wake up.

force a smile.

fight the urge to check my cell phone.

tell myself i'm happy to be awake and grateful to live in a stable place where my mind is not entirely in control of what happens.

tell my wife good morning. wait for the reply: "5 more minutes"

get out of bed. groan. shake around a bit.

walk down the hall to the bathroom. navigate away from the cats.

pee.

walk to the kitchen to wash my hands, because there's no sink in the bathroom because our contractors did a horrible job and we shouldn't have hired them. laugh at this.

feed the cats. half a scoop each of dry food.

walk back to the bedroom. my wife is still asleep. "good morning!" i say to her, again. she shifts her leg under the blanket, turns, moans and says 'five more minutes!'

i put on boxers, most likely the jeans i was wearing yesterday. i grab an undershirt from the underwear drawer, and go to the closet. the work shirts are in spectrum order. i pick one at random. put it on and roll up the sleeves.

go out into the kitchen. slice up some strawberries from the fridge, and eat them with yogurt. turn on the electric kettle for tea. open the cabinet to take two gummy fish-oil supplements and two gummy calcium/vitamin d supplements. pour the tea.

check the internet. look at facebook and twitter for notifications. check the price of bitcoin. make sure the world hasn't ended. sip the tea in case it has.

tell my wife i'm going to work, give her a kiss. she may be up now, she may not. if she's up, i'll snuggle her a bit and practice my chinese. zaoshang hao, xiao mao, i say.

get in my car. drive to work. the radio is probably on. i turn it off before getting on 101. i focus on my breath while i drive, and try to sit up straight.

i imagine the lives of the people who are on the freeway with me. i drive by the big hangar at moffet airforce base and imagine going on a rocket to mars. i imagine living there on mars, and then remind myself that i'm driving and should pay attention to that.

i go by the ellis exit and remember the startup we had on fairchild. the sense of hope and of purpose, the sense of stress and the sense of loss as it ended. i remind myself i'm not there any more, i'm still here, just driving. i smile.

i go by the shoreline exit for google. i remember how unhappy i was there, too. i let that fall from my mind, and keep going.

i notice my foot up on the dashboard. for some reason i have the instinct to put my left foot on the dashboard when i drive. i don't know why this is. i put it down because it shouldn't be up there.

i get off at willow road. maybe i'm listening to music now, finding something to amp myself up for the morning. i see the new facebook office across the street under construnction, and imagine doing yoga on top of the building until the end of the world, when i shoot off into space on telepathy-mind power, and navigate the stars looking for a good time. then i remind myself it's reality that matters now, as there's construction on willow and the left lane is closed.

i wait at the stoplight and fiddle with the radio. i remind myself i live in california now - not ohio! - and i work at _facebook_!

i iterate through the list of dreams that once seemed impossible which i've managed to accomplish, and remind myself there's still time for more.

i drop the car off at the valet outside building twelve, and those guys - the one with the short blonde hair and the other dude that seems to enjoy the broken seat because it leans back too far - and they say hey and ask how long i'll be at work.

6 or so, i say.

and then i go into the building.