Akhil and I celebrated our official anniversary last night with paper gifts (the tradition) and a magnificent dinner date at the Bel Air Hotel. I had the bouillabaise, he had the duck, and we shared an entire bottle of wine and the croissant bread pudding for dessert. A lovely evening.

The last time we'd been to the Bel Air Hotel was for my dot-com company Christmas party in 2000, when tech stocks were flying and our options actually seemed promising. We all got treated to a five-course meal, open bar, and of course, complimentary Cuban cigars. Are you kidding? Of course I smoked one!

Then -- you know what happened. The bust happened, and my old employer bit the dust. I quit before the holidays that year. Fittingly (and I'm not making this up), the 2001 Christmas party was held at "The Shack" (on Wilshire in S.M.), and our office space was rented to Oliver Stone.

Can't quite believe an entire year's gone by since the wedding - we'd thought we'd have made so many more changes than we have by now. Only difference really is that I am less, shall we say, "busy." I had lunch yesterday with my former boss from TV Week, who's now a VP and Publisher. I appreciated his friendly invitation. I know we both still feel pretty bad about the necessity of my layoff. Nothing changes, of course, but at least we got a chance to clear the air. I woke up today feeling like I'm at "Sum Zero."