A Question of Structure?

”I wish your weekends had more STRUCTURE.”

It was an interesting choice of words on my mother's part, and led to some discussion. I had taken a nap this afternoon, not because I was tired from doing any work since I hadn't done much of anything today, but perhaps because I was bored or having a day like Jerry's. Maybe the sudden return of cold temperatures after unseasonably warm weather had knocked me out. Maybe I was just bored again, like the Apathetics in Zardoz. Whatever the reason, I was lying down when my mom announced at 4:15 that if I wasn't ready, she was going to go to 5 o'clock mass without me. I guess I could have gone tomorrow morning at 10AM, but I do like to sleep in on the weekend. I definitely didn't want to get up at 6AM to go to church with my dad, who routinely shows up at 7 for a 7:30 mass as he's done for probably more than 70 years. I can't even get up that early during the week. There's also the darkness factor; it isn't really right or safe for me to let the old lady go out alone at night, and if I did I'd hear about it for a while from both parents.

It's tough to get moving after I've been lying down for a while, but I managed to get up and get cleaned up and ready to go. I went out to the dining room around ten to five to wait for my mom to be ready, and my dad came in from having seen her off and let me know she was leaving. I looked out and sure enough her car was backing out of the driveway, so I ran out and joined her. After a lecture about how she gave me fair warning and that I should have been ready, and me protesting that she must have snuck out quietly because I thought I was waiting for her, she made the structure comment.

She elaborated that I don't DO anything on the weekend, don't follow any kind of schedule. I tried to defend myself by pointing out that nine months out of the year I'm working nearly every weekend with one of the bands I belong to, and it's really only three months out of the year that I like to “vegetate” and recharge on the weekend. She said I come home every night and relax and do nothing during the week, and laughed bitterly when I protested “It's not enough!” Sadly, she said “I guess it's my fault. It's how I raised you.”, and we changed the subject.

It's funny that the discussion ended with her taking the blame for my laziness. If anything, my parents have always tried to instill a sense of responsibility and the value of hard work in me. It was usually my own shortsightedness that kept me from benefitting from their wisdom. When I was a kid and my mom would tell me she wished I'd do something constructive, I'd stop playing with my action figures and start making things out of LEGO, taking her literally. The number one reason why I will NEVER win an argument with either parent about me taking downtime is because they never did. An auto mechanic, my dad had a more labor intensive job than I did and never needed vacation or rest. When he wasn’t working at work, he was working around the house. Earlier this week on the way to a band rehearsal, I mentioned to my dad that some of my friends were trying to talk me in to going on vacation. He scoffed, “And where would you go? There's no place to go.” I mentioned some of the places they suggested and he advised that I think for myself and not go someplace because someone else wants me to go there. If there was someplace I really wanted to go then I should, but only if it was my idea.

I guess the fights I've had with them when I'd come home from school or work and nap are similar to those between spouses. My married friends are probably wise enough to do the right thing and help their wives when they come home, and not try to play the “I'm tired from work” card. My mom certainly worked hard raising me and keeping up the house and garden, and I don't think it would have been pretty if my dad came home and sat down in front of the television, and didn't help with the dishes. I tried to tell my mom tonight that it looks like I do nothing because that's only when she sees me, that the majority of hours in the week I'm doing work, but it didn't fly as usual. “What about your father and I? When do we rest? You don't see us sitting around doing nothing.”

What I like best about my winter month weekends is the absolute LACK of structure. Church aside, there's really no place I have to be at any specific time, no appointments to keep or deadlines to meet by a certain hour. It is to me, the ultimate representation of freedom. The word structure nags at me too, since:

Monday: Dad yells it's 7:30. Fifteen minutes elapse before I drag myself to the kitchen, put a Gatorade in the freezer for lunch, pour a bowl of cereal and return to my room to check my blog and e-mail. By the time I use the bathroom, shave, shower, get dressed, and pack my lunch and(if I haven't done so the night before) gym clothes, it's nearly 9. My mom calls out as I walk out the door, “Goodbye have a good day do good work drive carefully I love you!” and then watches me from the window with one of our cats. I get to work late, between 9:20 and 9:40 depending on traffic and if I've stopped at the post office, and then set about returning e-mails and phone calls, both professional and personal. At 12:30 I go to lunch with my friends and get back by or before 2. If I get my work done by 6-6:30 and there's nothing on television to rush home for, I go down to the gym for an hour or so. I drive home, eat spaghetti and watch television and/or a movie from Netflix. It depends on whether something new is on and if I've gotten a movie. I then write a blog entry and surf, and start thinking I should go to bed so I can get up early. I start thinking this around 11-11:30, but somehow it's 12:30-1AM by the time I force myself to shut down and go to bed.

Tuesday: Exactly the same as Monday, but my mom makes chicken cutlets, carrots, and potatoes.

Wednesday: Exactly the same as Monday, but the type of pasta may vary to shells or ziti.

Thursday: Exactly the same as the previous three days, but my mom makes turkey burgers, potatoes and carrots.

Friday: Exactly the same as Monday, but pasta with no meat during Lent. Also, there's generally nothing good on television so it's definitely a Netflix night, or something from my own collection.

Saturday: Sleep late until 10 or 11AM. If a movie came from Netflix the night before, I try to get it to the post office in time for the 1PM pickup. If a new one comes in the mail, I watch that. I go to mass at 5 with my mom and on the way home, we pick up Burger King. My parents watch Lawrence Welk reruns and later I watch my tape of the morning's cartoons. I then blog and go to bed.

Sunday: I do even less than I do on Saturday. I read, catch an Angel rerun in the afternoon and, if I'm feeling particularly ambitious, take care of my laundry and tally my finances. My parents go to the supermarket in the afternoon and stop off to pick up Wendy's for dinner around 6:30. Later I watch the Simpsons, surf, and blog, and go to bed wondering where the weekend went.

There are exceptions to this of course. There are parades on Saturdays and feasts on Sundays throughout the Summer months, and Friday night concerts during the month of July. There are even days where I have to take off from my day job to work one of my musical gigs. Even those days follow a structure though, and many events fall on the same holidays each year. If anything, my life is TOO structured.

Perhaps what she meant was the quality of the structure, and not the structure itself. As with the “constructive” incident, I may have taken her too literally. One thing I've decided to add to my weekends is drawing. I'm going to try and draw once a week, since art is something that requires as much practice as music to maintain. I have more of a natural ability with music and bounce back better from my foolish bouts of inactivity, but drawing is always something I've had to work at. This is what I've drawn this weekend:



There is a story behind it, but I don't think it would mean much to my readers. Even the three coworkers who know the story behind it are probably scratching their heads at a duck wearing a TMNTish mask and an over-the-top Liefeld-style bulletproof vest and wondering what's wrong with me.

I'm guessing this isn't what my mom meant about structure either...