Wednesday, December 20
Complaint #1: We sent 42 packages on Monday and 18 on Tuesday. This involved truly nutty amounts of work. I could complain more effectively if I were in some way involved in this work, but in fact I wasn't: Dan, our shipping manager, and the Mennonite girl who works for us did all the packaging. I just did all the work that they couldn't because the shipping monster et them.
It still sucked.
Complaint #2: My jeans are too tight. Now, normally I would take this as a warning that my Speedy-Gonzales metabolism was finally catching up with me the way people have been warning it would for years and that for all work leaves me with nice upper body tone it's not doing shit for my midriff and I need to start swimming again -- all of which I knew.
However.
These are 29/30 505 Levis. My other two pairs of jeans are also 29/30 505 Levis. I am not particularly inventive in the jeans department; if it lasts more than a year and covers my ass, I figure I'm good.* But my other jeans fit fine.
The fuck is wrong with this pair? Jeans don't shrink in the wash. Do they?
And they're all that's clean, so now I have red marks under my belly button. Keep it up, jeans, and it's the scrap bag for you.
Complaint #3: I had to go Christmas shopping today. As I live in Buttfuck, Nowhere, this involves an hour and a half drive armed with lists from family members who won't have time to go themselves and enough tranquilizers that I can handle city traffic. And on top of that, I despise shopping. I hate stores and their damned perfumes and their tinkly music and other shoppers and their damned perfumes and all the shiny useless junk getting dangled under my nose. And I especially hate browsing. My preferred shopping method is to identify the target and move in for a quick strike and a fast escape before my credit card suffers collateral damage. And since I didn't have good ideas for several of the people on my list, I had to browse.
The problem was compounded by my dear spouse (who spent most of his time reading magazines and commenting smugly on how he got his shopping done early). Dan, as a Jewish agnostic, had no previous experience with Christmas before encountering my family. He's bearing up under it well, probably because my family is also cheerfully agnostic and not overly materialistic. For us Christmas means you buy a gift (nothing fancy, nothing much over fifty bucks) for everyone, and everyone buys you a gift, and then you eat incredibly good food until your eyes cross.
Dan is about two-thirds educated: he's got the eating down pat, and he's very happy (and prompt) about buying everyone else a gift. It's on the third rock that we founder. The family's in the habit of quietly dropping hints and circulating lists right around the Christmas season, but Dan has resisted all prodding. He says he doesn't need anything, and what he does need he'll buy himself. He says people don't need to get him anything.
This, of course, is Unnacceptable, so I spent a lot of time shopping for things for other people to give my husband. While he sat in the car making smug comments.
... actually, it wasn't a half-bad day. But rife with small annoyances. And not enough food in. Oh, well; I suppose me and the jeans could both use some training for Christmas.
* Which rules out a surprising amount of clothing, including almost anything sold as "Women's". Apparently the manufacturers of women's work clothes aren't expecting women to actually work in them.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 547 words.
Comments: I'm learning to trust my subconscious. There's a large chunk of the outline I dutifully wrote up** that basically says, "and then some stuff happens. Um. And THEN...." Because while I can start a story quite easily, and I'm getting better at working out the setup stage, and I pretty much always know the general shape of the end, there's this bit just before the climax that I cannot, for love nor money, get the hang of. I'm making it take up less space, but that's about it.
So I looked at that bit, and I worried about it, and then I thought, "Oh, well. I'll just have to trust that I know what I'm doing." And went on with things.
And today I flipped open my notebook to write down a good snip of dialogue, and read an offhand comment I'd made a month or two back, and spent the hour and a half ride scribbling down the large hunk of plot that had just gone WHUMP in my forebrain. Thank you, subconscious, you weren't just being lazy after all. Here is your cookie.
It was by far the best part of the shopping trip.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Still working on that scratching-head-rubbing-belly thing. Or, in other words, figuring out a way to do description and backstory that doesn't involve pulling the narrative to a screeching halt.
Snips: Why did no one ever compare him to his mother? He'd made his peace with Immelda, even if she'd met his carefully worded, soul-baring peace offering with "That's nice, dear. So are you coming to my party, or shall I give your spot to that lovely young thing of Marco's?"
**When I don't use recipes, I forget and leave the baking powder out. When I don't use outlines, I forget and leave the plot out. Advice to the effect of "this means you're not an outline writer, stop using outlines!", is therefore taken with a grain of salt.
It still sucked.
Complaint #2: My jeans are too tight. Now, normally I would take this as a warning that my Speedy-Gonzales metabolism was finally catching up with me the way people have been warning it would for years and that for all work leaves me with nice upper body tone it's not doing shit for my midriff and I need to start swimming again -- all of which I knew.
However.
These are 29/30 505 Levis. My other two pairs of jeans are also 29/30 505 Levis. I am not particularly inventive in the jeans department; if it lasts more than a year and covers my ass, I figure I'm good.* But my other jeans fit fine.
The fuck is wrong with this pair? Jeans don't shrink in the wash. Do they?
And they're all that's clean, so now I have red marks under my belly button. Keep it up, jeans, and it's the scrap bag for you.
Complaint #3: I had to go Christmas shopping today. As I live in Buttfuck, Nowhere, this involves an hour and a half drive armed with lists from family members who won't have time to go themselves and enough tranquilizers that I can handle city traffic. And on top of that, I despise shopping. I hate stores and their damned perfumes and their tinkly music and other shoppers and their damned perfumes and all the shiny useless junk getting dangled under my nose. And I especially hate browsing. My preferred shopping method is to identify the target and move in for a quick strike and a fast escape before my credit card suffers collateral damage. And since I didn't have good ideas for several of the people on my list, I had to browse.
The problem was compounded by my dear spouse (who spent most of his time reading magazines and commenting smugly on how he got his shopping done early). Dan, as a Jewish agnostic, had no previous experience with Christmas before encountering my family. He's bearing up under it well, probably because my family is also cheerfully agnostic and not overly materialistic. For us Christmas means you buy a gift (nothing fancy, nothing much over fifty bucks) for everyone, and everyone buys you a gift, and then you eat incredibly good food until your eyes cross.
Dan is about two-thirds educated: he's got the eating down pat, and he's very happy (and prompt) about buying everyone else a gift. It's on the third rock that we founder. The family's in the habit of quietly dropping hints and circulating lists right around the Christmas season, but Dan has resisted all prodding. He says he doesn't need anything, and what he does need he'll buy himself. He says people don't need to get him anything.
This, of course, is Unnacceptable, so I spent a lot of time shopping for things for other people to give my husband. While he sat in the car making smug comments.
... actually, it wasn't a half-bad day. But rife with small annoyances. And not enough food in. Oh, well; I suppose me and the jeans could both use some training for Christmas.
* Which rules out a surprising amount of clothing, including almost anything sold as "Women's". Apparently the manufacturers of women's work clothes aren't expecting women to actually work in them.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 547 words.
Comments: I'm learning to trust my subconscious. There's a large chunk of the outline I dutifully wrote up** that basically says, "and then some stuff happens. Um. And THEN...." Because while I can start a story quite easily, and I'm getting better at working out the setup stage, and I pretty much always know the general shape of the end, there's this bit just before the climax that I cannot, for love nor money, get the hang of. I'm making it take up less space, but that's about it.
So I looked at that bit, and I worried about it, and then I thought, "Oh, well. I'll just have to trust that I know what I'm doing." And went on with things.
And today I flipped open my notebook to write down a good snip of dialogue, and read an offhand comment I'd made a month or two back, and spent the hour and a half ride scribbling down the large hunk of plot that had just gone WHUMP in my forebrain. Thank you, subconscious, you weren't just being lazy after all. Here is your cookie.
It was by far the best part of the shopping trip.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Still working on that scratching-head-rubbing-belly thing. Or, in other words, figuring out a way to do description and backstory that doesn't involve pulling the narrative to a screeching halt.
Snips: Why did no one ever compare him to his mother? He'd made his peace with Immelda, even if she'd met his carefully worded, soul-baring peace offering with "That's nice, dear. So are you coming to my party, or shall I give your spot to that lovely young thing of Marco's?"
**When I don't use recipes, I forget and leave the baking powder out. When I don't use outlines, I forget and leave the plot out. Advice to the effect of "this means you're not an outline writer, stop using outlines!", is therefore taken with a grain of salt.
Friday, December 15
This has been... a not-good week. I'm tired all the time, to the point of falling asleep sitting up in my chair on my lunch break at work. My back is better since the chiropractor visit, but still sore a lot. I'm cranky, snapping at Dan over every tiny thing, unable to summon energy for cooking or cleaning, barely eeking a hundred words every morning on the novel no matter how long I stare at the screen, struggling to get through every workday -- never mind energy for the dozen or so personal emails stacked up in my inbox. And I don't know why. The stress hasn't been worse this week than any other week, so why am I folding like an accordion?
And then it hit me. The stress isn't worse than any other week -- for the past three months.
Since approximately mid-September I've been going full-out. I've been averaging nine-hour workdays at a job where we've been under constant stress, and yes, between moving to a new facility, the three large orders, the Christmas rush, the constant shortages, the utterly unwanted visit from the FDA (seven fucking *hour* inspection, and at least two weeks of fallout -- fuck you very much, federal government), and the usual run of near-disasters and last-minute confusions, it has been pretty constant stress. What time off I have, I've been either doing housework or stressing about not doing the housework. My weekends (as I only get those every other week) have been pretty consistently eaten by holidays or the exhausting car search. And throughout I've been getting far too little sleep and fighting like a demon to get in my hour a day writing the novel.
There's a certain line of credit you build up with your body and soul to cash in when you need that bit of extra push. I'm broke. Frankly, the randomly-falling-asleep suggests I'm well past broke, into the red, and heading for bankruptcy.
And there's not a damn thing I can do about it. The only thing I can give up is the writing, and I don't wanna. Everyone at work is just as stressed as I am (in the case of my parents, far more) and that's the thing about small companies: if you bug out on shouldering your share of the work, it doesn't just vanish off into the haze of Someone Will Deal With It. You get to watch the load fall hard on everybody else. Letting the housework slide isn't plausible, because not eating and wearing last week's laundry doesn't exactly help with the stress.
So I'm scraping along. We ordered pizza last night, to my shame, but I don't feel like a push could do me in this morning. And it's all limited. Tomorrow is our last cheesemake. Wednesday is our last milking. There's Christmas (for which I have not bought a single gift, I might add) and then, please god, if nothing else blows up, there will be time.
There'd better be time.
So this must be that "growing up" thing everyone warned me about. Dammit, why didn't I duck?
And then it hit me. The stress isn't worse than any other week -- for the past three months.
Since approximately mid-September I've been going full-out. I've been averaging nine-hour workdays at a job where we've been under constant stress, and yes, between moving to a new facility, the three large orders, the Christmas rush, the constant shortages, the utterly unwanted visit from the FDA (seven fucking *hour* inspection, and at least two weeks of fallout -- fuck you very much, federal government), and the usual run of near-disasters and last-minute confusions, it has been pretty constant stress. What time off I have, I've been either doing housework or stressing about not doing the housework. My weekends (as I only get those every other week) have been pretty consistently eaten by holidays or the exhausting car search. And throughout I've been getting far too little sleep and fighting like a demon to get in my hour a day writing the novel.
There's a certain line of credit you build up with your body and soul to cash in when you need that bit of extra push. I'm broke. Frankly, the randomly-falling-asleep suggests I'm well past broke, into the red, and heading for bankruptcy.
And there's not a damn thing I can do about it. The only thing I can give up is the writing, and I don't wanna. Everyone at work is just as stressed as I am (in the case of my parents, far more) and that's the thing about small companies: if you bug out on shouldering your share of the work, it doesn't just vanish off into the haze of Someone Will Deal With It. You get to watch the load fall hard on everybody else. Letting the housework slide isn't plausible, because not eating and wearing last week's laundry doesn't exactly help with the stress.
So I'm scraping along. We ordered pizza last night, to my shame, but I don't feel like a push could do me in this morning. And it's all limited. Tomorrow is our last cheesemake. Wednesday is our last milking. There's Christmas (for which I have not bought a single gift, I might add) and then, please god, if nothing else blows up, there will be time.
There'd better be time.
So this must be that "growing up" thing everyone warned me about. Dammit, why didn't I duck?
Tuesday, December 05
Hmm. Two days later, the LJ feed has yet to pick up my post.
Interesting.
Let's see how long it takes to pick up this one.
In other news (for those of you not on LJ) Dan and I are off to the first of his immigration-related appointments. We both have to go because the sponsor (that's me) is required to be present. This is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation.
If we aren't on time, they trash our application and we have to start all over again, including the bit where we pay them over $2000 in fees. This isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation either.
We will be forking out more money today for the privilege of being treated like mushrooms*.
The vast amount of illegal immigration in this country seems suddenly much more reasonable.
*sigh* Wish us luck.
* Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit, for those of you not familiar with the saying.
Interesting.
Let's see how long it takes to pick up this one.
In other news (for those of you not on LJ) Dan and I are off to the first of his immigration-related appointments. We both have to go because the sponsor (that's me) is required to be present. This is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation.
If we aren't on time, they trash our application and we have to start all over again, including the bit where we pay them over $2000 in fees. This isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation either.
We will be forking out more money today for the privilege of being treated like mushrooms*.
The vast amount of illegal immigration in this country seems suddenly much more reasonable.
*sigh* Wish us luck.
* Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit, for those of you not familiar with the saying.
Sunday, December 03
First off: if I owe you email/replies to comments/critiques/attention, I am so sorry. This has been yet another very long, stressful week for me, and I am months behind on this stuff. Not to mention, y'know, posting.
So, the week in review:
A. Having finished moving the old cheeses into the new cellar, we started putting new cheese in as well.
The good: Having, at long last, enough room. No longer stacking cheeses to the ceiling, giving one the feeling of imminent Death by Cheese whenever working between stacks. No longer having to contort self into a pretzel to work the stacks under the AC unit. Elbow injuries greatly reduced. New cooler is quiet, not filled with loud fans. Cellar could probably double as a bomb shelter in a pinch.
The bad: Goddamn stairs are killing me. More floor to mop. New routines make everyone testy. Cellar is young in the ways of mold, meaning that at least two batches have been infected with Evil Black Crap and another looks iffy: that's over 500 pounds of cheese we could loose. New cooler is quiet: the XM radio will not work in concrete bunker.
B. We moved all the cheesemaking equipment to the new cheeseroom and made cheese in it for the first time on Wednesday.
The good: OMG, room! No longer have to sit in other people's laps to perform necessary cheesemaking tasks. No longer having to cram cheese hoops into odd nooks and crannies. Greatly lessened mildew problems. Head injuries due to low-slung light fixtures have vanished, thanks to ten-foot ceilings. Old room converted to cleaning and packaging room, making both tasks much easier. New room is filled with light.
The bad: Less excuses to grope Dan in passing. Everything one needs is either in the old room or way the fuck over there. Much, much, much more floor to mop. New routines. Boss has decided that because we're in the new room we will stop making cheese four times a week and start making six to seven times a week from now until the cows dry off at Christmas. That sucking sound you hear is my spare time for the month of December going down the drain.
C. Sent another pallet of cheese to Big Corporate Buyer.
The good: Less cheese to work. No longer going around threatening to send co-workers home with 250 pounds of cheese to store in their fridge. Eventually one hella big check. Corporate Buyer impressed with our professionalism.
The bad: Wrapping over 200 wheels of cheese. Packing a pallet when we're not really set up to pack pallets. Out of nearly everything from now until, like, doomsday, or the 2nd week of December, whichever comes first. Sales manager overworked, runs around panicking like chicken with his head cut off, makes stupid mistakes because he's panicking, blames mistakes on other people, gets new asshole chewed by boss for blaming mistakes on other people. Rinse, lather, repeat. Corporate Buyer clearly on crack.
D. Made appointment with chiropractor.
The good: Back may cease to be my sworn enemy, as it has been since I first started dealing with the Cellar Steps of Doom back in late October. I would really like to have a better superpower than Rice Crispies Girl.
The bad: Doctors are icky!
E. Went car shopping again.
The good: Found two cars, in our price range, that may be worth dragging my dad down to look at. Potential end of driving the Great White Cow. Bought a map, thus decreasing our general stress levels by at least a third (d'oh). Remembered to eat this time. Got to take Dan to some of my favorite little food markets. Our fridge has been invaded by giant salami.
The bad: Drove two hours to stand around in parking lots dealing with salesmen. Got stuck talking to nice but very long-winded Egyptian used-car dealer. Buying new car means cleaning the other two.
F. Wrote every day this week.
The good: Wrote every day this week!
The bad: Had to get up early to write every day this week. Also, general stress levels may be catching up with me: woke up this morning -- my only day sleeping in, and OMG was it GOOD -- with a sore throat and a head full of fluff. As I do not have time to be sick, I plan on spending the day huddled in front of the computer speed-eating oranges and garlic soup and potentially gagging down the cure for all sick.
I will try to motivate myself to catch up on the things I'm behind on, but, uh... don't hold your breath.
So, the week in review:
A. Having finished moving the old cheeses into the new cellar, we started putting new cheese in as well.
The good: Having, at long last, enough room. No longer stacking cheeses to the ceiling, giving one the feeling of imminent Death by Cheese whenever working between stacks. No longer having to contort self into a pretzel to work the stacks under the AC unit. Elbow injuries greatly reduced. New cooler is quiet, not filled with loud fans. Cellar could probably double as a bomb shelter in a pinch.
The bad: Goddamn stairs are killing me. More floor to mop. New routines make everyone testy. Cellar is young in the ways of mold, meaning that at least two batches have been infected with Evil Black Crap and another looks iffy: that's over 500 pounds of cheese we could loose. New cooler is quiet: the XM radio will not work in concrete bunker.
B. We moved all the cheesemaking equipment to the new cheeseroom and made cheese in it for the first time on Wednesday.
The good: OMG, room! No longer have to sit in other people's laps to perform necessary cheesemaking tasks. No longer having to cram cheese hoops into odd nooks and crannies. Greatly lessened mildew problems. Head injuries due to low-slung light fixtures have vanished, thanks to ten-foot ceilings. Old room converted to cleaning and packaging room, making both tasks much easier. New room is filled with light.
The bad: Less excuses to grope Dan in passing. Everything one needs is either in the old room or way the fuck over there. Much, much, much more floor to mop. New routines. Boss has decided that because we're in the new room we will stop making cheese four times a week and start making six to seven times a week from now until the cows dry off at Christmas. That sucking sound you hear is my spare time for the month of December going down the drain.
C. Sent another pallet of cheese to Big Corporate Buyer.
The good: Less cheese to work. No longer going around threatening to send co-workers home with 250 pounds of cheese to store in their fridge. Eventually one hella big check. Corporate Buyer impressed with our professionalism.
The bad: Wrapping over 200 wheels of cheese. Packing a pallet when we're not really set up to pack pallets. Out of nearly everything from now until, like, doomsday, or the 2nd week of December, whichever comes first. Sales manager overworked, runs around panicking like chicken with his head cut off, makes stupid mistakes because he's panicking, blames mistakes on other people, gets new asshole chewed by boss for blaming mistakes on other people. Rinse, lather, repeat. Corporate Buyer clearly on crack.
D. Made appointment with chiropractor.
The good: Back may cease to be my sworn enemy, as it has been since I first started dealing with the Cellar Steps of Doom back in late October. I would really like to have a better superpower than Rice Crispies Girl.
The bad: Doctors are icky!
E. Went car shopping again.
The good: Found two cars, in our price range, that may be worth dragging my dad down to look at. Potential end of driving the Great White Cow. Bought a map, thus decreasing our general stress levels by at least a third (d'oh). Remembered to eat this time. Got to take Dan to some of my favorite little food markets. Our fridge has been invaded by giant salami.
The bad: Drove two hours to stand around in parking lots dealing with salesmen. Got stuck talking to nice but very long-winded Egyptian used-car dealer. Buying new car means cleaning the other two.
F. Wrote every day this week.
The good: Wrote every day this week!
The bad: Had to get up early to write every day this week. Also, general stress levels may be catching up with me: woke up this morning -- my only day sleeping in, and OMG was it GOOD -- with a sore throat and a head full of fluff. As I do not have time to be sick, I plan on spending the day huddled in front of the computer speed-eating oranges and garlic soup and potentially gagging down the cure for all sick.
I will try to motivate myself to catch up on the things I'm behind on, but, uh... don't hold your breath.
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