It’s another holiday here at Chateau D’Isaster; with the roommates all off at family functions and me sitting here in front of the computer in a big empty house. Sure, I get the invites to the family functions and all, but I’m not family… I’m n+1.
Fortunately I’ve been doing this since I joined the Navy, so the calluses are fairly thick and I don’t really notice all that much anymore. The thing that gets me every year is that nothing is open: There’s nothing to go do out in the real world and it’s a thorny reminder that it’s “family time”.
Oddly enough, I’m usually looking forward to some time away from the folks here at the house, but my brain keeps going on with the childhood programming of “Christmas” and “family”… Bah.
Add to this that I’m not one for buying groceries as the above mentioned roommates always tend to eat everything before I get to it. So come Thanksgiving or Christmas when everything is closed, I usually wind up eating dinner ala gas station.
That’ll make ya joyous.
For those out there in a similar situation, the only thing I can recommend is too burry yourself in some project so that you don’t notice the second hand on the clock. That and realize it’s just a day, like any other, though one with a decidedly more consumerism base.
When I think about it that way I can get a chuckle: It takes the idea of free stuff to get most families together for a weekend… In that light I guess I can live without the family thing.
So I’ll probably fire up EQ2 and get engrossed in some 12 hour quest or something just to pass the time till I get to go back to work Monday and pretend like this weekend never happened.