hurry up and wait

Packing for the trip. Trying to pack for 10 days is tougher than a long weekend or a month. With a short trip, you can bring enough clothes for every day and trial sizes of toiletries. With a very long trip, you bring fewer clothes that are more versatile, knowing you will be doing laundry; you either bring full size toiletries or know that you will buy them as needed along the way. Packing for ten days, though, is trickier...it makes you play more games with your packing, figuring out what is really important and what can be worked around.

Of course, being the person I am, I find the mental side of it kind of fun. As a former love used to tell me, I'm a "bin packer"...I get enjoyment out of finding ways for things to fit efficiently into the space available, and I'm pretty good at it.

Or, to put it another way: I'm a freak. :^)

The "hurry up and wait" part is right now. Laundry is going. I've packed or put aside as much as I can without it, so now I wait for it to be done. The hardest part is not to keep revisiting what I've already set aside...that's the way my brain works. I call it the 'yeahbutwhatif' syndrome. It's a blessing, it's a curse.

[Aside: You know, blogs are an easy way to kill a little bit of time. Though I pity anyone who ends up reading this boring bit of daily life...]

When it comes down to it, all I *truly* need is passport, driver's license, credit card, medication, itinerary. All the rest can be faked, bought, or somehow acquired. And when I remember that, I relax a bit.

Until I start thinking again.