Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

So. I had connectivity all weekend, I just didn't feel like posting. I still don't feel like posting. But I feel like I should. So here we are.

Flying with vertigo: not my favorite thing. (Translate from Minnesotan to English for full effect.) The best thing about today's flight: the sensation that the plane was spinning quickly around its vertical axis, while we were in a cloud so that I had no exterior reference points to try to convince my brain that this wasn't happening. The pre-flight stuff in the San Francisco airport was pretty jolly, too. Completely the opposite of my experience in MSP on the way out, at pretty much every step. If it hadn't been for a random nice Korean Baptist lady who was traveling with seven small children to a grade school rappers' contest for Asian Christian churches (!!!!), I would have probably ended up in tears after I fell out of the wheelchair they were not letting me have yet and timprov had to go away to stand in line without me. There were enough points of bad, bad stuff that I feel like I have to write letters to NWA, SFO, and possibly even the TSA. (I will also be writing to MSP. But my letter to them will be completely praise, and the NWA letter will be mixed praise and complaint -- their Minneapolis people were impeccable.) timprov is a total Hero of the Revolution here. Also hurrah for the people who make peach-mango smoothies in the terminal Northwest uses at SFO.

And a completely different hurrah for my mom: all three of our bathrooms are now painted. They all turned out just as I'd hoped. In fact, I just went in to admire the nearest one again. They now look like rooms to me; they now look like someone thought through what would look good in them. I have the feeling that the poor people who lived here before us went, "Well, crap. We have ugly brown fixtures in two bathrooms and ugly yellow ones in the third. What goes with this stuff? Ummm...white! Or beige!" And, no. It made the rooms feel weird and disconnected. (It's a difficult brown. I am not completely opposed to brown.)

Hmm, I seem to be doing this in reverse order. All right then: yesterday we had dinner with a lot of folks, and I will now list them for you in alphabetical order so that they can spot each other's ljs: arkuat, athenais, brooksmoses, David, evangoer and his girlfriend who does have an lj but I don't know what it is, Jim who ditto, logovore, reveritas and her spousal unit, wshaffer, zed_lopez (Edit: I originally had this name wrong and have fixed it), and zellandyne and her boyfriend who might have an lj, because life is uncertain. And me and markgritter and timprov. So it was a good mix of people I haven't seen in forEVer, people I've seen recently but not recently enough, and people I'd never seen before but was happy to see this time. I didn't feel that there was any one person I got to talk to enough, but I expected that out of a trip with the limitations this one had; I was glad that my friends were being friendly with each other. That's always nice.

(Edit again: oh, for the love of Pete. I do, too, know Jim's lj, because it's not Jim, it's Jym, yes? jymdyer? Hi, Jym. We'd...uh...been pronouncing your name differently. Sorry. Poor fairmer should be able to sympathize, since porphyrin and I were calling her "murr" and it ought to have been "mare." Actually, uh, we still do call her "murr." Sorry, Mer. Sorry, Jym. Uff da. I haz the dumb.)

Jing Jing is still pleasant and accommodating, House of Nanking is still awesome, Vive Sol is still pretty darn good, Flying Fish Grill is still awesome, and Bodeguita del Medio is still awesome in a completely different direction from House of Nanking or Flying Fish Grill. The pizza place what serves langos: also confirmed as awesome. Laaaaangos. You've read Dzur? Fine. Then you know about langos. (You've not read Dzur? Go. Read. Drool. Envy my langos.) I spent most of the week leading up to this trip, including much of Friday, being nauseated by the very concept of warm food, so I was glad to get over that particular bit of vertigo-induced joy in time to not be a total PITA over food all weekend.

Amber's wedding was very good, in some ways very Amber without ignoring traditions of her family and Gerard's family. I also think that wee tiny bits of nifty artwork by the bride and Star Wars magnets from the groom are just about the best wedding favors ever.

There were lots of good bits. But it was a very difficult trip and a very tiring trip. I thought twice before doing this. I'm going to think three or four times before doing it again before I get All Better. Ideally I will get All Better fast enough that this will not come up.

And I am so glad to be home.

The other stuff first: the plan to get me a new desk has taken another step forward: markgritter disassembled timprov's old desk and reassembled it in the basement to be a home for some of his new work stuff. So now there's room for me to get a new desk or computer table. Of course, that would involve shopping for one, so we won't be planning on that happening any time soon. Still, it's best for my back if I don't try to write another book on this desk. It's lovely, and I'm very glad to have it, but it was not designed to be a computer desk, because when it was designed, computers took entire rooms. Not small ones, either. The immediate result of all this is a lovely open space for doing PT, and a pile of the stuff that was in timprov's old desk and didn't get transferred to his new desk or a file box. He'll take care of that when we get back from California.

This trip to California is a weird length. It's not "clean out everything fresh from the fridge" length, but it's also not "it'll all still be good when you get back" length, either. It's not "stop the mail" length, but the mail will be a pile to deal with. And to make it stranger, markgritter is staying longer than I am, so we can't pack together but have to do two toothpastes and like that.

And now, ( books read )

Okay, so here's the plan:

What: dinner with me, markgritter, timprov, and whichever other amiable persons might make their presences felt. This is not an "invite your third cousin's roommate's boyfriend" sort of event, but if you have partners or children or houseguests lying around, go on ahead and bring them.

Where: Jing Jing, on Emerson just off University Ave. in Palo Alto. If you would ordinarily think of walking somewhere from CalTrain (that is, if you are not me or in a similar circumstance to mine), they are within walking distance of the CalTrain station. They have vegan entrees. Despite the website's claims, they serve food that is not astonishingly spicy as well as fairly spicy food.

When: Monday, May 19, at 6:30 or thereabouts. (Not next week. Week after.) One of the reasons we chose Jing Jing is that they're very amiable about people pulling up another chair when needed. We will linger over dinner, and we will probably get gelato or something after, so if the timing seems like it might be tight but you might be able to make it after all, call my cell. If you don't have my cell number, e-mail me and I will tell you what it is. If you think you can't make it until 7, don't worry, we'll get soup and/or appetizers and take our time.

Please let me know if you think you're coming. My default assumption will be that you are not coming, which will save those of you who are in London or Boston or White Bear Lake from having to comment or e-mail me with your regrets. This includes those of you who expressed interest from my last post: I'm not assuming that interest equates to ability, so please do let me know. As I said, they're amiable about people pulling up another chair, but I'd like to know when we walk in whether we're looking for a table for 6 or 16 or what.

When we lived in California, I had to go to the ocean every few months. It was just a piece of myself I knew: that I would need something flat and open and much much bigger than myself. Something that did not loom up suddenly, cutting off bits of sky. Something that was not full of people. What I needed was prairie, but I could make approximations with the ocean.

One of the good things about this was that I had identified the need clearly, and I had identified the closest thing that would fit it, and while I might not always be able to fit it in right away when it came up, that part was a matter of patience, which I can fake with the best of them.

Right now, head-down in PT, I don't know what the brain readjustment is. I don't know what I can do to recalibrate here; I don't know what my source of perspective ought to be. But I need some. I need some way to convince my brain of a sense of scale again.

I don't mind hearing suggestions, but I don't have any expectation that the answer on this one is going to come externally, so please don't suggest anything if you're emotionally attached to me doing it.

I should mention that we're not going to Bodeguita del Medio for dinner tonight. We're going to the Gordon Biersch in Palo Alto, 640 Emerson, so if you've changed your mind and are intending to drop in, that's where you should drop. Somewhat less interesting, but infinitely more willing to seat us: Bodeguita flatly refused on a party of that size. So okay then; they can be lunch, probably. That seems like a thing.

It's snowing without me again at home. My folks are making eyebrows at me for asking for all this snow and then leaving. I know there'll be some left when we get back, but it's just not the same as being there when it's falling. Sigh. Well, the basketball tournaments aren't over yet. I will comfort myself with that thought: until the high school boys have played their basketball tournament, snow is not over in Minnesota, and may not be afterwards. There's a happy thought for my rainy Palo Alto morning.

Happy Kalevala Day! Possibly it is time to steal someone else's magic device. Or to kidnap yourself a spouse. Or to send your child's prospective spouse to perform impossible tasks that will likely kill him/her. Or...um. You know, maybe just eating some pulla would be good enough. You don't have to be authentic, maybe.

The hotel cleaning person turned the temperature in our minifridge down. Really down. As in, my milk is an undrinkable block of milk-ice. I am not particularly grateful over this.

Other than that, things are going fine here. They have painted our old apartment complex yellow-beige -- and if there's ever been a color-word that should not exist, it's yellow-beige! blerg! -- but we don't have to live there any more. I heard nearly as much thunder yesterday as I did living here for four years. (I like thunder.) There were border collie pups romping and ponies frolicking in Crow Canyon. Also the congenial folks who turned up to see me were (as hoped!) congenial. And more of that today, one expects.

In related news, chocolate chip bread pudding with chocolate whipped cream is an idea whose time has come.

Now I am off to clean my stinky self and to work on the SF story that fell on my head before we left. Probably it just did that so I wouldn't start thinking I was exclusively a fantasy writer. Contrary brain.

In more conversational, less planny news, I had forgotten the vigor with which they install speed bumps in this state. Good heavens! Speed mountains, they are! Apparently I noticed this when we first moved here, but it wasn't on my list of top things to remember about California. It's amusing me now.

We had a good time seeing people, eating things, walking on things, and looking at things yesterday. Yep, I think that about covers it. Oh, and driving past things, but mostly that was the looking. I don't mean to make this livejournal into a day-by-day culinary report, but: garlicky calamari! Salmon taco with just the right amount of lime! Stuffed mushrooms and sauteed pea sprouts and yams and sesame and oh, oh! It was a good food day yesterday. And I have hopes of today as well.

San Gregorio Beach is no longer accessible unless you want to ford the rushing waters, which we did not, but walking on the cliff above it was still nice.

I was somewhat dizzy last night and am hoping not to repeat the experience today, but we're keeping things fairly low-key anyway. No rushing up and down the California coast just yet.

And now Mark is awake, so I can write on paper or read without waking him, and there are plans to be made and so on. Hope your week is starting well, with good news to share soon (you know who you are on that last point! not that I don't hope for good news for the rest of you).

I managed to sleep until 6:00 a.m. local time. I am so proud. Of course, we're not leaving for Half Moon Bay until 10:30, so it's not like I needed to be up -- but getting on a schedule where I sleep until 4:00 a.m. and am worn to a nubbin by 9:00 p.m. is not really the goal here. Sort of interferes with one's social agenda, is what I'm saying. Also inconvenient to other people trying to sleep in the room without the glow of the monitor for half the night, maybe.

The smell of not-winter was immediate as soon as I got off the plane. It's raining now -- raining pretty good, actually, not like the half-assed drizzle we used to get here a lot. If it's still raining when we get done with lunch, we will go to San Gregorio in the rain. We've done it before. I greeted the eucalyptus by the side of the road (startling the guys as I called, "I can smell you!" out the car window). I had forgotten a lot. The shape of the evergreens is not like the shape of our evergreens at home. The tile on the roofs: we don't have that at home. It's kind of neat, but a good snowstorm would ruin half the tiles. (Are you having a good snowstorm without me, Minneapolitans? Curse my timing!)

timprov's aunt Judy had a hearty stew and bread and salads and baked apples and wine and biscotti waiting for us when we got there. Mmmmmmmmmm. And the stew was not half onions. I hate it when you have a perfectly good stew otherwise and keep running into excessive onions.

So here's the thing about my mail: I cannot access mail that was already in my inbox yesterday afternoon. I can get new stuff you send me, but the old stuff is stuck inaccessible at home until I get there. So if you e-mailed me something you'd like me to know before Friday, please re-send it to my gmail account, or just re-send it. I should be able to pick up new stuff. Mark has fixed it for the moment. Ah, the joys of travel.

Soon: stuff. Then: more stuff. Yep.

Have been doing getting-ready-to-travel things and life-maintenance things and dog-soothing things and so on. The dog is convinced that there is Something Up. She has been trying to sit directly on me whenever possible, including when I'm at the computer. It is hard to type with a dog pressing her head down on my wrist as hard as she can manage. I don't care that she's small, she's determined!

She also, poor bop, has an ear infection. I'm really glad we have a good groomer who could spot it right away and have the vet swab it right away and have everything go as smoothly as possible...but the dog needs to stop getting sick, is the long and short of this one.

It is finally, finally, finally supposed to snow here...starting tomorrow afternoon and ending Sunday evening. So yes: neatly straddling the time when we're supposed to be flying out. Sigh. This state is like your very own perpetual toddler: you love it, but some days....

I need to rethink my list for the week after our return, I think: one of the reasons I have lists on a weekly basis is to tell me what I don't have to try to get done in a week, because it can wait for next week. It's okay if one or two things carry over from week to week, but if there are five to ten things getting transferred over every single week for months on end, that's a sign that I'm not using the list the way I want to, and I should shift that somehow. If it's okay for these things not to get done in a given week, maybe I should be spreading out how I write down that I want them done in the first place. Some of this has gotten better this week in particular because a lot of longer-term pieces got finished all at once, so I could remove those from the list rather than sighing and moving them to the next list.

Maybe there would be fewer to move to the next list in the first place if there were fewer on the first list, if it wasn't "ack, look at the list of things I'd like to get done this week" but rather "ah, here's something I'd like to get done this week." And with stuff like that, I can always "work ahead." (Some list items do not permit for working ahead. "Call grandparents," for example, is something I want to remember to do every single week. If I do it three times this week -- which I did -- that doesn't mean it's fine to blow them off for a whole fortnight after that. So it doesn't get crossed off the list in advance. They're my grandparents. That's not how my priorities go.)

It occurs to me that I don't really have a list for while we're gone. I mean, I have the beginnings of a schedule, and with it some intentions. (Anyone who hopes to see me in the Bay Area: please contact me if you don't have my cell phone number. It will be a better contact mode than e-mail for anything time-sensitive.) I'm bringing stuff to work on, but I don't have a particular set of goals in mind for the week -- no X thousand words, no finishing Y, no Z chapters of Q. I'm not even bringing things that count as research reading in the near-term. What is this called? Is this what is known as "vacation"? Is this what they call "realistic expectation" and "relaxation"? How very eccentric.

I hate the telephone. Hate. Haaaaaate. But I have finished two phone chores, leaving two more for the week, unless something comes up. I am mighty. I am fierce. Etc. I should probably go dig up the documentation I need to make those other two phone calls right now, and then I can feel virtuous and, more importantly, liberated from the phone for the rest of the week. The basement is cold. Perhaps if I get tea after digging. Hmm. Perhaps if I promise myself more of the monkey chapter after. The monkey chapter is creepier than I expected. I never expect to be creepy. I think of my own brain as a sunlit meadow. It is apparently a very creepy sunlit meadow sometimes. Other people seem to have noticed this on the order of...um...well, it's looking like eight years ago now, I guess, when the college lit mag published one of my stories.* The self-image, it sometimes takes a good while to catch up. I think it's partly that I'm one of the least depressive people I know, so I sort of think of myself as skipping around singing tra-la in comparison to the rest of you lot. And I forget to account for much of my social group being...writers.

In unrelated news, if there is some chance that you will be in the San Francisco Bay Area in late February or early March, please e-mail me. (Some of you should already have these e-mails. Others of you -- I have either misplaced your e-mail or (mentally) misplaced you, as in, placed you somewhere else. For irrelevant example, I have to remind myself every time I read callunav and juliansinger's posts that they are at least one city farther north than I always think they are, sometimes two. So: Bay Area. Help.)

*I wrote it in a fit of pique at my fiction studio prof. He loved it. My fits of pique are often ineffective in this way. "Take that -- I'll write you a story!" "Oh, cool!" "*sigh*"