The Cast of Characters

The list will grow eternally, but presently comes the handy pseudonyms of people I mention most often, in that they are primarily responsible for the miracles, laughs, backrubs, conversations, minor aches and major pains, and above all the incessant retrospection that make up my life.

Yours Most Humble -- your faithful and careworn narrator throughout the daily Snivel, who is in most respects honestly and truly Your Very Own Rob. My disclaimer is only that the truth is most fun when you can make it up; but at the same time, you'd hardly get that voyeuristic tingle if everything I said about my life was fake.

Broken -- One of my most beloved of friends. My incessant lifestyle of philandering and wishy-washy emotional parasitism means that we aren't really set to make my mother pleased by making an honest woman out of her, but nevertheless I will happily love and be loved by her.

Cruinne -- has convinced me that when my droid armies roll onwards to conquer the United States of America, at least some may be spared. Cruinne and I met through an unlikely chain of events beginning with us only knowing one another through degrees of separation. To help each other through stormy personal problems, we undertook a mutually beneficial correspondance of whining and sharing over many months. Finally in February 1999, she came to Ottawa to visit me in person. We have since discovered that we are almost exactly the same person on the inside, separated only by radically different glands. We are needy, clingy, lonely people, capable of pushing away almost anybody away with similar tendancies to smother. Oddly, the more time we spend together, the harder it is to say 'goodbye'.

Lilith -- is another bright light in my dank little life. We met thanks to her stalking abilities, and became best friends in the time that has passed since my likeness was distributed in downtown Ottawa such that I might be tracked down. I love her very deeply, and I do know how much she cares about me in spite of the grief of long distance and her drastically busy and tension-frought existence. It's just that there are times I wish she were better at expressing it.

Charlotte -- I live only to serve as her personal Court Jester. She is my brilliant and bitter pupil in the ways of the world and the people who live upon it, and I am her most willing and adoring plaything. She inspires an extroverted mania in me that most people rarely get to see from my shy self, and by her sweetness, rage, and hilarity, I find myself always hoping for her affectionate company.

Johnny -- He is far away now, doomed to dwell in that fashionable bastion of Canadian culture, Toronto, but he has been, and remains, my poetry master, and devotion-inspiring liege. His writing awes me, and entertains just about everyone. My personal inventory of things he has written, assembled, created, owned, touched, or inspired is unsurpassed. As with my other obsessive love -- frogs -- I actively work to hate and destroy all who oppose him. Fortunately for earth, most people know better.

Clorinda -- Clorinda is for all intents and purposes one of my dearest friends, yet by night doubles as my wonderful obsessive internet fan. She has the most amazing smile, cheers me with her words and compatible neuroses, sends me free and delectable music, and while sheer geological distance prevents me from likely ever bestowing upon her the nipple stimulation she both adores and rightly deserves, it is certainly one of the prime motivations I presently have to learn either to fly, or master the mental feat of teleporting myself.

Caira -- Last year she was my upstairs neighbor, and eternally shall be a friend from the murky shadows of my emotionally distraught past. Independently of the fact that we ever met, she was in a band with my older brother for some time; we only realized the connection at some later point into our friendship, a fact I find fascinating in that small world kind of way, yet disturbing in that she occasionally boasts that she could have had my older brother, had she wanted to. Caira is outspoken and well-read, with a big beautiful Irish head to rival my own, an affinity for massages, and an addiction to the Daily Snivel. Caira is wonderful, and like myself she's needy and attention oriented, but because she's aggressive about it, we feed our hungers without the need for clinginess or telepathy.

Burrhus -- I don't mention him very often, but he is in many ways, always here. By that, I mean to say that he is quite often in my thoughts, but also he is one of the most avid readers of this page, and it is for his eyes that often I find the energy to write about my life.. a way of keeping in touch until we find the time for our wonderful and casual sessions of coffee again. There may be curiousity as to the reference, but hopefully fellow science geeks will understand... Burrhus is the first name of B.F. Skinner -- among the many people I consider as my fav'rit. Certainly B.F. Skinner could be called "evil," and by virtue of the fact that I'm a cognitivist I'm probably obliged to mention this. Still, it's certainly also true that Skinner was as true an Evil Genius as it gets; and, well, so is Burrhus.

Lucretia -- Somehow, we're still good friends. Lucretia and I met several years ago, and our immediate affection was almost immediately tainted by my stupidity. I met Phil shortly afterwards, and found myself in the position of having to choose between the two. I will never do anything like that again. I'd always be wrong. Lucretia is wonderful, beautiful, kind and and she actually went to the bother to draw and label the human eye for me once (it's framed and hanging on my wall). We've had three different attempts at a relationship, and have hurt one another many times more often. I think in her time she affected my life more than just about anyone who has ever so far existed. She'll always be in my head.

Phil -- Much mystery surrounds the true nature of Phil. I mention her periodically, with a mixture of fear, regret, and bitterness. Phil is a pseudonym for six feet of formerly pink-haired ex-girlfriend. We lost our innocence to one another at the tender age of nineteen, and things got kind of screwy from there. We broke up and tried to be friends, but she couldn't deal with feeling guilty (having crushed my vulnerable little heart), and we parted ways for good. We share a city, and a campus, and whenever we see each other we do not (as I would prefer) engage in a quickly paced lightsaber duel spotted with witty banter, but instead we run away from one another like dorks lacking closure and emotional growth.

Read the Daily Snivel

Brave the miserable doldrums of the Classic Snivel

Take me back to Purple People Eater Town

Yours Most Humble	-- your faithful and careworn narrator throughout the daily Snivel, who is in most respects honestly and truly Your Very Own Rob. My disclaimer is only that the truth is most fun when you can make it up; but at the same time, you'd hardly get that voyeuristic tingle if everything I said about my life was fake.

Broken	-- One of my most beloved of friends. My incessant lifestyle of philandering and wishy-washy emotional parasitism means that we aren't really set to make my mother pleased by making an honest woman out of her, but nevertheless I will happily love and be loved by her.

Cruinne	-- has convinced me that when my droid armies roll onwards to conquer the United States of America, at least some may be spared. Cruinne and I met through an unlikely chain of events beginning with us only knowing one another through degrees of separation. To help each other through stormy personal problems, we undertook a mutually beneficial correspondance of whining and sharing over many months. Finally in February 1999, she came to Ottawa to visit me in person. We have since discovered that we are almost exactly the same person on the inside, separated only by radically different glands. We are needy, clingy, lonely people, capable of pushing away almost anybody away with similar tendancies to smother. Oddly, the more time we spend together, the harder it is to say 'goodbye'.

Lilith	-- is another bright light in my dank little life. We met thanks to her stalking abilities, and became best friends in the time that has passed since my likeness was distributed in downtown Ottawa such that I might be tracked down. I love her very deeply, and I do know how much she cares about me in spite of the grief of long distance and her drastically busy and tension-frought existence. It's just that there are times I wish she were better at expressing it.

Charlotte	-- I live only to serve as her personal Court Jester. She is my brilliant and bitter pupil in the ways of the world and the people who live upon it, and I am her most willing and adoring plaything. She inspires an extroverted mania in me that most people rarely get to see from my shy self, and by her sweetness, rage, and hilarity, I find myself always hoping for her affectionate company.

Johnny	-- He is far away now, doomed to dwell in that fashionable bastion of Canadian culture, Toronto, but he has been, and remains, my poetry master, and devotion-inspiring liege. His writing awes me, and entertains just about everyone. My personal inventory of things he has written, assembled, created, owned, touched, or inspired is unsurpassed. As with my other obsessive love -- frogs -- I actively work to hate and destroy all who oppose him. Fortunately for earth, most people know better.

Clorinda	-- Clorinda is for all intents and purposes one of my dearest friends, yet by night doubles as my wonderful obsessive internet fan. She has the most amazing smile, cheers me with her words and compatible neuroses, sends me free and delectable music, and while sheer geological distance prevents me from likely ever bestowing upon her the nipple stimulation she both adores and rightly deserves, it is certainly one of the prime motivations I presently have to learn either to fly, or master the mental feat of teleporting myself.

Caira	-- Last year she was my upstairs neighbor, and eternally shall be a friend from the murky shadows of my emotionally distraught past. Independently of the fact that we ever met, she was in a band with my older brother for some time; we only realized the connection at some later point into our friendship, a fact I find fascinating in that small world kind of way, yet disturbing in that she occasionally boasts that she could have had my older brother, had she wanted to. Caira is outspoken and well-read, with a big beautiful Irish head to rival my own, an affinity for massages, and an addiction to the Daily Snivel. Caira is wonderful, and like myself she's needy and attention oriented, but because she's aggressive about it, we feed our hungers without the need for clinginess or telepathy.

Burrhus	-- I don't mention him very often, but he is in many ways, always here. By that, I mean to say that he is quite often in my thoughts, but also he is one of the most avid readers of this page, and it is for his eyes that often I find the energy to write about my life.. a way of keeping in touch until we find the time for our wonderful and casual sessions of coffee again. There may be curiousity as to the reference, but hopefully fellow science geeks will understand... Burrhus is the first name of B.F. Skinner -- among the many people I consider as my fav'rit. Certainly B.F. Skinner could be called "evil," and by virtue of the fact that I'm a cognitivist I'm probably obliged to mention this. Still, it's certainly also true that Skinner was as true an Evil Genius as it gets; and, well, so is Burrhus.

Lucretia	-- Somehow, we're still good friends. Lucretia and I met several years ago, and our immediate affection was almost immediately tainted by my stupidity. I met Phil shortly afterwards, and found myself in the position of having to choose between the two. I will never do anything like that again. I'd always be wrong. Lucretia is wonderful, beautiful, kind and and she actually went to the bother to draw and label the human eye for me once (it's framed and hanging on my wall). We've had three different attempts at a relationship, and have hurt one another many times more often. I think in her time she affected my life more than just about anyone who has ever so far existed. She'll always be in my head.

Phil	-- Much mystery surrounds the true nature of Phil. I mention her periodically, with a mixture of fear, regret, and bitterness. Phil is a pseudonym for six feet of formerly pink-haired ex-girlfriend. We lost our innocence to one another at the tender age of nineteen, and things got kind of screwy from there. We broke up and tried to be friends, but she couldn't deal with feeling guilty (having crushed my vulnerable little heart), and we parted ways for good. We share a city, and a campus, and whenever we see each other we do not (as I would prefer) engage in a quickly paced lightsaber duel spotted with witty banter, but instead we run away from one another like dorks lacking closure and emotional growth.