Drunken Owls and Other Delights

In hindsight, I'm really glad that I always maintained a specific distance from my Former Day Job. It wasn't the people I worked with, really...it was just that I knew almost from the start that it wasn't a job that I was going to feel any long-lasting dedication towards. (As I've said before, I stayed for as long as I did mainly out of financial comfort. It was a paycheck, that's all.)  When I left, I really didn't feel any sense of remorse or sadness, and I certainly don't think this is a job where I'll have dreams about it, unlike some of my past jobs. And I didn't feel a strong disconnect, either. I got along with my coworkers, but that's all they were. I'm in touch with a very few on LinkedIn, that's all. I don't really feel any sense of loss or emptiness, it just feels like a part of my past that's finally over.

I've spent most of this month just...figuring things out, really. And doing a lot of errands. I put my blogs and the daily words on hiatus, and I even stopped journaling every day. The Enforced Habits (those set up on purpose so I can maintain a moderate level of productivity) were all put by the wayside. I had nothing I wanted to say, really, because I just wanted to stop saying the same things over and over. The only writing I've stayed close to is working on Diwa & Kaffi. The other Possible Next Projects are still there simmering in my brain, but I'm not thinking or working on them at the moment.

Starting soon enough, I'll be doing a bit of creative research online to find my Next Day Job. I'm still not sure what that will be, but I know for sure it's not going to be much like the Former Day Job. Not if I can help it.

It's funny how, now that I'm unemployed, I've fallen into a habit of saying "I need to go to the store for (X)". A has even called me on it a few times! Heh. Seriously, though...I'm doing my best and not going out and about unless absolutely necessary. We don't *need* the shower cleaner spray right this second. I'll be braving Trader Joe's tomorrow for our occasional fridge-stocking needs. The only reason I went outside today is to mail a few things, and that's it. Going for a walk later is up in the air, as the pollen count is apparently sky-high today and neither of us do well in pollen-filled air.

In the meantime, I'll stick around and do the laundry. [I may have cut in front of someone, but Laundry Rule #2 states that if your stuff sits there in your bag for more than an hour without using the empty machine, then you lose your place. Laundry Rule #1 is of course "if you leave your clothes in the dryer for more than an hour after the cycle is done, then the person behind you can empty it so they can use it." Rule #1 has temporarily been suspended due to the virus.]

Anyhoo! My schedule has been kind of wonky as of late, but I *am* getting things done, so it's not as if I'm wasting the entire day, right?

So after months of hemming and hawing and dithering, i finally decided to cancel/delete my paid 750 Words account. It served me quite well over the last two years -- I wrote Diwa & Kaffi on that one while I wrote In My Blue World on the free account. That's the only time to date that I've written two novels in tandem, and it worked amazingly well for me. But once those projects were done, I found that I wasn't doing as much creative work there, skipping days, and writing more out of a sense of duty than having fun with it. So after exporting all the entries to my Dropbox (I figure that was the safest and smartest place to put them), I let it go.

So now I only have the grandfathered-in free 750 Words account (which, by the way, I realized I've had since 2011 but didn't really use until early 2012), and I'll keep this one because it's still quite useful when I need it. 

In other news, I FINALLY finished the D&K synopsis yesterday. It's down to five pages, which is pretty good considering. I'm torn between editing it further because I'm bouncing between the current "just enough to tell the complete story" and an even smaller short-attention-span version. Five pages is fine to me, but I understand the industry standard is "thirty seconds or less or I give up on you", which has always irritated me. [Yes, yes, I know why it's there. But it still rankles because I've never been good at brevity.]

And in other other news, I see that Bernie...dropped out? Put himself on pause? Something. But either way I'm staying out of this particular online argument because most of his stans are being really f***ing insufferable today. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.

ANYWAY! Off to do some daily words and finish the laundry!

Another Monday, another slow and rainy afternoon. I completely failed to get any actual exercise in, but I at least got my daily words in and updated my blogs. I am getting up at an earlier time, now. My schedule is pretty much the same as if I was still at the Day Job, I'm just getting used to the free time and using it properly. I know I won't hit it perfectly from day one. As long as I'm aware of what I need to do and how to get there.

Two more days, that's all. I'm not really feeling irritated, or worried, or much of anything, to be honest, and I think that jives with how I truly feel about the Day Job, how I've felt about it for a long while. I never subscribed to the whole 'we're one big family' thing in the first place, to be honest. I can usually suss out that sort of connection early on in a job, and I never felt it there. Sure, I got along just fine with nearly everyone I directly worked with for the most part (there are a few related-but-not-on-my-team associates who irritated me, I'll be honest), but I kept a certain distance on purpose. I didn't know how long I was going to last there, or when I was going to get off my ass and move on. It had nothing to do with them, I just didn't want to get too close. One of my coworkers opined on Friday that they weren't able to give me a send-off party, but I said I didn't want one anyway.

[To be honest, the only job I can think of where I truly connected with my coworkers was Yankee Candle, and I had some pretty cool friends there, a few of whom I'm sort of still in touch with, even though it's been fifteen years since I left.]

So what am I doing come Wednesday? A good question indeed. I've been sleeping pretty well over the last few weeks (knock on wood) so it's not as if I'm going to immediately start sleeping in. Nor do I want to end up screwing around on the internets and wasting all my time. If anything, I'll be waking up roughly about the same time I always do, and putting in a full day of various projects, exercise, job searching, and writing. I'll take it easy and relish the time I have off, but I'm going to try not to waste all that time being lazy and doing nothing.

--Exercise. I've always complained about how sedentary I've been over the years, so if I can start some kind of habit where I move around every now and again, that will be good. Doing some stretches, going for a walk around the neighborhood.

--Not getting lost in my own head. This is a big thing, because when I'm not keeping my mind active and/or busy, It tends to go off on emotional tangents. I'll lock onto some anxiety or concern and start playing it out in full 3-D action, even if logic and reality would have it go otherwise. I've been quite good with this over the last five or so years, but it helps not to let myself slide back into that sort of habit without me noticing.

--Being creative about my job searches. Sure, I can go through the usual front desk job listings and the AP/AR positions and office management and all that, but let's remember: I'm starting with a tabula rasa here. Why not get creative? Look for companies and non-profits related to the arts. Look for openings at colleges. 

--And this is a BIG one: remember all those moments of This is something I'd like to do if I only had time? WELL. Now's the time. I've got a handful of creative outlets that have been on the "when I have time" list for far too long. Let's try some of them out. One never knows if I might actually have some bankable talent with them!  (More on this in a future post...)

--Writing! Of COURSE I will be spending a lot of time writing, but I need to be judicious about it. I can spend an hour or two writing some blog posts and journals and whatnot, but mostly it'll be the Long Game planing I'll be working on. Working on the Diwa & Kaffi submission, planning my next projects, looking for possible freelance on the side for pocket money, that sort of thing.

...and maybe somewhere in there, I can relax and just...be. If just for a while, anyway.

So.

The bank refused to make any exceptions. I was told that "there are certain business expectations that need to be met", and that I need to come in to the office in order to meet them. I had to follow the bank rules. There were two ways to go: either come in to the office, or resign, as I'd claimed I would if they refused to back down.

So as of this afternoon, I gave my two weeks' notice. I'm finishing up my sentence at home, sheltering in place.

Roughly thirteen years given to this company. I never loved the job, but I didn't hate it. Like nearly all of my other jobs I've ever held, it was a paycheck and I got along with everyone okay. It wasn't my career: that's my writing. And I'd said those words to each of my managers over the years so they would understand that I have a life outside this job, an important one, that I will not give up or sacrifice. When they took away my Work from Home situation (reason: "we've seen the numbers and we feel that associates are more productive in an office atmosphere", which is utter bullshit), that was the breaking point. It was only a matter of time before I jumped ship.

I never thought it would be because the bank would refuse to make any exceptions to their rules, even during a fucking pandemic.

What an absurd and and pathetic way to go.


Again, don't worry about me. We can handle this. This will give me time to think about what I really want to do with my job and/or career from here on in, without the stress of this job hanging over my head. I'll be looking for something closer to home, something at a much smaller company, something where I'm treated with respect instead of as a number. And importantly, something that will let me balance the job with my writing career.

Note to future self: It's probably for the best that I don't plan traveling vacations to coincide with weekend conventions, as it's becoming commonplace for me to miss the last day due to exhaustion. It's better if I just use those vacations for a full week somewhere, and instead grab single days for those cons. [I don't feel too guilty as I only had one panel today, but it was at 9:30 am and I just didn't have the energy for it.]

The vacation itself was uneventful but relaxing, as we spent most of it just hanging out in Cambridge MA and later hanging with my family. The only real downside was that it was extremely chilly the first few days and we delicate Californians couldn't handle it. Heh.

Checked the work PC just for any updates and to clean out the personal inbox (around 150 items), and thankfully there weren't any broken systems (that I know of) and nothing caught on fire. I'm expecting the boxes I usually work in to be a bit of a mess as they usually are when I go away, but the backup I trained the other day was really good at e-cleaning up after himself, so hopefully it'll be relatively orgranized.

So. Did I get any writing done? Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I did start yet another quick read of Diwa & Kaffi, mainly to prep myself for the con reading (and I'm happy to say I am yet to get sick of my own book, so that's a good sign). I'm hoping to get back on the horse and bring everything back up to speed today, starting with the blog entries and other things. I'm still worried about my current Possible New Projects, as I'm sort of dithering between being interested in them and not being able to find a story anywhere (read: being too damn lazy to look for them in the first place), but I'm not too worried. As long as I'm working on it to some degree, that's what really matters.


Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

So apparently February is UI Fail Month, because I've been encountering system and software crashes all around me lately. Granted, the Day Job crashes recently were due to a classic system test that...didn't go so well...and we've been cleaning up the pieces since. I've been trying to buy symphony tickets since yesterday and the site's refusing to accept a gift certificate number. I tried to order a FasTrak doowacky online and the site kept erroring out (but not telling me *where* it happened), so I said hell with it and bought one at Walgreens. I bought a USB plug for my mp3 player that *should* let me play tunes through the speakers (I mean, it's your generic line-in audio connection, right?), but it refuses to work.

Thankfully my PC ald laptop have been behaving quite nicely (knock on wood), so at least I have that.

In other news, It's been clear but ridiculously windy today! Apparently a window pane popped out of the Millennium Tower downtown (that being the slowly-sinking slightly-askew building that's been having issues since before it opened), and I wouldn't be surprised if there have been wires and trees down in and around the city. Very weird weather indeed. Oh! And they're filming the fourth Matrix movie downtown, mostly overnight, so this means that it may or may not affect my commute. Heh.

Other than that, it's been quite a nice weekend!

Another downside to going into the office is that I no longer have easy access to my blogs, here and on WP, so I have to carve out time elsewhere to be able to keep them updated to any degree. And busy weekends (of which I've had many this month) have kept me from posting on time. I've been kind of lazy the last few weeks, in which I could be using afterwork time to do them, but it's tricky when I suddenly have a commute with an unstable average time-spent-getting-home. (On good days it's just over an hour. On bad days it's been more like 1.5. Thankfully I've only had two or three REALLY bad days of two hours, and those were during the Christmas season. Here's to hoping those were exception and not the rule.)  I suppose I should get out of the habit of futzing around on my phone whilst watching whatever we're streaming at the moment, yeah?

Speaking of writing, I may have come up with a new project that's captured my interest. The two semi-backburner books I've been toying with don't seem to be going anywhere in particular, and this particular one grabbed me very similarly to how In My Blue World and especially Diwa & Kaffi did, and I'm taking that as a good sign. This came out of an exercise I did a few days ago on the 750, in which I just riffed on a handful of simple ideas inspired by some of the animes we've watched and manga I've read. I realized I wanted to keep going with the short-and-quick story ideas that have done me so well over the last few years, so I'd like to go further with it. I'm very curious to see where this leads...!

On a more personal note, I've been toying with the idea of selecting one day earlier in the week to head straight to the gym from work instead of heading straight home, because I really don't like this one-day-a-week (and maybe on weekends) thing. And I certainly do NOT want to pay for using the company gym when I already have a local YMCA membership. It'll be a bit of a trick but I think I can swing it.  I'll plan it out with A, so that way we can have a pre-cooked dinner that we can heat up quickly.

More things on my mind lately, but I'm holding them close for now. Soon enough.

I've been annoyed with myself over the last few months, because I just can't seem to write anything creative for my Daily Words. Somehow I started using the 750Words platforms as a personal journal and that was fine for what I wanted to get off my chest but...I've been typing out the same damn things over and over AND OVER AGAIN. I get obsessed over something and that's all I rant about. Repeatedly. It's no longer an outlet but a crutch, and that is the last thing I need or want right now.

I don't want to stop the writing, because that's not what's needed. It's that I need to force my brain back into using its creative side again. Open up the platform and just...write something creative, whatever it is. Come up with an idea, any idea, and run with it. Stop waiting for inspiration to strike, because that's not going to work and I'll be wasting time. A passing thought, an attempt at a rewrite of an old story, a riff on a bizarre dream I may have had, whatever it takes.

I know it's not because I'm at the post-revision/pre-submission level for Diwa & Kaffi. It's simply because I let myself fall into this feedback loop. And I need to break out of it.