a life more awesome: July reflection/Mass trip day 1

It's been a long time since my last post. Where the hell have I been? Well, mostly Massachusetts, at bars with old coworkers, at old work, and at the place I used to live. It's been nice to visit old haunts for short times, and clearly I need to somehow try to sneak a blog into the middle of those trips. Otherwise, I go a week without one and it starts to look like I've abandoned my purpose.

After June, I did a reflection post, where I admitted to feeling like I hadn't done enough in June. I feel like July was much, much better. I saw a lot of old friends, swam a lot, went on some awesome trips, biked, hiked, made some changes and lived it up. Could I have done more? Absolutely. I need to make art. I need to make music (happening, but not enough). I need to hike again! Through being in different states or relaxing when I was at home or having a hurt back (the last 5 days or so), I haven't been on a hike in about 3 weeks. I think part of me is also dreading the challenge I took on (to get at least 4 4,000 footers under my belt by the end of the summer, plus Chocorua, which might as well be a 4,000 footer). I only got a few of my goals done, but July was all about embracing summer and having fun. And I definitely achieved that. August is set to be even better, with a trip to Maine in the next day or so, a possible trip to Foxwoods, and a week plus of recording music, biking, camping, swimming etc. already planned for the last week of August that I'm dubbing D-Bone day camp, as I'll be living with my lunatic friend Dustin in New York. I am running out of summer though, so here's to stepping it up!

There is one problem in my life that I am finally coming to terms with and am going to try my best at fixing- the fact that I'm late to EVERYTHING. Some stuff, I don't really care (as evidenced by every job I've ever had). But parties and get-togethers, I need to fix that. I always make fun of Rich because he likes to get to parties either early or right when they start- I say that nobody does that- that start times of parties are just suggestions and not only do people expect you to show up later, but it's better that way- give people some time to relax, get in their comfort zones, or just get wasted so that when you show up, it's a huge event. DUDE! MIKE IS HERE!!! AHHHHHHH! I am saying right now: Rich, I think you're right. I think my attitude applied to college, but not anymore. These days, people show up early to stuff. No longer are they doing a bunch of stuff and suddenly saying "oh yea, that party!" at the last minute- no, at this age (where Gcal and facebook events rule everything), the planned event is all that is important on that day, and you had best show up early or on time. Yamstein started hours before we got there, and we were only there a half hour after the facebook event page said to be there!

The day after Yamstein, Tara from work was having a kickball party followed by hitting up some BAHS guy. I assumed that nobody would care about kickball- that it would be people standing in a field drinking, and it would end very quickly in favor of bars. So I didn't try to show up on time. I planned on being late. I also assumed that traffic going southbound on a Sunday night wouldn't be horrible. Oh yea, Sunday nights are when everyone leaves their happy NH vacations to return to Mass. Oops. So, an hour and a half drive turned into about 3 hours, which meant I showed up in Cambridge at 10pm, and to the bar at like 10:30, missing all of the kickball (which apparently not only happened, but was fun too) and arriving just in time to see people I liked leave.

It was still nice to see some people I hadn't seen in 2 and a half months though.

this seems to be the face I make in every picture

I also wear this shirt a lot.

Look at this guy's beard!

I managed to still have a good night though, and stayed over at Dan's house, where we stayed up until 4am talking. Dan and I used to have some epic conversations during our hour long food quart lunches. In fact, the seeds to this life change and blog were either planted or at least watered during those lunches. In talking, we figured out part of why I'm late to everything. Even before this big life change and new attempt at positivity, I have always been someone who doesn't want to stop having fun while I'm having it. Nearly everyone who hung out that night left while they were having fun. "I gotta go home, I have work in the morning" was the most common reason. I argued that this was crazy- that they were hanging out with friends on a beautiful night and seeing some people they never see. Why not stay out a little later? So you miss out on an hour or two of sleep. So? Make up for it the next night, when you're sitting in your apartment playing on the computer. Why not extend the fun you're having now and just replace some of the crap of tomorrow with it? Of course, everyone there said it was easy for me to say, as I didn't have work the next day. But I have always been that way. I am almost always the last person to leave. I was more tired the next day, sure, but big deal. I have always done what we all should do- maximize the fun, minimize the crap.

Because of this idea, it's hard to leave something that's good to go to something which I can never know will be better. Because of this, I'm always the last to show up and the last to leave. So, the way I look at it, I got half of it right. My new goal in life is to not just do more awesome stuff, but to stop being late to said stuff.

I slept fairly horribly on Dan's futon, saw him off to work,