What a drag to have to be back in the office after nine days of blissful languor and merry feasting. Except for some cooking on Christmas Eve and leaf-raking on the 26th, I spent the entire time in blithe indolence.

It took some serious effort to get out of bed before dawn today, and it seemed strange to have to drive to work (or anywhere, for that matter); I hadn’t so much as gotten in my car since the 23rd. Yet, here I am, once again hitched to the sledge, propelled as much by muscle memory as anything, plodding down this cold furrow of mortal life.

O, woe! These precious, irreplacable fragments of time, each one birthed as a shining bauble of glorious possibility, forever tarnished by the wholly mundane, lackluster tasks to which they were sacrificed. Would that Man was finally freed from such drudgery, but alas! Only Death’s icy hands can remove this burden of toil, so long affixed to Mankind’s shoulders.

Guess I should have taken another week off.