About my trip, all I have to say is “Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, but I presented my poster and got home”. It involved paying for another ticket to keep my husband and I on the same flight home, a delay causing us to miss our connecting flight, and me passing out the morning of my presentation. And I caught up on my sleep all day yesterday, which my psychiatrist would caution against, but the late nights traveling took a toll on me.

Now to get back into writing. I had a weird dream which almost turned into a book, but I thought it would be too cheesy because the fantasy angle was a bit thin and there was a vampire. And a court full of potential victims under a geas to stay and not kill the vampire. And the chosen girl revenging her father masquerading as a adenoidal, unintelligent servant girl. And at least three romance tropes: fake relationship, enemies to friends, and time travel. I don’t know if I could write her without her becoming a Mary Sue, at least in part because she’s the only one without the geas. And there were Edsels. And jousting. Did I mention the vampire? Not all dreams should become stories. (Spoiler: She does not fall in love with the vampire. The vampire is the bad guy, not just misunderstood.)

I’m back from the break feeling somewhat discombobulated, which is how air travel leaves me. I traveled through an airport once that had a “recombobulation room”, and I now wish all airports had them. San Francisco had a “quiet room” which I wished I had time to spend in. Now I need to be recombobulated before I write again. The goal is to do Starbucks and writing tomorrow. And to luxuriate in doing nothing today.