Cancel Christmas

After spending four days in a state of "100% Not Sure," I am now only about 10% Not Sure. The 90% that is now settled in my aware-brain and stewing like meat on Captain Queeg's boat.

A few years ago, my dad, brother, and I started a running joke around the holidays. Whenever something would happen that caused us to deviate from our plans, we'd feign helpless disgust and yell, "Well, then cancel Christmas!"

Jokey, jokey.

In February, I started planning my summer. By March, I had June-August mapped out. It was going to be busy and require me to spend too much time away from my family. Furthermore, it was going to force me to do something I didn't want to do and heretofore had not announced.

There will be no Bradoween this year.

I figure most previous attendees had figured this out by now. I'd put off making an announcement, because I was still holding out hope (up until a few weeks ago) that I could make it happen. Then, a few weeks ago, I learned I was simply going to be too busy to undertake the massive work that goes along with throwing the annual bash.

I was sad about it, but I had convinced myself it was all for the greater good. My work, which I usually love, was going to take 100% of my concentration and effort.

Well, now it appears everything I was not going to do this summer (Bradoween, blogger gathering, beach trip with the family, etc.) could've happened after all. The six weeks I was scheduled to spend in Vegas has been reduced to about two weeks.

Fear not. I am still gainfully employed. Plans have just changed in a fairly drastic way.

[Note: I got my wife a Nano a couple of weeks ago. It's been playing for the past several hours on the stereo. She asked if it was driving me crazy, because our tastes in music differ quite a bit. I was feeling nice and told her to keep listening. As I type, Gwen Stefani is belting out how this shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s, and I couldn't agree much more.]

So, I had a lot of plans and now they aren't happening. I'd like to say that leaves me with a lot of free time, but, it actually doesn't. So. Well, yeah. So.

I'm reminded what I tell people who are grousing about their life taking unexpected and undesirable turns: Life rarely goes as we expect. Of course, I'm usually shouting this from a platform of 100% Sure.

So, Christmas is canceled.

Thereyago.