October 4, 2002 7:20 PM

It is the end of another week. All is right with the world. My firewire hard drive reads the hours.

Two feelings, begin and end time have been with me my life. Would I be a different person without them?

First, the absolute freedom when I leave my travail be it school or work of a Friday evening. There are two absolutely blank days with all sorts of possibility open before me. Mostly I blow it. I spend the evening sucking at images on the TV. Not this weekend I vow. The sirens call seductively. I tie myself to a mast.

The next morning starts with promise. Breakfast (a flavored bagel or two lately) over a large coffee. Early. While coaches of basketball tennis baseball volleyball majorettes youth groups car washes bring their throngs to the table for good cheers and advice. While weekend contractors struggle, work boots tar smudged jeans a pocked tee shirt, to make plans for another day of drudgery. While old italian guys reminisce the morning about Billy and Jimmy and Jeanie and Antony. While stern lipped mothers explain the rules to their daughters. While casually dressed folk read the newspaper and blow aimlessly over cups of smoke encircled beverage. While good natured employees look longingly at the next in line, tongs extended, hands at the ready. The world abuzz. The world accepted. The world of Saturday morning. The day wears on.

Afternoon at the cooking shows, afternoon at the bocce courts, afternoon at the malls, bistros and throbbing business that we manage to avoid quite nicely most weekdays. Afternoon at the luncheon counter. Afternoon at the movies. Afternoon at the ball park. After noon of the nap. And evening falls, sweet smelling.

I don’t travel very far on Saturday evening. Listen to Garrison Keeler. Manage to keep my fingers off the remote control. Try to catch the reading that has eluded alluded me. Try not to nod off too early, while Miles or Ornette or Sonny or Charlie or John or Andres or Sharon stick to the walls in the background. Dream of long swelling B flat melodies and the mountains of the moon or Cygnus X1.

Til Sunday morn blooms. My mother, hard heels clacking on the kitchen floor, preparing to meet her God, found after years of teeth gnashing, my son stirring to his weekend job and I desultory, wondering, what should I. Awaken? Or just close my eyes for another 10 minutes or an hour? Freedom is dwindling. I sip. I eat.

Maybe the movie I didn’t see yesterday, maybe a trip to the book store, maybe I’ll even watch a meaningless football game and nap fitfully. To afternoon passes.

Number Two. Circa 1954 the evening brought Ed Sullivan and his show of shows, my uncle would yell across the front porch to his daughter Molly look the dancers. Opera singers would be sung. Ed would clap his hands. Senor Wences and Toppo Gigo would entwine themselves and smack the Sullivan lips. Followed o! too quickly by John Daly, Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf sometimes Ricky Ricardo, sometimes Harry Morgan and the mystery guest that would please sign in. Oh my God is it really Victor Borge or Spring Byington? If I beat my brother to the bathtub I was able, clean and uncomfortable, to watch the whole of What’s My Line. UNTIL that awful moment when John would turn over all the cards, because time was up, the game was over. Like the march to the Guillotine was the march to the beds in our room at the rear of the house with crickets singing over the unfinished patio.

Reprise. The present the Game Show Channel. A bath, a show, a bed, a sleep!

This weekend will be different. Honest!