Drunken Owls and Other Delights

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.

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...

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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


Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

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

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

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


Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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