Well, that's one exam that won't be troubling me again. I'd like to point out that I had a fifteen minute nap sometime yesterday morning, but otherwise, you are reading the thoughts of a severely baked potato. I actually wrote a darn fine exam this time, as I always do, which is really the problem. If I lazed about until the last second during exams, studied in such a way as to be properly insulting to all the good boys and girls of the world who study the way resourceful students are supposed to study, and then I failed -- well, I think you'd agree with me that I really deserved sour defeat. But no. That's not the way it works, which is funny, because I really still am a person who believes in happy endings and true love, and that entails a sort of sense of justice in the world.
The truth of the matter is, though, that I bum around my room for days on end when I could be studying, spend a couple of panicked hours in front of the textbook (I mean, why study from my notes when I have such terrible handwriting?) before the sun dawns on the day I actually have to write the exam, and then I spend a couple of unhappy hours cramping my left hand thanks to the heavy-handed apeman way that I write, working on an exam paper that in all likelihood is just going to get an A or an A+ and I put the question to you: where's the justice in that? Not that I'm complaining; I really rather like the strange and mysterious powers of my brain. I just concede that there are those who probably hate me.
Yeah, well, just you get back to your studying. If you spent less time hating me, and more time reading a good book, just maybe you'd have a few less reasons to resent my success.
So it was dance night after all of this, and we parked ourselves in the very front of the auditorium at my dear friend's high school to watch the production. They only do this every two years, you know -- not that this has any bearing on my obsessive love and my desire to sit up close to her performances, but it's a nice way to begin a sentence on my pathetic affections without scaring anybody away immediately.
And she was beautiful. She's always beautiful, but tonight I saw her dance, and she was magnificent. She had such power and precision and emotion. I almost cried so many times -- me, the person who made it all the way to the end of Schindler's List before getting misty (It's a heart of stone, I tell you...). Sure, we're best friends, but I can quite comfortably say that no one up there tonight matched her ability. She had so many solos tonight, and her choreography was the most amazing piece I've ever seen. I mean, I'm an idiot about modern dance. I could tell you a few things about my big feet and poetry, but regardless of my uninitiation, I was astounded. Which I think is important. One's art ought to be as compelling for the general public as your fellow artists. The most important part was that it was true. It was about body image, and you don't become a dancer without spending your life obsessed with that. When she originally produced it for class, everyone -- including the teachers -- just started to cry. I can't say enough.
The horrible part, because there always is a horrible part, was the attendance of the jocks -- because there are always jocks. They sat in the front row too, but on the side like. They were the worst kind of jocks... with big fat shaved heads, and big fat leery faces full of stupidity and hate. And through the whole thing, they just stared at the dancers, looking always for flaws or perfection or whatever it is that jocks look for when they look at women. And my friend has large breasts... this fact makes her dancing a little awkward, because it is only with a grudge that they'll let her wear a bra at all under her costumes. So for every second that she was onstage tonight, they were fixated upon her. There was one scene in which she had to die, and she was crumpled on the stage directly in front of them, and what do they do but stare and stare and stare at her breasts, conveniently displayed on account of her playing a corpse (and she played it well... flopped around just perfectly when moved and dropped and everything). They leered and commented to one another whenever she came onstage, and hooted and whooped during the applause whenever a piece she'd been in ended.
She noticed, so far as I could tell, because even with the glassy stare of death, she was giving them the glassy stare of death. I know how she must have felt, because I felt the same way. Sick. I wanted to kill them. Really, in cold blood. Just for turning my beloved friend into their meat. When one of the very choreographies they had to watch tonight exposed so much of what that does to women (there was an amazing scene where this heavily-exaggerated ballerina pranced quickly back and forth along a bar, and instead of music for that scene, it was just a projection of the most debasing catcalls I've ever heard. I don't know where she got it, but it was very effective).
Maybe it's because I could hear what they were thinking.
The moral of the story is that these past two nights have been what she's worked on for so very long. I've been so selfish, and I feel so terrible, whining for her time the way I have. It's hard, though, and it's not always possible to keep my loneliness subdued. It's been over a month since we've seen one another, before tonight. I was lucky to see her afterwards. There were so many people, and I was just one of her friends surrounding her. I hugged her three times before sighing away into the night, kissing her cheek, then her neck, and then her bare shoulder, but it was difficult to know quite what to do, or say, after so long. But anyway, here's to dead time. I do intend to waste as much of hers now as is possible.
You'll have to forgive my saccharine tangents tonight (if not in general). Sleep deprivation and exam scarring aside, it's been an emotional night. And hey, I'm just a love kind of guy.
This has been a curious year for me. With the exception of (ugh) linguistics, I might well indeed stand to finish with something at least quite resembling an A average. Maybe psychology is iffy, but then again, the exam is going to be delightfully easy, and that's the one subject I do read the textbook regularly out of interest anyway (it's in my bathroom, and has entertained many guests with its knowledgable lore). So, on the eve of a three hour, three question exam, I sit quite complacently, finding the time to do all sorts of productive things, except the most important one -- study. And I mean, of course I'll study -- I'm a good egg -- but the question remains: when? The hours keep on passing, the Rebel Alliance keeps getting uppity (I've been playing Tie Fighter again), and suddenly I have clothes that just have to be mended; and I have to paint a plastic Jesus nightlight to give to a friend I'll be seeing in the evening after my exam (her big dance production, mentioned below -- that is, yesterday -- will be tonight). Actually I probably won't be seeing her at all, because she probably can't manage to escape in the intermission, or flee the cast party afterwards, so all I can do is watch her dance and dance and be glorious and beautiful, saying to the people I shall bring with me "Well, this is less lonely."
And look, look what else I'm doing. I'm writing THIS. I could have made it short and clever, really I could have, but I'm subscribing to ancient male phallocentric concepts of "bigger is better," so I just keep on blabbing on about how I'm not studying, while I'm not studying.
Hey, you know, that's pretty ironic. Yum!
Enjoy your Saturday. Mine stands to be complicated.
The complicated part was that I was a big chicken about it. The last time, there weren't nearly so many employees, and certainly none of them were large, imposing middle-aged gentlemen in suits standing ramrod straight in the centre of the store staring right at me. In the imposing gentleman's defense, I did look very much like I was casing the joint for a heist while I hemmed and hawed and stood around debating whether or not to take the picture with so many employees capable of calling security, but really -- who ever holds up fashionable male chain mall outlets? No one. Finally my dear ladyfriend grabbed the camera and took the shot for me, quickly grabbing my arm and instructing me to stash the camera in my trenchoat as we dashed into the great glass mall elevator. I give credit where it's due, and I deserve absolutely none.
Still, it was spy stuff, and I've developed a taste for it.
Now all I need to compliment my ambition is some real courage.
Maybe I can go to Oz and see if the Wizard is handing out testicles.
I also invented a new verb today. Caking.
"Don't verb your nouns," they used to say. But I did it anyway. Caking has many connotations, all of them delicious. One of my loves is preparing for a large production of dance at her school -- of which she has star quality for having either choreographed, or having solos in, four pieces -- and her major OAC choreography involves the smearing of a lot of cake all over the dancers performing the piece. When I called her tonight, she was busy baking, and I just slipped up (because I found out she probably wouldn't be able to slip away and spend any time with me when I went... understandable of course, but regrettable and sad. I haven't seen her in a month and a half, and my loneliness is great indeed. Anyway, I hid my hurt feelings, but at the expense of my diction.) when I wished her good luck, and instead said "I hope the caking goes well tonight."
Yeah, well, we've all done it.
I know two girls who've hurt their masturbation hands writing essays and exams this past week, and I really just want to let them know how badly I feel. The stressful times are the times we need masturbation most. I'd volunteer to help, but, I'm timid and easily provoked to blushing.
I don't ever hurt my hand that way, but it's my theory that male masturbation builds up a different set of muscles and tendons, so in the end all I ever get is sore wrists from the heavy handed way in which I pluck away on this so-called ergonomic keyboard.
Something I discovered tonight is that parks seem to have an almost malevolant force about them at night. I don't even mean small city parks, but the larger areas set aside for tourism and summer picnics. Andrew Hayden park is one, and Vincent Massey another. One theory among my friends is that the presence of so much human emotion in the parks leaves them drained and resentful, and at night these sorts of psychic impressions manifest themselves as hostility. Not even that, but pure hatred. I'm never one for the supernatural, or of static things like "good," and "evil," but at the same time, it's really quite terrifying. Something I really don't have the courage to do is lie down in the middle of one of those parks at night, close my eyes, and clear my thoughts. Some friends have tried this, and all you want to do is get right back up and run away.
But then again, I confess to you now that last year while sitting in a tidy little park on Holmwood near Carleton University, squirrels sitting above me in the ancient oak tree quite deliberately dropped acorns on my head as I innocently read a book for English.
The most logical conclusion to draw is that the evil force is actually probably just me. I think the moral of the story ought to be that I'm not getting nearly enough backrubs. Because, you know, you never can.
OW!
Accidentally slamming your finger into a pool of molten wax (I was playing with a candle like an idiot) is really quite painful. Try it sometime.
So. I bought a copy of The Rules yesterday. It's an
astonishing book. From the very first time I even knew such a thing
existed, I was upset. You should see the look I get on my face when my
ire is up about something. Really, really pouty -- It's been worse since
I discovered that often it will earn me the perfect amount of reassuring
petting (I find it most relaxing when my hair is stroked...). The anger
doesn't go away, but that isn't quite so important; man, I love it when
people pet me.
But anyway, so yeah, there's this book. You may or may not have
heard of it; it got a large amount of press interest awhile ago, at least
in the way that the press takes interest in things of minor, timely,
newsworthy note... not that I have a love of journalism students or
anything, no.
And again, I digress.
The premise behind my ire is that the two authors of the book have
written what is essentially a how-to manual appealing to all those women
out there trying to land themselves a man. Not just a man, but a
marriage-minded man, and the beauty of it is that the book provides the
simple rules on how to go about this end.
For perspective, you have to understand that books that declare that "Men are something, and women are something else" are rubbish. The book "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" would be a famous example. There is no such thing as the stereotypical man or the stereotypical woman, though what do exist are men and women who fit the stereotype. However, none of us are all "something." You might as well say that all men like mustaches, and all women don't. The invividuality inherent in one person would by extension have to carry over to great variation within a gender, and so books like The Rules are playing on something which might, through popular media, exist, but in reality do not. We unfortunately like to believe what we see on television. I mean, I love TV. I love TV. It is the right-hand electronic nipple. E-mail is the left. But that doesn't mean I let it tell me how to look at my life.
The book makes a lot of painful assumptions, both about what men want, and how men think and react, and about what women want, and how they think and react, and the irony is that I know all kinds of men on whom this strategy would most seriously not work on. And odd as it may seem, most of my dear male friends are snively, soft, intelligent, interesting emotional, sensitive, caring, giving, marriageable individuals just like me. Marry them -- please. Their genius genes deserve better.
I think I'm going to write a retort of some sort, and post it
here. All in favour, say Aye.
Anyway, here would be a selection of my favourites among the rules. I'm
definitely going to be writing a whole lot more on the subject, so that's
probably the extent of my commentary for the moment. Find a copy and read
it, though. It's really a horrible, hateful book. If anyone tried it on
me, I know that I'd spend every night crying, thinking: "Why is she so
mean to me?" Sure, I can do that anyway, but that's a story for
another day.
I guess the ultimate rebuttal to my fussing and feuding would just be: "Yeah, but who wants to marry YOU?" To that, my confident response would be:
Um.
Yeah.
Well.
You just shut up, jerkface!
Leave me with my pain.
Photobooths are cool. They don't tell you to smile; you can
just sit there and pretend to be as forlorn as is gothically possible, or
smile or show off your breasts or whatever. Man, I wish I had breasts. I
mean, I'm working on them, but they're more along the lines of "Rob loves
cheesecake" breasts than objects of sexual desire.
So.
The four photos are also among the only colour pictures
known to exist of me, which is to say that they show off my bee-yoo-tee-full
purple hair. The coolest two are the ones going to my two lady loves (one
of whom stuffed me in the bloody contraption) -- the ones that show me
smiling kind of coyly. The last two I'm not sure about. I'll figure out
who needs a picture of my goofy face the most (applicants can send their
cases to
rfairchi@chat.carleton.ca), and I'll save the goofiest for a photo ID.
I figure it's only fair that photo ID (in this case, the highly coveted
International Student Identification Card -- that will help me prove that I
exist on those rare occasions I want to go to clubs or purchase poisonous
quantities of alcohol for underage kids) should get the awkward photo --
the one the media will display if ever I'm killed, or choose to kill.
On a tragic note, once again I decided to leave my camera at home, and once again I could bite myself for doing it. Mannequins with birdhouses for heads. You should have seen my reaction. Both could have been captured on film... now, neither will.
Well, maybe I'll go back before they change the display at Pegabo or whatever it was and fake it.
And maybe it was undertaken with a certain amount of vanity,
sure, but I thought -- "Aaahh... what do people whine about income tax
for? All you need gumption and a brain; and then it's easy."
Now, foreshadowing is one of those subtle states that can be
perceived in retrospect, which is a shame, because I really set myself up
for some irony when yanked up my trousers and sniffed confidently, Mr.
Ferley style. Or maybe like Barney Fife. Hard to say which is
closest. At any rate, every time I catch a reflection of myself in the
monitor, or a mirror, or a glass, or just when I close my eyes and
envision my paralyzed zombie face -- mouth cretinously agape -- I pretend
like there's this big flashing sign cueing the audience by indicating that
"This is quite funny," and then I laugh with varying degrees of more
or less mirth, because I'm still sitting here.
The tax forms I set out to conquer are still free citizens of
the state of my ire.
Jerks.
I hereby decree that everything is evil, and if anyone wants to help me form a crazy survivalist militia cult organization, please be prepared to become one of my twenty-six wives.
You should be somewhat delighted to know that I actually said "Well, I love you and everything, but Rob F. is still my perfect woman." to [her], in bed. So, be flattered, feed your ego, spread it on toast and eat it. Yum yum yum yum yum.
Today we (that is, myself and my friends whose names I don't mention because I just don't mention names) made the modest plan to get together and watch a few movies at someone's apartment downtown. This is a fine thing to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon, especially so because when I'm all alone what I would tend to do involves cleaning my room obsessively or yammering away on the telephone, all the while listening to depressing music, or watching the Star Wars trilogy yet again; and while I certainly don't mind, it really would not make for especially interesting writing befitting a daily adventure. Now I suppose I could just make stuff up, but my rich fantasy life is already heavily diverted to support my sexual frustration, and any additional strain on my imagination could result in a warp core breach.
Which practically applied would mean more whining, just overall messier.
It was after having bused downtown that we took it into our heads to seize upon our general hankering for snacks, and embody it into a trip to the drugstore such as to procure food-like paraphernalia of high caloric content and minimal nutritional redemption. And of course, Jolt cola. I was delighted (some of the finest of this delight owing to the irony) to see that Shoppers Drug Mart would have the gall to stock it. I suppose perhaps it's their way of catering to a different breed of monkey -- since of course they were forbidden from selling cigarettes.
We dawdled from store to store though, and just poking into Radio Shack to nerd over the merchandise for a second, I heard my name being called, and then who should appear from the sea of happy shoppers but, well, "her." I refuse to mention names, so just imagine a friend and a former lover of some sort. Presently we're getting along famously, but in the past I've done a lot of crying over her... however, I also admit that she's been hurt by me, once upon a time. I was happy to see her; I had originally hoped we could have had coffee this weekend, but she was indisposed on account that she was utterly booked. She has a new friend, and of late it's become more than that, and this weekend became the culmination of a building romance.
Yes, today I had the privilege of meeting an ex-girlfriend's brand new lesbian lover.
She -- that is, this lover -- seemed nice, but quiet. I hope that would only be the result of shyness, but I'm not sure. Quite likely she's heard a great deal about me though, and I would certainly find it daunting to meet the shadow of someone's past, especially when they're still friends. I'd like to think that I'm at least a hard act to follow in terms of relationships. I mean, I can be nice and stuff. And we were very close, intimately speaking. It was important to me that I made a good impression on this new person -- because she was important to a person important to me -- which seemed to be the case... I'm pretty shy myself, but in the spirit of seeing my old friend, and having the encouraging company of a sweet lady love, I am one for the witty banter and manic animation.
The hard thing to face is that I really do miss her sometimes. I couldn't ever bear a relationship again, but I miss the closeness. I miss the way she held me, and I miss the way she responded to my touch. I say "lesbian lover," but she's not really sure how she feels towards men. It's always been ambiguous, and she confessed when last we spoke to liking at least "some penises." I actually would have felt far more uncomfortable dealing with a new male lover, though.. so it's actually nice to meet someone I wouldn't resent on principle. Our last fight -- a giant and catastrophic parting of ways -- was sparked by her feelings for another boy... and I hardly knew him, and I never see him, but I still bristle with malice and insecurity when she talks about him.
I'm really glad that she seems so happy, though. I hope she's
found someone who can give her a healthy friendship, and relationship,
even if it does remind me of some of my own feelings. The only real
problem I have is that I am an attention pig, and she doubted she'd have
time to hang out with me this week after all, having other people on her
mind.
She hugged me, though, for the first time since that fight last
summer, and she really seemed to mean it. It came with kind of a nuzzle,
and is something I shall carry with me fondly for a long time to
come.
While waiting for the final bus that would take us to our old chum's place of residence (the bus, which came half an hour later, moved all of three blocks and then, mysteriously, the driver shooed everyone off the bus onto the cold rainy street, and vanished. We sulked, and called the apartment, where fortunately another friend with a car had already arrived...oh, how I hates me them buses!) that we were approached by two young freaky chickie creatures, facially pierced in various fashions, adorned with jewelry such as is the style nowadays, looking to ask some cigarettes of my beloved friend, smoker that she is. One of them asked us, "Do you like rats?" and while my natural response is always "Yes!" we were slightly confused, until she pulled the neck of her shirt down, exposing a breast pocket underneath containing a lively white rat. We adored it, while her friend adored my hair (purple, black, and blue tapestry that it is...), and finally she asked me if she could have some of it.
Now, I have in my life collected a lock of hair from someone close to me, but it has never actually been asked of me, so I was flattered and inclined to agree. Her friend ran off to find some scissors, but my friend had a small knife and -- being highly trusted -- she cut a collection of my shiny hair for the girl. At this point, the girl mentioned that "hair is extremely powerful," and while I just took it as poetic sentiment, my dear friend privately recoiled and -- as I later discovered -- purposefully lessened the amount of my hair that was cut away, blaming it on a dull knife. The girl nonetheless happily skipped off with a pinch of my purple and blue hair.
The explanation is that my friend is a well-studied and practicing pagan/wiccan, and as she later disclosed, only another witch would know to talk about the power of hair, as it is exceptionally useful in the casting of spells. While she was sure the girl's intentions were good, she nonetheless is protective enough of me and wary enough of naughty pagans to act in what are probably my ultimate best interests. Anyway, for both parts in the hair fiasco, I'm flattered.
At the same time, another friend (the one with the car) happens to know a witch, and apparently because this witch got into a conflict with another witch, he got caught in the middle, and this naughty and decidedly unfriendly witchy person cast a hex on him. He's wearing a blessed charm for his own protection, and while it's more or less just kind of silly, my ultimate conclusion would be: "Religion is a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavour selection of ick."
I would like to close by whining indignantly about how we spoke today, a close friend and I, and I learned that she has an e-mail pen pal in Texas who she is conditioning to want to become a truck driver, which I thought was really quite interesting. And then about five minutes ago, I realized -- "Wait. You mean you have time to have an e-mail penpal, but you can't find the time to ever write ME?"
If anyone has ever read Joe Matt's Peepshow, I really am trying to be about as honest as I can regarding myself and the kind of obsessive, neurotic jerk I have the power to be.
Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.
Back to Purple People Eater Town.