Jet Leg

This past weekend I spent over 12 hours flying or in airports and travelled across six time zones.  In fact, I edited and posted last weekend’s story while in an airport.  The trip took me from the training I had spent the last month at back home and it was a very nice homecoming.  One reason being that while I was gone all of my stuff arrived and the lovely Ms. Fey & Bard had started in on getting the home organized.  I took some time today to get the office situated and am back to writing there vice on my tablet.  Coming home to my bed, vice an air mattress or even some hotel’s bed, was wonderful and even more so because I got to be there with my wife and dogs.

However, jet lag and some poor sleep caught up with me.  The flying on Saturday had left me tired but the excitement of being home carried me through the day (even when going to bed at 8pm felt like 2am).  Sunday however left me as basically a zombie.  There were times during the course of the day where I knew was what being said to me but simply could not process it and other times where the simple act of walking took all of my focus and even then wasn’t much better than a stumble.  Being that sleep deprived my temper was definitely not where I liked.  I had the foresight to avoid any real responsibilities during the day but something as simple as a towel being rumbled on the rack had my brain wanting to rage.

What followed was a day of knowing I wasn’t in a correct headspace, reminding myself not to act on any of those thoughts, and (perhaps most importantly) taking naps.  Being in a situation where you know your brain isn’t itself and having to take steps to mitigate it’s bad urges  reminded me of my battles with depression where my dark voice can attempt to drive all sort of negative behaviors and I’ve had to tell myself just to grit through and focus on the simple things.  I suppose I shouldn’t be overly shocked since poor sleep is one of the drivers of depression.

The good news though is I slept really well Sunday night and by Monday I was mostly myself again.  The takeaway is that while three time zones is pretty doable (I’ve made trips between the Eastern and Pacific time zones dozens of times), if you’re going to swap six time zones I recommend partitioning off that first day for recovery.  After that then you can go have fun (or in my case go back to work).

I’m in the planning and early writing stages for a multi-part story following the Fey before he arrived in the Provinces.  That’ll take some time to prepare and I’m not yet convinced it will be something I end up telling.  Quartes by himself can be difficult to keep interesting.  He greatly benefits from having the Bard to act as a foil, and while I think I can make this story work, we’ll see if it bears fruit.  In meantime, I think I may post a lore article this week on the Four Heroes, but I’m also open to questions or some inspiration.  Regardless, I hope you all have a good week (and get plenty of sleep).

Go forth and do good things,

Sean