Last week I decided to make an effort to be more social. It had been an intense week of working late nights on quick-turn projects, which was making me feel a little suffocated. Since I was working with a new team of people, it seemed like a good time to branch out. In the week since, I think I’ve met/learned more about 20+ people.

Friday night I went out for after work drinks for the first time in months. There was plenty of good laughs and conversation. I called it an early night because I had my first horseback trail ride the next morning. It was a very gray day for my trail ride. The horse, Cash, was new to me and we struggled a bit. It was slow-going as he didn’t seem to feel motivated, so my instructor had to keep waiting for me to catch up. It was a great experience, even though it showed me how much I have yet to learn about riding. There wasn’t a level part of the trail and riding up/downhill was completely different from riding in a circle. I saw a covey of quail and a coyote along the way. As we climbed, we had a view of the whole Tamalpais Valley and would have seen the ocean were it not for the fog. It was intense, climbing through the visibly blowing fog. I hurt so much afterward. I finally understood the warnings of pain everyone had given me before I took up riding. The ride was just around 2 hours and I was so tired afterward.

I had already committed myself to going out Saturday night, though, so out I went. It was a nightmare. The bus never came so I ended up walking 1.5 miles uphill until I found one. I met up with some people at The Knockout and ended up running into several other people. It was a fun couple hours until I tried to go home, which turned into another series of bus fails and 3 miles of walking. That paired with the horseback riding yielded me an unusable back the next morning. It was slow moving.

Work continued with intensity throughout this week. Sallie gave us a welcome break by scheduling an afternoon tea. We had pasties, tea, and a bunch of English treats. It was the highlight of the week. We even watched a bit of an English soap, East Enders. Perfectly lovely disruption of the day.

I managed to squeeze in a phone call with Kali Thursday night, even though I should have been sleeping. It was good to talk to her, though. It was a summer half day on Friday and I had plans to go to a barbeque later but I was so tired that I ended up finding a quiet corner of the office and falling asleep. Sallie & I finally made it over. It was a pre-burning man party. Everyone knows that I tend to be a burning man hater, so it made for an interesting night. I got to see a Creative Director hula hoop for the first time. People from all around the world who had flown in for the festival showed up. France, Australia, Morocco, Brazil, and England were all represented. I even met a girl named Ocean. I did my best not to feel out of place. I realized they weren’t judging me for not being a burner. I had so many conversations that I can’t even recall most of them. I know I had to list my top 3 bands I’d want to see live, dead or alive, and that Aussies don’t think Silverchair is a guilty pleasure band.

I was up until 6:30am. People came & went and the ratio of burners to non-burners kept getting greater and greater. I found myself in an intense discussion about the festival and drugs. It’s safe to assume I was greatly out-numbered. Everyone was pretty cool, though. It didn’t turn into a fight. We just talked about it and one of the Aussies thanked me for such a good debate when they left. It was the perfect grand finale to my socializing quest. I argued something I felt strongly about to a group of people, only 1 of which I’d met before that night.

I hope I’m not around that much cigarette smoke again anytime soon, but it was great to have such varied company & conversation.