It seems like this is National Let’s-Tell-Ken-What’s-Wrong-With-Him Week.  Everywhere I turn –at work and outside — people seem quite content to spread holiday cheer by inserting probes into me and giving me their amateurish psychological assessments, and acting contrarian simply for (it seems) the sake of contrarianism. 

It’s beyond annoying, and I’m not sure why this is happening.  I see nothing mentioning this on any of my calendars; perhaps a memo was sent out.

But it’s a pretty bad situation when the greatest support and positive reinforcement I receive comes from the editors of Time magazine.  Hmmmm.  Maybe other people are just jealous.

In any event, whatever the reason for this phenomenon, it’s clearly time for me to get out of Dodge.  And as luck would have it, Christmas is here.  That means I get to throw some clothes in a bag and drive to New Hampshire.

I’m excited about my selection of audiobooks to listen to on the 13 hour trip — most particularly John Hodgman’s "The Area Of My Expertise".  John Hodgman, for those who don’t know, is a very funny essayist, but most recognize him as the nebbishy "PC" in those PC/Mac ads.  His entire audiobook — all six hours — was available for free on iTunes last night (and it may still be free as I write this), so that was fortuituous.  His deadpan whimsy cracks me up, although I may skip past the part where he reads 700 hobo names, since I’ve heard that before.

I’ve also got me some David Sedaris and various radio plays.  Then, of course, I have lots of music in case the spoken word gets on my increasingly-frazzled nerves.

The point being: Blogging will be light and/or uninteresting* for the next week or so.  I’ll be photo-moblogging my trip home Thursday and Friday** — a venture of little interest to anyone except my mother, who likes to know that I’m fine and going 20 miles per hour on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Merry Christmas everyone!!***

* should read "more uninteresting than usual"

** technical problems notwithstanding

*** and a Happy New Year!!