Mood: Content
Music: Now We Are Free – Hans Zimmer
Units of Caffeine – 1.5
Currently on Vacation

This week has been quite interesting… Certainly not what I was expecting.

A year ago, I was preparing for an extended trip to Dublin, Ireland to premier a new play. I was on the dawn of an amazing experience; one that I will not soon forget. During the course of my stay, I spent the most incredible New Year’s Eve in downtown Dublin. The only problem with all of this: K couldn’t come with me. It was difficult for both of us. So, when I was getting ready for all of this a year ago, I decided right then and there to plan a surprise getaway for K. I came up with a complex plan involving scheduling, deception and a way to re-structure our budget so that I could save for a vacation without K noticing a change within our day-to-day spending. For a year, I had planned a 7-day Caribbean cruise with a deluxe balcony stateroom. I had included a couple of romantic shore excursions and arranged for a dozen roses and chocolate-covered strawberries to be in the cabin once we boarded. I had bought a new tuxedo a few months ago for the occasion and arranged for K to go shopping for new clothes for the cruise, (making it look like a simple birthday present.) It was an amazing plan, and up until a few days ago, everything was working so well. I had kept my secret well. I even had K believing that we were going to some secluded location in west Texas. My cohorts, Lestat, Babs and The Nutcase also helped considerably with this plan.

Unfortunately, it was all working a little too well. A woman by the name of Rita came along and blew everything to pieces. I’m not too sure when I will end up posting this blog, but right now it is Saturday, September 24th. I was originally planning on packing today to take K down to Galveston early tomorrow morning in order to board the ship tomorrow afternoon.

After nearly a week of watching things unfold on NOAA’s web site and seeing how the citizens of Galveston and Houston were reacting to the situation, I broke down and cancelled the plan I had been working so diligently on for the past year. I felt horrible. Not only had I cancelled something I had been really looking forward to, but I was left with a week off from work with K, but no place to go and nothing to do. I was all dressed up with no place to go. Of course, the easiest thing to do would have been to throw in the towel and tell K everything was a bust. Tell her that we had to postpone our vacation for a few months. Tell her that we had to go in to work next week. The fact of the matter is that, cruise plans aside, both of us are in serious need of a vacation. We have been up to our shoulders in stress for so long that postponing a vacation was simply not an option.

So, between 2:00 Thursday afternoon and 9:00 Friday morning, I had contacted my brother in Seattle; booked plane tickets there; arranged to have a car; booked a hotel; and even arranged it all so that we would have a little bit of spending money…. All without breaking the bank. Thursday night I was so upset that my plans had crumbled; upset that I found myself scrambling at the last minute in order to arrange something. When I got home that evening, I had broken down and told K everything. Between the stress of work; the stress of the thesis not going as well as I had hoped; the stress of stage managing a show that is so poorly planned; and the stress of planning something so complex and so grand – Being forced to cancel the cruise was that proverbial straw that everyone talks about.

So, here I am. Right now I’m god knows how many feet in the air, on my way to Seattle with K sleeping in the seat next to me. What will we do when we’re there? What are our plans? Who knows? We have absolutely no agenda. The point is, we’re stepping away from our everyday lives for a week. We’re together. And for once, there is absolutely nothing that we have to do.