Idyllic Days of Leisure

Idyllic Days of Leisure:

They come unexpectedly and don't last. I suppose the Lord giveth and society taketh away. Eden represents the pinnacle of the leisure myth, and I think, the highest aspiration of human imagination. Little to no clothing, stable temperatures, soft bowers, God-given love-companion, many beasts to genuflect before your slovenly ways, freedom from the psyche-bruising necessities of labor. God, according to Milton: "For so I created them free and free they must remain."

Anyway I spent a day last week that surpasses in quality all my other leisure endeavors and makes the drudgery of low level-employment more bearable.

11:30-12:00 drowsily awoke of my own accord absent the hellish caw of an alarm clock (waking on your own accord is one of the few pleasures that habit can't diminish- I've been doing it for years.) Lay in bed for half an hour reading leisure mentor Patrick Leigh Fermor. Daydreamed about being Patrick Leigh Fermor.

12:00 Surprise! One of my friends stayed the night and is sleeping on the couch. I wake him up and we go out for breakfast.

12:30-2:30 Breakfast. Metro Crossword completed. We leave the diner swelled with an enormous sense of accomplishment and a dozen cups of coffee. The feeling is no less satisfying than how I imagine I would feel after successfully negotiating peace terms between outdoor cats and dogs accidently let off the leash (top that Picard)- plus having a coffee chugging competition with night shift truckers.

2:30-3:30 Fair's Fair book store then drive home.

3:45-3:50 Load BB's into Red Ryder Daisy Classic BB gun, find towel.

3:50-5:30 Take the air from the comfort of a steaming hot tub, with the added comfort of a loaded BB gun at hand. Read Julian Barnes and take pot shots at the unwitting squirrels gathering their winter stores. Crack wise with my friend who shoots wildly at flocks of migrating birds. Stay in the hot tub until trigger fingers are pruned out to the max.

5:30 A&W milkshakes

7:00 Work, which I won't bother describing.


I have bastardized a genuinely beautiful lament over leisure lost in order to immortalize the afternoon in verse.


They are not long, the shooting and the tubbing,
Books and coonskin caps:
I think they have no portion in the shlubbing
Of leisure hardy chaps.
They are not long, the days of guns and hot tubs:
Seen through the billowing steam,
Naive, a squirrel emerges from a shrub
To the BBs gleam.