I’m not very fond of Fridays. I know that seems so odd in a world clamoring for “time off” and racing to get away from the work-a-day world. And it’s not that I have something against that day itself or that I don’t like the idea that I could sleep in the next day if I wanted to. It’s just that after doing my best to make it through the week I’m tired of spending my friday nights alone. For all my efforts to fulfill my call as a teacher, for all my long hours looking for ways to make my classroom come alive and it be a place where something more than “computers” happens, for all that I think I deserve more than an In-n-Out burger for one followed by an empty darkened apartment.

So, here I am with a week with a Friday holiday, making this a week with two “Fridays.” Damn. And here I am typing these silly words on my treo/palm PDA, the solo geek-boy eating alone at In-n-Out again. I stayed a little late at work so that I could grade a bunch of papers, thus making it so that I would not have to take said papers home. It would have been nice if I would have been able to connect with someone, but this “someone” was already driving home when I called and she was a little vague about her plans for the evening except that they didn’t include me. She said she’d call back later but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m really tired of existing on the lower rungs of someone else’s “maybe” list.

There was a time when she would wake up before dawn and drive through morning traffic across the county just to spend less than an hour in my arms before we both had to get to work.

Now, most evenings she can’t be bothered to call me on her drive home after work. Before she was really free to be with me, she risked it all just to feel my hand in hers and after the kisses we’d cry with her head on my shoulder. Now that she’s free… she spends her affection on her dog and her time with the kids and work and any reminder of that former passion is never spoken of or acknowledged. So, I sit here alone remembering what once was and wondering if I should just let the memory go as something that was probably just all in my head.

Ed Bradley died this week and I’m at that age where that is happening with enough frequency that I feel compelled to drive toward a more meaningful existence. All of which runs contrary to being okay with a life lived “whenever” or where weeks can slip away because “someone” is too busy or otherwise unavailable for the kind of intimacy that makes the blood rise to the surface and brings color to the morning or was that just all in my head too? There’s too much that my soul yearns to bring to life to be spending another goddam “Friday” alone at In-n-Out. I hate Fridays. JBB