Okay. I am now on the trip with my family (yay!). No Vegas this time (that was fun, but as a city, Vegas FAILS IT). So now I'm in the room that my parents got for me and my brother, only, he flaked, so it's just me.

Meh.

My iPod miraculously healed itself. I'm not sure why, but don't wish to taunt or tempt the gods of iPodly goodity with overwrought speculation.

Suffice to say that things are going much better, and after enjoying my first two-consecutive-days-off weekend in waaaaay too long, I'm enjoying my vacation even more. Sure, I'm just sitting in a hotel room blogging on my laptop to post and backdate later....

...but I finished my chore checklists before I went, so I'm confident that all will be well. :)

I feel good.

TIME KOMPRESSION!

Alas, poor iPod, I knew ye well.

It is now dead, and I miss access to my music when I'm on-the-go. As far as how it died, well, it just died. It won't power up, it take a charge, my computer can't detect it as a device to try and reflash....

It's dead.

Man. Of all the things to go wrong. It's always just one more piece of crap after another -- I can't afford a new iPod. If service is available, I don't know about it because I have no internet access (right now) to even find out, and I probably can't afford it anyway.

Since I can only barely afford to even eat right now.

So. Jim bounced a rent check, serving us another eviction notice (do normal people ever see even one? I've been present for about seven by now).

Walker is gone, so of course removed his phone service. Jim knew this was coming but no plans were made to preserve it. In fact, the plan was not to have phone service, since we had the internet. Of course, Walker didn't have his phone service removed, he had it transferred. So instead of having a grace period of a few days/weeks to adjust, the DSL support was instantly dropped.

Normally we'd game tonight, and I'd get to at least kill something in a D&D; campaign, which cheers me up a little bit. But today Jim stayed home because his back was feeling bad. And Jim won't game on any day that he doesn't work because of moral objections (which I respect).

Okay. I miss the iPod, but this is one of those situations where I can't afford to let life get me down. Gotta be cheerful.

So, the receiving position is generally very easy, and it pays better. My hours will generally be less, though. On the other hand, as things stand, Walker left me with a fairly hefty workload. I'm seeing 30 minutes to an hour extra every day for the next two or three weeks handling all the overstock that we need to return.

That all equates into, if not awesome money, probably enough for me to hold where I am and try to make headway against my debts. On the other hand ... David sent us money. This is intended to help me and Jim get a new place, but honestly I'm not sure if that's going to happen.

So David gave me a 500$ loan. I will try my hardest to just not spend any of it so I can give it back, but I can't send it back straightaway. If the bad luck string doesn't end, I may need it.

Doesn't end soon.

I feel that things will get better soon, especially since I've been working so hard to try and make them better.

But now, some angst and fanfiction, in that order.

So. I am now a reciever at the bookstore, which was Walker's old job. It's not a bad job, but I do kind of wish it was my only job. The details aren't so bad, but because we can't find another supervisor (the boys at the head office don't like the idea of promoting our competent employees; they much prefer hiring from outside. For some reason), I'm kind of screwed in terms of scheduling.

By that I mean that the reciever works during the day (10:00 AM to 5:00 PM). And as a supervisor, I work nights (5:00 PM to 11:30 PM Monday through Wednesday, 4:00 PM to 12:30 AM Fridays and Saturdays).

So right now I'm on this funky flex-schedule which pretty much consists of me coming in as early as we can get away with (3:00 PM) without getting overtime to do recieving, then going out onto the floor and doing the standard supervisor stuff.

This kind of sucks, since I'm getting paid less than Walker did for his one job, and I'm doing two. I talked to my boss and asked if I could get a raise, and he said he'd see what he could do, but I'm not going to hold my breath for it. Hope, certainly, but expect?

Not really.

Work is otherwise going well.

We did have an event tonight. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed by the author -- he'd come in a few times to chat up the employees and try to tell us how enamored he was with his own book. I usually ignore the authors that come in (I can admit that; usually I don't care for them).

We've had some good authors in, though. My personal favorite was Peter Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn. He did a reading of a short-story he wrote based on Sherlock Holmes "lost years", and where he was hiding after faking his death. It was pretty good, though very long. I heard almost all of it, and really liked it.

The guy we had today, though? He filled me with hope and confidence. I wasn't trying to listen to him, but due to the way we'd set up the sound equipment, I heard him anyway.

But a little background on that: I was trying for a new configuration; our store has shelves along the walls, with little penninsulas of shelves that extend towards the central area. The true center of the store is filled with islands (technically, they're actually called gondolas). These are shelves on wheels that are a little bit taller than five feet. I think they weigh between two and three hundred pounds, loaded with books. Because they're wheeled, we push them into the 'bays' between the penninsulas (penninsuli?) to clear the center of the floor. Then we bring out chairs, etc.

Depending on the size of the event, we'll make more or less space. For Carly Fiorina during her event last Friday, we moved all of the islands and set up every chair we had. Something like 400 people showed up (370, I think Karen said was the final count -- our store was packed). For this guy?

I said we should set out twenty chairs, but I was being nice. I think he would have had half of the attendance if we didn't get rain.

Anyway, his writing filled me with confidence. Because I believe that my fanfiction is better than this guy's published work, and given my poor self- esteem, that's saying quite a bit. I have to admit: it's been a while since I seriously thought I might get published.

Also, today I got a note from Gal, a former co-worker. She left the bookstore a while back, but we promised to stay in touch, because we got along really well.

So well, in fact, that she said, "I was going to walk out on [the store manager], but then I thought, 'Brian's cool; I shouldn't do that to him'". Which is honestly, quite touching.

It may not be much of a job, but I like to think I do it well. Yeah, I know I can be lazy. I do slack off on pulls, section cleanups, and I let people working under me get away with a lot.

But I do keep the money spot-on, I don't forget closing duties, there has never been a single complaint about me or one of my employees on my shifts, and it seems to me that everyone gets along. So I was touched even more by the note and poem she sent me, which is what you've been spotting in the margins.

I wonder if I should ask her out?

I dunno.

As far as why I haven't been blogging much lately.... There's been a lot of crap going on. Now, Walker (warning: explicit lyrics; myspace page) has a more comprehensive explanation of the ... let us call them shennangigans being perpetrated.

I don't know how to feel about that one. :(

I could use a girlfriend, honestly. But I'm not sure if that's what she wants (it probably isn't). And I'm not sure it's a good idea.

Le sigh.

I have a lot of problems. I hate admitting guilt or responsibility. I'm lazy. I'm not as reliable as I should be. I have a temper.

But damnit, why does it look like I'm one of the most reasonable people I know?

We've got this crazy situation at the place I'm staying. There's nothing I can say that won't get back to someone and piss them off, and of the four people involved, it seems that two of them are working as hard as they can at making sure the situation can't be resolved.

Damnit.

I think I'm becoming a weird sort of semi-bibliophilie. I keep feeling compelled to collect books I think might be informative or helpful with the intent of reading, but actually finish so few of them.... o_o

Must read more.