Some Thoughts on Spring

Spring is a strange time for me. Like most living things I go through upheaval in the spring. Some of it is good. Some of it is difficult. Some of it is internal. Some of it is external, some internal, some a special cocktail of mixing the two. Externally weather, work and that fucking daylight savings time are the three big influences. Weather and work are sly and a bit unpredictable. I find my enjoyment of spring as a season is directly related to how much rain there is. Too much sunshine really brings me down and these last couple of drought years have not been good to me. Work is the sly one because on one hand it is our slow season. We don’t see a lot of traffic in stores and that can play with your motivation. Numbers are down and frankly you miss the company of the customers. On the other hand the corporation goes through it’s own Spring upheaval. Committee’s, conference calls, pilot programs, new styles, new initiatives and all the time freaking out because business is slow. So I’m busy and I’m not. And Spring often sees changes in personal. That puts some stresses out there too. Bottom line is the job is a little psychotic in Spring. Summer is different. Summer brings in the business and then the focus becomes more direct.

I hated daylight savings time before they changed it two years ago. The new earlier daylight savings time is a freaking disaster for me. I have become a natural early riser. Usually I wake between five and six and I haven’t used an alarm clock in years. Fall is my most creative time. The journal that got abandoned during the dog days of summer gets updated daily usually starting in late October. (Around the time Daylight Savings Time ends.) I can usually keep that running with the gradual changing of early morning light until around the time Daylight Savings Time restarts when my internal clock is thrown completely off and I retreat from the world. It’s probably a rare thing but I’m sure I’m not alone in hating not just that first week of adjustment but the whole length of Daylight Savings. It’s the sunshine. It brings me down.

Fall is usually about creative production. I write more. I observe more. I would take more pictures but unfortunately my favorite creative outlet lives on light. There are fewer non-working hours with daylight. Spring is about mixing up the creative process. Spring is when I make my tech purchases. Camera and computer upgrades all happen in Spring for me. It is also when I run through my software choices. Everyday I seem to ask myself if this is the best way to process information in and out. The struggle lies in the way I learn. Going through the learning and testing process actually turns off a lot of my creative instincts. I’m reminded of the old “the medium is the message” line because I begin to work on the best ways to express myself right at the time that I have the least to say.

On the tech front this Spring I did very well. I adore my new Nikon D90. I upgraded my computer and more than doubled my monitor space. I have become a twitter junkie. I forced an upgrade on Karen and we are staying more connected and having a lot of fun doing it. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy making my desktop, laptop and phone all keep track of the same things with as little oversight as possible. Kudos to Nambu, Tweetie, Instapaper, Evernote, MacJournal, iBlogger, Blogger and of course Apple (including, yes, MobileMe which I did end up signing up for one more time) for making it all possible. And a special shout out again to Griffin for my Power-Mate which I still love to no end.

Bottom line is not that I need to come out from my cave. Bottom line is that I need to stop beating myself up for having gone in in the first place. This is what I do every spring. I move on. No matter where I am I’m going to write again. I’m going to take more pictures. I’m going to share. That’s my ultimate nature. Hopefully next year I’ll remember these things and you’ll be reading “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Spring” on this page.

Counting Counting Counting

Today wasn't quite what I was hoping for to break out of my funk. I had planned for a quick inventory this morning as I was well prepped. I had a nice productive little afternoon of my own planned out. But then someone else's inventory fell apart. Guess who ended up getting their back. Next thing I know my day is gone. I'm hoping for a little better of a day tomorrow.

I Heard a Rumor that I don't Quite Believe

I may be getting the next two days off! I still don't quite believe it. I've been at the store every day for the last two weeks except for Christmas. All but one of those open to close alone. While it hasn't been too bad I'm starting to dream about selling sunglasses. That's not a good sign. That's not a restful way to spend my off hours. Yesterday was good. I had two packets of sugar in the raw in my tea but other than that slight deviation on the sugar I was true to my new year's resolutions. I even started a book. I was going through my unread books with Colleen and when she heard that I had a copy of The Neverending Story she insisted I start there. It seems like a good story to get back to the basic's of reading books again. I forgot how useful reading myself to sleep is too. Of course there are those times when the book just takes over your mind and you force yourself to stay up just to find out what happens next. It will probably be a wash in the end. 

I Wasn't Even Supposed to be Here Today

I feel one of those Dante Days may be coming on. Today was supposed to be my day off but the person that was supposed to work today is in the hospital. I'm just not feeling all that excited about dragging myself to work this morning. I'll be fine once I get dressed and get out of the house I'm just not feeling it right now. I bought myself a new winter coat last night. It's wool and very toasty. I'm trying to dwell on wearing my new coat to get excited about getting mobile. So far it's not working. What I really want to do is go to work and find another employee there. This will be the eighth straight day that the store has been open and I'm the only one there. That is wearing on me. My desk is buried. The back room has miscellaneous piles of last month's marketing materials. I can't get back there to work on it. It makes me grumbly.

Not So Black Friday

So today kicks off the Christmas Retail season. It's eight o'clock in the morning and many of my friends in retail working for other companies have been at work for four or five hours already. Not me. If fact I went ahead and loaned my only employee to a mall store for the day. I'll be working Black Friday alone. And I can't tell you how little I am stressed about it. That isn't to say that I don't hope to have some business. It's just that where I am and what I sell I feel confident in having a day that I can handle without breaking too much of a sweat. I can't begin to say what a treat that is. It is the "Priceless" moment in the Mastercard commercial.

I spent yesterday in Santa Rosa with my cousin, his girlfriend and a buddy of his from the Coast Guard school. It was a friendly afternoon. We spent the time waiting for the bird to cook playing Trouble. I had no idea that game could get so cutthroat. Anthony even wondered aloud if there had ever been a knife fight caused by the game. What can I say it was silly but it was fun. The food was great and there was plenty of it. All in all the best Thanksgiving I have had in a very, very long time. And a special shout out to Heather, Anthony's girlfriend for driving all over Northern California top pick me up and take me home. Thanks you guys. 

So I'm writing every day in my journal, I'm staying more clearheaded than ever, I've been sneaking down to Mt. View to get adjusted whenever I can, I've started posting here again, and I'm trying to write down one affirmation or wisdom everyday for inspiration. Today was Carlyle's opening line to Characteristics, "The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick." For me it is a reminder to recognize health and happiness when it descends on me. So we may get profitable today but I'm just not going to think about this Friday as black.