On my first trip to Thailand

Unemployed.

As of 5:00pm yesterday, I have no job to wake up for, no boss to report to, and no paychecks coming in. I’m unemployed.

As of 5:00pm yesterday, I have begun final preparations for my trip. As of 3:00pm today, Hurricane Irene is putting a damper on those plans.

Luckily, I don’t have much left to do. I’m going to spend this afternoon going through my list of things to bring and making sure I haven’t forgotten anything that will take time to get. Though if I have, it’s probably too late by now anyway. Tomorrow’s a loss due to the storm, and I’m just hoping we still have power. Monday and Tuesday I’ll wrap up loose ends, like getting toiletries, suspending my cellphone, making goodbye calls, and ensuring that I have enough American dollars to get me through Southeast Asia (they love them down there). And Wednesday morning I’m off to New York – provided New York is still there on Wednesday – and we fly out to Israel that night with a layover in Ukraine.

One chapter is closed, but another has yet to begin. I’m sitting in intermission. I’m excited, but it still hasn’t hit me that I’m leaving. And I suspect that this trip will be over before I even know it’s begun.