I am a Highwayman

Well I didn't intend on posting anything on a Friday night. But I am. Good Shabbos.

Tonight was one of those nights that makes you want to curl up in a ball and remain in the fetal position with head buried under pillow. I was totally exhausted from this week at work, and maybe that contributed to what happened. But damn, worst Friday night ever.

So despite being tired, I decided to meet some friends in Santa Monica. Of course the plans got all screwed up and I didn't set out until pretty late, still feeling tired / hungry / drained despite my efforts to get myself energized and ready to go.

So I am still not sure what happened, exactly. But I am driving down Wilshire, can't find the place I'm looking for despite seemingly being in the right place and following my Map Quest-ed directions. So I turn around, try to retrace my path, and before I know what hit me I'm off on a side road heading to god knows where. I try to get back to Wilshire and I get even more off track. And then it spirals and gets worse and worse, and suddenly I'm in a place where the street names are totally unfamiliar, where seemingly no one speaks English, and all I want is to go home.

At first I continued on my quest to find my destination. But soon I gave up and my new goal was just to find the freeway and go home. Finally I did and here I am. So there was my Friday night, totally wasted, and not even wasted in a good way, like it would have been if, say, I had stayed home and played videogames.

I am feeling so tired and wiped out right now I can barely think straight. But I had to write something just to try to get this nightmarish night out of my system.

Weird. I am notoriously horrible with directions, but since I've been in LA I've been pretty good about at least being able to find places via printed out directions when the occasion arises. I need to look at a map and figure out what happened.

This sucks.

For the last few weeks I've felt like I don't have time for anything, and when I do have time for things I feel too tired to do them.

And holy crap, work today was like a freaking kindergarten class. So much inter-office drama, it's ridiculous. Sitting at a desk all day and making copies of TV scripts should NOT be this freaking stressful. At least I hopefully earned some brownie points by being able to stay cool. Everyone should have to be a teacher for a week to learn how to be professional and exert patience under pressure.

I think ideally my Friday nights would be spent around challah, wine, and candles at the Shabbat dinner table. It's nice to have something you do every week, that you can always count on, that is actually relaxing and meant as a way to wind down from the stresses of the week, that is tradition. Sure, sure, laugh all you want ... but for most of my life, every Friday night was spent with my parents, grandparents, and cousins, eating dinner together and partaking in the various Shabbat traditions. And while it was sometimes a chore to have to put up with it all, and sometimes a burden to have to always help prepare for the meal, there was still nothing quite like that feeling of being home on a Friday night, stretching out, taking it all in, and feeling spiritually satisfied, knowing that this was a night for nothing but food, family, and the comfort of knowing that all the concerns and worries of the week could be put aside. Even at BU, there was that communal nature to our weekly Friday night festivities at Hillel The feeling of entering a place and knowing practically everyone there, of hearing everyone's greetings and well-wishes, of laughing, joking, discussing issues both serious and trivial, and sharing together in a hearty meal and a lively gathering. Gatherings like those make you realize that despite all the weird, crazy, or just plain ridiculous people you encounter at work or school or wherever, you can always count on the ability to go home and be with family of one kind or another.

I don't know, I wanted to become a writer to create things that inspire the imagination, that provoke creativity, that inspire ideas. And yet sometimes all I see around me is an uninspiring, neverending cycle of, (to paraphrase the great Charles Nelson Reilly as Jose Chung), the same old crap.