Lots of things have happened! I have a new job, at the same company though. A. and I just celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary and our 5-year dating anniversary, which is pretty hard to believe, since I've never really done anything for 5 years (elementary school was kind of the last thing). And we bought a house this spring. That was a soul-sucking experience that I recommend to no one, that is, if they live in the Bay Area. But now that we're here I love it.

And now. And now. I'm settling in to that pleasant humdrum of a routine, and my mind is fighting it with its claws out. I'm so weird; I crave new experiences and creative outlets, but when I get them I immediately become lazy, resentful, and anxious about them and wish I could lie around. So now that I'm forcing myself into this routine � working out regularly, getting home at a decent hour to cook with A., reading a lot, and not much more � I find myself feeling more and more depressed.

Except, I think part of it is that I'm feeling a little lonely. In my new job it's just my boss and me; I don't have a team to talk to like before, and I can't chat on the phone to our agencies frivolously because they charge us like $700 an hour for their time. Our friends are all consumed with the respective major milestones in their lives, and some of them quite frankly, have gotten so OCD on us that they're hard to be around these days. We have these friends who are trying to buy up properties in an effort to get rich quick, but then they start freaking out because they have four mortgages, she's not working, they're trying to get pregnant and can't, and the turmoil that all that anxiety and disappointment creates is kind of all we ever talk about. I miss having good friends with whom I really click and have things in common. They are rare, I realize, and my tried and true ones are living on the East Coast. I've become close with a woman at work but we tend to have such little time together, because we're so busy, that when we do get together we mostly gossip about work.

I'm trying to use this cherished time of introversion wisely, knowing it won't last long, when suddenly we find ourselves with kids and a life that won't stop. I'm trying to write. I've been attempting to set aside time to write fiction again, and I find that when I finally force myself to sit down and do it that I really love it, I get so much joy out of it, even if the self-critic immediately jumps all over everything I've written when I go back to read it again. I'm trying to see it as fun, and also as a project/hobby, something to work on and work towards.