Friday free-for-all

Another weekend is upon us. Since oh, around 1990, weekends for me have been no different than weekdays. Thanks to Dominion, I usually worked Friday, Saturday, and, long before Sunday shopping was legal, I would do price changes on Sunday afternoons. While everyone else was out drinking and carousing, I was working until 10pm, or most times 12am. Thus missing out on most of the fun. Note I say most. I did my share of the usual weekend partying and drinking. But for the most part I missed out.

These days I don't look at weekends any differently. So it's Friday? So what? It's another day, no different than Tuesday.When I was working regularly, or in school, I was much more conscious of the day of the week, and of time. When I am not working or in school, I measure what day it is by what's on TV. Okay, so that's not entirely true, but I don't worry nearly as much about time when I have no real reason to worry about it.

So with another weekend here, what are my plans? Well, today I will write a little. Check out my various fantasy sports teams. Listen to some music. Get on the treadmill. Drive and pick up Mom and Dad from work. Watch TV. Maybe take a nap. I do know what I won't be doing.

I won't be going out and getting drunk. I seem to have lost my tolerance for that a long time ago. I find as I have gotten older, and stopped drinking on the weekends, I can't handle boozing it up in great excess any more. If I do get tanked for some reason (these days it seems to happen only for a stag party), it takes me two full days to get over it. I am useless as, well, you know the saying.

Is it because I am only working freelance, and not a 9-5 grind like most? No. Definitely not. When I went back to school in 2006, I found myself studying and writing papers on weekends, sometimes using one night to work and the other to relax. At home. Not in a loud, crowded bar. And I was sober.

I'm not knocking people who booze it up on the weekends, because it is the weekend and they have had a long, hard week. To each their own. But I have no interest in getting totally blitzed and spending my entire Saturday recovering just enough to go at it again Saturday night.

I'd much rather watch a movie. Hang out with friends. Hell, if you're lucky enough you might get to see another team besides the Leafs on HNIC on Saturday nights. All that is far more interesting to me than going drinking.

That being said, next Friday (Friday the 13th no less!), there is a book launch at Anchorage Coffee (on the east end of Water Street, between Breakwater Books and Turner's Tavern.) This book launch contains an essay I wrote for English 4913 (one of the courses in my program) entitled "A Friendly Game of Hockey". The essay is part of a collection called "Telling Truth", and is issued by MUN's Paragon Press.

So I will be attending that event to celebrate with my classmates. No plans to get drunk though :)