Besides the fact that August 1st is traditionally known as the day of observance for Lammas, I know of no particular significance the date should hold; nevertheless, I’ve found that throughout my life–stretching back to at least 1997–there seems to be some sort of turning point for me which occurs on this day.

Interestingly, my home of 13 years, the glorious city of San Francisco, has its own unique cycle of the year, much of which revolves around its festival schedule; what’s often referred to as “The Gay High Holy Days” begin with Pride (end of June), continue on to Up Your Alley (aka Dore Alley Street Fair, end of July), then peak with Folsom Street Fair (end of September), and close with Castro Street Fair (beginning of October). (Halloween in the Castro used to represent the close of the Holy Days, but violent assholes–most of them not city residents–eventually brought down that celebration.)

As you can see from the short calendar above, August is the only month of what we in SF call “summer” which does not contain a major city-hosted event (although there’s still Lazy Bear Weekend up north in Sonoma County at the start of the month, and some other small event over Labor Day weekend that a few people go to in the next state over). So for locals, there is a sort of natural pause taken here; a chance to catch our collective breath between flurries of visiting friends, intensely packed schedules, and sleepless weekends. It therefore seems in some ways very natural that I should feel the way I do right now…

To be honest, I have not felt that I’ve pushed myself very hard for most of this year. I’ve not been very faithful to my gym and exercise routine, and although I recently discovered (and have become very enamored of) yoga, even that practice has not yet become ingrained nearly so much as it ought to be. More importantly, however, I have grossly neglected this very website which you are currently viewing.

I purchased my web domain shortly after my birthday last year, with grand hopes of quickly establishing a regular writing practice again–something I have not been in the habit of since largely abandoning my Livejournal shortly after moving here. Although I do consider it a small victory that I have managed to consolidate my poetry archive here, the fact remains that, though I have at least daily and sometimes almost constant ideas for blog posts, I’ve continually allowed myself to be distracted by other pursuits.

In the past week, I’ve felt an energetic and spiritual coalescence toward changing that. So many things have changed for me in major ways this year: Andrew moving into my apartment and our subsequent reestablishment of the space as our shared home; major changes in my day job at Maxfield’s; intense (and intentioned) psychological and therapeutic efforts being made on the road to full Self Actualization (the top of the pyramid, so far as Maslow’s hierarchy is concerned). A large component of this journey–a consistent theme, if you will–has been that my old ways of being and doing are no longer working the way the used to, and I’m feeling increasingly called to recreate myself once more. In the past, my major transformations were predicated by physically moving to a new city (or changing geographical home location within my current city, at least). Now, I remain planted in my home, but seem to be delving deeper into what this home actually means to me.

I suppose, in short, that I am in some sort of final stage in my chrysalis towards becoming “an adult.”

To that end, I have chosen to hold myself to a new discipline, at least for the month of August: I will write at least one blog post here on Satyricon Stories every day this month, allotting no less than ten minutes a day for this endeavor. There is no unifying theme or format requirement; I just need to start building back my writing muscles, and force myself into becoming (or perhaps, remaining) one of the things I’ve long known I’m supposed to be when I grow up:

a writer.

I hope to make this effort worth your while, world. Thank you for reading.