaded some new books for this leg of the trip, and I think I'm ready for the Easter Island portion of this adventure. It's possible that I won't be able to blog as regularly for the next few days, since it sounds like the internet is going to be intermittent at best, but I will make every effort to get online and keep you informed (I know, you're so lucky). Goodnight!

so when you're near me, darling can't you hear me, sos

Today was yet another magical day in paradise, to the point that it's almost getting embarrassing to talk about how great everything is...but I'll make the sacrifice for you. I got up slightly later than usual (seven instead of six) and hung out on the balcony for an hour or so before having breakfast. Then, in an attempt to bake without frying, I laid out on the balcony for several hours...based on my skin's happiness level, I'd say I succeeded, but it was so warm and sunny that I had some fear that my sunscreen regimen might fail me.

But by two-ish, Joann and I were both ready to do something more active, so we snorkeled for an hour or so. The resort lagoon isn't quite as amazing as the stuff we saw yesterday, but it's also comfortably free of sharks, so we swam around and investigated the various coral worlds under the surface. I kind of want to try scuba diving now, although that's probably still beyond my comfort level...but maybe my funemployed self will do more swimming so that scuba becomes a real possibility.

After snorkeling, we sat on the beach and shared a snack before going back to our bungalow and showering off the salty sea so that we could have drinks and dinner at sunset. The sun sets so fast here...it's relatively equatorial, and so the sun set in the snap of a finger shortly before six pm. But we were at the sunset bar in time to see it, and we enjoyed some sushi and drinks after while discussing our favorite cosmetics, which is my idea of an awesome night.

Then we came back to our room, spent some quality time admiring the gorgeous stars of the Southern Hemisphere (and I saw the Milky Way for the first time in a long time), and then watched "Mamma Mia!" while polishing off the rest of the bottle of champagne we'd opened this afternoon. I may have sang along more than was strictly recommended, and I may have proclaimed too many favorite parts of the movie, but I think Joann forgave me.

And now I shall sleep so that I may bake again tomorrow - goodnight! And happy [censored] to [censored]!

you love these little signs of life

My swimming lessons paid off today when Joann and I went on a half-day snorkeling excursion. I had my doubts about this initially, since I've never snorkeled before, but it ended up being a totally awesome time. Our first stop was focused on sharks and sting rays, and the guide kept encouraging is to touch the sting rays he caught for us to pet (although when a stranger keeps yelling "touch it! touch it!", my mind goes strange, uncomfortable places).

The second stop was my favorite; we spent some time at a 'coral garden', where we saw tons of really cool fish. The water was so amazingly clear, and the fish do not care at all that we're hanging out. That was put to the test at the third site, where we saw much bigger sharks - I was not really into that stop, mostly because we were on the ocean instead of the lagoon and so the water was a lot choppier. But I got an underwater photo of a shark, which you can see in my Instagram if you're so inclined.

The boat trip also included a sail around the whole island, which was awesome because it confirmed that we have no need to or interest in going to the only town on the island. Then we came back to the hotel, ate a late lunch on the beach, and laid out to continue the tanning process (miraculously, I haven't burned myself year but that could change tomorrow...). We had wanted to see the sunset at the sunset bar, but a storm rolled in and obstructed the view, so we just had a drink there and reminisced about the day and all the strange people we encountered.

And now, having successfully made it to nine pm, I going to get ready for bed - goodnight!

just the sky the moon and us

Even in the rain, Bora Bora is lovely. It was overcast most of the day, but it was still great for relaxing, and I'm feeling quite at peace with the world at the moment. I woke up at six am (so weird) and sat on the deck with my journal and my phone and some bad coffee, watching the water and catching up on things back home and contemplating life. When Joann woke up, we sat on the deck some more, and then took full advantage of the complimentary breakfast buffet by stuffing our faces like crazy people.

After that was over, we mostly laid around, sat around, read, talked, and drank wine. At some point we decided to test out our snorkels; we're  doing a half day snorkeling thing tomorrow and we wanted to make sure our swimming lessons had adequately prepared us for the experience of having fish in our face. Even though it was raining and we were in the tamest part of the hotel lagoon, it was pretty freaking awesome - the fish were gorgeous, and I was v v pleased to discover that I could keep my face in the water the whole time without panicking at all. So I think tomorrow will be awesome (unless I'm eaten by a shark, in which case I hope my family is at least able to bury my arm Stonewall Jackson style even if the rest of me ends up in a watery (or stomachy) grave).

Then we cleaned ourselves up and ate dinner at the sunset bar (sans sunset), where the sushi was surprisingly good and surprisingly filling. And then, in an effort to stay awake, I finished the book I started this morning (Wallbanger, which I thought was only meh despite the rave reviews I'd heard). Now, alas, I must sleep so I can get up in time for another epic breakfast before snorkeling - goodnight!

we are a law unto ourselves

Bora Bora is perhaps the most perfect place I have been to in my entire life. You know how you see photos of hotels on websites and know that the place won't actually look like that when you get there? There was no such false advertising from the Four Seasone. Everything is perfect, from the pickup at the airport (via catamaran - the airport is only accessible by water, and the greeters very modestly pointed out that the Four Seasons had the best boat), to the check in (each couple on the catamaran - and it was only couples except for me and Joann - were greeted by their own person who drove them straight to their bungalow via golf cart, so I haven't seen reception yet), to the weather (perfect, perfect, perfect).

So today was pretty awesome despite the fact that the flight here was decidedly not awesome (old plane, uncomfortable economy seats, followed by a clusterfuck of a transfer in Tahiti for the flight to Bora Bora). We were at the hotel by 9:30, so we showered, ate breakfast, and spent the rest of the day indulging in sun (on our perfect private deck) and water (in the crystal clear lagoon, accessible from our private ladder). We had a drink at the pool bar in the afternoon, followed by more sun, followed by an intense attempt to stay awake by talking/reading despite the fact that we're three hours behind California and so I wanted to go to bed at 6:30.

But now that we've eaten room service and its reached the slightly more respectable hour of nine pm, I'm going to sleep - goodnight! (and ps, you can see a couple of pics by clicking the Instagram link above - I'm blogging from my phone, so no photos will be uploaded here (and typos may be worse than usual)).

lonely and dreaming of the west coast

I'm sitting on the plane from LA to Tahiti, so this must be brief....but suffice it to say that the spinster honeymoon is off to a great start. So is my unemployment - today was pretty much perfect for the first six hours, until I suddenly realized I was at serious risk of not having packed anything for the trip.

I woke up at 5:20 like I was still employed, but then I went back to sleep because mornings are stupid. But I woke up again at 6:45, messed around on my phone like a lazy wench, and eventually went to Philz to get an wary morning coffee and write my packing list while people watching. It was totally lovely, and I'm excited for that to become part of my routine. Then I came home and had to shower rather than running errands because a bird shat on my head for the first time ever (a fear I've always had in the city).

After that trauma, I needed some therapy, so I went to the mall and bought stuff for my trip and ate lunch. And then I realized I was running out of time, so I frantically packed (which means I overpacked, which means I have a ridiculous amount of stuff with me). But I made it to the airport in time to have dinner with Joann before boarding our flight to LAX (possibly the worst airport ever).

And now we're waiting to take off, and I'm super excited about fun in the sun (even if I'm not excited about this overnight flight). Goodnight!

i'm gonna love you like a black widow baby

The day job is over. Today was a v. bittersweet day; I thought I was an old pro at resigning, but I felt more emotional today than I expected to. Perhaps it was because I didn't sleep all that well last night; perhaps it was because I like a lot of my coworkers and will be sad to not work with them anymore; perhaps it's because my life has been completely full of change over the last couple of months as I upended everything and pushed to create the life I want out of the detritus of the past, and the latent stress of all that change is catching up to me despite the fact that I want all of it v. eagerly.

Whatever it was, I had a good day, but I felt slightly closer to tears than I expected to feel (but still far enough away to maintain my stoic demeanor). I got up early, got to campus a little before seven, and worked at the coffee place for the last time until almost nine. This was all day job stuff, since I wanted to get through a few last-minute items (success), but sitting there probably just compounded the bittersweetness, since I liked the coffee routine even if that's absurdly early for my normal night owl state.

Dave showed up at some point, so we grabbed a final breakfast (something chilequile-ish?)...and it was a sign of the end times that we ate it at the cafe rather than rushing to our desks for the 9am meeting that neither of us are required to go to anymore. Then I went to my building, had a last meeting with my boss (who asked me to set up a monthly lunch with him...clearly he has not lost hope that he can lure me back someday), did a bit more work, and packed up my desk.

Maybe the packing caused the emotions - I was going through stuff that I had the last time I worked there, some of which was now many years old, and I ended up tossing a lot of it. I remember that I took three boxes with me to work when I started two years ago, and today I only brought home one box, which would include some of the things I got in the past two years. Most of what I tossed is work-specific paraphernalia that I have no use for anywhere else (lava lamp, Mrs. Potato Head, etc.), and by giving or throwing it away, I think there was some sort of subconscious acknowledgement that this is really the end now, rather than my first resignation, which I always suspected on some level was more of a temporary hiatus.

But life is (hopefully) long, and there are many things I may do before the end, and maybe going back to work is one of them. But I'm going to do my damnedest over the next couple of years to make the writing thing work instead.

sssanyway, after packing, I grabbed a final lunch with Dave, Tomas, and Eugene. Tomas was mildly emotional, but Eugene asked if they could put me in a kayak and shoot arrows at me like a Viking funeral, which sounds great except I would be very much alive and also a sitting duck in a nonmoving kayak in a parking lot, so I declined his generous offer. And then I took care of a few more things, did my exit interview, returned my devices, said goodbye to whoever was around, turned in my badge, and left before it all became too much.

So tonight was mildly euphoric, mildly sad, and mostly an exercise in trying to keep myself occupied so I wouldn't be too sad (or too euphoric, I suppose). I took care of some things for my trip, bought tickets for a family reunion, etc., etc. And then I met up with Vidya (aka Chandlord), her former resident Steve, and his fiancée Danielle at Burma Love for a v. late (for me) dinner. I only vaguely know Steve (although I've heard a lot about him), and I've never met Danielle, but it was a really fun excursion - they're getting married in a month, and I'm going on a spinster honeymoon, so it's almost like we're the same people!! (kidding)

And now that I've caught up a bit with Chandlord, and succeeded in not dwelling over all the changes in my life (there will be ample time for that over rum in Bora Bora), I really need to sleep; I haven't started packing, and my flight's tomorrow night, so I should probably get on that. Goodnight!

in a tidal wave of mystery you'll still be standing next to me

I spent my last Sunday as an employed person reminding myself why I must soon become an unemployed person...doing dayjob-related tasks most of the day so that I can prepare to cut the cord tomorrow. I still have stuff on my to-do list, and perhaps I should have done more work today rather than taking a nap / getting a mani/pedi / talking to the family / hanging with the family time. But the end is going to come whether anyone else wants it to come or not - my boss certainly doesn't want it, and I don't think my team does either, but I'm ready to go.

And that's all there is to say about that, really; I feel completely at peace with my decision to leave, and I'm excited for everything that's to come. Of course, at the moment I'm particularly excited about imminent beach time, but the chance to focus on making my writing career into something amazing is super exciting.

Enough about me, though...let's talk more about me. The rest of my day was good; I talked to [censored] briefly, and I also talked more extensively to my parents. I felt vaguely sad/guilty that I wasn't there for my mother on Mother's Day, and that I haven't been home since Christmas. But I'm going to see them in Texas in a month (family reunion!!), so that's going to be fun even if Texas is even more likely to melt my California-weakened flesh off my bones than Iowa is.

Then I did a bit more work, and then I abandoned all pretense of productivity to have family dinner at Adit and Priyanka's. It was particularly family-ish tonight since Priyanka's parents are in town, and her mom made dinner for us - tasty rice, chickpeas, cauliflower/potato (more generically vegetables, aka subz/sabzi - the origin of Lauren's nickname), etc., with some v. excellent tamarind and cilantro chutneys. She also made chai after dinner, and it was some of the best chai I've ever had, which made me sad that I couldn't drink more since I desperately need to sleep tonight.

So it was good to catch up with some of the family (plus some randoms); Adit and Priyanka were there, obvi, as was Katrina, and Omar is in town from Canada, so we reminisced about his visit to Iowa and asked each other highly personal/inappropriate questions that I'm sure Priyanka's parents appreciated. We also listened to some deep house, discussed the SF housing market + Scandinavian design + the royal baby, and were generally ridiculous, so it was par for the course.

And now I must sleep so I can get up super early tomorrow and finish the last bit of stuff that I want to clean up before turning in my laptop/badge/steady paycheck - goodnight!

let's not be alone tonight

I was v. productive today, even if very little of it had to do with all the day-job stuff I feel like I should probably do before I say sayonara on Monday. I was also no longer feeling hungover (although I did need a nap at noon), so that was v. refreshing. The day started off early with a trip to Union Street to see my aesthetician, who managed to be quite entertaining while tearing hair out of my flesh, so that was good. Then I had brunch while chatting with the usual suspects at my favorite cafe, dropped off a dress to get altered before my trip (fingers crossed it can be done, but it seems mildly unlikely), came home, and took care of house stuff the rest of the day (except for my glorious nap in the middle of it).

So I cleaned everything I felt like cleaning today... and then Claudia came over, and we had pizza and split a bottle of wine and generally talked about everything and nothing. I could continue to wax eloquently about our friends, but I'm on the verge of falling asleep while typing this, and that's always a dangerous place...so you'll have to make do with this. Goodnight!

i'll tell you all about it when i see you again

I had a rather epic hangover today, which is what I deserved after allowing my coworkers to get me as drunk as they'd always dreamed of getting me after two years of mostly not drinking around them (Frankfurt doesn't count, since that was a limited subset of coworkers, none of whom reported to me). Their nefarious plans included six shots of tequila and a couple of ciders, but since those shots were more like doubles, it's no wonder that things got messy...

But my going-away party yesterday was super fun, and I felt v. v. loved. Today, I still felt loved, but I felt like I was loved while being run over by a truck. However, I still made it onto a 6:25am shuttle, got to campus at 7:15, and proceeded to do some work like a good (soon-to-be-done) corporate drone. This felt v. industrious of me, since I beat everyone to work despite the fact that I was the most hungover of them all.

Still, I felt slightly too dizzy to be maximally productive. But I enjoyed my coffee, and then grabbed chilequiles and scrambled eggs for breakfast, which may have saved my life. Dave filled in some of the gaps from last night's debauchery for me while I ate, which was kind (or maybe not kind) of him, since it was reported that I bit Eugene (not really that surprising, but maybe a little surprising). sssanyway, I then spent the rest of the morning working before grabbing lunch (a strange combo of tiny fried fish that I didn't eat, french fries, and korean soft tofu soup), grabbing froyo, grabbing coffee, and driving back to the city before traffic and my hangover conspired to ruin my day.

When I got here, I got a haircut and a brow wax as part of my rigorous schedule to prepare myself for Bora Bora. Then I sat on my couch, which was amazeballs. And then I put on a dress and some killer heels and met Kathia for dinner at Seven Hills. She and I had to see each other tonight because we won't see each other again until the end of June, and so we caught up over pasta (gluten free for me) at her favorite Italian place near her house. We're both looking forward to hanging out more regularly as soon as we're both back in town and I'm no longer doing the day job...all of those things can't come soon enough.

But now I really need to sleep and hope that the hangover is gone by tomorrow - I have many tings to do and relatively few hours in which to do them. Goodnight!

my heart is my armor

Sorry for misleading you yesterday...I got entirely too inebriated today at my going-away party, but you don't get to hear any of it because I just slept on my couch for the last three hours and need to go to bed immediately so I can sleep for another six more. But suffice it to say that my team made sure that I a) felt very well sent off, and b) made sure that I can't come back for fear of a lawsuit. This included some Sara Ramsey mad libs, a bunch of trivia questions, and entirely too many tequila shots (I know, sounds like a typical Thursday, but this one was epic).

So now I'm going to bed...more tomorrow. Goodnight!

one more spoon of cough syrup

Too tired to blog - I've got three days left in the office, too much work, and too many fun things planned, so I need to go to bed immediately. But today was good, even if I trained with Alyssa at seven and was busy most of the day. I did manage to have lunch with Alaska Matt, coffee with Dave, and friendship renewal dinner with Joann/Tolu/Jen/Jane, so it's not like I was antisocial...I was just vaguely overwhelmed with work and life.

And now, I must sleep - team event tomorrow means a high likelihood that you'll get a mildly (or majorly) drunken blog post tomorrow night, so at least you have that to look forward to. Goodnight!

she's the tear in my heart

Four days left at zee day job. Today was a total mixed bag of emotion; I had to run to catch my shuttle this morning, and when I got to work I only had half a glorious hour at the coffee shop before starting meetings at eight a.m. (to chat with the guy on my team who is in Paris for the quarter and so has missed all the ridiculousness of my departure). And then I had meetings most of the day - I delivered four performance reviews, had a lunch meeting, had some more meetings, and had a quick break to grab coffee with Jen and Tomas. It was almost, but not quite, enough to keep me totally awake...

...but then I skipped out of work at four to have drinks with the team. This was kind of a jhoke on my face, because we're having a team event on Thursday where I could say goodbye to everyone, but my boss felt like we should do drinks for the cross-functional team (read: people not invited to our team event) as well. So we had drinks...and only one person from the xfn books team showed up. The xfn team from the other team I've been managing outnumbers the books guy two to one, despite the xfn team being like 90% smaller than the books team, and despite me having known them only three months. Lol.

But that was exactly what I expected. The upshot was that I got to see three xfn people I like, a bunch of my own team (who I adore), and two upstanding members of my past life - Alaska Matt and Regina, both of whom were in India with me when I was still in my youth. And it was nice to drink cider in the sun, so I'll take it.

And before I go to bed, I have to say I got two of the best presents ever today. Tomas, Eugene, and Dave gave me a framed 8x10" photo of themselves, and my description of it can't do it justice, but suffice it to say that it was brilliant and will probably have to be hung on my wall. And Viviana and Yune gave me a champagne flute engraved with 'World's Okayest Ex-Manager', which I totally wasn't expecting and will totally use to drink champagne out of all the time.

So, feeling very loved and very tired, I must sleep so I can survive it all again tomorrow - goodnight!

sometimes you gotta bleed to know that you're alive and have a soul

Today was a long day, and tomorrow is going to be another one...but I think I'm going to survive the last week of work without too much drama (famous last words). Also, today could have been worse; 2.5 hours of meetings were canceled, which made for a much better situation than I was expecting. I got up super early, got to campus by 7:15, and worked for an hour and a half before grabbing breakfast and going to my building. Since my nine a.m. was canceled, I had half an hour to do more stuff before commencing meetings. Then I took a break to see Alyssa; she had me deadlift today, which means I'll probably be sore tomorrow, but it was better than being at the office.

When I got back to the office, I showered, then grabbed a salad with Dave. I thought I had a meeting at one, so I left him at the cafe with Manuela/Shannon while I went back to our building - but when I got there, the meeting had been canceled. So I rendezvoused with them again and grabbed coffee, which was delightful (and the only thing that kept me awake this afternoon). Then I had another meeting, and then I went to the onsite store to look for post-its for my parents (failure; I think they stopped making them years ago). After that, it was meetings straight until six p.m., but I drank a cider in one of the most ridiculous ones (seriously, it was like watching a train wreck), so I survived.

And then I came home, where I promptly worked for another two hours. And now I must sleep immediately; I want to catch the 6:25 shuttle so that I don't have to drive home tomorrow night, since there are plans for drinks or something, but that means I can't mess around and be late in the morning as I often am. Goodnight!

closing time

No time to blog tonight...I meant to go to bed an hour ago, but I instead wrote and sent my goodbye email for work. There were many many other things I should have done for work this afternoon, but I mostly focused on myself - it was a productive, albeit hermity, day, which was a good thing.

It started with brunch at my favorite place on Union Street, since I decided I wanted to eat huevos while talking to Tony. Then I got the gel taken off my fingernails, with a sad regular manicure to replace it (necessary to give the nails a break, but now that I've gone gel it's hard to go back, because I'm a total princess...a princess who is eminently without a paycheck and should probably stop getting gel as a result). And then I spent the afternoon unpacking the last of my boxes and organizing my stuff. The result is that I'm completely unpacked, although I have a stack of picture frames that I need to hang - but since I will likely take a lot of photos on my upcoming trip that I'll want to swap into the mix, I'm going to hold off until I'm home again.

By late afternoon, I was all done, and so I called my parents and caught up on the happenings in their lives. Then I ate some tuna salad (sorry, Katie) and spent the evening working on day job stuff.

And now, I shall sleep - there are only six days left at the office (really, more like five), and I have a lot of stuff to get done before walking through the doors a final time. Goodnight!

earned it

I achieved a good mix of socializing and productivity today, even if I wasn't feeling the idea of getting out of bed this morning. But I eventually dragged myself out of bed, made some coffee, and did a couple of hours of stuff before going downtown to meet up with Heather (aka dear respected madam). I hadn't seen her in almost three months, which is appalling; between the trip to India/Tokyo, the move, the trip to Tahoe, and the resignation from work, it's been a brutal few months, and any socializing that required dinners in the south bay or driving anywhere but within the city pretty much fell apart.

But even though it had been too long, we picked up right where we left off, and we spent almost four hours catching up. We had brunch/lunch at Town's End, where I was miraculously able to park right outside despite the Giants game at AT&T park. Then we went to the mall, where I returned a whole bunch of stuff to Nordstrom, and where we promptly bought shoes to celebrate my successful returning of other shoes. All in all, it was a v. successful catch-up and a v. successful Nordstrom excursion, and I'm glad we were able to spend some serious quality time together before I go out of the country.

The other fortuitous thing was that I mentioned that I wanted to rearrange some of my furniture, and Heather texted Salim and got him to come over to my place and take care of it for me. That meant I had to furiously rearrange everything before he got there and move hundreds of pounds of books/alcohol/glassware, but it took him five minutes to move the stuff, and the effort on my end was v. well worth it. Now I can actually use my dining table, and I feel like I can unpack the last couple of boxes of decorative stuff since it's more clear to me where I can put it.

So I chatted with Salim for a little bit, and then I spent a couple of hours putting everything back onto shelves. Eventually, though, I was done being productive, so Chandlord came over and we split most of a bottle of wine while I ate scrambled eggs and tortillas (dinner of champions!). After we'd properly caught up, she successfully dragged me to Lucky 13 (a dive bar near where I lived with Adit)...but I didn't know anyone there but her (and the person whose going-away party it was, vaguely), so I didn't last very long.

And now I want to sleep as much as possible - tomorrow's going to come too early, and I have to do several hours of work for the day job, but I also want to mess around the apartment and make it perfect (dream the impossible dream), and also possibly see some friends. We shall see, we shall see. Goodnight!

i got sinning on my mind, sipping on red wine

Today was awesome, as most days that end in hangovers at ten p.m. are. Of course, it started far too early; I got up at 5:30 and was out the door by 6:15 to catch a shuttle. The ride was blissfully fast, since there was no traffic that early on a Friday morning, and it dropped me off right outside the coffee shop on campus. It was, in fact, so fast and smooth that I was able to work most of the way in, which is odd for me - or maybe it was the adrenaline of knowing I needed almost every minute of the morning to finish my slides that kept me from getting motion sickness.

Anyway, I worked at the coffee shop from 7ish to 9ish, grabbed breakfast on the way to my building, and continued to monkey around with my slides until 10:30. Then I delivered the presentation, and while there were no standing ovations (which would have been super awkward from twelve people crammed into an eight-person room), it was all pretty well-received, and my boss seemed to get a bit emotional at the end. This is likely because he has to take on all my work when I leave and not because I'm awesome, but we'll pretend it's the latter.

After that, though, I had no intention of doing any more work, so I didn't. Instead, Dave, Tomas, Eugene, and I all fled (somewhat secretly, but not secretly enough, probably) the office for a long afternoon lunch/drinking activity to celebrate/mourn my departure. We went to Joya in Palo Alto, which I hadn't been to in awhile, and it was perfectly blissful. It takes virtually no alcohol to get that group to discuss wildly inappropriate things, but by the time we had a pitcher of sangria and then proceeded on to beer/wine (for the dudes) and mojitos (for me), things all got totally ridiculous. We then proceeded on to the Patio, where we had more beer/cider, and where I was coerced into taking an entirely unnecessary tequila shot.

At this point, I already feel well-fêted for my departure after spending four hours drinking with some of my favorite people while gossiping, discussing foot fetishes, and playing the fun parlor game of 'we'll read your own sex scenes to you and you have to guess which book they came from' (all of which is the tip of the inappropriate iceberg for the afternoon's festivities). But I think there's more fun to come next week, so hopefully this was a good warm-up for my liver.

Anyway, by 5:30 we were all done and Eugene and Tomas had to get home to their kids (what are those??), so Dave gave me a ride back to the city. This took quite a bit of time since traffic was horrible, and we had to stop at Starbucks to get caffeine, and we also had to stop at Costco...but eventually I made it to my home, where I fielded a couple of texts from Priyanka about possible dinner plans. As I was waiting to see what materialized, I instead passed out on my bed and slept until nine p.m. I awoke mildly hungover, ate some soup, abandoned the soup in favor of water, and generally messed around on the internet and stared off into space until now.

And now, after a perfectly lovely day, I shall sleep the sleep of the just (or the crazy) so that I can get some working and socializing done tomorrow - goodnight!

i feel the chemicals burn in my bloodstream

This should be one of the last nights when I have to stay up making slides...and while I should stay up even later to make sure they're in good order, I'm going to go to bed and hope that tomorrow is kind enough to me that I can fix what's still broken. Today was mostly good, but I definitely have too much that I want to do before I go, and only so much of it is going to get done. I trained with Alyssa first, which was good, and then I slogged all day without any real breaks (other than to get a salad, which I dropped on the stairs on the way to my next meeting, and a quick drive to the coffee place to get a latte to prevent my demise).

But I slacked off around four to meet with Jess (not the Jess I'll reference later - this one lives in Seattle), and then I had drinks with the other woman named Sara who joined the broader books group a few months ago. This turned into me eating enchiladas and gossiping wildly, as I'm wont to do when there are no consequences, but I think she enjoyed it.

And then I drove back to the city of sin, where I hung out with Katrina a bit (outdoors after seven p.m.! it's one of those rare SF days where it stayed warm at night!), and then went to John and Jess's to say happy (slightly early) birthday to John. I couldn't stay very long since I absolutely had to work tonight, but I'm glad I went over and helped him get ready for his old age.

Now, I must sleep; I'm only going to get six hours, which isn't enough, but I'm taking the shuttle in the morning so that I can drink in the afternoon, so don't cry too hard for me. Goodnight!

tell me when it kicks in

Eight work days left, and there's so much to do before the end. I'm actually trying to get most of my work done by Wednesday(ish) so I can enjoy the last couple of days without any real responsibilities, but we'll see whether I succeed at that noble goal. Today was a valiant attempt, though; I got to work by 7:30 and worked for about an hour before grabbing breakfast (first stop: juice bar; second stop: breakfast tacos and a v. nice corned beef hash; third stop: coffee kiosk...clearly I am taking advantage of the freeness before I leave).

Then I slogged all morning and had a couple of meetings with people who are mad/sad/denying that I'm leaving, which are always fun conversations. But I took a break from work to have lunch with my boss and most of his direct reports at Tech Corners. We were checking out one of the new cafes there, and it's clear that we're all super entitled because we were disappointed with the service and felt that they needed to do some more work on the concept. But we grabbed ice cream after and sat out in the sun for a bit, and the free salted caramel ice cream went a long way to make up for my lackluster free lunch.

Post lunch, I had several meetings and several hours of slogging, but I got through a lot of important stuff on my to-do list, so that's good. Unfortunately, there's still a lot more - I have to give three presentations in the next week, which means I have to be a slide monkey for a few more days. But by five p.m. I was beyond done, so I gave Dave a ride back to the city, which was mostly smooth despite leaving at a suboptimal time. Then I came home, ate some soup, unpacked a box, retrieved some packages from the doorman, etc., etc.

But this is where I must leave you - tomorrow requires a lot of focus on slides, but I also have Alyssa in the morning and social activities in the evening, so I need to get some sleep. Goodnight!

before you came into my life i missed you so bad

The countdown feels like it's speeding up...or maybe that's because I took some time this morning to write out my to-do list on paper, and it's rather intense. So today was necessarily more productive than yesterday, which was a good thing. I got to campus by 7:20am and worked on day job stuff until 8:30ish, at which point I grabbed breakfast with Dave (and was v. confused by some unexpected changes to the condiments lineup, which resulted in strawberry jam instead of salsa with my breakfast potatoes). Then I did some more work, had a bunch of meetings, grabbed salad for lunch (and saw several of my favorite people having lunch without me...bitches have moved on), and then slogged all afternoon.

But the slogging had to stop around four so that I could take my car to Mountain View for a smog test (which I luckily noticed was required before I decided to leave the country and just pay the registration online the last day). It seems like a scam, since it took the guy three minutes, but whatever. Then I browsed Books Inc for a little bit before seeing my eye doctor and settling on ordering soft contacts for the year. And then I drove home, thought about hooking up my tv but gave up on that immediately, ate some leftover soup, and generally lazed about until now.

And now I must sleep; I need to be equally productive tomorrow, if not moreso, but I have meetings that won't be denied. Goodnight!

baby your smile's forever in my mind and memory

I was, admittedly, only minimally productive today. My last day is two weeks from today, and while I've been handling the bittersweetness of this pretty well, I was oddly stressed about it today. Not for any good reason - I'm confident that I'm doing the right thing by focusing on my writing. But the golden handcuffs of my job there are so very, very comfortable...

But today was fine despite the lack of productivity. I got to the office around 7:20 and did some work until 8:40ish, and then had breakfast tacos before going to my only two meetings of the day. Then I did a bit of work, snuck out and trained with Alyssa (kettlebells and more kettlebells), went back to work, showered, ate a salad (no bacon today - good thing I'm leaving since it's clearly going downhill), did another bit of work, and grabbed coffee with Dave. Then I left absurdly early since I wasn't getting anything done anyway, came home, messed around on the internet, bought groceries, and made chicken tortilla soup.

The soup was perhaps more effort than I actually wanted to make tonight, but the good thing was that I chopped double the vegetables and double the chicken and froze the second half, so I can make it again sometime with very minimal effort. And cooking + listening to music helped me to get over whatever weird stress moment I was having, so that was excellent. Then I researched rental cars on Easter Island for my upcoming adventure (apparently you can't get car insurance on Easter Island, which makes me even more psyched to drive there), and now I'm going to bed so that I can get to work absurdly early and actually get things done tomorrow. Goodnight!

you got an attitude of everything i ever wanted

I was far less productive today than I had anticipated...it was one of those mornings when I didn't quite want to get out of bed or face humanity, even though I was theoretically excited about getting things done, and so I laid around and indulged my desire to ignore everything for a bit longer. But eventually I was too hungry to stay put, so I threw on some clothes and went to Moulin for breakfast. It wasn't exactly my regular place when I lived here before, and it's unlikely to become my regular place now...it's just slightly too unhealthy, and slightly too dark inside, and anyway I'm planning to cook more, and breakfast is one of my favorite things to make. But it served its purpose today - I soaked up some caffeine, ate some eggs and potatoes, and contemplated my horrific to-do list in peace.

So after that, I came home with grand intentions of knocking off everything on my to-do list. And really, I got a respectable amount done - I did four loads of laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned my shower, and hung up a new plastic liner + the white waffle-weave shower curtain I'd had in the cabin, which sat in a box for four years waiting for this moment. I also took care of a variety of bills and paperwork, scribbled in my journal, and did a tiny bit of checking up on the day job (only eleven days left!). And then I talked to my parents, as per usual; they were in fine form, although I'm sad that I can't drop everything and fly back to Iowa this week. One of my mother's aunts passed away, and some of that side of the family is gathering for the funeral this week. It would be nice to see them all, and under normal circumstances I would go, but with the quitting of the day job + the trip I have coming up, it's just not possible. Boo.

Anyway, after I talked to my parents, I showered in my freshly cleaned shower (this is not as exciting when you're the one who cleaned it instead of when you've paid someone to clean it...not having a cleaning person is going to take some getting used to), and then met John and Jess for dinner at Thep Phanom (a Thai place near them + where Adit and I used to live). I hadn't seen them in well over a month, so we had much to catch up on - we're all becoming adults and having to make adult-like decisions, which is surreal and strange and stressful and (somewhat) wonderful. So we spent two hours discussing all manner of things, and we made tentative plans to see each other again before I go on my spinster honeymoon.

But before I go on my honeymoon, I must finish the day job - and that requires getting up early tomorrow so that I can write before commencing the day. Goodnight!

tomorrow is a latter day

I think it's time for me to sleep...today was mostly great, but then I hit a wall with talking to strangers at the end of the night (more on that shortly), and so I'm feeling cranky and ready for bed. But the rest of the day was great. I got sufficient sleep last night, puttered around the house this morning, and then walked to Philz at Golden Gate Ave, which I'd never been to before - and I just happened to run into Chandlord, who was there doing something other than writing romance novels. It's not entirely unexpected that we'd both end up there, since we were meeting for brunch two blocks away an hour later, but still.

So I wrote for an hour while drinking coffee and sitting next to her, and I got the full debrief on her trip to NYC. Then we left the coffee place to have brunch with Dave and Claudia (aka Santy Claude) - this is a rather strange group of people, obvi, since Chandlord and Claude are part of the family and Dave is a coworker, but that's the way the plans shaped up. Terry (remember her?) and I had bought tickets to 'Book of Mormon' six months ago, but Terry is now in NYC, and so I had both her pair and my pair to dispose of. So Dave/Chandlord/Claudia were the lucky winners of the 'who gets to go to the Book of Mormon' discussions I had in an effort to get rid of the tickets.

We started with brunch at Elmira, where the food was pretty tasty (the home fries were excellent, and I liked the truffle hollandaise sauce on my eggs even if the poached eggs were just slightly watery). Then we had a glass of wine at The Market; my Honig sauvignon blanc was tasty, although I wished I could have had the chocolate cookie that Dave and Vidya split. Then we went across the street to the theatre, where we had decent enough seats for 'Book of Mormon'.

As it turns out, the musical was delightful - I liked the choreography a lot, and the performance was generally excellent. It's by the 'South Park' writers, if you didn't know, so it's quite irreverent, but the songs were great. And it was great to do something 'culture'-ish, something completely different from what I normally do, after a month of stressing about the day job / moving / writing / being hermity.

Anyway, after the performance Dave dropped me off at my place, and I packed up my stuff and took a forty-five minute walk down to the Marina to go to my favorite Greek place before they forgot about me. I intended to write there, and it was all going swimmingly...until some dude sat down next to me, and I was too polite initially, and then he proceeded to keep trying to talk to me for the next two hours even though it was clear that I was working. Grr. I don't want to be a bitch in those situations, but also, people should take a fucking hint.

But I wrote a few pages, and I had chicken skewers, and it was lovely to see the staff even if the clientele left a lot to be desired. And now I must sleep so that I can get some writing done tomorrow (and also possibly unpack my last two boxes) - goodnight!

rain king

It's raining in San Francisco tonight, which has become an unusual experience over the past couple of years (December's stormaggeddon aside). I spent the evening indulging my hermit side after a v. exhausting, v. people-filled week, which was awesome (if you like being hermity). But my day was good, even if I started it tired and proceeded to get more tired as the day went on. I trained with Alyssa this morning (I think we did enough kettlebells that I'm going to be sore tomorrow), then rushed to the office and rushed through my shower so I could get to my first meeting of the day. But then some subsequent meetings were (regretfully, for once) canceled, so I was able to get some stuff done in the morning before mostly slacking off in the afternoon.

Slacking off involved lunch with Yune, Viviana, and Dave; Yune and Viviana have perhaps not forgiven me yet for deciding to leave, but they were willing to eat free salad with me, so I think that means we're making progress. Then I had a quick meeting before celebrating Tomas's birthday - I brought in a bottle of champagne, and a couple of us had stocked a pinata for him, which we made him break open out on the patio. The pinata included candy + several mini bottles of alcohol (all bad alcohol, since all the good mini alcohol comes in glass instead of plastic, which seemed exceedingly unsafe), so some people were coerced into doing shots, which I think took them all by surprise.

But I escaped the bad alcohol, had another couple of meetings, and then left work around four. Dave rode back to the city with me, and unlike last night his presence was v. v. useful since the carpool lane at 4pm on a Friday is absolutely critical. So I dropped him off, came home, took a nap, considered whether to buy groceries so I could make chili, put it off until I was too hungry to wait that long, and so made scrambled eggs and toast instead. And then I cleaned my bathroom and organized all the shelves/drawers that I hadn't organized yet, so that was a v. worthy endeavor.

And now, after staying up later than I intended, I'm going to sleep; I want to write in the morning before pursuing more entertaining plans, but I hope to get eight or nine hours of sleep before that. Goodnight!

world serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed

I must needs keep this brief, since I have to get up and train with Alyssa tomorrow before having a series of unfortunate events (aka meetings)....but there's no time like the present to tell you that a resigned yesterday. This is the second time I've done so, and I'm becoming exceedingly efficient at it.

In truth, it's been in the works for longer than that, but it took some time to convince my boss that I was serious (although he's been v. good about it). I told my team yesterday, and now it's going to move fast - I didn't want to sit around like a lame duck, so my last day is going to be May 11. That gives me a little more than two weeks to transition stuff and generally enjoy a few more days of delicious free food before commencing the writing slog again.

And that's the plan...I'm excited to write full-time again, and it really does feel like it's a job rather than something I kind of do on the side. But I've had a lot of emotions this week, and I'll continue to have a lot of emotions...I love a lot of the people I work with, and I like my job more than I like most jobs, so leaving is hard. But I'm excited, so it's all kind of bittersweet.

Today was full of bittersweetness; I got to work early, did some day job stuff rather than writing stuff, then slacked off to have breakfast before commencing meetings. The meetings went straight from nine to one, but then I had lunch with several people at the Indian place on campus. After that, I had more meetings, more conversations, etc., before going to the bowling alley with Dave, Tomas, Eugene, and Jen, where we made a half-assed attempt at bowling while drinking cider/beer and gossiping about work.

Post-bowling, Dave and I went to In-n-Out with this guy he knows who's visiting from the Seattle office, so the protein-style double-double went a long way toward curing my Indian-food-induced protein deficiency. Then Dave conned me into giving him a ride home (less valuable to me than usual since the carpool lane wasn't necessary, but c'est la vie), and then I came home and worked for the last ninety minutes or so.

Happily, my life of having two jobs is going to come to an end soon. But I'll miss a lot....but I'll say no more tonight. Prepare for some wildly oscillating emotions over the next two weeks, but I'm confident in my decision and excited for what's next...so that's all good. Goodnight!

my sign is vital, my hands are cold

Many things happened today, none of which I can do justice to tonight...I am completely wiped out, partially due to last night's jackhammer situation (which continued off and on until five a.m. and looks to be continuing again tonight, albeit a block farther away), and partially due to many varied and ridiculous tings at work. So I'm going to go to bed immediately and leave you in suspense for the night - goodnight!

there's nothing to be afraid of even when the night changes

Today was a bit of a rollercoaster, and I didn't have time to really deal with feelings and things - I had a million meetings, and I have approximately 1200 unread emails in my inbox since I still haven't really caught up from vacation or the brutality of the last couple of weeks. But I got up despite a total lack of desire to get out of bed, made it to campus by 7:30, and wrote three pages before starting the day - so at least there's that.

Then I had meetings and more meetings, and I stood in line for fifteen minutes for a salad mostly so that I could have some time to myself without any conversation (and so I could have a salad, of course). And then, you can guess what I did next...more meetings. But I took a break in the mid-afternoon to grab coffee with Dave, and I had tea at the end of the day with Dave and Tomas, so I was fully caffeinated and also moderately well-socialized despite all the meetings.

I wanted to go home at that point, but I stayed in Mountain View to see my eye doctor at 6pm; I'm trying to switch to soft lenses because the hard ones have really been bothering me, so we'll see how that goes. The only good thing about seeing the eye doctor at six p.m. was that the traffic was dead by the time I left; the major bad thing was that he dilated my eyes, so everything's all weird and headachy. And it may be more headachy; for some reason they're jackhammering outside my building even though it's 9:30p.m., and there are floodlights and trucks with backing-up beeps and all sorts of other incredibly negative things, so we'll see how my sleep goes tonight...

But I must try to sleep if I have any hope of surviving the craziness that is tomorrow - goodnight!

the weight of love

I have nothing to say tonight...I got up super early (too early), wrote three pages before work, and then slogged all day with a quick break for salads with the people in my cube. I also grabbed a triple shot iced latte at some point in an attempt to keep me awake for the drive home...but as it turned out, Dave was leaving at the same time I was, so I gave him a ride back to the city, thus saving me from falling asleep.

And when I got home, I had grand plans to do a lot of stuff - but instead, I ate some leftover thai food, did a little bit of work for the day job, and vegged/browsed the internet/played with my new phone/did nothing until now. I haven't relaxed much in the past few weeks, what with the move and the desire to write and everything going on with the day job, so I basically took tonight off. I'm ready to hit it hard again tomorrow, but relaxing tonight was v. necessary.

Now, though, I should sleep so that I can slog tomorrow - goodnight!

the public don't dwell on my transmission

It's a foggy night in San Francisco (not an unusual statement to make), and I'm enjoying it while sitting on my couch in an apartment that's almost (but not totally) unpacked. I finally felt like I saw the light at the end of the tunnel today, and I'm getting very close - there's still a couple of boxes to unpack (mostly decorative stuff that I couldn't get out until I'd decided what else needed to go on shelves), and at some point I need to get someone to help me rearrange the library cabinet/bookshelf/dining table situation since the current setup is extremely suboptimal compared to how I should have set it up.

But the place is almost livable, if not at the point where I'd have a party. And this is a good thing, since I'm going to have a brutally hectic week, and I want to keep making progress on Rafe and Octavia. So I'm probably going to force myself to take a break on some of the apartment stuff for the next few days in favor of focusing on bigger priorities.

Still, today was nearly perfect in its loveliness. I didn't sleep well last night (blame it on the caffeine and alcohol I had with Claude - I slept great until 5am, and then I didn't sleep well at all), but I rallied and got up/showered/dressed/etc in time to walk to Rapha to meet Kathia for a writing date. I'm now a 30-minute walk from Rapha instead of a ten-minute walk, but it was nice to go there and even better to meet up with Kathia. We didn't talk much, since we were both in work mode, but I wrote three pages or so, which was perfect for making me feel like I'd done something worthwhile with my day.

Eventually, though, I abandoned Kathia to have brunch at Blackwood. I'd never been there in the four years that I lived in the Marina, and after going there today, I don't really regret not having been there before. The food was aight, and my mimosa was fine, but I wouldn't walk forty minutes for it again. Still, I had a good time catching up with Dave, and he gave me a ride home, so it was a nice interlude - even if he did come up with the Gollum scale for assessing whether I've gone off the deep end while writing (it involves not wearing shoes, and possibly eating a live fish - while I can live without shoes, I hope the fish thing doesn't happen). I also started lusting after the new MacBook Air, since we stopped by the Apple store to check it out - but I don't need a new laptop, and I just bought a phone, so I'm reminding myself that my lust doesn't have to be acted upon.

So I accomplished writing and brunch early enough that I was home by noon, and I spent the rest of the afternoon organizing and arranging and rearranging, etc. I took a break at four to call my parents, who were in fine form. And then I did a bit more stuff until 6:15, at which point I walked to Fillmore and met Lauren (aka Subz) and Nathan for dinner at Troya. While I'd seen Lauren just about as recently as I've seen anyone, given the fact that I was in Tahoe and also moving, it still felt like it had been way too long - so it was great to catch up with them. Nathan heavily advocated for beginning to write fictional stories on my blog, preferably about zombie apocalypses, but we'll see whether that happens.

And now, I must sleep; morning is going to come far too early, and I want to write before work (even though I'd be better off resting - I have meetings straight from 9 to 4, with a 30min break for lunch, which is not going to be enough to keep me sane. Goodnight!

control yourself take only what you need from it

I accomplished a lot today, but none of it was writing - so I'm going to have to spend some quality time with Rafe and Octavia in the morning to make up for it. But I have no regrets. I slept nine hours last night, lazed about in bed this morning, and eventually made tea / ate a snack / showered before walking twenty minutes to my old neighborhood to run errands. I had brunch at my favorite brunch place, where Tony was happy to see me, and where I met another regular (whom I've seen many times before but never talked to) who is a Stanford '57 alum (who makes it to far more football games than I do, which is mildly embarrassing). Then I stopped at Sephora to make good use of my 15% off coupon (and I didn't buy anything that wasn't on my list! amazing!) before going to the AT&T store and getting an iPhone. Yes, I've abandoned Android to go back to the iPhone, which I haven't been on since fall of 2009. But my motox was getting pretty janky, and a couple of people at work switched to the iPhone and are happy with it....so apparently my loyalty is dead. Heh.

But it's a really nice phone, and I was well overdue for an upgrade. They got me set up pretty quickly, and I messed around with it while drinking a latte at Rapha. Then I went to the hardware/general store and bought a bunch of stuff for the apartment (shower liner, stove burner pans, silverware drawer organizer...you know, the usual), came home, messed around with the phone, and unpacked some more.

Luckily, Claude rescued me from my drudgery at some point, and we had a very long dinner at Wayo Sushi (long because there is only one chef, so it takes a minimum of 45mins to receive any food - but he's well worth it) - we split a bottle of wine from the BevMo down the street and proceeded to catch up in lovely fashion. Claude came back here for a bit after, and I gave her some random stuff to send her on her way.

And now, alas, I must sleep. The apartment looks like a worse disaster than before, but it's the last bit of storm, I think - I might be able to get done tomorrow, depending on how much writing I want to get done and how much my social plans (writing with Kathia + brunch plans + dinner plans) interfere with my hermity plans. Goodnight!

i just want to show you what i know and catch you when the current lets you go

As expected, getting up this morning was fairly brutal - I didn't have it as bad as Chandlord, who had to catch a flight this morning, but the drive to Mountain View wasn't particularly pleasant even though I didn't get up until sevenish. Luckily, there was no traffic, so I made it to work in time to grab breakfast before commencing several hours of meetings. But my meetings were done at noon, and I was able to grab salad with four of the other people who deigned to show up today. There may have been more joking about prison showers than is theoretically encouraged in a corporate environment, but I have no regrets.

After lunch, I promptly fled the south bay, drove back to the city, grabbed coffee at Philz (the denizens of the Tenderloin were looking particularly zombie-ish this afternoon; I saw a couple of people who legitimately kind of freaked me out and made me think of the beginning of 'Shaun of the Dead' when Shaun doesn't realize that all the people around him have become zombies), and came home. I slogged for another couple of hours since I have a massive amount of work to do, but I called it quits after my final meeting (who schedules meetings at 4pm on a Friday?) and promptly began to work on my apartment situation.

And I'm happy to say that I think I've turned a corner - it's starting to feel like it's actually coming together, and I think I'll be able to get a lot done this weekend to take it from 'habitable' to 'pleasant' (although I'd like to get beyond pleasant at some point as well). I did stuff straight from five to seven, at which point I ate some takeout thai food and took a break to mess around on the internet. By 7:30 I just wanted to go to bed, but that way lies madness, so I forced myself to putter around the apartment for another couple of hours.

But I don't have the energy for any more stuff tonight, and I want to write in the early morning before commencing more errands, so this will all have to do for now. Goodnight!

give my regards to soul and romance

I never stay up this late on a school night, but my evening's activities were a cathartic end to a somewhat ridiculous day at work. I got up early (for my desires) but late (for my recent trend - 6:20 instead of 5:30) and drove to Palo Alto to train with Alyssa. As I was leaving the gym, I saw a work email that threw my entire day into disarray; rather than having some desultory time to knock things off my to-do list, I spent the morning putting out a fire (figurative, not literal, although I considered burning things myself).

The fire was extinguished around noon, which gave me a few minutes to eat some chicken tortilla soup and grab a salad before meeting with my boss. Then I had another meeting, took a break to grab coffee and mess around on my laptop alone, went to my team meeting (always entertaining), and promptly left the office at four so that I could get back to the city.

That took ninety minutes, but I got back in time to get a manicure and a pedicure - I never do this during the week, but after today I wanted to feel human again. Then I grabbed dinner at Spinnerie, came home, took a twenty-minute nap, dolled myself up, and met Chandlord at Rickshaw Stop for a highly unusual foray into the concert scene. I scored some free tickets to a small Brandon Flowers show (lead singer of The Killers), and I took Chandlord with me. We started with a sandwich (for her) and chips (for me) at Subway, which was super bizarre, but we got back to the venue in time for the set. I thought he was really good - his jacket was sparkly and his voice was great, and he played a few of my fave Killers songs in addition to some of the stuff from his solo albums, so I enjoyed myself. We also managed to stand along the railing on the second floor, so I was actually able to see him, which is an extreme rarity in concert settings given my height.

So the concert was fun, and I'm glad I went, but now I must go to bed if I have any hope of surviving tomorrow. I have to go to Mountain View in the morning, which feels so tragic, but hopefully I can sneak out early and get back before my 4pm meeting so I don't get stuck down there forever. Goodnight!

speak aloud what until now i've only sung

I'm completely ready for the weekend, even though I have two more days of slogging to survive before I hit it - but still feeling unsettled in my apartment is probably contributing to that. I unpacked for a couple of hours when I got home tonight (and made eggs and toast, which were delightful), but there's still stuff left to do, etc., etc.

But today wasn't all bad; I got up super early and was on campus by 7:25am so that I could write for an hourish before my 8:30 meeting. I didn't get a lot of words, but I'll take what I did get. Then I had meetings most of the morning, but I was able to take an hour to grab salads and coffee with Dave before our next meeting, which gave us a chance to catch up on the fifty million joint tasks we have on our to-do lists (yes, so much fun). Then I had meetings from 1ish to 5ish, which made me supremely unhappy (even if the meetings were fine).

But at least I got in some writing, and some lunch, and a walk in the sun, before commencing my killer commute + my unpacking routine. And now I'm going to sleep and hope I get eight hours before seeing Alyssa tomorrow morning - goodnight!

we were caught up in the middle of a worn out dream

[editor's note: I wrote this last night, but for some reason it didn't post. sadness!]

I need to go to bed immediately (I know, I always say that) - today was brutally long, but also brutally productive. I was out the door by 6:25am, on campus by 7:30, and yet that only gave me thirty minutes to write before my first meeting. But I got two pages (partially because the barista made my latte as soon as I walked in, so I didn't even have to wait), so I'll take it.

Then I had meetings basically all day. I did get a break to have lunch with Eugene (I think I tricked the guy into being friends with me, which is awesome), and I wandered across campus to get another latte in the afternoon when I was about to die from lack of energy. Then I slogged until 5:30, drove home for ninety minutes, and spent the evening unpacking more stuff. The dishes and tings I ordered while I was in Tahoe arrived over the last few days, and I finally picked them up - which added like eight boxes to the pile of stuff I still haven't put away. The dishes are awesome, but the explosion of boxes was not. So I unpacked some of it even though I really didn't have time...but it will all be worth it in the end.

Then I did an hour of day job work, and now I must sleep so I can do it all again tomorrow - goodnight!

we did everything right, now i'm on the outside

As expected, I was supremely unenthused to go back to work today. I managed to get in early enough to write a couple of pages of Rafe and Octavia, but it wasn't quite as much as I wanted to get done...but I was distracted by thoughts of all the work waiting for me, so I called it a morning early and went to my office to start the day.

And really, it wasn't that bad, but that's mostly because I gave up on trying to catch up and just tried to survive my meetings. My boss was a no-show today, so I had a reprieve from the full brunt of catching up; instead, I did my meetings, trained with Alyssa, grabbed lunch (plus an extra salad for dinner) with Jen (Canadian, but I like her anyway), had meetings and dealt with emails all afternoon, and then snuck out for a swimming lesson with Joann. Today's lesson was kind of hard, and it was on top of doing a lot of deadlifts this morning, so I'm completely exhausted.

But there's no rest for the wicked...I have to go down tomorrow to continue the attempt to get back on track, and I want to get home in time to make a serious dent in the remaining unpacking, so we'll see how that goes. Goodnight!

ain't nobody else to impress

I made progress on multiple fronts today, so I'll take it. I woke up early and unpacked/arranged stuff/showered/etc for a couple of hours before leaving my mess behind and meeting Kathia for a writing date + brunch. The writing date portion was excellent; I wrote four pages, which keeps me on track toward writing as many days as possible (and I have grand plans for tomorrow morning as well). We wrote in a cafe I hadn't been to before (Nook, approximately ten blocks from my place), and I enjoyed everything about it - but it's easier to enjoy things when I feel like I'm starting to feel my way into the story.

After we were done writing, we proceeded to brunch at Belcampo. Belcampo is a butcher shop, but they also have thirty or so seats for a restaurant, and the food was awesome. Granted, it was pretty basic for me; I got eggs over easy with bacon and home fries, but all of those things were really tasty. Kathia got the ricotta pancakes, which looked like pancakes I might have actually ordered and enjoyed back in the day. And we caught up on life, which has been eventful for both of us; hopefully I'll see her again next week, since after that we're destined to never see each other again due to our travel schedules (okay, we'll see each other in June, but that's a long time from now).

Post-Kathia, I came home, checked work email for the first time in over a week to see if there was anything I needed to know for tomorrow (answer: no), and then unpacked some more while waiting for the effects of my brunch champagne to disappear. Eventually, I grabbed coffee to reenergize, then called my parents; it appears that spring has finally sprung in Iowa, which generally makes them more enthused about life (as it would for me, since I can no longer handle winter at all).

Family phone time eventually gave way to SF family time; I had family dinner with Chandlord, Claude, Adit, and Priyanka at Enjoy Veg, which was lowkey and delightful. Claude is perhaps slowly starting to piece together that most of our family interactions involve taking offense at perceived slights and insults (which is why it's family time, since most families are like that), and tonight I was the one who had delivered the perceived slight/insult (over invitations to see Book of Mormon in a couple of weeks, since I had only two extra tickets (originally belonging to Terry) and so couldn't invite everyone - but the order in which I extended invitations became a topic of much consternation). I'm so lucky to have such wonderfully understanding friends!

And now, after a lovely day, I must sleep and attempt to get enthused about going to the office tomorrow (spoiler: I'm not enthused). Goodnight!

love me like you do

Today was a cross between totally productive and completely miserable. I woke up before seven, laid in bed until eight, started unpacking stuff...and pretty much unpacked straight until now. I'm really thoroughly sick of the whole moving process; taking a week off in between starting the move and finishing it pretty much killed my desire to keep going, but I have to if I'm ever to emerge from boxland and be able to eat, sit someplace other than the one corner of my loveseat that I've uncovered, etc.

So I unpacked from 8 to 10:45, dashed downtown to get my bangs trimmed and my brows waxed, came home and unpacked some more, took a break to eat pupusas (my food options here are v. v. v. v. different than what I had in the marina, which I'm kind of excited about), and then slogged all afternoon/evening. At some point I made scrambled eggs and toast, since that was close to my only food option unless I wanted to go out...but I've had worse meals, and the eggs fortified me to do stuff for another hour.

Anyway, things are coming together despite my surliness; I'm just trying to optimize for maximum utility while also maximizing available space, which has meant a lot of rearranging/making decisions. And making decisions, as I've discovered throughout my writing process, is exhausting. So even though it's only ten p.m., I'm going to go to bed; I've got a writing date with Kathia in the morning and I want to do some more stuff before then.

Last but not least, though, happy birthday to Aunt Becky - even though I called late, I managed to beat the other members of my generation, so I think I've bought myself more time on the good list. Goodnight!

i find it hard to tell you, i find it hard to take

I have returned to the city of sin, to an apartment full of boxes, and I need to spend the weekend getting my apartment into some semblance of order before I go crazy in it. I had thought I was going to have more time at home this afternoon than I did; we left Tahoe around 9:30, so I should have been back in the city by 1ish (especially since Grace let me drive all the way). But the Richmond bridge was closed all day due to an accident/fire involving a UPS tractor-trailer, which meant a lot of the traffic in the north bay (where we had to go to drop of Grace and pick up my car) was diverted onto the same two-lane highway that we wanted to take....so that added at least an hour to the trip. Grr.

Still, that gave me and Grace plenty of time to catch up, since it was just the two of us on the way back. I had a great retreat, but it's good to be home (despite the boxes) - I'm ready to make progress on all fronts, not just the writing front, and hopefully I can accomplish a lot in the next few weeks before my trip to Bora Bora (which it's ridiculous that I'm even going on, but c'est la vie).

Anyway, I got home a little after two, took care of a couple of tings, and then had a very late lunch at Spinnerie (the tri tip was great and the beet salad made me glad that I'm an adult who likes beets). Then I took a nap and unpacked for an hour before being lured over to Chandlord's to drink wine on her patio. That was super lovely; we had time to catch up on her own, and then Claudia arrived, so I got two friends for the price of one. At some point Minnie showed up as well, whom I hadn't seen in ages, and so the four of us caught up for a bit while finishing the bottle of wine.

But my fun plans shifted at that point, and I ended up going down to the Embarcadero to have wine (and chili, oddly) at Hi Dive. My plans for the day were originally supposed to include lunch with Chandlord, Dave, and Dave's friend Bart, who runs the charity whose gala I went to a few weeks ago - my plan was to introduce Chandlord and Bart, since Chandlord is a charitable sort. I obviously missed lunch due to the Richmond bridge debacle, but they all had lunch without me...and so since I'd already caught up with Chandlord at one happy hour, it only seemed fair to catch up with Dave and Bart (and a couple of other people) at a second happy hour. This was supremely low key, but quite lovely next to the water, and it was nice to get out of the house (and out of crazy writer land) for a few hours before embarking on my frenetic weekend of unpacking.

Now, though, I must sleep if I'm to be productive tomorrow...and I'm really looking forward to sleeping at sea level, since the altitude was not kind to me. Goodnight!

something in the night is dangerous

I'm so sad to be leaving the writing retreat, even though it's for the best - altitude does not do good things for my skin, and I'm feeling rather crypt-keeperish since everything's desiccated and awful. But beyond that, I've had a fabulous time, and I feel like I'm getting into Rafe and Octavia's story in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I were still doing the daily grind this past week. I've also deepened my friendships with the women who were here, which is awesome; since I'm rather hermity, making new friends is sometimes challenging (who knew that new people don't just show up in your hermit cave when you need them??), but while I am quite blissfully content with the friends I have, the new friends I've made in this group are utterly awesome.

Yes, I'm using a lot of superlatives. Yes, I had some wine. But the point is, while I get basically everything I need from the wonderfully close friends I've had since college (plus Katie, Subz, Heather, and a couple of other randoms whom I've somehow tricked into being friends), it's really nice to have writer friends as well. And these writer friends are particularly lovely, since they're excellent people who are also excellent writers who are also excellent businesspeople. And that hits my trifecta of awesome.

Okay, enough gushing. Today was fineish; I continued to dehydrate, and I continued to procrastinate, but I hit my daily goal and made ~1400 words, which I was totally satisfied with. I also had some delightful afternoon conversations with Bella while we were both supposed to be writing, which I'll take. And we had a delicious last supper (enchiladas that I really want the recipe for), and I split a final bottle of my favorite wine with one of the Barbaras, and I stayed up late(ish) talking to Anne.

But all things end, and I need to sleep so I can get up and pack tomorrow. I'm actually eager to get home, even if I'm not eager to get into my routine; I want to finish unpacking my new apartment this weekend, and while I'm not looking forward to going home to a total mess, I'm looking forward to making significant progress toward being settled. But I also want to maintain the writing focus I've been redeveloping on this retreat, and so I hope that I can devote some quality time to the writing despite whatever shenanigans I may get up to over the course of the weekend.

Those are all goals for the weekend, though; for now, I must sleep. Goodnight!

you got me running all the lights

My writing retreat is suddenly, sadly, rapidly drawing to a close. I still have all day tomorrow to be productive and hang out with other writers, but we're leaving early Friday morning to return to reality, so I'm hoping I can make tomorrow count.

Today was lovely, however, despite the fact that yesterday's word count wasn't achieved again today - but it turns out that most people weren't nearly as productive today as yesterday. My guess is that yesterday's snow kept everyone quiet, but everyone was eager to get out today - and so around 1:30, I went with Bella, Anne, and one of the Barbaras to Heavenly (five minutes away), where Anne and Barbara rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain while Bella and I wrote at Starbucks. As it turns out, that hour and a half at Starbucks was the only truly productive time in my day. I passed the 1000-word goal I set for every day of this retreat (which I've succeeded at meeting every day except the first two, when I was still brainstorming), but by the time Anne and Barbara came back down, I was done. So we did a bit of shopping - it's become de rigueur for us to buy shirts or something from the towns where we do our retreats and then take a photo in them, so I had to buy something Tahoe-ish for tonight's photo. My choice was sweatpants, which are super cute but perhaps also slightly too tight across the derriere for social media...or maybe they're perfect. Either way, that's where I went, and the photo was cute enough, I think.

sssanyway, we came home, I pretended to work for awhile longer, but I mostly just messed around. Then we walked back down toward Heavenly for dinner at a v. fancy, v. delish restaurant - it was the first time we ate out as a group while we were here, and it was sort of a day-early celebration of a successful retreat, since Tina is leaving a day before the rest of us. I had some v. tasty scallops, but the crab chile relleno was perhaps the best thing I've had in a long time. And the company continued to be delightful; this really is an unusual writing retreat group in that the eight of us never seem to run out of things to say, but also never seem to tire of each other, and so that's all lovely.

But now, after a lot of talk about the Donner Party on the way home with Bella and Grace, I need to sleep so that I can be maximally productive on my last day here...goodnight!

so will someone come and carry me home tonight

The writing went really well today, and I feel like I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. I woke up not really feeling it at all, and I admittedly procrastinated most of the morning. But I eventually decided to channel my procrastination into reading a book Anne had recommended to me ("Write Better, Faster"), looking for some tips on getting started with my book. And so after I ate lunch, went with Barbara to the store to get more wine + a latte (through a lovely bit of falling snow), and settled back into my writing nook (I've claimed the media room in my house, which has closing doors, a desk, and a couch), I stared down the blank page...and I ended up writing almost fifteen pages. *Yay*.

What was more shocking about this feat is that I did it in 90mins (with 90mins of breaks, so really in three hours). The book advocates tracking every minute detail about your writing process for a few weeks to understand when you're productive, what gets you more words per hour, etc. Granted, what I wrote wasn't fully polished prose; I fast drafted the first four chapters of the book, which is sort of like telling the story to myself (where they are, what they're doing, how they're feeling, maybe snippets of what they're saying) without including all the perfect witticisms and other things that take a lot of time to develop. But the idea (which I kind of used on the beginning of the last book) is to write enough to be sure that the plot is solid before investing time in the witticisms and descriptions, and I think it's the right approach even if I always seem to rebel against it by the midpoint.

So, I was supremely pleased by this, even if I was only able to keep going by fueling myself with m&ms and popcorn like every stereotypical writer out there. But I called it quits at six, took a quick nap, and then spent the evening eating pizza and drinking wine with my writer friends. And now I'm going to sleep and attempt similar feats of strength tomorrow - goodnight!

cold to the touch but she's warm as a devil

I'm feeling as smug about today as I was about yesterday, which may make me totally insufferable - so, apologies in advance. But I slept for a million hours last night, which gave me tons of energy when I woke up this morning. So I showered, ate some breakfast, and slogged for a few hours until lunchtime - and I was v. happy about what I got, since I think I basically know enough of the storyline now that I can start writing in earnest without feeling like I'm missing major chunks of the plot. Rafe and Ava have been really difficult to get into, mostly because I've been so distracted by the day job that I haven't had time to really understand them...but I think I'm there, which is a great feeling.

So I worked until lunch, ate lunch at the other house with some of the writers (yay), and came back to my house (they are next door to each other, which is actually perfect - we all have enough space to be quiet while still being able to see each other, and so everyone seems to be having a more productive trip than what we had in Montauk). I continued to be distracted with text messaging after lunch (you know I'm procrastinating when I answer immediately), but I eventually got a latte, buckled down, and worked for another couple of hours.

Still, by five p.m., I was totally done, which was fine with me. I spent the rest of the night hanging out and sharing a couple of bottles of wine with one of the Barbaras (we drink reds together; Christie drinks white; Anne drinks beer; and everyone else watches us like crazy people). Our conversation tonight went in truly wonderful and ridiculous directions, and I didn't want it to end...but all things die, at it turns out, and I need sleep more than I need socializing. Hopefully tomorrow is just as productive, but we shall see. Goodnight!

turn down for what

I had a glorious day! Granted, I'm a hermity individual who finds comfort in listening to the same song on repeat, scribbling in a notebook, walking in the snow, and later drinking wine with friends, so it's perhaps easy for me to have glorious days. But today was truly excellent. I woke up sometime before eight, caught up on tings, got dressed, ate breakfast, grabbed a latte across the street, and then settled in for some productivity. I brainstormed, read some stuff about the English parliamentary system, and wrote approximately seven pages - all of which felt so good, and I'm so excited for this book now (even though I still don't totally know what I'm doing with it...but I'm remembering that that's normal for me).

At some point in there, I took a break and ate lunch and talked to other writers, so that was lovely. Then I worked for a bit, took a nap, went across the street to buy a few things for dinner, and came back to talk to my parents. They were in fine form despite having spent several hours not smoking in a car with my grandmother (who is/was/is a lovely woman, but even I sometimes want a cigarette after two hours with her...or maybe I shouldn't say that here, but I'm leaving it). As is usual, I was the only family member who missed Easter dinner at Uncle Mark's, which made me sad...but not so sad that I would have sacrificed my writing retreat for it, which probably makes me even more of a horrible person than the comment about my grandmother.

sssanyway. I talked to my parents, and then I went over to the other house and made chicken tortilla soup for all of us for dinner. It turned out fantastically well, and I enjoyed the process of cooking + all the amazing talking and stories we exchanged over soup and wine as the snow fell outside. Writers are generally a strange bunch, and this group (myself included) is no different...but I feel really lucky to be here, and I'm excited to dig into the story during the days and keep building friendships at night.

And on that unusually sappy (for me) note, I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

this light is contagious

The first full day of the writing retreat was, on the whole, quite successful. I didn't write a new scene, but I did a lot of high-quality brainstorming, and I may have figured out what was bugging me about Rafe's motivation. I also documented the timeline from Thorington's book so that I know exactly which days/nights are already locked in regarding where Rafe and Octavia are (or aren't) throughout this book, since the books overlap slightly (protip: never write overlapping books). And I made a fancy tracking spreadsheet, which was admittedly a totally procrastinatory move.

But I'll take it all. I also got a lot of sleep (eight hours last night + a nap this evening), enjoyed some brief social time with people throughout the day, went across the street to get caffeine twice, and then slacked off around 5pm and had wine and dinner with everyone. I quite like that we make dinner in the houses and sit around and talk for a couple of hours after; the table is just the right size for all eight of us, and I hear such fascinating things about the industry (and laugh a lot) while this is going down.

But now I need to sleep; while I was satisfied with today's progress, I have higher hopes for tomorrow's wordcount. Goodnight!

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

I'm in Tahoe, and I successfully stayed up until 10:30pm even though I really wanted to go to bed at 7pm like a crazy person. This morning was, as predicted, a mad scramble to get out the door - I woke up at 6:15, worked on day job stuff until 7:45, showered, packed, ran out the door at 8:30, and grabbed breakfast at Caffe Union (yes, I drove there - early enough that I didn't have to pay for the meter, and yes, I demanded food as soon as I walked in because I didn't have time for dallying - luckily, Tony tolerates me quite nicely). Then I found the UPS store on Fillmore and returned the cable modem from the old apartment so that Comcast won't fine Terry a million dollars.

That errand went better than expected, so I grabbed a couple of snacks for the road, went home, and had time to finish drying my hair before Anne, Barbara, and Tina showed up in my lobby so that we could carpool to Grace's house in the north bay. I drove us across the bridge and left my car at Grace's; we took her minivan to Tahoe, since it's more roomy (albeit less sporty, if a rav4 can be considered sporty). We made three stops, which was a little ridic, but we had to pick up sourdough for the person flying in from Colorado, and we had to get gas, and we stopped at Starbucks in Placerville to caffeinate and to switch drivers since Grace wasn't comfortable driving in the mountains. I immediately volunteered, and while I don't think I'm a super aggressive driver, I was apparently aggressive enough that Grace asked whether I often drive minivans, since I seemed way more comfortable than she was with it. Heh.

Anyway, we got to Tahoe around two, and the other Barbara and Christie (who had both flown into Reno) showed up shortly thereafter. We hung out most of the afternoon; the houses are side by side (Barbara #1 owns a share of one of them, and we're renting the other), and they're creepily identical. But they're also v. luxe, and they're right on the lake, and we each have our own bed/bath, which is a huge upgrade from the house we rented in Montauk last year.

We eventually ventured to Safeway (conveniently within walking distance), stocked up on snacks, came home, and ordered pizza (with a decent gluten free option for me). And then we talked about a wide variety of topics over wine and snacks, even though most of us were falling asleep. And then, in an effort to keep myself from falling asleep after I adjourned to my room, I ordered new silverware from Crate and Barrel + a couple of pans from Sur la Table, since both sites were having good sales on things I've been meaning to replace forever.

Now, though, I shall sleep - I'm really excited to get deep into Rafe and Octavia's story this week, and even though I'm still scared that I don't know what I'm doing with them, I'm feeling so much optimism that I'll be able to figure it out. And if I don't, at least I'll learn a lot from the people I'm here with (or laugh a lot and drink at altitude, which is also winning). Goodnight!

i've got some edges that scratch

I have more work to do tonight, but I'm too tired and am going to go to bed instead. Since I'm leaving for Tahoe tomorrow morning, haven't packed, and also want to leave my laptop and work phone at home to avoid distractions, I'm kind of screwed...but at this point, sleep is more important than the remaining stuff on my list (but then, I would say that, since I'm exhausted).

But today wasn't all bad...just a lot of talking with a lot of people, which drained me to the dregs. I did an orientation for my new apartment building at eight, drove to MTV, grabbed breakfast, had meetings straight from ten to three, and then had a team event at a bar in MTV from 3-6:30. The team event was super fun - but between the event and having to spend an hour and a half driving people home after, I'm wrecked on the people side...

But it's all fine, since I'm leaving it all behind tomorrow so that I can spend seven days writing. Wish me luck with that - goodnight!

we're collecting dust but our love's enough

I have a ton of day job work to do, but I'm too tired to keep going tonight. The day started with Alyssa, who gave me a good workout, but it became clear that my body has been affected in weird ways by the move...I was actually pretty pleased yesterday when I realized that I wasn't sore at all from hauling trash and recycling and tings around for a couple of hours on Monday, which proves that I'm getting stronger (if my 185lb deadlifts weren't proof enough). But I'm covered in bruises, and apparently my hands are sore since I lost my grip on the kettlebell during swings for the first time ever. I shall assume this is because I was gripping bags of trash, and not that I have the catastrophic arthritis my inner hypochondriac is concerned about.

sssanyway, after training, I went to work, showered, had two hours of meetings, and then skipped out of work to go to Costco with Dave so we could buy a cake for a team thing this afternoon. Then we got salads, and then I decided that I was so far behind on my work that I couldn't possibly catch up, so I threw in the towel for an hour, grabbed Dave/Manuela/Andrew, and went to another building on campus to watch a concert put on by Guster, of all people. Guster was heavy in my consciousness before this blog existed (not that anyone remembers what my life was like before the blog), since they were v. popular in my freshman dorm (and with my obnoxious neighbors, aka Adit/Chris/John, in particular).

So when I heard that they were putting on a concert, I had to go. Dave's the same age as me, so he had a similar memory of them; Andrew is seven years younger and knew very little about them; Manuela is older and grew up in Argentina, so she had no idea who they were. Also, they started 30-40mins late. Also, I forgot that they'd put out new material in the last twelve years that I've never heard, and I kind of didn't realize that they would *of course* play that rather than the songs from my youth. We all had meetings after, so we listened to three or four songs, grabbed coffee, and went back to work

Not that this was onerous, since we'd had wine while standing around waiting. But I had another several hours of meetings, which nearly killed me. Then I came home, unpacked a few boxes (until I was thoroughly sick of unpacking), cleaned out my trunk, etc.

And now I shall sleep...I have to get up early tomorrow so I can get some work done before an 8am appointment in the city, and then I have to drive down and slog relentlessly so that I can have fun at a team event tomorrow night (but not too much fun, since I have to drive four people back). Goodnight!