paradise and the City and such

I thought it would be sad to leave Hawaii and come back to San Francisco, especially because Jon was leaving for a week the next day. Back in my apartment there was a vague post-vacation depression hangover in the air, provoked by my still having a cold and laryngitis almost a week later (and all during my trip), amplified by my bitterness at the experience of trying to catch a late-night taxi solo with my suitcase near Civic Center BART (ugh, should have gotten off at Powell). But I fought off low spirits by changing my employment information on LinkedIn and Facebook in preparation for my first day at my new job (so satisfying), and soon I'd never been happier to be back.
Maui was outstandingly relaxing and totally gorgeous and Jon was a ton of fun, but after an early morning earthquake we were in trapped mentality and instantly ready to come home the next day. We were in the comically remote Hana town (two restaurants and one general store total, a two-hour drive down the windiest highway imagineable). I just figured it happened all the time (er...volcanos just come with the geological volatility territory, right?) and rolled my eyes at Jon's attempts to connect to the internet to check for Tsunami warnings, until he finally connected and the papers said we should have run for higher ground. When they closed the roads, we thought we might be trapped in paradise (ha), so three hours later when they opened the roads any prospect of sightseeing went out the window and we booked it back to town (booked it as fast as one could book it down the windiest road ever, which under normal circumstances becomes one lane instead of two around snaking cliffs, and now had giant rocks fallen along one lane). It definitely cut things shorter, leaving even more room for slight regret that I'd let myself catch a cold that lasted all week and stole my normal voice away, and that I had in one way or another failed to take advantage of the situation and make things perfect.
Still, it was a really great trip - I got to swim in perfect water with awesome fish, read mediocre paperbacks with my knees in the waves, eat fruit and sorbet in divinely comfortable chairs, dig my toes into cottony red sand, and spend tons of time with my still-relatively-new boyfriend. While the restaurants were nothing to write home about, the guacamole at Maui Tacos was uncommonly good, and the Thai food was definitely up there. I was ready to go back and do some real work (I'd done so much screwing around at the end of my last job it felt like I'd forgotten how to do any real work).

All ready to go back to work except
why hasn't my voice come back yet?
why is it even worse than before, even though I'm feeling better?
My first day at work was great - everyone seems really cool, the commute is phenomenal (8 blocks!), the office is awesome, and I'm pretty excited about the work. I was even showered with corporate gifts (embroidered laptop bag and matching folder) and the promise of inconceivable publisher client perks (I heard a rumor involving massages and expensive concert tickets). Beyond the existential guilt crises I vaguely felt obligated to have (did I *sell out* to get this dream job? Is it *wrong* to have changed my plan to have a job in which I suffer in order to hold a job title that once seemed glamorous on television? Will I never be a *real writer* because I am on a career track that does not involve being paid to write?), I had the additional pressing concern that my raspy voice was in and out while introducing myself to various superiors. And oddly, the better I felt, the worse my voice got, which got me worrying it wasn't just a matter of one more day, and while my superiors might think it's cute now, in a few days they won't think it's very cute anymore that they hired a mute to talk to clients on the phone.
I went to Rainbow grocery and whispered my problem to a vitamin-aisle lady. An hour, 6 cold-related products, 7 unnecessary luxuries and much money later, I headed back home, generally loving San Francisco and life, because all of these lovely organic product are only 3 blocks from my home. It's not so bad, being back.