Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday watch the walls instead
It’s Friday I’m in love
–the Cure/Friday I’m In Love
It isn’t a big mystery to anyone that I like making plans. Don’t get me wrong–a spontaneous gathering or event is fantastic–but having something to look forward to is even better. I love being on vacation. Any vacation. It doesn’t have to be as major as a trip to Italy or Mexico. It could be a trip to the beach with friends. A movie. Dinner with a friend.
This time of year, of course, it’s almost all football related. I go down to Eugene for the games, and look forward to seeing everyone. I wonder who will be at the tailgater. I look forward to seeing my family. Having dinner with friends maybe on Friday night, or going for a walk on Sunday.
When your plans involve the weekend, Friday is the best day for anticipation.
The freakish twist with me is that although I love anticipation, I am also a natural born what-iffer. What if a flash flood prevents me from getting to Eugene? What if there is a big party on Friday night and no one tells me?What if people at the tailgater don’t like me? What if a wild boar gets loose inside the stadium on Saturday and gores Devon Allen in the red zone? What if Sharkey’s runs out of booze?
But…and this is the weird part…the what-iffing never interferes with the anticipation. My worries are so over the top that I am always very pleasantly surprised to find out that everything was even better than I thought it might be.
It’s optimistic pessimism.
Honestly? I think I just enjoy making up the things that might go wrong. It’s not worrying, it’s storytelling. I do the same thing with astoundingly good things that will never happen. Devon Allen is NOT going to wiggle his ears at me after a game and tell me he wants to take me home with him.
What it all means is that when it’s Friday, I’m in love with the weekend that’s coming up and the people in it. If we do some stargazing, it is very unlikely that a meteor will crash anywhere in our vicinity. If a meteor does crash in Kyle’s back yard, we will all have a hell of a story to tell everyone at the tailgater at 0700 on Saturday.
Either way?
I can guarantee you that we will all be laughing, and that unless our phones are all hit by the meteor there will be a lot of pictures of it on Facebook.