Tuesday, I interviewed Nick Mamatas on our podcast at work, then went to dinner with him and Tim at Ramblas, a yummy tapas place. It's nice to get to hang out with Nick, since he lives all the way across the country again. After dinner we went to Nick and Daphne's reading at Modern Times bookstore down the street.

Nick read from his new book, Under My Roof, which is a fascinating tale of a 12-year-old boy whose father builds a nuclear bomb and declares his house an independent nation. Nick's a good reader, which surprised me more than maybe it should have. I sometimes have to ask him to repeat himself when he talks (he talks fast and low, and while I'm not deaf, I sometimes have trouble hearing, especially in loud situations), so I guess I thought he'd read the way he talks, but instead he slowed down (for Nick), and really interpreted the material. I was very impressed.

Then Daphne Gottlieb, who was upright for the first time in five days (she's been very ill), took the stage. Even sick, shaking from the psuedophed, holding onto the podium, she was amazing. I think she might be the best performance poet I've ever seen... hell, the best reader I've ever seen. I got those chills one gets when you're witnessing a legend perform -- I felt very lucky just to have seen her, let alone to know her. I feel this way every time I see her perform, but there was something about her being sick and *still* pulling it off that drove the point home. Wow.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went out for drinks, hung out, chatted, etc. A very fun night.

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Monday's dance class totally kicked my ass. I couldn't help but think of Laura Chavoen's yoga teacher (I'd link to the story, but it's in Bill Shunn's last podcast, which if you don't listen to, you should; it's good), who promised her class that the classes in the first few months of the year would be brutal to "weed out people who don't want to be here", that is, those New Year's resolutions people. I don't know why my dance teacher would want to hurt us like that, though; our class wasn't crowded by a long shot.

Anyway, he had us jumping, falling from the jump over the tops of our feet to our knees, rolling over our shins on the floor, and so forth, over and over and over again. I think by the end of it I was glaring at him, as he sort of sounded sadly hopeful when he said, "see you next class!". Sigh. I have bruises the size of oranges on my knees and the tops of my feet, in addition to the usual sore muscles, and I really think I might skip next week's class just to both give my bruises time to heal and give my teacher time to work this routine out of his rotation.

I have been very good so far this year about working out in some way every other day. I went to the gym last night, did the precor, some situps and pushups. I have determined that classic Prince (well, early '90's) is the most motivating music to workout to. There's something about the beat combined with the sexy that really makes me push myself. It works for both jogging *and* situps/ pushups. I'll have to make a Prince-only playlist for the gym.

Tim's been cooking! Now, the book he's using isn't exactly healthy eating (we've had fried or breaded chicken twice this week), but I don't mind so much when I eat like that right after a good workout. And I looooove being cooked for! I'm not a cook -- I can follow a recipe, even improvise a tiny bit, but I just have never been able to throw myself into it. Someday I'll write about my weird relationship with food, (at least I no longer actively resent the fact that we have to eat to fuel ourselves), but I think I'm more or less getting over it. Anyway, Tim's been cooking, he's excellent at it, and I couldn't be happier about it. Yay!

This is getting long for me, so I guess I'll stop rambling at y'all. Ciao!