Sunday Sets

Like pretty much everyone I know, I dread Sunday nights. You watch helplessly as the last dregs of your weekend slide down the drain, knowing the only reward for going to bed is five days of school, work, or feeling guilty about not going to school or working.

As a youngster, my favorite TV show was Our House (starring Wilford Brimley, that robust hero to diabetics, oatmeal eaters, and mustache growers the world over), which aired Sunday nights on NBC. What I remember most about those days was the growing uneasiness I would always feel as the show approached. On one hand, I wanted to know exactly what homespun life lesson the old codger would impart to his impetuous grandkids, but I also knew, staring desperately at the wall clock during every commercial break, that the show's encroaching end meant bedtime and five terrible days of elementary school. I was glad to have one last pleasurable experience before the school week beckoned, but the prevailing sense of dread, of helplessness as my future kept dragging me along, prevented me from really enjoying the show.

As time passed, as Mondays got more demanding, the feeling only got worse. And of course by college, all this dread/malaise/helplessness was compounded mightily by the hangover and nicotine-withdrawal that quickly became its own weekly ritual.

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I've been living in my cabin at the lake, by myself, for the last week or so. I'm staying here until I move to NYC in a month to be a blowhard corporate lawyer. Being here is pretty spectacular; the lake is gorgeous, I'm reading a lot, and the nights are so quiet and still. It's exactly where I want to be.

But the problem is, in spite of all that, every day kind of feels like a Sunday. The spectre of 15 hour days , mind-numbing work, and three measly weeks of vacation (if I'm lucky) makes it hard to enjoy the time I have left. Twenty years ago, Our House wasn't solid enough to withstand the future's relentless assault. I guess it was silly to think my cabin would perform any better.