September 29, 2009

• little things

  They say that it’s the little things in life that make all the difference.

  In this case, the little things are pills. Anti-depressants work, and I can never decide if that’s depressing or not. On one hand, it means that I can basically wave a magic wand (well, it takes a few weeks of waving before anything happens), and at least some of my troubles go away. On the other hand, it also means that there is some part of my brain (and a large part of my life) that is completely out of my control — I find it somewhat insulting that when this part of my brain kicks in, there is absolutely nothing I can do on my own to fix it, but if I take these pills and sit around and wait, it flips a switch that I can’t get to on my own. I really hate that. And then there are the side effects. Nothing like having unbearable depression lift so that nearly unbearable nausea and insomnia can take over, instead.

  In any case, at least it’s making a difference.

  Superman has been amazing. He put up with the random rage and despair before, and he puts up with the nausea and whining now. He noticed that I’m happier when I have friends and plans, so he (who is not the planning type) suggests movies, dinners, and other activities with people, takes extra time to spend with me alone, and booked a trip to Hawaii so that I can finally get him diving. He realized that I feel sicker on the weekends because we aren’t at work, so I’m not eating as regularly, so he goes and gets groceries and makes me breakfast.

  My perspective has improved enough that I’m laughing at inappropriate things again — we spent a good 20 minutes the other night looking through the San Jose phone book for unfortunate names. Seriously, if your last name is Buttz, why would you name your son Richard?

  ***

  Roo was in town a few weeks ago, and it was good to see him and really catch up — we had a few looong conversations, and really dissected what we’re trying to get out of our lives, and what we see in our futures. One thing that kept coming up was the topic of children. I’m not really a “kid person.” I don’t enjoy kids very much, unless it’s in small doses, the children are well-behaved, and I’m closely related to them. I make a better aunt than I would a parent, and I recognize that. I’m better off if I don’t have kids, and kids are better off not having me as a parent. Most people do end up having kids, though, and Roo will be one of them. We had a really lengthy discussion about children, in which Roo tried to convince me that maybe I should have kids, and I think it’s the first time I’ve really tried to articulate all at one time my reasoning for not wanting children. It didn’t change my mind at all, but it gave me more clarity about why I feel the way I feel. It was useful just to organize my thoughts and opinions and say them all together. I’ll have to write it all out here soon.

  Roo happened to be in town for Superman’s birthday, so he came out for drinks and then to a fancy birthday dinner at Cyrus — it was the best meal I’ve had in the U.S., better than Jean-Georges or Le Bernardin in New York, Manresa or Michael Mina in the Bay Area.

  ***

  Work is going well. We had a department off-site to go to Monterey for three days last week, and the legal teams from our New York and DC offices flew in, as well. It was everything you’d expect a legal department event to be — a lot of alcohol and food, some bleary-eyed seminars and presentations, and more alcohol and food. Given the company we work for, there was also schwag (gym bags, water bottles, Rubik’s cubes, and other little toys), a Rock Band competition, a pie-eating contest, lots of dancing, glow necklaces, s’mores, bonfires, an 80′s cover band, and people getting thrown in the pool of the private suite the head of the department was staying in. It was actually a ton of fun, which was surprising — I don’t really expect official work events to be fun, but it was awesome.

  One of the things that I thought about while on the retreat was the fact that there are a significant number of people in the company (and in my department) who are rich enough that they really don’t need to work anymore (lucky pre-IPO bastards). They stay, anyways, because they like it here, and I find it really comforting — money is basically meaningless to them at this point, but they still come to work every day because they like the people they work with, the work they do, and the company they work for.

  ***

  After the off-site was over, Superman and I slept in (we managed to do some room-swapping and ended up sharing a room at the off-site), then went to the Monterey Aquarium. We spent a few hours there, and I told him things about fish that he didn’t know, and it was just a perfect date — something different than we usually do, farther away than we usually go, and with the added bonus of being during a work day, so it felt like stolen time. It got me really psyched for our trip to Hawaii, which is less than three weeks away. Hawaii will be an anniversary trip — our one year is in less than a month. Crazy, how time has flown by.

  2FX asked me how we were doing, and I said we’re doing well, in part because Superman understands me and is good at managing me. I’ve come to believe that a good relationship involves good management — each person needs to learn the other’s weaknesses and figure out how to manage them so that they aren’t a problem, but do so in a way that the other person doesn’t feel like they are being managed. Superman is good at that. I’m not an easy person to manage.

  ***

  This song has been stuck in my head ever since I watched the latest episode of Glee (which is the only one that has lived up to the pilot). The scene with the football team? Classic.

  • 5:47 pm
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