It’s been a long work week. Every day this week has felt long and tiring. Even on the nights I was social and spent time with friends and colleagues, I really looked forward to coming home to a quiet apartment to be all by myself. And tonight, given it’s Friday night, I especially looked forward to coming home and being by myself knowing that I wouldn’t have to wake up by a set time the following day. Chris wouldn’t be home until past 1am from his flight back from San Francisco from Dreamforce, so I’d have a lot of downtime to think and be on my own. I came home, made my dinner, watched two Ali Wong specials and two episodes of Ken Burns’s Vietnam War documentary. I did laundry, had some at-home facial time, and even replenished my homemade chili oil since we ran out of our batch when my colleagues came over for brunch this past weekend. A colleague messaged me to ask what I was doing and if I wanted to come hang out in Brooklyn, but at that point in the night, I really could not be bothered. I was simmering chili oil over the stove and in my pajamas. There was nothing else I would have rather have been doing. My alone time is vital to my sanity now.

Over a month ago, a bunch of colleagues and I decided to sign up for Dominique Ansel’s famous Pie Night, when for one hour, all attendees have one hour to eat as much of the ten varieties of pie that Dominique Ansel Kitchen can produce while drinking bottomless apple cider sangria and having ice cream on the side. These were the varieties that we were able to try this season:

– Home-style Chicken Pot Pie with Butter Biscuit Crust
– Slow Braised Pork Shank Pie with Potatoes, Onions, and Cognac
– Artichoke & White Cheddar Pie
– Fennel Sausage and Tomato Pie with Sage and Melted Mozzarella
– Wild Mushroom Sherry Cottage Pie with Creamy Parsnip Purée
– Vanilla Bean Flan with a hint of Dark Caribbean Rum
– Salted Caramel Harvest Apple Pie
– Nutella Angel Cream Pie with Whipped Sour Cream Mousse
– Stone Fruit Pie with Honey Guava Mousse & Raspberry Jam
– Warm Chocolate Poached Pear Pie

My personal favorites of the savory varieties were the chicken pot pie — it was homey and classic, but with nice little soft biscuits lining the top; the wild mushroom with the parsnip puree; and the pork shank of the pork shank pie. Hands down, my favorite sweet pie was the stone fruit pie with honey guava mousse and raspberry jam. Granted to be honest, the guava flavor was not very strong at all, but the flavor combination of all the fruit ingredients was so delicious.

On the way home, a colleague and I took the train uptown together. He’s been asking me every now and then how the fundraising has been going and has been checking my fundraising page to see my progress. He generously donated two years in a row, and sent me a heartfelt message this year about it.  When talking about his two siblings today, he asked me about Ed and referred to him by name, which caught me off guard a bit. At first, I didn’t really understand why I felt so surprised, but then I realized the reason was obvious; most people, unless they are close to me, never refer to Ed by his name; they always just refer to him as “your brother.” Most people also do not ask anything about him given that I’m pretty public about the fact that he has passed, and I’m also very public about how he passed given my fundraising drive.

He asked me how old he was when he passed, what he was like, what he did for a living. We were cut short given we had to get off the train, but it actually felt comforting to have a colleague I’m friendly with openly ask me questions about my brother as though he was a real person, someone with an actual life and past that matters. Oftentimes, when a person has died by suicide, all they tend to be known by, well, by people who know how they died and didn’t personally know them, is simply that they died from suicide, and that’s it. They aren’t known or thought about for their actual life on earth, their passions, their previous reason for being, their foibles. My colleague today reminded me of this sad truth, and tried to make Ed a real person again. For the moments we talked about Ed, I felt grateful that he recognized Ed as a real human being who once breathed on this earth and just wanted what any ordinary, everyday person wants: to be recognized, loved, and heard.

Every year as the season transitions from summer to autumn in New York, fashionistas across this city regale in the fact that once again, their favorite time of the year to get dressed has come. Light sweaters! Booties! Scarves! Ponchos! Layering! It’s all back again.

I, on the other hand, lament the fact that I have to wear layers, am frustrated by the fact that I cannot throw on a dress or a simple shirt, skirt, and sandals, and run out every morning. Layering clothing makes me so annoyed. I hate always having to bring extra things “just in case” the weather changes. I hate wearing heavy, clunky rain boots to keep dry. I strongly dislike wearing stockings. If I had it my way, I’d wear airy clothing all year long. I’d never wear a sweater or a big bulky jacket. But that is a fantasy here.

And then, to make things worse with the changing weather from summer to fall, the subway cars have no idea what they’re supposed to do with their thermostat. For instance, today, it was 74 degrees F, extremely humid, and when I got on the subway car this morning… the HEAT WAS ON. Why was the heat on?! It was threatening to rain, so I wear my knee-length rubber rain boots and my raincoat, and I sweat so much that all my clothes felt wet by the time I got to the office. Yet, this afternoon, with a similar temperature and level of humidity, the air conditioning was on in the subway car. The subway experiences an identity crisis when the seasons change, too: should we have the heat or the AC on?

The subway doesn’t know what temperature to be. I do not know how to dress in the morning. This transition is not fun or comfortable.

I awoke this morning to dark, grey skies and pouring rain outside my window. It is officially autumn in New York City. I looked at my calendar on my phone in bed and realized I had a drinks catch-up with a former colleague, and I made bets in my head about whether he’d cancel on me last minute.

And so around 3:30, two hours before we were supposed to meet today, I texted him to say, “see you soon!,” and of course, within an hour, he messaged to say that he has some big meeting he’s prepping for the following morning and may not finish it in time before he is supposed to meet me, so he may not be able to make it. That’s when I decided, yep, he’s definitely flaking on me.

At 5:15, he confirmed he couldn’t make it and would need to reschedule. I guess my gut instinct this morning was right.

That’s the thing about New Yorkers; the second the weather changes and gets a bit more extreme, whether it’s rain or snow, people start making excuses to not go out. It’s as though the world has ended and they need to go into hiding. This has been my experience since I first moved to New York ten years go, and people always flake during weather changes. People just suck and are not reliable.

I’ve never invited a group of colleagues over to my apartment before, but I always thought it would be fun to invite colleagues over to bridge the work vs. personal life line. It’s also nice to see a glimpse of what your colleagues are like outside of the office, as a person’s home gives a lot of insight into who they are as a person. Is the person anally neat and tidy, or sloppy and disorganized? What kind of books would be on her shelves? How would she decorate the place — with a lot of personal touches or more anonymous things, like candles and plants?

It was funny to have them come with their partners and spouses today because I wasn’t really expecting their commentary on my living space. I originally was expecting a total of 11 people, but because one of my colleagues had to drop out for a family emergency last minute, that deducted two adults plus three kids from the mix, so we ended up being a much smaller group of six. So given I had 11 people in my mind as guests, I told them our space would be “cozy.” When they arrived, they marveled over how spacious our living room was and my colleague’s husband insisted I set them up to believe the worst when in fact, it was the total opposite! All of them obsessed over how clean and neat the apartment was (“is it always this neat here, or did you clean up for us?”), and one of them even said, “You know you’re in a fancy person’s apartment when even the dish and hand soap are organic.”

Creating strict lines between work and personal life was never something I really believed in. In theory, I get it. In practice, it’s too exhausting. And the worst thing is to be called fake or inauthentic. I feel like it’s easier to just be open and more consistently oneself all the time. It was a fun time today, and I definitely want to do it again. For the first time, I actually work in a place where I’d be happy to bring my colleagues to my home for a meal. I’m going to relish this as long as possible.

I grew up eating a sticky, mochi-like Vietnamese cake that my mom and Vietnamese family friends would buy for us that was coconut and cassava-based. I always enjoyed it, but I never actually knew what it was called. Then, at our home in San Francisco, we hosted a potluck dinner party where I invited a friend and her husband over, and as their dish, they brought over a sheet cake that was just like this cake from my childhood, coconut and cassava based. I inhaled it and wanted to make it and recreate it.

Well, then I forgot about it, and I had another bite of it somewhere, and then wanted to recreate it again. Then, I found a recipe for it in a Vietnamese cookbook I own, and it called for frozen shredded cassava. The local Chinese market I got to in Manhattan Chinatown never had it, so I gave up. But given that this brunch party is happening this weekend, I knew I wanted to try a new Asian dessert. I HAD to make this cake. I was craving it in my head. So I did a quick Yelp search for frozen cassava and finally came across an actual Vietnamese grocery store in Chinatown that not only sells frozen cassava but all kinds of fresh Vietnamese baked goods (like Vietnamese “tamales” and sticky rice cakes).

I went tonight and was in heaven. It’s not a big store, nor is it fancy, but it’s packed with all kinds of goodies. Endless Vietnamese baked goods, Vietnamese ham (cha lua), all kinds of frozen goods that I could tinker with. Cut and grated lemongrass was packaged and frozen in the freezer — that would be an incredible convenience. Fresh Vietnamese rice noodles neatly packaged were lined up by the cash register. There were all these products I’d never even heard of before that I knew I had to do more research on. What would I do with frozen purple yam?

I can’t believe it took me over ten years to take the few seconds to research Vietnamese groceries in this city. Now, I can overcompensate for lost time by always coming here every time I go down to Manhattan Chinatown.

When I was in Shanghai in 2006, there was a book I purchased called Shanghai Ren Jia (Homes of the Shanghainese). The major theme of the book (in both Chinese and English) was that Shanghainese people are very guarded when it comes to their homes; when they meet with friends or colleagues, they always meet in public places, like parks, restaurants, cafes. They rarely, if ever, ask others to come to their homes because that’s an intimate ask. There needs to be a certain sense of closeness to a person before you feel like you can invite him to your house.

New York City is a lot like that. It’s rare to get an invite to “hang out” at someone’s apartment or a homemade dinner invitation. Our spaces, just like in Shanghai, are relatively small and cramped, and it just wouldn’t be very comfortable. And usually, when we have received invites to come over to others’ apartments, these people are not originally from New York; it’s other transplants like ourselves who want to forge a sense of closeness in their personal spaces with new and old friends.

I’ve been wanting to organize a get-together at our apartment with a group of my colleagues for a while, but Chris wasn’t very keen on it because he has a “six-person-max” rule he arbitrarily made up. But since he’ll be away for Dreamforce this weekend, I decided to take advantage of it by inviting the crew over on Sunday. It’ll be interesting to meet some of my colleagues’ spouses and partners for the first time, and also see them outside of the usual work environment. Sometimes, you never know if colleagues could potentially be real friend material unless you take them out of the work space.

I woke up this morning to a surprise medical bill in my e-mail inbox for a sick visit I paid to the doctor last October — that’s almost a year ago. I was surprised given that I knew my insurance should have been billed a long time ago, not to mention the co-pay was paid on the spot. After looking at this three-figure bill in shock, I visited my primary care doctor’s website to discover that they no longer accept my insurance, which didn’t really make a lot of sense because the last I checked when I visited last year, they did accept my insurance. So now I’m getting penalized for this? Their website says that they will still accept my insurance, but bill my insurance as an “out-of-network” provider. The entire concept of “in-network” vs. “out-of-network” has always driven me crazy in my adult life, as what… this is basically doctors’ and hospitals’ ways of making the most money possible by signing with insurance companies that will give them the best deal. From a capitalistic standpoint, that makes sense, but from a patient planning standpoint in terms of how to choose a doctor where your insurance is going to cover the bulk, if not all, of your bill, this is a complete nightmare, and part of the reason I’m sure that people hate visiting doctors period.

In the end, it was a mistake, and my doctor texted me to let me know that the bill was sent in error and to disregard it. But I still got mad about it. I got mad being reminded how senseless and difficult our healthcare system is, especially given how much it costs. And I also got frustrated knowing I could no longer see this doctor given that she doesn’t accept my insurance anymore. Now, I need to find a new primary care doctor, which makes me sad given that I really liked this one. It’s like finding a new friend — takes too long and is arduous and sometimes painful.

A friend of mine said that she had suddenly found a lot of free time given that she just got let go from her job today, so she thought that the next month or so might be a good time to visit. As much as I like seeing my friends at opportunities I regularly do not have, I looked at the calendar from now through the end of the year and realized that almost every single weekend is taken up by something, whether it’s a booked show or live event, a dinner with local friends, out-of-town visitors who will be staying with us, and our own personal and professional travels. The ability to have a spontaneous visitor come and stay with us for 2-4 days isn’t a likely possibility anymore.

I felt kind of bad telling her this, but I guess this is the way our lives are now. We plan a lot of things ahead of time, and with out-of-town visitors, those events really need to be planned far in advance to ensure that no conflicts arise. This is part of grown-up life now.

Tonight, I was on the phone tonight with my friend who is currently in a medical residency program, and as of next summer, she will be starting her fellowship in movement disorders at UCSF. I’m really excited for her, if for nothing else but 1) she’ll finally get a chance to live on the West Coast, as she’s always wanted and dreamed about, and 2) she will actually for the first time in years have nights and weekends relatively free, as her fellowship hours are fairly “normal” white-collar hours, at about 9-5pm Monday through Friday. And because I’ll still be going back to San Francisco regularly for work and family, I’ll be able to see her more often. The last time I got to see her was almost two years ago, sadly.

People have often asked me why I never considered going to culinary school or working in a bakery given how much I love food. If there is one reason only, well, aside from the fact that I’d never have the salary I’d want, it’s that I’d have zero flexibility and I would have to kiss goodbye all nights and weekends. Those would be the times I’d have to work. That’s the way the service industry is no matter what country you are in. You are there to serve; that’s your job, your role, your everything. I love food. But I don’t love it that much to give away all my time and my freedoms. And frankly, I love serving the people I love, not a bunch of random strangers who have random (and chances are, crappy) judgments that I could truly care less about.