The Music of the Night

Turn your face away
from the garish light of day,
turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light
--and listen tothe music of the night . . .
--Andrew Lloyd-Webber, The Phantom of the Opera

I've joined the Night People.
This undoubtedly comes as a shock to those who know me, even more so for those who knew me when last I worked a steady stream of night shifts and did little else but complain about working a steady stream of night shifts.
But this time's considerably different. When I worked nights at 7-Eleven, it wasn't so much the shifts themselves I hated, but what they contained: an endless parade of drunk, obnoxious, and vaguely (or sometimes not so vaguely) threatening types. Once I relocated to a store where the natural order of things reigned--meaning the busiest shifts were days and afternoons, and nights were pleasantly slow), I actually began to enjoy life in the bottomless pit between midnight and dawn.
Last night's shift was my first overnighter in a bit more than a year, and tonight will mark the first consecutive night shift for me in very nearly six years. My schedule is simple, now: Sunday night through Thursday night, leaving me off Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. In many ways, it's potentially a better schedule for my home life. I'll see considerably more of Eva than has lately been the case. There's more room in the bed (although Tux expands to fill some of Mommy's room, and, to be honest, I still don't sleep overwell when my wife's not here).
The downside is having to sleep through the day. I got about six hours today, and it wasn't real quality sleep. I'll probably end up spending a good chunk of tomorrow comatose.
But I got through the night okay, with the aid of my little Ipod knockoff. I loaded it up with an eccentric mix of music, trying to strike a balance between relaxing and stimulating. Its relatively puny capacity isn't too much of a problem when every single song is one of my favourites.

So why am I doing this? One word: STRESS.

To my utter lack of surprise, I was recently diagnosed with Peptic Ulcer Disease . Stress is at least a strong contributing factor. I'm on pills that have already done wonders (i.e., I can eat most things without feeling like my intestinal tract's going to rip itself out of my body and squirm away). But my doctor says once I've got one of these things it can recur at any time, and I ought to limit the stress a bit.
But Ken, I hear you all saying, aren't you the calm, capable type, always coucilling others from the school of Bobby McFerrin....'Don't worry, be happy?' How do you square that with an ulcer, hmm?
That's an easy one: shut the hell up.

Apparently I should practice some of my preachery. The fact is, the daily workload is increasing beyond my ability to keep up with it. I don't have time to place my orders properly, much less get needed cleaning done. It's all buried in the minutiae of working days: stock the milk, the eggs are running low, here's a customer with a question, there's a cashier with three questions (and it's usually the same damn cashier), there are two orders at the back door, okay, the eggs...oh, a rep discussing a booking, and...yikes, that order's due in ten minutes and I haven't even started it. By necessity I've become something of a multitasker (at least at work), but I've yet to subvert the laws of physics that prohibit me from being in three places at the same time.
Strip all the little stuff away and you're left with the core of my job: ensuring we're in stock and everything's rotated and well presented.

We're trying this for a month to see if it works for (a) me and (b) the store.

If I can re-learn diurnal slumber, I think it'll work.