By the way, Christmas with the Euro was wonderful. More details to follow.

I'm not against the idea, of course. I just find him...ruthlessly efficient when it comes to courtship. Hard to describe, but all of his plans are carefully crafted to accommodate my prickly sensibilities. Certainly I would refuse an all expenses paid vacation, but not a few days of decadence...

Anyway, not much else to report. Thought you might enjoy a small update.

To be honest, I found his urge to do mundane things a bit confusing.

Which is fine, except that don't really like being a manager in the strictest sense. Too much talking, too many meetings, too many long-winded voicemails.

My favorite city was Florence, followed closely by Venice. Yes, I realize that Venice is sinking and a bit decrepit, but I found it exquisitely charming. Florence I loved for its galleries and museums, David was magnificent close up, nearly brought me to tears. Worst city by far was Pisa. Not only was the leaning tower entirely underwhelming, but it was surrounded by hundreds of idiot tourists pretending to hold it up, or flick it, or lean against it in photographs.

I also enjoyed hiking cinque terre, except that I forgot my bathing suit and had to buy a blingy Italian string bikini from a local swim shop. Brown crochet material with orange sequins all over, just hideous. All photos of it have been destroyed.

Now, just bloody reading the documentation for this new blog software makes my eyes glaze over. It's like I've run out of processing power. In any case, I am slowly migrating everything over, including the current design. I think it makes more sense to change the look once I've gotten all the tech bits working. Doing it all at the same time is insane.

In other news, I've noticed something curious lately: men I dated casually last year (and then dropped for whatever reason) are suddenly calling to ask me out again. Five of them in the last 2 months, completely out of the blue. The most recent one was that Banker from early 2007 (there were two more bankers after him, but then I banned the entire finance industry). So far I've been ignoring them all, but Banker has a certain insolence that I admire. So many men are cowards these days.

I'm leaving for Italy shortly. Spur of the moment vacation starting in Rome and ending in Venice (with Florence, Siena, Cinque Terre, Como and Pisa in between). Will be back in mid-September.

Clearly we've come a long way from that hokey default template. Aqoul is occasionally mistaken for an actual news publication because it doesn't have a "bloggy" feel. I'd like to continue in this direction and make the site even more newspaper-like. Perhaps resembling the New York Times, which has a very elegant look.

On Friday, they asked me if I wanted to run the office. In promotion terms, this isn't a step as much as a flying leap. According to a friend, it also means I get a throne of skulls and a cadre of assassins (he is joking, mostly).

So I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, but I'm quite sure I can do the job once I figure out all the details.

Not much to say, work has consumed much of my time, and the rest has been spent having inane conversations, staring blankly at my (recently purchased) 40" LCD flatscreen television, or attending social events where I drink too much.

I did watch both seasons of Rome recently, probably a must-see for anyone who reads Aqoul. Only thing I really disliked was the portrayal of Ptolemaic Egypt, oddly reduced to a ridiculous Eurotrash orgy with bad wigs and sloppy eye makeup. Cleopatra was particularly disappointing for me because I've always been fascinated by her (not the seductress part, more the political/intellectual aspects).

Anyway, must sleep.

It began with an odd compulsion to throw out almost all my existing furniture one night around 3AM. Not necessarily a bad thing - my friends have long joked about my spartan, Flight Club-esque decorating sense (yes, a lot of Ikea stuff left over from college days). Once the place was emptied out, they began to remark on the echo as a perfect accompaniment to my impoverished fridge (which contains a bottle of ketchup, a box of baking soda and a tub of margarine dating back to the Middle Kingdom).

Eventually, I grew tired of the vampire jokes.

Also, I received a bit of fan mail and some interesting questions...probably worthwhile to post my answers here shortly.