Adam Reger | Freelance Writer

I’ve cleverly taken Friday off from work, giving me a four-day weekend. I’ve been salivating over it all week, as I was recovering from one of those weekends where you don’t really get a moment’s rest, and walk into work thinking something like “Really? Already?”

And now. My staycation. Is. Here.

I’ve generally been dubious about the notion of a “staycation” (or, for that matter, any of this kind of neologism you’re apt to read about in the New York Times Style page or wherever). It sounds like a lazy vacation, or a vacation for unimaginative people. But if you’re stressed, and just want to chill out for a few days, the idea of chilling around the house can be really, really appealing. Especially as compared with thoughts of getting to the airport, going through security, renting a car, checking into a hotel, etc. etc.

So far I’ve done nothing special—I ran, ate well, ran some errands, and have been watching both World Cup matches. (Yeah, Netherlands! And Go, Ghana!) And it has been great.

But, as often happens on lazy weekends, there’s an obligation hanging over my head. And its name is writing. I haven’t done any today. I call this the Saturday problem; it’s the problem of having, seemingly, all day to take care of the task of writing, leading one to put it off and put it off until there’s a half hour left until you’re due to go out for dinner, or it’s 11:30 p.m., or you’re about to sit down to it when a friend calls to see if you want to come out for a drink.

I’d imagine this is a common problem for writers. It seems like just another species of the procrastination problem, that cliche about writers having very clean houses because there’s always some suddenly-pressing task to be done before he/she really sits down to do it. I don’t know that I have any readers yet, but I invite any of them to chime in on this matter.

For whatever it’s worth, I do plan to get down to it as soon as the Uruguay-Ghana game ends. For real, y’all. In this instance, I’m inspired by not having completely limitless time: I’ll be going later to see the most recent film from M. Night Shyamalan, The Last Airbender. Not because I’m particularly excited about it; I haven’t seen one of his films in the theater since Signs, which I thought was pretty absurd. I also recently saw Unbreakable, which various people had talked up, and which I also thought was preposterous. And if I had limitless time and no obligations, I might take the trouble to see The Happening, which from various YouTube clips I’ve seen seems pretty amazing.

No, I’m not going for the aesthetic edification of it. (See the paragraph below.) I’m going because I am proud to bursting that my own flesh and blood, my younger brother, was a production assistant on the film and for the first time in his career I’ll be able to sit rapt through the credits, as his name will appear somewhere in there. (The premiere was this week and I got a late-night photo texted to me, a blurry screen shot of the credit scroll.)

Sadly, though, the film appears to be terrible. (Here’s a withering review from my go-to source for media reviews, The AV Club.) But on the plus side, I’ll be seeing it at a drive-in movie theater. Check it out: the theater’s website is a masterpiece of clip art. In any case, if the movie is terrible I’m hoping the novelty of the setting will help me pass the time until the part I want to see (the end credits) comes up.