The Anatomy of a "Personal Day"

Even in one’s darkest moments, there’s always “Project Runway.” I have a friend who could mitigate all life’s letdowns—particularly the overwhelming “abyss” of “crises” you know will be meaningless in a month’s time (others might know this as “college”. See also “high school.”)—by relating them to the freak-outs of the Season 1 cast of this fine Bravo series. I, too, have learned the healing ways of this method of therapy. There is one episode in particular that plays through my head on a nearly monthly loop. The wigged-out cast is charged with creating a collection that would account for the needs of a person living in the year 2055. As per usual, fragments of fabric and dysfunction fly, until bitch factor has reached full potential and a can-you-really-stand-here-and-claim-that-these-outfits-work-together-as-a-cohesive-COLLECTion collection materializes. But it's not about the outfits; it never is. It's about truth. And in this episode, The Truth came, as was not uncommon, channeled through the mouth of a one Jay McCaroll, who would later go onto be [SPOILER ALERT] the winner of Season 1. Asked to explain his outfit to the judges on the runway, thus spoke Jayathustra:


“This clear patch represents my girl’s vulnerability. You know, she’s in her twenties. You know, your twenties: you feel all vulnerable and crazy and oh my god! The world! Yeah, that’s what this patch is. To let The World in” He chuckles, flamboyantly yet demurely. The judges chuckle. We chuckle—wait, fuck, that’s us.


About once every two months, I take a personal day. They don’t start out that way. They’re not planned (they’re not part of my current entry-level job package). They usually begin as a task slated to be completed the night before. That doesn’t happen. Then the alarm doesn’t do its early-morning job—a tardy wake-up (already, bad thoughts are brimming: if your electronics are not performing their assigned functions, why should you?). “Well I obviously must complete this task NOW. Work can wait—it’s not like I owe them anything (except my daily earnings and key to survival, of course). Whatever, 'work' should understand that there are certain personal allowances." But you forgot to make coffee so you’re sluggish. It’s 10:15 and you haven’t left the house. Not even your sweet pimped-out hybrid BICYCLE can get you to work at 9:30. Fuck. (If only you’d gotten that Dr. Emmett Brown handlebar feature instead of the stupid bell). Now, especially with your persistent 15 to 30 minutes of tardiness per day, only one clear option remains: “Ahem, coughghghghghgghgh!, I don’t know what happened… I feel sick.” “Oh, what’s the matter?” Quick, scroll through your ailment vocabulary—why didn’t you think of this before you clicked “send”?! Ah, but lucky stars, it’s Friday, you can get away with a lot. African sleeping sickness? Croup? Stage 3 renal failure? “A fever.” (Bo-ring. But safe. You’re a liar, not an idiot.) “Coughhhh (a little extra phlegm for luck), I’m going to try to take this anti-inflammatory and see if I can make it in.” “Oh, no, you shouldn’t, not with a fever,” the reply begrudgingly comes—ok, maybe it’s sympathetic, but you’re a little guilt-ridden, so karmically, it sounds begrudging. “Well I’ll try, we’ll see.” Click. SIKE.

So now clearly it’s onto daytime TV. Oh Comedy Central and MTV, you never cease to amaze; Bravo and TBS, you can come along, too—I know I can always find “Scrubs” on one of you at any moment in time. You make an omelet, because fuck it, you CAN. Bliss ensues. All of a sudden, it’s mid-afternoon, the soaps are full-fledged and Oprah’s coming on. You start having unpleasant flashbacks to being seven-years-old, legitimately feverish, maybe vomiting, and definitely stuck with a bossy aunt in a potpourri-drenched (more like poop-pour-ew, hay-o) “den.” (Why a “den”? We’re not bears. We’re not hibernating for the winter. We’re watching “Maury Povich” with the heat hiked up to 84. At least call it a “lair,” you crazy dragon lady.) No thank you! Plus you are wasting this full day of free nothing.

So you size the place up, grab a labtop, a book, a pack of Clove cigarettes, gum, your does-it-really-need-to-be-this-skinny cell phone, and you’re out. Could life BE any sweeter? Again, as you’re not an idiot, you don’t forget to phone into work. In a groggy, carefully discombobulated voice, “Oh, hi, yes, I’ve been knocked out all day… [pause to prove how out of it you really are. This damn fever…] But no matter, I’ll be fine. [Pause #2 to perform your best sad-eyes-through-the-phone] Um. Yes, but I was wondering if you could send me that E-MAIL I was WORKing on? [Precocious pause] I just want to see if I can take care of anything while I’m stuck here. [innocent, yet groggy pause #4] Oh, thanks! Take care.” Click #2. Sucker.

Now that your schedule is completely clear, you can totally take care of all those errands you’ve been meaning to run. Then again, you don’t exactly have a good track record of Responsibility today; why start now? After all, you weren’t planning to have this time off, anyway, so you can procrastinate it to the weekend as initially scheduled. Check! Three Cloves and two chai lattes later (ew, like, totally skim milk, thanks. Just because I am eating your chocolate-dipped chocolate muffin with chocolate chips doesn’t mean I want to get fat, ok? I’m just on fake vacation, ok? Ugh, people), you are ready to roll out of your local yuppie shop. In order to clock a few minutes in good-personville, you obviously steer your aforementioned SWEET bike over to the neighborhood park, where you can laze in the sun with that Murakami that you made your friend, Adam, lend you last New Year’s but really has only served until now to prop up your temperamental alarm clock/radio (so you can see without straining too much just how late you are). An hour and a half later, your head now swimming with new voices (you are TOTALLY going to spend dinner describing each “exquisite” taste with textural detail)—not too mention a forehead tinged with sunburn in the shape of inverted book shade—you pack everything back into your smokin’ side-basket and pedal swiftly home. No no-work should keep you from your dinner plans. You hook your hip-hop into your bathroom speakers so you can groove while you shower. Clothes, make-up, blue Chucks tonight. “This weekend’s gonna be ball-aaa. I’m getting driizzzzie. [Note: this is how highly pop-cultured white tweenty-somethingers talk about their plans to kill the brain cells their parents paid thousands of dollars to amass.] I’m getting drunk tonight. It’s the weekend. Holler!

Ah, an ideal day for the tweenty-somethinger. Monday is going to suck. Oh well, there’s always the coffee-and-poop game.