I’ve never really been that excited about Halloween. I still remember the days when we were expected to dress up for the Halloween parade at school, and how much I never enjoyed it. I always felt like the poorest kid, even though I obviously wasn’t (at least, now I know this). I still remember in first grade, my mom took me shopping at a Halloween store, and she said to me, “Okay, you can pick one costume, any costume. But just remember that you have to wear it every year until the end of elementary school.” She explained that she and my dad couldn’t afford a new costume for me every year (Ed wore the same Garfield mask trick-or-treating until high school. I had no idea how he felt about that because I never asked). I was only six at the time, but somehow, I was still rational even then. So I responded, “But I’ll be bigger then.” My mom nodded. “You will be, so that’s why we’ll have to buy an extra LARGE costume!”

So, I looked through all the costumes. I really wanted to be a fairy or a princess. But I wasn’t sure I’d want to be that five years in a row. So I settled on what seemed “neutral” at the time – a pumpkin/jack-o-lantern outfit. And that’s when I decided I would probably never like Halloween as a dress-up event for myself.

Today, I still don’t get excited about dressing up (and I haven’t dressed up since 2012), but I do admire the care that other people take in doing very elaborate makeup (my favorite I saw on Instagram was a dying woman who painted her neck so that it looked like her throat was split completely open), and I love seeing little babies dressed up in the most ridiculous outfits (this year’s favorite for me was a 2-month old baby in an ostentatious peacock outfit that was three times her size). Maybe I will get excited about it one day when I have a child to dress up, but for now, it’s not really for me.

I’ve been living in New York for over eight years now, but I’ve never really had what I’d call a regular neighborhood haunt that I’d continually go back to. Of course, there are places I’d rely on for takeout or cheap eats, but no place I’d gladly visit over and over because I liked the food, drink, the ambiance, and the service all at once.

Tonight, I visited Jones Wood Foundry with a friend for the very first time, even though it’s been on my Yelp bookmark list for years. It’s a British style pub with a very British looking bar, a beautiful and spacious back dining area, and even a hidden outdoor terrace. The fish and chips we had were very authentic based on what I’ve had in Australia and New Zealand, which I’m told are the same style as in the U.K., and the chicken tikka masala salad was fresh and used dark meat on the bone (major brownie points). The drink selection is huge, and the service was incredible. We had several people come over to greet us and ask if this was our first time, and they said they’d welcome us back as regulars in the future (whether that’s really true and whether they will actually recognize us — we’ll find out). And I learned a little fun fact about the neighborhood I’ve called home for over three years now: before this was the Upper East Side, Yorkville, or Lenox Hill, the area between 66th and 77th streets and Third Ave and the East River, was known as Jones Wood.

Maybe this could be a place to just stop by for a drink or a quick snack moving forward. I loved the vibe of this place and felt so happy to be able to just walk a couple blocks home after.

Like most people, as a child I loved Disney movies; I still do today. But as an adult, I am fully cognizant of all the negative stereotypes that are perpetuated by them (e.g. gender and race stereotypes, massive favoritism for people of European descent). I loved the music and oftentimes sang along with the songs. My favorite Disney movies were Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and Aladdin. Beauty and the Beast was a particular favorite for me because Belle, the main female character, was a bit of an eccentric, a total bookworm who obsessed over endless books and libraries and wanted more out of life than her “poor provincial town.” I loved reading when I was young (as I still do), so I immediately identified with her.

After the latest remastering and release of Beauty and the Beast on Blu-Ray, several articles have come out on it, particularly regarding the history of the main lyricist who worked on the songs for the movie, Howard Ashman. I had read a lot about Alan Menken, the composer who worked on Disney movies, but nothing about Ashman until today. This is when I found out that Ashman was a gay man who was dying from AIDS as he worked on Beauty and the Beast, and he died eight months before the movie was completed. He contributed a lot of very rich ideas to the movie; it was his idea to staff the Beast’s enchanted castle with sentient appliances that had once been human. These objects all felt alien in their object/appliance bodies, completely dehumanized. I’d imagine that’s what Ashman felt as he was writing the lyrics for these songs while dying. Ashman also loved to cook, and so he expressed his love for cooking and culinary rhyme with the song “Be Our Guest.” He worked until his death from his gay-friendly hospital via a phone patch to communicate changes to recordings and emphases on certain words or enunciations in songs, all of which were honored.

These beautiful songs and movies I enjoyed as a child have such a rich back story that I’d only be able to fully appreciate learning as an adult. Beauty and the Beast is more tragically beautiful than I ever thought before.

Tonight after work, I went to meet a prospective Wellesley student at a cafe near my apartment. And like I have been in the past, I was blown away by this girl’s intellectual curiosity, how she was able to link her philosophy summer sessions’s learning to the last two presidential debates, and how she’s at a history-focused magnet high school, yet is planning to pursue a STEM degree in college. What did she do the last few summers? She’s studied computer science at UC Santa Barbara, philosophy at Columbia, and been designing a choreography with her younger brother for the Hamilton musical. For the two summer programs at two different universities, she found these programs herself, applied, and got in. All I have to say is… Doing activities like that over my summer breaks in high school never even crossed my mind (and who would have funded these excursions? My parents would have laughed in my face). And I thought I was being ambitious by volunteering at an Alzheimer’s center. Nope. I never cease to be amazed each time I meet one of these “prospies” as we affectionately call them, and see how more and more driven, ambitious, and successful they already are at such a young age.

Today, we did a lot of eating and walking while one of my best friends was visiting New York from San Francisco, and we reunited with a friend we hung out with all the time when my good friend lived here in New York five years ago over a steak dinner and then drinks at a bar we’d been to several times together back in 2011 and 2012. It’s funny how things evolve: then, my friend was about to move to Singapore, have her Maui wedding, and transfer jobs halfway across the world. I was in a new relationship and a new apartment and a job I have since left. And my friend here in New York — he was single, living in Manhattan, and continuing his “baller” ways, frequenting Asian night clubs, drinking a lot, and eating at fancy steakhouses every month. We spent a lot of time reminiscing of people who have come in and out of our lives, especially those we had once spent a lot of time with who are pretty much strangers to all of us now.

That’s what New York has made me realize. Even when you think you are close to someone, that you have a connection with someone, or you spend a lot of time with someone — it doesn’t mean they’ll really care about you forever, or even remember your face or name forever. They may even forget about you after the day or night or months you spent a lot of time together. All it takes is one move, one mutual friend who leaves, and it’s “dunzo.” The idea that people “care” about you here seems very fleeting. We may be close today, but we may end up as strangers tomorrow. Hell, my visiting friend is spending separate time hanging out with people I once considered friends but no longer speak to and have since unfriended on Facebook. It’s not like there were any actual falling-outs or fights or official ends to our friendships; it’s just that both sides stopped trying or caring. That’s part of life. She asked me if I wanted to see them, and I said no. She herself hasn’t spoken or been in any contact with them in four years, yet she really wanted to see all of them, even the creepy ones who lusted after her. I haven’t seen or spoken with any of them in that time either, and they live right in this city. It makes me realize even more how special friendships are as we get older and keep in touch with fewer and fewer people. These are the people who actually do care and want to make an effort, and these are the people I love. The people from the past — they’re just in the past. They served a purpose, however superficial or fleeting, in the past, and now that’s all they are — passed.

Chris and I have been very lucky and privileged to have dined at many of the best restaurants in New York City, ranging from Eleven Madison Park, Per Se, Le Bernadin, Daniel, to Danny Meyer’s empire of restaurants, and tonight, Annisa. What differentiates Annisa from all the other restaurants mentioned here is that its executive chef and owner is a woman, and not just any woman, but a first-generation Chinese-American woman. Anita Lo is also the first and only female chef to ever be invited to cook and prepare a state dinner at the White House (in 2015 when Xi Jinping and his wife came from China). I mentioned this fact to my friend, who was appalled that this was only just last year and she’s still the only female chef to have been given this honor.

The Obamas have been very deliberate about making sure that enough women are represented at the White House, and also that women of color are represented. Chris mentioned tonight that Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, is also trying to do the same thing. All I can say is that I absolutely cannot imagine Donald Trump ever even considering this idea, nor even understanding why this would be important. People say that it shouldn’t be the race or gender that is the reason that people are chosen for certain positions or roles, but I think that no matter what the case is, diversity is of utmost importance, and it’s always deeply disturbing to me when people do not understand what role diversity serves, whether it’s in the boardroom or the kitchen.

After watching last night’s infuriating debate, I was filled with anger, thinking… how stupid can Americans possibly be to be backing someone like Trump in droves? The only criticism I heard of Hillary at my office today was that she “just doesn’t come off as genuine” and sounded like she rehearsed too much for the debate (because apparently preparing for the most watched debate isn’t a smart thing to do. No, I get it… sounding “rehearsed” isn’t very good, but given that the person is competing against a total liar, is the decision really that hard?) . I don’t know about you, but not coming off as genuine is a far cry from being a racist, sexist, bigoted liar. We had some small talk about the debate, and getting exacerbated, I said, “Well, I hope you are all registered to vote!”

And then, it’s like my heart shattered. Two people in my row said the words that I currently hate the most (well, other than “Make America great again!”): “I don’t know if I’m registered to vote.”

Then go fucking register! Go to a place like this that will completely dumb it down for you and make it fail proof!! Don’t just sit there and whine about not knowing whether you’re registered or knowing how! We’re an internet company, so just Google the damn thing! It really isn’t that hard! One of them was one of my direct reports, and I immediately ordered her to go to that site and check to see if she was registered. I even watched her navigate the site to make sure she was going to do it (I can be that overbearing boss… sometimes. But this MATTERS). Apparently, New York City DMV has really made it easy for locals to register simply by checking off a box on their driver’s license or state ID application, so she was registered that way, but at the wrong address. “Correct the address, and soon,” I admonished her. I couldn’t help but be annoyed. I’m supposed to be hiring smart people here.

I just cannot get over the fact that there are so many Americans who think that the voting process or application process is so hard that they don’t even take the time to vote. So many people in this office are in their late twenties and thirties and have never voted. How can they take for granted the rights that they have that other people in the world would die to have? Oh, I forgot. It’s because they have no perspective and only think of their own lives and what’s immediately around them. And especially as women, we should be voting every chance we get because we still haven’t hit the 100th anniversary of the women’s right to vote being a right in this country. There are some women in this country who have absolutely no clue, like the women who would actually register as Republican, or even worse, vote for Trump. Some generations really don’t get smarter.