A little groggy today –…

A little groggy today -- I woke up at 4:30, for no reason that I can think of. So I'm moving a bit slowly. We were out yesterday afternoon with various appointments that all ate up more time than they should've and caused an undue amount of stress and frustration. Later we stopped at Marshall Fields where we determined that we could only afford one-third of the kind of rug we wanted for the living room. Kev's going to see if we can find a better deal on eBay, since a third of a rug would not be so satisfying. Along the way we had dinner at Mas, a yummy upscale Mexican place -- when I say dinner, I mean appetizers, because two appetizers plus a mojito turned out to be plenty for us. We need to stop ordering dinner, even if it feels a bit awkward -- it's just too much food. I had the goat cheese-mushroom empanada, which I recommend highly. Yum.

Today is errands and the start of cooking. I'm making about a third of the party food, or maybe half, so today I start cooking the stuff that keeps well. Double batches of coconut sambol and potato curry should be fine if I make them now and leave them until Saturday; they may actually get a bit better. So that's the plan. I also need to conference with a student at 11, and record myself reading a story for the promotional event we're doing through Breakthrough in NY (tentatively on 9/9) -- me reading with some other artists performing alongside, and they want a tape of me reading to rehearse with. Should be cool.

In theory, I should write today -- Ben and Duncan have given me detailed revision notes on the short story I'm writing for AE2, and they're totally right. Maybe working on that will pull me back into a mental space to work on the novel. I just don't know. Argh. I'm getting severely frustrated with my writing avoidance behavior, but can't seem to break the pattern. Yesterday I actually got as far as opening the file and putting on writing music, but then I didn't even read a word -- just kept getting up and doing other stuff. [bangs head against wall]

For errands, I need to check on flowers for the party, and mail three copies of my book to the thesis office, along with a money order for the microfilm fee, and go pick up my dress, which hopefully will fit perfectly. I also would like to buy Xmas lights to trail along the gazebo; I had some, but not enough, and Walgreens is completely out of them. Anyone have any ideas on where you buy Xmas lights in July?