My Christmas Vacation
A silly thing like not having a job isn't stopping me from taking a Christmas vacation. Actually, the fact that I have no job means that I can take a REAL vacation. Real as in a TWO WHOLE WEEKS AT ONE TIME vacation which is something I have only done once in the last 20 plus years (on my honeymoon with Rob almost 9-1/2 years ago. ) After all, a vacation is nothing more than a change in your normal routine and even without a job, it's fairly easy to change my routine.

Step one: no more job hunting every day or filling out applications and tweaking resumes to be forwarded to the black hole that exists in HR departments everywhere. I used to work in HR and the black hole for my department was located in the file cabinet where all applications were neatly filed and never looked at again because it was important to provide the local newspaper with advertising revenue by running the same ad every weekend for the two months it took the hiring supervisor to decide that maybe they wanted to actually LOOK at the applications we were receiving, but only those from the previous week (never mind the other seven weeks' worth.)

Step two: stay up as late as I want and sleep in as late as I want with no pangs of guilt about being an unemployed slacker because, hey, I'm no longer unemployed for these two weeks, I'm ON VACATION. Funny thing about this is that I'm still usually getting up at six o'clock in the morning and as a result I'm conking out before midnight. Oh well.

Step three: drink as much alcohol as I want. My vacations must include plenty of beer and I must spend at least one day where I start drinking beer the minute I wake up. I haven't quite gotten to that yet, but it's on the itinerary. And here's another funny thing. Having given myself permission to get totally sloshed each and every day if I want, I've spent quite a few of these vacation days completely alcohol free and most of them buzz-free.

Step four: do things I don't normally do or haven't done in a long time. Our little visit to the Megaplexxx store was one example. It wasn't until I read Rob's post that I discovered that I had seen a lot more porn movies in my lifetime than Rob. This is primarily due to the fact that I used to catch the midnight movies at the Dobie Mall Theater back in my late teens/early twenties. The films were usually either cult films like Eraserhead or porn flicks like The Opening of Misty Beethoven. It was the perfect cheap night of entertainment for folks on a budget since the midnight movies were only a buck or two and the popcorn and cokes were still inexpensive back in those days. If it turned out to be a porn film that was showing that night, no big deal. The difference this time is that I'm watching porn movies with my lover instead of with friends. That does tend to put a whole new twist on the experience ;>

Step five: cook less and eat out more. This one is a little harder to pull of when you're on a tight budget, but we've managed to throw in a few meals out at restaurants we haven't been to in a long time which made it feel much like visiting an old favorite restaurant at some regular vacation spot.

These little mind-game tricks have worked really well and I can honestly say that this Christmas holiday is one of the best ones I have ever had. And despite having no job and little money, I've had as much fun on this vacation as on any other.