living for the weekend

Lately, it's been taking me well into Tuesday to recover from my Friday/Saturday.

I could blame it on a series of events. Birthdays, visitors and other various - albeit weak - reasons for weekend celebration.

That's probably not it. But regardless, I was once again, found this weekend waking up in a crowded bed with very little logged sleep. The weekends when Rachel works at the lodge, I'm usually up until the wee morning hours. After the last of the drunken townsfolk is given the last call treatment, we talk while she vacuums, wipes down the bar and cleans the last of her dishes. Saturday we rushed around in preparation for Mart's birthday.

After dinner was done, presents opened and the family had gone home for the night - the rest of us gathered in the garage and began pumping music into the cd player. Even though I was exhausted, I cracked open a bottle of gin and we danced to every song.

Eventually, I was lying out on Mart & Rachel's deck...drink in hand...with a spinning sky above me. I know I'm drunk when I start to sit down places. I got up off the deck on my own. But throughout the night, I found a place to sit on the kitchen floor, the hallway, the bathroom floor and the living room. With a toss of my head and the closing of my eyes, Rachel quickly jerked me back up.

I tried to sleep in the middle of Rachel's bed...but I drifted in and out every few minutes. Then came the rumbling of her footsteps at 7 o'clock in the morning. She was the last man standing - or rather jumping - on Leslie and I as we tried to score some sleep in her bed.

Before I knew it - I was stumbling through the house to my car - to take my mother to lunch for Mother's Day.

Last night, I worked out obsessively while watching 'Brothers & Sisters' to avoid my usual, Sunday night panic attack that I could feel coming on. Tired and achey, my mind glanced at the calender on my wall. Interviews all week, phone calls to make and bills to pay. Then I remembered that Rachel is bartending again Friday. I'm sure I can find a reason to celebrate by then.

It seems as quickly as I was analyzing my "I-Want-To-Settle" phase, I jumped into a "Can't-Wait-To-Get-Drunk-This-Weekend-Like-I'm-Nineteen" phase. I'm sure there's a behavior psychologist drooling over that right now.