black friday makes my soul poop brown

Happy Post-Thanksgiving, ya'll! Hope your big day of eating was a cheery one. Turkey day is really kind of a bird holocaust sanctioned by American tradition, but I love the holiday anyway. I guess there's just something about having an excuse to stuff face with food that I really appreciate.

My Thanksgiving was a quiet one. This was mainly due to the fact I had to be at work at 5:30am this morning for the horror that is known as Black Friday. Waking up at 4:45am is not exactly my thing, and I had to be sure to go to bed extra early last night in order to wake up in time.

Of course, I wasn't able to get a good evening's rest at all. I'm allergic to a bed time. As soon as I tell my body that it must be asleep by a certain time, it goes and does the opposite. My mind goes in to Super Mega Thinking Concentration Mode. It's really not as productive as it sounds, either.

Seriously, my body and brain hold a conversation that goes something like this:

2 HOURS BEFORE BEDTIME
Body: I need you fast asleep by 10:30pm AT THE LATEST. Okay?
Brain: Sure, sure. 10:30pm. Gotcha.

BEDTIME
Body: Okay. Sleepy time. Ya ready?
Brain: *suddenly clicks on after being shut down all day* No. Actually, I just came up with 50 new things to stress and worry about.
Body: But ... I need to sleep.
Brain: Well, too bad.

2 HOURS AFTER BEDTIME
Body: Why am I still awake?
Brain: Because I hate you.

And that, folks, sums up my life.

In other news, I'm working a new part time retail position. I can't say I love it, especially during weekends like this. The store is always crowded, it's stifling hot, I stand on my feet all day, and I have to be nice to everyone no matter what. The latter is what especially drives me crazy -- I won't even type some of the things I've silently said in my head to a few choice jerks who've stepped foot in to my store. I smile and perkily tell everyone to have a great day, but in my brain I might be thinking something quite the opposite.

Then there are days like this one, where I have to haul around a giant bag on the sales floor and pitch it to people. Mind you, these are busy, harassed shoppers who don't want to hear about a bunch of expensive goodies. They'd rather me just shut up and tell them how to get to the exit without getting trampled to death. But nope, I have to sell away, lugging around a heavy bag, showing off its contents like its Blackbeard's pirate booty itself.

(Is this going to get me fired? Oh well.)

Then, of course, there are my co-workers. Some of them are genuinely nice people, but some of them are almost young enough to be my children. (Weird feeling.) I have nothing in common with these people. They worry about boys and freshmen-year-in-college types of things. I worry about graduate school applications and making beautiful music. We speak foreign languages, me and them. But we stand united, under the common goal of earning a shitty paycheck.

Such is life.

Hopefully tonight I will get a good night's rest. I have a long day ahead of me Saturday: a day of work and then several hours of practice/rehearsal afterwards. Here's hoping my brain will actually cut me a break tonight, and let me sleep for once!