Friday was not so bad (that’s the frame of mind that I’m in right now—not so bad). I got paid, so I started to send money out to pay bills. Paying bills is almost a nice feeling right now, because at least it feels like control.

Work was fine. Our CEO came to observe one of my sessions, which was fine—I don’t mind that kind of observation—but it meant that I lost a day to prepare for an event that’s happening later this week.

I got off work and came home to change and shake it off. I asked one of my friends to let me into a Reed practice room because I hadn’t made any evening plans, and I’ve been dying to play on a real piano for months. I had a little downtime, so I had an excellent quick meal at Laughing Planet. I don’t like their cultural whitewashing of burritos, but I appreciate that they serve real food, and I enjoyed it very much.

Sitting in a practice room and playing for myself is one of those through line experiences for me. That was middle school, high school, college. I wasn’t able to stay there as long as I was hoping, or get much “work” done, but it was just nice to play and sing and listen and take pleasure in my own art. It was also a nice reality check, because the action on the piano sucked, and it reminded me that just because some pianos look like real pianos does not always mean they’re better than what I’m practicing on.

After that, I came home and drank a bunch and binged Attack on Titan. For whatever reason, I got very into it and some of the shonen tropes—tragic back stories, commentary on strength and weakness, feelings of powerlessness—hit harder than they deserved to. Superego Brain was objecting to the unchecked sexism and fascism, but for once I didn’t let that distract me from having a primary experience with the work. After that, I slept like the dead.

I got caught in a vortex of feeling bad, and now that I’ve come out of the other side of it, I don’t have much of an appetite for revisiting it. Next time.