When I was younger, Friday night was something special. Hair would be blown dry, eyes would get painted, the tight jeans and the high heels would come out, and I would be off to an evening of dancing and smiling and flipping my hair. Being tired was an enigma to me as it is to all teenagers. We could stay up until the sun rose, talking and giggling and just plain old doing nothing. The next day, exhausted and sleeping in until noon to get myself ready for Saturday night, my mother would run the vacuum in an attempt to get me out of bed. Nothing about my current Friday nights resembles this.
To begin with, these days I awake at about 7am, rain or shine. Since this would really stink if I had just left the clubs at 2, I don’t go to the clubs anymore. Instead, my Friday nights are usually spent with my dogs and my boyfriend or with the girls, out at a movie. (See Wolverine) A really crazy night might entail a dinner party and bed by midnight. This morning however, change flowed through the air and almost knocked me sideways.
“Iron and Wine is playing at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery tonight.” Sam told me over coffee and a blueberry muffin the size of Kiki the Wonder Dog’s head. “Do you want to go?”
I blinked. “You want to go out? On a Friday night? After work?” I must have misheard.
“Yeah, or we could go out dancing. There’s a salsa club that just opened that I keep hearing about. Or we could go on the architectural, art walk on La Cienega. We could grab drinks and a late dinner afterwards.”
Now in the movies, this is where the heroine would know that her boyfreind was a pod person. I however, always go into the basement when I hear a loud noise, so I didn’t suspect a thing. “What about the dogs? They’ll be so lonely without us. I don’t know…let me think about it. Maybe we could just put Iron & Wine on the CD player, have a glass of wine, and dance with the dogs.” I suggested. “That way, we get the best of both worlds.”
Don’t worry, even I knew in that moment how bad I sounded. The thing is, my Friday Night Lights are dim. Whatever it was that was driving me before to do more, see more, experience more; well, that urge has quieted. I’m quite content to sit on the sofa and to watch the dogs sleep. It’s much more fun than standing in line at a bar, which I’ve also tried. But maybe I’ll go see the band in the cemetery. That kind of sounds like fun too.
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