What's a week end?

We all remember the Dowager Countess of Grantham’s revelation that to the leisure class, there is no distinction between the weekdays and the weekends—they are all just days in which to drink tea, call on friends, and make pithy comments about your family. For example, my son, bless him, woke up this morning cheering because it’s Saturday which means he doesn’t have to follow the weekday rules. I’m not exactly sure what weekday rules he thinks he’s been following. He has not showered, brushed his teeth or hair, or put on clean clothes in days. He has been living a perpetual Saturday since school got out—indefinitely—on Friday, March 13th. But not a Ferris Bueller-esque, let’s-do-cool-shit limitless Saturday, but rather a Neville Longbottom-esque, nothing-about-this-is-right, never-ending Saturday. We all have.

In the Corona, we no longer have a weekday or a weekend, just a series of hours in which to get things done—or not get things done—does it matter? I’ve spent the last week, I think, trying to move the three college composition courses I am teaching from ground to online. I know abstractly that the classes start on “Monday” but what does that mean when my course content is available on demand 24/7 and showing up on “Monday” is neither enforceable nor expected?

I just got back from Target—going stir-crazy, needed some really important stuff (can’t remember what) and Starbucks—and saw one of my students there. She was working. I asked her if she was joining us for our Zoom class on Monday. She said she wasn’t sure. Is it still at 8am? Yes, I said. She said she’d try.

A few months ago, professionals complained (over cocktails) about the creep of work into evenings and weekends. We could never get away from the weekdays—work followed us on our smartphones and emails and Google calendars. Now, the idea of distinct days punctuated by weekday and weekend activities in different locations (not just rooms) seems as fantastic as croquet a Downton Abbey lawn party on a Tuesday afternoon.