So, a welcome to 2005.

I apparently am unable to sleep anymore. I keep waking up at 6:30, 7 am... or in the case of this morning at 5:30 am. Fully, oh no you're not going back to sleep anytime soon, awake. I thought maybe it was because of my back hurting, so for the past couple nights I've been taking a painkiller before bed, but I'm still waking up early. I guess it's a good thing, gives me some quiet alone-ish time first thing in my day.

So I figured I'd get a keener start on my uberlist for this year, hence the photoblog entry and this journal entry this morning. If I get it out of the way early, then I don't sweat it later. I'm looking forward to showing Julie my uberlist and seeing what she thinks about it. She's a resolution maker, so she might like the idea.

I've never really been a resolution maker. It just always felt like setting myself up to fail, or giving myself another reason to beat up on myself. I like the idea of a to-do list. As an anal-retentive list maker from hell, I know that they're more guidelines and reminders than set in stone do or die items. I can manage that. Plus most of what I wrote down I've been carrying around in my head on my mental to-do list for ages. It's a relief in many ways to put it on paper. (Even though it hasn't actually been printed out on paper yet. *laughs*)

A little less than 2 weeks until my DC trip. This goddamned trip has been such a focus of my worry, stress, and excitement for months and months now. I think I'm going to be relieved when it's over. I have my weirdo American cash sitting on my desk waiting to be shoved in my wallet. I have my lists made of places I want to see, information I really don't want to forget, what to take, where to drink beer, and so forth. My sister will be driving me to Buffalo airport (Gah! Need a map on how to get there!) to get my flight out. I'm for the most part ready to go.

Except emotionally. The reason for the trip is, rather was, to go spend time with my "flag mates"- the people I play my silly pirate game with. But it's been planned, um, not at all and I've been growing more and more distant from the flag and the people in it in the time since I bought my airplane ticket. So there's been a lot of debate on what I'm actually going to do with my 3 days and 4 nights in DC.

Do I do the flag stuff and potentially dislike these people and lose out on experiencing this city I've never been to and probably won't see again for years? The lack of planning really bothers me. There are a lot of good reasons for it, but personally I look at the money I've dropped into it at this point ($700!) and my desire to potentially spend a single evening wandering around a major American city looking for a restaurant that will seat over 10 people without a reservation plummets. I can be spontaneous... on my terms and for cheap. This trip is not cheap.

The other option is making it a 'Linda travels the world alone!' trip, ditch the flag stuff, and spend my time exploring DC on my own. I could easily spend an entire day in the art gallery, I suspect. Or any number of the Smithsonian Museums. I already know that Friday will be about the Wars, the memorials and the cemeteries. The downfall with this option is it would get lonely. I've gotten used to having people around me.

I just don't know. I don't think I will know until I'm standing in DC.

Yay for indecision!