Coffee, are you breaking up with me?

For obvious reasons, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, despite drugging myself with the only sleep aid I currently have in my possession (NyQuil). I tossed and turned all night worrying about how today would go. I fell asleep pretty quickly, but woke up every hour, on the hour, worried I would sleep through my alarm, even though Sexy Boyfriend had to get up at the same time as me, and thus set his alarm as well. Then, at 5:00, when I had finally gotten rolling with a full hour and a half of uninterrupted, non-neurotic, restful sleep, my cat decided it was time to be a jackass and started scratching stuff, which wakes me up, and then I had to get up and lock him out of the room, and then it took me 15 minutes to fall back to sleep. Then the alarm went off at 6:14.

Do you ever do that? I only set my alarm for times that do not end in 0 or 5. I will never set it for 6:00, always 6:01, and never 6:35, it would be 6:34 or 6:36. I think that I think it's bad luck. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, the commute to work went surprisingly well. I was very paranoid I would be late, but made it with plenty of time to spare. I was, however, very disappointed that the Starbucks in the mall I now work in does not open until 10am, while I have to be for work at 9. So I couldn't get a coffee. So sad. This meant that I basically drug my ass around for the whole day, cause I barely slept, and had no caffeine. Oh, sweet Caffeine, with your mind-buzzingness and your throat warmy-ness, why do you foresake me? Why in my hour of need do you refuse to reveal yourself? Is this a test?

Because of the circumstances that surrounded Dooce's professional demise, I want to blog about work as little as possible, and will not divulge the company for which I now work. All I will say is that it is in clothing retail, and it's in the mall. Very different from selling cheap Swedish furniture over the phone while working in an office. Very different. So, it makes sense that I would be very nervous. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of my new co-workers. Usually, in any service industry establishment, from retail to food service, the weekdays are staffed by "The Regulars". These are usually people with families, who are no longer students, sometimes middle aged or older. And even when they are the sweetest people in the world, they usually are quite suspect of new people and can seem a little stand-offish. But these guys weren't. They were all very friendly, and even though I know they aren't perfect, and neither am I, at least we are starting in a better place than you usually start in.

Today was pretty overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. While I was very anxious, and unsure, and stressed, and thus used up all my energy in the first half hour I was there (maybe if I'd had a coffee it would have been better), I also wasn't bombarded with way too much information and way too many new things. I helped out on the floor a lot of the day, folding and re-stocking and getting to know my way around a bit, and the other part of the day I watched training videos, filled out some paperwork, and tested my keys and codes and stuff.

I feel exhausted, and am ready to collapse. I was even way too tired to go shopping for shoes. That should give you an indication of how tired I am. Please forgive me if I told you I would call you tonight and you don't hear from me. I want to take advantage of my exhaustedness and maybe get a restful night's sleep.