On the road again

So I'm heading off to the airport in a few hours. This will be the third trip in four weeks; after I get back, I will be more than ready to store away my suitcase for a while. But this vacation will be fun. A bunch of us have rented a villa in Umbria, Italy, and will be spending a week there. This is a group that has been vacationing together for years and we've worked out a good system: heavy on the sippin' and sittin', light on the sight-seein'.

It does seem like an inauspicious time to be doing anything so frivolous. And I don't just mean because Italy and Denmark were also named by the group claiming responsibility for the London attacks. When such an awful thing has occurred, it makes you feel like everything has changed and so your life/outlook/behavior should change with it.

Sometimes, though, you need a reprieve from the stress. I remember a few weeks after September 11th, the Onion came out with what is possibly one of its best issues ever. Title? "Holy fucking shit!" Among its stories was one called something like "Nation yearns for days of caring about crap." You can't go back in time, you can't hide your head in the sand, but you can try to keep on living your life as best you can given the new circumstances.

Am I just trying to justify going on vacation? Maybe. I don't know. This group is my urban family and things are changing all around us. I'm looking forward to a week where, if nothing else, we can enjoy each other's company at the swim-up bar (G&T has rigged up a flotation pillow so it can hold a six-pack of beer).

Ci vediamo, regazzi. See you guys on the 18th.