the little 3-0

Well, its come and gone... I'm officially 30. I woke up on Saturday, and my back hurt. Whether its because I spent most of Thursday night vomitting in A's bathroom or because I'm getting old is up for grabs.

On Thurs, the co-workers and I headed to Cigar Bar for some drinks. Glasses of wine turned into bottles, and I just have no desire to look at alcohol again.

The next day, another co-worker stopped me in the hallway. "Hey, sorry I didn't make it last night," he said.

"Its ok," I groaned. "I'm not entirely sure I made it either."

My very awesome coworkers:


Scott, enjoying life while running a bug bash


Me, Caius and cigar


Carol and Crutch


Me, Ari, Topher, and the cigar


John Kim!


Tim and Frederic

*~*~*~*
The bday festivities continued on Sunday, when I hosted a Hawaiian BBQ at home for my closest friends. There was WAY too much food... so much that I brought leftovers in to work on Tuesday and managed to stuff 7 people. But there was also my favorite cake from Tartine (thanks Fern). It almost collapsed under the weight of all those candles!


So many candles, too little cake!

"Jesus, I must confess
That in all my loneliness
I've forsaken and I've sinned
Leaving fragments of a man so broken

Mother Mary full of grace
In my weakness, I've lost faith
I've been careless, and I have been warned
And the devil inside me is torn
God bless the men that I have scorned"

Christina Aguilera
"Mercy on Me", Back to Basics

hit and run

Holy sh*t, a man hit and run 14 ppl in San Francisco streets today. One died, an elderly man in Fremont.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/HITRUN.TMP

I'm still waiting to hear more about motive, as from all reports it was clearly deliberate. *Shudder* My cousin doesn't live very far from there. What if he'd be on the street?

lots of miss sunshine

Wow - Little Miss Sunshine is one fantastic movie! A and I went to see it on Wednesday night on his brother's recommendation, and it was just amazing. Funny, touching, brilliantly acted, intelligently written. Its been so long since I've really laughed out loud in a movie, and meant it. I never realized until now, but sometimes I laugh just because my companion is, but don't really find the jokes funny. But the number of memorable moments here kept me chuckling all night, just thinking back at it. My favorite was when the very-terrifying looking MC at the Little Miss Sunshine contests asks Olive where her grandpa is right now. I won't give away the joke, but her face and delivery are both priceless.

The acting was also terrific. There's not one actor that I thought was bad - I even thought Greg Kinnear did an amazing job, contrary to what some of the critics have said. I don't usually like Toni Collette, but she was great. And of course, Abigail Breslin is adorable!

But the best part of the movie is that is has an amazing heart at the core of it. This movie is not just about a dysfunctional family, or their adventures, or their ups and downs. Its about how each adventure, each up and down, and how they interact as a family because of them. I almost wrote "brings them closer together", but that's a cliche movie premise. You can tell here that the family was already close; it just took the events to reveal it to the audience. My favorite scene by far is the one in the diner, when Olive orders ice cream for breakfast. Lovely.

Definitely go see the movie. Its one of the best that I've seen in a very, very long time.

life, as we know it

Tonight, I sat on my porch, watching the sunset, enjoying a glass of red wine, and eating this amazing spicy lamb sausage & pasta from a local restaurant, and realized that life is really pretty wonderful. For once in my 30 years of existence, I don't feel deprived materially. I'm dating a guy that I genuinely care for, despite my reservations and insecurities. For all the stress that comes with it, I do love my job and my coworkers, and for the first time in as long as I remember, I'm pretty happy with the way I look. I don't feel behind on bills, short of money, deprived, envious, or angry.

So why am I still not happy?

Maybe its part of my natural disposition. As someone who has clinical depression, I just have moments where I hate life, and want to burst into tears for no reason. Maybe its because, as I learned during the last 6 months, we are conditioned by society to want everything to be perfect, because we have so much opportunity before us. Maybe its because we expect so much out of ourselves, we expect to be happy 100% of the time, that we cannot accept any blip on that radar.

I don't know what it is, but right now, I'm content to just appreciate my life for what it is, and not try to fix what objectively is not broken. Until tomorrow morning, that is ;-)