It’s a pretty miserable day in Chicago. It’s raining hard: streets and sidewalks are flooded, and despite my umbrella, my pants are completely soaked after walking the four blocks to the bus. It’s so dark it feels like I’m heading to work at 5am instead of 8am. This is quite possibly my least favorite weather to be out in. 

On top of that, I’ve been inexplicably nauseous for most of the week. I don’t know if it’s anxiety or a stomach bug or something else entirely, but it’s been annoying and exhausting and demotivating. 

Still, I’m trying to push past my inclination to succumb to the miserable weather and my miserable stomach and get lost in a sea of misery. I don’t know how much of it is optimism and how much is pragmatism: there’s life that needs getting on with, and misery isn’t really conducive to that. 

So here are a few happy things that have happened this week:

• I got to have a Skype date with my best friend and catch up for the first time in too long. We’ve both been busy lately, so the moments when we get to connect feel particularly special. 
• We went to a preview reading of The Civility of Albert Cashier. Chicago folks, you want to go see this when it premiers here in September. It’s an incredible (and true!) story, with a great cast and music by our friend (and folk musician hero) Joe Stevens. 
• I’m finally getting a new work computer! This seems like a silly thing to be excited about, but I’m the IT guy and my computer is at least five years older than the computers of most of my coworkers who I’m assisting. It should’ve happened months ago but kept getting pushed off. I’m tentatively hopeful that this new machine will freeze less often and be a less frustrating user experience overall.