Thursday, July 15, 2010

Reading and Adulthood

I don't know why it's taken me so long to become an actual fan of reading...
Ok that's a lie. Actually, I know exactly why:

College-aged Mike Jutan found most of his evening energy from large social events - lots of people, lots of noise, music, excitement, rock and roll, unhealthy food and so on. (Ya know, "kids these days")

But as of the last year and a half, I've very quickly starting focusing on "things that I find most important": moving to my new apartment, being more organized, making myself an apartment-cleaning schedule and sticking to it, going to bed at a "reasonable" time (after 1am but before 3am --strangely that's a HUGE improvement on before), getting into adult-person stuff like flossing and exercise for exercise's sake.

As part of this apparent transition into "real person" status, I've found I'm spending time more introverted-ly than ever before. This may be in large part to the kind of friends I've made at work (who are, as Computer Science tends to dictate, mostly introverted), but I think it's some sort of unexpected mature-ness that comes with living in an apartment that you really love, without 1000 roommates, and taking some pride in your surroundings. It also probably makes sense that less dance-clubbing occurs in a city that is actually pretty quiet at night, and after a long, exciting, busy work day, I'm much more keen to watch a Netflix, make some dinner, and read a book or go to a quiet cafe then schlep downtown with 50 people and go to some overpriced sweaty dance club. The club scene in San Francisco is actually pretty quiet (compared to say, Waterloo and Toronto) but even if I did have a bazillion friends here who were into that (and I don't), it's starting to feel like sit-down-and-talk-to-your-friends pubs have really taken over from the dance club vibe. Maybe that's what happens when you hit mid-to-upper-20's? Or maybe that's partly cause my friends and I work super hard and chillin' out and winding down on a Friday night is often much more appealing than running around until 3am and following up a busy week with 24-hour breakfast and 24-hour pizza and 24-hour doughnuts. It's not that we never do that kinda stuff anymore, it's still kinda fun of course, but times are a' changin'...

Ergo: Busy work day, hefty responsibilities during the week, maintaining a happy home to live in... all mean less staying up till 3am and following up a night of partying with horrible-for-you 24-hour food. :) It also apparently means more reading, more introverted activities, and more time for ideas and thoughts to coalesce.

I think I'm an adult now, and that's a little strange.

I'm still gonna wear my neon Adidas shoes though, 'cause I want to keep this realization a secret for now.

No comments: