I’m trying hard to fight neuroses at the moment. We just bought a couple of tix to travel east, very far east, like what Pat might have called the Orient. Not to be confused with Orient Heights, which Pat may have had “carfare” to visit.

Yeah, so not my New England home for the holidays, and not my holidays, since the trip will coincide with Chinese New Year and the visit will be to M.’s own kin. You’d think that would be why the knots are mounting and mounding in my gut.

Nope, that would be normal people angst, not the crazy, inexplicable, neurotic irrational shit I seem to favor. I’m all aflutter over the idea of taking a normal vacation. What the fuck, man? I am so pre-conditioned by my last gig, where they constantly acted like it would be impossible for me to leave for days on end (of course, that changed when they asked me to leave for days on end and were shocked when I just left). Anyway, I felt a bit of a throat clear lump of stress whilst emailing the new boss, even though she’s told me it’s cool and is herself never there.

For fuck’s sake, I work in Silicon Valley. Everyone is wired. There are CrackBerry addicts everywhere unable to step away from email or mobile phoning for sure. But, they are work hard/play hard folks who fucking leave town. A lot.

If that atmosphere weren’t enough, I fucking am very much a glorified secretary. ‘Course with charm oozing from my orifices and the kind of stellar intellect that has gotten me into successively less responsible gigs over a 15+ year career trajectory (OK, I admit for a bit the trajectory arced the usual up), they got me doing a wee bit more. But, still and all, they will survive and survive well and surely without my service.

Fuck, I can’t even take a week’s vacation and relax thinking about it.

I need to learn how to breathe.