Drunken Owls and Other Delights

midweek update

2026-06-10T17:39:20Z

Today is my third midshift in a row, but hopefully this one will go by quickly, as I'll be doing the home shopping orders all day. For the last two days I was front end manager, which isn't all that bad but can be extremely exhausting as I'm usually not on the register and thus the hours tick by glacially. [Yesterday's eight hour shift felt more like twelve because of that, to be honest.] I actually like doing the home shopping orders, as a) it keeps me busy for most of the day but not overly so, and b) I get my steps in! That's a very walking-heavy job so I can do up to four or five miles in one day!

Also happy that I have tomorrow off so I can rest easy, because I have my usual Friday-Saturday early opens. Which reminds me -- I've been told that on the week of the 21st I'll be doing them all week long as the main bookkeeper will be training a third person for store close bookkeeping, thus helping the two of us considerably down the line. The price I have to pay...

Anyhoo, about the creativity slump I was talking about earlier, I think I'm slowly getting a little better at adjusting and figuring out new processes that work for me. I think I really had to work hard at getting rid of that urge to Do Everything Now, much more than I thought. I've been approaching what I want to do piece by piece instead, reminding myself to take it all one at a time and within the time frame that I have. This actually works well, as I've been able to put in a journal entry and write a few blog entries by just saying 'okay, I'll do THIS now' and only focusing on that until it's done. It'll take some time for me to get back up to the speed I'd be happy with, but for now this works for me.

comments

moving on

2026-06-07T23:53:08Z

Whew! Finally got a decent amount of sleep last night! And it looks like I'll be able to catch up this week as I don't need to get up early until Friday. This of course means a few midshifts, but it is what it is and I'm not too worried about it. The only downside is that my right ear has been feeling stuffed up lately, and I think it's probably because of my recent allergies. It's only that ear, and it's only when I'm lying down, so perhaps taking some Benadryl before bed one of these nights might do the trick.

I'm making good on my previous entry about just doing what I can do creatively and not worrying about doing all the things. Interestingly a reel popped up in my Facebook feed that made a lot of sense to me in regards to all of this -- it's not so much laziness that's causing this procrastination but a mental 'safety' response. Somewhere along the line my Mental To-Do List started feeling overwhelming, but not because there were a lot of things there; it was that somehow I'd gotten into the habit of 'things I must do soon' = 'must avoid this to retain my sanity' with a sprinkle of 'oh hey this fun distraction (music library, webcomics, social media) is a lot less mentally taxing, let's focus on that instead'.

The fascinating thing is that I understand this, and I've ALWAYS understood this, and it rarely ever bothered me in the past...so why now?

I think part of it was the ongoing stress of the day job before I got my transfer, along with some other personal and real life stuff going on that just dogpiled on me over the last couple of years, and I got sloppy about letting it get to me so easily.

That's not to say everything is magically fixed, of course. More that I have a better understanding of it all now, and I'm more aware of how I can navigate this going forward.

comments

gotta (re)start somewhere

2026-06-06T02:46:34Z

I've been feeling frustrated lately with my creative endeavors...or more to the point, the lack thereof.

I mean, I should be excited about working on Theadia, now that I've got a clearer idea of what I want to do with it. I should be excited about all of it: doing the daily words, the drawing, the music, like I have in the past because it's something I've always enjoyed doing. But somehow, at some point, I just...stopped. I know it was a mix of things: real life/day job stress, mental exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, internet distraction, music library obsession, comic reading obsession, and maybe even just a bit of Getting Older. I'll allow myself days off when I need to rest, of course (something I often forgot to do during the Belfry Years), but I've really let myself go these days, and I hate that feeling.

I seem stuck in the Preparation Phase yet never following through. I'll think about writing or drawing or whatever but never actually do it. I don't think this is the same as the Boston Years when I was just starting out. That was a different approach: that was me learning how to focus, but it was also my way of avoiding an emotional spiral given the financial situation I was in.

This is pure distraction, plain and simple.

*

So the last couple of days I've been trying to restart it all. I'm deliberately not trying to do it all at once, because then it all starts feeling like High School Homework Due Tomorrow That I Should Have Completed Three Days Ago. I'm restarting it gradually instead. Making those mixtapes I haven't made in a couple of years. Posting at the blogs when I have the time and something interesting to talk about. Popping onto 750 Words when I feel like working out a story idea. Journaling when the thought strikes me and the notebook is at hand. Eventually I'll fire up Word and start working on Theadia again, maybe even playing around with Decline and Fall on the 750. And on my days off I'll pick up the guitar and play a tune or two just for the hell of it.

I don't think I need to rigidly plan all of this, but I think I should at least make a more concerted effort to meet my own expectations. If I'm doing one of my morning shifts at the day job, I have more than enough time to work on something in the afternoon. Same with the midshifts: I have at least four or so hours before I need to go in. I need to be better at acting on that urge to create instead of distracting myself.

comments

midweek rambling

2026-06-04T03:02:16Z

It's been a bit of a weird week at the day job because I had to work on Sunday (when I usually don't work) and have Friday off (when I usually do). The day job issues that plagued me over the weekend have thankfully been fixed and things are back to normal, so today's shift was thankfully smooth and uneventful.

I'm still feeling sleepy these last few days, partly because my ears have been getting blocked up and my eyes twitchy -- I'm pretty sure there's something up the street in the park that's full-on blooming and irritating my sinuses. [There's also the cats who have been trying to wake us up at 5am lately as well.] As I have tomorrow and Friday off, I plan on catching up on sleep and not overdo it. I don't have much of anything to do other than do a bit of house cleaning.

Not much else to report at the moment, but perhaps I'll add to this in the next day or so...

comments

oof.

2026-05-31T22:34:02Z

These last three 4am opens in a row has left me drained and exhausted. Usually they're not too bad and I'm fine by the end of them, but this entire weekend has been terrible. Mind you, it wasn't the customers or how busy it can get on those days, because I can handle that just fine. No, this is everything else in between...the 'if anything can go wrong it will go wrong' stuff. Saturday's seven-hour chaos when both bathrooms flooded. Saturday night's system outage that crashed the registers and caused my Sunday paperwork not to print, the being pulled away from my bookkeeping work for multiple reasons (customer assistance, break coverage, home shopping backup, etc) and another system outage today that crashed the registers and put the kibosh on any follow-up responsibilities I needed to work on. [They're not critical or essential, thankfully, but they're on the 'upper management says we need to do this' list. I'm sure I won't get in trouble.]

All that and I ended up causing us to bail out of going to the Santa Rosa symphony this afternoon because I just have no more energy or spoons to share. I feel guilty that I had to give that up, but A didn't seem to mind (she said she exhausted herself anyway by doing all the gardening this morning). Now, hopefully I'll be up for that one more shift tomorrow... it's thankfully 7-3:30 instead of 4am, but I'm not promising I'll be at peak.]

Creatively this past week has been kind of a bust due to the day job, but at the same time I've been allowing it to happen to save energy and not wear myself out. It's funny, really...I'm at the age where I'm finally saying 'yeah, I AM at that age now, perhaps going at a slower speed isn't all that bad' and not feeling guilty about it because it's actually a healthy decision! Still, I know I can do better so I'm going to start off the new month trying to do better with my creative output. We shall see!

comments

Midweek stuff

2026-05-28T02:12:24Z

Stuff going on:
-- They're finally building a new home in that empty lot next door! It's been a vacant lot for decades, old enough that the footprint of the lot still had a long front yard with the house set back like the VERY old homes here in the Richmond District. So far they've started pouring the concrete and done much digging (and possibly released all those ants that are suddenly coming into our place, boo!). To be honest I'm glad we chose the unit on the opposite side of the building as otherwise our windows would have eventually been semi-blocked as a lightwell. Not a big fan of those, really, because those tend to amplify sounds from other apartments.

Stuff done:
-- Three-day run at the shop now complete, and I am looking forward to a relaxing day off.

Stuff in the future:
-- One further dentist appointment tomorrow in which the temporary crown is replaced by a permanent one. I have no other plans for that day other than to rest up, do laundry and possibly do a bit of writing.
-- Another three-day run at the shop coming on Friday, all 4am opens. This is going to be exhausting, but as always the good thing is that I'm out by 12:30. Although on Sunday we'll be going to the Symphony up in Rohnert Park, so hopefully I won't feel too tired and loopy!
-- Speaking of day job stuff, I will most likely be working a Sunday or two in July while Head Bookkeeper takes some time off. Which is fine by me as I'm sharing those days with someone else. Thankfully I know this is a temporary thing and my request to have Sundays off in general will continue. Woo!

comments

Weekend stuff

2026-05-25T00:09:01Z

Stuff going on:
-- I am now prepping to start on the Decline and Fall project once more, though I still need to work on actually starting in the first place. I've put some index cards in my satchel to work on ideas and whatnot.
-- Congestion has been getting the best of me at night, blocking my ears and waking me up. Must remind myself to take some Benadryl before going to bed tonight. It's all been making me tired and sleepy.
-- Ants! Dang ants have decided to pop in under the kitchen window. Baits have been put out and temporary tape has been put over where they're coming in.

Stuff done:
-- That one shift at my old shop has come and gone with little incident, and yet it laid bare the reasons why I requested a transfer. I have my thoughts about that shift that I'll keep to myself, but I'll just say once again that I am much happier and calmer at the shop I'm at now.
-- Somewhat of a half-lazy Sunday here, in which we did our grocery shopping, followed by a walk to the community garden plot to water and fix a few things, walk over to 9th and Irving for lunch, and enjoy some coffee on the way back.
-- Laundry completed, shredding caught up. Blog updating as we speak.

Stuff in the future:
-- I have this Thursday off, which will give me a break after two opens and a midshift, though that's also the day when I'm getting the permanent crown put on for that tooth. The good thing is that we'll probably decide what else needs to be fixed.
-- Speaking of taping windows to block ants, I really need to get around to caulking those frames. I've just been too distracted. Now that I've caught up on several other household fixes (did the shower tiles a while back), this should be next.

comments

Midweek Stuff

2026-05-20T21:00:29Z

Stuff going on:
-- The one midshift for the week has been completed and I have today off, which means that the next three days will be opens. One 8:30am start and two store opens (4am on Friday, and 5:30am on Saturday in which I'm opening my old shop).
-- Said day off includes laundry and giving the cats more attention than necessary.
-- Finally submitted the request to get reimbursed for the dental stuff, and got an email today saying it was authorized. Yay! This makes further dental work worth the aggravation and pain. I've got another appointment on the 28th to get that one temp crown replaced with a permanent one. We'll see where it goes from there.
-- Making a concerted effort to read more of the physical books gathering dust near my bed. Current reading: Bill Janovitz's Let the Stories Be Told, about the band The Cars.

Stuff done:
-- The garage storage room has been slightly reorganized, as it seems most of it was in pretty good shape to begin with. I merely needed to move a few things such as: the old side table we aren't using towards the door (for Storage of Small Things); the holiday and wrapping stuff in one area, all artwork that isn't currently on walls safely in a box; various boxes of collectibles, tchotchkes and desk cluttering toys placed in one central office box; the remaining boxes of books stacked all together for future sorting. Empty boxes have been broken down and placed in the Empty Box Box elsewhere in the garage. The floor is now a little easier to navigate.
-- Watered the garden and front plots the other day as we've had a warm spell in the city the last few days. Might need to do it again in the next day or so.
-- I finally finished up a few new mixtapes! Woohoo! And I've even got a few more going! I miss making them, as I didn't have the spoons to do so last year. I haven't decided on any titles (series or stand-alone) just yet, as I want them to be just different enough from their forebears.

Stuff in the future:
-- I'll have to find time to go through those last remaining boxes of books to see if I want to save any. I probably don't need them, but it's worth looking through.
-- Restart the Great Longhand Writing Scan Project again. Probably in a few weeks. I think the best idea is to bring up a little at a time instead of a big honking storage bin; that is, go project by project. Finish scanning The Phoenix Effect and start in on the poetry composition books.
-- There's a good chance I might pick up the Walk in Silence (book) project again, in tandem with the more fictional The Decline and Fall of Western Massachusetts. One of the mixtapes I've made recently was for the fiction book, which carries on from its 2024 first volume with several songs from the 1984-1989 era.
-- Semi-related: I've been toying with the idea of working on the latter by waking up the 750 Words site again. No solid plans on that yet, though.

comments

Sunday stuff

2026-05-18T00:06:58Z

It's been a long and busy week so I'm still feeling a little sleepy today. The last couple days at the Day Job have been super busy -- I'm thinking that the locals wanted to get their shopping done and avoid the nonsense of Bay to Breakers, one of our many local mini-marathons that cuts across the city. They've mapped it to avoid most traffic on this side of town, but it does kind of put the kibosh on traveling for most of the day. That said, we took the bus up to the head of Clement Street to get our haircuts at a local salon and pick up some tasty fruits and veggies at the farmers market.

I was going to clean the garage storage today, but I'm feeling rather listless so I'm thinking I'll start in on it tomorrow instead. I did end up getting some decent sleep last night, but woke up this morning super congested (thanks, pollen!) and not feeling up for lifting and moving around several boxes. I mean, it shouldn't take me too long regardless, but I just didn't feel like draining what little energy I had.

In other more interesting news, I've decided to reformat Theadia as a duology, and my instincts are telling me that was the right decision. There's still a lot of story left to go and I'm already at 178k words. [This means that I'm probably going to need to do some serious editing of what is now Book I before I do anything else with it.] This also means it might not make a public appearance until 2027, but it is what it is. Not sure if I'll have anything out this year, but who knows...? Either way, I'm happy with this decision as I feel like it gave the story a lot more space to breathe.

Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

comments

Things

2026-05-13T22:27:42Z

Things done:

-- Watered our plot at the community garden and the two sidewalk squares in front of our building. Meant to do that last week but ran out of time and spoons.
-- Bedsheets washed and a new set put on. Juli 'helped' in her own cattish way.
-- Gave Juli far too many pettins already, as she is now begging for even more.
-- Watered the house plants as they were all looking a bit shrivelly.
-- Blogging and journaling kept up. Yay!

Things to do:

-- I still need to reorganize the garage storage room, but that should not take more than an hour at most. I just want to make it a little more accessible, and to put the stuff I don't need right away further in the back. As for the books that are in there, I'll do a quick save-or-donate. I think most of them are manga titles so I'll see if I still want them.
-- Still need to reorganize my writing bins in the garage. That could take longer so I'll have to do that on one of my days off during the week.
-- Restart the longhand scan project. This is going to take some time, and it's a little noisy so it'll be a weekend/evening thing when A isn't in the office working. I'd already started on scanning The Phoenix Effect before we moved, so I'll continue on that, then work on whatever might be next. I was thinking perhaps the poem/lyric notebooks, as I know those would be relatively quick and easy to do.

Things going on:

-- On the 23rd I will be the opening bookkeeper at my old shop, due to a slight scheduling hiccup (the main BK on vacation, the backup taking a day off, with no one filling in). No problem by me other than it would have been nice to let me and my current main BK know this before this past Monday. It'll be a bit weird to be back there, but I am curious as to how things are in my absence, and who will be my openers, heh. Am also hoping that it won't be another case of BK work with a pinch of twelve other responsibilities for flavor.
-- Work on Theadia is still eluding me, though I think I'm starting to figure out why. I'm not entirely happy about it, but it is what it is, and I'll have to deal with it how I can. I'll post something about it on Friday at the writing blog.

comments

What I did on my spring vacation (end result)

2026-05-11T16:07:24Z

-- Finally put up the three framed pictures that have been sitting in the office for the last couple of months.
-- Fixed a few small issues in the shower (filled a gap in the caulk in one spot and glued/regrouted a loose tile) (hoping this'll finally do the trick)
-- Slept in until 7 because any later and both of our cats would jump on us demanding breakfast
-- Replaced a few things in our community garden plot
-- Successfully avoided doing any actual writing work BUT caught up with some blogging and journaling, with a vague plan to readjust said writing issues
-- Finally finished the mixtape I've been wanting to finish (still no name yet, other than "Mixtape 2026 I") and started another one tying in with my Walk in Silence project.
-- Caught up with various other house errands and shopping. Things are now well-stocked, cleaned, gassed up, and put away.
-- Realized that I am not dreading heading back to the Day Job this week, even though I'm doing two midshifts today and tomorrow. This is a very good sign!

Did not get to it, but am planning to do on upcoming days off:
-- Rearranging/cleaning up the garage storage room. I bought a puck light to put on the ceiling that should help visibility in there.
-- Related: I have a handful of books in there that can probably be donated.
-- Rearranging/straightening out/labeling my writing bins in the garage for easier access. I'd like to restart the scanning project that I'd begun at the old place to get my longhand work digitized.

Other future plans:
-- Post here more often, partly as a way to get my brain rewired (see previous post) to do things like this purely for the hell of it.
-- Journal more often, same reason.
-- Now that I've learned that my shorter breaks at work are fifteen minutes and not ten, I feel I have a few more minutes to do fun things like map drawing or whatever. Learning how to relax, and rewiring my brain away from passive scrolling. [Playing the daily Squaredle and checking on texts from A is allowed, of course.]

comments

personal work

2026-05-10T22:58:48Z

Originally posted on BlueSky from user Matheus Graef (omiosures.bsky.social):

"personal work is oxygen to the artist. it's non negotiable. like exercising or going on walks a few times a week is a basic necessity to humans. if you forgo the bare minimum for too long, you will crash & burn so pick up the pencil today, now even, and draw something just for you."

I've been thinking about this for the past couple of days, and I think it perfectly encapsulates the issue I've been having with my writing over the last several years. In short, my brain is stuck thinking that EVERY creative thing I work on, whether it's Theadia, a new story idea, a doodle, my daily 750 Words, whatever, has felt like work.

And when everything feels like work, as A recently said, that's when I start getting the Don't Wannas. And I've been getting them hard lately.

The problem is that I've understood this for a long time, and yet every time I want to just do something just for the fun of it -- draw a map, noodle on my guitar or bass, whatever it is -- I start feeling as though I'm overwhelmed with deadlines, assigned reading, and writing term papers I should have started weeks ago.

I think somewhere along the way it just defaulted to that, and I never got around to fixing it because it worked for me all this time. When I started taking my writing seriously in the mid-90s, I had to look at it that way, otherwise I'd have been too easily distracted. I kind of saw it as my 'career' outside of my 'day job' as it were, and I needed to make sure I focused on that if I wanted to make anything out of it. By the time I was writing A Division of Souls, it worked perfectly as a way for me to get this big project done with a daily writing schedule.

Thing is, it's not working these days; in fact it's doing quite the opposite. It could be age and maturity, it could be the distraction of the internets, or it could be frustration that I feel like I'm often repeating myself. Everything feels like a chore or a possible self-published project, and it feels like I've forgotten how to just, y'know... have fun with it. Draw those maps not because I feel the need to be creative, but because I just feel like whiling away the time listening to music and just doodling for no other reason.

So how do I make this happen? Good question.

Maybe I need to make a concerted effort to do things offline, off the computer. Like playing solitaire with a real deck of cards. Like longhand writing. Like sketching. Like learning a new song on my guitar or on my bass. Like catching up on my reading.

Maybe I need to make a concerted effort to rethink how I approach my creativity and just DO it without any plans of releasing it.

Maybe I need to get back to the original motto: just shut the f*ck up and DO it.

comments

Won't you be my dictionary, won't you translate fun

2026-05-08T22:20:25Z

I am absurdly gleeful that I finally bought the twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary! The last edition I owned was the tenth, which I bought back in 2003 at that bookstore in Harvard Square that I used to frequent. (No, not Harvard Book Store...this was at 30 Brattle Street across from the small plaza, just around the corner from Million Year Picnic. It's a stationery store now.)

I often think about that store, even though it's been gone for years now. It was part of my weekend jaunt into Boston and Cambridge in the summer, hanging out near the Pit, people-watching and listening to the street musicians, hitting Newbury Comics and Million Year Picnic and HMV and that store before taking the Red Line back up to Alewife Station where my car was parked. [This was back when you could park there all day for a super small fee.]

I'd occasionally done these trips in the mid-90s after moving back home, often on Saturdays when I wasn't working at the record store, but they became more frequent during the early 00s, at least once or twice a month. This was during the peak Belfry Years when I was writing the trilogy, which meant that those bookstore visits were a mix of looking for inspiration and wanting to learn more from reference books. One of the reasons I remember buying that book there was a) the price sticker had the store name on it, and b) I bought it in early 2003, and on that day the store was playing Beck's Sea Change album, which I'd been obsessed with even then. I distinctly remember having it hand while browsing, a customer a few aisles away quietly singing along to 'Lost Cause'.

That dictionary got one hell of a workout over the next several years. Cracked spine, worn edges, dented cover.

And now I have a new one, not yet used, shrinkwrap just taken off, already placed on my black bookshelf next to my copy of Kpfer's Flip Dictionary. Ready to go.

comments

What I did on my spring vacation (so far)

2026-05-07T01:45:00Z

Well, mainly sleeping in until the cats wake us up, but we've been doing various fun things around the area. Today was our trip down the peninsula to Filoli Gardens for a few hours to enjoy their rose garden and other things that are in current bloom. While there I was once again reminded that I would love to own a small bonsai tree but alas I cannot considering the cats would most likely eat it and/or knock it over. Sigh. Regardless, I took quite a few pictures that I should probably put up on my Insta before I forget! It was a nice and relaxing couple of hours down there in slightly warmer weather and away from the overcast skies that lingered over the city. On the way back we did a Costco run to pick up our usual stuff. We like to stock up on meats for future meals, the cheap four dollar rotisserie chicken and whatnot, and this is exactly why I'm still happy we have our own garage (and our own freezer that we keep down there for said stuff).

And tomorrow we're heading up to Petaluma to visit the in-laws and of course visit Copperfields Books as I have a gift card burning a hole in my wallet. Huge nerd that I am, I am looking forward to buying the new edition of the Merriam Webster collegiate dictionary, heh. Other than that, we don't have much else planned other than maybe more gardening (which we also did on Monday after my dentist appointment) and perhaps going out to eat somewhere. Given the travel nonsense going on in the world lately, we've been sticking close to home and that's fine by us. More time with the kitties!

If I can pull it off, I'd still like to do a bit of cleaning/rearranging in the garage storage as I'd planned, considering I have the time and the wherewithal to do it. But other than that, we've been taking it easy.

comments

Vacation time!

2026-05-04T01:26:26Z

So what am I going to do on Monday? Go to the dentist to get a crown fixed! Woohoo! Well, it's much needed and long-delayed and part of my long term plan to get some serious dental work done, so I'll have to deal with it. I mean, I'm used to it by now and I think this particular dental office is much better than the previous ones I've been to.

Other than that? Hmm. A visit downtown, a roadtrip to Filoli Gardens again for some horticultural enjoyment, a Costco run, a roadtrip up to Petaluma to visit the in-laws and possibly do a bit of shopping, some house and garage cleaning, but for the most part this is all about just spending some time relaxing away from the Day Jobs and having some fun.

Well, that and work on an outline for the last several chapters of Theadia. I'm at the point where it's needed now...I only have the vaguest ideas of how I can wrap it up, and winging it is not the way to go here. This is just like those last chapters of The Balance of Light way back then...weaving together all those plot threads into something that makes sense and works in the best way possible. And speaking of which, I've also been thinking more about commissioning a cover for this one. I have a few artists in mind that I'd like to contact. There's one I really like that has the book cover background and their style is very impressionistic, which I think would work here. I'm a bit worried that it might cost a lot, but it's something I'm still willing to look into.

But yeah...it's vacation time, so I am really looking forward to slowing myself down, catching up on sleep and hanging out with A and the kitties!

comments

Midweek relaxation

2026-04-29T23:20:18Z

Thankfully this week at the day job has been busy yet not draining. It's that sweet spot where there's a constant flow of customers but not a ridiculously long line, so time goes by quickly yet the stress levels are low. As I keep saying: I love that this store is well-staffed. I still feel a bit like The New Person but I'm certainly getting along with my new coworkers, that's for sure. Definitely a different bunch but they're definitely more willing to step up instead of slack off. A lot less drama as well, I notice, and that's always a plus.

I am also happy that I have today and tomorrow off, as I've been wanting to relax for the last couple of days due to constantly waking up at night due to congestion. Whether it's on my own or A prodding me because I'm snoring, I keep waking up every two hours or so and it's making me feel sleepy for the rest of the day. It's definitely allergies, so I just need to remember to take some meds before bed next time. That, and I have only two more days to work this week (my stupid early Friday-Saturday shifts), then I'm on a week's vacation! Yay! I was smart and scheduled next week off before I transferred to the other store, so it's not as if they could say no at this time. It did cause a minor kink in scheduling plans for the head bookkeeper (who is also out next week), but they've already found someone to fill in, so we should be good. Like I said -- I love that these are people who take the initiative instead of doing the blank stare of bogglement.

Also on the docket: I really need to eat better at work. More to the point, I need to stop buying the cake slices and the Twix bars and other indulgent stuff and start thinking about what I should have if I'm looking for a breaktime snack or a lunch dessert. I mean, we have a huge produce section and a well-stocked dairy wall so perhaps having a yogurt or an orange instead might be a good idea? Especially since I'll be getting my teeth fixed soon enough. Time to be a bit more wary about my level of moderation, yeah?

Writing? Well, it's...going. Slowly, but it's going. I need to do more with the planning out of where I need to go with it, otherwise I'm just going to run out of steam just like I did with The Balance of Light, and I'd rather not let this novel sit for another couple of years. Perhaps that's something I can work on over the vacation. And in other plans, I've tossed one of my many empty notebooks into my satchel for possible future use at work -- again, get myself into the habit of NOT scrolling or goofing off online. I shall conquer this, as Darcy said.

comments

Weekending

2026-04-26T22:39:16Z

I did manage to sleep in a little bit today, which I was hoping for considering my Friday-Saturday work schedule that gets me up at 3:15am. Mind you, I was out like a light by 9:30 last night and woke up at 7am this morning due to cat restlessness/silliness, but I did manage to get some much needed rest. I had to, because today was a Community Garden Cleanup day. We got a good hour's worth of weeding and gorilla-hair lining (donated from our city's zoo!) before my joints started complaining and we called our part in the session done. Alas, my day wasn't done just yet as I started the laundry, did the dishes, had lunch, emptied the trash, and cleaned out/replaced the litter in the litter box.

It's midafternoon now and I'm finally relaxing by running the PC cleaners and updating my Plex server, which is what I try to do most Sundays. Eventually I'll have to come up with my weekly blog entries!

I am, however, looking forward to this time next week, as we'll be on a week's vacation! We don't have many things planned other than a few trips to places in town and maybe somewhere up north, and I have a dentist appointment that Monday to finally fix that broken crown. But mostly we're just going to be lazing around and not doing too much. Can't complain!

Yeah, another lazy weekend of not much exciting going on, but sometimes that's the best thing. Heh.

comments

Follow-through

2026-04-23T17:39:01Z

I'm slowly getting my act together. Following through with a lot of those "I should probably do (x)" thoughts and doing them instead of just pondering whether they're a neat idea or not. I mean, these are not mind-blowingly life-altering or anything, just stuff that comes to mind that I'm interested in doing. The non-writing creative stuff, the reading habits, and so on. There's still a long way to go, but this is the tough part: getting started in the first place and remembering that not everything needs to be dialed to eleven. I've become far too versed in the Making Huge Plans part of it but never quite following through for one reason or another or having them fizzle out on me.

I've also acknowledged that part of doing this is to combat the Ooh Shiny easiness of being perpetually glued to one's phone. Dopamine hit aside, when your work break is only ten minutes, it's easier to check your feeds than pull out a book that you'll need to put down after a few pages anyway. I probably could pull it off easier if I was still working from home, like I did in the past. That's obviously not doable now, so I have to be a bit more creative by reminding myself how I pulled it off with my other positions over the years. This is why I've been playing Squaredle instead of rechecking said feeds.

The funny thing is that I'm also allowing myself those moments of minor obsession. I could be reading my TBR pile at the end of the night but instead I've been reading comics. I'm allowing that because it occurs to me that I'm finding myself paying more attention to styles and forms of storytelling with that medium as of late instead of reading novels and music biographies. (Though I really should start balancing that out more.) I'm treating this as discovering new inspiration and influence in unexpected places instead of forcing it out of the same locations all the time.

Mind you, the new location for the current day job does allow more low-stakes brain power and a LOT less stress, and I'm in the process of dialing it back to everyone else's level of dedication. I'm still reminding myself that if I keep this Do All The Things mindset I'm only going to keep exhausting myself physically and mentally, and my new coworkers will end up leaving me with all the responsibility. There's a delicate balance between knowing how to do things others might not know about (or have access to) and doing everyone else's job, and I think that was an error I made at the other shop. My coworkers do their jobs and don't slack off, but nor are they rushing around trying to do it all at once, and I need to allow myself to do that as well.

comments

Spring lethargy

2026-04-19T21:59:08Z

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.

comments

Midweek update

2026-04-15T18:13:50Z

Bleh. I so rarely call out sick but had to call it this morning, and I probably should have done so yesterday as well. Seems that allergies get to me more often than they used to since we moved here? Anyway, yesterday I was stuffed up, migrainey and loopy all day at work, and today I woke up knowing that I'd pretty much be useless. I'm feeling a little bit better now, but I'd rather conserve my dwindling energy supply than drain it today. I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I'll feel better for my Friday and Saturday shifts. [I kinda have to be, considering I'm opening those two days.]

This also means that I haven't been writing the last few days, either, which is kind of annoying but I'll deal. Every now and again I have to remind myself that it's okay to go through a spell where I just let it all simmer for a bit, that way I can get back to it with a clearer head.

And hopefully the weather and the pollen will behave soon enough and leave my poor head alone!

comments

Wet weekend

2026-04-12T23:08:14Z

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!

comments

Midweek updatery

2026-04-08T16:47:38Z

I'm actually kinda happy that I have this Saturday off as I so rarely get a full weekend off! This week's day job schedule has been unconventional as I'm doing four midshifts (11.30 - 8). Not my favorite shift but when it's just busy enough it goes by rather quickly. Today and tomorrow I am playing the role of front end manager, which I haven't done in a while. I notice that each person at this shop plays it differently -- one of them just logs onto a register and checks all afternoon, while another one monitors the self-checkouts so they can also be available elsewhere if and when needed. Me? I'm more of a 'put me where you need me' but I also get to do a bit of mental chess playing by ensuring everyone gets their breaks on time. And I'm basically running that position because I'm the one available to do it on those days.

So what's going on creatively? Not much to report. Theadia is going in the right direction bit it's a bit of a slog and I'm definitely starting to feel the 'I want to do something else now' twinge that I tend to get toward the end of my projects. Not that I'm losing interest, just that my ADD brain is ready to latch onto the next big obsession. It's always been like that, I just have to deal with it and power through. I think what I need to do is what I did with The Balance of Light: make a rough outline of all the plot points I need to hit between now and the end, get it in a nice order that makes sense and flows well, and that should make things a little easier.

That said, just hoping that the next three days are uneventful and go by quickly, because I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

comments

New phone who dis

2026-04-05T23:45:22Z

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!

comments

ouch

2026-04-01T20:32:41Z

( CW - Dentistry if you're squicky about that )

comments

Weekendery

2026-03-29T22:48:22Z

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!

comments