Jet-setting or Something Weird Like That

August was a rather unpleasant month for me. Lots of stress, frustration, disappointment and tears. There are still several things that are throwing me off and slowing me down a little bit. I've been contemplating disappearing a lot...just kind of getting away from everywhere and everyone and having some time to sort things out. That's sort of like running away from problems, but, so it is. Anyway, I did have one little good thing so I figured I might share it.

In the middle of last week, I happened to stumble across a particular entry on Michael Musto's blog over on The Village Voice website. You can view that entry here. It describes a contest that Musto was hosting, in which one lucky, hand-selected, 250-word piece would win one lucky participant a JetBlue All-You-Can-Jet pass (more info on what that is over on Mr. Musto's blog).

So I took a few minutes out of my ridiculously shitty weekend to pull together about 240 words. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a brief congratulatory e-mail in my inbox slightly after midnight Tuesday morning from Michael Musto himself. I'm not a "writer", but I somehow won the pass and now I have the next month to travel to a number of destinations, starting at the beginning of next week.

I'm happy I won and very excited for the travels - it'll be nice to be away from "home" for awhile. I'm also very nervous, though, to be going to a bunch of new places alone. I don't really have a very good idea of where I'll be going yet or any of the specifics. Who knows if there will even be specifics. But I've been thinking about potential destinations and things I'd like to see. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to finalize at least a few things and book some flights. I'm sure I'll have more to say about all of this and some photos to share, whether it's day-by-day throughout the trip or when I get back. And of course, there will be the little piece on Michael Musto's blog when my month of travel is over.

So, wish me luck! I'll be off before too long...