The Good Life

Feb 13: End of the Sadness

Finally the cold is subsiding. By Friday I was about 95% back to normal. PT was much better in the morning but the rest of the day was fairly weak. It was spent in an 8 hour diversity training session, that I really didn’t see the point of at the end. The tag teaming presenters kept bouncing back back and forth between preaching tolerance, showing horrifically shocking images, incredibly outdated Nazi marches and teaching us new hate speech. Not a whole lot was accomplished. That night I went to the bar, but took it easy. I had to get up the next morning for van driver’s ed. I drank a little gin, shook a little booty and hit the hay before midnight.


Feb 14: I Choo Choo Choose You

Valentines Day is usually a solitary and unfulfilling venture, but this year things were pleasantly different. Driver training was dumb but necessary, and it went quicker with the lovely texts from the ladies in my life. That afternoon our house joined forces with 2 other houses on the street, which conveniently contain the majority of the cool people here, and had a BBQ. I assumed the grill master position and cooked meat for about 40 people. Everyone ate pretty well. I seem to take charge of the cooking missions out of a selfish and untrustworthy motives. I guess I just have little faith in very few people when it comes to my food, and like any job you want done right…Later that night I bathed(because I smelled like a brisket) and went out for some drinks with few cool people. There was a cross dressing party at one of the houses, but I forgot my slinky black number in Maine, so I just crashed it later on when I was feeling fuzzy. Once again, like a lot of great nights, it ended with ridiculous conversation, a little guitar and some laughs.


Feb 15: Lazy Sunday

Sleeping in is one of life’s truly great solitary pleasures. Especially when you’re free from basically any expectations or duties for the day, like when you repent on your death bed. Yikes, no more talk of morbid metaphysics. Sunday was populated with random conversations, a little “everyone’s ‘it’” tag on the “quad” between the houses, card games, back massages, a bit of bland Chinese food and capped off with some episodes of Mr Show. Nothing anyone couldn’t be happy with.

Random thoughts:
Lately my internal demeanor has been improving exponentially. My initial reactions to the summer/boot camp experience are fading into memory. It’s amazing what proximity can do. Just the knowledge of what’s nearby or possibly close has a ridiculous amount of power. The knowledge that I’m a breath away from a ridiculously crass lunchroom conversation that could easily turn to polarizing political diatribes completely rules. Not that I’m really for dogmatic spouting, but sometimes it’s fun to see what you can squeeze out of people. It’s doing me really well to be around a fair amount of capable youngins. And let’s be honest, after 2 years in the woods, just a fleeting smile from a sweet young lady can smash any negativity you tricked yourself into harboring. So far I’ve really been shirking my goal of learning Spanish. For some reason, right now I can’t bring myself to not hang out with people and listen to my mp3 player while talking to myself. Mike's ongoing list of things necessary for happiness: passion, serendipity,proximity.