Thanksgiving involved enjoyment without stress: an ideal and narrow threshold of energy. Matt and I hitched a ride with my sister to eat with the Ashevillian wing of the family, and the ride home resulted in perhaps the most unique moment of the holiday: the two of us returning to our own car by trekking down a Commerce sidewalk past two miles of standstill Black Friday traffic, shouldering huge backpacks and carrying half of a plastic-wrapped birthday cake on a platter. I came home to find several generous checks from my mother and grandmother and an excellent CD thanks to Bec. On Sunday, inspired in part by my artist relatives' urgings to invest more effort in my artwork and in part by an uncharacteristically nonspecific need, I traded all of that birthday money for a shiny new digital camera. As I'll be making frequent use of it in order to justify the purchase, one can expect this space to soon be filled with more images, though undoubtedly few of any merit. (The photos below were shot with a disposable camera and scanned, just for reference.)

We now have a week and change left in the semester and my ambivalence is climbing to critical levels. I have an eerie amount of free time, actually. I've been sinking many hours into LOTR: The Third Age and just finished William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, both gifts from Matt; before that I finished Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole. Over the weekend Matt and I also signed up for Hollywood Video's MVP pass and have since been putting it to exploitative use. At some point soon I might take a break from watching movies and playing Third Age to prep for finals.

Tomorrow night I am taking off of work to go downtown with Charlie and get a tattoo I produced of the Ouroboros. (Charlie's getting the crucified serpent.) I have wanted a tattoo for a long time, am tired of idly talking about it, and feel particularly well-acquainted with this symbol's meanings. And because of what I have already gone through, I am not at all concerned that the procedure will hurt. I will take pictures.

On Saturday night I dreamt I arrived at work to discover that Andy was still alive, puttering around the office as normal before the shift started, in his usual button-down shirt, tight jeans and scuffed brown wingtips. When I remarked that I'd thought he was dead someone said simply that the body had been misidentified. "Oh," I said, and in the dream that made sense. I wonder if I'm handling his death as well as I think I am.