With apologies to Patton Oswalt — and I never know how much to share here anymore, but it’s still my journal for me, mostly, instead of the Make Cassie Look Good website, so here goes.

So today was one of those days, where the only thing that kept me from punching the wall was the fact that people are paying me to type with my hands. I hate it when I have an angry day, because I have to reassess a lot of things. I have a temper. Is this a reasonable anger? Is it unreasonable? Is this a thyroid issue? (I’m on thyroid meds, and the first sign that they’re low is depression and anger.) When’s my next therapy appointment? Can I figure out what’s wrong now on my own, or do I need to scoot that up? I spent a lot of my life being reactive instead of knowing why or how i felt things — learning that’s a path. While I know what’s wrong now, it’s largely situational and personal life-based, being angry sucks.

[Large aside: I find anger a valuable tool at times. It helps me to stand up for patients and against stupidity at work. Anger can sometimes get me past insecurity and stand in for confidence. But I have a self destructive streak as wide as the ocean, and as deep — and anger’s bad fuel for this. I combat both with willpower, awesome friends who will tell me to take my head out of my ass at the drop of a hat, and a slavish devotion to regimen. Also therapy. Also, also, naps.]

So I was too upset this morning to profit from a writing date a girlfriend. I was too pissed off to edit well/at all, and then I hit a wall in the book where I really need to rewrite things, which only made me angrier. So I came home to nap instead. It wasn’t worth it to sit there — sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s good to know in between. I slept and got up in time to go to yoga.

I know I’ve talked about it on here before, but I really like yoga. I get past the hippie factor by pretending the murals on the walls of my studio are illustrations from Lord of Light. I try to be there for real, even when I get told that emotions live in my hips, and I need to stretch my eyes inside their eyesockets. Today I went, because doing something with myself was better than fuming.

I won’t say it fixed everything, but it made a lot of things more tolerable. One of the reasons I started yoga instead of gym is because I read an article a long time ago from famous writers with tips for other authors and a lot of them had “protect your back!” in them. When I’m not writing, I read a lot about other successful writers, trying to figure out how to emulate them (which is one of the reasons I became a nurse, so I could work part time and still afford to live, with time to write). Nursing also takes your back apart tho…if we have five sedated persons, and I work a 12 hr shift, it’s possible I can turn 150-250 lb sacks of potatoes ten times a night. With help, but I’m the biggest/tallest girl on my floor, I work with elves heh, and so I always end up being the heavy lifter.

Anyhow. I feel less wall punchy-now. And I have a therapy appt next week. And labwork in my car for thyroid levels. And in the shower, my brain — as it so often does — coughed up another scene later on that I’d left sketchy to fill in later. Not the scene i need right now, but I’ll take it, it’s good enough. And tonight, after dinner, I’ll be back at it again.