Quandary
Today is December 26th, which coincidentally is not only Boxing Day but also the beginning of Kwanzaa. Being a white boy from Podunk Ohio, neither apply to me but I thought I'd mention them anyway.
Asked my Canadian boss a few months ago what Boxing Day was, and he told me it was the day to box up all your unwanted gifts and return them. He's a notorious smartass and I'm pretty sure he was pulling my leg, but I'm abstaining from Googling it to maintain the day's sense of mystery and wonder.
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You know you've grown up when all you can think to say when asked repeatedly over a two month period for a Christmas list is "A percolator."
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Got it. The coffee from it is delicious.
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My sister drove up to town for the holiday. It's always cool-as-you-please to see her. She lives just down in Cincinnati, but still it seems like forever between her visits. For Christmas I gave her a framed print of the mannequin drinking the can of Coke. I lost the air pump for the mattress she sleeps on in the living room and had to put out $20 for a new one. It was either that or blow up a double air mattress all by me onesy, which would result in hyperventilation to the point of hallucination. On second thought... where's that receipt?
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Went skating with the bro' and his family at Dayton's Riverscape ice rink Christmas Day. Much fun was had by a couple of us. My brother got to skate for a few minutes before one of the blades fell clean off one of his 20+ year old Bauers. My littlest niece and nephew just couldn't quite skate, and the guards fearing injury and liability had to ask them to leave the ice. My sister-in-law and oldest niece, though, did a good job. So we skated while my brother watched longingly from the benches. I felt bad for him.
Someone asked me to take their group's picture, which is fortunate because I kind of have a knack for picture taking. I turned around and the guy said "Hey, Tim Horton's guy!" I said "Hey, regular customer guy!" Turns out a group of Tim Hortons regulars was there, including another person I knew, but not from Tim Hortons. Troy is about 20 miles from where we were. It's a small small world.
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If you notice a different tone to this from my usual effervescent bubbly optimism, it's because I have something weighing on my mind: Dark Haired Girl once said to me, "You know, Andy, your work is going to take you away from here." It's true. There isn't enough photographic work within 75 miles to constitute a sustainable income, and I don't want to be a full time industrial or fast food worker who takes pictures on the weekends. Sure, there's the McPortrait factories at Wal-Mart and Sears, but any trained monkey can do that stuff. I'm going to have to go where the work is. That's the root of why she and I hit the brakes after our relationship got a little too solid... it's easier for friends to move apart than significant others.
Being a social worker, Dark Haired Girl has even begun sending me links to photography job opps all over the country. It's a sad truth, but in the short- to mid-term future, I'm most likely going to have to move away. The thought of leaving Dark Haired Girl and her girls (to whom I've grown quite attached) scares me to death. With this nagging on my mind, I've been irritable and short-tempered lately.
I've been in a salty mood at work lately because of the Dark Haired Girl dilemma. I bend over backward to accomodate my customers, and I take it personally when people drive away displeased, but the other morning a customer was giving me attitude and pouting about something. Despite my best efforts otherwise (no matter what, it's tacky to be impolite to customers), she drove away unhappy and I wasn't sorry. In fact I rather enjoyed pissing her off.
I'm known around town as "That Nice Young Man at Tim Hortons", and I get recognized everywhere I go. It's not an act. I don't get paid enough for those kinds of theatrics. Making my customers happy genuinely makes me happy. That incident was highly uncharacteristic.
---
My sister met Dark Haired Girl for the first time Christmas Eve. Christmas day, she was all my sis could talk about... what a sweetheart and how wonderful she was. I will never in my life find anybody else as perfect as her... sure, she has some road rage issues (for God's sake, Hell hath no fury as Dark Haired Girl cut off by an inattentive driver), but that's the sum total of all my complaints about her. Pretty short list. So here's my ultimate dilemma: love or true calling.
Honestly, there's no way I'm going to forsake the last two years of my life (and accumulated student loan debt therefrom) just to stay in the area, but neither can I stand the idea of leaving.
You can appreciate my current state of frustration.
Asked my Canadian boss a few months ago what Boxing Day was, and he told me it was the day to box up all your unwanted gifts and return them. He's a notorious smartass and I'm pretty sure he was pulling my leg, but I'm abstaining from Googling it to maintain the day's sense of mystery and wonder.
---
You know you've grown up when all you can think to say when asked repeatedly over a two month period for a Christmas list is "A percolator."
---
Got it. The coffee from it is delicious.
---
My sister drove up to town for the holiday. It's always cool-as-you-please to see her. She lives just down in Cincinnati, but still it seems like forever between her visits. For Christmas I gave her a framed print of the mannequin drinking the can of Coke. I lost the air pump for the mattress she sleeps on in the living room and had to put out $20 for a new one. It was either that or blow up a double air mattress all by me onesy, which would result in hyperventilation to the point of hallucination. On second thought... where's that receipt?
---
Went skating with the bro' and his family at Dayton's Riverscape ice rink Christmas Day. Much fun was had by a couple of us. My brother got to skate for a few minutes before one of the blades fell clean off one of his 20+ year old Bauers. My littlest niece and nephew just couldn't quite skate, and the guards fearing injury and liability had to ask them to leave the ice. My sister-in-law and oldest niece, though, did a good job. So we skated while my brother watched longingly from the benches. I felt bad for him.
Someone asked me to take their group's picture, which is fortunate because I kind of have a knack for picture taking. I turned around and the guy said "Hey, Tim Horton's guy!" I said "Hey, regular customer guy!" Turns out a group of Tim Hortons regulars was there, including another person I knew, but not from Tim Hortons. Troy is about 20 miles from where we were. It's a small small world.
---
If you notice a different tone to this from my usual effervescent bubbly optimism, it's because I have something weighing on my mind: Dark Haired Girl once said to me, "You know, Andy, your work is going to take you away from here." It's true. There isn't enough photographic work within 75 miles to constitute a sustainable income, and I don't want to be a full time industrial or fast food worker who takes pictures on the weekends. Sure, there's the McPortrait factories at Wal-Mart and Sears, but any trained monkey can do that stuff. I'm going to have to go where the work is. That's the root of why she and I hit the brakes after our relationship got a little too solid... it's easier for friends to move apart than significant others.
Being a social worker, Dark Haired Girl has even begun sending me links to photography job opps all over the country. It's a sad truth, but in the short- to mid-term future, I'm most likely going to have to move away. The thought of leaving Dark Haired Girl and her girls (to whom I've grown quite attached) scares me to death. With this nagging on my mind, I've been irritable and short-tempered lately.
I've been in a salty mood at work lately because of the Dark Haired Girl dilemma. I bend over backward to accomodate my customers, and I take it personally when people drive away displeased, but the other morning a customer was giving me attitude and pouting about something. Despite my best efforts otherwise (no matter what, it's tacky to be impolite to customers), she drove away unhappy and I wasn't sorry. In fact I rather enjoyed pissing her off.
I'm known around town as "That Nice Young Man at Tim Hortons", and I get recognized everywhere I go. It's not an act. I don't get paid enough for those kinds of theatrics. Making my customers happy genuinely makes me happy. That incident was highly uncharacteristic.
---
My sister met Dark Haired Girl for the first time Christmas Eve. Christmas day, she was all my sis could talk about... what a sweetheart and how wonderful she was. I will never in my life find anybody else as perfect as her... sure, she has some road rage issues (for God's sake, Hell hath no fury as Dark Haired Girl cut off by an inattentive driver), but that's the sum total of all my complaints about her. Pretty short list. So here's my ultimate dilemma: love or true calling.
Honestly, there's no way I'm going to forsake the last two years of my life (and accumulated student loan debt therefrom) just to stay in the area, but neither can I stand the idea of leaving.
You can appreciate my current state of frustration.
posted by Grover at 12/26/2007 09:08:00 PM
2 Comments:
Boxing day = kind of except you're supposed to give to the needy and poor instead of returning everything.
Kwanzaa = made up in the 60's by an American and isn't even an african tradition.
And what happened to all your links on the side? Damn dude, where's the love?
Yeah, I knew that about Kwanzaa. As for the links, I took down the ones I didn't read anymore... just didn't put up any new ones. That, and I just found out like, five seconds ago, that Chickpea981 is alive and well here on blogger.
I got the love, fret not Shutterbug! :-)
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