Whooosh

Apart from the weekly celebration that is NFL Football, today signaled, for me, a bittersweet arrival -- that reality's return is imminent and, tomorrow, work begins anew.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one who formerly approached Sunday nights with a bittersweet melancholy that abruptly melded into complete melancholy once True Blood, Entourage (and soon, Dexter) take their annual hiatuses (hiati?). It's not that I hate working -- just the opposite -- but if the weekend is the cake, Monday morning is the boiled liver with lima beans.

So these past four days -- Thursday, Friday, Saturday and today -- really were great. I saw friends, I celebrated with my family, I had endless time to tinker with the new box, and I had no real constraints of any kind. I did work, I cleaned the house, I did some random food prep, and I got ready -- mentally -- to prep a big potful of chicken soup. On that last part, I've settled on leeks, carrots, some onion, barley, mushrooms and orzo.

However, especially now that the real world is imminently making its return to disturb the last four days of vacation, I suppose it's like summer vacation's end for kids. The last four days were great and yet, they sped by incredibly quickly. Hence the bittersweet melancholy, regardless of whether True Blood, Entourage and Dexter signaled the end of the week and the beginning of the week, all within a 150-minute metamorphosis.

I think it has more to do with having to wake up early than the whole "work" thing. After all, I did a bunch of work stuff -- and even hit the office for a bit on Friday -- but the real core of my being deplores having to wake up at a particular time. If I could roll out of bed, hit the shower and the office, and do my thing at my own pace and on my own schedule, I think things would be really different. Monday morning -- and Sunday night -- would have far less significance in this lexicon of the death-knell of the weekend by 12AM Monday.

But then, I suppose, I wouldn't appreciate the weekends as much; in fact, it occurs to me that the whole "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" has Monday morning written all over it.

I suppose we'll know tomorrow morning. For better or worse. Okay, for worse.

Happy Monday.

Blech.