TODAY'S TURN: Go away!!!

THE ISSUE:
Don't hate me because I'm tan. Don't resent me because I'm relaxed. Don't mock my souvenir T's or wish hot death to rain down upon my sea-sponged shoulders because I seem to have forgotten what a hectic, horrible, dangerous, filth-ridden, mean, harsh, unhappy, back-breaking toilet the world really is - not to mention the rancid meatheads who occupy it. I'm simply too at peace to argue with you anyway.

You may have noticed I haven't posted in a while. For two weeks...for two blessed, hug-my-mom-for-giving-birth-and-making-this-possible weeks, I was able to shut the world off and shut myself down.

And I was reminded of two simple truths:

1. The more you close yourself away - in a cubicle, in a neighborhood, even in a hometown - the harder it is to feel connected to national and world events.
2. Blood pressure can make you blind. The more stressed out you are, the less you really SEE others.

Even as I was "getting away from it all" I felt drawn to people. I was curious about their lives. I conversed. I felt a kinship that's tough to feel while swallowing a dose of road rage back home.

I'll call it the Pilgrim's Paradox: Ignoring the world for a couple of weeks is the best way to connect to it.

THE GOOD TURN:
Shut down the computer, unchain yourself from e-mail, take the kids out of school and put your dog in a kennel (or if you prefer, the other way around), hug your lawn mower goodbye and take a vacation already!

Meet the world. Learn something about someone, somewhere, somehow. Taste. Smell. Listen. Bring home some smiles with that snow globe of Santa Claus on the beach. Bring some understanding of the people and places that normally just flash by on the CNN ticker.

And if you can also have a Bloody Mary while watching a sunset, so much the better.