Labor Day Weekend

Long, official weekends derail me. Images from movies, magazines, and advertising flood my consciousness. Happy families, barbecues, big white houses with sprawling lawns and new, clean cars crowd my interior landscape. Cape Cod homes with giant porches running the lengths of the houses. The Kennedy's playing touch football. Sylvia Plath as a college student working summers before she went mad. At least five Steve Martin movies. Excluding "Shop Girl," of course (which is one of the most overlooked films I know).

I am alone and wonder what to do. Last night, I bought Season Five of "Entourage" and watched them all on the couch staring at the little MacBook Pro monitor wearing earbuds. It was fun, but I kept seeing myself from above (way above, looking through walls and roof) sitting on the couch watching a computer screen tethered by a white audio cable, my face illuminated in the dark room by the Xenon light. It was like a poster for an advertising campaign that warns you what might come to pass if. . . .

But it happens all the time. The 4th of July, Memorial Day, etc. I need my own Entourage of wild homeboys and crazy adventures. Life is like that. I am sure of it. I think of Don Quixote and his voluntary madness. Even he had Sancho Panza. What have I done? All this monkishness and pursuit of Zen. A monkish, Zen Labor Day Weekend? Forget about it.