Fucking Friday

Today is Friday.  I am sitting at a Starbucks typing this – something I very rarely do (typing at Starbucks, that is).  I recognize the staff here.  I think maybe one or two of them recognize me.  I usually come here with a buddy of mine, sometimes on a Friday, but he is out of the country this Friday.  I recognize another patron tonight at this Starbucks (walking out right now) who is usually here reading.  He pays with a gift card and reloads it with cash – something I do not understand.  One of the baristas is mopping by me, a guy (maybe he’s a baristo).  I’m sure that he’s gay (maybe that makes him a barista).  The only people who would say he is not gay are those who are obsessed with egalitarianism.  The type who says they’re “color blind” and are so obsessed with race and identity that they actually behave like a racist.  I could say to one of them “Damn, that dude’s gay as hell.”  And they’d say “I don’t know if he’s gay.  And neither do you!  And even if he is, so what?!”  I know this because I have been that person.  I’m sure this guy is gay as hell because he has the most perfect eyebrows I’ve ever seen on a man.  I usually only see eyebrows like his in selfies on Twitter or Tumblr – selfies taken by women and gay guys.  And that’s not all, everything is perfect on him: haircut, hair style, lips, skin, fit of clothing.  I feel confident that I could approach him and ask him out.  I’ve always felt – oddly – that it would be much easier for me to get a boyfriend than a girlfriend. Maybe this is because men are always ready for and seeking sex, both homosexuals and heterosexuals, thus I feel like all I need to do is make the proposition.  Too bad I’m not gay.  I think my life would be great if I were.  I could be fabulous and bitchy.  I could live with a guy, share his clothes, pool our incomes together, travel, and all the while, drive girls mental with a “Sorry, darling, but I’m gay.”  Gay people look like they have more fun.  But not lesbians.  Lesbians always seem fucking pissed.

Friday – the most anticipated day of the week; the day people thank god for –  has become my least favorite day of the week.  Now, there are many good reasons for people to dislike Fridays.  Maybe they are off on Wednesday and Thursday and Fridays act as their Monday.  Maybe they work at an all-night pizza shop and dread the deluge of drunks that end up there late Friday night, early Saturday morning.  Maybe they work retail and have to work a closing shift on Friday that is immediately followed by a pre-dawn opening shift on Saturday.  If someone told you that one of these examples was a reason why they don’t like Fridays, or perhaps even dread them, you’d likely find that perfectly understandable.  I, however, am expected to love Fridays, for I have an office job, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, weekends off.  I’m in the stereotypical environment in which Friday-lovers are to be found in abundance.  The type of person who becomes giddy with anticipation on Thursday for their favorite day: FRIDAY!  Oh my god, it’s coming!  One more day!  Friday is coming!  They are cumming.

Working in the city, Friday is felt everywhere.  Indeed, in my office, one is often greeted with a “Happy Friday!”  Many people take the day off to lengthen their weekend and there are thinner crowds on the trains and in the streets.  During lunch hours, restaurants are more crowded, filled with people celebrating the end of the week.  To Friday!  After work, one sees Friday everywhere, more so in the warmer months, especially in the summer.  Gorgeous women are everywhere, dressed in their Friday best – for after work it’s a celebration!  Friends are meeting up at corners and bar entrances; outdoor tables are occupied by people letting loose; one smells beer and cigarettes flooding the walks.  Friday is here!  Some beer hits the ground as a woman lets out a laugh; a man blows out an immense cloud of smoke he inhaled from his e-cigarette; high heels click and clack hurriedly, excitedly on the cement.  Friday is finally here at last!  Saturday will allow for recovery. Yet it all has the taste – the flavor –  of a Valzhyna Mort poem, “White Trash,” in particular: “There’s nothing more absurd than summer in the city.  Everyone is in sight, but you can’t really see anybody.”[1]

Earlier in my life – and at other jobs – I loved Friday just as much as those in sight yet not seen in the city.  Today, though, Friday is an immense, depressing letdown.  I awake in the morning excited that after today I’ll finish my workweek and have two whole days to fill as I please.  Twitter has hashtags like #fridayfeeling or #tgif trending and the amazing @VicBergerIV shares some of his great vines of Chubby Checker screaming or Steven Seagal dancing like an ass to illustrate that “Friday Feeling.”  As the clock approaches 5:00 PM – something that always takes longer than it should – I feel as though I’m about to get picked up to go to a party.  I shut down my computer, ride the elevator down, walk out of the revolving door and then a depression sets in.  I have nowhere to go.  I have no one to be with.  I have nothing to do.  I haven’t a great many friends – close friends – and of them, one is in jail (working), one is out of state, and one is out of the country.  As for my lover, she’s out there somewhere putzing around.  I walk past beautiful women everywhere as I trudge to the train.  I’ll take that train home and eat dinner.  I’ve nothing to do.

Now I sit in the Starbucks accompanied only by a slightly overweight, yet happy, suburban family.  I’m going to leave now.  I’ve typed as much as I can on this subject.  Please understand I’m not trying to go for a Bukowski-like “woe is me” type of vibe.  I enjoy my other days of the week just fine and have come to love Sundays, a day many would not because the next day is Monday, the start of the workweek.  It’s just one of those phases in life where things have changed and I find myself, on what is to many a celebratory day, a bit down.  I am ending now but not with my voice.  No, I prefer to hand things off to the lovely Ms. Mort:

There’s a good method to avoiding summer loneliness.  This singing under your breath, like a mosquito’s droning, mice scraping, the hysteria of a dead fish, a fly licking its wings with a rough tongue, masturbation.  Lust is sitting inside me like a cherry pit and I’m picking it out with my quick skilled fingers.  I’m a nestling box waiting for my birds.  Pleasure doesn’t feel like pleasure, is just comes like a bus to the bus stop.  Waits for a moment and then closes its doors on my face and there I am, drowned in a pillow, looking as it’s driving away.  It seems that it’s not my sheets.  It seems that somebody’s kid pissed on them.  In every corner, behind the furniture, an unwelcome guest is watching you, shaking his head with disapproval.  What are we occupied with?[2]

[1] From Factory of Tears, translated from Belarusian by the author and Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright and Franz Wright 2008

[2] Ibid.