Tuesday, May 27, 2008

witness my new bangs.

I had a dream that I went to the hairdresser, and she was like "So, you basically have no idea what you're doing with this, right?" Um, yeah. Girl As Performance Art strikes again.

It's a beautiful sunny day, if a little cool, and I'm at the computer. This can't be good; I'm going outside in two seconds. But first, an appeal to you, my dears: do you know any good breakup songs? Specifically I'm looking for songs whose message is either "We broke up and I feel...better, actually." (The Waitresses "No Guilt" is my best example,) or "We broke up and it was the best thing we ever did for our relationship." I have no examples of this, but surely someone somewhere has written these songs, since I can't be the only person to ever have that experience.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

"This tone in my voice? I dislike it more than you do. And I'm closer to it."

You know what I'm sick of? The sound of my own voice, whining. A number of work-related nonsenses have just dragged on and on and on and on and on over the last year, and I have tried pretty much everything in my power (a sadly limited range of options) to change them. And there hasn't really been a lot of change. This makes me sad, because I love my job, at least I used to. And just like stepping on a rake, it occurs me how very very closely this parallels a completely unrelated scenario I have been giving advice about. Oh, Nicole. How do they say among my people? Duh.

And here's my stellar advice: I can take a deep breath (realistically, probably a lot of them), realize it's out of my hands, and try to figure out whether I can develop a sense of joy about this job the way it is. Not the way I wish it was. Not the way it would be if certain other people fell on their heads and/or received miraculous personality transplants. But in the current circumstances, can I reconnect to the sense of fun and purpose I want to have in my life?

If yes, I've solved my problem. If no, I can look for another job. I can also hang around pretending to be powerless for another year, but having put it that way to myself, my friends, and the entire internet, it doesn't sound like a very good choice. And I did kind of promise myself (remember being nineteen and arrogant, A.? We were smart back then) that my life was not going to be just something that happened to me.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Nothing you can say that can't be sung.

Yeah, that meltdown I was so successfully sidestepping in my last blog entry got bitter about it and tripped me. So I have not been posting, due to being flat on my face in a puddle of meltdown. It's a bit better now. You want to know part of what's making it better?

This.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

itinerary

Despite being wakened by my cats somewhere in the dismal realm of 5:30 this morning, today started out pretty strong. (Although, cats? If you find yourselves listed for sale on Ebay, you know why. And don't try to pretend you don't surf the internet, I'm on to you. Ahem.) I ran through my traditional Saturday start: Tim Hortons for a Coffee As Big As My Head and some sugary thing that will eventually kill me, swing upstairs through the back hall, sit at the staff room table for a few minutes, go survey the damage and start work.

Oh, and damage there is. I was sick for a week, so my section's been down a body, and we have ten carts of shelving. Ten. Ten. I realize this may be hard to conceptualize if you don't work in a bookstore, but to put it in some terms that make sense, two carts of shelving, the way we stack 'em, is a feasible amount to get through in a day. That's a day that starts at seven o' clock in the morning and ends at ten o'clock at night. There's some give in this formula--sometimes you can whip through three or maybe even four, and some days getting through half of one is the Labours of Hercules, but--you get the picture. Roughly. Also, someone or someones have gone completely insane and thrown the merchandising rules to the wind, so things are in the wrong sections, shelved incorrectly in the right sections, shelved according to some new and exciting alphabet known only to its originator, sitting in random stacks under tables they bear no relation to. Your basic nightmare. Today, I was finding it all strangely undaunting.

What I had not accounted for, in my grand spirit of rolling up my sleeves and digging in, was the rain. My bookstore is in a mall, you see, and bad weather means we get an exponentially larger than normal number of people either shopping or milling around aimlessly in the aisles. This...happened.

Gentle readers, I am exhausted. It's six thirty and I'm thinking about when I can reasonably go to bed.

In the meantime, though, I'm watching the gray, romantic rain through my bedroom window. My semi-forgiven cat is practicing her yoga just past my knees. I'm contemplating trying my hand at fanfiction. Things are basically good in the world.

Friday, May 02, 2008