Where shall we begin?

As the economy crashed and with it the lifestyles and comfort of many of my friends and acquaintances, the social circle I fell into was one that involved long nights at the pub.  Everyone seemed to be going through some life-changing disaster of some kind, or so they thought, and a cold pint of beer after an unfulfilling day at work proved to be a good remedy.  Subsequently, when I found myself more in debt than I had started and not one bit happier, it became apparent that I had been on the sauce for too long.  It was probably time to give it a rest.  But a sober mind is a productive mind, and this is where things got interesting.  

With the neighbourhood pub no longer an option for a Tuesday, I needed another way to occupy myself in the evening hours.   I made a pact with myself, I was going to work out 4 days a week starting right now.  This proved to be a difficult pact to live up to, seeing as I have never been too keen in the physical activity department.  The quest to replace 4 days a week of watching football and drinking a beer with running endlessly nowhere in a sweaty gym ended almost as quickly as it was introduced. 

Instead I thought to myself Hey! I've always loved to read! and shifted my goals to involve reading for at least an hour or two every day.  The first night, I chose a book I had been meaning to start for the past few months and decided to give it a go.  Within the first few chapters I was hooked; this novel was just right up my alley.  I couldn't put it down!  When I eventually had the mind to take my nose out of the book and look out the window, I was surprised to find it very dark outside, and further realized it was 2 a.m.  I'm the sort of person that needs more than 4 hours of sleep.  Now that I know the dangers of reading in rooms without clocks, enjoying a good book has become a favourite hobby in these tough times of no football and beer.

But it wasn't enough.  Something was missing.  Books are an amazing resource to me, I'm very grateful that I have them so readily available to me.  But there wasn't the discourse.  The random conversation, the melodrama, the good laughs, all the things I really loved about my pub friends were missing in books alone.  Most of all, I've come to realize, a way to express myself fluidly.  Once we've seen the bottom of a few, we all loosen up and get to say what's really on our minds.  This was something I valued above and beyond, and I was determined to recreate it in a less self-destructive way.  But how?

This is an experiment.