Tea, Falafel, Strategy

Made chana masala last night, so that’s what we’ll be eating for a few days. And yet, my hunger for chickpeas has not abated, and I want falafel. I want falafel with the burning desire of a thousand suns, probably because I’m super hungry after the morning’s run and I haven’t had a chance to get anything but toast down, helped along with a prodigious amount of tea.

There is even more tea cooling next to the keyboard as I type this. I thought the run would sand off my smooth edges, but I am sharp in every direction today. My temper is so jagged I have retreated (of course with a tankard of English Breakfast) to the office, and I’m casting around for a scene to write that won’t suffer from my mood.

Fortunately, there’s more than one combat scene upcoming, so I can focus on those today. Despite getting up early I’ve been grousing about and now I feel like there’s not enough time left in the day. (And it’s barely bloody noon, fa cry-eye.)

The thing about operating under these conditions is that when a good day comes along hope starts to bloom again, but then a bad one arrives and since all your resilience has gone towards the cognitive load of dealing with ongoing disaster, there’s nothing left to dull the edges or insulate the nerves.

So it’s muttering into my tea and writing nasty things happening to characters I rather like. At least I can still work–creating, despite its cost, is the only thing that gives me any sense of agency anymore.

And humans do very poorly when robbed of a sense of agency.

What’s keeping you going, dearly beloveds? I confess I am asking on the off chance that someone might have a tactic I haven’t tried yet, but I figure the more we share of our various ideas and strategies, the better off we all are. So… is there anything giving you a sense of power or agency lately? What’s holding you afloat?