Umm...can I remember what I did the last several days? Wednesday was another one of those great Berkeley days; take BART up, sit in Starbucks drinking chai, eating a scone, finishing the first draft of "Pieces of the Heart". (Starbucks has extensive outlets; otherwise I promise you I would have patronized a local business.) Walk up to Other Change of Hobbit, buy the rest of the Tamora Pierce series that I started last time I came out, plus the new James White Sector General novel. Walk to Panini and have a fabulous sandwich (their rolls are amazingly tasty) with Orangina at an outdoor table; weather about 70 degrees, vines and flowers climbing over trellises, lovely. Read White. Talk to Roshani for a bit on cell. Walk up Shattuck to University. Walk down University with vague idea of working at Anna's -- sadly, Anna's not open yet. Stop at Pier 1 and find expectant mom gift, pretty bottle with seaweed and blue sand and bath oil. Walk over to Karen's and leave it on her doorstep. Walk back to Au Coquelet and settle in with book. Read book. Finish book just as Karen arrives for chatter and tea. Don't actually drink any tea (had pear cider while reading), but steal bites of her chocolate mousse. Good gossip. Eventually Michael Harman arrives! Meeting for second time one of SH Reviews Editors. Karen toddles off home for a bit. Sherman eventually arrives. Three of us toddle up to Thai Delight on Shattuck for yummy meal and getting to know each other. Two Reviews Editors seem to be getting along. Good. Too bad third is in Nashville or someplace like that. Eventually finish dinner, goodbye to Michael, Sherman and I collect Karen and go down to Ian/El's. Much cooing over new baby, new house. Very grown-up. They look a little tired but very happy. :-) :-) :-) After midnight, go back to David's and fall asleep like a log.
Luckily, not all days are so eventful, or I'd be taking forever to catch you up. Thursday was basically working at David's day; I had the stack of Herotica manuscripts; we're just making final selections and I was adding my revision notes to them. Not many -- Marcy turns out to be an excellent line editor, with an amazing eye for detail. She says she's not good at the 'big picture' -- luckily, that's my specialty. Between the two of us, I think Herotica 7 is going to be a really excellent book. I'm pleased. Then watched some more Star Trek; I can now confirm that I have seen all the episodes with Tasha's daughter, which was satisfying. I had missed one and a half or so. Eventually made curry for dinner; good to cook, but I undersalted things. Oh well... In the late evening, spent some time recording. Did demo tapes for Ian/El and Roshani/Tom of lullabies for their babies. Leo's is very silly and boppy; Zoe's is rather quiet and melancholy. I like them both. :-) Also taped for myself three other songs I've written. Very satisfying having them on tape, and cool watching David deal with all the recording stuff. (He has a 4-track, so we lay down the keyboard and guitar first on separate track, then recorded the vocals, and then he mixed it all together. Cool.)
Friday worked in the morning, then David drove me around. We went up to Good Vibes very briefly to see if I could schedule something for AE with Charlie; unfortunately, he's only there on Wednesdays. Dangit -- should've called first. Then over to Telegraph for lunch at the Blue Nile; yummy. Have had Ethiopian twice now. Will have to last me for a bit. Then walked up Telegraph, looking at the little stalls. I love the little stalls. Bought a dragonfly pin for Marcia, two small stud earrings for Jed (one malachite, one blue opal), and a silver toe ring for me. :-) David ran into Cody's briefly to check on their representation of Sheckley (he's on a Sheckley kick). Back to the car, drove to the House and looked around. Oh.. slightly melancholy. The herbs are monstrous; the rosemary is going to take over. Should have put it in a pot to start out to contain it. Sage is a bush. My bougainvillea is finally doing wonderfully; I had such troubles getting it established, but it's starting to really get huge, then way bougainvillea ought. I hope the new owners leave it in, and take care of it. It should be trained along the kitchen windows, framing the blue with its crimson petals, and then up along the outdoor chimney. Fingers crossed. The morning glory El and Ian planted for the wedding are looking marvelous; a great addition to the backyard. I wish I could have bought that house...
Eventually back in the car, drove down to the South Bay, dropped me off at Jed's. Not enough time with David. :-( Sigh. Nice day with Jed, though; worked for a while in the afternoon, napped a little, went to Palo Alto for Thai food and movie - Road to Morocco. Amazingly, ran into Eugenie! (Mathematician from Chicago.) She's apparently at Stanford for the summer doing research. Was great seeing her again, and made plans to meet up Saturday. Went on to the movie, which was exceedingly silly and fun. Some slightly stressful conversations at home after, but got resolved. LDR's are sometimes difficult.
Oof. Almost caught up.
Saturday -- met up with Arthur, Pam, Maya, Eugenie for brunch. Very yummy. Great company. Arthur and Pam looking disgustingly cute together; very happy for them. Good catching up with Eugenie; she's nicely settled in Appleton, WI at her new university. Eventually went home, finished Connie Willis Fire Watch -- great stuff! Napped. Very lazy day. Around six, dragged Jed away from his work, met Eugenie for dinner at Janta, Indian restaurant. Good, though waitress was excessively solicitous about refilling water, and bread was a bit oily. Leisurely meal with much laughter, then walked to theater to see But I'm a Cheerleader!. Very silly. Not something to go out of your way to see, but amusing in a predictable sort of way. Had ice cream aftewards at Double Rainbow. Really nice evening. Came home and fell asleep.
So that's mostly it. Been a really nice couple of days, haven't gotten so much done. Well, some. Revised the CS toy store -- could really use someone to do a complete overhaul and make it look like the bookstore, but staff is busy. Just made a bit of a start on it. Any volunteers? Just takes some free time and the willingness to look at sex toys...
Going to make one more pass at "Pieces of the Heart" this morning, I think -- the middle section is still not really meshing, and I suspect it could use one or two more sections. Maybe more. Will send it out before I get on plane, though. Leaving here at 11:45, so I'd best get to work on it.
We're going to be needing a few more staff at SH, so watch for calls for that if you're interested. Getting close to launch -- very exciting! Also scary as heck. Lots happening in the next few weeks; orientation for new program starts tomorrow. On the 15th, I should have all the manuscripts for a CS book proposal and will have to go through them and choose the few best to represent us. Then send it to Crown! By September 1st, launch SH! Feeling rather overwhelmed, but I can do it. Sure I can. :-) I'll just give up sleeping for a while...
It was really nice getting a vacation. I did some work, but I did a lot of resting and reading and eating of good food and talking with friends and being in beautiful weather in familiar places. Rejuvenating. Nice.