lost weekend

when I go away for the weekend, and arrive home sunday night, I always get the feeling I have been cheated out of my weekend, that monday morning is unfair and I deserve an extra day at home to do all the errands I missed and lapse into the appropriate level of laziness

Tuesday, Ruby Tuesday

No jury duty! After one morning of filling out a questionnaire, and two weeks of calling every night, they never got up to my juror number, and "the jury has been selected." I'm not disappointed. Someday maybe I'll get on a really cool interesting trial, but this wasn't the right time for it, for me.

Meanwhile, I bought a guitar. Can you tell by the delicate way my fingers dance along the keys? Yes, the fingers on my left hand are a bit sore, a bit pre-callous. I'm having fun though. I learned to tune it correctly, and how to replace a broken string. (Yes, those two are related - note that when your piano tuner tells you that your entire piano is a half note off, you really should remember that when attempting to tune your guitar to the keys of said piano.) In two days I've learned 11 notes and 4 chords (sorta - the chords were the last lesson last night and I'm pretty sure I couldn't duplicate them now without cheating.)

Am I on some kind of middle-aged self improvement odyssey? I also want to learn Italian. (I have taken two lessons on Rosetta Stone; the impetus is to communicate somewhat with the Italian maybe-relatives who I've found on Facebook.) I am starting a new writing workshop in a couple of weeks - a live one, with a paid instructor and a group of other writers I've never met.

Meanwhile, I should be happy I still have a job, right? I have friends and close colleagues who have been laid off (the axe, when it fell, was close enough that I could hear its whistle.) But I'm busy, it seems that I'm relatively "safe" (I'm pretty sure I could survive one more round, but can't think beyond that) and I got a big tax refund, of which I feel the urge to spend just a tiny bit on myself.

I think I'm going to walk in over the bridge today.

Done?

Each day I have to call an 800# to find out if they want me back for jury selection. We were assigned a number on day one, and so the recording ends with a woman reading a list of numbers. I have a fairly high number, and last night (for today), she got within 3 of mine. However, since the court is closed tomorrow and Friday (for Passover) and the judge said it would likely take 2-3 days to select the jury members, I'm thinking I might be done.

When they were passing out the jury questionnaires (which gave you your number), I was anxious to get started and slightly annoyed that my row was one of the last. Now I'm thinking it's not such a bad thing. I might be out of this simply by having sat in the front row!

If I say so, is it over?

Yesterday was an unusually dismal day. I don't mean the weather, which has been dismal for what seems like weeks, in that drawn-out end-of-winter way. Yesterday was in the mid 50's but cloudy and with a strong wind that sent chills through my body as I wandered out.

But what I meant was that yesterday I felt lousy all day. Nothing big to hang the cause on, no headache or physical ailment, just a general feeling of "blah," and worse, a constant sense of "what should I do now?" Days off that feel like wastes of time are horrifying. I always have things to do. I usually can wile away the hours by doing jigsaw puzzles on the computer while listening to weekend NPR shows, or reading trashy magazines while getting a pedicure, or catching up on podcasts while filling the cart at Whole Foods. I did all of these yesterday and still felt like crawling back into bed and hiding from the rest of the day. Even walking home from the pedicure I could feel the bad mood still on me like a blanket, one I couldn't shrug off (and wouldn't , as I was cold.)

Now, Sunday morning, start of the second day of my weekend. The sun is out, and today has been promised to be beautiful. Maybe all I need is some sunshine. Maybe I need to go to the gym, pick up an iced coffee on the way back, and sit up on the roof deck and soak up the sun.

So, if I call this bad mood over, will it be so? Can I pull myself out of it just by trying?