My vacation days are getting in the way of my job.

I scheduled my vacation days for tomorrow (Thursday, Aug. 27) and Friday (Aug. 27). I’m using up the rest of my first week of vacation for this year. The first three days of my vacation I used up earlier this month; that’s when I went to Boston.

But now I’m kind of sad when I think of my next two days off. I’d feel like a slacker, not showing up for work – even though I’m scheduled to not do that! I still have a couple of stories that I’m still editing, so that means I have to take a few hours out of tomorrow to work on them. I can’t let them wait until I get back because I have to submit at least one story per town I cover. Since I cover Ringwood and Wanaque (in Passaic County, N.J.), I have to write a story for each of those towns per issue. Otherwise, there’d be no reason for Ringwood or Wanaque readers to buy the Trends.

And to think that when I get back to work on Monday, I’ll have an even more overstuffed e-mail inbox waiting for me to open, and a whole bunch of stories waiting to get written. .