Like many people, I find Monday’s really hard to slog through. Chances are I’ve spent the weekend doing all of the things I love – sewing, knitting, visiting with friends, reading, writing, playing guitar – and it makes me incredibly grumpy to arbitrarily put the brakes on because it’s Monday morning and I have to go to work. [Unless I don’t – Monday is the day that I am most likely to take off, either scheduled (a holiday or a vacation day), or unscheduled (90% of the time when I get sick, it’s over a weekend and lingers into Monday...which irritates me to no end, because who wants to spend their weekends sick!?).]
But most of the time, Monday is a work day that dumps me out of my imagination and into reality. It’s a difficult transition, and I often feel like my brain spends most of Monday rearranging itself for the work ahead, going from a right-brained artistic focus to a left-brained language and linear thinking focus. And it’s REALLY bad on those weekends where I hole up by myself to sew and don’t see or talk to people (ie, really shut my left brain off); I’ll get into work and be barely able to speak a whole sentence.
The one thing that I look forward to at the end of my Monday workday is stopping by the news stand at South Station to buy the new edition of The New Yorker. This is my “I made it through Monday” treat, and I read it on the train ride home. Sometimes I finish the entire thing, other times there are a few pieces left that I save for the Tuesday morning train into work. Like any periodical, I find some issues better than others – for me, a David Sedaris essay trumps a long article about the economy any day. Still, no matter what, it sucks me in almost completely, so much so that I have to be careful that I don’ t miss my train stop. The New Yorker seems to have the right balance of intellectual reporting and slap-dash humor; you’ll find hysterically funny stories (or cartoons) right next to superbly researched and written stories about really serious topics. I also like the reviews of art, theater, movies & books – even when I have no interest in the subject matter, the writing always makes it worth reading.
It occurs to me from time to time that it would be infinitely cheaper for me to subscribe to the magazine, rather than paying the newsstand price (or for that matter, read it online) but then I’d have to find something else to get through Monday. Happiness is not always practical.
As it happens, happiness is also not always on schedule. Tonight, wouldn't you know, the news stand didn't have the new copy yet! And today was a particularly bad Monday, too. So I, um....well, I had Little Lad's popcorn for dinner again. Yum!
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