Drinking from the Garden Hose

Thirty one trips around the sun! Today I turned thirty one years old. Last year when I turned thirty it felt like a significant milestone and I felt markedly older. This year, I feel more mature mostly because I kept forgetting my birthday was approaching and for the first time ever did not make everyone celebrate my birthday daily for all of April :). I forgot to take off work, so my day has been scattered with virtual video calls, but I still had time to go to my favorite coffee shop in town this morning, lay in the sun and take a long beach run. Since I quit caffeine, my go-to order is a Golden Turmeric latte - turmeric, coconut oil, whole milk and cinnamon - delicious! We also got croissants (I wrote in my gratitude journal this morning that I would celebrate with carbs and sugar). This will be my first booze-less birthday in over a decade! I have a cute photo my college roommate took of me holding my ID the day I turned 21 at a chic bar grown up bar (for a college town) that actua

I've been to Las Vegas AT LEAST fifteen times in the past ten years, primarily for tech conferences. I've left Vegas so hungover I've puked in the airport toilets, had panic attacks next to coworkers on flights back to Seattle, lost purses (Omnia night club once recovered and MAILED my Tory Burch bag to me, wow still shocked) and usually leave vowing never to drink again or return to Sin City. This time however, I was there for a bachelorette weekend nine and a half months into my new life sans booze. Going into the trip I was trepidatious about how I would feel being in such a mania inducing, stimulating, alcohol fueled environment... arguably THE MOST alcohol centric city on planet Earth... but I had the best time I've ever had in Las Vegas without a single sip of alcohol and no drugs! Sober in Sin City! Tackling milestones like this in sobriety give you a lot of confidence, and for me, reinforces that this is one of the best decisions I've ever made and I can con

At Amazon we have a concept called the "two pizza team", which is kind of like our version of Goldie Locks and the perfect soup temperature. If you have a project and need other people to help execute the idea, you need enough people that you require more than one pizza to feed them lunch, but lean enough that two pizzas should get the job done. Two pizza team! Lately, I've been having a lot of conversations with others about mental health and the type of support system it takes to achieve and maintain a healthy and stable system. Well, for me, it takes more like a ten pizza team. Since I was diagnosed as Bipolar I last year, I've had to add a few players to my bench. I've been seeking treatment from a psychiatrist who prescribes me essential medication. My yoga teachers have been at the center of my well-being for over ten years now, and those special people continue to add immense value to my life from near and far. I'd also consider all the Peloton instruct

This year we are spending the holidays at home in San Diego! The pandemic certainly shifted our plans 2020 holiday season and this year we are spending both Thanksgiving and Christmas in our new home for the first time (cute, adorable milestone - one worth calling out!). San Diego has been home for over a year now and I really do love the lifestyle. My fiance and I have dreamed of moving down here for most of our relationship, we'd fly down from Seattle for a weekend with friends at the beach and try to figure out which companies might be cool to work for in the area, assuming at the time I'd be nearly in my 40s before I'd have the type of seniority at AWS to take a field role in such a desirable part of the country (certain cities are very coveted and have literally no turn over for decades, it's a dream job). HOWEVER, the pandemic and remote work situations enabled us to make the move sooner than later, and we are both extremely happy down here for a variety of reason

I’m sitting in a window seat, 10,000 feet and climbing over the California desert, above the clouds. It still amazes me that humans were able to invent flight and integrate air travel into society the way we have. One day I fully plan on looking down on Earth from a different perspective, somewhere in space, somewhere that’s always been above me. In the third grade for a class wax-museum I was Sally Ride and wore a full astronaut space suit and had a 5 minute bio memorized. I also went to space camp twice and have already entered a Blue Origin lottery to win a seat on a commercial space flight, so it’s going to happen one way or another. It’s just about the same price as an American wedding these days…  Albert Einstein is a gentleman who needs no introduction, but I will recommend his collection of essays The World As I See it. His reputation as one of the most brilliant minds in human history precedes him, and much of the wisdom he gathered outside of the realm of academia he articula

A very dear friend of mine who I consider family, just received a cancer diagnosis. As soon as their mind considered the practicalities of such a grave situation, panic set in and their mind thought the option of suicide was a better choice than taking on the medical system as a young person of color, with a minimum wage job and bad health insurance in the United States of America. I’m quite familiar with the political ideologies of countries like Australia, New Zealand and Spain where healthcare is not much of a burden for citizens. Young people should have the rest of their lives to look forward to - we are just getting started! That makes me furious. Each person who receives news in the fatality category has their own unique, specific experience that is deeply personal to them. Even if you are receiving news about a loved one, there's a lot of empathy and grief you experience as a witness. But the fact that when faced with a serious disease, however treatable still serious, some

 Yesterday I hosted bookclub! We had a special guest baby Huxley, literary namesake so of course it's necessary he attends book club his first month in the world! This month we read Pulitzer Prize winner  Gilead  by Marilynne Robinson . Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead series— Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack —is an intergenerational story about faith, race, and love from the interwoven histories of two families in a small Iowa town to encompass American life: ideals and beliefs, our contradictions, failings, and hopes. I plan to read the rest of the series, as I found Gilead  a valuable read. A few points I found thought provoking in this novel (I read it on my Kindle so page numbers correspond : Page 75: The protagonist narrates the story, a Caucasian preacher from Iowa in his late seventies who feels he is near the end of life - "...because now, in my present situation, now that I am about to leave this world, I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face...It has s