RAH RAH RAH !

I haven't had a week off from work since late last November.

Lately, I've been short tempered and quickly irritable. I've had little patience for everybody including family and co-workers. I've been feeling spent and as if I've been running nowhere fast for too long.

Tuesday at work, I noticed that I may have lost a little of my edge.

Something happened that should not have happened had I been more alert and rested.

I'm in need of the kind of rest that's only acquired after a personal recess. A furlough from the daily grind. Not counting sick days, I am very fortunate to have acheived a professional position where I get more than 25 paid days of time off from work every year. Wifey thinks I'm crazy the way I spend them.

With The Crew already away, I've been coming home to a home in stasis. The way I see it, without anyone around, it's a shanty. When everyone's here it's a palace. Years ago, when Fio the dog ruled and Wifey would be away, my situation was different. His panting, his shadowing and the jingle from his collar were enough to legitimize our dwelling when I was alone. Without a bona fide pet in the house, the last two weeks have felt reclusive.

It's been like this the last few summers. I may have to relent and get a dog. Let me tell you that if I were a cad, I'd have no problem remedying this solitude. I'm confidant about that.

Exacerbating the reclusiveness this time, has been that the Tivo in the bedroom went south on Sunday evening. Essentially, there's no TV in the bedroom. Big freakin' drag. My --er, our-- bedroom also functions as a haven from everywhere, everyone and all everything. The TV is a big part of that Private Idaho.

Without it, it's down to the family room for me to enjoy the drone of the television as background, while I tend to other things like reading and phone calls since last Sunday. I can't even watch TV in the kitchen because it's fed off the receiver in the bedroom. This is so fucked. My necessary haven has been disturbed.

Begining at about 8 p.m. on Friday evening, and much to the consternation of some of my superiors at work, I'll be away for two weeks. It's office manager auto-reply time for my e-mail there. I, however, had to cash in on a sick day on Wednesday just to get my bearings straight.

I don't think I could have made it to Friday in good health had I not had a breather on Wednesday. For my psyche, it was very necessary. As it was on Wednesday, with a deadly steam-pipe explosion in the NYC underground infrastructure, it was obviously a good day to breathe deeply and exhale in suburbia while away from the beehive.

This morning, I woke up at the time that I should have been pulling away from the driveway. Having been awake between 3 and 4:30 a.m. last night is likely the blame for that.I'm way off kilter.

I need a rest. I need some personal vitamins.Tucson, Casa Grande, Gila Bend, Yuma, Calexico, Mexicali, Rosarito, San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nogales and 116 degrees is what my soul is yearning for. CL, Julio, TP, JH and his wife, Alex and Gracie, David, uncles and cousins, and childhood friends is what my heart yearns for.

I need a taxi to take me away from this nudge.I will hail the 6:55 a.m. out of Newark on Saturday morning to get me to my other home. The home I left behind when I was a wide-eyed twenty-eight year old.

*!*