taking back mondays

Waking up this morning was brutal.

I hit the snooze button for at least a half an hour, then anxiously peered outside, hoping to see a roaring blizzard decimating Jamestown and making the streets impassable. The few snowflakes that were lightly drifting past my window instantaneously crushed my dreams and snapped me back to reality.

It was Monday, and I unfortunately needed to act my age, give up the hope of a Snow Day, and get my act together. Fast.

I'm generally not the type of person who wastes all Sunday dreading the impending Monday and then spends all Monday complaining about what day it is. [Way too many of those people exist..hopefully not you?] I typically don't have much patience for whining, mainly because as a soulless, cold-hearted pragmatist, I know that whining gets you nowhere in the end.

However, Mondays are far from being my favorite day of the week. With that in mind, I've been curious as to how I can boost Mondays up a bit - make them a little more interesting, a little more fun, a little less depressing. After all, it's not like Mondays are going away anytime soon.

Here are a few ways [from simple and practical, to rather complex and entirely impractical] that I decided Mondays can be improved:

• Movie night Mondays

There's nothing like mindless entertainment to make Americans happy. If I liked Monday Night Football, that void would be filled already. However, not only do football games make me fall asleep [something about the background noise from the game added to the looong breaks in action between plays knocks me out everytime], but the only team I feel any loyalty to is the Bills. Watching them is usually painful, so I avoid it whenever possible.

•  Mandatory half-day Mondays

Congress clearly needs to pass a law that forbids anyone from working more than half a day on Mondays. In reality, this law's a no-brainer: nobody - Democrat, Republican, or whatever else you want to call yourself - likes Mondays. It's the one issue in this country we can all agree upon. This law has the potential to unify the country and usher in a golden era of bipartisan compromise. I really don't understand why Congress hasn't jumped all over this yet.

•  Map out your next vacation Mondays

Reminding yourself at the beginning of each week of your impending vacations/adventures can't be a bad thing, especially if you're the type that chokes under routines and schedules. I have kind of made it a habit to plan out some ridiculous, amazing trips...most of which I fully intend to see through. The best and brightest of these plans is the infamous Pirate ship plan that Angela and I hatched during junior year at Allegheny.

We had both just returned from a semester away from Meadville - Angela in England, me in DC and the Balkans - and we were suffering from a combination of cabin fever, way-too-much-work syndrome, and I'm-bored-in-a-small-town syndrome. That deadly combination of illnesses may have affected our sanity a few times that semester. However, the end result of all our crazy/brilliant scheming was beautiful - we decided that our only life goal was to commandeer a pirate ship, [obviously] becoming co-captains of the ship, and sailing the high seas until we felt like settling down somewhere. Which would be never.

That thought alone has made this cold, gray Monday a whole lot brighter.