I come from a large extended family. My dad is one of seven siblings, and I am the second youngest of seventeen first cousins. All but three of us are married, and almost all of the married cousins have kids. Other people have families, but we have a Family, capital F, and when there is a Family event, dozens of us show up.

I've mentioned this before -- my family has a bit of a divide over religion. Yes, we're all Asian and nerdy, but half of us are rabidly Christian, and the other half of us are just as rabidly atheist. That issue is especially apparent at weddings. Depending on whose wedding it is, the ceremony can revolve around raise-your-hands-towards-heaven sermons or readings from Winnie the Pooh, and you can be fairly sure that some members of the family are trying not to roll their eyes at whatever is going on up front.

There is a family wedding tomorrow.

It's one of the super-Christian cousins. I am not super-Christian. Or Christian, at all, for that matter.

She is having it on Valentine's Day, because everyone knows that on Valentine's Day, what you really want to do is go to a wedding. I'm not a big Valentine's Day person, so that doesn't bother me too much. The bad part is that it's on a long weekend. Because everyone knows that when you get a long weekend, you would rather go to a wedding than go on vacation.

There won't be dinner at the reception, only hors d'oeuvres. They are anticipating that the reception will last for about four hours, until 7 p.m. At which point, what, we all have to go out and try to find a restaurant that isn't full of Valentine's Day dates?

And the wedding is dry. Dry! No alcohol. Not even a cash bar.

Superman is coming. He's met my immediate family (although my parents didn't realize we were dating at the time), but this is his first encounter with the extended family.

Nothing like bringing your boyfriend to meet your overwhelmingly large family at a dry, dinner-less, super-religious wedding on Valentine's Day, which happens to fall smack int he middle of a long weekend. His friends are in Tahoe this weekend, and he's ditching a long weekend of skiing to go to this with me.

We're thinking of bringing a flask.

My dog is ridiculous.

He is partly Chihuahua, so he gets cold and shivers easily. His best friend in New York was an elderly yellow Lab named Henry. Henry sat around doing nothing most of the time, and was very tolerant of my dog, who would sit on him to stay warm -- his butt would be on Henry's butt, and his front feet would be on the floor.

Fivey never found another dog quite like Henry, and Henry died while we were living abroad. The big dogs he has met since then (and he prefers big dogs) have shown no inclination to let him sit on them.

Superman's dog (Superdog) is a big dog. He is definitely not as old or calm as Henry was. But we've spent a fair amount of time with him, and my dog has shown increasing interest in making Superdog the new Henry. A couple weeks ago, Superman and I were eating breakfast in the kitchen (bacon! pancakes! omelets with prosciutto, parmesan, and truffle oil!), and the two dogs were slinking around, pretending not to beg for food while sniffing each other.

Superdog gave up and flopped on the floor, and my little dork of a dog walked over to him and sat next to him. Then scooted closer. And closer. It was very "high school boy trying to put smooth moves on his crush." Finally, they were touching, and Superdog still seemed OK. This was too exciting, so my dog started fidgeting and wiggling and sniffing, which annoyed Superdog so much that he got up, walked a few feet away, and flopped back down. Repeat this a few times, and finally Superdog gave up on his quiet time, and started rolling around on his back, trying to self-back-scratch.

As he was doing this, his mouth was agape, and his tongue was lolling out (if you have a dog, you know what I'm talking about). He continued this for a few seconds, and my dog watched him in a measuring way, then ran over, and without any warning or explanation, shoved his head into Superdog's mouth, lion tamer-style. Superman and I were as surprised as Superdog, perhaps more, and we started laughing. Fivey pulled his head out of Superdog's mouth, paused for a second to look around, then shoved his head back in. At this point, Superman and I were wishing we had a video camera, and Superdog was wishing that he hadn't opened his mouth. Superdog tried to turn his head or pull back, and in the process, his mouth must have closed a bit. Fives let out an indignant yelp, yanked his head back, then looked at me, as if to say, "Did you see that??? Outrageous! DO something about it!!!" What a dork.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the one, the only, the fearless lion tamer:

Just copying this list over from my Facebook page, since it seems like something that belongs here, as well. I'm not going to tag 25 people on Xanga to do it, since I already did that on Facebook...

1. I decided to become a lawyer when I was eleven -- one of my dad's coworkers asked me what I wanted to do, and that was what came out of my mouth. It's worked out so far.

2. I have great difficulty understanding what people say. I think it's more of an attention issue than a hearing issue.

3. I stumble over my words constantly. I'd like to say it's because my mind is moving faster than my mouth, but I think it's because my mind isn't paying attention to my mouth.

4. I get really frustrated by inefficiency and stupidity, both in myself and in others.

5. I eat my cuticles when I'm anxious. After that, I start wringing my hands, which I didn't realize until a boyfriend pointed it out.

6. I kind of think that my dog's feet smell like some strange hybrid of Cheetos, pork chops, and human feet. Oddly enough, I find that smell endearing, because I love my dog.

7. There is a very, very good chance that I eat more sugar and pork than you do.

8. If you think I'm a dork now, you should have seen me when I was in junior high -- perm, braces, big glasses. I did every kind of nerdy competition and camp there was.

9. I am becoming more and more of a weather wimp -- Boston --> New York --> Zurich --> California, and now I can't deal with clouds or cold anymore. I'm not sure how I lived in those places that had blizzards, endless rain, and cloudy months.

10. I derive a pointless sense of satisfaction from "good" numbers. 10 is good, because it's a round number. 28 is a perfect number (equal to the sum of its factors). And so on. When I was young, 121 was my favorite number, but the reason why is so lame that I'm not going to go into it here.

11. Most kids have a favorite stuffed animal or blanket. I was mostly attached to my pillow.

12. In May, I finally met someone else besides me who forgot how to ride a bike. Yes, it is possible.

13. My officemate and I sometimes use highlighter on my dog's white eyebrows, because it makes us laugh.

14. A large part of my last two job decisions (both of which involved trans-Atlantic moves) have been based on the fact that the offices were dog-friendly. Despite being so attached to my dog, I can't imagine doing anything like that for a child. I'm not really mommy material, I guess.

15. I don't think I've ever had a fight with my sister in my entire life.

16. Despite past dislikes of swimming, boats, and the ocean, my favorite thing to do is to go scuba diving.

17. I suffer from a severe case of Chronic Clumsiness Disease, to the point that I routinely bump into door frames and trip over invisible objects, but underwater, I am not clumsy at all.

18. I went to the eye doctor a couple weeks ago. She told me that my prescription is bad enough that I can get discounted contact lenses because they are a medical necessity. Ouch.

19. I'm not a big fan of heights or working out, but I just started indoor climbing. I pretend that I'm not going up, and that I'm not in a gym.

20. Before moving back to the States, I'd really only ever spent about one year driving. Now I drive every day, but I still find it difficult to focus, and have a tendency to fall asleep if I have to drive for more than about 20 minutes.

21. I love sleeping, but I am not a good sleeper, and need to assemble the following in order to fall asleep -- ear plugs, eye mask, lip balm, a glass of water, and snacks. Other conditions also apply -- I want my shoulders to be warm, but my feet to be cool. I sleep on the side of the bed that is closer to the door and the bathroom. If my dog snores, he is immediately exiled to his room. I like big pillows and firm mattresses.

22. One of my favorite books ever is Carter Beats the Devil, and I'm pretty excited that the author is finally writing another book, set to come out in May.

23. I really dislike excess fat or body hair, on myself or others. I am also lazy, though, so I don't always address those issues, as evidenced by my unshaven legs.

24. I can sometimes listen to a single song on repeat for days at a time.

25. I am really bad at making decisions, and I get paralyzed by choices. Sometimes it helps if someone tries to make a decision for me, and then I suddenly know, "Oh, that's not what I want, at all," and then I can narrow it down a bit.

I've been interviewing some of the kids who applied to Harvard this year, and it's been a somewhat interesting experience. I did four interviews, and I think that two of them don't have a shot in hell, and the other two have a chance, but if they do get in, it will be by the skin of their teeth. Are kids just not as impressive these days? I look at their scores, their grades, their activities, and I think, "Is that it?" Maybe I just was unlucky in the candidates I was assigned. They were all good kids, but nothing to write home about.

The first day of interviews, I was running a bit late, and had trouble finding parking, so I ran in slightly out of breath, still carrying my work backpack. I guess I looked somewhat student-like, except that I'm twelve years older than the students, and I was wearing my work badge and jeans (who wears jeans when they're being interviewed??). In any case, the woman at the check-in desk tried to check me in as a student, rather than as an alumni interviewer. And later, I was chatting with another (older) alumnus, and someone approached us and told us we couldn't conduct an interview there.

The second day of interviews, I didn't have any similar mix-ups until I was walking my second student to the interview room. We were making polite conversation, and he said, "So... are you a student at Harvard?" Um, no, I graduated ten years ago. What made it even worse was that he is Asian, so he shouldn't have the problem that white people have in thinking that Asians all look young and all look the same.

I know I don't wear the same clothes or makeup that people my age usually wear, and I know that Asians look young, but really, do I look eighteen?? I find it particularly strange now, because I'm 30, and when I get up close and personal with a mirror, I think I am starting to get little laugh lines around my eyes and mouth, and a little frown line between my eyes, and I can't see how anyone could possibly mistake me for a high schooler.

I've had these odd moments a lot. The summer after I graduated from college (from college!!), I ran into a casual friend of my mom's in the grocery store. We recognized each other and said hello, and she asked me what I was doing. I said I had just graduated, and was hanging out at home for the summer. She then asked me where I would be going to high school (to high school!!), and then I told her that I had actually finished both high school and college, and would be going to law school the following year.

But I don't really care. It's better to look younger than your age than older.

Being 30 is a bit jarring, sometimes. I think that sometimes, it confuses me, because I never really expected to be 30. After getting out of the hospital seven years ago, I figured that sooner or later, and probably by the time I was 30, I would run out of luck, and would die by accident or on purpose. I never saved money, I never ate healthily, I never really exercised or did anything that could be considered a long-term investment in myself or my future. But look at me -- somehow, I'm 30, and I'm still here.

So, what am I supposed to do now?

I'm feeling lucky. So says one of the buttons on my company's website. And I *am* lucky. Times are tough, and I've been getting random emails from various friends and acquaintances, asking if I have any advice or connections to help them in their job searches. Some are finishing up school (what a terrible time to graduate), some are looking to move, and some are out of work, or will soon be out of work.

So I am extremely lucky in how everything turned out. When I first moved back to the States, I had some regrets that I didn't stay in Europe for a little while longer -- six months, a year. Looking back, that would have been the worst possible scenario. If I had tried to come back even four months later, the markets were already going crazy, and it would have been much harder to get a job. Six months -- no way. Ack. And what if I hadn't gotten a job here? The other offer I had was from a law firm that has since dissolved, and I would be scrambling to find another job in one of the worst job markets in recent history. Eek.

There has been a lot of press dedicated to our stock price (which, like everyone else's, has taken a hit), our budget cuts, and our layoffs (since the company is no longer doubling every year, they decided that having 300 recruiters was excessive, so they laid off 100 of them). But in the grand scheme of things, I still feel lucky. Our stock price has stabilized, and they've decided to let us trade in our underwater stock options for options that are priced according to the current market. The budget cuts haven't been that bad -- we still have free food, subsidized massages, and other great benefits, and I don't really mind if the snack stations have 30 different snacks instead of 50, as I'd rather have more job security than a few extra kinds of chips. The layoffs are bad for those who were laid off, but I really think they were minimal -- 100 employees out of a company of 20,000 isn't terrible, and the layoffs were restricted to an area of the company that is clearly overstaffed for these times. And while most other companies and firms are doing big layoffs, salary freezes, or even salary cuts, we're still posting good profits, and we'll still get our annual bonus in March.

I keep getting stressed out -- about the economy, about my workload, about buying a place -- and I have to keep reminding myself that those are the same stresses that everyone else is dealing with, but I'm lucky enough to have a lot of the other things taken care of. I'm lucky; I just need to remember to keep feeling lucky.

Looking back, some of the most rewarding experiences of my life have taken place when I was outside of my comfort zone. You can't really grow if you stick to what you know. If I had always stuck to what was easy and familiar, I would never have learned how to scuba dive. I would never have moved abroad to a city I had never even visited. I would never have taken random trips to countries I had hardly heard of before buying the plane tickets. I would never have uprooted and moved to California. It is always easier to keep doing what you're doing, than to try something new, scary, and potentially worse than what you are used to.

I think that when I was younger, I was better about pushing myself to do uncomfortable things. With youth comes resilience and an ability to look forwards, rather than backwards, and when you're young, you never really believe that you'll fail so badly that you won't be able to recover. Trying new things can be scary, but it's never going to be The End of All Good Things.

Some examples.

I am by nature a self-conscious person, and I am terribly intimidated by new people and social events where I don't already know a lot of people. Because of that, I went out of my way to practice public speaking and forced myself to meet new people and organize social events. I now enjoy the adrenaline rush that comes with public speaking, I actually like building myself a social network and finding new friends in random places, and I have a soft spot for newcomers and outsiders, because watching them struggle, I can feel their pain and want to spare them that agony if I can.

I was afraid of the ocean and sharks, I wasn't a fan of physical exertion or swimming, and to be honest, I didn't like getting my face wet or spending time on boats, so I learned to scuba dive. I was very attached to my friends, my city, my sense of belonging in Manhattan, my boyfriend, and so I moved to a new place where I didn't know a single person (unless you count my dog). Kanga and I (sometimes accompanied by other friends) embarked on largely unplanned adventures in unknown places, and I had a few adventures of my own, blithely unaffected by bombs, travel advisories, language barriers, and my epic lack of a sense of direction.

As I grow older, I look back on these experiences that taught me so much (some of which are very recent), and I wonder if I will still be able to push myself as time goes on. Will I keep doing things that are uncomfortable and different? They are the things I remember and treasure most as I accumulate years and account for my time, but they seem to become more difficult, the older I get. I can chalk part of that up to lack of opportunity -- it's harder to live such an unfettered life as I begin collecting responsibilities and putting down roots, and there aren't a lot of obvious challenges when you're living a normal life, but at least some part of it must be due to internal shifts, a tendency to want to settle down into what I know, what I'm comfortable with, what I know how to do -- maybe I'm developing a growing reluctance to challenge myself.

Good thing I know people who will always push me to question my boundaries when I get too lazy or timid to do it myself -- my sister, my friends, and these days, Superman. I went climbing yesterday with Superman and his best friends (who are married), whom I'll call the Coppertoes. This combined several things I would normally avoid: exercise, heights, and doing something I'm not good at in front of people who are good at it (this one is probably the worst of the three). And it was fun. I didn't fall, and made it up both routes I tried without much trouble, so we're going again on Thursday, and I'll move onto an intermediate climb, hopefully.

Superman is a big believer that your S.O. should be someone who understands your strengths and weaknesses, and challenges you and supports you in improving yourself and pushing yourself to keep growing. I don't think I've ever really thought about that as a criteria for dating until now -- the support part, yes, but I had never really considered the idea of S.O.'s being in a kind of joint coaching relationship. But it makes so much sense -- who else sees as much of you as your S.O., and who else can be there to monitor your progress all the time? If you get the right partner, they will understand you better than anyone else and be able to see things about you that you can't see yourself. They will be able to give you constructive advice and encouragement, and they will be there to help you make it happen.

I've never been in that kind of relationship before, and I'm curious to see how it goes. So far, it's interesting -- it makes the relationship so much more engaging and interactive on so many levels. Superman notices trends or patterns in my behavior and thinking that I don't really see, and he pushes me to question why I think or do things a certain way. It's something I try to do on my own, but it's hard to see myself objectively. It sounds like it would be intimidating or critical, but the things that he points out are in my best interest. I don't always agree with him, but at least he gets me to think about things I wouldn't otherwise think about. I love him for that.

Now, if only I can figure out a way to do the same thing for him. The problem is that I feel like he has things much more figured out than I do, and the problems he does have are ten years in the future for me, so I wouldn't even know how to begin identifying and approaching them. Sigh... it's hard to see what use I can be to him, since he's got it so much more together than I do.

Work:

One of the people on my team is taking six months off, so her work was being divvied up amongst the rest of us. I decided to take on two of the areas that she covers, one of them being our web browser and the other being something that we call Project Awesome internally, which isn't all that particularly awesome. I thought that was a good amount of work to add to my plate, and figured I could handle the added load.

Today, however, my manager came in and asked if I would be willing to take on an additional area. I asked what it was. Apparently the deal flow with the company that makes those ubiquitous white MP3 players and touch screen phones is so heavy that the guy who manages that relationship can't do it by himself. This is definitely true, because he has had to work on all of his vacations, and works longer and crazier hours than the rest of us. So they decided that it should be split two ways, and I would be the second way.

After some hesitation and discussion with various people in the department, I agreed to take it on -- I decided it was a good move, on balance, and I don't think it's a good idea to turn down work unless there is some compelling reason to do so, especially in this economy. There are a lot of pros: the deals are very complex and intellectually challenging; the internal business people are good to work with; the deals are high profile enough that you get valuable contacts within the company; there is a lot of original legal drafting involved; I would get really valuable lawyering experience and learn a lot; managing this kind of relationship well helps when it's bonus or promotion time... And there's the fact that it's a high-profile, high-publicity relationship, so if you care about media attention or meeting famous people (which I don't), then there's that, as well.

There are cons, though. Apparently, some of the people can be difficult to work with, and the negotiations can be agonizing. The deals are high-pressure with short time constraints, leading to unpredictable and sometimes brutal hours. Having negotiations between two heavyweight companies can mean that the poor lawyers just get tossed around in the middle. These are the reasons why I don't work at a law firm, and they are some of the main cons about being put on deals like these.

I think I did the right thing, job-wise, in taking it on, but I'm a bit nervous for my personal life and sanity. Even if the workload is manageable, I really don't like unpredictability and feeling like I am not the owner and manager of my life, and that's why I was not meant for law firm life. I'm hoping that this new set of deals won't be too big of a step back in that direction, and that I'll get all of the positives out of this, with as few of the negatives as possible. Wish me luck in learning a lot without having to give up too much of my autonomy.

[Edit on 16 Jan 2009: The more I talk to people and find out about this, the more nervous I get, and the less hopeful I am that my life won't turn into lots of late nights and weekends of time-sensitive drafting and editing. Sigh.]

Personal:

My parents know about Superman (as do a few of my coworkers). My mom asked me on the phone over the weekend, and I 'fessed up, and she had some really odd follow-up questions ("How does he feel about Chinese people? Why isn't he married? Have you talked about marriage with him? Do you have to manage his life for him, or can he do it himself? Does he have other interests and friends?" -- some of these are based on past failures, but some are based on her own fixations), but I think she is trying to keep an open mind. My parents are very critical of the guys I date, in general, having only really approved of FX and 2FX. What makes things particularly odd in this situation is that Superman shares the same ethnicity and first name as one of my sister's exes, and I think my parents are having trouble separating the two in their minds -- that failed relationship taints this one, just by power of association.

My dad is in love with Superman's dog. My dad has a special fondness for dogs (as do I), and knowing this, I told Superman to bring his dog to my parents' place when 10 of us went there for dinner. Superman was hesitant to do so, as his dog dislikes car rides, and is rather energetic and boisterous. He brought the dog, however, and my dad fell in love. Every conversation my parents and I have had since then has at some point gone back to the dog. Even as my mom was expressing slight reservations about how things would go between me and Superman, my dad was running around in the background, yelling that he loves the dog. I think that my parents will warm up to the idea once they realize that the things they objected to with my sister's ex are not true for Superman, and that Superman is actually sort of like an improved hybrid of FX and 2FX, assuming that they actually give him a chance.

Superman will be coming to a family wedding in a month, so we'll see how he fares. On a side note, FX is the only boyfriend who has ever met my extended family while we were dating. 2FX met some of them after we had broken up, but never while we were together. Interesting fact. Or maybe not so interesting.

General:

I'm continuing to find my niche here, learning how to do my job, getting to know my friends and coworkers better, settling into a comfortable state of bliss with Superman, but I am starting to have a different kind of struggle. I have always been afraid of routine and repetition. I worry that I'm going to settle into some sort of rut from which I will never again emerge. What if I wake up five or ten years from now and realize that nothing has changed in a long time, and nothing will ever change? Am I ready for that kind of sameness? I feel like I'm having to finally grow up for the first time (I was only faking it before), and I'm not sure I'm really comfortable doing that yet. I've been running my life, holding down a job, paying rent and bills, and being fairly responsible for years now, but this is the first time that the future stretches more than a year or two ahead of me, and that scares me. I'm not sure I'm ready to think of life that way. And yet, now that I'm back in the States, and people are married and having kids, buying houses and investing their money, I feel like I'm supposed to be doing some of those things, as well, and it's really hard to give up the kind of life I used to live for the kind of life I should probably live from here on out.

I sound like a whiny Peter Pan. Sorry. It's just going to take a while for me to get used to the idea that maybe my life will be smoother and contented, rather than rocky and exciting. Maybe I won't go out there and change the world and do great things, and maybe my life will only matter on a smaller scale to fewer people. It's hard to give up the blithe arrogance of youth, isn't it?

2008 Highs

• Finally getting my job offer, after an agonizing interview-slash-waiting process
• Finding out that my crush on Superman was quite mutual, and everything that's happened since then
• To be fair, things with Apple were pretty great for a while
• Seeing my old crew again over Thanksgiving
• Finally finding my feet at work and getting my social life in working order

2008 Lows

• Leaving behind my friends and life for the unknown
• Dealing with and trying to adapt to the unknown
• The long, slow demise of things with Apple
• Finding out about my law school friend and trying to help him cope
• Losing my Yeye

2008 Weird Moments

• "Can we be the kind of friends who change in front of each other?" And other related incidents.
• Less weird than awkward was working with Kanga to manage Apple and my old officemate in Bonaire, to prevent all-out warfare
• Actually, it wasn't a very weird year...

2009 Aspirations

• Sanity and stability -- mental, financial, and everything else ending in -al
• Find a place and buy it (gasp!)
• Plan a trip and take it (oh, how I miss my former life full of crazy travels)
• Move from adequacy to proficiency at my job

And in case you were wondering how the road trip went, it was great. Road trip started a little late, because I was house and dogsitting for my cousin, and then I developed a charming case of the stomach flu, and so we only ended up motoring around for a few days. Superman and I travel really well together, and we had a great time talking, laughing, and goofing off. We avoided real sights, and instead checked out things like Bubblegum Alley:

New Year's Eve was spent in our quiet room in a bed and breakfast on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in wine country. What you do at midnight is supposed to give you some indication as to how the year will go, right? It's going to be an awesome year

It's odd to be back at work, but things are quiet so far. We've decided to go ahead and tell people the truth about us, if asked, so it will be interesting to see how quickly that spreads...

Happy New Year!!

I used to be a New York girl. I wore makeup, heels, cute tops, and skirts. I let it slide a bit and would go to grubby bars in jean skirts and flip flops, but I made an effort.

I moved to Z-town, and my social life was decimated by the fact that I didn't know anyone there. Once I did get to know people I found that the smoke-filled bars and techno clubs weren't my scene, and so my friends and I tended to lounge around by the lake, or hang out at each other's apartments, neither of which seemed to require dressing up at all.

I moved to California, and the culture out here is decidedly casual. We wear jeans and t-shirts to work every day, and there is no difference between "work clothes," "going out clothes," and "bumming around clothes." I don't know when I last wore contacts. I wear sneakers, t-shirts, jeans, and glasses every day. If I have time, I spend about three minutes putting on makeup. If I'm feeling lazy, my hair will spend all day in a messy ponytail.

But now there's A Boy. Someone to impress, right? Someone who makes it worthwhile to put on lipstick and dress up a bit, right?

The boy, as it turns out, can't really tell the difference between when I'm wearing makeup and when I'm bare-faced. Granted, I don't wear much -- a little bit of concealer and some eyeliner -- but it hardly seems worth it to put it on if your audience is indifferent to the effect. So I wear it for work, but when we're hanging out one-on-one, my face is naked, except for my glasses. Which he actually prefers to contacts. And he would rather I wear my comfortable clothes (that are not quite as slummy as they sound, but still...) -- sweaters (OK, they're cashmere), t-shirts (with ironic or amusing graphics or phrases), jeans (my big weakness, I do love my one particular brand), and sneakers (the kind that you would never wear to the gym or running, because they do nothing but pretend to be sneakers), because he prefers people to look natural and normal.

This boy doesn't care. On Christmas morning, I was wearing my baggiest pajamas and brushing my teeth, with my hair all unwashed and awry, and he looked at me and said, "You are gorgeous." I blinked at him, mid-brush, with my mouth full of toothpaste foam, and started laughing. It's super sweet of him, but where is my motivation to look nice?

Gone. Not that I mind, really. I'm lazy, and any excuse to hone my laziness and bring it to new record levels is fine by me.

This situation was not helped by the fact that I spent the last few days in bed, mostly, battling and recovering from a stomach bug. There is nothing more attractive than the stomach flu. The puking (how is it possible for so much to come out with such force, when you haven't eaten anything in ages?). The greasy hair. The writhing and complaining. The feverish sweating and shivering. I have never been so sexy in my life, haha.

We're leaving on our road trip today (a little bit late, as we wanted to wait till I had stopped puking), so I don't imagine that I'll be fancying up much for the rest of the week. I will probably ring in the new year just as grubby and unpolished as I am now, and he will probably look at me and tell me I look amazing, giving me permission to continue exploring new levels of scrubdom. Isn't he fantastic?

Another four weeks have passed in no time at all. Christmas is three days away, and I'm staying at my cousin's place for the week, taking care of two large dogs and a hot tub while they're in Disneyland with my sister and her family.

Work is going well -- my boss gave me a spot bonus for a set of deals I closed a while back. The legal department had a holiday lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse, which started at 11:30 a.m. After lunch, we stayed at the restaurant bar until about 6 p.m., and then decamped to the house of the head of the legal department, where we raided his wine cellar and drank bottles of wine that cost as much as my monthly car payment. I got home from lunch after midnight. Lawyers...

We got Android phones for our Christmas gift from the company, which is theoretically cool, but not so useful for me, since I don't have a personal cell phone, and my company phone is a BlackBerry, and I can't transfer the SIM card over. Not sure what to do about that one.

Superman and I are still honeymoon happy, which is quite impressive, given the fact that we see each other all day at work, and spend much of our free time together. We decided to go away this past weekend, and the goal was to head north for oysters and wine tasting. Plans changed, however, when we went out for oysters the other week (temporarily sating that craving), and we instead shifted our focus to Dungeness crabs. There was a recent article in the New York Times, however, about the falling price of lobster, and we both immediately wanted lobster more than anything else. Friday after work, we went to the local Asian store and bought two lobsters (total weight was over six pounds -- yes, we each had a lobster weighing over three pounds). We got artichokes, butter, lemons, lemonade, and beer, and dug in.

When I was an undergrad at Harvard, the dining halls had special meals every now and then, with different themes. Every fall, there was a big clam bake, and there were lobsters. It's Boston, after all. I used to collect lobster tickets from my Jewish friends and my friends who grew up in the Midwest, and I would gorge myself on lobsters. I continued that habit in New York, when I found a restaurant that served lobster for $20 for the first one, and $10 for each subsequent lobster. I'm used to lobster overconsumption. But Superman was born and raised in Boston. I expected him to be a similarly insatiable consumer of lobster.

I started on the claws and tail. He started on the little legs... ... ... He was still working on the little legs of his lobster by the time I got through the claws and tail, and started on the little legs of my lobster. I was FINISHED my entire three-pound lobster before he had eaten one claw. He claimed that he was trying to savor the lobster. I maintained that I was savoring mine, too, but I was just savoring it very quickly. He says that he has never seen anyone eat a lobster that quickly. I'm not sure whether I should be proud or mortified.

He gave up on his lobster, leaving half of the tail for later, and we started on the artichokes. I ate my entire artichoke, and he ate about one-third of his before surrendering. I think that was the first time I was disappointed in Superman, and I guess it's not really all that disappointing -- I got to eat some of the leftover lobster and artichoke when we got back yesterday, hehe...

In any case, our appetite for shellfish was not so strong after gorging ourselves on lobster, but we still went away for the weekend. As it turned out, the restaurant at the hotel where we were staying had a special tasting menu, and the theme was pork, and anyone who knows me knows that I love pork as much as most people love their children. That is only a slight exaggeration. The braised pork belly was a near-religious experience, and I'm an atheist. We laughed at ourselves for driving 2.5 hours north to oyster and crab country (in order to eat oysters or crabs), and then eating four different kinds of pork, instead. We had a really good time, though, despite the fact that we ignored our original objectives, and despite the fact that it was raining for most of the time we were there. It was just good to go away and hang out and talk and laugh and enjoy each other's company and not have to think about errands or work or other things that we should have been doing, instead. And we did go do a little bit of wine tasting, so we didn't ditch every single goal for the weekend away.

Anyways, I did most of my Christmas shopping online this year, and haven't ventured forth into society much, so I haven't heard much in the way of carols, or seen many decorations. Add to that the fact that it's not really that cold here, and there are still green trees (and orange ones), and it just doesn't feel like Christmas. It will take me a while to get used to living here...

I'll have some people over at my cousin's place on the 24th to hang out, sit in the hot tub, eat, play games, and just chill. Superman and I will leave on our road trip on Friday, or maybe Saturday. This past weekend was a good test run, just to make sure that there wouldn't be any major travel incompatibilities. Can't wait. One good thing about a bad economy is that work is less busy than it should be (for a lawyer, anyways), and I won't have to cancel any plans to stay and work.

Hope you're enjoying the last days of 2008, and looking forward to whatever 2009 may bring. I promise that I'll try to update in a more timely manner.