22nd April 2022 - Friday Rituals
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Listening to soul galore and loving it.

I am currently going through part of my Friday ritual. Work was 
reasonably civilised today and so I was able to get started listening 
to music from 1pm onwards. Typically, this is soul. Northern ideally 
but lets be honest, any soul works well. Soul has a perverse quality 
in that the sadder and more emotional, the happier I become and the 
more I dance. As soon as 3 o'clock hits, the laptop is shut down and I 
start dancing around the flat. Lee Moses is an artist I recently 
discovered who has some delightful tracks. Bad Girl parts 1 and 2 are 
favourites but who cares. The sun is shining today after a grey 
morning. The soul is filled with joy. So much joy that a sneaky beer 
is grabbed from the fridge and the spirit soars. Oh wait, time to cook 
something. Typically I cook lentils or beans and something. Lazy 
vegetarian describes my usual cooking style. It does tend to favour 
the Indian flavours but a bean chilli is a common choice too. 
Currently, I keep making a simple tomato broth and shoving as many 
vegetables as possible into the pressure cooker. It is a rip off of a 
aloo mattar (potatoes and peas) recipe but works well as a stable. 
After eating then it is a case of listening to News to Me with mnw, 
Dubious Goals with tob, Something Blue with Hairylarry, djvole's 
end of work mix and then the Third Ear with tyn. Anonradio has a 
cracking Friday line up and it annoys me when I miss it. Then it is 
bed time just as the newsbot does the second show of the day.

This has become my Friday ritual. Previously, I never really did have 
one which seems odd to me now. I can always break the ritual and often 
end up climbing or heading out for a gig or drinks. However, I can 
still do parts of the ritual and remove myself from the work thoughts. 
This might be a thing from working at home. It might just be my 
craving routine. Either way, life feels good and I am thankful for 
that feeling.