Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Here we are, last day of 2025. It's been an interesting year to say the least.

Not only did we move to new digs, we now own it, a fact that is still blowing my mind. I hit some rocky points in the Day Job but I'm still there and still managing to remain in control of the situation. I've rereleased a new edition of my first novel. I've made major leaps in my current project Theadia. The current administration still aggravates the fuck out of me, but I'm learning to react accordingly instead of spiraling. All in all, the pluses definitely outweigh the minuses.

I do of course have things planned for next year. I'm thinking Theadia will drop sometime in the latter half of the year. I'm going to start working on the remaster for The Persistence of Memories as well. And speaking of things creative, I've been wanting to revive my love for art and music creativity for years now, and I think I finally have the time and the spoons (and the tools) to do it. As I've mentioned earlier in my writing blog, it's all about the approach: do it because I enjoy it. That's all. No endgame, no sellable goal.

On a more personal level, I do plan on getting in better shape. I am in better shape compared to before I started at the shop, but there's still room for improvement, especially considering I'm getting older. Get more stretches in. Better posture. Go for walks on my days off. And of course, make it a point to start getting yearly checkups! I don't plan on being sedentary anytime soon and this will of course help.


On that note, I hope everyone has a creative and positive 2026!

The schedule for the Day Job continues to be all kinds of wonky with cut hours at the worst possible time of the year, so perhaps I'll need to speak with the boss again about getting more of them somehow, or alternately being a bit more active about helping me get a store transfer. I'm really not sure what level of management has made this decision or if it's due to the tariffs of The Fuckwit (yes, I still refer to him as that), but I can tell you that it's going to bite us in the ass if we hit peak Christmas volume with the slimmest of teams. [This is exactly what happened two years in a row back when I worked at Yankee, so yeah, I speak from experience.]

I'm not entirely thrilled either that I'm doing a weird shift today (another 12:30 - 9pm) but am a bit more thankful that it's all mornings next week. Still... going from 40 hours a week to 24-28 a week within the span of a few months is not a good sign. And it's not just me, I know other coworkers who are getting their hours cut...but I'm also seeing newer hires getting more hours as well, so I'm also inclined to think that the secondary problem is closer to home and not being given the proper attention. And to be honest, I'm really getting tired of being the only one to bring it up with the boss all the time.

ANYWAY. November is coming up fast and I'm trying to do my best at raising the bar with my creative endeavors. It's been a few months since our Big Move, and I'm itching to get back to my blogging, journaling and writing schedule, not to mention actively looking (no really, I mean it this time) into other outlets I'm interested in and could possibly expand on. Instead of deciding this deep into the final weeks of December, I figure this time out I'll prep myself a few months ahead of time, that way when the new year kicks in, I'll be up and ready to go.

Time will tell...

Wait, how is it the 18th already?? This is the problem with December, it always goes by way too quickly, especially when one's brain falls into a 'take each day as it comes' mindset instead of getting wrapped up in the busy holiday vibe. It's actually been kind of a quiet Q4 at work, though. There are certainly pockets of time where the customer line never ends, but it seems a little less chaotic this year. I know our numbers aren't quite as high as they were this time a few years back, but we're not exactly struggling either.

Anyhoo, I've basically been wrapping up any year-end business these last couple of days and plan to continue doing so until the end of the month. It's my own little way of keeping calm and unstressed, I suppose. I know I have two compilations to finish off -- one is technically a writing soundtrack for a future writing project, and the other is the end-of-year mixtape. Those are easy enough, and I don't think I have anything planned for the next couple of Sundays so perhaps I'll get them done then!

Yay! My PC should be here today or tomorrow! Very happy about this, especially since I have tomorrow off which means I can take the time to set it back up again! I am hoping that whatever happened won't happen again because MAN that was a pain in the butt. Although I will say that pulling out the old PC for a couple of weeks did put a few things into perspective for me, and that'll give me a better idea of how to proceed in the new year.

And it's only two more weeks, isn't it? This is very much like last year, where instead of stressing out about Q4 volume I just let it happen and not let it affect me. The Day Job has had its busy moments but nowhere near as stressful.

Oh, which reminds me: I ran into one of my Former Day Job coworkers this past week! I haven't seen her in like two and a half years, having pretty much ragequit that position, but considering she still lives in the neighborhood it was inevitable that we'd cross paths sooner or later. We caught up a little bit, and suffice it to say FDJ is back to work from home status (no big surprise) as they've finally sold off the Concord office (no big surprise there either) and the central office base for my old team is back in downtown SF. [See, now if they'd moved there originally as was part of the plan, it wouldn't have been such a problem. They were just so cack-handed about it all back in 2019 that it had become another reason for my wanting to leave.] Regardless, I'm still much happier where I am now, so I don't miss it at all.

Yup. That time of year again where it's time for me to start thinking about what I'll be doing in the next one.

A lot of changes this past year. Finally re-employed, this time back in the retail field for the first time in over two decades. Two novel projects that kept me busy during the pandemic put on hiatus and a new project on the horizon. Catching up on my reading. Feeling and looking healthier. Not bad, considering.

I'm thinking I'm going to take it easy in December and just think about what I'm going to do in 2023 instead of trying to do everything I'd put off until the last minute. I'll do the usual, making future plans and thinking about how I can make them happen. What plans do I have, you ask? Well, you'll know soon enough when I've given them much more thinking and working out. I know I want to get at least one novel out in the next year, for starters. There are still a lot of personal changes I want to make as well. A change of thought process, I suppose. Interesting things to come.

In a way 2022 has been kind of a year of making peace with a lot of things. Closing some connections and creating new ones, allowing myself to follow through with plans and desires. That sort of thing. I think part of it is being back in the retail world, which has effectively forced me to reconnect with the outside world again. I hadn't realized how insulated I'd become during the Former Day Job. I truly do enjoy those connections I'm making again. But more to the point, I think I'm realizing why I enjoy them...I used to (somewhat self-deprecatingly) say that I just liked making other people happy, but that was never the real truth, only an excuse for putting others before my own self. It's that I like that connection, being a part of a community. I also think that disconnecting from nearly everything toxic or worn out or no longer needed over those two years helped as well. I know who I am and who I need to be, and I certainly don't need to be that for anyone else's benefit.

Anyway...I'm glad of where I am now, and I'm really looking forward to the journey ahead.

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!

Our city is so ridiculously photogenic...

*ahem* ANYWAY, A had last week off, so instead of me being an unsocial lump hiding in Spare Oom, we went for numerous walks around various parts of the city, including the Presidio marching grounds/Crissy Field area. Far too many pictures were taken and I'm sure we got at least a dozen or so miles in over the course of those few days. And yesterday afternoon we streamed SF Ballet's Nutcracker, considering we've gone to it at the Opera House almost every single year we've been here. All in all, an enjoyable and rigorous vacation despite the lockdown.

So what did I *not* do over last week? Yup. I didn't do any writing. I posted a couple of sort-of fly-bys at Welcome to Bridgetown, but that's it. No revision, no new words, not even any daily words at the 750. Normally this lack of productivity this time of year would have been caused by Q4 madness at the Day Job, which would have annoyed and frustrated me to no end, but this time out it helped me remember that simply enjoying real life and the great outdoors is definitely a good (and healthy) thing as well.

So what am I doing today? Catching up, of course! Time to write some blog posts, do some revision, create some new words! (And somewhere in there, wrap A's Christmas presents.) Time to think about long-term 2021 plans for job searching and freelance work. Time to get moving again!

Well, here we are, last week of the year.

I'll admit, I like watching those end of year retrospectives. Highlights, lowlights, passings, life-changing events. I like how it helps put time in perspective for me. In the past three hundred sixty-five days, points in history changed. That's a surprisingly short amount of time. I try to learn from these events, think about how they affected me in some way -- the small events and the big ones. Think about how I and my actions fit in with the grander scheme of things.

This past year was been an extremely productive one for me. There were some tetchy moments there earlier in the year, when some of my original writing plans fell through, and when I was missing a lot of (non-editing) writing days, but managed to work through them or around them. I learned a hell of a lot about book production and publication in a short amount of time. I took a long hard look at my own writing and how to I can make it better. And even on the lighter side: I managed to keep my personal journal going for another full year with very few missed days. I wrote more poems, more consistently. I may have failed finishing up Inktober, but on the other hand I've also been more consistent with my drawing as well. And even with the music, I've finally gotten around to toying with new song ideas, something I haven't done in a number of years.

I think part of it was due to me forcing myself (or being forced) to alter my creative habits in one way or another. Learning how to self-publish -- and not do it half-assed -- made me take a hard editorial look at my writing. Learning how to sell my writing, even when I suck at sales and hate the idea of having to do it. Writing the personal journal, even when I had little to say, and leaving a lot of the more personal things off social media. And recently, with my cellphone going all wonky, that's given me impetus to cut back on the social media (let's face it, I still have a bad Twitter addiction), which in turn has given me more time to dedicate to something else.

Overall, I think 2015 was probably one of the best I've had in quite some time. Somehow I managed to reach more goals than I ever expected, and I think that's actually the first time I can honestly say that and mean it. There were ups and downs, but I managed to persevere, and that's a good thing.

So what's on tap for 2016? A lot. So much so that I'll be posting it in a separate entry here later on. Lots of things I want to do and make the time for. Stay tuned! :)

So. What was 2014 all about, anyway?

Personally I'd say it was a banner year, with room for future improvement. I hit a hell of a lot of goals I wanted to hit this year. I've missed a few, some failing spectacularly, but for the most part I'm truly happy with how the year turned out. I have new goals for the next year, many that are quite different from the past few years. It's not so much a continued 'ramping up the output' like the last few years, but more along the lines of taking different paths. I'll explain this more in my New Year's Day entry a few days from now...this entry is all about what I've done this past year.

Writing. Despite not having a complete product to release to the world (yet!), I'm actually quite happy with the output I had this year. I also put a number of stagnant and stalled projects to bed and labeled them Trunked. The main focus for most of the year was on finishing the revision of the trilogy, and I nailed that one halfway through the year. It still needs a bit of work, but it's a hell of a lot further along than it was previously. I managed to keep a near-daily personal journal the entire year, only skipping the weekends and the occasional weekday--itself a surprise, given that past journals rarely lasted for that long. I was much more active with my daily words, utilizing the 750 Words website. I had dry spells with no words, but I also had a very long and fruitful month and a half of daily words as well. I also came up with a number of interesting ideas and passages via the 750 Words site, and they've given me inspiration for future projects. The poetry was touch and go, but it was never forgotten. As for the Trunked items, this was a very personal decision--I felt that many of these ideas had been sitting around gathering dust, and I could not find adequate reason to continue them. The half-ideas (demos if you will) were never expanded, one of the well-intentioned projects came to a halt, and others were simply so old that if I still hadn't touched them after all this time, they probably weren't worth revisiting. This also gave me a bit of a tabula rasa for newer and fresher ideas to come in. All in all, I'd say I managed to hit the most important goal of getting better at my craft, and that was my main focus all along. I'll be starting fresh and ready to go come the new year.

Music. I did not get any recording done this year as I'd hoped, but I did get a lot of practice in, and that's the most important part. I've got a few snippets of songs in my head that I'd like to expand on in the new year. Earlier this month I found, much to my annoyance and frustration, that the audio software I use stopped working due to shady business practices on behalf of NCH Software. I really liked their software, but I will no longer work with a company who forces older versions to stop working so users must repurchase the new versions. I've since gone with Audacity and hope it works to my advantage.

Artwork. Being a part of the Inktober meme this year was quite possibly the most fun thing I've done this year. I'd stopped doodling some time ago for various reasons (mainly because my writing work is almost completely on PC), and even though I have the Wacom tablet, I don't nearly use it as often as I should. Doing Inktober was a great push, however...it forced me to draw something almost every day of that month, and in the process reawakened my love for drawing. I also started following a handful of artists on Tumblr to inspire me to draw more as well. I still have a long way to go on this, but the impetus is now there.

Photography. This one's a relatively new goal...I've been more excited about photography for a few years now, but 2014 was the year I stepped up my game with a new and slightly more professional camera. I've taken quite a few pictures this year, and even though I may not have posted them all online, I'm visibly getting better at it. In a roundabout way I'm revisiting my college years and relearning how to capture something visual--this time with still photography rather than moving film. I'd love to see where this leads.

Personal. Yeah, I admit it. I'm getting a little bit older and a little bit slower. I've been keeping an eye on my physical and mental health, going to the YMCA with Emm (although our Q4 attendance has been embarrassingly poor due to work and other issues), eating better, snacking less, and so on. I made a lot of personal moves to avoid or bypass emotional stress, which in the process has brought down my blood pressure and lifted my peace of mind. I'll continue this in the new year.


All in all, I think I did pretty damn good this year. I met my personal goals, with the aim of improving them and continuing in that direction. I'm definitely looking forward to a busy yet extremely fruitful 2015.

Still a bit behind on writing here, but it's moving forward, so that's a good thing. I admit to being lazy this weekend, partly due to a lack of sufficient sleep (I keep waking up every 2 hours or so for some reason, even if I take melatonin). I also seem to be having a lot of weird dreams lately with OCD themes to them, in which I get frustrated because things aren't 'just right' or other people are not quite doing things to spec. I figured it might be work-influenced, due to the fact that I do tend to be a bit OCD with that job because I kind of HAVE to, but that rarely influences my dreams. I'm thinking that it might actually be due to my recent attempts to kick my thought processes to a faster speed again--that is, making a determined effort to ramp up the creative output, which is in effect causing my brain to not want to slow down at night. I have also been reading a lot on my Nook just before bed, so perhaps doing a bit of analog reading from my TBR pile might calm it down some.

Anyhoo, aside from missing a few days recently, I've been doing pretty good staying with my writing/art/music schedule. This month is pretty much a practice run for what's coming up next year, so it's something to get used to. I'm making a few adjustments here and there, thinking of ways I can utilize time and creativity to my best advantage...when to sneak in morning words during the work day, prompts for mini-projects and exercises, reading more for inspiration and learning, things like that.

Of course, December is also the time for my usual end-of-year posts, in which I wax nostalgic about what went on over the year, what I might have learned...and of course my music posts as well. I'll be posting the music posts over at the Walk in Silence blog as usual, but will link them here and elsewhere as needed. I should probably post the end-of-year writing posts over at Welcome to B-Town as well, shouldn't I? Those two blogs are in need of some love and updating again. Either way...expect an uptick of year-end review posts from me within the next few weeks!

Okay! Time to get back to my usual Sunday afternoon of listening to A Prairie Home Companion, sorting through my emails, and sneaking in some writing stuff at the end of the day!