it’s not been a great week.

The return-to-office mandate is still unpleasant, loud, and demoralizing, with too few bathrooms, a broken ice machine, and barely functioning network services. It adds a good hour to my “working” time given the commute, traffic on the interstate, lines at the badge check at the gate, and “differently functional” PIV readers on the building doors. That hour does an excellent job of denying me time to dedicate to mental health management activities, so my depression and anxiety are a lot more acute than is normal.

I am aware that I am a creature of habit, and when my routines get disrupted, I get disrupted. I know that in time, the work location will become the new normal, and I’ll be better. However, it won’t do anything for the random bullshit spewing from Washington, and fatalistic gallows humor about the whole business in the break room can only go so far.

On top of all that, my middle-aged body decided to do me a solid after some weekend chores last Saturday, and I somehow messed up my back, leading to way-more-serious-than-usual pain and very unpleasant muscle spasms. Crying after work isn’t exactly atypical anymore, but it’s usually due to existential dread and not piercing pain as I try to drive the manual transmission home.

I’m supposed to ride the Cap2Cap this weekend, though fifty miles with the remnants of the conditions described in the previous paragraph is probably not a good idea right now. I’ll make a judgement call Friday evening, but I’m likely to delay my personal half-century a few weeks for my own good.

So yeah, that sucks. I’m kind of numb to everything (well, except the back pain) at the moment, with occasional saltiness thrown in. I paid off two really pretty big bills this week, freeing up quite a bit of money each month, and I can’t even get excited about it, and not just because the annual personal property tax bill came due this month and ate up the first month’s windfall, and I’ll be expecting a separate bill to cover the new ride in a little while. Long term? It’s a good deal, though right now it’s just one more turd for the sh*tpile.

So all that happened. Here’s a list of tunes. Loads and loads of blues-y hair metal:

1. “Neighbor” – Ugly Kid Joe
2. “Over My Head” – King’s X
3. “Black Cars” – Gino Vanelli
4. “Dirty Water” – Rock & Hyde
5. “Got No Shame” – Brother Cane
6. “Tweeter And The Monkey Man” – Headstones
7. “Wouldn’t You Like To Know Me” – Paul Stanley
8. “Bad Bad Boy” – Haywire
9. “Living In A Dream” – Arc Angels
10. “Don’t Call Us (We’ll Call You)” – Sugarloaf
11. “Run Runaway” – Slade
12. “High Road Easy” – Sass Jordan
13. “Lover” – Michael Stanley Band
14. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw” – Rose Tattoo
15. “New Age Girl” – Dead Eye Dick