On sleep and sushi revolutions

Halfway through my week of not seeing anyone, and I can tell you silent readers that it's something I should've done ages ago. It's like taking a vacation from the world. I'm using my duvet as a cocoon and should be emerging as a rested, hopefully rather normal person sometime by the end of the week.

My six hours of prescribed social time at work haven't been half bad. Yesterday was even pretty nice. One of the Mongolian dishwasher people is turning into my favorite kind of ally - the silent and extremely helpful kind. We have next to no way of actually communicating due to language barriers, but still he does little things for me when I'm too busy to do them myself because he's a million times more effective than the other Mongolian dishwashers. He clears tables, carries the heavy trays of glasses from the dish room to my work station so I don't have to do it, and yesterday he moved all the chairs from the outdoor seating areas into the restaurant for me, despite already having changed to go home and it really not being his job at all. Some people are just nice, I guess.

Now that Shan's started leaving earlier in the evenings, I become the only person available that can speak Swedish well enough to be able to interact with any of the customers, making sitting down to eat a thing of the past, and toilet breaks extremely short. Suddenly it's like I'm calling the shots with everything though. Since I alone hold the power of communication, I'm the one who tells everyone what to do and when. It feels a bit strange. I've only been there for two months now, I never figured I'd be put in a position of any kind of authority in that time. Well, I say authority, but having the power to say who gets sushi and who doesn't probably isn't something anyone would start a revolution for.

"We the people demand the right to tell customers that from an hour before closing time, the kitchen has closed and we only do takeaway sushi!"

Today Karate Husband's oldest (? man, I don't know, he has like seven kids or something) daughter (who's also technically my boss but is away on parental leave) came to work for a family dinner thing, celebrating her son (I think?) turning one. Her name is the same as my name, and we're both a little intrigued and weirded out by it. It's a really uncommon name, so to go "Hi [name]!" and be able to go "Hi [same name]!" back is something that's never happened before to either of us. We're approaching each other with tentative curiosity. I'm calling her SameName.

She made some small talk today before people started showing up, asking how I liked working at the restaurant, how old I was and what I did before I started there. I heard myself go "Well, I studied architecture and got my Bachelors degree, but the stress made me sick so I wanted to do something else" and instantly felt like I'd said too much. I don't generally tell people I don't know very well about stuff like that. I mean, being unwell is pretty personal to me, especially since it was mental rather than physical. At least I didn't go "Well, I suffered a pretty paralyzing depression with panic attacks", so 'sick' is still open to interpretation. I hope she doesn't think I'm weird.

I do give off a slightly loopy impression at times though. Ah well.