:: Saturday, March 24, 2001 ::

 

10:38 p.m. When I'm in the middle of the week, I really love the pace of the weekday. When I'm in the sweet middle of the weekend, like now, I really like the soft leisure of the weekend. At this moment, I wish the weekend could go on forever, or at least for another couple of days.

When it's Wednesday or so, however ... you know the drill -- I loathe and fear the weekend looming down. What will I do? I wish the stated objectives and the many distinct pleasures of the workweek would continue uninterrupted. Mail all over the place, phone's ringing off the hook. Excitement.

No, the books didn't come today. I only have 30 or so more pages in Software and it's going to be really hard not to finish it tonight. Since there's no mail tomorrow, I'm going to be without a book to read, unless I can settle on something temporarily.

Lately, I've begun to like the long form again, so my more casual reading has suffered. I've been diving into a story, thank you very much. Getting to know characters, thinking about them every once in a while in the regular daytime hours. Enjoying the respite from my own life.

So, I like patterns, routines. Regular habits. My creative life is so incredibly haphazard and random, never giving me a clue ... who could blame me for wanting to eat dinner on or near the same time, from the same plates, every night?

I'm not afraid of spontaneity. I don't think I am. Well, maybe I am.

On Saturdays, we always try really hard to find a movie to watch. Back when the VCR was working we went to the video store and rented them. Lately, we've been very carefully scanning the dial, reading all the info screens, checking the movie menus, and sometimes even just popping from channel to channel listening for dialogue.

I say "we" but I mean me. Igor and I do not have similar movie tastes. There are plenty that we both like, and then there are the ones that he likes to watch. War movies, black and white movies, movies with screams and shots and sireeeeeeeens. Car chases. Military. Over and over and over again.

Every Saturday night, once we've enjoyed something that we both find agreeable (tonight it was High Fidelity), I go off to read or play on the web and he settles in for many hours of ... screams and sireeeeeeens.

It's actually very comforting. It's a routine.