A wide-open weekend

There is an upside to having Doug gone ice fishing: unstructured time.

An entire weekend of empty, unscheduled time. Hours and hours with nobody to answer to but myself. This doesn't mean I have no obligations, of course. These guys are still around:


And they still expect to be waited on hand and foot.

But I'm an introvert, and introverts need lots of alone time. And me, I need a lot. Obligations on the weekends leave me anxious--even pleasant obligations, like last weekend's tickets to Peer Gynt at the Guthrie. Of course I wanted to go, and of course we had a great time, but just knowing that I had an obligation made me feel like the whole weekend had no breathing room.

A couple of reporters invited me out for pizza with them on Friday night. They knew Doug was gone, and they figured I'd be free and want to go out. They had no idea how much I'd been looking forward to this empty evening, and they were a little baffled when I tried to explain it.

So what are my plans for the weekend? I have none. That's the idea.

Oh, I have some things I hope to get accomplished by Sunday night--I have to take Boscoe to the vet. I have to buy some groceries. I want to take my mother to the conservatory, where we can see some unfrozen dirt and smell some blooming flowers.

But I can do these things whenever I want to--or not at all. I can eat popcorn for dinner. I can watch "Persuasion." Or "What Not to Wear." I can play Irish fiddle tunes all afternoon without driving someone else quietly, desperately crazy.

I can read all afternoon. Or not. It isn't what I do; it's that I don't have to do anything.

Oh, and here's the other good thing about having Doug out of town:


Flowers. He sent me flowers. What a guy.