The end of another month.

And just like that, another month is over and done. It has officially been six months since I started my clean living challenge. I continue to impress myself not because I have done it, but because I continue to want to. I know that I can do anything I put my mind to, but actually wanting to keep this going of my own free will and accord, and sheer enjoyment, well, that's a whole other ballgame.

Today, as I walked home from the gym, noticing that at 7:45pm the daylight was practically gone, I listened to the cicadas buzzing away in the trees. I delighted in that. Hearing them sing their song. Everytime I hear cicadas in the summer, it always reminds me that it's August, the weather is hot, the days are long and that fall is not far behind. And true to that, tomorrow trumpets the first day of September. It shall truly be a farewell to summer this weekend and then all next week as I spend my final week of vacation out on Fire Island. Hopefully I'll have some good downtime, but knowing FI, it never goes that way. I can always hope though.

The weather was incredibly nice tonight and after I finished eating dinner, I met up with my friend Colin and we had drinks at my former favorite haunt, XES. Being there always reminds me how often I used to go there and how much money and energy I used to spend going out. And just getting home now, after having been hanging outside on the smoking patio, though not smoking, I still absolutely reek of cigarettes. And I don't enjoy it. Amazing how six months ago I wouldn't have even realized I stank.

And adding to the growing list of things I've done during clean living, I can now add karaoke. Colin and I used to be karaoke queens at XES, always singing duets. We had quite a fan base back a few years ago. Tonight we "resurrected" that slightly, whipped out a new song, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. It didn't sound as bad as I thought it would.

Maybe I'll blog now and again as the months tick by towards my year goal of March 1st, 2012. We shall see...