scattered updates

We finally called the plumber about the bathtub draining slowly! It turns out the pipes underneath are installed backwards. We're trying to decide whether to spend a little money replacing the pipes, or a lot more money and effort re-doing the bathrooms entirely (they're gross and awkward, and need to be replaced). I don't see us really wanting to deal with a bathroom remodel in the coming year, but I've been surprised before. (By "us" I guess I mean "Anna," since she'd be managing the project.)

The specialist doctors reached a dead end with me! Suboptimal, but it's nice to have some resolution. Instead, I talked to my GP about a semi-plausible theory I had about fatigue and neurotransmitters, and got him to prescribe a psychoactive drug, which...helped me feel better after just a couple days, much to everyone's surprise. Over the past few years I've had a lot of variation from week to week, but after 3 weeks it's safe to say I've been feeling and (mostly) sleeping better--I've gone running a few times and recovered the way I used to. Today I could swear I felt almost rested, though that's not historically a familiar feeling.

Anyway, yay for drugs! Who knows why they work.

The new job is okay. I work with smart, nice people, and I'm learning stuff, and that's really the baseline. I don't know that it's lighting me up, exactly...my impression is that because of the split between the SF and Palo Alto offices, there's a limit to the magnitude and kind of impact I can have--for example, I don't feel like I can help guide the engineering culture from down here. And since I joined, I've been working alone on a bunch of stuff that no one else seems to care about. It's possible it's critically important and everyone just has every confidence I'll get it done in a reasonable amount of time, but since no one really asks, that feels like a bit of a leap.

But who can tell? I easily get crabby about work, especially in the absence of feedback and context. It's a good place to learn things and find my feet again--to say nothing of paying my mortgage--so in that respect it's working out well.