Where does the time go?

So the Sunday evening date was, well, easy. Like having a drink with a friend. Relaxed, funny. Interesting guy. I can see I run the risk of being too laid back about dating: I should be worrying about more than my shoe choice for the evening ahead. A healthy dose of trepidation/ anticipation is necessary to keep me on my toes, I think. Tomorrow I have a dinner date (with the charming guy from last week) in the West Village, although I’m starting to wonder from where I will carve out the time.

Suddenly we are half way through March, I leave for LAX in exactly two weeks and there is so much for me to do that my head is spinning. I think I’m going to have to go cold turkey from Twitter & Bloglines for a few days if I am to have any hope of getting up to speed.

I have to burrow through my storage container for my summer clothes to sort & wash, finish a draft of the first four chapters of my novel, lose ten lbs, get a mani/pedi, earn some money, and tie up all my writing commissions for California. (No, I’m not just lotos eating for a month on the West Coast, I’ll be wearing my journalist’s hat for a fair part of the trip. Need any stories from CA? I'm your gal. Email me!)

I have at least booked a one way flight to Los Angeles, ($128!), and reserved a car for an initial month. My itinerary is both set & fluid enough for me to feel relaxed about my plans out there. I have a few chunks of time with no plans or places to stay, but I can’t get that over-excited about it: things always work out, and there is so much to explore. I keep pulling up maps of California & Nevada on my laptop and gloating to myself. Death Valley! Joshua Tree! Canyons! The Getty Center! Redwoods! Hot springs! Frank Gehry!

I am seriously considering extending my trip to spend the first fortnight of May in Los Angeles and have been scanning Craigslist for a suitable sublet/house sitting gig/god knows what. It’s tricky tho when I have only the broadest brush stroke sense of LA’s geography. Still, I guess I’ll have more of an idea once I get there and if the worst comes to the worst, there’s a sofabed with my name on it in the house of one of my best friends from school. (I know I could start harassing friends of friends to put me up but, even after two years in Manhattan, I am way, way too English to go down that route.)