What Vacation?

Given that I’m not Garfield and that I fancy myself as having a bit of an imagination, I’m not going to sit here and complain about it being Monday. I will, however, point out that this is no ordinary first day of the week (unless you’re one of those people whose calendar starts on Sunday – who are you people, anyway?) This is my first day back in the office after a week’s worth of summer vacation, a.k.a. proof positive of the theory of relativity.

Jumping in the Way Way Back Machine for a second, let’s journey to a time when you spent your summer days dressing the family dog up like a cat, rocketing down the stairs on a piece of cardboard and trying to convince your Mom to let you use Kool Aid instead of water on the Slip ‘n Slide. That’s right – all the way back to those endless summers of adolescence, when you would make a daily habit of shuffling into the living room, collapsing on the sofa and mournfully announcing to anyone within earshot that you were “Chairman of the Bored.” The inevitable parental response to this lament probably changes from house to house, but in mine it was a frightening, thousand-yard stare with the assurance that one day I would wish to have every single day of that boredom back.

As with most things – except their decision to talk me out of a homemade jetpack constructed out of fire extinguishers that SO would have worked – my parents were right. Now that I’m in the workaday world and have only ten days to call my own every year, vacation has become painfully relative to the amount of time I spend working. While the days of summer break once seemed like an endless ocean of time, they now fly by even faster than I would have in my sweet fire extinguisher jetpack. And unlike my childhood vacation days – which were spent sniffing out fun like a bloodhound on the trail of a clown – I’m now perfectly content to sit back with a good book and a stiff drink, staring vacantly into the sunset. I’m happy, in essence, to be bored.

Luckily, there was no shortage of relaxation in my week away. Spent kicking it on the beaches of Maui with my family (another, more literal aspect of relativity when it comes to summer vacation), it was seven days of snorkeling (I got a nosebleed in my mask, which was equal parts fascinating and horrifying), tanning (I’ve been assured that my new shade of deep pink is, in fact, “a healthy glow”) and reading (am I alone in thinking that Holden Caulfield really needs to get over himself?) It was all blissful boredom…and now it’s back to work.

Of course, I’m not just talking about the fascinating world of assistanting – it’s back to post on BLAK COFFEE, which should be getting an exciting update here on the site in the next day or two. And you can count on that. Because I’ll be here. Working. And not being bored…