Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.

Brandon’s blogging again.

So, I’ve been thinking.

Like, you know, really thinking.

(I know, right?)

Maybe it’s the changing of the seasons. The onset of Fall. Fall is the season for thinking, I feel.  Everything about Fall puts me in an introspective mood.The changing color of the leaves and their inevitable falling to the ground. The return of hot drinks. The comfortable, in-between weather, and never quite knowing if it’ll get chilly enough to warrant a jacket. The warm, golden hue the world seems to take on. These upcoming months are all about transition. Winding down from the heat of Summer, and preparing for the cold of Winter. I tend to sit quietly more often, and If I’m travelling somewhere by foot chances are I have to tack on an extra 10 minutes of travel time because, in the Fall, I’m more likely to spot something on my walk that makes me stop and stare, and think in a series of spiraling tangents (college students playing in the park. A water fountain. A frustrated mother yelling at her kid to stop begging for more cookies or some shit). Mundane, typical, everyday things take on new meaning to me in the Fall.

Fall is usually the time of year that I figure things out.

It was a series of mundane events this week that finally got me in the mood to blog again.

It was nothing, really. Twice this week I hung out with coworkers. Not that I’ve never hung out with coworkers outside of work before, but it had been a while, and again it’s the season for these commonplace sorts of things to really have an impact on me.

The occasions were very similar. On Monday I did my typical closing shift at the café with another coworker, and after work we spontaneously decided to hang out. The second time (the very next day) another coworker had finally moved to a new place on the other side of town, and decided to invite people over that evening on a whim. Both nights pretty much went the same way – a group of people sitting around, Pandora in the background. There was laughter and loud-talking; there was gossip and excursions outside to keep the smokers company. There were random liquors that people scrapped together from other, planned occasions and a random assortment of the sweet and carbonated to chase them with.

There was pseudo-philosophy. There was dorky anime talk. There was sex-talk. At the second of these impromptu gatherings it got a little too late, and I crashed in a spare room.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.

As I was walking through the city the next morning, enjoying the cooler weather, I thought about why it had been so long since I’d had that kind of fun. Back when I was in school in Pittsburgh, gatherings like that were so common. When you’re a student living on a campus with 15,000 other students all looking for a distraction, house parties and invitations to someone’s dorm room to drink bottom-shelf liquor were a dime-a-freakin-dozen.

But, at some point, it gets harder to do be that spontaneous. You go from living on a college campus to living in the real world, with real neighbors you’ll probably never get to know. You change cities. You turn 21 and go to bars, and your tastes graduate from “whatever liquor is on-hand” to proper cocktails and imported beers. You enter into a relationship. Your bills get more numerous and harder to pay, and you work full-time jobs and become career-minded. You start to tire.

You’ve grown up.

And you forget the last time you had a hastily-chased shot of cheap booze.

Now, you plan parties, and you schedule months in advance for friends to fly in to visit. And when they arrive, you go sight-seeing. You grab dinner somewhere. You take your friend to a bar where you’ll introduce them to a select few of the people you’ve recently inducted into your life. It’s fun, but it’s coordinated.

You probably won’t sit on the floor, drinking booze out of a coffee mug and having your tarot cards read on a Wednesday, like you used to.

And if you would, I applaud you. I could learn from you.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with growing up. Don’t mistake this for a nostalgic post full of whining for times that are long-since gone. Growing up is inevitable and important.

But, as I was walking home on that Fall morning, I couldn’t help but wonder if we shed too much of ourselves in the process of growing up.

I decided that, more than just the experience – more than just the drinking and sex-talk and crashing at someone’s place mid-week, it was the spontaneity that I missed, and that had made this week so fun. My roommates and I go out at least once a week, on one of our planned nights (Wednesday and Saturday) to catch up with each other. I wouldn’t trade this for planned gathering and opportunity to catch up with my roommates and dear friends for the world, but there’s something to be said for absolutely off-the-wall nights of doing something different and drinking something different. Talking to different people. Sitting on the ground and letting yourself just be in the moment.

And then waking up the next morning, and walking home on a nice Fall day to do your laundry, clean the house, and prepare for work the next day.

Oh, and blog.