Tag: goals

Week Eight

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Quick updated, I guess this is.

Mid-terms are this week and I’m thoroughly bored with school and trying to pay attention so I’ve started Grim Haven, writing on breaks and the like. I then wind up paying attention in class so that I can get the homework done the first time without having to redo it because I read through too quickly or something. Chapter seven is about to start so 30k words since Wednesday at lunch or so.

It was a long week, starting on Tuesday for work. The assistant has had to request a leave of absence and will be gone through most of our busy season. We have a new full-time of my position, which is good, except she’s still learning and we can’t lean on her. There’s also the problem co-worker but we can’t lean on her either.

Which leaves two functioning members able to do things like opening and closing. Me and the boss. So, with the new one off next week for training in another store, which thankfully is in their slow period due to their location and the fact that everyone travels south from them for the winter, she’s working something like… three weeks in a row?

Then she’s off because she booked time off before and tickets are already booked, or else her time off would probably be cancelled. Then she gets stats off basically.

Oh. My. God.

All I’m thinking about is how crazy I got doing the same thing. I like her, I respect her, I don’t want her to suffer just so I can be comfortable so I’ll be doing basically whatever she needs me to do over the next six to eight weeks.

So… I could be working Tuesday to Sunday and only have Monday’s off. She’s going to probably give me every other Sunday off because we did discuss how I can’t do that again because I go freaking crazy and just can’t do it again.

In school it’s all simple for me (for now) and we’re taking tests all this week so last week was so boring. We were reviewing and I knew the stuff and I’m struggling to stay focused in class because what if I miss something, right? I’d rather get it down now than struggle on the job. Which was why I started writing Grim Haven. It’s a weird thing, but it works so I’m going with it.

But due to work, I’m not at 50 or 60k words like I was with Grim Port after the same number of days.

With that all coming up, there’s been a change to the plan.

See, I have three weeks in December. Grim Travels will be done in that time. Which means I’ll be sitting on a lot more books.

Hera needs to be edited and published before the Grim books. So what is it now? Box set of Wraith’s Rebellion in January, Box set of The Reaping in February. Hera in March, then Grim from April to June and the box set in July. I’m desperately wishing for an editor and cover designer now.

I’ve got all these books on backlog but haven’t the inclination to edit them, I just want to write more. Which, I mean, in a way is good. But because of my position and how things are going, I can’t just not edit.

My beta is a lot of help, but she can only work if the freaking printer works. And no one in town seems to have ink! I went to exchange a non-functioning cartridge and they were out of ink again, they had to give me a refund even though it was against store policy. I mean, all I was going to ask was if I could come back with the cartridge in a few days and exchange it then because they said they were going to receive a shipment.

I might have a line on an inexpensive cover designer who does good work, so the styles could be changing some, but that’s actually the part I like the most. Of the two, I meant, editing and cover design, I prefer doing cover design, I just don’t have the time for it like I thought I would. I have to be at the computer and the computer has to be behaving, otherwise I have long gaps where I can’t get anything done because the program is thinking because the hard drive is a piece because it’s an Acer.

I really hope I can afford an SSD drive for my next computer. That would be just fantastic.

 

Week Seven

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Sorry for the absence here. Those who follow my Facebook Page have probably been following along over the past nine days and what a doozy it’s been.

Had a hypergraphic episode. It probably ended Friday, but I was about halfway through then so I figured I’d push on through. Might have hit again today, but that was also likely triggered by anxiety.

Which hit me Sunday morning. And then my boss texted me at home. “What exactly happened last night?”

That’s never what you want to hear, especially when you’re at home, from someone who usually respects that work barrier. So the anxiety definitely get worse, but Sunday started it because I forgot to take my morning pills which include a St. John’s Wort. I don’t know why the anxiety is riding so high in just general.

It sucks, really, because until June it wasn’t that high.

Now, I did start driving myself on Friday, maybe this is just an adjustment period. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven myself and I definitely miss it. I like being the only one in the vehicle with music playing. It’s relaxing, really. Especially night driving, which I know lots of people don’t like, but I like it. There’s this calm of night driving, there are fewer vehicles on the road then and less to deal with, I guess.

It’s just a bad mental health week for me. I want to cry and don’t know why. I want to hide, don’t know why. Instead, I force a smile and try to function but it sucks, really.

Yesterday I told my cousin we should leave earlier if he wants to be dropped at the front doors. There’s a traffic circle by the front doors and the idea of going in there caused a mini-attack while I was in the car.

So, you know, picking him up is going to be fun.

He, of course, has never grappled with anxiety, so he demanded to know why that would cause anxiety.

I don’t think I said it would cause anxiety. I think I said it would cause an anxiety attack. Growing up I got that a lot. Bullshit about how mental health is in your head and there’s nothing to be sad about, blah blah, ignore it and it’ll totally go away.

Mind you, that’s why I get out of bed now, but having someone ask that actually caused me more problems. Thankfully I answered.

“Because… anxiety, it’s… bad.”

I finished Grim Port today and I’ve just got a lovely little feeling but underneath it all is the anxiety. It’s back and kicking into high gear as I sit for work.

It’s not my usual day to work, but there was a sudden need. It’s also that particular co-worker’s night to close.

And I’m already a bundle of tears and nervous anxiety wrapped up in attention problems and way too much energy.

Wonder if I have an attention disorder… No, I can pay attention fine when I want to.

I’m not worried about the past. I’m not worried about the future. I’ve got a handle on finances so far. I get paid this week and then pay out from that, but that didn’t even register until this second. So all that stuff that’s been flicking me in the nose, basically, over the past couple of months isn’t doing that.

A few ratings and reviews have come in for Seed and they’ve been good so far.

Unless it’s just one of those… calm panics.

It’s this weird thing that one of my friends from high school pointed out. I lived with her for a while and after a year, I started trying to find an apartment. I didn’t want to move out, she didn’t want me to move out, but it was just this… this instinct. I started panicking because I was in the same place for so long.

Turns out that can happen. Nothing bad goes wrong after a lifetime of explosions and after a few weeks of quiet, you start seeing everything as a problem. It’s a pretty big struggle to get over, but possible.

Maybe it’s just that. It’s like I expect someone to fling something at my head or something. Like just getting ready for it and panicking ahead of time because I’m trying to find out where the thing swung at my head is going to come from.

Hopefully, not my boss. She texted me Sunday, today is Tuesday, I haven’t seen her since.

School is going all right. We changed from Keyboarding to Document Formatting last week and I’ve learned a bit, but I miss the hour of music to unwind as I did typing, of being wrapped up in me and my worlds while I did some work. It was nice. I’m learning from Document Formatting though, so I’m still trying to pay just as much attention there as anywhere else.

Some of the other students have decided having two tests on one day is too much, having five in a week is way too much, and they’re trying to get things pushed. I don’t want them pushed and it seems these other students know that. It upsets them that I want to stick to the schedule.

How often have you gone to your boss needing an extension on something? Need it because it happens to fall on the same day as some other deadline?

For me? Uh, I think three times in twelve years. Otherwise, you try to skip out on a deadline and you’re in a lot of trouble. Deadlines, stress, it’s a part of any job.

Plus, I mean, they were talking about taking the accounting test from Tuesday with Math and moving it to Wednesday where we’re having a writing test. So. Rather than have the two math tests the same day, they want to switch it up and do math and then english and think that somehow it will help them out?

I just, I dunno, guys, that sounds like a bad idea.

Over lunch I got passive aggressively chastised again because I’m not having trouble. So, yet again, I explained that it’s just this semester I know almost everything for. Next semester I’d be in the same boat as everyone else.

I mean, my grades are between 90 and 99% right now. I watch others try to argue with the instructor about what should and should not count as right. Or, I explain to them how to do it and they say they understand then I watch them go to the rest of the class on another day with the same question.

Get the same answer. Then go to the instructor with the question.

Up and leave at 3pm every day, and the instructors do not look impressed at all.

Skipping class, texting in class. I’m seeing this all and I’m just thinking omg because they all seem to think that… that the instructors don’t literally have a file on each of us. They’ve told us as much. There is a file with everything in it, if we’re late, our emails to them, what we wear, how we behave, if we work with others.

I’m not sure how much clearer that could be made.

And there I am at the back of the class feeling self-conscious if I take too many notes because they might think I’m writing or something. For Googling the answers to questions I want that aren’t being taught in class (maybe because they’re being taught later, but I don’t know…)

Can I just take a mental health week? Just stay home, build a blanket fort, and sleep the whole week away.

Oh, that’s right, I can’t. Because I have to work and I have to go to school and in between I have to try to do cleaning and maintaining of things otherwise I’ll drive myself crazy.

Winter break is about seven weeks away. Then we’ve got three weeks off in a row. During which time I need to pick up whatever hours work is willing to offer me. It’s all this have to and got to and must haves. But even if I work every hour they’re allowed to give me, it’s not really making any impressive number.

Yay, life.

Where’s my damned sarcasm font?

Week Five (Saturday)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m in one of those weird states where I don’t quite have a project started but I also don’t necessarily have the get up and go to start a new project. It happens sometimes, and passes within a week so I don’t push myself anymore. I just try to view it as my brain doing a disc defragmentation and a cleanup before it gets back to work. So, instead of fighting it now, I just kind of lean into it and play video games more than usual.

Of course, over the summer and before school, video games were about the last thing on my mind. Besides these little stolen moments between work and school, and the days at home when I needed a distraction to keep me busy, I don’t normally play games this much in such a short span of time.

I might have actually played more in the last two months than I did in the three years previous.

I’m not counting running Sims in the background while I edit to keep me off the internet as playing a game, as that was more of me being passive aggressive with myself.

Being in that weird, in-between place, I booted up No Man’s Sky on the desktop, just for giggles, it never works on the desktop anymore but I’m giving it a shot. It’s been running some ten minutes, still loading. But it didn’t crash upon load up… wait.

No, I think I deleted the shader cache after I played last so of course it’s going to work. Well, I’m this far in, might as well keep going with it.

I like the bigger screen, but the desktop is slow as could be, it’s getting slower and is even slow doing Paintshop Pro, which I use for my covers. It sucks, but it still works. It’s just that I don’t want to have that patience. I want my bloody computer to work like it’s just under two years old, not like it’s five years old and my brothers have been downloading porn onto it.

Next desktop, I want to be a solid state drive. But that’s a save up for sure. Need a car first, unless this one breaks on me, in which case I’ll have to settle for whatever is on sale as long as it’s not another bloody Acer.

Wow, I really rambled for a while there, didn’t I?

Your hypergraphia is acting up.

Yesterday, I started writing Shade’s story by hand. I don’t expect it to go anywhere on paper, but at least I have something there I can add to when I need to and just keep going. And if it does happen to go someplace, well, I can practice my transcription skills and get it onto the computer.

So, while sitting, waiting for the game to load, you watch this rather peaceful screen that’s stars flying by, as if you were going faster than lightspeed in space, I guess is the idea. Me sitting there with my coffee, started thinking.

Now I’ve got this weird plan, but I’m going to give it a go.

For indie publishing, it’s suggested you don’t go more than 90 days without a new book. The closer together, the better. Okay, whatever, that was kind of my publishing schedule before. Some authors have had great success by publishing once a month.

Don’t worry, I’m not full on crazy just yet.

Harvest is still partly with the beta and I don’t want her to feel like I’m rushing her. Now, my beta is my aunt who lives upstairs and does a ton for me, but I don’t talk about it because I want to respect her privacy. She does a fantastic job and gives a bit of a different perspective on stories… and is to blame for Scottish vampires that will be happening sometime next year.

But I feel like I’m reaching a point in No Man’s Sky where I need a break. I love the planets and wandering about, but I’ve devoted almost the same amount of time to it as I usually do in writing a book. I may need a break.

However, my iddy biddy mind can’t handle just wandering the internet. I’ve got school and the paying job, and writing, I can’t focus on just wandering about. It’s a desire to achieve, or… what the heck do the call it? I don’t remember.

The internet wandering is wasted time. Reading someone else’s book doesn’t do it for me, so while sitting with my coffee, my brain started tossing ideas back and forth on what could be done.

We’ve got Seed in October, just a few days away. Crop in November, on Thanksgiving day for Americans (why did I not think of that before? Bad Aya). And Harvest in December, right near the end giving me time because I have a two week winter break before the book goes live. Lots of time, right?

In theory on that one. But we’re almost 160 pages in, which is halfway or so, so yeah, I think it’s safe to say there’s lots of time to get that one done.

Come January, I’m going to do the box set of Wraith’s Rebellion, the first of the Coffee and Blood series. In February, I’m going to release the box set of The Reaping.

See? Easy work come January and February. Except the inner table of contents. Damn, do I regret naming each chapter and replacing chapter heads with images when I do this. It’s a lot of scrolling and then I feel woozy because I get motion sick and then I get to the end and find out I missed one and there’s a scrambling to figure out what I did wrong.

And Smashwords always finds a fractured image in my Coffee and Blood books, because somehow it happens. It’s a process but I suppose I’ll have those two weeks of winter break to figure it out.

So… where’s the crazy come in?

I am going to take the second trilogy of Contracted, which is written already, put it on my kindle and read it start to finish. Then? Well, then I’m going to take notes on it and start putting in edits. I’m going to write out the plot basically, then fix the bloody thing. Then I’m going to do the basic edits. Then I’m going to use my editing programs to find the problems rather than struggle through to find them myself. Then I’m going to edit it again.

Then I’m going to publish them in March, April, and May. Then the box set in June. With any luck, the complete edits will be done before the first launches, leaving March, April, May, and June to work on Hera.

Because editing one book is relatively simple when I’m not freaking out about work. I do it over coffee, I do it on commutes (until I start driving myself) I do it between school and work, one these Saturday mornings and Sunday nights. Until my homework and studying ramps up, I do it Monday and Tuesday evenings and on lunch breaks at school.

Some people knit, or play mobile games. I edit. It’s a very weird thing, but anyone can train themselves to do it.

So, I want to edit three and a half books between now and June. I want to publish seven books, but of those seven books, three of them are just about formatting as long as I get the edits done.

Mildly crazy plan, but for the first time in weeks, I feel excited and ready to go. I feel like I have a direction and a plan and I don’t feel like I’m giving up something I love to be paid an hourly wage and be screamed at.

And, usually, once I have a plan, I set about and do it.

This is awesome.

Oh, someone might ask about Contract Claimed, when that’s actually coming out? It has no release date because it needs to be re-written and expanded at least to two books total, maybe three. So it’s likely my project for next summer.

And Awakened needs additions that I’m slowly picking away at. So if there’s a day I can’t edit, that’s what I’ll be doing.

And The Others? Well, it is an ongoing project, I’ve updated several times over the past couple of weeks so now might be a good time to go back and re-read. Though, to be fair, the updates are easy to write and I can add a little here and a little there. I just need to put a little work into the site to update the characters and add a glossary for Todd’s dictionary.

Week Five (Day Five)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Finished the first hundred pages of Harvest, got another sixty from my beta reader. I keep thinking I’m going to drop off and ‘die’ mentally again so I’m pushing through this but I still have until December.

Trying some ads for Seed even though I shouldn’t, because I’m technically broke. I’m trying them because it’s the best pre-order to date and I want to get it out there to the right readers.

Bookbub scared the bejesus out of me yesterday. It sent me an email about a new release alert and I had a small panic/joy that they had actually taken me on for a new release ad. Panic because how would I pay for it, joy because oh my god.

But no, it’s a new release email they push to all your followers on Bookbub for free until you cross a specific follower line, which I think is over 1000. So… free for me forever!

Look at the upside of situations, I guess. Yup, that’s my mood today.

I guess it is update day for school.

Writing has gotten into talking about word choice and cliches, that kind of thing. It almost bores me because my work has talked to me about it for years, but then ignored it. I try to do the formal business-like language. So, I struggle to pay attention because I feel like I know it and she wants us to hand write everything while kind of discouraging notes. If I’m not taking notes, there’s a very good chance that I’m not paying attention, I’m just saying.

But all I want to do is write stories on the paper. The blank pages are taunting me, which they haven’t done in over a decade because I no longer deal with paper. It’s a lot harder for me to ignore that pull than it is to ignore the pull for a new story on the computer. At least the computer, I have to put in the effort to open the processor, whereas when I’m sitting in class with a blank page before me, trying to pay attention but I just end up staring at a blank page?

It’s worse than the clickety clack, it’s actually triggering my hypergraphia. That part where not writing has started to hurt and I hate that, but that’s how it goes when I resist impulses to write. So, I need to figure something out because writing The Others hasn’t helped take the mean edge off that need of mine.

All because she wants us to hand write everything!

I mean, I could hand write a story, just out on all that paper I have. I don’t actually need five hundred sheets of paper for school ,do I? I might use a hundred total, leaving just enough to write an actual book.

Oh god. Now I’m thinking about it.

Computer Skills and Math were kind of cancelled for this week as the instructor is out. He did assign work, I had the Computer work done the day he assigned it, I think, and the Math I finished yesterday about twenty minutes into the class that’s regularily scheduled for Computer Skills. I spent my remaining two hours reading the book for Interpersonal Communications.

The only class for that for this week happens this afternoon and we’ll have a speaker. No computer because she wants us to take notes and make sure the speaker feels like our full attention is on them. I get that. I suppose.

I swear, I’ll take actual notes and not write a story.

Although, now the idea of the pen scratching across the paper…

It’s like scratching a mosquito bite. It feels so good to think of that, but I know it’s dangerous and I shouldn’t do it.

What would I even write, right? I don’t have a story that could be done on paper!

There, matter settled.

Oh, but that scritchety-scratch of pen on paper.

Where was I?

Keyboarding?

The test yesterday was out 15% one, not the 5% one that I thought it was. Great, I feel like I did good, but I have this weird thing sometimes with proofing. I could proof until the cows come home. Then a book launches and I find a typo in the description.

I’m looking at you, His Grace.

Don’t worry, I fixed that one.

Anyhow, it took me about twenty minutes and for the timed writings in there, I actually met and exceeded my average words with no errors. Heck, I even had to go back and fix some stuff because I’m a silly goose.

My fingers are trying to say different words than I’m actively thinking to them. It’s like they’re trying to link to my unconscious mind which is kind of running in circles in the background going, “It’s almost NaNoWriMo and we haven’t settled on a story!”

Not participating in that this year, what with school and work and all.

Shoot, where was I? School update.

Accounting has been simple for this chapter. Doing the extra work took about ten minutes, and then I went back to reading the book for Interpersonal Communication. When I finished, I still had an hour or so of class left (this was ‘free’ time and many left during or even before the class started). I was going to work on The Others but there was a nagging voice at the back of my mind.

So, I wrote the rough draft of my book report yesterday in Accounting class.

Except, I can’t tell anyone except you, dear reader, because the other students have begun to resent me for always having everything done and never having a bother with the assignments. Or a complaint about the teachers. There appears to be some unrest starting and I don’t understand why everyone is getting so upset about sitting in class when it’s the perfect time to do that homework you’re behind on, or practice in that class you need help in.

Instead, they talk about wanting to go home and how a class or day is a waste. It’s not a waste, it’s a practical gift.

Besides what might be assigned today, I am going into the fifth weekend without any homework, because I took the free time I had at school and put it to work.

Pat on my back, right? It’s something to be proud of because I know me.

Normally by October, I throw my hands in the air and basically shout, “I quit!” and homework starts lagging. I know if I don’t do it here, I will struggle with it at home because that’s my time. And I won’t do it at work because some Nosey Nelly shoves her face into my business as I’m trying to do homework. They start asking about school and homework and what am I struggling at?

Oh, nothing? So, you’re just bored all the time? No, oh yes, of course you’re upset you missed 1% on your Accounting test.

No, I’m not upset because I didn’t get a hundred. I’m not beating myself up over it. I normally score in the 70% range for tests. When it came up to 99% it bothered me because I was so close and it’s a thing of pride to finally cross that threshold and have a 100% on a test.

I missed the dollar signs. She could have docked 3-6% for missing all the freaking dollar signs but she only took off a percent. For all she knew, I was dealing in ounces of crack, or bananas!

Ah well.

I don’t have lunch today. Yup, I went and blanked on freaking lunch. I’m not going to go hungry, I’ve got a debit card and got paid yesterday. It’s just that I’m one of those people who tends to look at the price of fast food/pre-made meals and turning up my nose because I could make something that tastes much better for that price or less.

Let that be a lesson to me!

If I had realized ahead of time, I might have been able to ask for leftovers, as it was, I didn’t find out until I was about to leave my room.

Next week I want to try to make loaded cauliflower casserole. I think is what it’s called. It’s going to be a little weird, but it’ll have cheese… and more cheese. I’m hoping it can pass for an “adult” macaroni and cheese because suddenly that’s what I’m craving.

Week Five (Day Two)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Technically, it’s day one. Canadian Thanksgiving was this weekend. The day it’s celebrated on depends on the family, really.

I formatted and uploaded the boxset for the first trilogy of Contracted. I expect I will move few copies over the next week, as the pricing will be a little skewed. Next Monday, Contract Taken comes off perma-free though it could take a week or more for it to show on Amazon. I’m not going to rush there, but only because I know trying to rush with Amazon is pointless.

On my two days off, I definitely did not do much in the way of work. Just the box set, really. Then I started playing my game. It’s a sandbox science fiction … rpg, I think? It’s fun.

I drank my bottle of wine and played it Sunday night, sticking to one planet for about five hours, just walking around collecting one specific resource which was all over the place. I made a lot of money, bought myself a new NPC ship, a special-class tool, and still had 8mil left over in the morning.

For contrast, I started my night with about 900k.

So, I definitely had a relaxing couple of days though I do regret the 2am night Sunday night. More sleep would have been better. Especially since the last two or so hours wasn’t really doing anything except trying to decide what to do.

Back to school today, no work today but I still am not a hundred percent with work. I’m glad my boss is back. With her, I don’t feel like I’m taking crazy pills. She follows policies and is up to date on things that others are ignoring because “we’ve never done that. We’ve always done it this way.”

Yeah, trust me, everyone can tell. They do things based on how they were trained something like thirteen years ago. But the company which hired them and the one we work for now are two very different creatures.

I don’t think I’d want to work for my old company.

Anyhow, I need to do a write up on things that happened over the past two weeks. It all needs to be accounted for and I’m concerned about the customer complaints and the team members who were upset.

… and the bright bubbly one getting so upset I did’t want to deal with her.

I have been looking into vehicles. Obviously, I need one to be independent. I can’t just live in the basement and borrow a car forever. I know it’ll be some time before I can afford one but I opened an account to start putting money into.

Used or new, I’d prefer new but I need to consider that price tag and my income. It’ll likely be a little beater or some sort, but if it works, it’s better than what I have now.

I’d really like to go back to writing, but I’d have to get rid of the day-job to write while at school. That really sucks, doesn’t it? Ah, well.

 

Week Four (Day Five)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Wrote almost 5000 words yesterday on Mr. Wrightworth’s novella.

I went looking through available movies this morning and there are actually a couple I’d want to watch so that’s what I’m doing Sunday.

Movies, writing, bath, and wine. Not all four at the same time, but a combination of them throughout the day.

Yesterday during work I ached again. It’s this weird all over tenderness. Like I got super drunk, that’s what the feeling is.

Like I drank way too much and now my whole body is protesting. Haven’t had wine in weeks.

… Haven’t had stronger alcohol in months.

This morning my throat is scratchy again, but it has been for two weeks. I’ve been fighting off this cold and fighting off this cold. Maybe that’s why my body aches.

I assume it’s stress and fighting off a cold that’s making me ache. Growing up I was told emotions are just in my head. Like we should all strive to be Vulcan or something, but let’s admit that they do alter our body chemistry. I’m almost certain I’ve seen studies on it.

So my body is in permanent hang over mode. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on making it worse this weekend. A couple of glasses of wine and then early to bed.

Unless I’m almost finished the novella. We all know I can’t sleep with a project almost finished.

Forgot to eat this morning, ishk. Except not eating in time makes me sick, but eating too much also makes me sick. The school has a little cafe, but the only things my diet allows is fruit (ish) except they only had apples.

Because everyone loves apples, right?

They make me physically ill unless I’m in the mood for an apple. Way too sweet too.

So I had a ‘fuck it’ moment and grabbed a jumbo double chocolate muffin. I’m severely going to regret that about… oh… five  tonight, you know, when I clock in. But that’s kind of what happens when you toss your hands up in the air and just do something stupid.

Suppose it’s about time for the weekly review.

Writing (class) is about on par. I seem to struggle with the odd spellings, but I knew that before. There’s these lovely things called word check and Google. I use them, though I only normally need them for the first three uses of the word. Then I get frustrated with the ‘waste of time’ and commit the spelling to memory. I don’t use the words she wants us spelling so …. there’s that.

Math, we had a test on Tuesday. The second class is today. It didn’t take me long at all.

Keyboarding there’s two tests or something of that sort next week. We’ve not really covered the one, for proofreading marks. I think I got it down, though, so long as she doesn’t expect me to draw them out. If she just gives them to us and is like “what do you use this for?” I’ll be good. I know we’ll be using those going forth (in class) so I know I’ll get it down within a couple of weeks.

Computer skills has still been file organization. It’s all pretty standard (for me) and I keep chastising myself into paying attention, as I drift off in a daydream.

Pay attention, stupid.

Accounting I had about a third of the classes? Half? Think it’s half. Technically we have six classes a week. I missed one on Tuesday because of the road test and two yesterday afternoon because she had an appointment. With no place else to go, I settled in the classroom, determined to get some of the book read for Interpersonal Communication.

And then I remembered the new assignment for Accounting was up. The assignments are online like so many are, and the software is simple, but it doesn’t let you bring up the numbers and information you need along with the answer slot at the same time, this is a frustration. Also, if you make a mistake, you have to go through the entire question before you can try again.

But it takes the highest score so you can just keep redoing it until you get 100.

Well… it was a long question and I was tired, I couldn’t keep my information straight. I did it three times, got grumpy, and printed off the numbers from the secondary window and everything went swimmingly. But it took two hours to do.

I was also frustrated when I was done, because I wasn’t making mistakes because I didn’t get it. I made them because the date or the cost of a transaction slipped from my mind after a second. So, I switched over to Mr. Wrightworth’s novella and finished up the chapter just to relieve some stress.

Except he’s a little stress ball because he’s not allowed to beat on his slave, which I kind of wanted to watch given my recent mood, but that wasn’t what we agreed to write.

Once that was done, I went to work and was asked to start right away. By 6pm I was done, shuffling around and having to lean on things when I came to a stop because my back and legs are aching that much. I don’t even know why, they just are.

Last is Interpersonal Communication. There was a quote assignment due today which I’ll submit on lunch. We had to choose an inspirational quote and write up a blurb on why we chose it, how it’s personal. There’s an informal sharing in class today.

I dun wanna share. I just wanna sit in the back corner under the desk and sleep.

Just today and tomorrow, then I have two days off. I’m almost through, but my body was done a couple weeks ago and has just basically been limping on through.

Heaven help anything that wakes me Sunday morning if the house isn’t on fire.

I’m, of course, referencing cats who turn into wanks whenever they want something. Darius, the youngest, keeps body checking me in my sleep and I don’t know why. Not on my body, no, he body checks my face and neck, and he weighs about five pounds now. He didn’t do it last night, but that’s because I wound up curled around the oldest, who actually got up and smacked Darius away.

Just two more days.

Oh, and I can sleep in tomorrow since I don’t work until 1pm… 1:30? Ah crap, now I can’t remember my own schedule.

 

Week Four (Day Four)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

This morning, I finished writing up the plot for Mr. Wrightworth’s novella. It’s the first one from his point of view and could end up ten chapters long. I’ve decided to spend my Sunday curled up on the couch with his story, watching movies and drinking wine. Not all day, obviously I’m going to wait for the afternoon at least for the wine, but I suspect I won’t have more than a glass or two.

Which reminds me, I have to drink more water…

I’m hoping (that’s a big hope) to get the novella done Sunday or Monday. It’s only supposed to be about 23k words, which I can definitely do in a day without breaking my brain. Especially when I’m involved in a story, but writing smut has always taken me longer than regular stuff.

I’m also hoping that keyboarding will help me with that. Because dang it, I’d love to be able to type 78wpm on a story.

My calculator claims I could write the novel in five hours if I wrote at that speed. I think it’s lying. It must be. Bad calculator.

That would be fantastic. Imagine the possibilities!

I’m trying to figure out what movies to watch on Sunday. Normally I  put on Netflix and go, which reminds me, I have to cancel my Netflix subscription. They aren’t getting in movies or shows I want to watch besides some original content but I don’t want to pay that amount for one show every two months. I might as well just buy the show when it comes out on DVD, same price and I don’t have to worry about being connected to the internet.

I could marathon through the Riddick Chronicles but… not sure I want to. My biggest trouble over the next couple of days might just be deciding what to watch.

The boss is back in town, she arrived in time to walk with the president guy. The other managers were also there. He didn’t say hello or anything to me, which normally he does, makes an effort to greet everyone. Maybe he was having an off day.

We talked very briefly about the weekend of doom. I said I was still upset because she dismissed what I was saying based on the fact that I was tired. And that I never want to do that again. Like. Ever. But I didn’t get into detail, since she’s still on vacation until Friday or Saturday. I can talk to her then and explain the garbled mess and how, apparently, I had someone from the store on my friends list on Facebook, she violated my consent, and the co-worker appeared to take that as my threatening her but bee-tee-dubs, here’s the post in question because while it’s locked, I have nothing to hide.

I have my personal Facebook under friends-only lock because I know sometimes I’m a wank. I say stupid things etc, welcome to being human. But I also have it locked because back in high school I had a stalker and she… appeared at one point to be haunting my Facebook and doing things. So… I locked her out.

I worry about that, but I also know that I was pushed to my end/extreme. I am good at a lot of things. Heck, I might even be considered great at a lot of things. Working constantly of thirty-seven days straight while dealing with stress is not one of those things. That doesn’t put me in the wrong, it just shows a limit that no one has tested before.

The schedule was also posted, I obviously have Sunday and Monday off. Thank goodness.

Just three more days.

Except… issues. I was called back from break yesterday because the doors were broken. When I got up front, there were six or so customers standing in our vestibule, about to push the doors off the tracks. It is an escape method, but the issue is, unless you have the strength and know-how, they’re almost impossible to put back on the track. One person needs both of those things because you kind of need to feel it out and you can’t lock up for the night unless it is back in place.

My body is not doing that. It’s barely upright. The other person I normally rely on for that sort of thing bruised her rib a few days ago and there’s no way I’d ask that of her just because my body isn’t doing that. Her body shouldn’t do that, even if it can.

So, I might have shouted a little.

“No!”

One customer was pushing on the door, a man was reaching up to the knobs, touching all the things. I told him to shut the doors off and he said that didn’t work. I repeated it and then made a motion away, like do it or get the fuck out the way and I’ll do it. So he scowled at me, but shut off the power to the doors and said it wouldn’t do anything.

I grabbed the doors and pushed them open. Because once the power is off, the doors move just fine which is how I know it’s not a problem with the tracks of the doors like we keep getting told. It’s the motor or has to do with problem number two.

The ceiling was dripping water about every ten seconds.

The cashier told the customers waiting that I was on my way up, but could they please move to the side, because the ceiling appears to be leaking (we had a heavy rain) she then watched the people under the leak, look up and stare.

As the water fell on their faces.

The leak has been there there a while. I think it’s three times now, it was supposed to have been fixed. It winds around electrical stuff, a motion detector and what kind of looks like an air conditioner. This store is the only one which seems to air condition their vestibule which I always thought odd until I actually looked up. So… we’ve got water leaking around electrical stuff.

Each time the ceiling leaks, I realized, we have issues with the door.

Tada, water is leaking into the wires of the door, creating hazards. Our doors will snap shut on customers, but also not open. Let’s not forget our basic math water + electricity = bad.

We put a bucket under the drip with a wet floor sign. You could hear it dripping into the bucket.

Customers dropped garbage into the bucket.

Thanks, guys.

After we closed up, the cashier related the story once more about customers looking up, so I looked up. It’s a weird, weird thing. But it’s a good thing I did because the leak has spread, so we put another bucket out there. The new one is directly over the path of the customer. Yay.

All I can do is call them in again, except I’m tired of them sending people who don’t know what’s going on, so I linked it all back into the comments and suggested the two might be connected.

Oh, right. Passed the driving test. I got the one the driving instructor refers to as the strict one. She’s quite a happy person, I never would have suspected she was strict at all. She kept saying good and I kept thinking she has to say that. At the end she said she had nothing else to say and I passed.

Just need to wait to be on insurance for someone before I can take a car out. If I had a car I could go home on days like today, where I have the afternoon off due to an instructor being out, and nap before work. Nap, like a person with time or something.

I’m now trying to figure out how to save up enough for a car. The fact that I can’t go to Mexico again for two years because of school means I’ll have a little from that, but it’ll take something like six trips to pay for a car and that means I’d have to save for six years to get a car and I don’t have that kind of time.

So, I’m basically batting around ideas on finances and trying not to feel overwhelmed over the fact that I can’t afford it right now. I can’t afford to buy a new car, because I can’t afford the monthly payments, not on what I’m currently being paid. Maybe once I graduate and have a job. Even if I had to keep the retail job for a little while to help things out. It’d drive me crazy, but at least then I’d have a car.

Why can’t money grow on trees?

Ah well. One thing down. A couple more to go.

Week Three (Day Five)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Writing:

How do I put this…? My muses have been tossing about ideas for a new Contracted trilogy?

I know, I’m world and story creating like crazy and not getting on with the writing of anything yet. It’s all the clickity clack from keyboarding school driving me to it, but I’m making and keeping notes on OneNote so that it’s all there and available for when I can write again.

A Kaz/Balor story is started but put off because the content is not work or school safe so I can’t work on it anywhere. Not until either tomorrow or Sunday but I’ve allotted for edits for Crop to get that done.

Have I talked about The Others? It’s almost entirely unedited, which is stated in the first post there. It’s an ongoing project that I update in between other things, or pick away at between classes and such. So, if you’ve got an itch, head on over. Just realize it is m/m.

The idea is to pull it later on to edit and do additions, then publish it as a series. I think I’ve decided I’m writing out as much as I have/can, as far as it goes, then pulling the whole thing and editing it.

But if you do go, you’ll notice I’m not rushing any with that.

Other:

Work moving stuff last night definitely tired me out. I’m not necessarily sore, though. Just… tired.

I went to brush my teeth this morning and had immediate fatigue, so… you know, the writing class is going to be fun since she has us hand-write notes.

We had an accounting quiz yesterday and I looked around after I finished and realized everyone was still writing. Cue me panicking because I must have missed something. If they’re still writing, it must mean I did something wrong, skipped at least one part. So, I checked it again and again, even put the alphabet beside the transactions, worried I had just skipped one.

No, it just happens that I have managed a good understanding of the first two chapters. Because I read them ahead and took my own notes (this is how I learn better) but now I worry because chapter three, I read it and I couldn’t find anything to make a note about. Just, yup, that all makes sense.

Writing, the instructor was sick but assigned some homework in place of her being here because we still have to keep up on work, right? Your boss calls out sick, do you just skip out  home and do nothing?

If  I’m being honest, I’d work from home if I could get away with it.  Well, it sounds like a few people didn’t hand anything in because they didn’t read the full announcement. Oh, geez.

Keyboarding! Keyboarding is the one I constantly feel like I’m struggling with. My hands are starting to move a little better but I still have to make exceptions to their rules. My knuckles don’t move like that and as much as I’ve forced the new motions, the fingers just kind of shoot out and start hitting all the buttons. So, I guess you could say that I’ve adapted the method because of my arthritis. I’m sure my method wouldn’t pass for others, because the damage to the joints is different.

However, my word count and accuracy have begun to go up. Yesterday I did a two-minute timing without a single error, not even one I deleted. Though… it was weird. I did several two-minute timings. I think five in total? On one they kept wanting ‘exam’ someone wrote and exam and didn’t tell this other person when the exam was.

Yeah, for some reason my brain insists there’s an ‘e’ on the end of ‘exam’ but not all the time just every third or fourth time I write exam. My fingers hit the ‘e’ at the end and my brain, reading it out goes, “Yup, that looks right.”

Math, I worry I’m so lost that I think I’ve made it. Like I aimed for the Pacific Ocean and ended up in the Atlantic instead and just can’t tell the difference, that kind of lost. It both seems too easy, and they ask me things that I was never taught in school.

Rounding and estimating, what is this? Math of lazy people?

Yet, I use rounding and estimating when I’m doing math at work, but because I’m in a school setting my brain stutters and I think I must not know how to do it right.

Have I hit them all? No. Computers. I need to pay more active attention but I think he thinks I’m writing in class because now he’s wanting us to focus forward. If I don’t take notes, it doesn’t stick. Writing notes by hand gets it out of my head so I just never remember. But if I type it, thanks to all the writing, my brain logs it all down.

All, like, “Oh, gonna need this in edits, I just know it.”

So on breaks and as he was dismissing us, I scrambled to get notes into my note page to remember it this time. He’s teaching us file sorting. I like to think I’ve got that down. But then I tried to find things in my OneDrive and it seems I bungled something, so I need to revisit my system. Which is fine, it’s new. Sometimes it takes me some time to figure out the easiest way to set up a new system.

Oh, and Interpersonal Communication. I started reading the book, think I’m about halfway through. Need to read more, obviously. Need to take notes in that class, it’s after lunch and that’s definitely going to be brain death time.

I am trying to interact with my fellow students more. Soft skills, you know?

Work last night, besides the exhaustion, went all right. The co-worker was happy she hasn’t been happy in a long time. She also sported a new look. Looked like half her hair disappeared, since she flattened it. But the happy scared the shit out of me. I’ve had people get happy like that when they’re about to attack me.

I thought it was maybe just my perspective too, until someone else saw her walk by and their eyebrows raised.

“Whole new person this week.”

Hey, if she stays happy and isn’t mean to anyone, whatever and good for her. If she’s planning something, ugh. For about a second, I thought she was gloating and then I realized I didn’t care what she was doing. I was tired, I wasn’t working.

I played my game between school and work. When I started, a man I hadn’t met properly came and acted like the MOD. It took a second for the voice in the back of my head to kick me and remind me of interpersonal communication.

He’s good people. He’s in training for a boss position and I like him. I’ve never met an boss-in-training who I thought was good people. People, yes, but normally they’re just not great people. Oh, I’ve met plenty of bosses who are good people too, including my current one, it’s just I never meet good boss-in-trainings.

He was nice, he tried to help, he communicated, he introduced himself. There’s nothing threatening about him in the least.

Good.

Truth be told, it was his presence that calmed me around the co-worker being happy and the assistant asking (per her job) about the weekend. She says she has to talk to the boss about it, again that’s her job. I told her I wrote it all up and she seemed surprised.

Well, writer. Hypergraphic. Super upset. Also I have a bad memory. I cannot for the life of me remember anything beyond I don’t do my job and her invalidating all of my feelings by blaming me being tired.

Good thing I wrote it down.

At the end of the day, what was said doesn’t matter as much as the outcome. Of me bawling my eyes out and feeling like she was manipulating me into quitting and whatever she took from the conversation.

Which, I have to say, from my view is smug assuredness.

Oh well. There are other jobs. I’m told they’re a dime a dozen.

I can sleep in tomorrow, I’m so flipping excited. Nine more days. Just nine more days.

Week Three (Day Four)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Writing first: Suppose I should officially say this as well.

I am looking for a new set of characters within the Contracted world, or a similar sort of story set in another world. I had a flash of one, quite liked it. Then I lost it. Problem being, I can’t remember when, or much beyond his cold eyes. If it could come back to me (but not in school) that would be great.

The forerunner of an idea is barely more than a fragment. For starters, I need names for these countries I’d be dealing with. But Mr. Wrightworth’s country basically takes over old France (it’s mention in Izzy’s story, then again in Will’s that they won) except they aren’t going down quietly and no conquering country is free of sin.

So, upon catching a rebel, probably needing information, they tie her up with this general or something and he’s had a taste for the lifestyle but is also a douche. Thing is, I’m not feeling the ‘fall for the douche and stay’ plot. Maybe there should be a second guy in there.

Huh, maybe that’s why it feels incomplete. I’ll have to consider that.

Still no Crop work. Ugh. So… Saturday morning I’ll be pounding that out, along with Sunday. Putting in edits isn’t really work for me, especially since I can put on a show or movie in the background.

Other stuff:

Work with the co-worker today, well, not really with, around, near, kind of in passing. I’m currently trying to convince my stomach that I’m not dying and my brain that it’s not too bright in here, that everyone else isn’t louder than usual. I can hear them over my music and it’s at the highest volume I can manage without being in pain.

That volume always cuts them out, so I know it’s just because of a me issue, not a them issue.

I hurt and I’m tired. Work is doing a strip and wax, which is where we move all the things except, like, the aisles themselves, and then a crew comes in and strips the wax off the floor and puts down new wax.

Yesterday we had lots of… we didn’t prepare at all. But. I wasn’t the closing manager, I shut up and did it her way. It wasn’t painful until this morning. Oosh.

So, moving all the stuff, the closer walked up and pushed on one of the mobile things and commented on how it wouldn’t move. She’s a foot or more taller than I am and frankly, I think she has more muscle to her. I frowned, set my hands on the mobile and just leaned.

A body in motion will stay in motion. So the trouble is always getting them moving in the first place, but once they’re moving, they’re good. Well, we moved a third of the mobiles together and then I realized we had ten minutes before the end of shift and I didn’t want to stay later when I was already later than usual and hurting. Leg acting up last night, today my back would like me to know I suck.

But, already hurting and want to go home… I left them, walked to the other side and moved a third of the mobiles by myself while they moved the other third. I’m not super strong, I just know about leverage, motion, and that the mobiles have no option but to move. Once you tell them that, they tend to move.

Today we have to move a bunch of what are called bunkers. Sort of like plastic boxes a foot and a half by a foot by two and a half feet… full, mainly. The items vary in weight to feeling empty to… what was that the one year… sixty pounds? Then lift them onto a stack of somehow organized bunkers on another big thing and push the big thing into another area.

(To hear the next morning about how you didn’t do it properly no matter how you line them up)

Look, I get it, putting them back is an inconvenience.

So is moving them when they weigh half as much as you, when the capable bodies around you aren’t moving or helping because they’re ‘tired.’ It won’t wait until tomorrow, or until you’re rested unless you want to stay for another four hours. Just rip the bandaid off.

This all means I’m sore and tired today, but it’s not the exhaustion of last week, I’m not on the point of tears. I almost feel like I’m wrapped up in a blanket, like besides the anxiety, a calm has come over me.

In school, the ‘bad’ grades are coming in. They were 100s at the beginning, now they’ve dropped as low as 70. But this isn’t my total grade, this is individual grades on assignments and the 70 was because of the missed assignment. The others are between 83 and 95, which, as they’ve said a multitude of time, doesn’t matter to employers. I need to hit their passing percentage of 60. My concern is as we advance toward Christmas, life at work sucks.

Could we de-commercialize Christmas? That would make me so happy.

Ain’t no body need the items we sell at 10pm at night.

Or 11pm.

So, I desperately want 100s as buffers.

The schedule that loads with my days off appear on Sunday. Sweet babies. When the boss gets back, we need to have a sit down conversation.

About more than the co-worker.

I need a day off to myself at least every two weeks. That was what was promised to me at the beginning. I went into this still in my position because that was what was promised. If the promise can’t be met… well.

You’re going to see me cry a lot more.

No, I would have to step down or full on quit. School has to come before work. Anyone would pay me low wages to be walked over, to do the same work. It’s just other companies would be like, “yeah, Aya is in school, we can’t have her work outside her schedule.” or “Yeah, Aya asked for this day off, but what do I care? She’s not as capable as this person I have who’s worked for us for twelve years.”

I wouldn’t have as much to pay down debt, which is key to full on quitting and living off the writing. I’d also have to cut back on what I’m paying in board because I might not be making enough in a paycheck to pay the full board. It’s super irritating to me, but getting through school and into a type of office job would be better for stress, better for my bank account and, depending on the boss, maybe better for writing.

I’ve heard a lot of stories of office workers/desk workers (especially in the almost-secretary position I’m aiming for) to do their own thing between clients. I would love one of those jobs. Writing makes it look like I’m working on something super important too!

I also have to drive sales, obviously. And obviously I’m having a little trouble. I know there are readers out there for me. I know they exist, it’s just finding them. And not finding the people who wouldn’t like my books.

Or…

I could win the lottery. But I hear you have to actually buy a ticket to win?

Week Three (Day Three)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Writing first: I’m now considering/dabbling in smutty short stories or novellas from Coffee and Blood. I mean, come on. They’re vampires who sometimes have sex to pass the time.

It’s just that the sex doesn’t fit in with the actual stories they’re telling. Sex happens between stories, or after stories, or the tales of debauchery are kind of shared in an offhand manner, like they’re relating changing a tire or something.

Contract Taken received a five-star review on Goodreads and I’m so flipping happy. I’ve been seeing a lot of unhappy readers leaving ratings and reviews. Other authors say it’s because I put Contract Taken up for free so I’ve drawn a lot of people to me for the price, but those people don’t necessarily like my style. They just read everything that’s free and then leave bad ratings.

I mean, a rating is personal, so I get that. I just wish I could get more people who like the books to leave reviews.

On the plus side: you can tell I don’t pay for reviews. I don’t have five hundred five-star reviews all vaguely glowing about ‘this author’s book.’ Nope, you can tell they read the whole thing. Or didn’t, but come right out and say they didn’t finish.

Everything else:

2iratx.jpg

I actually think in memes when I get uncomfortable. They’re like little comics which can offset my mood and get me thinking about other things. Sometimes they make me giggle a little and completely remove the mood. So, I use them inside my head when and where possible.

I guess I like memes, is what I should say.

The above is in reference to my desire to call in sick to work. As soon as it popped into my head, I realized it probably was high anxiety riddling my system and my body protesting that enough is enough. I get it, I do.

Every little thing this morning started that pre-attack twitter in my chest. From refilling the cat’s water dish to random thoughts.

I did sleep last night, woke in the middle of tensing up, almost-charlie horse in my freaking leg again. Ugh.

Saw that work posted schedule for me and then looked up the full schedule. We’re not really supposed to do that, but there was a weird thing where I’m the closing manager but I’m not scheduled to close… and my hours were ever so slightly shorter than they usually are.

The person who did the schedule, once I looked at the expanded one, put an extra body with me every night. So, yeah, that’s fun.

I see the person who violated my Facebook privacy on Saturday. I have no intention of bringing it up, but I also know that I can’t talk about personal items with this person. She’s proven to be untrustworthy and it’d just be best if I left off and just focused on work with her.

I don’t work with the person who I had the blow up with, I do see the assistant manager. I don’t actually know where she stands on the person in question. However, that’s her doing her job. It’s no one’s business who she supports, but I do not need another strip taken off me.

I suspect that the extra body is either mandated by the boss (who kind of got involved at 3am in her timezone. I thought it was 9am because I reversed the change) because we all know I’m stressed out and tired and my feet are dragging. I’m like a regular manager.

If I could insert that drum and cymbal sound that goes at the end of a bad joke, I’d do so now.

But it’s true, I’ve been told so often in the past that I work faster than others, I make others feel bad, blah, blah, blah. And then when I hurt or I’m sick, or I’m just having a bad day, their response is:

“Now you know how other people feel.”

Yeah, it’s really shitty of your to bring up.

Instead, I normally inform the person once more that I’m hurt/sick/off and that I am not feeling well in any form of the word. That for me, this isn’t normal, this is very abnormal, this is very wrong.

And, uh, school…

I missed an assignment for keyboarding. It will barely lower my mark but I’m really broken up about it. That’s not like me. It’s really not like me. Especially since I do the assignment and I print it off before I leave the class for the day. How?

How do you mess up that system, brain?

How?

The only time I didn’t do it was this past Friday because we had timed typings and it ran late, so I don’t think I even finished the section until that afternoon. But, I printed it off on Monday and handed it in. I’d say I hope, but she’s already posted my mark for that area.

It was small, very, very, small, but I’m upset because let’s say that was an email I missed.

I’d be in super trouble. No, not really, it’s mainly just a sign of how stressed I’ve been, how out of it and overwhelmed. My brain is skipping about and not focusing on what I need it to focus on. So. I need to pay more attention, actually super figure this out.

Which is super annoying.

Yesterday, I started the reading for Interpersonal Communication. We’re reading a selected self-help book, which I loathe by the way. I hate self-help books. I don’t want some wank millionaire preaching to me about how he became a wank millionaire. Because that’s basically what they do: you’re doing this wrong and this wrong and this wrong.

Bitch, please, I knew that before. Stop telling me how to do it wrong, strip all that nonsense out and tell me how to do it right.

I’m reading How to Win Friends and Influence People. So far, it’s the training my company has given us. Good company, have a treat. But only a little one, because your head is bigger than your bank account already.

Except they don’t tell team members that’s what they’re doing. They’ve just been passing this stuff down.

“Use a person’s name. Introduce yourself.”

“WHY WOULD I DO THAT?”

“Because we said so.”

Ugh. Names are the sticky point for me at the moment. I respond to a lot of different names, including ones that don’t belong to me at all, aren’t even similar to my name. No one ever gets my name.

I once had a regular customer for six years and she called me Rachel every time she came in. I wore a name tag, I corrected her the first two years and then just gave up and started responding to Rachel.

I don’t use other peoples’ names because it sounds insincere and weird. How often do you hear your name in a conversation? Like, really? When the book was written, I can very well see it, but I feel like we’ve swapped over from using actual names to non-verbal communication surrounding the act. We don’t use someone’s name, we now turn to them, or hesitate and make eye contact.

But the book says to use names, so I’ll try to use names.

I will probably cry the first couple of times. Because that’s my reaction to everything for some silly reason. Overwhelmed? Cry. Upset? Cry. Angry? Cry. Happy? Cry.

Sad? Laugh.

Scared? Laugh.

Sympathetic concern? Laugh.

WTF?

Anyhow, started reading that, listening to music at the same time. Now I’m overwhelmed by sound. I need quiet, not even white noise, I just feel like I need to find a sound proofed room and stay there for an hour or so because sound is starting to frustrate me.

Heaven help the poor soul who chews loudly.

Oh, oh, there’s a term for that. I’m in sensory overload.

Yayyyyyy….

I say sarcastically.

This is the first time I’ve noticed entering sensory overload before I basically have an angry temper tantrum inside my head because someone is chewing too loudly or breathing in my direction but two tables away. I guess that’s a plus, but I don’t have the option of secluding myself somewhere and taking a breather.

I was a bit secluded last night, did some writing and watched a show. My unwind time, basically. Wrapped up in a blanket, cat on either side and just doing what I wanted quietly.

That didn’t help.

I feel like I’m constantly blanking. If it weren’t for that internal personal aide, I’d be so pooched. Even with accounting, they wanted us to write up an income statement. My response?

“A what?”

“An… income statement.”

“What goes on that?”

“What goes on a P+L report?”

“I don’t know! How would I know?”

To which I basically facepalm because I do know. Let me tell you, if that voice was an actual person, they’d lose their patience with me a lot.

Whoa. There’s something called Sensory Processing Disorder? And it sounds like it might be linked to OCD (which hypergraphia is also linked to).

Oh, boy, I just went looking for ways to calm down the sensory overload so I don’t end up in a pouting meltdown, because for some reason it’s one of those things I don’t cry over. Nope, kind of pout like a child. I don’t like that reaction either.

Sullen silence, I think my father used to call it. Because, you know, not allowed to throw an actual tantrum.

Anyhow, school is about to start and I need to focus on not throwing up on the person who sits beside me, who is super quiet all the time.