We're back. I'm so glad I like my job and my coworkers, or I'd be totally bummed to no longer be on vacation.

    

 

We missed our flight from New York. There was traffic on 3rd Ave, and we got to the airport twelve minutes after the cutoff time for check-in. Twelve minutes. Seriously. We went to the counter, and I did my usual, "be nice while weeping big, fat tears" to see if the agent would cut us a break. It has always worked in the past, but I've only ever used it while traveling alone and trying to convince a male agent to be nice to me. This time, there were two of us, and the agent was female. She still almost let us on the plane, because I suggested that we could just carry everything on to avoid the extra time it would take the load the baggage into cargo. We had too many, but she was going to let that one slip, but Superman's bag was too big to carry-on. So we had to take the same flight the next day.

We spent a glamorous night in the airport Ramada. It just didn't seem worth it to haul our bags back into another cab to Manhattan, pay for another hotel night there, check out in the morning, and drag ourselves back out to the airport again.

We got to the airport over two hours early the next day, just to be safe, and killed time in one of the airport restaurants (I don't like eating airplane food, and wanted to get on the plane, pop a sleeping pill and get as much rest as possible, rather than waiting for the food cart to come around). Thirty minutes before the flight was supposed to take off, it was still listed as "On Time." And then they announced that the plane was out of service, and that they would make further announcements as to their decision later.

What?!

Fortunately for them (and for me, but mostly for them, since bad things would have happened if I had failed to get on a flight for the second day in a row), they found a replacement plane, and we left about an hour and a half late. If they had canceled the flight, I think I probably would have punched someone, rather than going back to the airport Ramada for another night. I am not a happy person when my travel plans get changed.

We leave for Spain tomorrow afternoon, so in the 56 hours we have here, we're trying to cram in two days of work, two lunches, a dinner, a brunch, and drinks with various friends. And laundry. That one might be the most difficult one, since European laundry cycles are comically long (often about two and a half hours per load), and we have a full schedule from now until we leave. Plus we're sleep-deprived and jet-lagged, and staying up late or getting up early to do laundry seems really unappealing.

Superman continues to be a trooper. He's working a lot, he's sick, and he's being subjected to a full schedule of back-to-back meetups with my random friends, who tend to be odd (in a good way -- I love them), because I'm odd, and he's remained affable and personable throughout. If I were in his position, I would be making excuses to skip out, take a break from the rigorous social schedule, and catch up on work, sleep, and recuperating. Stomach bugs are no joke.

***

On a slightly related note, meeting up with all of my friends from various parts of my past reminds me of what a tightrope I unknowingly walked to get here. Law firms are in tatters, and associates are being laid off every day. The NGO where I last worked is in turmoil, as they try to wind down their work and close up the office. My friends who have left law firms and the NGO where I worked have had mixed experiences afterwards, both in terms of job security and in terms of job satisfaction. Somehow, I'm still OK. Knock on wood.

***

On a completely unrelated note, they broadcast Heidi music throughout the entire building here when it's time for the weekly company Friday happy hour. Awesome.

There's no place like New York. The convenience, the energy, the variety, the subway, the people. I like some things about all of the places I've lived, but in most cases, if I'm nostalgic about a place, it's more about the lifestyle I had while living there -- I miss being a student in Cambridge, and a carefree traveler in Z-town. I miss a lot of the places I've visited and passed through, but that's also partly a lifestyle that I'm missing. New York, on the other hand, is a place I miss on its own merits. No matter what you want and when, you can make it happen in New York. Best city in the world, and I still miss it every day. I miss it now, even though I'm here.

There's nothing like catching up with old friends. Life changes, but real friendships stay the same.

There's nothing like introducing your boyfriend to your friends, and getting universally approving comments and emails afterwards. My friends are terribly picky -- the only person I've ever dated that got a thumbs up from all of my friends was FX. 2FX got pretty good ratings, as well. Many of the others were either tolerated or disliked by most of the people whose opinions I valued most. So to get approvals across the board (parents, sister, friends) is a rare thing, and I'm really enjoying it.

We're finishing up our time in New York, and heading further east in a few hours. We've gone to a wedding, eaten the things we thought were necessary (including Vosges bacon chocolate, soup dumplings, a New York-style brunch, and dinner at Le Bernardin), caught up with ten different friends, worked from the New York office (where I ran a four-office VC training that I was really dreading, because the team I was training is so willfully clueless about legal issues -- so glad that's done), and commented wistfully (this part was mostly me) about the things that New York has that the rest of the world lacks.

A so-so pic (we don't take many) from a few weeks ago of me and Superman in Santa Cruz.

My nephew used to watch a lot of Thomas and Friends, that children's show with the creepy toy trains with the shifty eyes. Generally speaking, every episode has the same plot -- one of the trains does something wrong, and it causes "confusion and delay," which is apparently the worst thing in the world. I laugh about it, but for me, this is pretty close to the truth. I dislike uncertainty, lack of definition, and scheduling snafus so much that in many cases, I would rather have a bad outcome immediately than wait until later for a possibly good, possibly bad outcome.

And how is the creepy train show relevant now, you might ask?

Superman and I have a seventeen day trip planned, as I've mentioned before. We were supposed to leave a few hours ago, and return on Memorial Day. Because his work got crazy, we had to change our flight to the red-eye tonight (for a fee) and give up one night of our hotel reservation in New York (with no reimbursement). Actual losses are just the change fees, one night of hotel charges, and the inconvenience of taking the red-eye instead of the afternoon flight. In the grand scheme of our trip and the grander scheme of our lives, not such a big deal.

For me, however, it was nothing short of disaster when I found out yesterday that we'd have to do it. The confusion and delay frustrated me so much that I picked a fight with Superman, and we were not really able to resolve it, since he thinks it was a justified sacrifice made for work, and I feel like he bends over backwards (at his and my expense) for things that I don't think are such important causes (sitting in on a conference call, letting his ex bail on her promise to watch the dog, and so on). He has more obligations and responsibilities than I do, and he takes them more seriously than I do.

Work just isn't the highest priority on my list. That became pretty apparent when I was the first person in my class to flee the law firm to spend four years "working" (because working in Europe doesn't really count as work, the way Americans define it) in Europe. And letting exes take advantage of me and shirk their responsibilities at my expense is also not a high priority for me. For him, however, he says that he weighs out the costs and benefits in each situation and decides that the inconvenience of capitulating is lower than the cost of refusing to give in. Fair enough, but I just wish my interests weren't negatively affected by his analysis.

I think that my frustration in such instances isn't about the money or time. It's about the lack of control -- the knowledge that these third parties (Superman's boss and ex) are able to negatively affect my life, and I can't do anything to change it or retaliate. The only thing worse than having a problem is having a problem that you can't fix. Superman asked why I was venting my frustrations on him, since he feels powerless, as well, but who else is there? I can't go to his boss or his ex. Anyone else is irrelevant. He's the only person related to the problem that I can actually complain to. So I do.

I think I might be especially sensitive to this kind of thing because I spent most of my vacations when I was younger watching my mom silently (and sometimes not so silently) fume when my dad spent most of the time reviewing documents, taking conference calls, and faxing comments to people. There is a big difference between having someone being on vacation with you, and having them attending it with you. My dad often seemed to just attend our vacations. So I get frustrated if I feel like someone is just attending, rather than being involved.

As different as we are, my mom, sister and I share this aversion to confusion and delay in our own ways. My mom is not a great planner, and she doesn't really know how to make things turn out the way she wants to, so she just fusses and frets whenever there is murkiness, chaos, or scheduling problems. My sister is the ultimate planner and fixer of things, so she kicks into high gear and imposes meticulous order on the entire universe if the universe is threatening to turn entropic. I am somewhere in the middle -- stuck between feeling helpless (like my mom) and seeing that there might be a solution (like my sister). It's an annoying place to be, knowing that there is a problem and that there might be a solution, but not actually being able to get everything to cooperate and implement my grand master plans.

I was telling my mom about the confusion and delay a little bit last night, which is probably the best thing that happened in Superman's favor in this argument, and he wasn't even there. When I told her (fairly neutrally) that we were going to take a different flight out, she immediately asked if it was causing any friction (which had also been my sister's first question, which means that either they know exactly how I'll react to things, or this is something that would bug them, or both). Despite my deep frustration, I immediately started explaining why Superman wasn't to blame, and that his boss is unreasonable, and that it's hard to control such things, because I would rather have my parents think favorably of Superman than stick to my guns about an argument I'm having with him. After spending a few minutes arguing his case (the very case I had been arguing against shortly beforehand), I sympathized with him much more.

But I still hate confusion and delay.

Another source of confusion and possible delay that had come up recently was Superman's cat. We've been talking about moving in together when my lease is up at the end of June, but I'm allergic to his cat, which he has been quarter-heartedly trying to re-home since before we ever started dating. But he wasn't doing much about it. And I just wanted to be able to plan -- should I sign a new lease, should I find a new apartment, should I stay on this lease a few extra months, or should I plan on moving? I couldn't answer any of these questions without knowing if he was going to find someone to take the cat, and when. And nothing was happening. So frustrating. Superman felt like he couldn't do anything, and I felt helpless and unable to plan my life because of his cat. I couldn't really go peddling his cat to people, because that seemed selfish, and I didn't really think it was my place, and he had asked his ex to look for takers, to no avail. He refused to give the cat to a random person (so Craigslist was out), and insisted that the new owner would have to at least be a friend of a friend. Dead end.

When I mentioned this to my sister, she asked around and within a few hours, had two people interested in taking the cat. One of them met the cat a few days later, and she's going to take the cat (assuming she still wants it and Superman can bear to part with the cat) when we get back from vacation.

It was as simple as that. This is the difference between Superman, who is a prisoner of his responsibilities, me, a prisoner of other people's limitations, and my sister, who just looks at the universe and orders it to get in shape. Sigh.

***

Our flight leaves in less than five hours, and we're really looking forward to finally going away, seeing friends, and escaping from our (mostly his) responsibilities for a while. There's a wedding to go to, soup dumplings to eat, a dinner reservation at Le Bernardin. He'll meet lots of my friends in New York and Z-town, and we'll travel with Kanga and Roo for a few days. We have reservations in Spain for two of the top ten restaurants in the world. We'll be wine tasting in Rioja, ham tasting in central Spain, and cheese tasting up north.

Can. Not. Wait.

Superman loves to mock me in a good-natured way, and I have to admit that I provide plenty of opportunities for him to laugh. I volunteer information just to make him laugh, because it amuses me, as well. In fact, I keep remembering things I had put into the cold storage part of my brain, and without fail, the things I remember are things that will eventually lead to both of us snorting uncontrollably.

Most of my funniest stories have to do with boys.

There was the boy who, even though he was a 25 year old med student, had a deep and meaningful relationship with a stuffed penguin he called Norm. He would make Norm gesticulate, and then would narrate to me what Norm was thinking or doing. He would then try to get me to engage in conversation with Norm, with him as the interpreter. I declined. He was very hurt when I told him that I found it somewhat effeminate when he made kitten noises on the phone.

There was the guy who was a first violinist in the Z-town orchestra, and who gave me (and my friends) dozens of free tickets to his concerts. It was great. The only problem was that for some reason, being within 10 meters of him gave me the uncontrollable urge to vomit. After one concert, I went up to thank him for the tickets, and came so close to puking on his shoes that I had to hastily take my leave, saying that I felt ill and was going to go home. As soon as I was in the next room, however, I felt fine, and my friends and I stayed another hour at the after-party, only to have him catch me dancing and looking decidedly not-ill. I know, I should have left as soon as I said goodbye to him, but it was a good party.

There was the boy who didn't like having a boring name like Michael, and so renamed himself Mikael (still pronounced Michael). He was a graphic designer who liked to draw cartoon bunny rabbits. I went to Brooklyn and hung out with his roommate and his roommate's friends. They didn't know Mikael very well. We only went on a couple of dates, but I kept hanging out with his roommate and his roommate's friends. We went to concerts together. They never invited him.

There was my second high school boyfriend, whom I never even kissed. He was my best guy friend, and he was my default date to every formal dance, if neither one of us already had dates. He ended up being gay.

There was the guy with the glass dildo collection that I came across in his sock drawer, but couldn't mention, since that would have meant admitting that I was snooping.

There was my law school boyfriend, who got so drunk one night that he didn't manage to wake up before peeing in my bed.

The litany goes on and on.

And those are just some of the people I actually dated. There are even more entertaining stories pertaining to the guys that I didn't date. And every time I think I'm fresh out of odd stories to tell Superman, another one will come floating from the depths of my subconscious, just in time to provide another round of entertainment.

I asked Superman why he doesn't have strange anecdotes from his dating and non-dating past, but he claims that I have an unusual number of non-standard interactions with people. I stubbornly refuse to agree with him, but the more of these I remember, the more I secretly think he may be right.

I blame it on the boys.

There are a few specimens who save the gender from absolute ruin, however.

There was FX, who used to run screaming every time he saw me with tweezers, because it meant I was probably going to try to pin him down and tweeze his eyebrows. When I did pin him down, he tolerated it admirably. He was the nicest guy I've dated, other than Superman. We went to see Dancer in the Dark, which was so over-the-top depressing that I started sobbing in the theater, and I didn't have any tissues. I blew my nose on his t-shirt. He didn't mind. He was one of the good ones.

There was 2FX, who is always busy with work, but flies across oceans and continents when I need him. My dog still remembers and loves him so much that he runs in excited circles when I say 2FX's name.

And now, there's Superman. The world needs more guys like Superman. It took me more than enough mishaps and mistakes (and a few lucky accidents) to get here. Looking back, I can laugh at my past follies, and so can Superman. Looking ahead, I hope Superman does some stupid stuff so I'll be able to mock him, too. Hopefully he'll laugh, as well.

This one's for you, Ella.

From the New York Times, quoting the English version of China's Xinhua paper:

"The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China’s fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China’s.

The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while."

I, too, lament my littleness, but don't we all?

[Edit: the NYT then said "Xinhua does not suggest that the cetacean force may have been part of a classified military program, but given that we know that the United States military has at least tried to train dolphins to work for the government, The Lede is not yet willing to rule out the possibility." Seriously?? The NYT are not willing to rule out the possibility of a thousands-strong secret Chinese anti-pirate dolphin army?]

I have always had very vivid dreams, and even more vivid nightmares, so much so that I occasionally have difficulty figuring out whether a "memory" that I have really happened, or if it was just in a dream. My dreams feel so real that when I wake up, it can be hard to erase my residual feelings and reactions. That isn't as big of a deal when it's a good dream, or if it's a nightmare about people I don't like or people I don't know, but it can be difficult when it's a bad dream about people I know and like.

Superman says that he has never seen this happen with anyone else before, but I have had it happen to me many times, and my friends have told similar stories, as well, so I don't *think* I'm completely out there...? I'll very occasionally have a bad dream about a person that I like, and when I wake up, it's so hard to shake the dream off that I'll still have hurt feelings and have to consciously try to "get over" something that never happened, except for in my very realistic dream.

Last week, for example, I dreamed that I had somehow accidentally gotten pregnant, and that I was making plans to get an abortion. It wasn't exactly clear if the baby was Superman's or the last person I dated before him (which in the dream wasn't Apple). I told Superman about it, just as a courtesy, and he broke up with me, because he didn't want to deal with me being pregnant. I was really very upset, and asked him why, since I was getting the problem resolved as quickly as possible, but he said he just didn't want to deal with it. I was devastated. And then I woke up, and spent the next few days trying to get over the imagined breakup, and pestering the very amused Superman about why he would break up with me over something like that. He insisted that if something like that ever happened, he wouldn't break up with me, and would go along with whatever decision I ended up making. And I know him -- I know that he would never do anything like that.

But I still hold the breakup against him. A tiny bit. In jest. Mostly.

***

In real life, things are going well. Really well. Really, really well.

The weather is getting better, and we've been trying to do outdoor activities on weekends. Yes. It's true. I, Troid, a confirmed couch potato and coma patient wannabe, have been spending time going on voluntary hikes and walks. I hate to admit it, but I've actually enjoyed it, and it seems to be making my back problems better. Don't tell anyone.

(On a slightly related note, Superman's friend asked me last week when the last time was that I had gone to the gym. "Um, February." "Oh, that's not too terribly bad." Superman then sold me out, and asked the real question, "February of what year?" D'oh.)

We're leaving for a seventeen day trip in two weeks [Edit: D'oh, by two weeks, I meant four weeks. Wishful thinking]. First, four days in New York: we'll go to a wedding, catch up with friends there, eat at lots of restaurants we want to try out, and work out of the New York office for a couple days. Next, four days in Z-town: Superman will meet my old crew, and we'll work out of the office there for a few days. Then, a week in northern Spain: we'll have a few days on our own, cheese tasting, and then Kanga and Roo will meet us to go ham and wine tasting. We're going to stay in old castles and it's going to be awesome. Then we have a protracted journey home, with one night back in Z, and one night in New York, and we're back in California once again.

I can't wait for this trip. It will be so great to get away from work for a while, to catch up with old friends, to travel with Superman, and to have him meet some of my best friends in New York and Z. Even better, because we're working out of local offices while traveling, we'll only have to take five vacation days for a seventeen day trip.

***

After we get back, it's just another month till we (plan to) move in together. It's likely that I'll just move into his house, unless his ex is able to find a roommate to rent his house from him. It's a nice house, but it's further from work and the city than I'd like, ideally, but it will be good to have less schedule- and pet-juggling to do.

Here's something scary: I told my mom that we were thinking of moving in together, and she said she thought that would be fine. WHAT?? OK, lady, who are you, and what did you do with my mom? Not only that, but after talking to my dad, she later suggested that maybe she and my dad would buy a place (for their eventual retirement), but in the mean time, Superman and I could rent it from them and live there. She even added that she didn't care if Superman and I never got married, that she and my dad really like him, and that they're just glad that we're so happy. Since when did my parents start thinking like that?

Here's something even scarier: I realized that if Superman really wanted to get married (which he doesn't, this is purely hypothetical), I would probably go along with it. I haven't really been into the whole marriage idea since I broke up with FX eight years ago -- I just thought that it wasn't my kind of thing. It seems to be a recipe for disaster for people like me. It creates an expectation of future children. It traps you in a relationship that may be good now, but is quite likely to change later on. Not for me. But Superman actually sees it the same way that I do. He doesn't want kids. He doesn't believe in staying in a doomed relationship just because it's a marriage. It's a much less scary take on the institution than the commonly favored version. And I guess it also helps that the thought of dating Superman for more than a year doesn't make me want to get out my CV and look for a job in another city, which seems to be a disease with which I've been afflicted for the past five years.

That said, I'm still not seeking it out. It's not of great interest to me (other than the opportunity to have a big party with lots of presents and then a big vacation afterwards), and I don't think it's of great interest to Superman, either. It's really more of a theoretical distinction -- the thought of a long-term commitment to Superman doesn't make me want to puke in my mouth, and for me, that's saying a lot.

I admit it, I'm emotionally retarded and commitment-phobic. But maybe I'm improving a little bit. Maybe.

***

I'm still feeling incredibly lucky right now, job-wise. In the midst of this economic climate, I have an interesting job at an amazing company. If I hadn't gotten this job, then the other offer I had was at a firm that shut down. If I hadn't taken either job, and had tried to find a job a few months later, I would have been job hunting in the worst economy in my lifetime, with very little job experience that is relevant to anything outside of a pretty small niche. Law firms are laying people off, putting a freeze on new hires, postponing start dates, and otherwise making things wildly unpredictable for lawyers. It's the same everywhere, and I'm so glad I got a job -- especially this job -- when I did. Whew. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

Even cooler? I'm starting on a new project that actually relates to my personal interests very closely (if you know what I'm referring to, keep it quiet -- this is still confidential). I didn't think that was possible. I work for a company -- a cool company, but still a company -- so I thought I'd be doing funky tech deals and dealing with issues relating software and content and code, which are interesting, but in an academic sense, rather than a personal way. I jokingly told my manager that if Project [My Interests] ever happened, I'd be the right person to do it. We both assumed it never would. Except that it is, and I'm working on it, and the first meeting we had was amazing. Apparently, the engineer who is spearheading it (this project is of deep personal interest to him) was thrilled, and when he went to a meeting to give a progress report, he got all choked up and explained my background, and said that I was "meant to work on this project" with him. I can't wait to see this happen.

***

In summary, life is good. If I'm dreaming, please don't wake me up, or I'll hold it against you.

A few useful things I wish I could do:

(1) Remember people's names after meeting them
(2) Navigate without GPS
(3) Touch type
(4) Talk and type at the same time
(5) Watch TV and work at the same time
(6) Fall asleep like a normal person
(7) Stay asleep like a normal person
(8) Pee fewer times per day
(9) Throw things away
(10) Parallel park
(11) Stay awake while driving more than 20 minutes
(12) See further than four inches without my glasses
(13) Have warmer feet and hands
(14) Cook a good meal from scratch in less than 45 minutes
(15) Sew more than buttons and holes

It’s amazing how many people are having litters of children these days, partly due to advances in medicine, and partly because of religious hang-ups about using contraception or creating and raising more fanatics. And partly for other non-medical, non-religious reasons.

The word-parsing law nerd and the number-loving math nerd in me both get annoyed at people who assume that to “be fruitful and multiply,” people need to run around having SUV-loads of kids.

First of all, who is to say that having kids is the only way to be fruitful? I feel quite fruitful, thank you very much. I am employed, self-sufficient, and I add value to a company that adds a lot of value to people around the world. Some of my friends and family would probably also say that I add some social value to their lives. I’d say that’s pretty fruitful, despite being a childless atheist.

Second of all, multiply by what?? If you leave that open, it could be “multiply by 1,” in which case I have very successfully multiplied myself by 1. In some cases, it might be more fruitful on balance if you multiply yourself by 0. The Darwin Awards recognize this principle, that in some cases, for certain individuals, the world is better off having them multiplying themselves by 0. And then there are the loonies who decide that they’re supposed to multiply themselves by 5 or 10 or even 20.

So that command just isn’t clear enough. What do you mean, “fruitful”? Multiply by what number? Provisions like that should be voided due to insufficient clarity.

Taking religion out of the picture, however, I was talking to one of my co-workers the other day about having children. She is very much like me – we are approximately the same age, atheists, with siblings who have children, very happy to be aunts, but very uninterested in cranking out miniature versions of ourselves.

We were talking about how some people assume that not having children is a selfish decision. And to some extent, it is – I like being unencumbered and free to move, spend, and do as I please. On the other hand, it’s less of a burden on the environment. And really, wouldn’t it be more selfish to have a kid just because everyone else is having one and they’re cute and funny, but then not be a good parent? It’s much better to not have kids and have the carbon footprint of one person than to be a bad parent with extra carbon footprints made by your unwanted carbon copies.

Then we started talking about why people have children. The way I see it, there are three main groups of people who have children:

1. The people who go into it not knowing any better, and don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into until it’s too late.
2. The people who do it for external reasons: because it’s what everyone else does, and to some extent they might even masochistically enjoy the shared sense of struggle and suffering.
3. The people who really want kids for their own internal reasons.

For the record, I really think that only some subset of the third group of people should have kids.

With respect to myself, looking at this little list, I no longer fall into the first category. I think if I had gotten married 10 years ago, I might have had kids as a member of this group, but I now know too much about what goes into having and raising them to stumble blindly onto that path.

As for the second category, I don’t care that everyone else does it, and I don’t care about the shared experience aspect of it. Having kids under this category is sort of like working at a large law firm, in my mind. You subject yourself to the unreasonable whims and wishes of a client or child at all hours. You drop everything to do what they need or want you to do. You give up your social life and your carefree ways. And some people derive some odd sense of satisfaction from that – lawyers and parents often love telling people, “Man, I pulled two all-nighters in a row for [that closing/my kid’s stomach flu],” or “I was all ready to go out for a nice dinner with friends on Friday night, but then [opposing counsel sent a redline over for me to review/the babysitter cancelled].” Yeah, that’s not me.

So that means that the only way I will ever have kids is as a member of the third group. This seems highly unlikely, unless I undergo a drastic change in perspective or a frontal lobotomy.

Conclusion? For the foreseeable future, I will continue to be fruitful at work and in life, and multiply by 1.

[Edit 1 April 2009: I feel so vindicated -- http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyone-have-children/]

We survived the weekend. Superman and I barely held it together through the ceremony -- it's always risky to have two sarcastic atheists with short attention spans seated together in church. The reception was pretty uneventful, and then we retired to my sister's place, where Superman quickly joined in the family pastime of making fun of me. He had fun, and I think the cousins approved.

We slept over at my sister's place, and the next day, after a side trip to get sanity, soup dumplings, and a climbing harness, we dropped by my cousin's place, which had turned into our worst nightmare: a huge throng of yowling kids and harried parents. We escaped upstairs to say hi to the dogs, then found a relatively kid-free zone with some relatively unharried relatives, and Superman was a total trooper. These were my relatives, and I was already feeling pretty overwhelmed, so I can only imagine how Superman was feeling.

It was good to see everyone and to do some catching up, but we could only take so much of the circus-slash-zoo-slash-fruit-of-my-family's-loins, so we decided to make our exit after about an hour and a half. I made my rounds, saying goodbye to all of the aunts and uncles, the way a good Chinese offspring should.

And two, TWO of my aunts commented on the fact that I'm unmarried. One aunt pointed out that I'm now one of two unmarried cousins, and said that it would be my turn soon, and implied that life is so much better once you're married. So glad that Superman wasn't there for that conversation. I was tempted to say any number of snarky things, like, "Oh, but it's so much more fun living in delicious sin!" or "Hm, seeing how marriage looks after 40 years makes me not want to get married," or "Well, I just want sex, not babies, so marriage isn't that important to me," or "Marriage would interfere with my dating life." But I was good, and just ignored her. When I congratulated the mother of the bride, she said, "Thanks!! Now we're just waiting for you! When are you going to finally get married, we LOVE weddings!" Unable to help myself this time, I said, "Well, I'm not a big fan," and kept going. It could have been worse. I could have said something much more offensive.

I don't think my aunts realize that marriage isn't The Main Point of Life for everyone. If marriage were that important to me, I could have been married several times over by now. I'm unmarried by choice, not from lack of opportunity. I don't want to get married to some lame guy and have screaming babies just because it's our biological imperative and our social norm. I would spend every minute of every day figuring out how to put the kids up for adoption, get a quick divorce, and run away, and harping aunts aren't going to make me any more likely to choose that path.

Ugh.

Yesterday, I took the day to revel in things I wanted to do. I slept in. I watched almost an entire mind-numbing season of America's Next Top Model. I got a pedicure and a wax. I bought a chalk bag and chalk for climbing. I picked up truffle oil and cute underwear (ostensibly to replace some of my older pairs of underwear, but I've never been good at throwing them away, and always end up saving them for some unimaginable underwear emergency where it's necessary to have a two or three month supply ready). I had dinner with a side of delicious sin with Superman. I'm legally single with no two-legged dependents, so I'm allowed to have days when it's all about me.