I’m finding myself in a weird place these days with working the new job, and all. Some of the things I’ve discovered such as traffic, my daughter’s clinginess when I drop her off at daycare, and trying to look busy during those last 45 minutes of the workday, when there’s nothing to do are big downers. Lately though, I’m beginning to remember a childhood pleasure that has re-emerged in my day-to-day life: the joy of Friday.
I don’t think there is a kid in America, barring the juvenile delinquent and the sorry, uber religious, home schooled bastard, who doesn’t associate Friday with fun and excitement. It’s the end of the week, the beginning of 48 hours of extremely limited structure where you can stay up watching cheesy, B-rated cable movies, and IM your friends until 2:00 AM. Then following fun Friday comes glorious Saturday with its “breaking all the rules” mayhem. On Saturday, we used to go to the dinky, little mall and buy cigarettes out of the vending machine until some Mormon legislator outlawed those sweet dispensers of addiction. I would spend Saturday night at Christina or Christina’s house, the only difference between the two being one Christina’s family would drag me to church on Sunday, while the other Christina’s mother made us waffles.
Sunday was always kind of a sad day, because it signaled the end of the fun. On Sunday you had to do your homework and fold laundry. You had to get to bed early on Sunday night and tiptoe around the house during the day, because Dad was sitting in his chair watching sports and he didn’t want to be bothered. There was nothing fun, exciting or mayhemish about Sunday, it was just a drag.
In college there was less appreciation for Friday, simply because I would usually skip class, or if I did go, the professor was so antsy to get his weekend started that he let us go early. Friday did usually include a game and a drunken party at Kappa Sigma, but that happened on Saturday, too, and on occasion the Kappa Sigs would throw down and party during the weekdays.
I entered the professional world and went into the music industry, where Friday was always a concert night. We would do shows on Fridays and Saturdays, so in a way, the regular week was a break for us, and because of the circumstance, ended up losing even more appreciation for the Friday.
After Rachael was born, I retired from the working world, and one day looked like any other. I would often figure out which day of the week it was by the amount of time Jeff would hang out around the house. He was in graduate school for most of Rachael’s first year of life, so even on the weekends he was gone. I would end up figuring out that it wasn’t a weekday by looking for Oprah around 4:00 PM, and getting football, which is somewhat sad and pathetic.
Now that I’m back at work, and on a regular schedule, the fun and excitement of Friday has returned. I look forward to the end of my productive work week, because I know that in between arranging the big event and trying to make the best of the six evening hours before bed, I get a 54 hour stretch of time that I can do whatever I want. Even when I had all the time in the world to waste, for some reason, it was too much of a good thing, and I didn’t recognize it as fun. However, much like the mainstream news and The Daily Show; you need to have a balance. You can’t appreciate the humor, fun and insightful, liberal perspective of The Daily Show without the boring, regimented, and right-wing slanted mainstream news.
On either Friday or Saturday, much like the days of old, you know, when MTV actually played videos, I stay up until 2:00 AM. The strange thing is, again much like the days of old, I’m alone watching television in my pajamas, but now it’s a bit different. Instead of wishing there was something better to do, like I did when I was a teenager, I revel in my late night, alone time. It’s just me and Comedy Central’s Secret Stash, where I can hear comics in all of their filth-ridden glory. Sometimes I write, sometimes I play computer games, and sometimes I just surf the web for whatever topic I feel like exploring. The next day, I get up lazily and we have breakfast as a family, and get out of the house for awhile. It’s a happy time, until Sunday evening rolls around, then just like the days of old, I’m neck deep in laundry, weekday planning, and mild housecleaning, all the while, looking forward to another glorious Friday.
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