Sent from my mobile phone at 10:20 PM:
Good to know my pillow is not wasted while I am at work.
Sent from my mobile phone at 10:12 PM:
Taro attack!
Sent from my mobile phone at 9:19 PM:
rl Taro and I IM with anne.
May has been a difficult month for me. The weather in the San Francisco
Bay Area has been, as I used to put it, "schizophrenic," jumping from
beautifuly sunny and warm to hideously gray and rainy. (My mother, a
licensed clinical social worker, finally pointed out to me a few months
ago that this is an incorrect diagnosis. As it turns out, "disordered" is
more appropriate, as in "personality disorder" and its more famous cousin,
"multiple personality disorder.")
The last three weeks have been particularly proflific at work, a
seemingly
unbreakable
series
of
"page
toppers," as my editor calls them. But I am left feeling ragged and
worn down, a condition compounded by a series of
after-work-but-really-work soirees, cruises, groundbreakings, breakfasts,
lunch roundtables, tours and assorted other meet-and-greets, which teach
me new social graces at only the most glacial and frankly depressing pace.
Now toward the end of the month I find myself without much progress on
those long-term projects I care most about and with a series of new,
company-mandated feature story deadlines looming upon me.
The most difficult part of the month, without a doubt, has been the
absence over the past three weeks of my dearest Anne, who has been conducting range
management research at UC Berkeley's Sagehen research station in the
Sierra mountain range. Anne does come home, for precious three-day
weekends where we pack in as much cuddling, snuggling, talking,
cooking, eating, sleeping and who-can-imagine-what else as possible amid
the errands, spin class, writing group, laundry, supply-buying and
gas-injecting chores.
I would like to say I have made the most of my newfound spare time, but
I have not. Instead I have taken to poor eating habits and late work. This
week, I did not exercise until this afternoon, with more than half the
week already behind me. When I do have time to
myself at home, I cannot muster the energy for my old hobbies,
programming, reading and writing.
My therapist calls this "temporary permanence," since, after a return
home for three weeks in June, Anne will return to field research in July,
and graduate school for four days a week at Santa Cruz in the fall. She
encourages me to talk about my depression, and to acknowledge it as such,
but I have only begun to catch glimmers of Anne's absence as an
opportunity rather than a temporary challenge. On some level, I do not
want to believe she is physically out of my life four days per week, and
will be for
some time.
I have moved the computer into Anne's house, and spend the night here
almost ever night in her absence, even though I retain my old apartment
next to campus, for now. My company is Anne's family of cats, inlcuding
the indoor
crew of Taro, Snoopy and Angel. They are fed twice each day but are still
hungry for affection. I spend as much time as possible with Taro, who is
bonded most closely with Anne, but this often sets off jealous
competition from Angel, who seems to have taken to me. When things go
smoothly we can end up with three cats on the bed for the night, but just
as often someone will storm off to the front door or spend the night on
Anne's desk chair.
It is a difficult challenge, these stretches without Anne. Each
night, we talk on
the phone, when the lines aren't iced over, and when they are we instant
message one another. But I am happy she has the opporunity to do important
research in a beautiful outdoor setting, and proud that she will begin a
selective science writing program in the fall, pursuing her dream. I can
see that soon I will see the opportunities and benefits of this situation,
rather than just the challenges. Perhaps I'll take up surfing in Santa
Cruz, resume with more gusto my old bachelor hobby of cooking adventure,
accelerate my Internet development -- even post more to my weblog.
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