This is 38

Recent changes I’ve made to my lifestyle: I wake up anywhere from 10-11AM (as I mentioned in my last post), I don’t sleep in late, I’m rarely not in bed by midnight or so. I swim as many days as I can, just laps laps laps. I am looking into buying a house. I am looking into getting a real-ish type job. I looked into transferring my credits to UMich for graduation, I sewed a button onto my shorts the other day. I learned how to put air in my tires. Basically, I’m heavy duty adulting!

What brought about this change? Well, to be honest, it’s age. About a year ago, I was at the crossroads of figuring out what to do. With a late thirties birthday looming, I was trying to figure out if I could keep on doing what I did — running around, running away, keeping it moving — or if I would have to tack the other direction, which would equal settling down and figuring shit out.

Well, the germination of the idea was there last year, even if I wasn’t really thinking about actual stuff until a few months later. But the thought of continually running around was getting tiring, I must admit, even if I still thought I might have one more go in me. But as it turns out, maybe not, since New York didn’t hold much appeal for me this past summer.

And to be honest, since turning thirty-eight just a month or so ago, everything just screams that I need to stay put somewhere. Like now I’m a tag-a-long to adult dinners with my mom, I am seeking out older people’s advice, and I am, like, making actual plans for the future. This is like kind of all shocking stuff. Especially when I'm catching friends up on events if we haven't communicated in awhile.

People, you wouldn’t even recognize me anymore. And not just because I shaved my head again — a return to my bald form that hasn’t been seen since late 2013. Oh yeah, I even put my hands on a shovel and gardened one day, helping AMR and George clear some tubers in their front yard. I willingly touched dirt, cue the apocalypse!

In addition, I’m basically a recluse. I don’t go out anywhere, I stay at home all day, and there’s only one friend I see with any regularity. This one friend is like the activities coordination for many things, so she’s always inviting me to stuff, which I appreciate. But so far I've only done a few things, like gone downtown once, attended a trivia night, saw a play, popped into to my other friend’s book release, went to an art show, and stumbled through a dance class. Plus I play basketball weekly, as of three weeks ago.

And that’s about it. What I should be doing with all this free time is writing, and I mean to get to it, but I’ve been focusing on setting up a new podcast — The Redo, coming soon! — and otherwise have been trying to fill the day with odds and ends. The hours really stretch when you wake up early doesn’t it? I wouldn’t say I’m more productive, by any measure, but by 4PM I’m usually looking around for something to do.

Stuff like read a book, watch a Netflix series, listen to some podcasts, I dunno, anything to just kill time I guess. This is in direct contrast to George and AMR, who moved back to Poway a week before I arrived, and are quite busy setting up their house, taking care of a baby, and adjusting to their new life. I see them once or twice a week, and seeing as George’s Wednesdays are now her “off” days, sometimes we hit the mall or something. Or go to Home Goods, which is apparently an almost biweekly trip for George and my mom.

Today I re-watched The Big Short, and tried to figure out what I was doing in September of 2008, as the world economy was about to collapse. Basically I was living in San Diego but was visiting San Francisco for Tien’s wedding and our thirtieth birthday. I had just come off a magical August re-visit to New York, which would plant the seeds for me eventually moving out there.

I believe I was pulling unemployment that year — and had just sold a book — and so was living high bouncing back and forth between San Diego and San Francisco a lot. So yeah, as the subprime mortgage crisis was occurring, I was having the time of my life. Oh right, but that was also right around when big shit was going down on the friend/romantic side, and that also jump started me getting the hell out of San Diego the following year, and setting off the so-called "golden triangle" of hopping. What a time.

Anyway, I’m back in San Diego. For awhile I think. Yay?

"I find that it often feels like critics use the city of San Diego as a lens through which to understand the Chargers’ weaknesses — lazy! Too much sun! Head in the clouds! — but I see the opposite: The Chargers’ stadium turmoil is the best way to understand San Diego. It is the second-largest city in California and eighth-largest in the United States, yet it continues to struggle to define itself outside of the weather and Anchorman references. Instead, San Diego is characterized by sweeping generalizations — 'America’s Finest City,' 'a bland, happy place' — the way politicians combine words to form platitudes that fail to say anything at all."
-A Preemptive Farewell to the San Diego Super Chargers-