I'm feeling a little better about my return to Japan. The warmer weather is helping, as are all the flowers in bloom and the cherry trees on the verge of blooming. Everything feels quiet and expectant. This is my first real spring.

But from the background of my computer screen peeps the face of my best friend, my partner in crime on the other side of the world and the hardest part about leaving California: Captain T. To help you better understand how difficult it is to have to say good-bye to him time and time again, I present the following Things You May Not Know About My Boyfriend:

1. For our anniversary he gave me a personalized romance novel called Taming the Tycoon. In it, a high-powered executive (with his name) seduces a spunky career woman (with my name) and helps her fulfill her dream of opening a nightclub. With some tame sex scenes thrown in. It should also be noted that the executive's boss is named George Lucas. And that Capt. T tried to prolong for as long as possible the hardly-believable and not-that-funny claim of writing the book himself.

2. He makes a mean beef stroganoff.

3. He's good at filling the gaps in my knowledge of films made between 1984 and 1994. While I spent my formative years reading all the books in the children's section of my local library, he was busy watching Friday the 13th and The Thing. The jury's still out about which of us is the better for it. I do know it's a lot easier to watch one of his favorite movies together than it is to read one of my favorite books together. We're never ready to turn the page at the same time, for one thing. Although I should add:

3a. He's incredible at reading books out loud. I could listen to him all day. While he was in a Japan, I twisted my ankle so badly I couldn't walk for a day and hearing him read the last chapter of On a Winter's Night a Traveler to me was the only thing that made me feel any better.

4. He's an excellent one-man PR team. I returned to L.A. to find myself better-known and possibly better-liked than when I left. I gather he accomplished this feat by talking about me pretty much nonstop during the eight months I was away. You'd think this would make people like me less, in the same way you have recently come to hate _______ (insert name of recently overexposed person/band/trend here), but there seems to have been some sort of Angelyne Effect, leaving people intrigued about my ubiquitousness.

5. He writes the best emails. They include sentiments like: "this role-playing [video] game is an amazing distraction. fry and i have developed a signature post-kill manuever, where we approach the enemy we just murdered, take off his/her pants, and then lay them over his/her face. it's awesome." But also: "i love you. more than i could tell you in 11 days. more than i can tell you for the rest of our lives..."

I'm one lucky lady.