Chicken Dumplings for the Spleen

Today, I made a new recipe for lunch. Loved it. (Which is good, cuz I'm going to be eating the leftovers all week.) But as I was chopping veggies and mixing dough, I kept thinking, "somebody I know is having one of the worst days of her life today, and here's me getting raunchy with a pot of chicken and dumplings."

A thick, sordid, Depression-era gravy tryst.

I might be about to have a pretty god-awful day myself. Won't know until Saturday. And if I do, there'll be some good friends of mine who carve a slice out of their day to listen and sympathize, and then get on with their own lunch-oriented endeavors.

Because what else can you do?

So here's my two thoughts:

1) Real life needs a job/quest system, like in RPGs. Sure, every now and again you get a Helpful Thing To Do - you can bring a casserole or give someone a lift or administer insulin to their diabetic ferret - but even then, you aren't so much relieving a person's suffering as freeing them up to give it their undivided attention. This is horseshit. I should be able to collect five Immaculate Cards of Sympathy, play the Dance Dance Consolation mini-game, craft Legendary Item: Emotional Equilibromide, and make you feel 65% better by doing so.

2) It can't be an accident that all the best story-driving emotions for fiction - gut-wrenching heartbreak, edge-of-your-seat suspense, knife-edge desperation - are the absolute shittiest to slog through out here in the real world.   I know we read/play/watch as a form of relaxation and escapism, but sometimes I wonder if we aren't also visiting the Land of Make-Believe in order to practice our feelings for the Land of Random, Soul-Bludgeoning Shit-Blizzards.

Anyway - take care out there, folks, and try to hang on to your hat, your horse, and your happy.  Some days that's about all you can do.

It's all right to be afraid, David, because this part won't be like a comic book. Real life doesn't fit into little boxes that were drawn for it.