23 July 2001
Last year: While I was gone, I wrote up the part of our vacation that was my brother's wedding, so I thought I'd give you that today (along with a few pictures, even!) and tomorrow, I'll finish it up with our visit to Chicago.
You want to know what a good feeling is?
A good feeling is when you're sound asleep, and the cat jumps up on the bed and starts making a pest of himself, so you open one eye to check the time and realize in a panic that your alarm hasn't gone off - and then realize it's because it's the weekend and you don't have to go to work.
That's a good feeling. Happened both days this weekend. On the other hand, I'm not sure what it says about my mental state that I couldn't get it through my skull that it was the weekend.
I'm a little apprehensive about what this week will bring. We didn't make our artificial internal deadline last week, and I'm waiting to see if they try to call us on the carpet for it. And there's the actual work to finish, of course.
The real deadline is in the beginning of August. I went on the books last week to take a week and a half of vacation, though, so I'm hoping it's all done by then. Matt's mother will be visiting for about half of that, but it leaves me almost a week of my own to relax and enjoy.
"What are you going to do?" Matt asked me this weekend. "You should think about it. I don't want you to get to the end of your vacation and feel gypped because you didn't do anything."
It was a good point, and so now I'm thinking about it. I don't want to spend the whole vacation sitting around the house, but I'm not sure what I do want to do. Part of it hinges on how much time Matt will be able to take off - he's got less saved up than I do, and we need to be careful to save enough vacation time for going to Chicago at Christmas. And there was some question between us as to exactly when his mom would be arriving and then leaving again.
I had a downright weird idea over the weekend: What if I spent one full day in complete silence? (I can hear Matt scoffing already.) But it appealed, in an odd sort of way. Go to the mountains and check into a bed-and-breakfast, and spend an entire day without talking, or logging in to chat or check my mail, or any sort of communication. Have a journal handy to jot down any thoughts that I felt really needed to be captured, but otherwise, just sit on the porch and watch the wind blow.
Another idea that appealed was to go to a local beach - maybe Yorktown Beach, which wouldn't be as crowded as Virginia Beach - and spend a couple of days there, sitting on the beach and watching the waves and the people. I was making elaborate plans about covering over the clock in the hotel room so I would never know what time it was, apart from what I could tell from the position of the sun.
The theme, of course, is to do something really drastic to force myself to relax and reset. I need an enormous jolt to re-align my mental state. I don't think it would take more than a couple of days. I don't want to spend my entire vacation hidden from the world - just part of it.
I also should think about what I want to do with the other part of my vacation - the part where Matt will (possibly) be with me, the part where I want to see people and have fun. Obviously, if Matt's going to be with me, I need his input on that part, but I can still try to think of ideas.
Gaming? Plan a one-shot LARP, maybe? Maybe we could go down to Norfolk and take the short "Spirit of Norfolk" cruise. Go up to D.C.? (In August heat? Er, maybe not...) Go up to the mountains? Down to Nags Head? Take up my uncle on his oft-repeated invitation and visit them for a couple of days? I'm brainstorming. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Word of the Day:
implacable - not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Hall stuff
- garden