I leave for Dallas this afternoon and return Christmas night to work 12/26-28. Though it wasn’t a choice so much as the need to hang on to my two hard-won vacation days, I’m looking forward to being in the office during that quiet week between holidays. I expect it will be a ghost town. Unfortunately, I’ve mentally double-booked the time with both uninterrupted stretches to buckle down on neglected projects and days of long lunches, coworker bonding, and early happy hours. But either way should be fun, a modest break in the routine.

It has been a little strange to watch the semester end for friends, Bryan, and the general Berkeley population. It’s the first time I haven’t been on a school schedule in one way or another, and it’s not the vacation days I miss as much as the chance to put things to rest and have everything reset in January. Nothing is ending or beginning. I continue to work on projects that could last for years. It’s easy to imagine how months could just start to click by, unmarked.

Fortunately, regular paychecks snap me right out of that melancholy crap. Whee!