Thursday Is the New Friday . . . If Any Day Is

Friday evening has always been the time I saved for my own enjoyment. All through college and law school, I refused to study on Friday evenings, except during finals week. Middlebury didn’t have much television to offer before the dorms were wired for Internet, but various organizations showed movies for fundraisers almost every night of the year. Stanford had better television, but also showed a lot of movies on campus as well as in town. So I went to movies or hung out with friends—anything to escape the books for a while. I didn’t mind studying on Saturdays and Sundays, but not on Friday nights.

And all the years when I was working, I kept Friday evening free of any productive endeavors. I didn’t open my briefcase (and later, my laptop) after I got home on Friday nights. I usually went back to the office on either Saturday or Sunday to catch up and get a head start on the next week, but not on Friday nights.

I also didn’t do housework. Sometimes I had to cook dinner, but many weeks Friday was the night we went out. Even when the kids were screaming toddlers and unreliable at restaurants, I still wanted to go out on Friday nights.

Then after my husband and I became empty-nesters, we continued the tradition of going out to eat most Fridays. We might not go anywhere exciting (cheap family restaurants are good enough for us), but we went out.

Several years ago when my daughter was in law school, she told me Thursday was the new Friday. Law students didn’t have classes on Fridays, so after Thursday classes they were free. They went to bars on Thursdays as much as on Fridays. Of course, she went to law school at Tulane, and in New Orleans they tended to party any day of the week—no need to wait for a weekend, or even for Thursday. Or even for a table in the bar, since carrying open containers on the streets was perfectly legal (as long as the container wasn’t glass and you weren’t in a vehicle).

But now, my Friday night tradition seems to have fallen by the wayside. There is nowhere to go on Friday nights. We don’t go to restaurants. And when we order take-out, it has tended to be on a night other than Friday.

Not only is there nowhere to go, but I’m not always sure what day of the week it is. The days tend to run together. My regular meetings haven’t been happening, and even Zoom calls blend into each other. The only place I’ve been going is the grocery store (every two weeks) and my weekly piano lesson, which recently resumed in person. And just to confuse me, my piano teacher changed the day we meet.

So now I rely on my computer to tell me what day it is. The only other way I know it’s Friday is that Shields and Brooks are on the PBS NewsHour. And I can stream them other days if I miss the scheduled broadcast.

How are you marking the days during the pandemic?