Year In Review: How Did I Stack Up?

Tomorrow is my birthday. Last year, I was feeling so depressed and miserable in my postpartum haze that I hated the thought of celebrating. So I did what I do when I'm depressed: I made a list. Of things that I should accomplish before my next birthday, so that I could wow myself with all my progress.

Sigh. I have been dreading looking at that list because I was/am certain that I didn't get everything. In no order of importance, my goals for last year were:

1. Finish 3 more essays to accompany Diets and Carolina Pottery. Well, I finished one more essay, but I did send the two existing ones out to everybody and their brother. I will call this one moderately successful.

2. Update resume on LinkedIn and send to recruiter contacts. Done. More than once.

3. Network More! Especially with people with interesting jobs. I went to a few networking events. I didn't die. I still suck at this.

4. Save Money For More Options. Um, yeah.

5. Go Back To Classes In The Winter. This didn't happen last year, but I am signed up for this semester's essay class. Not too late to call that a success. And I did register before my birthday so....

6. Take Zygote to swim classes. Done. I wish I could afford more. She loved it. I loved it.

7. Teach Zygote sign language. We tried?

8. Make a list of all the things that interest me and a list of skills I have. Working on it. I am almost too self-deprecating to do this with any real seriousness.

9. Take a vacation with just YG. We went to NYC in August, and then business brought us to San Francisco last weekend. In my opinion, that's way too long to go without having some adult time away. Will work harder this year.

10. Develop cover letter for jobs that aren't in my current field. Done, but half assedly. Needs work.

11. Apply for new job. Done. I have stopped applying for tech jobs because I don't see the point. So applications have been few and far between, but were for jobs that I actually *really* wanted.

12. Use Fridays for WRITING. Meh. Fridays are more for housewifing. It's been a good experiment, but I really would like to be much more rigorous about this.

13. Run/keep working out after I get back to work. Done. Half marathon, bitches!

14. Read the books on my bookshelves before buying more. EPIC FAIL.

15. As always, lose some weight. And as always, fail.

Not all bad. Progress was made. From my journal last year, "I am a successful failure. Successful because I can take care of myself, my kid, make money, appear normal. But a failure because I'm in my 30s and still uncomfortable in my own skin and have no discernible life path that I can figure out. And really, I like doing nothing. And then I like doing more nothing with YG and Zygote."

I know that I was depressed when I wrote that, but now I read it and I don't think that too much has changed. And I'm okay with that. I know that by most definitions of success, I am doing okay. And that by most definitions of obnoxious navel-gazing, I am a SUPERSTAR. I guess I'm just more comfortable with that now and am okay (this minute, under the influence of mixed drinks, just sayin') with this whole comfortable, super secure awesome badassness taking a little more time than I thought.

This Is What A Relationship Looks Like: West Coast Edition

By some awesome twist of fate, YG and I both have business trips in the same city at the same time. And while I am in the throes of tech trade show Hell (polyester golf shirts and lanyards and all), free airfare to San Francisco does not suck.

After reviewing every possible disaster scenario that could happen to Zygote while we were both away (Ebola! Plague! Hurricane! Sharp Edges! Abandonment Issues!), we finally concluded that my parents managed to raise three relatively normal children with all of their limbs intact so surely they could handle one relatively calm toddler. We sent Z packing to New Jersey and came out to the West Coast early.

The first few hours without Z were an epic Fail and I went through all the typical Mommy Lit-documented stages of grief. Then I had a beer. At the airport. And watched Jersey Shore. And finished a book. With nobody touching me. Nice.

Yesterday, YG and I slept late and then walked down to the Ferry Building to putz around a bit. We took the ferry to Tiburon for lunch, and ended up spending most of the afternoon at this place , drinking wine and eating insane amounts of fresh mozzarella. We came back to the city, went to the Gap (because there are no Gaps ANYWHERE in Boston), bought pants, and after this trying ordeal of a day, decided to take advantage of the half price martinis at the hotel bar. The bar is on the 39th floor where you can feel the hotel swaying in the wind. Extremely strange. Add in the effects of the "passionate martini" and it's all kinds of vertigo fun. Then we headed out to Russian Hill and had dinner at Hyde Street Bistro. Any place that offers a twice baked potato souffle gets my strong recommendation.

And then it was back to the hotel for lots of wild and passionate........BASEBALL TONIGHT ON ESPN HD!

Today was an early morning run on the Embarcadero, room service breakfast (an extremely glam bowl of Rice Crispies and banana for 16 freaking dollars), and back to all work, all the time. Still, I managed to get out and have lunch at my favorite place near the Moscone, Samovar Tea Lounge, enjoying the sun and just knowing that we are going to end up out here for real someday.