I Need A Vacation

Been feeling stressed a lot lately. Between work issues, money issues, family issues, and warcraft issues, I haven't been having a lot of fun lately. Fortunately, in eleven days I'm flying up to Philadelphia to visit my sister. She's gonna take a few days off work, we're gonna watch movies and eat junk food and drink, I dunno, maybe margaritas. It's gonna be pure hedonistic sloth, and I'm gonna love it.

My sister and I have always gotten along well in our strange, weirdling way. Periodically one of us will break out a quote from something we saw as kids, the other will give the appropriate response:

"Plahsmah!"
"Dawg plahsmah!"

or,

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"
"Four foot one, sir."
"That long, eh? Jolly good."

or,

"Were you born this stupid, or did you take lessons?"
"I took lessons!" (indignantly)

We find this utterly hilarious, and of course everyone around thinks we are raving lunatics. Which is the best part of all.

I'm also going to take some time to visit a couple of friends while I'm up there. One of them was my best friend in college, since about the second week of freshman year, and she and I have kept more or less in contact over the years. We occasionally manage to be in the same place at the same time, and that's always good fun. The last time we saw each other was I think 10 years or so ago (eep! too long, too long!). When I sent her an e-mail letting her know I'd be around and asking if she wanted to get together for dinner, her response was "Dude! even if I had plans, I'd cancel them", which made me feel pretty good.

The other friend I'm going to see is my friend Bellwether, whom I've never met before. It's one of those internet-age on-line e-mail, IM friendships, that started with leaving comments on each other's blogs, then we started doing some stuff in Warcraft, then we started getting to know each other as regular people, outside of gaming. I've really come to appreciate not only her wit and her creativity and her utter unpredicatbility, but also her support when things get rough. It's going to be great to meet her and see her face and get to know her without the limitations of chat windows and text messages. But I gotta say I'm a little nervous too. What if I turn into a tongue-tied dweeb? What if I come across as boring in real life? Or even worse .... old? I know it's going to go great and I'll be really glad I did make it happen, it's just my nature to have unreasonable worries.

Anywho, 11 days 'til vacation!

"And you, how long have you been a robber?"

:: silence ::

"Jolllllly good."