One Year

It's been over a year since I left my old firm, over a year since I started seriously trying to write. It's been over a month since I started the new job at this new firm. And it's been almost three months since my niece was born. These are the benchmarks of my life. Where has the time gone? Sometimes it feels like I never left the practice of law, and then, other times, I look around me and wonder what I'm doing, in this office, and what happened to the days when life was lived inside my head.

I don't have much time to write these days. Well, that's not strictly true. I do have time, but creative is the last thing I feel when I get home from work. Most days I feel like my brain isn't functioning properly and I worry that I'm going senile or something, before the age of thirty. It's possible, isn't it?

It's been a weird month. We've got a lot of friends in SD and LA, and it's been worrying, with the fires and everything. Four years since the last bad fires, six years since 9/11, all the heartbreaks and nightmares.

Life of the Mind

It's a common saying that it isn't a good thing to live too much inside one's own head. But why? Are most people really that prone to depressive thinking, that to be inside their own heads too much is so bad? Aren't there any happy people out there, who will continue to be happy even if inside their own heads all the time?

It's another common saying that crazy people don't see reality the way other people do. Maybe this is why so many writers end up committing suicide or otherwise dying young. What is being a writer but creating reality, seeing things differently from other people? Is hearing and speaking and living with your characters day in and day out really any different from "hearing voices"? I guess in the former, you are aware that they're not real. But how distinct is the line?

I was reading an article in an issue of the New Yorker from a couple of weeks ago, about neuroscience and research into so-called vegetables. In one part of the article, it discussed people with a certain condition, who are not aware that they see or hear something, but react to the stimulus nevertheless. For example, they are shown two pictures, one of a burning house, and one of a nice, normal house. They are not aware of what they are seeing, don't know that they're seeing anything, because some wire in their brains got crossed somehow. But when asked which picture they preferred, they almost always pick the one with the normal house.

It made me wonder if there isn't some level of "vision" out there that "normal" people haven't achieved, that we are, all of us, deficient and missing a piece of the picture. And yet we feel its presence. Maybe God lives out there. We don't know we're seeing Him, but, for the most part, we choose to live in the house where He is.

And maybe it's like being a writer, an artist. Maybe there's something out there we don't see, but somehow, it makes its way into our subconscious. And it guides us.

Squeaky clean

Today I came home and the house was sparkly clean. There was no dust anywhere. The carpets had been vacuumed, the mirrors polished, the tub scrubbed. It was the best ninety dollars I've spent in a long time. I finally caved in to the arguments of my husband and in-laws, who kept telling me that it wasn't worth what little free time I have to be cleaning. And frankly, I could not have done as good a job as these gals did. It's funny what a difference it made to my mood. I haven't been well lately: still have the shingles, and a cough I can't shake, a difficult week at work, difficulties in my personal life. I've been really down, in fact. But the clean house put a smile on my face. The first one all week.

Pain Tolerance

I have a pretty high level of pain tolerance when it comes to physical pain. I started my job while suffering from shingles (which I've still got), I got my wisdom teeth pulled without any anesthesia, I routinely dislocate my shoulder and pop it back in on my own.

But I've got a very low pain tolerance when it comes to emotional pain. I get my feelings hurt pretty easily. When someone hurts me, sometimes it hurts so bad that I'm literally incapacitated. Sometimes it hurts so bad I would almost rather die, even though I know I don't really want to.

My tolerance for emotional pain is so low that there is nowhere I feel safe. Unconditional love...do I really believe in it, outside of the context of God's love? A friend of mine once got incredibly angry with me for saying that I didn't, but then, he didn't believe in God. Didn't believe in God, yet somehow believed that human beings were capable of unconditional love. Maybe it's the Chicago-trained economist in me: people act out of their own self-interest. People love you as long as you're useful. If you can't come to terms with that, it's only going to open up more vistas of pain in the end.

Old hand

Already halfway through my third week in the new job, the new life. Hard to believe it; it feels like just yesterday I was walking in those doors for the first time, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. But it hasn't been so bad, so far. I've been busy, the hours have been long, but I've been interested in what I've been doing. My brain feels like it's been getting a workout. It's not where I thought I'd be a year ago, six months ago, but I guess I'd have to say that I'm glad I'm here. At least for now, it feels like it's where I need to be.

The other side

Got a taste of how the other side lives last Friday. The husband's employer threw a party. Sent a town car to drive us around for the night so we didn't have to worry about drinking and driving. Limousine, Dom, the works.

Solidarity

Driving home last night, we saw a group of Asian men walking down a busy street. They were bespectacled and anxious-looking, older than me but not old. They were carrying backpacks, and were probably tourists or foreign graduate students. I had such a strong urge to get out of the car and help them. I don't think I would have felt this way had they been of any other race.

I feel the same way when I see little old Asian women crossing busy streets. It breaks my heart.

I'm still alive

I survived week 1 of being back at a law firm. Actually, it wasn't too bad. I've been busy, but not painfully so. Good busy. And the people are nice. It already seems like a more relaxed environment than at my old firm. The infrastructure isn't nearly as good, but what are you going to do.

It's a beautiful Saturday here, but I'm heading into the office for a little bit. Would've liked to have gone surfing this weekend and last, but I've developed, of all things, a case of shingles. Yes, shingles. It's caused by the chicken pox virus, which lives in your system forever once you've had a case of chicken pox. Usually, though, it only reactivates in old people or people with otherwise compromised immune systems. I think maybe I was more stressed about starting the new job than my conscious mind was aware.

Anyhow, it's not life-threatening or even particularly debilitating, although it is painful. Feels like I've ripped a bunch of muscles in my right side. But it's getting better. Today it feels more like someone kicked me hard a couple of times in the ribs. This by itself wouldn't stop me from surfing (I've had worse injuries), but the compromised immune system thing scares me - there are a lot of nasty bugs in the water, and if my immune system isn't up to the task right now, then I'm not going to push it. After all, I have a job to do.

Quenched

First rain of the fall. Thunder and lightning last night, too, which you don't usually get in California. I'm happy. The garden has really needed this.

Elder Brother

The parable of the elder brother never used to make sense to me. Trying to put myself in his shoes, I would try to imagine how I would feel if my younger brother or sister had returned after a long absence. I always thought I would feel more like the father - ecstatic, ready to kill the fatted calf and throw a big party. I'm very close to my brother and sister.

Of course, I was reading the parable far too literally and giving myself much too much credit for being a better person than I really am. I've realized lately just how much of the elder brother I can be.

I know a woman who has lived a rather immoral life. She's committed adultery, lied, cheated, stolen. And probably done some other questionable things. But now she goes to church, and, as far as I know, has repudiated her old ways. (At least, if not exactly remorseful, she no longer does those things.) She is remarried, has a baby, and is a stay-at-home mom.

I can't stand her and it's taken me the longest time to figure out why. She's pleasant enough. I see rather a lot of her, and, although we have very little in common, that has never prevented me from being friends with someone.

It's taken me a while to realize that what I feel towards her must be how the elder brother felt towards the younger brother when he returned. It feels something like jealousy, although it's not quite jealousy. I don't envy her peaceful life or anything in it - my own life is far too filled with blessings for me to ever envy anyone else's life. But I have to admit that I feel like it's unfair for someone who has sinned so much and so willingly to have arrived at a place so close to where I am.

Ugly, isn't it? Realizing that this is at the root of my dislike of her, I am so ashamed of myself. I haven't deserved the many blessings God has given me, either, and yet, there must be some part of me that feels like I somehow do. Like I have somehow earned what I have. But I know better than that, I do. I only hope that, now that I've gotten to the root of my own sinful thoughts towards this woman, God will help me to change.

Sea change

It was ninety-plus degrees when we left home, summer in full tilt. What a difference only a few weeks can make. We've come home to fall. A mild, beautiful, sunny, seventy-degree fall, but fall nevertheless. The maple leaves have begun to turn. Our garden is full of reds and browns and oranges. The tomato vines have begun their slow demise.

It's a change of seasons in our lives as well. I go back to work next week. Sometimes the thought scares me. Others, I just want to get it over with. How bad can it be? I've survived it once before.

Fall. It makes me nostalgic, and dreamy, and a little bit sad.

Home Sweet Home

I've been away for awhile, visiting friends, exploring new cities. It's been fun, particularly catching up with all the people we've been missing. Sometimes it's a nice surprise, getting together with an old friend after a long separation - you realize all over again all the reasons why you're friends with this person in the first place. I've been blessed to know some good people, good friends.

Still, I have to say that there's nothing like being home. Particularly now that we have a real home to come home to.

I luv NY

After only three days, we've basically covered the entire island of Manhattan. On foot, no less. (I have the blisters to prove it.) And we're having a phenomenal time. We just got back from Spamalot, which was hysterical. The husband had five hot dogs today, from Gray's Papaya and Papaya Dog, so he's a happy camper. Me, too. (Meaning, I'm also a happy camper, not that I ate five hot dogs. Please.) Both Fashion Week and the U.S. Open are taking place here right now. Fashion and tennis, two of my favorite things in the world.

Having done so much already, it's hard to believe there's more left to come. Opera and jazz and Peter Luger's and hopefully Rent.... We spent a day at the Met, and there are still the Whitney and the Guggenheim and MOMA...and on and on and on. Diehard Californians though we are, I have to admit we've been looking at each other a lot the last three days and saying, "I could live here." Not forever, of course. Probably not even for very long, since there's no real surfing out here. But for a little while. Much as I love California, I have to admit that none of its cities match this one. I'd go so far as to say that there isn't a city in the world that matches this one.

The lies we tell ourselves

I've recently realized that one of the things I prize in a friend is introspection, a sort of self-honesty. It's a trait that my best friends all share. As for myself, I aspire to be honest with and about myself - that is in large part the purpose of this blog. Not to expose things that should appropriately be private, but to force myself to be candid with the few friends I've entrusted with this url.

I have to think about why this is so important to me. I mean, the easy answer is that I think there is an inherent value to honesty, but that is too glib a statement to be the whole answer.

I think a lot of it goes to 2 Corinthians 12:9. "And He has said to me, 'My grace is suffcient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

I made a comment about my cynicism to my lunch companion of the day before yesterday and she laughed. She said that I look way too nice and sweet to be a cynical person; that someone with my angelic demeanor could stab someone in the back and the person stabbed would never believe that it had happened, would rather deny that there was a knife in his back at all. And this, I think, is why I feel like it is so important for me to be honest. Because I know that I can pass myself off as a better person than I am, at least to other people. But I am a sinner and I sin against God in so many ways, every single day of my life. I can be jealous, and covetous, and petty. I harbor grudges and withhold forgiveness. I am impatient and prideful, sometimes to the point of arrogance. I can be a bully.

And yet He loves me. He has filled my life with blessings beyond anything I could ever deserve on my own merit. What He has done for me is not good things done for a good person, but the overwhelming and incredible love of a perfect God for His deeply flawed creation. Love so deep and incomprehensible that He died - a hideous, slow death - in order to save me from my sins. Denying those sins is denying the depth and awesomeness of His love. And that, I think, is why honesty matters.

Isn't she the cutest?

Recommended

Allison Pearson's book, I Don't Know How She Does It, is absolutely fantastic. Practically every word I read makes me go, "That's it, that's it exactly." It feels like relief, this sense that someone out there understands.

Surf Report

Sign of a NorCal surfer: hands, face, and neck are several shades darker than any other part of the body. It's a weird look.

Today's surf was not good, although the water was warmer than usual and the sun was shining, which is oftentimes a rarity on Northern California shores. I kept getting tangled up in kelp. Also, kelp in the murky water would tickle my legs and feet, which freaked me out. And then I was nearly divebombed by a pelican. On the plus side, there were some sea otters in the water.

Of maybe twenty surfers in the water today, I was the only woman, except for this fifty-plus-year-old who was ultra aggressive. I find that male surfers, relative to female surfers, fall in two categories: (1) the nice ones, who either treat you the same as they treat anyone else (i.e., other male surfers) or are gentlemanly and let you have the wave if you haven't gotten one in a while; and (2) the assholes, who think that because you're a woman, they can get away with stealing waves from you. I have to say that I don't run into that many Category 2's, but I did today. It is not unknown for male surfers to get into fistfights over drop-ins, but was I really going to punch someone for stealing my wave? Yes, yes, I suppose one could always employ one's "feminine wiles" in lieu of brute force, but honestly, the Category 2's are the guys who would think that because you're pretty, you must not know what you're doing, which in turn justifies their stealing waves from you.

This is sometimes true in life as well as in surfing: I once went with a paralegal to visit a German client, whom I had never met before. When we were introduced, he looked surprised and said, "You're the lawyer? You're too..." And then he turned red and cut himself off. When he excused himself to take a phone call, the paralegal burst out laughing. She said, "He was totally going to say that you're too pretty to be a lawyer, but you could see him wondering whether he's allowed to say that in the U.S." I have also had people advise me that, if I'm not getting what I want out of a witness, I should try flirting. But I would rather do things the way a man would do them. Maybe this is my own limited perspective, that I think the "male" way of doing things is the only correct way? I guess I don't think of it as male, but as androgynous. I would like, at least where work is concerned, to be considered androgynous.

Sometimes I think that the only way to really be respected is to be so big that you at least look like you can pound anyone who gets in your way.

Reflections

I saw my reflection in a store window today. My hair is so sun-damaged that parts of it look almost blond in the sun. This is unacceptable. You can put sunblock on your skin; what can you put on your hair to keep this from happening? I always envy the Asian girls I see whose hair is so dark and black and shiny. It's a pride thing, I guess; an identity thing, although even I don't really understand what I mean by that. Twenty-first Century already, globalization, yada yada yada, and yet it's still so hard to put my finger on what it means to be both Asian and American. Honestly? I feel more American than Asian. I love this country as much as any gun-toting, red-state-dwelling, Budweiser-chugging white man (or woman). Probably even more than some, because I know what the alternatives might have been for me. I don't take it for granted. But I don't want to forget where I come from either.

Not, I suppose, that there is any real danger of that, because people will always react to how you look, not how you feel. And I look pretty Asian. (Blond hairs aside.)

It's worth stopping to think how much of your identity is premised on your appearance. We watched Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes last night, about a man whose life falls apart after a disfiguring car accident. My husband couldn't get over how sympathetic I felt toward the main character (who pre-car accident did a lot of unsympathetic things that I would normally have been outraged by). But I guess there was part of me that really knew where he was coming from.

Transforming

Listening (aptly?) to Iron & Wine's 16, Maybe Less.

I thought we'd gotten rid of our boxes but it turns out my husband had a few more, which my mother-in-law sent over the other day. It was amusing to read through what was in them: he was apparently quite the Casanova in his day, judging from the quantity of girls writing to him and the content of their writings. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised: at our high school reunion, a girl that neither of us remembered came up to him and confessed that she'd had a crush on him all four years. And I know that several of my friends had had such crushes on him as well.

I say that it was amusing to read through these boxes, but it was also kind of sad, the longing and pain that came through those notes, juvenile as they seem now: strangely, I well remember the pathos and all-out desperation of those high school years. For me, at least, it was a time when my sensitivities and emotions were heightening, after the slumber of childhood, but my maturity had not yet grown to match. I can't remember much of high school now, but I seem to remember that I spent most of that time very miserable. I had a parents'-worst-nightmare boyfriend (drugs, gangs, the works), my beloved dog developed stomach cancer and had to be put to sleep, one of my best friends deserted me over issues so petty it's embarrassing to remember - all in all, high school was not a good time for me.

But even though I don't remember it well, it doesn't always feel like that long ago. Maybe it was because I was reading through my husband's yearbooks, and those brought back some of the memories. We are, both of us, so different now. I have a hard time recognizing myself from back then. I think law school was really a transformative experience. Or maybe it's just the changes that come with age. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it helps, when you're afraid of where you're heading, to look back and see how far you've come.

Breathe

Why does sadness blur into the desperation of the hunted, and both translate into difficulty breathing?