The staff luncheon holiday party for the two restaurants downtown was behind him as he woke up, depressed, in early January.   He got up, used the john, put on his bathroom over tee shirt and boxer briefs, poured himself a cup of tea from the tea pot on the coffee table, went in to the kitchen to get the water on.  He poured water from the faucet after the tea kettle was on over a lit burner until it was hot, assembled some of the cups and the wine glasses and set them in the sink, allowing the water from the tap to get as hot as it would before filling the rubber made tub.  He threw away the tea leaves from the day before still damp in the strainer, pouring out the last of the tea from before into his cup as the water on the burner heated.  He started to wash the cups and a small pot and a few plates in the soapy water.  He went to the bedroom, brought his Fleshlight back to the kitchen, rinsing the ´pink sleeve with its anatomical shape, then rinsing it with rubbing alcohol, hanging it to dry vertically between the cold water knob and the faucet mouth in the sleeve, went back, poured out the hot water over the tea leaves, set the timer on his cell phone to three minutes.

Champagne tasting tonight.  He looked up the particular champagne on the web, for tasting notes, for the blend of grapes, cépage, blew his nose, which had been running days before, now a head cold, sipped his tea, and then his mother called.  Where he was in a pretty bad mood, she was not.  This was a thing to worry about pretty much every day, but today, fortunately, not bad, no threat of I should just kill myself, what else am I supposed to do...  And he would be going to work, just to have something to do.  Head colds throw you off, he thought.  They mess with your head, altering the wateriness of the brain...

He put a little bit of ashwagandha powder into his tea, stirred it, took a sip.  Ten years left of my working life...  what am I supposed to do.  Too late for any career now.  January.

He opened up a can of black-eyed peas, pouring them out into a small pot after warming olive oil with a dash of spices, a quick hiss.  He thought out a grocery list, more cans of black-eyed peas, olive oil, postage stamps...what else...

It was true, as the Eastern adepts made note of, self-pleasuring out of boredom to accidental release, took the energy out of you, another mistake, another sin.  But that was the night before, and he could rally, now awake as it rained outside the third floor blinds.  A token of bitterness lifted.  He could eat soon.  He rose to the kitchen to check on the beans as they bubbled away.  The incense was working over in the pot with the small norfolk monkey puzzle tree, frankincense and myrrh, calming, and he put on more water for the tea pot, pleased at his ability to control the blue gas fires of the burners.

He was actually up a little bit early, considering, before work's immediate need for getting there.  He did not have to cross the area of the downtown, no forty minute bus rides.   Going to work would be better than sitting home reading Thomas Merton or thinking of Jesus...