When everyday is Tuesday, the freelance life, part 1.

I get a call, a friend asks "can you join us at this great [fill in the blank] tonight?" I ask, "is this Tuesday?" "No," they reply with withering scorn, "today is Saturday!"

I understand their annoyance, really, I do. I too used to work in an office and the weekend release program was what I lived for.

But honestly, every day is Tuesday in my freelanceland. I work every day. The sun comes up, the computer goes on, some coffee and eats go in, and my fingers keep busy until the sun goes down, I take the dog on a walk, food gets made, news, prose, or flicks are consumed, and suddenly it is time to go to bed and do it all again. Add in the occasional hours in the laundry room and a monthly meeting of my writing group and there you have it, my life.

I brought up this Tuesdayness to the writing group yesterday, was that Tuesday? No, no, it was Friday. The office jobbers looked at me in a kind of horror. The other freelancers nodded knowingly. "You need to make the weekend different, make one day you don't work at all, really, it is important to do this," said Andrew Kaplan, sagely. This advice has its precedent in genesis, so I suppose it is a universally acknowledged mandate to the freelancer.

Maybe I will make Tuesday my new Sunday, a day of non-work, when museums are open and I am free to contemplate this human condition, on walls and on walks far far away from my keyboard and deadlines.