Get the Hell Out of Dodge

Long time no see. How’re we all doing? Hanging in there? Things OK? How’s the wife/husband/partner/being single? I hope no one’s been kicked out of school already/had swine flu/lost the local autumn kickball tourney.

Things here have been kind of all over the place, but no one has broken any bones, been indicted or taken a gun to a public event, so we’re still this side of trouble/insanity. I think it’s important to keep things in perspective when the road gets rough, don’t you? It’s a comfort to me, when I wake up at 3AM, to remind myself that there is steel-cut oatmeal in the kitchen, I’m still writing, New York’s still standing and that there’s a whole wide world out there that isn’t concerned with playground bullies, family conflict or how much tickets to New Zealand cost when you buy them with less than a 14-day advance.

Not to get too specific there, but yeah, we’re going to New Zealand. Next weekend in fact. It’s kind of a catch 22 with the vacation planning when you’re as worn out and un-vacationed as we are: you’d like to have a well-planned holiday because that’d be optimally restful but planning it well would require even more of that energy you’ve been having trouble locating recently, so you have to pick between going at all (first choice) and going with seasonally appropriate clothing and any destination research beyond, “Hey, that looks pretty, right?” (currently in second place).

In fact, you’d like to be able to get the break you need without flying halfway around the globe to start with, but experience has shown us that that’s not going to happen, so off we go, braving the jet lag and the left-side-of-the-road driving so we can evade email, get some sleep and reclaim our priorities while basking in another nation’s sunsets. We’re buying flights and renting a car and winging the rest of it. (If anyone has any recommendations of places to go or things to do, now’s the time to send them, yeah?) We’re tacking on a week in Fiji at the end of the trip, just to make sure we get some tropical drinks and a tan on the agenda. It’s not a real vacation unless someone comes home with a tan. Or a snow globe. Or a tropical disease. Whichever.