waterloo...i was defeated, you won the war

I think I barely slept last night; I went to bed around 2:30, and then I woke up at 5:30 because the almost-full moon was directly above the skylights over my bed, and it was too bright to sleep. Tonight I shall rectify this by having my travel eye mask at the ready...and also by going to bed at 10:30 like I'm supposed to instead of 2:30 like I'm holding on to the last gasp of my youth.

sssanyway. Despite not sleeping much, I stayed in bed until nine and attempted to doze (with occasional success). Then I ate a snack, checked email, took care of various tings, cleaned myself up, and walked down to Samovar, where I wrote in my notebook for three hours and got approximately ten pages. This was a delightful way to spend the afternoon - I was holed up in a corner with no one near me, and I had poached eggs and bacon and gluten free toast, and a masala chai, and some mint tea after, and it was all enough to keep me fortified.

So. That was good. Then I went to Anthropologie, where I returned a top and bought a pair of pants instead, and then I walked home. I got here around 4:30, and I was suddenly exhausted and hungry (see: not sleeping last night; also see: only had poached eggs and toast and bacon without having another meal in there somewhere). So I ordered takeout, ate the takeout, messed around in my notebook some more, and was valiantly trying to make it to ten p.m. without sleeping - but I failed and had to take a nap. However, I woke up after thirty minutes and then read for the last couple of hours.

This was all the sort of introspective, hermity day that I needed to recover from the last few, and while there were probably other things I should have done (grocery shopping springs to mind), I'll take it. And now I'm going to see if I can stay up for another little bit (doubtful), and then go to bed and hope that the time change treats me right. Goodnight!

how deep is your love

Tonight took a strange left turn, as nights involving Adit usually do. But first, to recap the day....I woke up this morning, showered, made coffee, sat down to write, and completely failed at that endeavor. It wasn't a total loss; I did some editing to the scene I've been working on, and I had some good ideas for what to do next, so it's not like I accomplished nothing. But it certainly wasn't the eight pages I was striving for...

...but instead of continuing to strive, I embarked on a very stereotypically Marina (the neighborhood, not my friend, although that's coming later) afternoon. First I saw my aesthetician, which is super-marina-white-girl of me, and then I had brunch at my favorite cafe, where Tony and I commiserated over how Halloween will be a total shitshow in that neighborhood. After that, I went to the gym, where I wrote for an hour in the spacious, gorgeous lobby, and then I worked out for the first time in a month. I will likely be totally sore tomorrow, and I reactivated the calluses on my hands, but it felt good. And I must not have lost my form too badly, since one of the trainers commented on the fact that I'd brought my own chalk, said it was nice to see someone who knew what they were doing with kettlebells, and asked if I'm certified. So I guess Alyssa must have taught me right!

sssanyway, after my workout, I walked home and sat on the couch, which turned into an inadvertent nap. Then I showered, ate a couple of snacks, considered writing, and was on the verge of going out to write at a wine bar (in fact, I was in the hallway on the way to the elevator) when Adit texted and asked if I wanted to have dinner and a movie (note: as any longterm readers of the blog can guess, this is not the 'netflix and chill' of modern parlance, but rather the entirely-platonic 'dinner and a movie' of the olden days).

So I ended up meeting Adit, Priyanka, and Marina at Shizen for dinner. Shizen is vegan sushi, which in some ways feels like an abomination, but it's truly excellent vegan sushi, and most of their menu is also gluten free (and it's all v. clearly labeled). So the four of us had a delightful dinner (after standing in line for awhile), even if Marina unluckily got the spicy piece in the 'surprise ending' roll, which was bad since she was probably the one of us who was least able to tolerate spice. But the rolls were all tasty and the ramen was truly excellent, so I left feeling happy.

Then, we walked Marina to the 16th and Mission BART station (which reminds me why I don't live near there, since we walked through a veritable forest of needles and bodily fluids), and then Adit, Priyanka and I caught an uber to the Kabuki, where we saw 'The Martian'. I happened to love it; I adore Matt Damon, as always, and the movie gave me fond memories of when I wanted to be an astronaut (a dream I perhaps should have pursued, since I loved the space engineering camp I went to in high school....but life took many strange twists and turns, and instead I became a middle manager before becoming a romance novelist, none of which require me to live at zero gravity or recycle my own urine).

What I didn't adore was that between seeing the movie at one of the more expensive theatres in the city (reserved seating is awesome, though!), in 3-D, and also buying wine for me and Adit (and deciding we would be good and limit ourselves to glasses, but then ordering the big glass each, which we didn't realize is supposedly half a bottle per glass, which means we should have just split a bottle of the cheaper stuff rather than each ordering a 'glass' of the good stuff), and also buying a bottle of water (which turned out to be Voss water, which is absurd).....the grand total for such an outing was ~$120 for three people. It may not be apparent in the rest of America yet, but we are living in the fall of Rome. There will come a point where it is unsustainable for some people to pay $20 for a movie ticket and $30 for a glass of wine and some water, while others are living on sidewalks and shitting everywhere. And I'm guessing San Francisco is going to reach that point in the foreseeable future, since it's starting to feel like the have/have not divide is reaching a crisis point...and also that the expenses even for the 'haves' are reaching absurd levels of profligacy, and that paying $50 to go to the movies is fucking stupid.

sssanyway. Maybe that's my $30 glass of wine talking. The movie was good, though, and I'm glad I saw it in 3D - the technology has definitely gotten better, and I enjoyed it without getting a headache, so that was great. And I enjoyed the inside joke about 'The Lord of the Rings', since Sean Bean was in the movie (I would say more, but then there would be spoilers). And Adit and Priyanka are as entertaining as always, and I can't wait to meet their baby (due any day now). And now, on all those notes, it's time for bed - goodnight!

caught up in the game

I'm bizarrely tired tonight, despite pumping myself full of caffeine, so I'm going to keep this brief. Today was shaping up to be pretty hermity - I stayed in this morning to attempt to get some work done (mixed results), and ended up doing laundry (much better results, since I needed to do five loads) and ordering a salad for lunch (I've been craving salad for a week and finally decided I needed to make it happen). Then I did some more laundry/slogging this afternoon, with a break to talk to my dad (yay). I should have also taken a break to take a nap, as it turns out, but I was trying to push through like an adult instead of the nap-demanding toddler I've become.

Eventually, though, I had to abandon the serenity of my house and venture out into the awful wilds of SF so that I could get my brows waxed. Traffic was fairly terrible, but I made it to the salon and took care of business. While I was there, I got a text from Priyanka, and even though we were both exhausted (she has a better excuse than I do), we agreed to go to this art thing that we were both invited to - clearly both of us were on the verge of bailing and going to bed, but I'm proud of us for sticking with it.

Since there was no way I would go if I had to drive home and then back, I went straight to the Mission and wrote in my notebook for an hour while drinking a latte. Then I met up with Priyanka at Lers Ros for some tasty thai food before going to the art thing - our friend Marina was exhibiting at this show, so we said hi to her and looked at her art (some interesting work using found pieces, both cloth and wood, and modifying them in small but sometimes complex ways). I'm glad we went, even if we only had it in us to stay for twenty minutes.

Then I dropped Priyanka off at home, came back to my place, messed around in my notebook some more, and realized I need to go to bed immediately - goodnight!

look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now

I have nothing at all of interest to report today, so maybe I could leave it at that...I spent the morning staring at my laptop, and then I walked for an hour to the Mission to get my bangs trimmed (success, although between now and when I get my eyebrows waxed tomorrow, I would prefer to hide my face from the world). Then I hung out at Ritual for a couple of hours and scribbled in my notebook - I'm probably at the point where I just need to write the rest of this fucking book longhand, since I seem to do better on paper than I do on my laptop.

Then I walked home, with a stop at Flax to buy another journal + some gorgeous purple fountain pen ink. Once here, I messed around on the internet, ate supper, took a bath (so indulgent, I know - sorry drought), and took care of some tings until now.

And that's the end of my boring recap - I will endeavor to be more interesting tomorrow, but I make no promises. Goodnight!

bangs for days

Hello. Is it me you're looking for?

Nevermind, I was trying to switch things up, and it's clear that it didn't work :(

sssanyway. Today was mostly lovely, all things considered. I slept later than I should have, probably because I'm old and was still recovering from Saturday night. But I spent the morning getting some work done, and then I went to Mangosteen to eat pho because it was cold outside (and by cold I mean it was cloudy) and I wanted something warm and brothy and spicy. And then I spent the afternoon napping, showering, listening to a couple of songs from 'Hamilton', and writing some more (yes, this is all v. exciting).

But I left the house again (shocking, I know) because I had to meet up with some old coworkers for drinks. Lisa, who used to report to me (long ago - she's in her second year of business school, so she left last year, well before I did), is in town, and she had asked some of us to get together for drinks in the evil city tonight. Since that was in the cards, I had dinner with Dave beforehand - we went to Hopwater, which I hadn't been to before, but was conveniently close to the bar (and to my house, although Dave gave me a ride there so I wouldn't get raped/murdered). Hopwater is mostly a beer place, but the wine was sufficient enough, and the cider that Dave got seemed tasty. We split some dungeness crab tater tots (these weren't tots at all...they seemed more like croquettes, although they were good), some deviled eggs (mine are better), and some beef sliders (tasty) while catching up on life, so that was all good.

Then we went to the bar, and I'm glad we went together since we were the first people there and it would have been bad to show up by myself. We were shortly joined by Tom (who is in the throes of wedding planning, and blanched when I mentioned that I'll be in Hawaii for his wedding (which I'm not invited to - I'm actually going for a conference)), and Lisa (the party host) eventually showed up, as did Manuela (who also used to report to me). This was all lovely, of course, and I would rather see these people over drinks than over free lunch in Mountain View, even if Dave did mention later that the wine made me snippier (someone I didn't know was talking about her current job at a startup + hedge funds, and I said, 'keep saying words', which maybe didn't go over so well, oops).

sssanyway again. I only stayed at drinks for an hour, and then I availed myself of the opportunity to get a ride home (see: risk of getting raped/murdered). And now I'm going to go to bed, hope that tonight's wine (moderate, really) didn't undo my recovery from Saturday, and get excited about writing + personal grooming tasks tomorrow - goodnight!

come on hide your lovers underneath the covers

I think I'm still recovering from Saturday night's bender, and it's possible that I still looked hungover today (but I was wearing a v. hipster number, with skinny jeans and a plaid shirt over a too-lowcut tank top, and adding dark sunglasses to them didn't help to make me look sober)...but today was certainly better than yesterday in terms of energy/mood. Still, I didn't get up early enough to accomplish any writing - sleep was more important, so I stayed in bed as long as I could and am looking forward to returning there posthaste.

But I got up eventually, showered, put together my hipster ensemble, and then drove my sad car over to the body shop, where they will hopefully make it less sad. They're going to keep it for a week or so, and in the meantime I have a sweet rental (not really all that sweet - it's weird driving a car when I'm used to driving my crossover SUV, which is basically a car, but it's a few inches higher up and has much better trim than the rental car).

So I dropped the car off, took a lyft to the rental place, got the car, and then drove to the glorious south bay. I had dinner plans in MTV tonight, and I didn't want to get stuck in traffic later, so I went early so I could write at Stanford. I fortified myself for the task ahead by having lunch (mostly froyo), and then I holed myself up in Green Library for a few hours. This wasn't as productive as I had hoped, mostly because I was so tired (I laid my head down on the desk and took a nap for half an hour) and because Green Library now has wireless for guest visitors (if there had been Facebook/Twitter/laptops/wifi when I was in college, I probably wouldn't have graduated). But I got some decent work done, and I took a break to drink a tiger spice chai from Coupa in the sun outside of the library, so all in all, it was a gorgeous afternoon.

Eventually, though, I threw in the towel and drove to downtown Mountain View, where I had a spinster dinner with Joann at Shell Shock. That's where we planned our spinster honeymoon oh so many months ago, and we had a delightful time catching up on not-so-delightful topics of conversation. The miso glazed sea bass continues to be the very best thing on the menu, but my fish tacos were pretty tasty even if I couldn't finish them. And then I sped home and did an assignment for a Stanford writing class that just started today (it's only five weeks, and it's online, and I signed up for it in August when I thought I'd be done with the book by now, and I'm not sure whether I'm going to stay in it - I'll report more on it if I don't drop it this week). And now I'm going to go to bed, hope that another solid night of sleep fixes what ails me, and hit it hard tomorrow - goodnight!

that would be enough

As you might have guessed if you read last night's post, today was pretty rough. I don't think I was particularly hungover; the real issue is that I only got two hours of sleep, plus another hourish of dozing, and that wasn't nearly enough to refresh me. I woke up at 6:30am, laid around in bed until 8:30 (with a bit of dozing, a bit of talking to Ritu, and a bit of lying under the covers questioning my life decisions), and then got up, put on pants, and dragged myself down to the marina to have breakfast with Terry.

Terry was leaving today, so I felt the urge to get together one more time, and we caught up over huevos at Caffe Union. Unfortunately, since I'd had food at three a.m., I wasn't actually that hungry at 9:30, and I was probably too tired to be a sparkling conversationalist. But I'm glad we got to hang out a bit more before saying goodbye, so I think it was worth it.

Then I came home and spent thirty minutes talking to Ritu while she gathered her things so that she could go back to the east coast (beast coast). She left my place a little after eleven, which made me sad, since I love her and don't see her often enough. But as soon as she was gone, I switched back into pajamas, messed around on the internet for awhile, and then took a nap for an hour and a half or so.

That still wasn't enough to refresh me, but I felt slightly more human after that. Eventually, I called my parents for our regular Sunday call; again, I probably wasn't a great conversationalist, but I was much improved upon this morning's performance. Then I showered and walked down to the Mission for what was supposed to be a six p.m. dinner, but due to some extreme miscommunications, dinner wasn't actually until seven. So I met Adit at Ritual and we attempted to do work on our phones for forty-five minutes while waiting for our plans to materialize...

...but the plan eventually came together, and we had dinner with Priyanka (who met us at Ritual) and Marina at Myriad. Marina is in town (also not for homecoming - all these friends showed up this weekend, independently of each other, and ignoring the fact that Stanford had homecoming festivities all weekend) from Cyprus for an art show, and so the four of us had dinner to catch up. Again, to repeat myself, I was not a sparkling conversationalist. But we discussed the infamous Loro Top 8 list, which is always a good time and continues to cause controversy fifteen years later. And the food at Myriad was unexpectedly lovely, so that was even better.

But now that I'm home, I'm going to go to bed absurdly early and hope that I can be in it to win it tomorrow - goodnight!

and i am a material girl

I haven't stayed up until four a.m. in a v. v. long time....and the savviest of readers (aka my dad) could probably guess that Adit was involved. I also achieved peak karaoke by going to Yamasho twice in one night...but I get ahead of myself. The day started off v. quietly, with some attempt at writing in bed (not particularly successfully). I was interrupted by a call from my landlord (aka Chandlord), who demanded that I have a milkshake with her, and I was so afraid of being evicted that I acquiesced. So I met Chandlord at Mel's, where I had chilequiles instead of a milkshake, and we caught up on many and varied things while eating our diner food.

Then I came home and spent the afternoon cleaning, tidying, procrastinating, bathing, etc. I was sinking into a local minima, for no particularly good reason, but sometimes local minima don't have a good reason for existing. However, I promptly pulled myself out of it - Ritu and Bill showed up, since Ritu is staying with me tonight while Bill flies to Brazil, and we drank some wine while they repacked their suitcases, etc.

Then we met up with Adit and Priyanka for dinner at Rove, which is a surprisingly delicious, extremely tiny newish restaurant a few blocks from me. It took awhile to get seated, but the food was awesome despite the simple/limited menu, and we had a couple of bottles of pinot noir to keep us going. When we were done, Bill went to the airport, Priyanka went home, Adit went to a birthday party, and Ritu and I went to Yamasho (round one) to hang out with Ritu, John, Ravij, etc. [editor's note: when I typed this, I should have said 'Vidya, John, Rajiv, etc.' Apologies!]

We were only there for twenty minutes or so, which was fine with me. Then we adjourned to a nearby pizza place, where I was drunk enough and hungry enough (the restaurant's burger was awesome, but without a bun or french fries or any other included sides, it wasn't enough to make up for the fact that I'd barely had protein all day) to actually eat a slice of pizza. Stupid Sara...but it was ridiculously tasty.

Ritu and I adjourned from the group and met up with Adit at Noir Lounge in Hayes Valley. He was at a birthday party, which didn't seem to mind crashers; in fact, they all cleared out shortly after we arrived, and Adit/Ritu/Adit's friend Layla/I spent much of our evening drinking rosé champagne and gossiping incessantly. After last call, we left Noir and went to Grubstake [editor's note: when I typed this, I was so tired that I somehow skipped that we went to Yamasho in between Noir and Grubstake, where we squeezed in forty-five minutes of v. efficient karaoke while v. efficiently drinking most of two bottles of sake], where I managed to befriend every person in line (okay, maybe the guy who told me his name was 'Pedro Pablo' was lying) before we ate potato skins and scrambled eggs to recover our lost youth.

But now I must sleep if I have any hope of functioning tomorrow - goodnight!

be more straightforward

Today was pretty wonderful, all in all. I should have gotten up and around faster than I did this morning, but I was feeling lazy (in terms of getting out of bed) and in need of some productive time (in terms of writing/grooming/household stuff), so I stayed at home longer than I should have to take care of tings. But eventually I put away the laptop and rendezvoused with Terry for our day of fun. We went up to Sonoma for the afternoon/evening, and it was gorgeous up there - the weather was perfect, and since it was a Friday (which I kept forgetting), it wasn't too busy.

Our first stop was Gloria Ferrer, which is my favorite place ever - their blanc de noirs is my go-to sparkling wine, and their patio overlooking the vineyards and hills of Sonoma is gorgeous (even my mother would agree, and she isn't a big fan of California). In a first, I actually signed up for a wine club, which meant we got our tastings and snacky snacks for free; if I were to ever sign up for a wine club, this seemed to be the one to go for, since I like going to the winery itself and I am always happy to buy their wines. Also, I may have bought six half-bottles of blanc de noirs, which I didn't even know they made - but half-bottles can justifiably be opened when I need champagne to fuel (or celebrate) the writing (which isn't often, but when it's necessary, it's v. necessary).

After we spent a couple of hours at Gloria Ferrer, we drove north all the way to Grgich Hills, since Terry was already a member there. They make pretty fancy wines, which I usually don't drink, but the tasting there was also fantastic (and also leisurely, and also outside). Then, we drove through the v. windy backroads between Sonoma and Napa while listening to the first part of the soundtrack from the 'Hamilton' musical, which was awesome...

...but even more awesome was meeting up with Ritu and Bill, who are in town looking at wedding venues. We had dinner at The Girl and the Fig, which is where I had lunch with Kathia a few months ago; it turns out that dinner is also delightful. We split a bottle of a wine that I picked solely because I realized it was French for 'fountain of the wolf', and then we split most of a bottle of something called 'Juicy Rebound', which just sounds wrong. But despite those names (or perhaps because of them), the place was perfect. And Ritu and Bill were just as wonderful and ridiculous as always, and it was fun to hang out with them and Terry on the west coast (best coast) and catch up for a few hours.

Sadly, though, all things must end, and so they went to their hotel and Terry and I drove back to SF while listening to more 'Hamilton'. The fog has taken over the city in earnest, and the drive over the Golden Gate was a little surreal, but I'm glad to be home - it's a little weird to process that I was just in Tahoe, and that I've got friends in town this weekend, but I'm gearing up for some serious hermitville to finish this book, so hopefully the rest of this weekend will be delightful in preparation. Goodnight!

so fresh so clean

I wanted to go to bed at eight p.m., so the fact that I made it to almost ten (will make it to ten by the time I get ready for bed) is a sign that I still have my youth. I think I'm still a little wiped out from my retreat, but I woke up this morning and worked in bed with tea and my laptop for a few hours, which was great. Things continue to come together, etc., etc.

But I had to stop working to shower, run a couple of errands, and drive to the south bay to see Alyssa. I haven't seen her since we abruptly stopped training together, but I wanted to catch up with her, so we had a delightful lunch at Joanie's Cafe. It was great to see her, of course, and we'll probably catch up again in a couple of months. In the meantime, I need to start reincorporating weights in my routine; I get quite a bit of cardio in during the week, but I haven't swung a kettlebell in over a month, and I don't want to lose the progress I've made...

...but that's a challenge for another day/week. After I finished with her, I sped home, messed around on the internet, and unpacked/cleaned up around the house (it's not clean clean, but it's respectable again). Then I took care of another errand before walking down to the Marina to have an early dinner with Terry (remember her?) at Aix. Terry got into town today, and originally I had plans tonight and couldn't see her - but my schedule rearranged itself, as did hers, and so getting together tonight made sense. We started our catching up over steak and wine, which was perfect, and we'll continue it tomorrow - I think we're going to go to Sonoma, which should be fun.

But if that's going to happen, I need to get some serious sleep tonight - goodnight!

when all is said and done and dead

I accomplished virtually nothing today...but I suppose that's to be expected when I had to drive back from Tahoe (okay, that's an accomplishment), get high on the sudden return of sea-level oxygen levels, and recuperate from five days of uninterrupted people-time. Grace and I left Tahoe at 9:30 and talked all the way home, including a stop for a snack at the nicest Starbucks I've ever seen in my entire life (in Dixon, CA, for those of you who are curious). I dropped her off at her place around 1:30pm, was home by 2pm, and then messed around on the internet, took a nap, took a shower, and got my nails done because I'm a princess.

After being a princess, I walked down to my old neighborhood and had sushi (which I was in the mood for after a ridiculous conversation about abalone earlier in the day), and also more wine than I needed (thanks to having befriended the owner, as I usually do), while contemplating my goals for the next few weeks. That wasn't the most productive thing I could have done, but I was too tired to really think, so I'll take it. And now I'm going to sleep and then write all the words tomorrow morning before being forced to socialize for another few days in a row with all the friends I have visiting this weekend...more on that as it materializes. Goodnight!

lie down in darkness

This is the end of my writing retreat, and while I don't feel like I got enough done, I'm still pretty satisfied with what I've accomplished and where I'm headed. Granted, a lot of what I accomplished was psychological (figuring out the story, still....and more importantly, figuring out how to accept that I'm not done and to hopefully stop beating myself up so badly for struggling so much with this book).

Amusingly enough, in one of those weird little serendipitous moments, I searched my blog to see if I've used 'lie down in darkness' as a title before (it's a Moby song that's on an album I often listen to when I'm trying to get into the story), and I found that I used it on September 17, 2011....on a night when I had similarly struggled, and had managed to write four pages by lying facedown on the bed and typing with my eyes closed to keep my internal editor from being such an evil bitch. So I'm keeping this title as-is, and hopefully taking the memory of a similar night four years ago to remind myself that I've managed to publish five books since then, so all is not lost despite my current despair over this one.

sssanyway, I'm starting to bore myself with how much I'm overthinking all of this, so I'll spare you more details (and actually, I think I've turned the corner and am coming out of the local minima, so I'm excited to keep making progress). The rest of my day was fine - I did some work this morning, talked to my parents, had some lunch/brainstorming with the group, procrastinated this afternoon (with a bit of writing/rereading thrown in, but not as much as I should have had), and then had dinner with the group at an awesome pub with an even more awesome cottage pie (gluten free, like a beef stew with mashed potatoes on top). And then we came back and discussed all manner of ridiculous things, and I continue to educate the group on v. dirty things, which is my role in life, I guess.

And now I must sleep, since we're leaving relatively early tomorrow morning...and then I shall get back into my regularly scheduled life (except for the fact that there are some special guests coming up on the blog this weekend - get excited). Goodnight!

all you had to do was stay

I have nothing new of note to report tonight....the retreat continues to go well, although I was stuck in my head for too much of today. I think I just need to finish this damn book, publish it, and move on with my life even if it's terrible, because there are so many other stories I want to tell, and this one is blocking me.

sssanyway. It wasn't as bleak as that last sentence sounds - I did get some good work done today, and I also learned a couple of super useful things on the business side, so that was all great. And we went out for a fabulous dinner at the same restaurant we went to last time we were up here - while it's nice to sit around the house and cook for each other, it was definitely v. nice to get out of the house. And I had steak for the first time in many days, and the red meat was probably exactly what I needed.

When dinner was over, we came back to the house and Anne made gluten free chocolate chip cookies, which were delightful. And then we talked and gossiped until it was beyond time to go to bed. And now I'm going to sleep and attempt to get up early in the morning to write, since morning is the best time for me and I haven't been getting much morning writing in while I've been here. Goodnight!

broke your heart, i'll put it back together

Today was very good, all things considered....although, again, I didn't write a million words. But I spent some quality time this morning talking to Anne about website/social media stuff, which was super fun and informative (I think for both of us). Then I wrote for a couple of hours, took a nap, called my parents, and wrote again before dinner.

We all got pizza delivered for dinner, and we all took a break to eat and color, but I think we were all feeling the need to be productive, so I did a couple of hours of administrative work tonight. Then, I was going to sleep, but instead got caught up in a super long conversation with Anne and Grace about publishing, followed by a super long brainstorming session for my book....which mostly just proved that I've been overthinking this stupid thing for months, which I already knew, but still. Now it's just a matter of writing the fucking thing, which I will continue to tackle tomorrow.

But tackling it tomorrow means sleeping tonight, which I'm going to do immediately - goodnight!

that's how you get the girl

The real first day of the writing retreat went pretty well, all in all. I don't do particularly well at altitude (probably the biggest reason, beyond laziness + liking my San Francisco friends, that I haven't picked up and moved to Denver), so today was kind of an adjustment, and I had a headache all day as a result. But I spent a glorious morning replotting my whole book - I realize that replotting may not seem like a glorious thing to do, considering it means vast swathes of revisions, but that's the way it is.

I got distracted after lunch by my fellow writers - several people needed plotting help, and so we all brainstormed their books, which was really fun. Then I took a nap, ran across the street to Safeway to get a couple of things (and get a tiny bit of fresh air), and then wrote the rest of the afternoon. I got the first part of the new first chapter, which was good, and I'm hoping I can keep the momentum going tomorrow.

But the evening was destined to be relaxing - Grace made dinner, and then the five of us sat around talking about all sorts of things until almost midnight (while coloring in our coloring books - #sorrynotsorry). And now I must sleep so I can write in the morning during my best hours - goodnight!

loose lips sink ships all the damn time

I have safely arrived in Tahoe, where I'm v. eager to get a lot done. But today was not about accomplishing things - today was about getting up here and reconnecting with my writer friends, and all of that was done v. successfully. I left my place later than I should have this morning - my internet was finally working again, and so I had to take care of stuff that I should have done last night, which was not how I had intended to spend my morning. But I eventually got myself loaded up and drove to Mill Valley to pick up Grace. I somehow hadn't seen her since our last trip to Tahoe in April, so we had a lot to catch up on, and we did so throughout the drive up to South Lake Tahoe (including a stop at In-n-Out in Placerville, which was as awesome as In-n-Out always is).

We got here around 2:45, which was pretty good timing (four hours including the stop, and our stop was fairly leisurely). Barbara, Anne, and Christie had all arrived before us, but as soon as we got here, we went grocery shopping and loaded up on stuff for tonight (mostly pasta and wine, so I got super carb overload + drinking at altitude overload). Then we came back to the house and spend the entire rest of the afternoon/evening snacking, eating, gossiping, talking about publishing (aka gossiping), catching up on each others' lives (aka gossiping), and coloring (adult coloring books are all the rage right now, as I believe I mentioned - so while I brought mine, I wasn't surprised to see that Barbara had brought several + tons of colored pencils and markers with which to amuse ourselves during our writing breaks).

So, this was an excellent start to the trip, and I always learn a lot on these outings...but I need to go to bed so that I can buckle down in the morning and get stuff done before I get distracted by hanging out with some of my favorite people. Goodnight!

they are the hunters, we are the foxes

My internet is v inconveniently down on a night when I need to get a lot of stuff done, so I'm typing this on my ipad and hoping the internet comes back in the morning before I need to leave for Tahoe. But today was good - I got my car checked out by the repair shop and decided to keep it until next Friday, so I'm driving it to Tahoe. Then I came home and walked to the Embarcadero to have lunch with Gyre. I hadn't seen him in a couple of months, and we made the unusual step of paying for lunch at an awesome sushi place rather than eating free food (which was totally fine with me).

So, we caught up for a couple of hours, and then he went back to the office and I went to the Ferry Building, where I had a glass of wine while brainstorming. Then I came home, took a nap, and spent the evening doing stuff to get ready for my trip.

And now I need to sleep - I'm excited about my writing retreat, and I have grand plans for it. Goodnight!

i don't want to fall another moment into your gravity

My journal is probably the better place for recapping today than the blog is, but for public posterity....some of today sucked, but most of today was awesome. Not that the day *actually* sucked - like I said yesterday, from an outside perspective watching it unfold, it looked superficially similar to yesterday. But I had some moments of doubt this morning that bled into my mood, and it was probably all compounded by the annoying fact that my water was shut off for most of the day, which meant I had to vacate when I really didn't want to leave the house.

But I eventually went to Goody and worked for a couple of hours, so that was good. And I took a long walk along the water, which was even better. Then I came home, took a nap, contemplated my fear spirals, contemplated the story, and finally (when the water was on) took a shower and got ready for the (much, much) better part of my day....

And the better part of my day was fucking awesome. I met up with Jess for an early dinner at Mangosteen, which was super tasty, super cheap, and super close to my house (if you don't mind walking through some rather wretched blocks of the Tenderloin). We had many things to catch up on, since I hadn't seen her since my birthday, but we compressed as many topics as possible into a very short dinner, so that was successful.

Then we caught a lyft to the main event: we saw Sara Bareilles at the JCCSF. It was a combo speaking/singing engagement - she's promoting her first book (a memoir, out this week), and so the first portion was an interview/conversation with her about the memoir, and the subjects that it touches on (mainly her artistic/songwriting process). This was super fascinating and inspiring to me, since songwriting and book writing aren't so very different. Then, she performed a few songs, and her voice in that space was absolutely incredible.

So, that was totally fantastic - if you ever get the chance to see her live, definitely do it. She was really funny and insightful as a speaker, too. I'm glad Jess and I went, and I need to find other opportunities to hear other artists (especially non-book-writers) speak, since I always learn something or am triggered to think about things from a new angle.

Now I'm going to go to bed and dream about songs and stories - goodnight!

holiday in spain

Today was truly excellent. Weirdly, I just realized that on the surface, to an outside observer of my life (I guess that might be you!), today looked like a lot of other days I've had since leaving the day job - but the excellence vs. abject misery tends to be internal and almost entirely related to zee romance novel and how I'm feeling about it. This is a lesson I shall ponder later.....

But for now, the details. I woke up earlyish but less early than I wanted, and I spent the morning mostly dealing with business/insurance stuff. Happily, after talking to the other driver's insurance company, they immediately accepted full responsibility (I know, I'm shocked...not shocked that I wasn't at fault, but that they agreed to pay so quickly). So I talked to my insurance company again, and then talked to an auto body shop, and I'm taking my car in on Thursday to get the estimate and schedule the repairs. I'm hoping I can leave it there over the weekend and take a rental car to Tahoe, but we shall see.

So that was all good, or as good as it can be considering that I would rather not have to deal with this. I also talked to my dad for quite awhile; this started as a discussion about insurance and car repair, but turned into a much-needed pep talk about the book and my instincts to blow it all up and rewrite vast swathes of it. Then I took care of some stuff online, made a vague attempt at looking presentable, and abandoned my work to have lunch with Lauren (aka Subz).

Lauren was in fine form, and her baby has put on like a pound and a half in the last week, which, given his age, makes him look visibly bigger, which is crazy. Lunch was fairly perfectly timed with his sleeping; we walked over to Laurel Village and grabbed food and caught up for an hour, and then walked back to her place just as he was waking up and starting to realize that he wanted to eat. It was great to see Lauren, of course, and hopefully we don't have to let as much time go by between catchups as we did in the first month after delivery, when she and Finley weren't ready for company and I was out of town anyway.

I left before the crying started in earnest, came home to grab my laptop, and went to Fort Mason to work for the afternoon. I spent my time there scribbling notes (it turns out the laptop wasn't necessary, but my perfect notebook and my overly expensive pen were) on the new idea for Rafe and Octavia, and I'm really excited about it. Perhaps that excitement will vanish....but it's this weird feeling, that I can't describe, of an idea that feels alive rather than dead, which translates into a feeling of almost physical heat, like my brain and heart are on fire. Perhaps I shouldn't have even tried to describe it, since reading that sentence makes me realize that I sound crazy.

Whatevs. You've been reading this long...you know I'm not the most normal person in your acquaintance. So I scribbled until Goody closed and my parking ran out, and then I came home and mulled over the idea some more while spending some quality time on the treadmill in the building's gym. I was going to read a book on the Peninsular Wars while working out, but the Democratic debate was on the tv in the gym, so I watched that, and then watched most of the rest of it while eating leftover soup on my couch. I would say Chafee and Webb might as well pack it in (especially Chafee, who made my day because a NYTimes article I read earlier today ended with 'In an earlier version of this story, we misspelled Chafee as 'Chaffee' - if a political correspondent covering a presidential election can't spell your name, you might be done) (but also especially Webb, who bizarrely seemed to use the 'I'm friends with black people' rationale, which I would imagine will not go over well with the likely voters in the Democratic primary). And now I shall go back to ignoring politics as much as possible until we get closer to a vote...although I will say I hope the Republican field starts narrowing itself more aggressively, since there could be a lot more substance in a debate if there weren't so many fucking people standing on the stage trying to talk.

After that hot mess, I took a bath in deference to my muscles (which don't appear to be too achey, yay), and then worked on the new idea for Rafe and Octavia until now. I'm hoping tomorrow will be equally productive, although I'll need to vacate at some point because they're shutting off the building's water for most of the day and I can't write when I'm dehydrated and/or need to pee. We shall see...but today was a day I would like to replicate sometime. Goodnight!

now there's no looking forward, now there's no turning back

Today was pretty productive, all things considered....but it ended with having a flash of inspiration for Rafe and Octavia that is so good that I want to pursue it, but would require substantial (substantial!) rewrites, and I just don't know. So I'm going to sleep on it and play around with the structure tomorrow and see what I think.

But today could have been a lot worse. I got up at 6:45 and was pleased to find that, while I was a little sore, I wasn't nearly as sore as might have been expected from the accident yesterday. So I took a shower and took my car to the Toyota dealer for the pre-planned service appointment; they ended up saying that it's totally drivable and had no fluid leaks or anything (despite the wretched appearance), so it's good to know that I don't have to get it fixed before driving it around.

While I was waiting for them to do the maintenance, I went to Another Cafe to write for a couple of hours (success!), and then went to MyMy to eat breakfast/lunch since I didn't feel like cooking this morning. Then I came home, took a nap, did some more work, did some laundry, picked up my car, talked to the insurance guy, walked to the grocery store, finished my laundry, folded laundry, and made chicken tortilla soup. I know, I'm so virtuous.

And then the evening was spent waiting for the soup to cook and thinking about the new Rafe idea and falling down many wikipedia holes while considering it. And now I need to sleep before the hours I've spent slouched on the couch undo my tenuous muscle recovery - goodnight!