Dear Diary . . . day by day

Sunday, November 25th, 2001 - A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

(Transcribed from my paper journal and edited for content.)
I had a rather good Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving day we went to see Harry Potter before heading up to A Certain Magazine for dinner. The movie was ok - visually pretty cool, and while it was neat to see the book brought to life, I felt as if it was somehow too closely following the book (and I never thought I'd say something like that!). I might have been swayed by Tim's cynicsm, however.
I was a little nervous about dinner, I have to admit; it probably contributed to my urge to just drink wine until I wasn't afraid to join the conversation. Still, I was just beginning to sip my wine as the introductions were made. We'd made it around the circle, but introductions somehow stopped just shy of the suave man in a soft blue jacket, swirling his scotch at the other end of the table.
"Who are we meeting down there?"
"Oh!" I say brightly. "I'm Heather."
"I'm Tim."
"Bob."
"Nice to meet you." I say.
Someone nearby jokes, "Mr. Haber."
Bob corrects him, slightly sternly, "No, she's Mrs. Silverberg. She just writes under her maiden name."
The conversation goes to women keeping their maiden names, and Bob talks about the inconvenience it causes at airports when you don't have the same last name; people don't think you're traveling together.
"Yeah, but eventually people and society will get used to the idea of couples having different surnames."
Bob retorts, "I'm not used to it."
Well, there was no arguing with that.
Soon after, Charles came in and had Tim and I fetch chairs from the other end of the house. Tim was amused that I had almost immediately got into it with the famous writer. I was pleased that I still spoke my mind, no matter how starstuck I might be.
Still, after that I got fairly drunk, not embarrassingly so, but enough that I felt no pain. I chatted with some of Tim's coworkers and their partners, occasionally lending an ear to what Bob was talking about. He's a very impressive man, clean cut and handsome, with strikingly neat silver hair and beard. I got the feeling he liked it when people disagreed with him, as he seemed to enjoy the ensuing lively conversation. His pet peeves of the evening seemed to be the general misuse of words by young writers today ("multiple" and "fortunate vs fortuitous" both prominent examples) and the fact that one of the younger men was wearing a hat. Indoors. And it wasn't passover.
I was having so much fun, drinking wine and eating and talking and listening that I didn't notice what I was eating. I had asked Tim for a bit of turkey, and he had put a full helping on my plate. And I ate it. All of it. Gobble gobble. It probably tasted good at the time; I don't remember exactly. But I paid for it the next night. My body does not like meat.
Anyway, I managed to shake Bob's hand and chitter chatter at Tim all the way home. It was a wonderful evening.
The next day we went down to Santa Cruz where we had a feeding orgy. The oven at Scott's house is so tiny, only one casserole dish can fit at a time. By the 5th dish, I was feeling gorged, but the boys were pushing me to eat more, talking trash and what-not. So, I kept eating. And ended up very sick. I told Scott not to worry too much; at least part of my illness was caused by the turkey throwing my system for a loop. But I probably didn't help things by eating so much on top of that.
Ugh, enough of that. I'm getting nauseous just thinking about that much food again.
ANYway. We drove back on Saturday and I don't remember what we did after that so much.
My apologies for the delay in entries. I hope to update more frequently for the next 2 1/2 weeks.

Exercise log:
Don't remember.
Writing log:
"Janitor's Night Dive" rejected. Sigh.
My Bibliography page.
Current Publications:
Indianapolis Guide at EGrad.com. Written by me, edited by someone else.
In the Shade of You a poem at Speculon.
San Francisco City Guide at EGrad.com. Written by me, edited by someone else.
I'm currently reading:
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

My PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

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