30 posts tagged “work”

Since it's finally 'hit the presses,' so to speak, I'd like to present to you The Very Well-Linked Story, courtesy of Rob at cockeyed.com and myself as about one of 500-some others who contributed links to the story.  I thought the idea was terribly interesting and signed up to contribute right away.  So go forth and click, ye of my tiny, possibly non-existent reader base!

If, by chance, you are arriving from said very well-linked story, I congratulate you for your discriminating choice of words and welcome you to my little world.  I'm just now getting back in the hang of writing after having my soul sucked out by working retail at Christmas time for the second year in the row, but things are moving along.

This morning I woke up from my dreams with the fragmented beginnings of what might actually be a story that I can write floating around in my head.  I hit the sleep button a couple of times while I was trying to distill what was floating around into something that I could get up and hold in my mind until I could get it back out on paper (or, shall I say, into Notepad).  Dreams have that crazy quality of not usually being quite tangible enough to keep from the moment I rise off the pillows, but I think I managed most of it this time.  With luck, I'll be embarking on that project in the near future.

As for more personal details, there isn't a whole lot to say.  I'm a former (and, with luck, future) student who happens to be toiling in a retail establishment that purveys the printed word.  As I like to say--a bookwench.  One of the few perks of my job (along with the marvelous forced talent of being on my feet for eight hours at a time several days a week) is that I can check out pretty much any book at work for free, read it, return it, and take another one, just as often as I can finish one and find another.  Lately, this means that my average books-per-week is around four or five, though I've been dreadfully lax about tracking them on here since I got things started again last month.  For example:

This morning, I don't go to work until 10.  But, of course, I still woke up at the same old time.  The good news is that led me to remembering that the rent was due pretty much last night by midnight.  So I scrambled out of bed, dragged on some clothes, wrote the check, and ran down to the office to drop it off.  It's mildly warm outside (at least, for someone coming out of the chill of winter), and I heard one or two birds chirping even before I went out.  As I was walking back home, though, I realized...there are a lot of birds chirping.  Including three big fat robins who just happen to be hanging out in my yard/tree, not to mention the bluejay and mourning dove that I saw.  And all the other ones I could hear but not see.

I think it's safe to say that the weather's finally getting better for real.  With winter, it jagged between cold and warm enough on so many days that it wasn't until January that we really got some bad weather, and I was afraid we were going to do the same in the transition to spring.  And of course, it is kind of silly to automatically assume that robins = no more snow (I probably shouldn't add that the groundhog didn't see his shadow this year, either!), but I'm always an optimist when it comes to these things, and start looking forward to the day I can wear my light jacket instead of my winter one, and eventually, no jacket at all.  And nothing, to me, makes that promise of better weather than a bunch of robins hopping around outside and making all kinds of noise as I'm getting ready in the morning.

Also, it's March First.  So as far as all that lion/lamb business, I'm not sure what to say.  It's quite lamb-like here at the moment, sure, but by the end of the day we're supposed to be having thunderstorms.  Does that mean that our "lion" quotient is thus satisfied and by the end of the month, we'll be peacefully enjoying our newer, shinier, warmer weather?  One can only hope.

Today I work a previously-unscheduled short shift because one of my co-workers called off yesterday and I made some offhand comment about how I would have come in if I wasn't already working.  Somehow this led to me coming in today, which, money-wise is great.  Hours have sucked lately and I'm always desperate to get more this time of year.  And it is the first, which means I'll get my 30% discount today instead of the regular 20, and I did have a couple of things I wanted to get.  It means that, since I'm working tomorrow, the dishes and housecleaning stuff won't get done until Saturday, but I suppose I can deal with that.

The sun's coming in the living room window, which is making it somewhat difficult to see, but I wanted to open the blinds so that the cat could enjoy the birds that I know she could hear out there. So maybe I'll get off of here and watch some TV or make some breakfast or something.  I really am such a morning person, and this kind of morning is one of the best.

Well, I'm awake, at least.

Coming home from work tonight, I immediately curled up on the couch with Evan and proceeded to fall asleep.  I woke up a couple of hours later and fell asleep again about ten minutes thereafter.  And then woke up at around 10:30.  I tried to go to bed but ended up watching TV with Evan in there and decided I was wide awake.  After puttering around the internet and finding nothing too absorbing, I settled onto the couch with my book.  Evan went to bed, and after I finished it (12:30?) I decided to try sleeping myself.  Couch + TV + fuzzy Kimiko blanket usually = instant-sleep mode.  Not tonight, however, so I decided to try to sleep in the bedroom and listen to The Dark Tower II: Drawing of the Three (picked it up for seven bucks on sale at work on super-discount day) on my iPod.  Of course, I got caught up in the story and was still awake by the time that I got to the end of the last track that I had imported.  Still wide awake.

So I got up and came out here and started importing the next CD, which should be finishing shortly.  I hope that by the time I would reach the end of listening to it, I will be well asleep.  For now I have nothing else to do so I figured a short entry might be in order, at least maybe to get myself to stop mentally rambling long enough to get to sleep.

We're having some nasty weather tonight, but we shouldn't have to go out tomorrow for any reason, so it should be all right out there again by the time Evan heads to work on Monday.  I'm off until Tuesday, which is yay, though not really; I'm only getting three days this coming week.  With luck the budget will go up for the week after that, but I can't say that I'm not in the process of looking for something else.  I can't really afford to stay there if it's going to continue like this until the second quarter--Evan's loans are coming in and I think mine are too.  And we were already kind of just skittering by.  Add the fact that he's really desperate to get out of where he's working right now (not that I blame him--it kind of sucks, and by kind of I mean a lot), and you get a bit of a sticky situation.  With any luck we'll improve on all that as soon as possible.

I'm kind of hungry but I really don't want to grab anything to eat this late at night.  Though the last of the leftovers I brought home from dinner with one of my co-workers is still incredibly tasty-smelling.  Yay cheesefries from Outback--I think I probably brought half my plate's worth home with me, though Evan took care of most of it.

With any luck I'll manage to get an actual interesting entry up here soon; I signed up for an interesting little project on a website I frequent and I'm hoping to at least put on a good show, so to speak.  It's not likely, I suppose, that too many folks would be interested in my ramblings, but a girl can dream, right?

So more bookwenchery from me in the next couple days, given that I've already devoured a whole new book since this morning.  But not now; the Gunslinger calls. 

I'd planned on giving this thing some attention on the 16th, as that would have been three months (Oi.) since I actually wrote in here.  Unfortunately the 16th came and went in a flurry of Wii playing, snow, and God knows what else.  Work, probably.  I put in some overtime (well, over my scheduled time--I came in at just under 40 hours for the week) at the end of the week because they needed some stuff done, and for whatever reason when I hit 40 hours a week the odds of me writing in here decrease dramatically, rather like they did in November.  Probably has something to do with the fact that I'm sleeping until the last possible minute, hurrying off to work, then coming back and crashing as soon as I can so I can get the most rest possible to get ready for another full day of work.  And weekends were really all about laundry, dishes, and just trying to deflect the craziness of the week past and the coming week as well. 

So anyway. Yeah.  I guess there really isn't any particular need to apologize, but of course I still feel apologetic.

Life has been more or less ordinary for me, but for whatever reason I missed all the snow-flying months, so perhaps that's a little to blame as well.  There's still the occasional chance of flurries on the radar, but after the drenching rain we've been getting since last night just after I clocked out at work, I think we're moving more-or-less smoothly into springtime, which is definitely foryay.  Sunshine and warmth will be most lovely to see again, I think.

It occurs to me that I probably can't even possibly log everything that I've read over the past three months, but of course I'll give it a try.  Some things stood out, like P.D. James' Children of Men, and Christopher Moore's You Suck (for which I had to read Bloodsucking Fiends to keep up), as well as getting through Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books.  One that I've been trying to get myself into lately is a book called The Dark Mirror, but I've had it out of work for a week and managed to only hack out about a hundred pages or so.  I want to read it, but it just hasn't grabbed me yet.

Stephen King's Dark Tower books are getting a comic series to match, but it turns out that my bookstore won't be carrying them.  Le sigh.  I was actually kind of looking forward to a comic book that I was really interested in.

I interviewed for an administrative assistant position a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently it didn't go so well, despite my interview which seemed rather promising.  I suppose we can't always get what we want, but boy would I like to get out of the bookstore.  It's not so much any one thing in particular that I'm tired of so much as I'm just tired.  This time of year the schedule's awfully lean, and we really could use a bit more money (who couldn't?) but I'm really hesitant to go to, say, Evan's job, which he really doesn't like but makes decent money--enough money, in fact, that he ends up kind of stuck unless he wants to downgrade his income--something we can't afford right now.  Meh.

The real impetus for this post was realizing that my totally anti-social best friend, J, is now maintaining a journal.  It's a writing journal, and she doesn't have much of the kind of personal posting that I'm much more apt to be making, but there's no reason that I can't do this if she can.  So I'm hoping to get this thing moving again, because I think it really is a part of my life that I want to continue.  Just not when I work a lot.  Or when it snows.  Ahem.

Anyway.  It's good to be back (I hope), and here's to keeping on keeping on. 

As another effort towards getting back on track, I thought I'd post about the book I (finally!) finished yesterday.

Lisey's Story

Stephen King

Yes, more Stephen King. Shock and awe, I know.  I actually read The Stand before this, mostly because of its correlation to Lost, and while it was kind-of-sort-of interesting, I found myself skipping over a lot of parts just to get to what I felt like was the meat of the story.  I'm sure I missed a few important things here and there, and my only excuse is that there was so much story that by the end I just wanted to know what happened.  Didn't help that it was the "complete and restored" edition where King put back in a good portion of the stuff that had been taken out when the piece was originally published.  Anyway.

This one is new, brand new.  It's taken me a week to plod through it, but I've also flipped through a few other things as well, and haven't read it on my lunch breaks or anything, just because the hardcover is a lot more bulky and difficult to deal with than a paperback that I can just tuck into my apron.

There were only a couple of particularly gory bits that made me uncomfortable, and in that, I suppose, it's somewhat uncharacteristic for the author.  It seems that of all of King's work, I'm still kind of darting around the edges, reading the stuff that's pretty much not like all the other things in his repertoire.  Also, of course, I wondered if the "dead author" aspect would connect to Dark Tower at all, and I guess the answer is not really, though the Long Boy kind of reminded me of the thing that chased Roland, Susannah, and Oy through the dark train stations/Dogan/whatever that was (it's been a while, or certainly seems it).

I really like the idea of Boo'ya Moon, and the 'pool where we go down to drink' that I think most serious writers and/or readers will identify with.  King does tend to write about writers a lot, but I suppose there is some truth to the old adage, "write what you know."  Also, I think almost dying after getting hit by a car is probably enough to make anyone think about the what-ifs and all the possibilities, let alone someone who's probably got one of the most vivid, unpredictable imaginations out there.  Naturally, it makes you wonder just how much of the story he relates to himself, how much he tortures himself to face whatever it is in him that brings out the stories he writes. 

Enough to make any writer think, really.  The pool is an interesting metaphor, if nothing else.  Evan has a copy of On Writing laying around here somewhere.  I'll probably pick it up just to see if I can draw any lines between the two.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, and thankfully had enough reasons to pace myself without racing to the end.  What I didn't have, to my relief, were nightmares, which this particular author tends to give me.  Bleh.  Since most people probably haven't read it yet, I don't really want to run the risk of spoiling, but needless to say, it's worth a look.

Not really much else to say this morning, except that I'm looking forward to my Thursday off, even if it does mean I have to work on Saturday.  Right now I'm just wondering what they're going to do with my schedule next week...

And here we are, more than ten days later.  Needless to say, the past couple of weeks have been incredibly hectic.  Due to a fluke in my work schedule a couple of weeks ago (shifting it one day later in the week), I ended up working one forty-hour work week, having one day off, and doing another five days.  After two days off this weekend, I'm finally feeling not only human but like I have time to sit down here and write again.

To be fair, anything that I could have written in the past two weeks wouldn't have been terribly new or interesting.  Times like that lead to a fairly strict schedule consisting of waking up at 7:30-8, heading out at 8:30, getting home at 7, and going to bed at around 11:30. 

I haven't gotten much ROing done lately, either, though last night I was able to attend an event that at least gives my character something to do, which she hasn't had in quite a while.  It's also leading her in the direction I'd like to take her, though I'm kind of hoping that there'll be some great event in between that will turn her back into her brilliant jaded self.  Though the war she's just been through is a good start...

Let's see.  There's still not all that much new to say, but just that I hope I'll be able to get back to this with a little more regularity from here on out.  We are getting into the retail holiday season, though, so God only knows how crazy things will get.  This weekend we have our store's One Day Sale, but it's on Saturday, so my schedule is screwed up again this week.  At least I have a day off closer to the weekend (Thursday) this time.  Hopefully they won't try to beat me to death with another wonky schedule.

Anyway, I'm about out of time for now, but hopefully more to come, and not too long from now. 

Whoops. Another weekend gone, another few days without a substantial post.  I really gotta get out of this habit, but I swear, there's nearly nothing interesting or out of the ordinary going on these days, and the last thing I want to do is fill this thing up with the same old mention of the same old routine, time and time again.

Once more, I've been finding the QotDs particularly uninspiring, though I can't quite put my finger on why.  I suspect that some of the problem lies with me and not them, but then again perhaps that was obvious.

Seeing how fast this entry is finding its way onto the page, I find it ironic that it is, apparently, easy to write about not having anything to write about--this is how Seinfeld got started, isn't it?

Today I wasn't supposed to work, but a co-worker's surgery was moved up from late this week to late last week, and so they needed me to cover a shift.  Originally, like a sane person, when offered Monday or Tuesday, picked Tuesday, so that I could have three consecutive days off, at least.  This wasn't the most practical choice, given that I also have an eye exam scheduled at the office that just happens to be right next to my store for today, Monday, at an hour that would coincide with the period that I wait after work for my husband to pick me up.  But he had managed to arrange to get off work a few minutes early so that he could get me to the exam.  Anyway.

A couple of days after I'd agreed to the extra day, my manager D comes up to me and says, "So, how would you feel about working Monday instead?"  He knew about the eye appointment, but apparently they could find someone else to cover the Tuesday shift, but not Monday.  Of course.  So, knowing that it was for the greater good, I agreed to take Monday.  At least I'll be off tomorrow and won't have to go out of the way to get to the eye doctor tonight.

The last time I got glasses was, as far as I can tell, five or six years ago, back when I was still on my mom's health insurance.  Our own insurance, through Evan's employer, kicked in a couple months ago, but I'd kept putting off the appointment for one reason or another.  Last week I stopped having a choice about it--the frame on one of the lenses snapped, and the only thing holding the frames together right now is some nail glue and a whole lot of hope.  I'm just hoping that technology has improved slightly in the past few years and that it won't take a good couple weeks for my lenses to come in--usually they have to be special ordered because the prescription is kind of strong.  I've been taking my contacts to work with me as a backup, but I prefer to leave them as just that if at all possible.

Last night we went out and saw the new Robin Williams' new film, Man of the Year.  It was...somewhere between the comedy you'd expect with the supporting cast (Christopher Walken, Lewis Black, Laura Linney, Jeff Goldblum), and some kind of Manchurian-Candidate-esque drama thriller.  Some parts were especially good, but it felt like the plot needed to be kind of tightened up and possibly be a little more coherent.  While it's good to not be able to guess the ending until it happens, it's kind of awkward to say in your mind, "So where, exactly, is this going?" from after the first half hour until the last ten minutes.  Oh, well.  There were some excellent-looking trailers before the movie, so that's something, eh?

And now it's probably about time to go get ready for the grind.  Yawn. 

As I carry on into my second week of the schedule of a Completely Normal Person (aka 9-5, Monday-Friday), it becomes apparent that I really don't have too much interesting happen to me during the week.  I am, however, getting more accustomed to the 5/2/5/2/etc vibe so that I'm not totally exhausted from working it.  I knew I was capable of it because I did it for several months before the wedding.  It's especially good to be back to something that approaches regularity in scheduling.  The manager who makes the schedule now, D, implied that next week would be more of the same if he could manage it.  I'm good with that.

I think I've figured out that 11:30 is just about the perfect time for me to fall asleep.  The problem with sleeping a little before or a little after that is that I tend to wake up in REM, which results in a feeling of a crappy night's sleep.  So aiming for 11:30 should do it--right after Good Eats, which is as good as anything to fall asleep to, don't you think?

Tonight brings with it the promise of more frustration and yelling and the pulling out of hair as LOST embarks upon Season 3 tonight.  Evan and I have (more or less, skipping some episodes in the middle) caught up by watching the second season and bonus discs from the DVD set.  We're gluttons for punishment, of course, but it's also a chance to collect my best friend J on the way home from work and drag her over for some amusement, as it was last year that we became accustomed to all sitting down together and watching.  I'm sure I'll find a few people to scream, "They're Dharma!" about (as I am wont to do), and then we'll probably watch the Project Runway reunion show.  Hee.  Like old times~

Thriller: Stories To Keep You Up All Night: James Penney's New Identity\Operation Northwoods\Epitaph

James Patterson

Had a small bit of happiness yesterday as I was scanning all our audio books to see what was old and needed to be sent back.  One of the titles was the compilation of short stories edited by James Patterson that came out recently, called Thriller.  I didn't think it would be something I would be particularly interested in when it came out, but to my surprise, one of the authors listed on the cover as a contributor was none other than Katherine Neville, author of my much-beloved The Eight.  So I grabbed the actual book on my way to lunch (actually, on my way to covering the lunch of my dallying co-worker, who took at least forty-five minutes if not an hour, instead of thirty) and skimmed.  It appears that we shouldn't give up hope of Neville publishing again, since the story she included for the volume, The Tuesday Club, is part of or relevant to the sequel she's planning for everyone's favorite cult classic. 

It's good to know that there's something still in the works, though since it's been almost twenty years since the original was published, I'm curious how much her writing has changed, either for the better or for the worse.  It's entirely possible that her style is such that it just won't be the same, but for what it's worth, the story was good, if a bit short--she needs a lot of room for setup and delivery, though, and I don't mind that.  So I'll have to keep my eyes open, because now she's caught my eye.

That's enough for now, I think, and it's about time I got ready for the halfway day.  Until next time~

What's the last thing you crafted, constructed or created yourself?

Actually... today at work, one of my managers, D, came in to buy a present for his friend's daughter because it was her birthday.  He bought the book and some tissue paper.  I looked up at him, eyebrow arched. "You can't just wrap it in tissue paper, D!" He looked skeptical.  "Well, you can't." "You do it," he challenged, not knowing of my predilection for wrapping arts.  So I did.  And made a damn spiffy bow out of the leftover tissue paper, too. So, yesh.  In that way, I  am crafty.  Tomorrow I have to wrap a little thank-you gift for my mother-in-law for letting us stay at her house.  And Christmas is well on the way, which only puts me even more in the wrapping mood, yay.

Tonight turned out really well. Evan and I went to dinner and shopping with J, in which we returned her PS2 games and got our wedding picture CD back to take to his home this weekend.  We also got our "anniversary" (five years since we met/started dating) gifts today.  I picked up the newly-released Llewellyn Tarot that came with deck, bag, and book, and he got Disgaea 2.  Too bad we won't be able to do much with either all weekend.  Ah, well. 

Next week I have such a lovely schedule--two days off right in the middle of the week.  Woo.  So I'm sure we'll both get use out of them in good time.

Today at work was pretty good, and apparently they were going to let me do shipment instead of register again, but then the guy who would have had to take register started complaining.  Meh.  But I did all right and the day wasn't too terribly obnoxious. 

Xenocide (Ender, Book 3) (Ender Wiggins Saga (Paperback))

Orson Scott Card

Xenocide came in on the truck this week (though I had to go through the MM trays to find it today) and I just finished Shadow of the Giant, so I've started in on it as well now.  So far, so good.  I'm glad to be back on the Ender story, though the Bean plotline was interesting, too.

Tonight I'll be staying up as late as I can, and then getting up in the morning to pack while Evan puts in a short day at work, as he didn't have quite enough PTO to get the whole day off.

Anyway, I might update again in the morning.  Until then~

For the last month or three, even before most of the town knew what was being built, all of us who work at my store have been keeping an eye on the IHOP that would be opening in our shopping center.  Lately, we knew the day was close at hand, because not only did the inside look finished, but there were many cars in the parking lot and people inside, but the lot had been roped off and they'd put big signs up after the first couple of days saying, "NOT OPEN - Training in Progress.'  I can't even imagine how many people must have tried to go there, thinking, "Hey, there are cars in the lot and people inside, they must be open!"  We're fairly close to a highway, so it's not entirely illogical to believe that people traveling through would realize it was a new restaurant.  On Monday I even heard some parents and their kids talking about going there after they bought their books, so I mentioned that it wasn't open yet while I rang them up.

Monday night, however, Evan and I noticed that no one was inside, even though they usually were at that hour.  Come yesterday morning, the signs were gone, the rope blocking the parking lot was gone, and there were actual customers inside.  Yay!  So Evan and I knew where we were going for dinner.

Yesterday at work was really nice, as I got taken off register (for once) and got to work on a project that theyw ere in the middle of completing.  It made the time go really really fast even though the guy who ended up on register was a complete slacker--more than I am!  I still got stuck up there a little bit when he had to leave early, but hey.  It was still a much better day than normal.  I finished the day not nearly as exhausted as usual and my feet didn't hurt at all, which is an absolute rarity.  Then I had the opportunity to sit outside as the sun set on a lovely almost-Fall day which was perfectly warm until the clouds started rolling in and the sun went down.  The cold front also brought in wind, of course, so I was kind of cold for the last little bit of it.

But then there were pancakes and all was well.  I didn't have anything fancy, but it was still really good.  Being that I've never been to an IHOP before, I was surprised to discover how extensive the menu was.  I suppose only offering breakfast food would be kind of silly, since it's not all that terribly complicated.  If nothing else, we'll be going back just to try other stuff on the menu.

The book I finished last night was Shadow of the Hegemon, having finished Stranger in a Strange Land earlier in the day.  Both were good, though overall I can tell that the Heinlein is dated a bit.  The characterization of the subservient-ish women to the dominating male character (not the protagonist) seemed very old-fashioned while the author still aimed for a futuristic world, technologically speaking.  I found myself amused by some of the correlations between that and the Card, which I'm sure were completely un-related but interesting nonetheless.

I had mixed thoughts about the book's opinion on polyamory, given that it seemed to imply that complete and full sharing was necessary, and none of this doing things in degrees as I tend to do, given my situation, but it was a different time, of course, and I can't imagine that the topic was quite popular.  It was the sixties, though, so anything's possible.

Not sure what I'll read next, but it'll probably be the next Bean story, which is, I think, Shadow of the Giant.  We don't have the next Ender book, Xenocide, in stock at the moment, and I don't want to move past it and go to the next one and then have to backtrack.

I suppose that's enough of an entry about so little, eh?  Today and tomorrow and then my little mini-vacation.  Laundry tonight (hopefully).