Drunken Owls and Other Delights

 It's been a couple of busy weeks here, juggling the ever-changing day job schedule and digging my way through a rather important but weakly written sequence for Theadia. The blogs kind of fell by the wayside a bit (obviously) as did some of the other creative things I wanted to do, but so it goes.

But it's not all bad, really. As I've said before, I've rediscovered that I actually enjoy IRL contact with the outside world. I meet all sorts of interesting locals at the day job...some of them love to talk, some can't be arsed to say a thing and leave before the receipt prints. Several have told me how much they appreciate the shop being there. I might be old enough to be the parent of half the kids I work with (one was shocked to hear I was her mom's age) but we all get along well. I get to people-watch and learn the similarities (the uptip of the chin when I call out for the next person in line) and differences (the old Russian lady that tries to haggle the prices). Picking up on different things I wouldn't have seen in the bank universe. Things that could make my characters that much more vibrant.

I've also relearned to live day to day, week to week again. Every Thursday night next week's schedule goes up, and we both get to plan out what's going on: when I'm home for lunch or dinner, when I'll have time (morning or evening) to write, when I'll need to do the laundry or do the grocery shopping, and so on. It's definitely different from the remote days for the FDJ or even the unemployed pandemic days when I had a lot more flexibility (and, let's be honest, squandered a considerable amount of it fucking around online). I don't really mind it all that much, because it forces me not to think about long-term deadlines. Each day is a "get at least this much done" compartmentalizing that works so much better on my brain.

I mean, I'd done this back in my old retail days, and weirdly enough I'd completely forgotten how compatible this process is for me. It's not the biggest paycheck, and I don't get to listen to KEXP nearly as much as I used to, but it's a hell of a lot better than my bank days, that's for sure.

So yesterday was kinda sorta a dry run for my New Day Job. I went in thinking I was only going to be there to finish off some paperwork I didn't get to on Wednesday, but spent the remainder of the afternoon hours to get a full eight-hour shift, in which I did five of them at the register.

When was the last time I did register work...? Wow, that would have been HMV, twenty-two years ago. Damn.

ANYWAY. It all came back to me pretty quickly, only this time with better registers and decent floor coverage. I forgot a few things (such as charging for bags, which I did maybe half the time) and there was a random customer survey thing that I completely forgot about (oops), but all in all it worked out just fine. And yes, I love that I have a ten minute/eight block commute. Five minutes if I take the 1 California bus.

So how do I feel, being back in retail for the first time in years? Well, I said this to A yesterday, and also said it on Twitter:

This may be a retail job, and I might be exhausted and/or in pain at the end of the day, and my schedule might be wonky AF for a while, but I had absolutely ZERO STRESS. I would take this job over returning to the bank any day. I felt more connected to customers and coworkers in one day than I did with fourteen years putting out monetary and coding fires. Even during the busy moments (noted: everyone shops for stuff at the end of the work day, around 4-6pm) there was no incentive or expectation to be OHMYFUCKINGGODINEEDTOGETTHROUGHEVERYTHINGRIGHTTHISVERYFUCKINGSECONDORITSGOINGTOEXPLODE levels of stressed out. Just...take each person as they come and get through it. Be friendly and do a decent job. That's it.

Being friendly to a shop customer costs nothing, and you know what? That's all they ask for, just a normal human connection, however brief. With the bank, almost every single department or client I worked with had ZERO sense of humor, had to get things done two weeks ago, and always seemed to be on the edge of either breakdown or blowup. Working in business banking, in my experience, was all about Always Being Freaked The Fuck Out, usually self-caused due to last minute payments and lack of education on their own systems. ["I don't know, I just press a button and send it" was a frequent comment.] Banking is a toxic atmosphere, and it's because the expectations are so goddamn high. [This is why I'm super nice to tellers. That, and my mom used to be one and I've heard the occasional horror story.]

Working retail might be physically exhausting at times, sure, but emotionally it's SO much less demanding. And that's all I've wanted, really. The ability to get a paycheck and still have the spoons to get some words done at the end (or start) of the day. And yes, I did in fact get some words done, even though they were done on the couch while dealing with a sore back and aching feet. Heh.

Will I be there for years on end? Well, who knows. I'm there Until Further Notice. If I find something that's a better fit, fine. If I'm there for a couple of years, that's cool too. As long as I'm getting a paycheck, and as long as I can still write, that's all that matters.

It's Sunday afternoon which of course means it's time to write blog posts, do the laundry, and figure out what I'm going to do this coming week. We both have tomorrow off but nothing planned other than probably going out for a walk or ordering out or something like that. I do in fact have something tomorrow -- I have a phone interview! Yes, I managed to get past the online application level and I'll be speaking with a hiring rep via Teams. No major details yet other than this is actually for a very local (as in right up the street) retail position. I'm totally fine with sliding back into that job field at this point. 

I was thinking about it the other day, actually...back when I worked retail and later at the YC warehouse, I actually enjoyed the level of work I had to do that kept me busy and somewhat social. Some of it did include a bit of mental gymnastics, but not so much that I was mentally exhausted by the end of the day. I realize now that was what banking did to me over the years, and that is totally NOT what I want to encounter again. Hell, whether I'm working a register or restocking or doing back office stuff, as long as I can still do my writing at the end of the day, yeah? That's the most important part of it. (And in a weird way, I kind of miss the social aspect of that kind of job. Not just the coworkers but dealing with other people in particular. Yes, even during this stupidass pandemic.)

So yeah...we'll know what happens in a few days, hopefully!

I've been posting here mostly on Sundays for years now, mainly to keep this site alive and somewhat active. In the past it was mainly because I had little time for it, balancing it between the Former Day Job, novel writing and the WP blogs, but now that I have time and a lot more headspace for it, I'm thinking maybe I should come here more often. Because why the heck not, yeah? I'm sure I'll have stuff to share!

 Yes, we are having ant problems in our apartment lately. Thankfully, however, the problem is confined to our main bathroom. This tells me two things: one, they are coming up through the pipes, and two, it's not either of us keeping bits of food or puddles of water all over the place. [And three, I'm really curious as to how bad it is for the apartment downstairs. Yeah, the noisy one we've had to yell at a few times over the years.] Said bathroom now has 9,482 ant baits kicking around as well as a small lingering cloud of the particularly ant-heavy spots where I sprayed. If that doesn't work I will be absolutely shocked. I am thankful, however, that they are nowhere near our kitchen this time out. 

Meanwhile, not much else to report this weekend. A and I (and a few friends, including @queenoftheskies ) are taking part in MiniNaNo, which A came up with recently. It's essentially just like NaNo but lower stakes and in February (because people are just too dang busy in November). It's keeping me on my toes, that's for sure! I'm focusing mainly on finishing Queen Ophelia and pushing through the initial rewrite/revision of Theadia -- basically doing what I've been working on all this time -- but this is making it a bit more fun!


Hope everyone has a lovely week ahead!

Well! I managed to get through the entire week of on-call jury duty without getting called! I mean, if I'd had to go in, I'd have done it, but better that I'm not put in a large room full of strangers that may or may not be vaccinated, yeah?

Meanwhile, we spent our Saturday walking Crissy Field from the main parking lot all the way to Golden Gate Bridge and back. This time we went into Fort Point -- the old fort right underneath the bridge, and where Kim Novak jumps into the bay in Vertigo, natch -  and checked out the historical things they had on display there. Pretty neat stuff, and I'm actually kind of surprised we've never gone here before! That was about four and a half miles of walking there...which we did again today, heading to one of our favorite coffee joints near Golden Gate Park (Rise & Grind) and walked back through the park. So yeah, all the exercise done this weekend!

So the other week I started with the Theadia rewrite, and it's slow going but it's going in the right direction, and I'm sure it'll get better once I adjust to the work speed. A lot of it is spot-cleaning so far -- rewriting the scene a bit so it's truer to the characters -- but there's also a lot of finally fixing the "will fix it later" bits, such as assigning new names for characters and getting titles and places straightened out. It's been kind of fun so far, and I'm looking forward to what else I can do to make this story even better!

Queen Ophelia is coming along as well...I'm writing the climactic scene now, the final showdown between the major characters. As expected, this showdown is completely different than what I'd planned in the original outline, but I'm totally fine with that, because this particular version makes so much more sense in the context of the story as a whole. If I plan this out correctly, I should probably be able to finish it by mid-February and start in on the rewrite of this as well, so we shall see!

In the meantime...hope everyone has a good week!

It's been a relaxing week here, spending the time focusing writing catch-up and driving A up to Corte Madera on Friday for her booster shot, and seeing her parents for a quick lunch and shopping. (We spent yesterday just kicking around as A was tired and sore from the shot and I had a few things I wanted to finish up. And Sunday has pretty much become household errand day around these parts.) 

I have been thinking of what my next writing project (or projects?) may be, but at the moment I'm still keeping that open for now, so I can continue to focus on Queen Ophelia and Theadia. Still, it's always a good thing to let my mind wander a bit for that sort of thing. I do have a few very vague ideas but I'd really need to spend an afternoon or two to work them out into a workable outline to see if they're worth expanding on. I'll most likely do that in the next few weeks or so.

And I restarted my daily stretches and exercises again! Those didn't quite fall by the wayside so much as I was just busy and considered our few-days-a-week neighborhood walk as part of that. I figure now is a perfect time to start them up again, considering a) I'm not currently ailing with some weird back twinge of dubious origin, and b) I have the time and the mindset to do so. (I should probably keep a better watch on my diet as well, to be honest. I've been snacking and drinking too much soda lately.)

Not much planned for the week other than writing, job searches, and doing a double donation drop-off at Goodwill and the SF Public Library. Yay for clearing up Spare Oom floor! We have a goodly amount of things to get rid of and I'll be happy when I'm not climbing over it anymore.

Oh, and I'm on jury duty the week of the 18th. Fun! This will of course depend on whether they'll actually have it or delay it due to Covid reasons, but I don't even know which court house I need to go to! I'm hoping it's the one near City Hall, because the one in SoMa is a HUGE pain in the butt to get to and all its nearby parking lots aren't in the safest of areas. Either way, I'll need to do one of those call-ups the night before to know for sure.


Hope everyone has a lovely week!

It's been a strange couple of weeks here in the Bay Area, what with the ongoing weather and constant chill. We've definitely needed the rain, but MAN is it cold! It's still hovering in the mid-40s to low 50s with a constant wind or breeze, so everything just feels damp and chilly. Not to mention that we'll get downpours in the middle of the night that'll be hard but only last about ten minutes, waking us both up. I read that it might actually warm up and the sun might come out midweek, but given our local weather, we'll only know for sure when it comes.

It's also been a couple of weeks of cleaning in Spare Oom as well. I'd gotten rid of a bunch of boxes we didn't need (or ones that were in poor shape) and I also got rid of a bunch of smaller ones today. That in itself was amusing because a few times I opened up these small boxes to find smaller boxes within that I also had to break down! A and I also did a book purge earlier this afternoon, finally getting rid of some titles that we've had kicking around on the shelf for ages that we weren't going to read (or reread). I'll be dropping those off at the library donation spot in a few weeks. And once we hit January, I'll put away the tree and all the Christmas decorations. And maybe I'll finally have some more room on the floor again!

Normally I'd do some kind of personal Year End Review type of entry here, but a) I'm kind of already doing it at my Welcome to Bridgetown blog and b) 2021 has kind of been a transitional year for me. It wasn't so much a year of finishing projects or reaching goals as it was a year of continuing them. A lot of closet cleaning, cobweb clearing, bad habit dropping, finding clarity, and that sort of thing. Just a lot of things I needed to do or get over with so I could move on. That said, I do have good plans for 2022 that I hope I can work to completion!


Here's to hoping everyone has a great new year!

December's almost halfway done already, what's with that? Well, part of it is doing all the holiday/end of year/personal/health-related stuff lately. This past Monday I had my COVID booster shot...and though I didn't get the Everything Aches thing this time, it did make me feel tired for about a day, so I spent the first part of the week doing not all that much except prepping Christmas boxes for mailing later in the week. Those are all good to go and mailed out, and to sign off on that little project I thinned out our empty box collection (it was getting a bit too big so I got rid of the older/rattier ones) this afternoon.

Tomorrow we'll be going to see the Nutcracker ballet at the Opera House! We've pretty much gone to it every single year we've been here (and watched it online when SFBallet had streamed an older production last year due to the pandemic), and it's always a fun time. They've always put on a great production! Oh, and we'll be going to a different Nutcracker thing on the 19th at the Symphony, which should be interesting! What else...spending time at the DMV on Wednesday to sign up for the RealID thingummywhoozits, and on Christmas we'll be seeing the new Matrix movie! Heh. 

So yeah, busy December so far! Not complaining though, it's also been productive with the writing and other things too!


Hope everyone has a good week!

We did ALL THE WALKING this weekend! Okay, we didn't do a marathon, but we did a good couple of miles each day! Yesterday we walked up to 8th Ave to one of our favorite coffee shops (Rise & Grind, which is right across the street from the 8th Street gate of Golden Gate Park) and then all the way to Arguello and back, stopping for lunch burgers on the way back home. And then today we took the bus up to 6th Ave so we could have brunch at a recent find (Tastebuds, on the corner of 5th and Balboa). And OOOH YESS that was a fine choice of bruncheries! I got a chorizo-chili and scrambled egg plate called the Hangover Helper and it was sooooo tasty! We made our way back via walking on California (and resisted temptation to have yet more coffee), and I've been up and down ever since doing some housecleaning and laundry. I'm also writing multiple blog entries for the week as it's going to be a busy holiday weekend. It's mid-afternoon and it feels like I've done ALL THE THINGS.

Not much else to report...still writing, still revising, still rereading!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!