back to work!

today is the last day of the first end of the beginning of the rest of my half life.

i go back to work tomorrow. back to the adult world. back to actual conversations with my peers. back to complex ideas and exciting new challenges. back to halogen lights, recirculated air, industrial carpeting, padded cubicles, turf battles, hoop jumping, all-day slouching, desk lunching, deadlines, subway commuting. back to work.

dutch was wondering how i managed to score leave for, essentially, the first year of my daughter's life. well. i asked for it. the family medical leave act stipulates that eligible employees are allowed to take 12 workweeks of unpaid leave after the birth of a child. some workplaces are more progressive than others. some bosses are more awesome than others. at my office, it so happens that people are allowed to take up to something like a year-and-a-half off and be guaranteed a job at the same level and same pay when they return. so i got my time off by simply asking for it. and the lord saw that it was good.

and, lo, i am grateful. this has by far been the most fulfilling, rewarding, fun, maddening, crazy-making, and shirt-staining year of my life -- even more so than that year in Nha Trang, when i was taught french and soup-making by a vietnamese hooker (i still think of you daily, Ngoc).

and so it is with a heavy heart that i return to a job that i am lucky and grateful to have.

luckily, my workweek spans from tuesday to saturday, so i will have every monday at home with the wee sproutling. mrs nice guy is home on thursdays. the other three days el nina will be in the care of our baby-blind nanny, the caribbean helen keller, who through strategic negligence will teach our child to entertain herself by eating rat droppings she finds near the tot lot trashcans.

who am i to complain when she'll have four out of seven days spent with parents? really. it's an embarrassingly good arrangement. we are lucky. i am not at all depressed.