I Haz Returned.

Cue scary music. Granted, not that scary. Except when I attempt to sing, I am a threat to no one.

I returned to New York late Saturday night. I returned to my apartment on Sunday morning. And believe you me, those two events did not like each other. They did everything they could do to stay as far apart as possible. They acted like bitter divorced parents, the kind whose split involved cheating (stone cold sober and with multiple genders), lying (about the parentage of the children involved) and violence (the house is still cordoned off with police tape, neighbors refuse to speak with the police, etc). Thus, they never want to share a continent again. And I, the product of their questionable sexual morals, was trying to get them back together again. I succeeded in the end, but at my peril and long before I was finished questioning whether it was worth it. Other people live in Penn Station, after all, and I do have a reasonably healthy immune system.

This trip will definitely be going down in the annals of travel history. It had everything: drama, narrow escapes, Silly String. It also lasted a really long time. Most vacations are too short, yes? This one entered some sort of wormhole. I was in California and/or traveling for at least a month (the kind of month where you have mono and all events play like a fever dream) and now I’m back “in the groove,” enjoying the cold familiarity of the pre-9 AM hour (two temperatures in this office: “Ice Ice Baby” and “Pleased To Meet You, Lucifer”).

The definitive lack of activity in my upcoming life (for approximately eleven days, at which time the whole crazy train starts all over again) is something I’m looking forward to with enthusiasm bordering on obscenity. Sure, I have to work and all, but on my beat, this month and the one after it are technically referred to as “a really, really slow time.” Anyway, as has been noted, I enjoy my work. So what I’m facing here is kind of like a vacation for the mind.

Don’t misunderstand me. I had, in the main, a very good time in California. Fresh air, good people, not a subway in sight, a distinct lack of sobriety, sometimes for days at a time—what’s not to love? It’s just that it was insane. And the traveling? Not fun. I remember when getting on a plane was an exciting adventure. Now it is, shall we say, not that.

Anyway, besides being a lot of fun and leaving me with fewer functioning knees than I started with, this vacation was very blog-worthy. It kind of makes me sad that I wasn’t writing as I went along, while the events were still fresh* in my mind.

*Even when they were, you probably wouldn’t have gotten an account with an accuracy worthy of the New York Times or anything, so really, you’re not missing a lot.

Had I been a bit more “on top of things” and possibly consumed fewer margaritas, I might have had the stamina to relate some of the more exciting events sooner, i.e., within shouting distance of when they actually happened. As it is, you will be getting a random hodgepodge of memories, probably one per entry until I get bored.

Something to look forward to!