'Twas The Night Before Vacation

I should be sleeping, as I have a flight at 7:30 tomorrow morning, and it’s already past ten.

If I work my way back from my departure time, I can figure out what time I need to wake up. Let’s see….factor in time to check my apartment eight-hundred times before I leave to make sure I didn’t leave a light on or the water running, drive to the airport, circle the various parking lots until something opens up, get my bags checked, wait in line for security, where they’ll inevitably think that the 102 year old lady in line in front of me is a terrorist and stop everything while she yells and whaps at them with her umbrella, and find my gate. After doing the math on my fingers, I figure out that I should have left for the airport three hours ago. Oh well. I guess I’ll just risk it and show up an hour or so before my flight leaves.

I already decided that I’m going to stay in tonight, because of my early flight tomorrow. This logic is good and responsible in theory, but it's flawed, because I’m not tired. My body has gotten used to shutting down after work on Friday and then coming back alive at around 10:00 for a night of fun, and this Friday is no different, as proven by the fact that I’m wide awake. Still, I’ll drop into bed soon, but I’ll most likely be lying there until 3:00 in the morning, staring up at the ceiling, reassuring myself that it sure was a good thing I got to sleep early.

I think I’m packed. I’m not really sure, but I don’t really care, either. My new credo is this: remember the essentials, as you can buy everything else when you get there. The essentials for me consist of hiking boots, rain gear, my camera, and my contacts. After I made sure that I had them, I just filled my bags with other random stuff that I may or may not need. I used to stress about packing, but not anymore. Who cares if I forgot to bring shirts? There’s always a Wal Mart around, somewhere. Plus, not knowing what you pack makes things more adventurous. (“Huh. Three toothbrushes, but no underwear. This should be interesting.”)

Of all of my vacations, I've planned the least for this one. Usually, I bring with me a list of various points of interest, which I’m compiled over a week or two of on-and-off research, along with several thousand printouts of information on possible hiking destinations. Now, however, the plan is to just stop by the nearest ranger’s office of whatever park or wilderness area we’re in and ask for suggestions, or just look at the travel book that I bought.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve finally figured out the sweet spot for planning vacations, and it all boils down to this: less is more. There’s nothing better than basically winging an entire vacation. Everything else in life is structured, so why not do the opposite when you’re finally free of it all?

Yup, I’m feeling pretty good. Now, if I could just get some sleep.

Vacation Mode

“I’m already in vacation mode.”

I like that phrase, especially when I’m the one who’s saying it. It means that I’ve not yet left for vacation, but I’ve already mentally checked myself out from the doldrums of everyday life, in anticipation of going somewhere that I’ve never been to before and stepping away from the rigors of the rat race for at least a solid week.

Choosing when to mentally check out is a big decision. Do it too late, and you don’t get to bask in anticipation of your vacation for very long. Do it too early, and you may get fired for showing up to work in a bathrobe and spending the day with your feet up on your desk, playing with your smart phone. I recommend mentally checking out from your non-professional life about a week before vacation, unless you’re married, which means that you won’t get to at all, but holding off from checking out from work until about two days before, as job hunting may put a crimp in your relaxation. (Also, no matter how relaxing it may seem, don’t go with the bathrobe, unless you are a truly irreplaceable entity at your company, which is just another way of saying that you have blackmail material on somebody who it at least two rungs above you on the corporate ladder.)

I’m now 5 days away from vacation, which means that I’ve checked out from my regular life. That means staying up late if I feel the need, eating what I want to, and shaving only if it seems like something that will bring me great joy. I still have to wait for a couple of days before I check out from work, though. This is kind of frustrating, but it’s the safest thing to do, so I’ll just have to power on through, which will be made harder because I’ll be getting no sleep, running entirely on energy obtained from pizza, and continually having to answer people when they ask me if I’m growing a beard.

I’m getting pretty excited, to the point where I’m almost thinking about the stuff I’ll need to bring with me. (“Almost” being the key word. I prefer packing the night before, a ritual that takes me no more than fifteen minutes.) I’ll need to haul out my hiking boots, which have lain dormant for pretty much a year and a half. (They still probably have Grand Canyon dust on them.) I’ll also need to find my camera and make sure that it still works. I could always do some more research on the Pacific Northwest, but winging the entire trip is always a lot more fun, as it leaves you open to surprises. (“Wait, there’s an ocean here?”)

I should probably end this with some sort of witty, summarizing remark, but I really don’t feel the urge. I’m already in vacation mode!

The Amazing Resilient Wardrobe

Do you remember the entry I made several months ago where I basically said that if I didn’t go clothes shopping soon, my entire wardrobe would dissolve from old age and I’d have to walk around wearing a barrel?

Whaddaya mean you don’t remember it at all?

Whaddaya mean perhaps you read it, but it must not have been all that memorable?

Whaddaya mean you only ended up on this blog by accident, and you don’t plan on coming back?

Whoops, sorry about that. Just got a little carried away.

Anyway, today I was reminded of this when I tried to tie my shoe.

Perhaps I should take a step back. I’ve needed new work shoes for quite a while. They have no tread left whatsoever and the soles are peeling away. They are scuffed and faded. Not surprisingly, given my track record, I’ve ignored all of this, because the shoe is still functional, albeit tacky. Today, however, I was at a meeting at work, trying to tie one of my shoes, when the lace snapped in two. Acting fast, I ignored everything that was going on in said meeting, which is standard procedure for me anyway, and made a quick fix, which consisted of tying the two pieces back together and re-lacing my shoe.

At the time, my thoughts were as follows:

1. Well, I guess I’m going to have to buy new shoes. It’s been a good run, but all things must come to an end eventually.
2. I wonder if I should be paying attention to what’s going on in this meeting?
3. Hey, where’d everybody go! How long have I been in here by myself?

Except I’m not going to buy new shoes. Despite my initial thoughts of doing so, I already know that I’m going to leave them as they are. They’re still functional! Why waste the time and money on new shoes when the ones I have work perfectly fine? (This leads me to believe that my shoes will have to be stolen or caught in a fiery explosion that separates them at a molecular level before I ever replace them.)

This is the reason why I still wear my black polo that I got many years ago. It’s not black anymore. It’s faded to some sickly shade of gray. Once in a while, I think that I should buy a new one, but I then remind myself that I already have one, and thus, nothing gets done, and no new polo is purchased. (My guess is that it'll have to be destroyed in whatever it is that finally gets my shoes before I get a new one.)

Getting back to my original point, which I haven’t yet actually made, which I think is quite impressive, I guess I jumped the gun a bit on needing to go clothes shopping. I’m pretty certain that my current wardrobe has got some serious mileage left. Sure, it may be faded, holey, coming apart at the seams, and tied together, but it still works. Why mess with a good thing?

Plus, I'm all right with looking tacky.