I had a stupidly bad day yesterday. *

Today was not bad. It was perfectly fine and kind of boring but I’m grateful for its not-badness and am celebrating it with this list of every not bad thing that I did or that happened to me today:

1. I took a hot shower this morning. (My showers have been lukewarm at best during the last few weeks).
2. I showered, got dressed, put on makeup, dried my hair and packed my gym clothes in under forty-five minutes. That’s not the fastest I’ve ever done all of those things, but it’s definitely not the slowest.
3. The G arrived only 2 or 3 minutes after I got to the station.
4. When I got to work, I made my usual breakfast – instant oatmeal – and it was neither too watery nor too dry.
5. The bathroom at work wasn’t totally clean, but it also wasn’t totally dirty.
6. I made a plan for when to take breaks away from my desk and stuck to it.
7. I ate a delicious turkey and gruyère sandwich for lunch.
8. I went to the Strand and bought a replacement copy of The Dud Avocado for $7 and though it doesn’t have my underlines, I’m happy to have the book back in my possession.
9. I almost finished The Flamethrowers on my way home, but saved the last bit for tonight because I kind of hate finishing books on the train.
10. I narrowly missed getting run over by a guy I rejected romantically two and a half years ago who was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk in front of the YMCA.
11. I got my favorite locker at the gym, which is obviously #69.
12. I got my favorite elliptical machine, which is obviously the one in front of the TV that plays Bravo, and felt happy while working out and listening to Devo and looking up every so often to see Kim and Kyle Richards fighting in the back of a limousine.
13. I made a Greek salad for dinner, which is the same thing I ate last night and it was just OK, but I guess it was better than eating the old pasta I threw out tonight after letting it sit in the fridge for three weeks.
14. I watched last night’s episode of Shahs of Sunset. GG wore a hat that said “#Fart” on it and also revealed that she keeps knives all over her house for “safety” and both of those things warmed my heart.
15. I also watched Girls and was happy that Hannah’s dad is gay and not dying.
16. I put fleur de sel on a miniature non-dairy mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwich and it was delightful.
17. I wrote this list and realized I’ve (probably temporarily) escaped from the negative thought spiral that entrapped me yesterday.

*I say “stupidly” because, looking back on it, I realize a lot of things that were probably kind of fine and not important at all in the grand scheme of things just seemed bad because I woke up at 3:30 am and didn’t fall back asleep and convinced myself that my day would be terrible because of that. For example, I just missed the subway, which was pulling out of the station as I went through the turnstile. I needed to get to work to finish a project that had a rapidly approaching deadline and didn’t want to wait ten minutes for the next train. Those ten minutes didn’t really make a difference. But turning the unpleasantness of waiting for the subway into something worse in my mind suited the narrative of having a terrible day, so that’s what I did. I stewed the whole time I was waiting, thinking about how I could have made that train if I had just left the house a minute earlier. As the day went on, other “bad” things kept happening. It’s no wonder to me now that they did. I wanted them to.