Rushed Tidbits

Got home from work around 10:00 last night and drew tomorrow's SJ so Hikaru could have today to work on it -- since I have to be in at 7:30 this morning and won't be able to work on it during the day.

Took my "barista certification test" last night ... I only got half of it wrong, which isn't too bad considering I was guessing at all of it. Y'know, some training would be nice.

Woke up at 3:34 this morning from a dream that I was at work. Dream left me disoriented, and feeling like the past three hours and thirty four minutes of sleep hadn't happened at all. Laurie then woke me up at 5:45 asking me what I wanted for breakfast. "Fifteen more minutes of sleep would be nice," was the first response that came to mind, seeing as how I had intended to get up at 6:00.

At least I get off at 4:00 ... I'll prolly come home and collapse into a nap.

And then get up and draw tomorrow's NN...

-The Gneech, wage slave

All the News That's Fit to Digitize (Mostly Starbucks)

I have come to the conclusion that I prefer evening shifts; mornings are just nuts, and I'm dead on my feet by 10:30. Also, my ankles are starting to bug me ... I may need to go shopping for some other shoes this weekend.

Personalities of customers are starting to filter through, now that I'm getting the hang of the job itself and can start taking in other details.

We have a couple of Italian guys who look to be in their fifties or so, who come in two or three times a day and order in Italian, and vary their drinks just enough that I have to try to figure it out every time.

Yesterday, some chick came through the drive-through and was hanging out the window of her car, grinning up at me, and asked if I knew where there was a bookstore in the neighborhood. I directed her to Barnes and Noble up the road, and the shift supervisor kept saying over the headset, "Get her number, man, she digs you." He wouldn't shut up about it. When she got her latte or whatever and bookstore directions and toddled off her merry way, I said back over the headset, "Give me a break, dude, I'm a married man." He said, "Whoops, my bad, I'm sorry!"

Today, we had a pretty "out" gay couple come in and buy one of the new coffee machines that were on sale. (At least, they sure gave off that "gay couple" vibe ... plus they were shopping together for a coffee maker. What straight guys would do that?) It struck me how well the term "gay" applied to them ... they were grinning, making goofy jokes, just sorta happily being poofy.

No news on the "barista certification" front; I hope to hear more about that tomorrow. I want to get this stuff off of my plate so I can think about other things.

Anyway, on a more personal note, I got NN done today -- I am actually pleasantly surprised, considering how pooped I was last night, and when I got home today. Unfortunately, tomorrow and Thursday do not look so promising for Friday's comics ... although I don't go in until 3:00 on Thursday, so maybe I can get some drawing done in the a.m. Tomorrow I go in at noon, so I am going to spend the morning doing administrative stuff ("I've still got the VEC to deal with???"), sending off to job ads, and maybe doing some writing if I get a chance.

More discussions with Laurie tonight re: writing ... I'm considering putting the strips on hold or a vastly reduced schedule for a few years, and writing in my off hours instead. If I could get a few books under my belt, I should then be making enough money to have writing become my "day job," and I could go back to cartooning at night and on the weekends.

The big problem with this plan, is that I would miss the cartooning (and, I'd like to think, it would miss me). This is, of course, the big problem with having multiple muses, and particularly multiple time-consuming muses ... they both want exclusivity that I don't want to give them.

That's about all I can think of for the moment ... if I think of anything else, I'll post it in the morning. G'nite!

-The Gneech