Unexpected events.

All my worry about Thanksgiving was for naught-- it was one of the best ones I can remember. The day started with a slew of wonderful presents from my wonderful Evan, after which we packed up and headed to Atlanta for the feast. The total group was Evan, my sister, brother-in-law, cousin and me, and we had dinner with some of my sister's friends who had a beautiful house, excellent culinary skills, impressive alcohol tolerance and the kind of sharp, crass sense of humor that I appreciate most. After we ate, we spread out between a few rooms and left the patio door open to enjoy the night air. At some point a huge, tan Boxer-looking dog wandered onto the patio and into the house and simply made himself comfortable, peering into various rooms and helping himself to play with the family dog's toys (about which said dog was less than thrilled). My sister's friends assumed he belonged to one of their neighbors and asked around but no one seemed to recognize him. He was very sweet, very hungry and didn't bark once all night, so, naturally, they're fairly set on adopting him. Food, family, friends, wine, birthday cake, and a home for a stray dog: that's a damn fine Thanksgiving.

I've had a bit of a revelation since I started the part-time job: I'm not as awful a person as I thought. For ages now I've kind of accepted the fact that I'm an asshole because in a given situation I seem to excel most in the role of the Bad Cop (and I usually enjoy it). I'm seeing now, though, that might not be all my own fault. I'm a completely different person at the new job-- patient, friendly, outgoing and upbeat-- and it's because I enjoy my new job infinitely more than my full-time one. It involves a subject I enjoy (video games) and I get to do something for people that makes them happy (talk about and sell games), whereas in my full-time job all I do is I make them upset (harassing them about money, violations, rules, etc). It is a good thing to know that I'm a nice guy after all, and not somehow broken with my demeanor switch jammed permanently into Surly Asshole mode.

And that's all well and good, but it doesn't really help the fact that I'm working a full-time job that I completely loathe. I love the people I work with, but over the past few months I've steadily grown to hate the work I do and the person I have to be there. This is why I've decided to quit, even if it means dipping into my savings until another full-time position becomes available to me. I can't describe how much it terrifies me to give up a job that's been so secure, well-paying and often rewarding-- especially here in Athens, which has a nonexistent job market-- in favor of a future that isn't at all certain. But the question I keep asking myself is, How long should you go on being miserable simply because you know it's safe? I don't quite know what my future looks like except, with growing certainty, that this job is not going to be a part of it. I'm trying my best to believe that everything else will become equally clear.

Work, the holidays and Pharaoh

Pharaoh went to the vet a few days ago for his yearly checkup and shots. I'm proud to say he's fit and in great health, just very large-- 17 pounds, according to Dr Maxwell's scale. ("Oh, he is a monster," she said when I brought him into the room.) He fell into a strangely subdued funk afterwards, though, that he's only slowly coming out of now. I don't know if it was because he was traumatized or angry, but I actually miss his surliness.

In other news, my job situation seems to finally be changing for the better. I still have my full-time job, but I started a part-time job a few weeks ago at a video game retailer and am loving it. It's my first experience in retail and it's been a big challenge to adjust-- I wrongly assumed that good customer service skills could be applied equally in any field. But I'm making progress, I (of course) love the merchandise, I get along well with the rest of the staff and there are some exciting opportunities for advancement that will hopefully be opening up for me there in the future. Until then, it's kind of refreshing not being in a managerial position. Organizing a display of games doesn't have quite the same stress level involved as, say, going to court and evicting people from their homes. And hey, it's some pocket money in time for the holidays.

And that reminds me to note that we're having our office Thanksgiving lunch in about an hour, then tomorrow Evan and I are going to my sister's and brother-in-law's in Atlanta to have the main event with them and some of their friends. For as long as I can remember my dad and stepmom have held a huge family dinner back in Asheville-- far and away my favorite day of the year-- but this year they're out travelling. I'm sure Atlanta will be fun, but it would have been really great to be back in Asheville in a year that Thanksgiving and my birthday coincided.

But this is a time to be thankful, not complaining, right? I know we'll have a fantastic time, and hope everyone else does too! (I'm making a cheesecake just to be safe.)

The new site is up and running!

It took a lot longer than expected, but the new version of aporia is here! (If you're reading this post via some other means [ahem], I humbly request you take a look at the site to see what I'm talking about. Plase? Don't make me pile on the Jewish guilt.) As you can see, in keeping with current Web 2.0 standards there are a lot more gadgets, gizmos and even doodads available in that handy toolbar on the left. On the right there are some helpful ads from Amazon; it's worth a shot, right? And sprinkled throughout, there are more exclamation marks, because let's face it: the old layout was looking kind of lonely and sad. With comments now enabled and my email address more prevalent I'm hoping it'll also be a little easier to contact me. Hey, speaking of-- what do you think of this new version? Any suggestions? Run into any bugs? Do let me know.

Sometimes I still like my job.

Boss: Can I use a few of your stamps?
Me: Yeah, hang on.
Boss: No no, I'll get them. You don't do errands.
Me: I'm glad we have an understanding.

Better late than never--

The Italy pictures are up! Head on over to this shiny new flickr set to see them. I'm not sure how it happened with my middle-grade digital camera and shaky hands, but there are some truly beautiful ones in there. Soon to come: a lengthy update about the trip.

Also soon to come: my birthday, which is on Thanksgiving Day again this year. Nothing wrong with turning 25, is there?

Home again...

I'm safely returned from Italy and have several hundred pictures to sort through, optimize and share (and those only cover the first couple days, after which my camera broke. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise?). The trip was phenomenal, to put it mildly-- even the handful of rough patches we had just made the rest of it seem that much better. I'll withhold my explanation until I get the pictures finished, though, in hopes the two will work well together in describing the experience.

In more general news, I'm starting to believe, tentatively, hopefully, that some of the rough times I've been going through are finally coming to an end. I have a new job lined up, about which I'm very excited; employment issues have accounted for a big chunk of the recent unpleasantness. Most importantly, though, I feel like I'm reaching a point where I'll be able to talk about all these things in something other than cryptic, abstract terms, and that'll be a huge help both to me and this poor, stumbling journal.

This journal is also going to be going through some big changes and reorganization soon, so if anything suddenly ceases to function... well, it'll still be broken, I guess, but at least you'll know why.