I’m surprisingly chipper on a day that I haven’t seen the sun.

Rain is falling on the world outside my window and Pickles, our squirrel neighbor is running up and down the fire escape on her perpetual mission. I don’t know what it is that she does all day, but I think she might be up to something. She never dwells for long. I feel as though she may also be on to something, there.

My coffee is watered down, but I don’t really mind. My body aches like it always does, but I can stay awake today. I can bob my head and swing my feet off my bed to the sound of the rain pattering on the house and the subtle melodies of Brand New and Anthony Green’s music, instead of falling asleep to it like I’ve been prone to do every Thursday for the past month that it has rained.

Police sirens are going off for extended periods at a time because hey, we live in the city during a desperate time. Isn’t everyone always saying how desperate these times are

all the time?

They say it like it’s this new thing. Desperation is the norm. So maybe instead of always pointing that out, we could just stop and note when things are going well. It would make those brief periods of wellness mean more. It would make them familiar to us. They would be easier to spot in a room so crowded with people looking at their shoes because they’re so suffocated by the stench of desperation that they can’t bring themselves to look up from their feet to see if there’s anyone in the room with a face not pinched by the stench, but spread in a smile that reeks of fresh air.

There go the sirens again. They’re fighting to be heard over the rain, I think. They seem to be winning this sound-off, but I think I’m just going to turn up this music and crank out some more psychology homework under the lamplight that bathes my wrinkled up bed in what feels like sunlight making the greens, teals and pink pattern of my sheets pop in my peripherals as I work, the same way the watered down coffee attempted to make the colors in my veins come to life to get me moving.

I think maybe, I don’t need the coffee today. I’ve got fresh air in my veins instead.