Saturday thwarted

In this town, everything's closed on Sunday. Everything interesting happens on Saturday. During the summer there are markets in the main street on Saturday morning. I saw just the edge of them on the day I went on the tour to Dallas Anderson's studio, and they looked vast and vibrant and active and fun (the street bearing no resemblance at all to the street that I usually see on Sunday afternoon, barren, windy, deserted, with shuttered shops and "closed" signs).

The markets only go until noon on Saturday morning, and they only happen during summer months which are nearly over. Every weekend I intend to get up and go to them - to participate in my town, see some people, see what's there for sale, maybe get some lovely fresh fruit or cherries or something, then stop for lunch and coffee at the Harmony Cafe where they have live music, then head out and see some sights and do other things all afternoon.

It's 2:00 pm exactly. I woke up this morning, checked email, and by the time I was making breakfast it was 12:15 and the markets were all over. Fine, so, I could still get out and do afternoon things, right? I had breakfast and read a magazine, a little bit. Is that so wrong? Two hours of unstructured time off, to just sit and read and not worry about anything? But now Saturday is nearly gone, I haven't got dressed or had lunch, the things to do around my house are staring me down and making me feel like a failure again (I can't have anyone over until the boxes are gone, but I can't go through the boxes because I should be going out and doing things and meeting people, but I can't go out because I'll never have time to do all the house things, and don't even talk to me about all the work stuff that's not done).

I have always slept in on Saturday mornings. It has always been my recovery time to make up for the sleep deprivation I inevitably develop during the week - and now even more so with the 5am starts. I remember the murderous disruption I used to feel in the early days of my relationship with S when we'd be at his parents' house and his kid used to wake up at 5am, singing and needing attention. They didn't have rooms with doors at their house, it was an old Colonial Queenslander so all the rooms had transoms and the guest room had only a curtain between it and the sleepout porch than ran along all the bedrooms and to the bathroom, which had heavy traffic and a noisy door and shower sounds and flushing sounds and the rest. No sleeping in. She was only a little kid, I was supposed to love her, I was supposed to be there supporting him in his parenting, I was supposed to feel like a member of the family, but Saturday mornings were crucial for me to sleep until I woke up and turn my mind completely off for that many hours, and by being awoken before that process was complete I really did feel like I would go mad, and I really did want to kill somebody. I decided if I ever had my own kid, I would have to bring in help Friday night, to be there to wake up with the kid and deal with Saturday because my life did not work with an early Saturday morning.

So I shouldn't be suprised that I'm still the same way. But the cost is very high. Nothing in this town is open on Sunday. By the time I'm ready to dress up and go out and experience experiences and be part of things, it's all closed and deserted.

I'm not sure about this Appleton thing. I'm not sure a 45-year old single woman, with as eccentric interests as I have, can actually make a go of it. I've had too many pyjama days. I spend too much time in my living room watching TV series on DVD. I can imagine going places, starting clubs, joining groups, doing stuff, but it's not happening. And I've ruined another weekend, and got that much further from achieving these goals.

I'm not sure about this Appleton thing, and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's 2:09 now and I still have no plan and no direction. My inclination is go just go back to bed, but that won't help me be prepared for what I have to do in the next weeks. And I'm coming, rapidly, up on my anniversary, one year since I've lived here, and what to show for it. Bookcase in pieces, face down on the spare room floor. Living room full of boxes. No table. No dinner parties, no housewarming, no clubs, no group. One very long whingey blog. Failure. Pointlessness. And it's sunny out, and supposed to be nearly 90. I SHOULD be out there. I HAVE to go experience it, because before you know it, it will be dark at 4pm again and snowy and so cold you can't spend more than a minute outside. And two years will have passed. I have no life. I don't live in this town. I can't work out how to get out of bed, get out of my house. But I have to have Saturday mornings, to recover, to do the work that I do that pays for me being here.

I don't know what to do. But I have to shake this up, somehow or other.