Fridays Just Work

I believe you are conditioned from your first twelve years in school to learn to really appreciate Fridays and really dislike Mondays. It’s Pavlovian.

I’ve always felt bad that Monday had to play the bad guy role.

I’ve not spoken to any of my retired friends to see if this changes over time when there is no real compelled beginning or end to your life week. I wonder if they wake up on that particular day, and for a moment, feel it ache like a phantom limb.

My wife worked as a nurse, so, along with most first responders and people in the service industry, she spent her career shifting, consolidating and extending work schedules to the point where there were no real weekends, or if there were, they didn’t correspond with those of the masses.

And some professions, like law, will consume your weekends if you let it. Especially when you are starting out making a name for yourself and are answering to the whims and egos of partners who see every day as a potential set of billable hours going into his/her annual profit share and don’t really give a shit about an associate’s personal life. They’ll tell you that it is called paying your dues. Sinc e only a few actually make it to partner, It’s really just paying for their summer houses in the Hamptons, where they’ll spend their weekends.

Sometimes you really have no choice but to blow a weekend writing a legal brief because of some random court ordered emergent deadline, motion or deposition, but once you are in control of your calendar you should make sure you don’t put yourself in that position. Or you deserve what you get.

I’ve found that since I began writing seriously in my sixties, I don’t focus on the Monday/Friday schedule as much. Writing is a passion, and passion isn’t something that can be regulated and scheduled. So, for example, I don’t look upon my blogging on weekends as an imposition. When I’m writing novels, I write every early morning seven days a week for a few hours until my mind cools off and I return to consciousness. I always know when the story I am writing is over, which is actually a misnomer, because a good story always leaves a small doorway into another story. But I know when a story I am telling is at a logical break point, that can be the end of something, and the beginning of something else. The characters let me know.

You see, with novels, I just sit down before the computer and zone out.

You ever wake for a deep sleep with the gossamer trails of a really cool dream dissipating as you fruitlessly struggle to retain it in your conscious mind, that is how I feel when I finish writing my novel each morning.

Blogging, on the other hand, is different in that I wake up every morning not having a clue about what to write about. I consciously search for a trigger while I feed Claire, Honey and Blue – sometimes it’s a recent event or a photo, sometimes just a shooting star or the moon overhead as I am out among the creatures – and then I sip my coffee while I scroll through my emails. Then the mental associations start to work and I begin typing. But I’m fully conscious of what I’m writing and remember what is in the blogs. Strange, isn’t it.

The blogs are mine. The novels belong to my characters.

Blogging appears to function as just the placeholder daily trip to the mental gym that keeps my fingers keyboard limber.

Both forms of writing are passion driven, so neither give a shit about workweek calendars.

But, as I have not yet cashed in my chips and applied for Social Security, and have not yet landed the movie deal that will financially free me from my day job, Casa Claire does not pay for itself, so, I will continue to respect the Monday/Friday continuum and act accordingly.

Well, my fine, five readers, today is Friday. And yes, I still feel the thrill.

And it leads into a long weekend that takes out another Monday, so its a win-win. Sorry Monday.

Hopefully, we all got all of the real pressing work wrapped up yesterday, and can sleep walk our way to the closing bell.

Me, I’m going to wrap up this blog and go cuddle some kitties.

Then my rounds. Maybe I’ll drive into Berthoud and pick up a couple of 16 oz. lattes.

But no matter what else the day brings me, I, along with you and the others, should focus on making today a great one. Whatever day it is.