Most people look forward to the weekend. They start the countdown somewhere around noon on Wednesday and live in a sort of hopeful fugue until the five o’clock whistle blows and they run, Fred Flintstone style through the office door and into their car.
I am not one of those people.
Oh, sure. I pretend I am. I go along with the crowd. I repeat the tried and true sayings, like, “Cheer up. It’s hump day.” and “Oh, thank God it’s finally Friday.” Truth be told, however, my heart is not in it.
Don’t get me wrong. Like everyone else in the United States I deplore getting up each day and look forward to allowing myself to sleep late. Like everyone else I enjoy the idea of the freedom to do what I want, go where I want and to do it at the pace of my own choosing. Like many others, I look forward to the movies I’m going to watch, the hair I’m going to get cut, the house I’m going to clean, the stories I’m going to write and the over-priced coffee I’m going to drink while I do that.
The problem is I don’t do any of that.
Well, I do get up late. Then I… well, to be perfectly honest… Okay, let’s face it I do nothing. I sit around and play Zuma, troll various internet bulletin boards, drink the last of the week’s Diet Cokes, and generally feel guilty about the whole thing. I tell myself that in just five minutes I will get up and wash my mound of dirty clothes. At noon I will most definitely get dressed. I will, at the very least, read one of the many books I have purchased and let gather dust. Or, maybe, I think, I’ll dust them. At five, I remind myself that I really should go to the gym, and sometimes I actually do that, but it takes so much effort that I’m really done for the weekend and Sunday is basically about recovery.
This weekend is going to be different. I have a plan. Today stay home today and I will clean, read, write and do cross-stitch. I will go the gym and work out and come back and after eating my healthy dinner, relax to a few hours of television. Tomorrow, I shall go to Church, sing and speak (what was I thinking, taking that on?) and then go to my mother’s to pay bills. I shall then go to work and pick up the work that has to be done and I have not yet done and then actually do it. I will then watch Mad Men and go to bed.
There. That’s it. A plan makes all the difference. I shall start at noon. Really.