Last photo taken in my old apartment in San Francisco, on the night of my goodbye party. Taken by Brett.

Some of my friends at the goodbye dinner, from left to right: Kyle, Heike, Wendy, me, Ben, Bo, Cecilia

I don't remember when my life was last this complicated, what with business travel on top of moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, while Ben is selling his house and we're looking both for temporary housing for ourselves and two big dogs at the same time as hunting for our new house. Meanwhile I have to come back to New York the week after next, and also set up my new office in Los Angeles. Which, by the way, will only be mine through the end of the year at which time I'll have to officially start working from home (because my company is too cheap to shell out for the LA office). And of course both of us are going to London on Christmas Day for ten days.

While I was in New York this week, Ben flew up to San Francisco to supervise my move for me on Friday. He called me in tears the night before the move, remembering the very happy memories from my apartment, however little time we've spent there together (just four weekends). Things have happened (and are happening) so fast: I don't think either of us will catch our breaths until we get settled in our new home, whenever we find one: likely not for several months.

The eight days I've spent in New York have all been work days. We were put under a frantic schedule to accomplish the first part of a new project in a fifth of the time we originally estimated it should take. And you know what, we got it done, somehow. Although it's been a very tiring, stressful eight days, I feel really good about the work I did. After months of relative inactivity at work, it's good to feel useful again, and to be able to do good, constructive work with talented people. I have the best possible relationships both with my colleagues and with the customer's people, so the work has actually been quite enjoyable. The comparison of doing this type of work with the way my work life is going to be in LA is stark: here, I'm interacting with people day-long on the basis of mutual liking and respect; in LA, I'll spend each entire live-long work-day alone apart from occasional phone conversations. It's going to be my biggest problem in my new home.

Everybody I was working with knew that I was moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles this week, and it felt good that I could freely talk about "my partner", referring to him as a "he" without any reserve. If only the whole of the country was like the blue states in which I live and work.

I've found myself to be extremely irritable the whole time here, however. At first I just put it down to not sleeping well, working long hours, and bodily fatigue compounded by powerful work-outs at Golds Gym a few blocks from my hotel. But I think it's likely to be largely due to a change in medication. A few weeks ago I was prescribed anti-depressants; I had to face the fact that I'd sunk back into a depression. Not a severe one: if I ever felt completely wretched, it was never for long. But nonetheless, it was there in the background, and it wasn't a surprise given all the changes I'm going through. Anyway, while in New York, I decided to cut back on the dosage because I didn't feel it was doing me any good, and I know from experience that withdrawal from anti-depressants can frequently lead to irritability. Surprisingly, though, I've felt relatively little actual depression over the time in New York, probably because I've been enjoying the social aspect of my job here so much. Paradoxically, I've been less lonely here in New York than in LA.

Still, it's my first time apart from Ben in a month, and of course we're missing each other. Tonight, when I arrive in Los Angeles, it will be my first time in a decade arriving home and being picked up by somebody who loves me, instead of driving home to an empty apartment.