Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Alas, we have missed the cherry blossom festival at Japantown this year. Last week was a washout due to it raining all that weekend, and as for this weekend, I had to work on Saturday and today ended up being an 'I have just enough energy to do some much-needed gardening but that's it' day. Ah well...I would have enjoyed it, but I probably would have enjoyed it more had I not been feeling so lethargic this past week.

I'm certain it's mostly due to allergies. They've been hitting me pretty hard over the last couple of years, something that hasn't happend in ages. They used to hit me pretty hard back in my MA days due to all the pine pollen, but here it's very rarely immobilizing. I even ended up calling out one day as I'd woken up to the worst sinus migraine I'd had in quite some time. I guess that's what happens as you get older...?

I also think there's a little bit of that leftover sense of urgency from my former store that I need to purge once and for all. More and more I'm catching myself stressing out over the need to be on top of everything at every moment of my shift, when clearly I DO NOT NEED TO at this other store. One, we have other people that are able to answer the phone when it rings, or do general maintenance and cleaning, or do a special project. Two, and more importantly, not once have I been given the sense that I absolutely MUST be active at all times. I look around at my other coworkers and notice that yeah, there are busy moments, but when there aren't, they don't seem to be as wound up as I sometimes am. It's just expected that everyone pulls their weight to some degree, and that is clearly evident here, much more so than my old store.

So yeah, some of this exhaustion I think comes from finally allowing myself to dial it back, and my body is finally realizing just how overworked it's been over the last few years, and responding in kind. It's a work in progress, I suppose. I'll find that balance eventually.

Springtime is certainly here in the Bay Area, what with the weird rain patterns we've experienced over the las couple of days. We'll have a torrential downpour that lasts about ten minutes, followed by sun, followed by another downpour, followed by sprinkles for a few hours, then cold wind, and so on. I wouldn't mind it so much if a) it didn't put the kibosh on our weekend plans to garden and also go to the cherry blossom festival in Japantown, and b) give me a daylong migraine. Bleh! Even more so that this was a rare week where I had both Saturday and Sunday off. 

That said, we did get some shopping done yesterday (a Total Wine run and a stop at Home Depot for a few gardening and household things) and a walk down to Geary today for lunch today, and a TON of much needed laundry was done. I'm usually not that behind on that, but this last week's schedule was all 11.30-8 midshifts that didn't give me all that much time to work with. Not to mention how exhausted I was by the end of it! Thankfully I will be doing mostly all opens this coming week.

Alas, last week's schedule also didn't give me much writing time either so I didn't get too far. I'll try to rectify this coming week by doing a bit of plotting...I really need to lay down this last stretch of Theadia to get a better sense of where I am and how much further I need to go. I feel like I've really been dragging my feet on this project over the last few months and I really need to get it done and published! [Also, note to self: ask around for someone who might be interested in doing a book cover for it.]


Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

Another quiet weekend in which we got to sleep in (that is, until the cats decided we'd been in bed long enough and started climbing over us and scratching at the box spring covering). We'd both had a Friday in which I was running around nonstop and A had some vaccines and shots that made her a little woozy, so our Sunday was pretty much a 'go out for a walk then call it done'. Other than that I'm just doing my usual weekend PC cleaning and doing the laundry.

We did, however, update to the Google Pixel 10a and spent a bit of time transferring all our stuff to our new devices. There's really not much of a difference between it and our old 8a's, other than it's larger by maybe a millimeter or so and allegedly the battery life is a distinct improvement. I'll need to fiddle around with it a bit more just to see what I can adjust (such as turning off the stupid AI module), and of course taking more pictures of the cats.

In day job news, I'm doing four midshifts this week, which is a mixed blessing. I don't mind doing them but they can be exhausting sometimes because that means I'm handling TWO busy times -- the 11-1 lunch crowd and the 4-7 after-work crowd -- but then again, I'm still thrilled that this is a shop that is well-run and well-staffed which means I don't have two be doing All The Things. I might be tired after them, but I'm not going to feel exhausted. I hope. This also means that I have a full weekend off next Saturday and Sunday, in which we plan to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown! Yay!

Speaking of the day job, I had an interesting realization the other day after I stopped at the old store on Friday for a brief visit. Strangely, it feels like I'd graduated high school and headed to college. After four years of being at the same place and feeling a growing need (for multiple reasons) to move on, I've now relocated myself to a new destination where I'm meeting new people, forcing myself to rethink how to deal with it all, and yet feeling excited about it. Visiting the old store felt a little like doing a weekend return home before returning back the next day, heh! Point being, I'm seeing this realization as a plus. Especially now that I'm older and wiser and no longer prone to adjusting to everyone else's whims before my own.


Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

We keep on planning to take a walk down at Crissy Field on the weekend, but lately whenever the day rolls around, we end up changing our plans! This time I'd just been doing All The Walking all week long so the last thing I wanted to do was More Walking. So instead we did a Trader Joe's run (I was woefully out of the hummus-and-cracker snacks I love so much) and then walked the few blocks down to Geary to pick up sushi for lunch. 

As it stands, I ended up doing a bunch of errands today anyway! They were much needed, including vacuuming and mopping the floors and starting the laundry. May as well get them done, yeah? That way I can slack off a bit tomorrow. The only thing I have planned then is to weed the front sidewalk gardens we have. Those are little Urban Garden squares where they plant small trees for beautification. We've chosen to own those little plots to grow things like lavender and whatnot. One of those trees is super dead and we eventually plan to pull it out and replace it with the Ginormous Marigold Bush that's taking over a corner of our community garden plot up the street, but that's another project for the near future.

Meanwhile, Theadia continues apace. I've pretty much streamlined a few things that were bothering me, eliminating a character that didn't work out and having an existing character (one I like better) take over their scenes instead. I'll still need to finish off the damn novel once and for all, but the closer I get to it this time, the easier I think it'll be for me to do it. What will I do after that? Who knows? But I'm not going to dwell or worry about it.


Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

It's been two weeks at the new shop, and so far I'm doing pretty well other than the waking up stupid early. There's definitely a different vibe there, one that I think is a bit more aligned with my own way of working: do what you're assigned to do, but keep flexible enough to adjust if and when necessary. The most important difference so far, at least to me, is that I am very rarely feeling overwhelmed with too many responsibilities that all need focus at the same time. If anything, I'm doing maybe one or two things at a time but decidedly NOT out of necessity, which was happening with alarming frequency at the other shop. Someone else can do it if I can't get to it right away.

Speaking of waking up stupid early, I was talking with New (formerly Former) Head Boss the other day and he was wondering if it was actually necessary for me to come into the store that early on my bookkeeping days. Head Bookkeeper comes in for 4am because she's taken on a bunch of other responsibilities outside of her main job. So I think that once I get used to the new (to me) processes and find a flow that works for me, then I can probably come in for 5am instead, which works a bit better and is closer to my old Friday-Saturday schedule. It still gets me out just past noon, so that's fine by me!

That said, it also looks like I'll be sliding back into my old schedule: the Friday-Saturday bookkeeper opens with the two or three other days during the week. They're aware that I prefer opens or at least earlier mid-shifts where I'm not staying too late and screwing up my sleep schedule. As long as it stays that way and doesn't become unpredictable like the last several months!

Some thoughts about my first full week at the new shop:

Pros:
--A well-staffed store, which means exactly what I hoped would happen with this transfer: I wouldn't have to worry about doing twenty-five other equally important things at the same time, and I could entrust the morning shift to cover the front with minimal issue.
--I'm still getting to know everyone, but so far everyone's nice there.
--I am not 'the only adult in the room'. I'm not always the main go-to when something is wrong, breaks, or is confusing. I can help and assist when needed, but I'm not performing The Paper Towel Commercial (person with issue staring dumbfoundedly at it while I clean up the mess with a cheery look of 'oh you...').
--The managers in charge are...well, in charge and not delegating their work onto everyone else, or pulling needed front end staff to do such things. Even better, they're perfectly willing to do stocking the displays and shelves themselves if and when necessary.
--To quote one of the managers: "The good thing is that when you're bookkeeping, you're bookkeeping. That's all you do until you're done. You don't have to do the home shopping orders or the front end managing or monitoring the self-checkouts. You might need to loan out more cash if need be and switch the tills, but that's part of that job. You get to focus on what you need to focus on." Which came in handy on Friday when I had to focus on not one but TWO self-checkout machines hardware-crashing on me. I was able to focus on getting IT in to fix them without having to worry about five other responsibilities. [Our Head BK has a handful of other responsibilities on any given day, but these are ones she's taken on herself outside of being a BK, like obtaining compliance signatures or upstocking front-end displays, and so on. I don't need to take those on if I don't want to.]
--I get to slow the f*ck down. And by this, I mean that when I'm doing something like monitoring the SCOs, I can just...stand there. Greet the customers, give them a hand if need be, grab their baskets when they're done, that sort of thing, and not worry about a manager coming by to say "hey, what are you doing just standing there, you could be doing A, B, C, D, and E as well." This is my assignment for the moment, and I get to focus only on that. This has made me significantly less exhausted at the end of the day.
--OMG I HAVE FORTY HOURS A WEEK AGAIN. It's been at least six months since my hours started getting cut!

Cons:
--Waking up at 3:15am to get there for 4am. I had to do this mainly so I could get bookkeeping training in with the main Bookkeeper who comes in at that time. I did it, and I can still do it when necessary when it's my turn to do such duties, but WHOOF I was out of gas by mid-afternoon. Thankfully from here on out, I'll only be doing that maybe two or three times a week, depending on the head BK's schedule.
--The front end can be a bit noisy sometimes, as there's the beeping of the SCOs, the phone ringing, and the hand dryers outside the restrooms going off, which can be a problem with my APD sometimes, but it's a very small price to pay.


So yeah, I'd say this transfer was a very good decision.

Saturday was my last day at the Day Job at the shop I joined back in March of 2022. Monday I start at the same chain -- different shop -- going forward. I had a relatively good four years there for the most part, with the occasional ups and downs. I might have had bad days and really bad days, but I never outright hated it, and I got along with almost everyone there. Despite all of that, it's probably good for me to move on and try something slightly new. I'm glad I was able to do this without having to start completely fresh, as I'm far too old to start at the low end of the totem pole again.

If I've learned anything, it's that showing a bit of self-confidence and an unprompted ability to problem-solve certainly helps one ascend the ladder a few rungs without necessarily needing to resort to Managing Other People. These are things I learned both there and at the Former Day Job at the bank. Like I've said to many people: I'd probably be good at being a manager...but I wouldn't enjoy it. I would find it too frustrating. Keep me where I am, working the unseen but extremely important roles, that's where I work best and where I feel most qualified and satisfied.

I'm going in with minimal expectations, really. Schedule-wise, all I ask is at least one weekend day off for personal reasons, and that I prefer mornings/days to evenings/closes. And besides, that's where you'll get the best out of me. I'll be awake, coherent, and productive. As for the atmosphere, I've been told by people that it's a bigger and much busier store, and again: 'busy' I can handle. In fact I weirdly enjoy the fast pace of fourth quarter! This is the other ask: that I'm not the only person shouldering all of that busy-ness. And from what I've been told, there's less of a chance of that happening.

I'm sure I'll be exhausted by the end of this first week, but I'm hoping that the stress side of things will remain thankfully low.

(Why yes, I am listening to Sgt Pepper while I write this, why do you ask?)

It seems to be official that I will be transferring to the new store on the other side of the park, a request I'd wanted for a good couple of months now. I'll be starting there on the 8th, but I'm thinking that I'll stop by during one of my days off this week just to make sure everything's smooth as possible, and that any scheduling conflicts are few and easily adjusted. Patience and stubborn will has paid off! Yay me!

I'm really looking forward to the change of scenery, actually. I've been at this company for exactly four years (I was hired late February 2022, even though I didn't actually start until mid-March) so it's probably good that I change it up a little. I'm familiar with my next store as we'd shopped there plenty of times before my current one even opened up, and I do know a handful of people who are already over there. It's also a much bigger store so chances are I'll feel a little less hemmed in as well.

In creative news, I'm still feeling a bit agitated by a few passages in Theadia that might sound a bit clunky, but I'll fix that on the next go-round. This is taking a bit longer than I'd expected, but I've decided not to worry about deadlines at this point. It'll get done when it gets done! And now that it's a new month and I've realigned a few of my creative and personal plans, I fully plan to kickstart the music and art I've been wanting to focus on!

So all in all, things are doing pretty well, can't complain!

I've been doing a lot of thinking about changing things up creatively. I mentioned this on my Welcome to Bridgetown blog the other day, but I'll explain it a bit more here: I've been focusing on my writing as an almost-daily thing for what, about thirty years now? At least since early 1996 when I bought my first PC and figured that if I was going to make this a successful thing, I was all in, working on something almost every single day. [Not counting the occasional points in time where Real Life Stuff took precedence, of course.] 

Thing is, writing wasn't the only creative outlet I've always been interested in. I of course have a clinical obsession with music, so it only makes sense that I've always felt a bit of an urge to explore making it to some degree. I've started a few garage bands and recorded dozens of incomplete demo ideas over the years, but I've never gone any further than that. I've also had a love for visual arts which unfortunately has not been given much attention at all.

So I was thinking...I'm at a good point in my writing career. It's no money-maker, but I'm proud of the seven books I've self-published (and the eighth one I'm on the verge of finishing). I've learned a hell of a lot in that thirty year stretch. I'm not burnt out, and the spark to do more is still there. But over the last several years, I've had this feeling...as much as I enjoyed dedicating so much time with my writing, I always felt like my other two creative loves fell by the wayside. It frustrated me, because I'd want to write songs or draw something or focus on photography (a newer and unexpected interest) and yet the outcome always fell far below my expectations. I knew it was because I wasn't allowing them enough time and focus, and at first I tried juggling them with my already full writing schedule AND the Day Job, but I've finally admitted that wasn't enough.

SO. 

What I was thinking was that, perhaps once I finish Theadia and prep it for self-publishing, I was going to take a bit of a creative breather and instead shift focus to one of those other outlets. Like I said: music and visual arts. I know enough at this point in my life that I can get away with not having to relearn too many of the basics -- and besides, I'm more of a learn-as-I-go person than a take-classes one anyway. And as always, I love doing things DIY. 

Does this mean I won't be writing? Well, no...just that I won't be writing every single day. If an idea hits me that's worth trying out, I'll give it a go. And I'll most likely be following up on the Trilogy Remaster soon enough as well.

I just want to see how far I can take my other creative endeavors for a while.

My current shortened work schedule is not the best, but I'm making do by taking care of the various errands that need doing and trying to get most of my writing done on my days off. I've been good this week so far by preparing some blog posts ahead of time so I'm not rushing through them the night before they go live. I used to do that during my last few months at the Former Day Job, actually, so I should probably pick that habit up again.

Recently I'd seen something someone posted on Threads that intrigued me. I don't remember the exact wording, but it had something to do with questioning why you might be utterly exhausted at work even despite getting a good night's sleep and not physically overexerting yourself. The problem, it said, might have to do with what I believe they called "open threads" that are left open that drag you down. I immediately understood what they meant by that and why I'd been exhausted myself: having a positive but busy day at work might leave me tired, but never completely drained. On the other hand, if I go into work with that feeling of dread that I have to pick up those 'threads' in order to keep them from hopelessly unraveling, then that would be why I feel so mentally exhausted, and in turn feeling like I'm dead on my feet. There have been days where I have to constantly plan at least two or three steps ahead in order to get multiple things done on time -- which I'm good at when it's needed, mind you -- but the exhaustion comes from that multitasking constantly being interrupted. And I think that's one of the issues I've been having these last couple of months. It's not that I can't do the job, it's that I can and have been doing it, only to be waylaid by outside forces and people should know better than to derail me like that. And that is why I've been feeling tired.

Anyway, I have Thursday off so I'm going to get more work done on Theadia and have some Zen time with my cats to recharge. :)