In retrospect, a lot has been going on lately.


I stayed an extra three hours after an eleven pm close on Friday, devoted entirely to reshelving things. Two or three days before that, I remained an hour and a half over my scheduled time solely to help with the enormous rush of people (that lasted nearly that long) since our trainer called out sick and the trainees aren't allowed to learn on the fly.

I'm munching up all the hours I can: next week I'm short a day and apparently we're monstrously over our allotted time anyway.

The holidays are impending. I feel more like I'm killing small increments of time between large, clockwork events than like I'm alternating between work and play. And I've been killing it one of two ways: sleeping, and writing. When the laptop's logic board went out, i got all emo and spent some time abstaining from writing, mourning it and encouraged by Ryu's offer to have it fixed as a Christmas present. (encouraged? i didn't know i loved that laptop enough to want to tackle her and shower her with love in such a manner as to make her boyfriend very, very upset with me, but apparently I do.) I find I do my best writing when I have the least amount of time to do it. And I don't mean a time-crunching deadline - those make me freeze up on all levels. No. I'm flexible enough to be able to hold off in favor of something else until I've procrastinated so long that when I hear the clatter of a keyboard I feel like tape-recording it and playing it over and over and over again.

yeah.

so.

I've been cramming it in here and there.


and i spent the day with , too. She just moved and has a ritzy new apartment complete with a huge middle room for her bedroom nook and hidden, sliding doors. We rode the train in, brought her Ryu's snickerdoodles, and she gave us sake, hummus and crackers and apricot?-cheese, sushi and an Avatar marathon. It was a lot of fun; the only really scary part was when one of her kitties started making very unusual meows and we found a lump in her side. It turned out to be foul-smelling kitty-gas, thankfully that's all it was. Other than that scare, we had lots of giggles and some fun time to just chill and forget about things for a little while. We had to leave early, though, cuz I open tomorrow. *Sigh* stupid retail... hours are hours, though.


I have LOTS of catching up to do. Sarah, I have two of your delicious chapters to read, Ryu I've got your gorgeous Ishatal and Alisa picture to go salivate over some more, 200 hundred messages and 318 deviations to sort through, lunch with C after work tomorrow, a phone call to return to my grandmother who's on the mend from surgery, rudimentary Sakura-Con plans and the makings of Thanksgiving plans (I'm a dope and asked for part of a day off that the store is closed for - ooops!) as well as the first tendrils of Christmas planning, shopping and budgeting.

Sorry if I'm being negligent, but the holidays are a pretty frantic time of year (especially in an understaffed retail environment) and I sometimes come home wanting nothing more than a shot of vodka and my ipod.

Or a romance novel. And for the record, yes I waved that white flag. No, I am not populating my shelves with a deluge of bodice-rippers and quivering members lusty hetero intercourse. So far the only author I've been able to get into is Lisa Kleypas and her Wallflower series.