So I’m back.

I’m back and my eyes are puffy and my hair is fuzzy and matted to the back of my head and I’ve just been woken from the best sleep of my life by the jarring alarm of an iPhone that, when I think about it, I should’ve thrown against the wall.  But I didn’t want to scratch the paint.  The charcoal paint.

Are you picking up what I’m dropping?

That’s right — last night, my first night home from my whirlwind tour of the east coast, we were able to sleep in our bedroom.

Not the guest room — our room.

Which means that on top of approximately 872 trip photos to sort through and share via witty highlighting commentary, I also need to give you an update on that.  Which I will.  Very soon.

And I would’ve updated you sooner — say, while enjoying a cup of fresh-ground coffee in my aunt-in-law’s remodeled Philadelphia kitchen, but I left the power cord to my “borrowed” work laptop in its sun dappled perch in Erin’s water view Annapolis kitchen.

Which I wasn’t too bummed about at first, because it allowed the excuse of taking a leisurely meander back down the coast instead of the terrifying I-95 past Washington, D.C. in order to retrieve the cord.  But then I was bummed, because I realized we wouldn’t get back in time to retrieve the mutts, which I find considerably more fluffy and huggable than a laptop power cord.  So now I have approximately 47 seconds to hop in the shower and erase the grimy road residue from my body before I head out to pick up the mutts, bring the mutts home, and drive all the way back down to work, effectively arriving an hour late on my first day back.

A fact my female boss — the one I directly assist on a daily basis — seemed none too pleased to hear.

And I have to wonder.  Why is it, when I’m on the road, that everything seems to work out timing-wise, but when I’m home, everything turns into one screwed up fuster cluck of a rush?

For example, when we realized we didn’t have time to get the mutts, we realized that meant we did have time to stop at an Italian restaurant, maneuver to change into dressier clothes in the car in the restaurant’s parking lot, enjoy one last vacation-prolonging leisurely meal, and pick Justin’s car up from where he’d left it at the Raleigh airport.  Good deal.  However, I can already see today stretching into a giant stress ball of running all over town, catching up on work, setting appointments, and figuring out how I’m supposed to fit my grandiose plans into a single, short-lived week.

And that, it hits me, is the reason I love to travel.  It’s like my soul refuses to accept a sense of urgency, because nothing really is urgent.  I’m allowed, finally, to just live in the moment.

I just need to figure out how to do that at home.  After I shower, get dressed, pick up the mutts, go to work, cook dinner, do laundry, finish the bedroom, sort photos, and work on other various projects I have going.

Crap.

(P.S. I did post the occasional photo highlight on my Facebook page while I was away. You can see previews at the right, or click here to check ’em out if you’re bored.)