Lots has happened in the last few months:

• April totally sucked, as I suddenly adjusted to life without a dog, and dealt with an ever-expanding launch for my main product. I was basically out of commission for almost a week, trying to take care of my dog as he died, and still keep up with work. Highlight of the month was probably a trip to French Laundry for my sister's 40th birthday. Other cool things that happened in April: we pranked our founder's car into a pink Batmobile, Boyfriend and I went to see a Sigur Ros concert, 
• May sucked less. The whole Legal department went to LA for a few days of token seminars and mass debauchery. My sister and I went to Portland for a long weekend, to continue celebrating her 40th birthday. 
• June was pretty good. Boyfriend and I went to Europe for a combination of going to a dear friend's wedding (in a castle!), working from the Z-town office to catch up with friends, and going on vacation in a ridiculously pimped out villa in Cyprus with Kanga, Roo, and another friend. We had five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a heated pool, indoor and outdoor kitchens, seemingly infinite chairs and lounges, and a sweet view of the Mediterranean. When we got back, I couldn't wait any longer, and I went to a shelter and found a new canine buddy, who is having his one-month adopt-a-versary today. He's sweet and funny and crazy and still something of a puppy. We've got lots to work on, but I'm looking forward to many eyars of adventures with him. I still miss my last dog like crazy, but it's good to be part of a human-dog twosome again.
• Coming up: birthday next month, but more importantly, we're going to Tokyo and Palau over Christmas and New Year! It has been too long since our last dive trip and too long since we've taken more than a week of vacation time at once (over two years, in fact, and by then, almost three years). We are going to live it up -- we got a good deal on first class tickets to Tokyo, and will be staying on the same island in Palau that we did last time (very rustic, but right on top of the most amazing dive sites I've ever seen).

Looks like if Xanga doesn't raise about $17K by the end of the month, it might get shut down. Still trying to figure out where to post in the future, and I'm thinking I might go with posts to a limited circle on Google+ -- let me know in Comments if you'd like to be added to that circle (you can PM me your Gmail address, since I'll need that in order to add you to that circle), because they won't be public posts.

I've had my dog for almost eleven years, since I was still in law school. He's almost thirteen now. He lived in Manhattan with me and shared my suffering when I was studying for the Bar and working as a first year associate. He was a key factor in my decision to move to Europe for four years (because it was a dog-friendly office), and a key factor in my decision to apply for a job in California (same reason). He has tried to teach me so much about love, loyalty, forgiveness, trust, and patience. I haven't learned very well, but he never gives up on me.

Yesterday (was it really only yesterday?), I thought he was just an old dog with some back pain that was making him eat and move around less (that was the diagnosis after a couple visits in February and March).

We went to the vet twice yesterday (one scheduled, when the vet said his back was looking normal, but found a growth on his liver; and a later visit to the ER, after he collapsed at home), then had a follow-up visit this morning (where they confirmed that there was a large growth on his spleen that had spread to his liver and said it appeared to be inoperable). We went to an oncologist for a second opinion, and it turns out that he has an extremely aggressive hemangiosarcoma that took over his spleen and spread to his liver very quickly. There is nothing to be done, apparently, other than cry more than I've cried in the last five years put together (maybe more than in the last ten years put together), keep him quiet at home in my own little one-dog hospice, give him palliative care, feed him tiny, home-cooked meals every day (the tumors have squashed his stomach and intestines, so he has little interest in food, and can only eat a few bites without vomiting), and agonize over trying to figure out when he crosses the line from "still getting by" to "time to say goodbye." It's probably going to be a matter of hours or days, or if I'm lucky, a week or two, three if miracles exist.

I love him more than all but a scant handful of other living beings in this world. I don't know what I'm going to do without him. I keep thinking of all the things he will never do again -- he'll never do his happy dance for treats, he'll never go to another meeting at work, he'll never eat another rawhide, he'll never chase his butt with hilarious ferocity, he'll never run across the house and start trying to dig a hole in his bed, he'll never see some of his most special friends, he'll never get so happy to see my boyfriend that he starts crying with excitement, he'll never paw at my leg to get some lap time. Then are the things I'll never get to do again -- I'll never walk through the halls at work and hear his trademark jingle as he trots along beside me, I'll never rub his belly again (it's too tender), I'll never hug him or hold him up to do little dances (he's too sensitive), I'll never get videos of all his funny things that I never got around to taking because I always thought there would be a next time. We'll never chase each other around the house. We'll never wrestle (him with his whole body, me with just my hand). We'll never go for a walk. We'll never celebrate our next anniversary together. I know you don't grow old with a dog, I just hoped to grow a little bit older together. I'm not ready for this. I need more time. I need to rewind and relive some of the days before his decline, and really pay attention.

Sorry for the downer. My world is collapsing, and I just needed to write it down.

Starting in college, a fair number of my friends have come out and told their friends and family that they are gay (I did a lot of music, theater, and drama, so it has actually been a fairly large number of my friends). It's always good when someone is comfortable enough in their own skin to tell people who they are, and it usually only takes a brief period before my mind shuffles them into the corresponding pool of people I could set them up with (read: potential terrible blind dates that could happen).

This has happened enough that I thought that no revelation of sexual orientation could surprise me. Turns out that my mind can still be boggled, but only in reverse -- if I have received what I thought was reliable information that someone is gay, and then I later learn that they are straight, it completely blows my mind. 

It's that time of year again...

My goals for 2012, with final commentary:

• Give more -- I really enjoyed increasing my donations of both money and clothes, and want to continue this upward trend. [I had a bit of a late start on this one, but went gangbusters in Q4, finding a bunch of new charities to add to my list, and giving more overall than last year, which was already a record year for me. Final grade: A]
• Lose some -- I gained a rather unprecedented ten pounds in the last year, mostly due to my nighttime eating, so I'd like to get back to my normal weight. [Started thinking about this one in July, but managed to stick to a reasonable diet and exercise plan for five months, and ended up losing 10% of my body weight, and fitting back into all of my old clothes. Final grade: A]
• See people -- I find myself becoming something of a hermit (partly to spend prodigious amounts of time reading, sleeping, and watching TV, but partly out of sheer laziness). I should spend more time with people. [This one is hard to quantify, and I should have set some kind of metric to meet, but I did see people a little bit more than before, although if I'm going to be honest, most work days end up being a loop between bed-desk-couch, and most weekends end up being a loop between bed and couch. On the other hand, maybe phone and email count towards this one? Final grade: B-]
• Doubt less -- I want to be more appreciative and less cynical and regain some measure of optimism. [I've been sticking with my other blog, which has been a good way to keep looking for good things in life. Work, which admittedly dominates my life, is going better, which has improved my outlook, but I've also had a few setbacks from contemplating the deaths of two friends and wondering if any job is worth the number of Tums and Ambien I take every day. Final grade: B]

2012 Highs:

• Finally going full-time with my new group at work
• Being at Google I/O in June (the last time I felt like such a rock star was on my college choir's South American tour in 2000)
• Going to Scotland and Iceland in August (bagpipes! circus performers! improv! hot springs! a 10-cheese cheese plate!)
• Making it to 151 books in a year

2012 Lows:

• Losing two friends: MC and JRS
• Experiencing work-induced nightmares and heartburn for the first time leading up to I/O
• Getting the stomach flu in December
• Looking back on the year and realizing that I'd only left the Bay Area for non-work purposes a grand total of three times

2012 Weird Moments:

• Making a rather tough decision at work to report something that just seemed wrong. I'm pretty sure it was the right thing to do, but it was hard.

2013 Aspirations:

• Reduce: I'm not going to read 150 books this year. I've done it for two years, and I'm going to go for 100 this year, in order to make room for other pastimes in my life. Also, I'm going to get rid of more physical stuff to make room for more space in my life.
• Sleep: I want to learn how to sleep like a normal person, with a normal bedtime, and no sleeping pills. I haven't been able to do this in years.
• Learn: I'm going to figure out how to sell stock and options and whether to put some of my savings into a Roth IRA or something else. I'm going to spend more time with my mom to add more recipes to the family cookbook we started this year.
• Make: I want to make things. Maybe I'll take art lessons or join a choir. Maybe I'll scan all of my old photos, and organize them into photo books. I'll get the Dr. Seuss print that Superman gave me framed, and hang it up, and maybe I'll find other things to frame and hang, as well.
• Enjoy: Even if I can't travel abroad as much as I used to, I'll find ways to enjoy myself locally. More girls' nights, more local overnight trips, more spa time. If I can't cure my restlessness with far-flung travel, maybe I can cure it with variation from routine.

Before I do my annual State of the Troid entry, I have one last post to make for 2012.

An old friend from my law school days took his own life right before Christmas. He had struggled with depression for years, and he and life weren't on good terms. His deep depression led to him losing his job, first in 2005, and again in 2006, and he stayed unemployed through the recession. His girlfriend of six years toughed it out with him through three years of anguish before she was unable to do it anymore. He gradually distanced himself from his friends and erased himself from the earth, and alternated between self-hatred, loneliness, despair, and anger. He spent some time in the hospital, but then figured out how to trick the doctors, and he refused to take meds or see a therapist, insisting that he either wasn't worth the treatment, or that if he were a better person, then he wouldn't need treatment.

He wasn't always like that.

In law school, he was smart and silly and loyal and funny. We were already in the age of cell phones, yet I knew his phone number by heart, which means something, when your phone can remember all of your friends' numbers for you. I could call him in the middle of the night, and if I was having a bad night (which was often the case in law school), he would grab whatever food or snacks he had handy (and since we were students, it was usually something like a carton of orange juice and a box of crackers), and he would come to my apartment and crack jokes and hang out so that I didn't have to be alone with my sadness. When we were out with friends, having fun, he and I both derived endless glee from making terrible puns. He threw parties. He didn't laugh at me when I made a batch of chili for our friends and forgot to add the beans. We were like kids together. His bedroom was very large for a student apartment in New York, and we would back up for a running start, hurtle across the room, and take flying, jumping leaps onto his bed. Until we broke it. He loved snowboarding and kickboxing. He was built like a fire hydrant. One time, he actually walked straight into a fire hydrant, which nailed him so hard that he fell over, clutching his crotch, laughing and crying at the same time. He loved telling funny stories about stupid things he had done, just to get a laugh. When I got out of the hospital, he didn't judge me, but was sad that I hadn't told him how much I had been struggling. When I told him I was moving away from campus, he asked me not to, saying that I was his best friend and that we would never see each other again, but when it was time for me to move, he helped me take apart my heavy furniture.

We drifted apart once he started dating his law school girlfriend (whom he dated for six years), although I periodically sent him emails to see how he was doing, with no response. When we finally got back in touch, he had already changed from the lighthearted, happy person I had known to a shadow of his former self, lost in a darkness he couldn't imagine escaping. He was ashamed of himself, and of who he had become.

Could I have been a better friend to him? We had sporadic contact over the last few years, but his darkness was so deep and hopeless, and I'm not a psychiatrist, so I never knew what to say or do, or if what I said or did was helping or hurting him. The only thing I could tell was that he didn't seem to be improving, and I was definitely crumbling with him. I sometimes felt like I was on a leaky lifeboat that could hardly support my own weight, and I didn't think I could take on the weight another person's anguish at the same time without having both of us go under. I feel guilty and ashamed for not having found a way to make him want to live, to try, to take his meds, to do something to fight the darkness. I of all people should know what that dark, howling, empty, lonely tunnel is like, and I should have done more. When I could, I talked to him, I sent him messages, I told him that I loved him and that many of his old friends that he had lost touch with would love to hear from him, I tried to get him medical attention, but there were many times that I couldn't, or maybe I just wouldn't. I felt like it wasn't a task I could handle, but I'm not sure who I thought would handle it. In the end, was I just another person who gave up on him? There was a suicide note, and someone said that my name was in it. I want to know. I don't want to know.

Should that have been me? Every year, I think back to January 2002, and I think of what might have been.

We were the same, he and I, except that I had health insurance. I had a best friend who happened to be visiting. I had a sister who dropped everything to come out and figure out what to do next and how to get my parents on board (mental illness is stigmatized in traditional Asian culture, and I credit my sister with teaching my parents that it is an illness to be treated, not a perversity to be ignored). I was a student, and didn't have to hold down a steady job while I was recovering. I was a girl, and therefore allowed to appear weak. All these things, are they enough to decide who lives and who dies? I don't know. 

RIP, JRS. You were loved and you are missed by many people who wish life had been kinder to you, and that you had been kinder to yourself. I'm sorry I couldn't save you, or at least convince you that you were worth saving.

When I was in junior high, my Asian immigrant parents were both quite conservative: they emphasized financial responsibility, they voted for Republicans, and they didn't believe in gay rights (to be fair, back in the late 80's and early 90's in suburban Delaware, there wasn't a whole lot going on with the gay rights movement). I remember having a purely theoretical (because none of us knew any gay people) but still very emotional argument with them about gay rights. My mom was mostly silent. My dad just kept restating that it was wrong, unnatural, and disgusting. My sister was away at college. I sat at the dinner table, young, inarticulate with frustration, and crying in anger, but firmly convinced that my dad was wrong. We had the conversation when my sister was home from college, too, and although she was able to speak with more maturity and experience, it still didn't go well.

Over the years, my parents drifted towards the center, abandoning the Republican party to vote for Bill Clinton (and every Democratic candidate since then), less based on issues such as gay rights and more based on their impression that the Republican candidates just weren't intelligent, and that the Republican party had started getting too extreme. On the most controversial issues, they preferred to remain silent and un-involved, and although gay rights was no longer an issue that my dad would rail against, they approached it with more of a "let's not talk about that in polite conversation" take on things. I wasn't sure how they felt about it, and it wasn't a conversation I sought out, since it was still a purely theoretical one. It didn't seem worth enraging my tiger parents over the issue, since my sister and I are both straight, and sometimes, you need to pick your battles (and if you're a stubborn kid with tiger parents, there are plenty of battles to pick).

I found out yesterday that my parents' old family friend, whom they have known for almost 40 years, doesn't talk to her daughter because her daughter is gay. My parents went out to visit all their old friends from that time, but they set aside some time before the group gathering just to talk to their friend with the estranged daughter. They actively opened up what must have been a difficult and awkward conversations with their friend (and Asians hate having difficult and awkward conversations with their friends). They told her that she is making a mistake, that her daughter is still her daughter, that sexual orientation is a matter of biology and not of choice, and that they analogized blaming someone for being gay with blaming someone for being Asian or short or part of a minority group. They told their friend that there may be no such thing as "normal," and that even if there is, that everyone is "abnormal" in some way, and that's just how it is, and it's OK.

Mind blown.

So it turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks, and I'm so proud that my 71 year old dad has gone through this evolution (revolution?) of the mind, and that he did so not because he was forced to confront the issue (I don't know if he actually knows anyone who is gay?), but because he has gathered more facts and information over the years that changed his mind, and he went against his own initial feelings on the subject, overrode his system of social etiquette, and risked losing an old friendship, because he wants to do the right thing.

I found out today that my boss (the head of the office) from the four years that I lived in Z-town just passed away rather suddenly. She was a great mentor and dear friend to me while I was living there (and my dog loved her with a deep and bladder-stimulating devotion), and I know that I wouldn't have my job now if she hadn't been such a strong advocate for me. She changed my life while I was working for her, and she has changed the entire trajectory of my life since then. 

She worked like crazy, and was always stressed. the rest of us were working European 40-hour weeks, and she was pulling late nights and weekends the whole time. She and I used to half-joke that she was going to work herself to death, and we had talked about her taking some time off and maybe even coming to visit me in California for a while after the job finally finished. It makes me so terribly sad to think that she never got to see the project wrap up, after working so much for so many years, and that she never did get to take that time for herself. It's hard to think of her in the hospital without many friends nearby, and I wonder if she was lonely or scared. It makes me cry to think that her dog and cats will have to find new homes, that I'll never get to see her again, and that I never got to say goodbye. 

We've kept in touch for the four years since I left Europe, with occasional phone calls, texts, and emails, and we've met up for meals when I've been back to visit, but her most recent email to me is still sitting in my inbox, unanswered, signed with "lots of love." She knew that I loved her, too, because I told her every time we talked or emailed or saw each other, but I wish I had replied to her email before it was too late.

Love you, MC, and I will miss you and be grateful for everything you did for me for the rest of my life.

When I was much younger, I wanted to save the world. I wanted to be an environmental lawyer and literally save the world.

I got a little bit older and realized that almost all of the environmental lawyers who are able to make a living are fighting on the wrong side of the battle. 

I felt pretty disillusioned, so I decided that the only realistic fallback was that if I couldn't expect to save the world, then I should just try to do as little harm to the world as possible. How's that for an inspirational mission statement, "I want to do as little harm to the world as possible, while still meeting my financial needs"?

So I went to a law firm, where I tried to fulfill that mission for a very short period of time before I realized that I just couldn't do it. It wasn't enough, and it made me feel dead inside. So I revised yet again, to something more like, "Improve the world in some way that I think is worthwhile, while still meeting my financial needs." And that kept me going pretty well, and I stayed in that job for four years.

I realized that I couldn't go back to just trying to do as little harm as possible.

These days, my personal mission is something like, "Change the world for the better, while still meeting my financial needs, and have fun doing it." It's not quite as big of a dream as "Save the world," but it's more than I thought possible for quite a while.

Due to a combination of factors: staying in one job for four years, dating the same person for over three years, working with mostly married people, living in the suburbs, leading a slower social life, and growing older, I feel like I've become a little bit invisible. Single people living in a city and going out with friends give off a certain vibe that attracts attention, and settled people living in the suburbs and staying in to watch TV don't give off any vibe at all. 

I had kind of forgotten about that vibe, until someone at work asked me out on a date. I think. I realized that since I only moved over to this building recently, and have only just started getting to know the team, the guys I work with now have no idea whether I'm single or unavailable, and so maybe it isn't that I've gotten so terribly plain or frumpy or invisible over the past few years, it's just that everyone I know also knew that I'm off-limits in a way I was never off-limits in the past. Maybe once you've been dating the same person for more than a year or two, everyone else just mentally files you into a different category. It's not that I want people to notice me all the time. I just kind of wondered if I'd changed a lot for the worse over the past few years and become invisible the way I remember "boring old people" being invisible when I was younger.

So, thank you, coworker who asked me on a date, for not knowing that I'm unavailable and going out on a limb and making me feel visible again.

I suppose it's obvious from the last post that this is one of those sweet spots in time when I feel as if the whole world is burning with a secret and brilliant fire that only I can see (as opposed to the times when the world is frozen over in secret and terrifying black ice).

I live for these times.

Quite some time ago, I posted about my simplified quantitative view of how to measure happiness. This post will make a lot more sense if you've read the other one. Or maybe it only makes sense to me.

Anyways, quick summary of that post is that overall happiness (H) is a combination of three subsets of happiness: the momentary kind of happiness that comes and goes based on instantaneous occurrences (“happiness in the Moment”, or h_m), serendipitous joy that is transient and euphoric.  Second, there is the contentment that comes with knowing yourself and liking the self that you know (“happiness with Identity,” or h_i).  And third, there is the general satisfaction that comes with accepting and approving of the world as you perceive it, including your place in that perceived world in the present and the future (“happiness with the Perceived World,” or h_pw). Like so:

H = h_m + h_i + h_pw

Upon further reflection, and based on some experimentation over the last couple of years (in particular on my other blog that focuses on things that make me happy, which I try to update very frequently), I think it's worth tweaking the equation a bit.

You know the stale old saying, "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, did it really make a sound?" Apply that to a feeling. If you're happy about something on some level, but you don't actually perceive that you're happy, then are you really happy? Having a happiness-focused blog (no whining, frequent updates, focus on good things, even if they're very small) has made me realize how many good things happen on a regular basis that would normally not even register on my happiness sensor, except for the fact that I make an effort to perceive them. Observing a positive phenomenon has a lot of impact on how happy it makes me.

It also makes that silly children's song, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" kind of interesting to think about. Break that down phrase by phrase. First, you need to be happy. Then, you need to be aware that you're happy. Finally, you need to acknowledge that you're happy by clapping your hands, which is a symbol of appreciation. So happiness isn't necessarily just a state, but a series of steps -- being in a position to be happy, realizing that you're happy, and acknowledging and appreciating that you're happy.

It makes things so much more complicated, for me, at least, because it's not enough just to have good things happening; I can't just set a goal and assume that reaching the goal will make me happy unless I also take time to notice and think about the fact that I've reached the goal. In order to maximize the effect, I also need to really be aware that they're happening and actively try to enjoy them (which is sometimes hard to do without an artificial reminder system -- for me, it's the blog, for others, it might be something else, like prayer or meditation).

So how does this work into my equation? I think the best way to work it in is that each subset kind of happiness is subject to a multiplier that reflects the perception of that variable and either amplifies or diminishes the variable itself. 

For example, if something really amazing happens that should affect your happiness in the Moment (h_m), but you're preoccupied with something else and don't take full notice of it, or if you somehow otherwise discount it, then the actual happiness you get out of it is not h_m, it's:

(h_m)(p_m),

where p_m is somewhere between 0 and 1 (which decreases the effect of h_m). If, on the other hand, you're disproportionately excited or pleased by the good thing that happened, or you really go out of your way to perceive and appreciate its effect, then p_m would be greater than 1, so that it increases the effect of h_m. If you are somehow level-headed enough that you perceive the event precisely as it is, and have no distorting factors that inflate or deflate its effect on your happiness, then p_m would be exactly 1.

Practically speaking, using this multiplier system and trying to optimize for happiness, then, if something good happens where h_m is positive, it's better to have a p_m of at least 1 (perceive the event and its effect for as much or more than it is worth), so that you can make sure you get the "right" amount (or even a disproportionate amount) of increased happiness from that event. With an unfortunate event where h_m is negative, however, it's probably better that have a p_m that is less than 1 (perceive the event for less than it is worth), so that you can decrease the downer effect of that event on your overall happiness. This can be applied across all three of the h variables and their corresponding p multipliers.

So, here's my new equation, which factors in the distorting effects of perception, acknowledgement, and appreciation (you have to notice that a tree has fallen in the forest, and you not only have to be happy, you also have to know you're happy and acknowledge and appreciate it):

H = (h_m)(p_m) + (h_i)(p_i) + (h_pw)(p_pw), 

where each h variable can be any number, positive or negative, and each p variable can be any number greater than or equal to 0.

That's all I've got for now.