Archives—September 2008

September 1—And so it begins.

I'm working seven days a week now, carefully scheduling all my free time to divide it between chores and hobbies. I have Thursday morning free and plan to spend it painting; next Tuesday I have off because I'm taking Bolie to the vet and will likely spend the free day painting, cleaning, and watching a movie.

Anyway, my first day at PetCo went well enough. Even though the first thing that happened was I got bitten by a rat, I still like it a lot better than Linens 'N Things so far. Having said that, Linens 'N Things isn't so bad now that I'm not closing anymore. I spent the morning there unloading a truck and the afternoon doing customer service; the place was a madhouse because of the Labor Day sale. It was enjoyable, though; the only thing I didn't like was being paged constantly. I should look into replacing that job with a clerical one downtown or something. I should try again with the various local movie theatres and bookstores.

Anyway, what with the two jobs, I'm not going to be able to update as often. I'll try to at least keep up with the political blog (I updated briefly for tonight), but it will be a while before I can post a new ARSE or anything. Sorry.

September 4—Busy Busy Busy

I'm busy and getting busier, yet strangely happy. Who'd have thought I thrive on stress? Oh, wait, this isn't stress; it's anti-boredom. Also, my latest leap to maturity, that being of course (ironically) the ending of a friendship, had a lot to do with it. I took a lot of pride in my reaction to that nonsense, and it spread. My newfound attitude is making what could be an unpleasant stage of my life easier, even enjoyable.

The Linens 'N Things job is perking up now that I'm not working nights, especially now that I've learned more about the layout of the store. Also, the management's organizational issues I hated so much when working nights work more to my advantage during the day; I'm left to my own devices and more or less slack off the whole time except for doing customer assistance, which is usually nice because people are grateful for the help. I'm still looking for other work, of course, but that's met with limited success so far. Still, if I keep looking, something is bound to turn up.

Naturally, I've decided to fill my already full schedule still further by trying to do some volunteer work with the SPCA and Red Cross. The Central Texas SPCA is like five minutes from the house, so that may be a better bet for me than the Red Cross on the other side of town. I'd really love to do both, but the long bus ride down there may not be such a good idea. Though that would be reading/knitting time . . .

Anyway, I spent this morning painting. I started an abstract piece with red, yellow, and blue blocks. Next time I work on it, I'll even out the edges of said blocks, add different shades of red/yellow/blue blocks, and paint some thin white lines over them. I think if I improve (and I will with time), I can start making paintings to give to people as presents. I think I'll do something wavy with cool colors next, and then maybe something completely random and jagged. I'd like to try stretching my own canvas, but I'll need more money before that happens.

I've updated the political blog.

September 28—So, I haven't actually been busy.

I've not been as busy as I said I would be in my last update. I quit the job at PetCo after only two days because of appalling micromanagement and negligence in animal care: For starters, they kept the sick animals in this locked, windowless room that also housed cleaning supplies and a freezer with dead animals in it. So I went home that night, never returned, and called 311. I've had a couple of interviews at other places since then (might be starting at Border's soon), plus I'm liking the Linens 'N Things job more, though with any luck I'll be replacing that job with one at the Alamo Drafthouse when they do some hiring in a month or two.

Anyway, working and job hunting have kept me offline, but I've also not been around as much because my grandfather was in town for about a week because of Hurricane Ike. I therefore spent as much time as possible out of the house, whether at LNT or just running errands.

I went to Houston Friday night and saw my old roommate Kirston. I brought him a book I'd seen in Barnes and Noble the night before called Start Your Own Bar and Club. I was slightly reluctant about giving it to him since it seemed like he might have already known everything that was in it, but he seemed quite pleased.

Anyway, I've been working on a sweater with the Obama logo on it. I finished the back and am mostly done with the front; I've written the charts for it and will post them when I have more time to update.

I still haven't had time to update the political blog; sorry. Maybe tomorrow.