LancesWorld.com Journal

When I told most people that I was leaving town this weekend, common responses were things like:

• "Again?"
• "Jaunting off to Germany again?"
• "Do you actually live in San Francisco?"

I suppose this type of response it not surprising, considering the amount of travel that I did during the last four months of last year. From September 1 to December 31, I traveled to Kentucky, Notre Dame, Notre Dame, India, Utah, Germany, Los Angeles, Utah, Utah and Denver, respectively. To be perfectly honest, I spent nearly as much time away from San Francisco as I did in San Francsico during the last third of 2006. After traveling so much, you might imagine that I would be ready to just take it easy and settle down at home. Not so. You know how they say that after a vacation you need to go on vacation? Well, with as much travel as I did in just four months last year, I was really feeling it.

I realized that with all of the travel I did, only one trip was one I made just for myself - the trip to Germany. Every other trip was made to see someone specific, do something specific, or accomplish something specific. I traveled for weddings, football games, holidays with the family, "meeting the family," television premieres, and so on. Germany was the only trip I made that was just "for fun," but the trip was so short and the flights so long that it was hardly relaxing. 2006 was so busy, and the travel so exhausting, that I truly do need a vacation from all of my vacations. And so... I'm escaping. I've taken Friday and Tuesday off from work (Monday is a holiday), and I'm just taking a seriously needed vacation from life. For this five day weekend I have almost no plans at all, and it is going to be fantastic. I've cleared my calendar, I'm turning off my phone, and I'm going voluntarily off the grid, if you will. The only people that I'll talk to will be the ones that are either located in my immediate physical vicinity or people I call. Starting tomorrow morning and going right up until Tuesday, I don't plan to answer a single phone call, respond to a single e-mail or post anything else here on the blog. I'm also traveling, but only a very few people know exactly where I'm going, and I intend to keep it that way. Basically, these next few days are my time to pretend that the only thing that exists is me and what's around me. As for the outside world... What outside world?