Summer Vacation Guide For Life After College

Leave work late wondering if it was a nice day!
Old You might have gone on a walk or sip a smoothie in the park. Lame! New You can enjoy the perfect day from the isolated confines of your beige cubicle. It might be sunny and 80 degrees outside, but that’s miles away, and these projects don’t finish themselves. Aside from a stray glimpse of the outside at some distant window, all you need is harsh florescent lights and recirculated air. By the time you reach a good stopping point, it'll be dusk and any joy of the day is gone. The walk out to your car in the last remnants of sunlight is perfect for those who want to lament their squandered youth!

Make plans to travel – and then don’t!
Whether it’s a weekend getaway or a full vacation, ambition is heating up! After sitting indoors all winter, it’s time to get out of town for a while. So go ahead and promise your old roommate that you’ll see his cabin in Colorado! Schedule a camping trip in some distant woods! Check out a bunch of guides to coastal cities! Then, when it comes time to make it official- don’t! No tickets, no packing. Forget the sites you wanted to see and stop returning your friend’s calls. Thinking about adventure will only leave you hurt! By the end of the month, when you’re numb in the endless routine of your life, you won’t even remember if you actually wanted to travel or if it was all just a dream.


Day Drinking/Day Napping!
Nothing says summer like sitting on a patio with a cold beer. Relax, turn on the game, and have meaningless hollow conversations with near strangers about a local IPA. You haven’t had a chance to feel the afternoon sun in a week, and though you hate everyone around you, the warmth feels nice. Back in your prime, you’d be tan by this point in the year. You were better looking then and you could easily spend the day like this drinking away. But now the sun just seems a little brighter, the heat just a tad higher. You try to focus on the conversation, but, really, who cares? You take relaxing to the next level and close your eyes. When you wake up at eight, the day wasted, your face burnt, and the half empty beer still sitting there, you think about everything you've accomplished and it does not make you feel proud. Congratulations! Work starts in twelve hours!

Be awkward and out of place at a music festival!
On a whim, purchase tickets to some random music festival months in advance and then only go because of your immediate and overwhelming buyer’s remorse. You had once listened to one of the bands, and though they are now the old school charity act, you accidentally thought you still had it. The feeling vanishes within thirty seconds of waiting in line. You are by far and away the oldest person around. Loiter awkwardly on the fringe of the crowd, unable to fit in or even intermingle like a home schooled kid at recess. When the few bands you know aren’t performing, wander around complaining about seven dollar bottles of water and girls wearing unacceptable crop tops and, dammit, does everyone have to be on their cellphone all the time? When your bands come on, try to get to the front, fail, and then listen to a couple songs behind an eight foot giant, silently wishing you were still at home watching some Netflix.

– Ian "Salmon Season" Golding (@iggolding)