September 28, 1997.
I expect that the thing first on ever so many minds right now is the piercing question -- "Rob, what -- Oh what -- has happened to the Carleton League of Super-Villains? Please, Rob, tell us! We must know the awful truth, however horrible it is to bear. You don't have to carry this weight yourself, Rob... you're among friends." and so on. I find that, with time, my friends almost universally will subconsciously succomb to my psychological obsession with melodrama, and respond heroically with panicky excesses of overstated and redundant dialogue that you couldn't find in a purer, better source even if you translated my life into Japanese, and then cheaply dubbed it back into English.
Well, for all those who need to know (and frankly, that's
all of you, my captive little audience), the story goes like this:
I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from a friend giving me one
of those letters that says "I have good news, and bad news, for you." As
it turns out, the good news is that my postering efforts last Monday had
succeeded in actually irritating the administration at Carleton.
The bad news was that they were really unimpressed. As in,
Lawsuit unimpressed. Apparently my use of their logo, corrupted as
it is, may in fact constitute an infringement of their copyrights, and the
information was that was given me was that, if the posters didn't come
down, and they found out who was responsible, they'd take action. This
freaked me out, and I took a couple of precautions, like removing
permissions to certain files (and then removing the files, since they were
on a university server, which frankly could be accessed by anyone with the
proper authority) until a couple more days have passed, when I can be more
sure the heat has cooled.
I inquired as to the source of this news from the person who
e-mailed me about it. He tends to be on the level and intelligent, and it
didn't seem to be the sort of thing he'd say if it were just rumour mill.
If he has a flaw, it is that he is a huge name dropper (eg. "I'd
like you to meet Rob... he does the Carleton League
of Super Villains!"), but there are worse things to do than enjoy my big
brain so much that you just want to share it with the world.
Anyway, according to him, a friend was in the CUSA (Carleton University
Students Association) office when "someone from admin" (who they might be,
or what position they might hold is uncertain) stormed in and ranted and
raved about the nefarious Carleton League of Supervillains, presumably
adding details like "we'll sue!" and "they'd better hope we never figure
out who they are!" and so on.
I'm way less worried about it now. It really freaked me out to get the initial e-mail Thursday night, though, and I took some steps just to make things easier on myself and my friends. I think right now, well, that I feel rather safer and more comfortable in my position. Copyright or no, it occurs to me that the posters would technically be classified as 'satire' which is protected speech and not subject to the same limits as serious posters, especially anything that were done to make money. Also, it would be a pointless PR distaster, even if they DID find me out, and did pursue a lawsuit for damages. My friend Caira said, "Call everybody. The Ottawa Citizen, the Ottawa Sun, MacLeans, the CBC, CTV -- everybody." Which is what I'd do. Like, "Carleton University spitefully destroys the life of a harmless student!" is one of those factoids that, however you try to work around it, would likely lower that carefully watched ranking in MacLeans' annual survey of universities which Carleton so desperately tries to improve the status of each year, to a point humiliatingly close to "The lousiest university in Canada, if not the free world!" and that's just not the sort of thing that boosts your enrolment the next year, especially from that critical segment of graduating high school students with a pyschotic tendancy for abnormal creativity.
Now, I do realize that my use of the logo has been pretty cavalier, and I may decide to change it if I continue postering (which I would very much like to do). The offense doesn't seem to be with the posters themselves, so much as somebody appropriating the precious logo. Which is a point of view I understand, even if I consider it extremely humourless and overly sensitive. The moral, anyway, is that the Carleton League of Super Villains information on my web site will be somewhat missing for the next little while, until I'm more sure about the coolness of the situation at hand.
Charlotte is finally back and settled in Ottawa for the year. She'd
been away for the better part of this month, and now that she's returned,
she has both a new job and a new apartment to adjust herself to.
I've been helping as best I can. The other night, in fact, I ended up
visiting until just a stupid hour of the morning, something just
this side of 5am, making it home an hour and a half before
I had to get up and go to work. It began with me wandering downtown after
classes, with the first free evening in some time, and a hankering to
spend myself some money. I never did buy any music, to my regret, because
of indecision, so as a precursor to anything else I say, if there's a CD
you bought this year that you just couldn't imagine life without, feel
free to tell me about it,
and explain why I, too, would want to have it as my own.
I did buy myself a vacuum cleaner, something I feel great
about for a million reasons; not the least of which being my new,
non-disgusting, floor, which has finally been rid of dust and detritus,
and anything else that made me leery of walking around barefoot on it (out
of snobbishness over necessity, something I add for the benefit of those
who have never seen my room, and especially Clorinda, who might
otherwise be terrified and nauseated out of coming up and visiting me this
winter). It's my first larger small appliance, you see, and in a
short time of service spanning only two days, it's contributed greatly to
the House H'Tog (otherwise known as my home); probably more than I
have. Caira borrowed it late Friday night, and members of the house asked
to borrow it Saturday afternoon, as a handful of us attended to cleaning
and arranging the many, many items that clutter this enormous house. The
upper level of the main floor, known as Tiny Town, was vacuumed most
excellently by Pixiegirl, a delightfully intelligent and otherwise elfin
freak who will ultimately be moving into the house, but who presently has no
obligation to do anything whatsoever, and nevertheless remains helpful and
nice -- a trait I only wish could be ascribed to everybody who actually
did live here. I vacuumed the main level, which my room occupies,
and was generally astonished by the amount of dust and other horrible warm
filth (my little Dirt Devil, mighty mite that it is, heats up the contents
of the dust container with its overworked motor) that a hallway's worth of
carpeting could surreptitiously trap.
Anyway, with the purchased vacuum fresh in my grasp, I walked over to visit Charlotte Thursday night. Unfortunately for the moment, she doesn't have the means to buzz people into the building, so I had to use a telephone across the street to let her know I had arrived. As it turned out, she was on the phone when I called, and I had to leave a sad little message stating my need to be rescued from the evening air. And I mean, that was cool. I bought some milk (milk chases the rickets away; a lesson all students living on their own for the first time should consider part of their personal, non-Christian, bible) from the tuck shop in the building, lay my briefcase and recently acquired small appliance down on the sidewalk, and waited patiently for about twenty five minutes. That was when my breathless friend raced down, and let me in, unnecessarily apologetic about having been on the phone, and then upstairs doing laundry, and only then remembering that I ought to have called by that point. We talked for hours and hours, starting off on basic principles of jolliness and re-unification (our first chance to hang out since her return to Ottawa that afternoon), and her presentation to me of perfectly excellent gifts acquired in North Carolina; like joyous Pop Rocks, a charming and adorable little ceramic frog that resides on my shelf of shiny collectibles, and a giant, battery-operated frog. The copy on the packing is brilliant. It reads "Hi, I am Mr. Frog. I am so friendly that I will say 'Hello, hello, hello' in my own language when I detect any movement in front of me." and indeed, the frog has a motion detector, and sets off with mighty croaking to mark any disturbance. I adore it, but I do see the value of it having that most important feature, an off switch, since with time it gets creepy and jarring, and my guests might otherwise be afraid of my room.
Something we spent most of our time discussing was the situation
that had transpired between her and the friend she'd visited in North
Carolina (mentioned below). She was uncertain of why it had
happened, but certain of the fact that it was his problem, and she
could only decide to let it rest at that. This is a decision I agree with
and approve of (as if my opinion had any bearing, I grant), although I do
find myself slightly capable of understanding his friend's opinion... at
least, the opinion she and I managed to deduce from a few brief and
cryptic letters, as well as her recounting of the trip. It reminded me of
some experiences from my past, years ago, in my relationships with my
friend Lucretia. There were two occasions of our three breakup type
situations, where I still loved her intensely, and (in true teenage
fashion) felt hurt and betrayed by her turn of feelings. I wouldn't admit
to being angry, but I think now that I was, and her reward for that anger
was a lot of depressive whining, self pity, pointless digs, and actual
moments of spite and resentment. This friend has carried it to a more
unfortunate extreme, however, and does not, as I did, have the (admittedly
small) excuse of being extremely young and stupid, since he's six years my
senior.
It was Lucretia's genuine interest in my friendship that resulted in
her swallowing my spite and guilt, and trying her darndest not to hate me, in
spite of the fact that I probably deserved it. She might well have just said
"That's it, you're making me miserable -- goodbye, and keep your lousy
melodrama, freakboy!" and it would have been my eternal regret if
she had. But in this case, Charlotte was deliberately pushed away, and
given the big goodbye, for reasons that have been lightly explained to me
by said friend, and which I consider rash and unwise. And since this
person has written me, for various reasons, it seems only fair that
I respond, and express my view that I think this person is making a
horrendous mistake.
I'm reminded of the ending of Chasing Amy, where Holden loses his true love, and his best friend, because he simply can't reconcile his feelings of bewilderment and smallness caused by his discovery of the events of her past. All I know is, that if I had pushed Charlotte away when I was in love with her, instead of keeping her as one of my truest and best friends, I would have been miserable forever, and also a puerile jerk. Oh yeah -- and I'd be giving all this sage advice not because I wanted to help, but because I wouldn't be able to say anything else. The awful truth of what I'd done would have been burned into my brain, and to even try to think of anything else would be to invite suicidal misery and demonic voices laughing at me, forever and ever until the day I died, alone and feeble.
Food for thought.
I think the coolest thing I've done lately is, as I like to
consider it, misplace a calculus test. Essentially it was an
anomaly of time and space that made the calculus test in a different time
and space than I was. I managed to get about half an hour of
studying done -- about as much as I ever get done, and it's worked
for me up until now (dang lack of motivation
-- if I worked as hard as I should, or even as hard as most people,
I'd probably be riding a scholarship right now. I think someone should
point that out to me in about two years, when I'm suffering with an
incurred $20 000 student loan debt.) -- and
was actually feeling quite good about my chances for passing the test
(calculus, unlike some ungodly forms of mathematics like algebra/geometry,
makes sense to me, even if its practical applications are as obfuse as
that of fractals...) when I sauntered into class, bright and early and
more prepared than usual. Eventually people began to trickle
inwards, and then the professor himself -- who is, I admit shamefully, a surprisingly
and uncharacteristically clever and personable math teacher... if I'd had
him in high school, I might not need to take 0-year calculus in
university to make up for my utter hatred of numbers -- arrived, though (I
noticed) somewhat later than normal. It was only actually when the
professor began teaching a new lecture that it occurred to me that
something might be amiss. My brain said to me, "Hullo! What's this
then?" and it just seemed wrong that someone should teach
stuff before handing out a test in a class that's only an hour long to
begin with. However, only really when the words "So, who did it this way
on the test?" came forth did I clench my seat in horror and nausea as the
awful truth began to sink in. Somehow, I'd missed the test. It was held
an hour before, in a different part of the campus, and the magical powers
of my ability to be astonishingly unobservant somehow lead me astray when
the information proclaiming the particulars of this test knocked on my
door. I momentarily toyed with the idea of talking to my professor, and
decided it would be far more honourable
and lazy to say nothing, to not have to admit my incredible stupidity to
him. As if he'd roar with laughter and bellow, "Foolish boy! If you
don't even know enough to find your test properly, why should you
actually be allowed to write it? It's survival of the fittest in
this calculus class, Darwin boy!" So, it's possible that
he'll ask "Did anyone miss the test?" tomorrow, and offer some form of
make up test, but if he doesn't, so be it. Better to kiss 10% goodbye,
than to admit to being a gigantic weiner. I'd rather admit to having a
venereal disease I've never even heard of before, than confess to being an
idiot to figures of authority. Charlotte is away again, which leaves
me lonely and concerned for her, as her life is quite topsy turvy at this
point. She's in North Bay until tomorrow (For me it won't officially be
Thursday until I go to bed and wake up some time later) evening, getting
oriented with her new amazing job at this big conference. I miss her
lots... I thought, "Gee! I'll call Charlotte tonight! We haven't talked
in ever so long," but my brain clicked into gear, and I hung the
phone back up forlornly as I realized we hadn't spoken because she was in
another city. Still, before she left, she chanced to catch me on the
telephone, and we gabbed until T arrived. The cryptic message I'd
received (mentioned below in Tuesday's Snivel) from her friend in North
Carolina had been explained by incident. You see, from what I can gather,
he ended up finding my URL in his browser bookmarks file (left by
Charlotte, presumably), and began to read the entire site. And something
I've said really reached him... he agreed completely with what I'd sad,
and it helped inspire him to make a momentous -- if unfortunately dumb --
decision. Charlotte would be his friend no longer; he gave her the big
goodbye, and asked her to respect his wishes. Now, this is confusing
because just before she left, he snuck a note into her bag,
explaining how happy he was that they were friends, and even though
her feelings for him had changed, it was just extremely important to him
that they remain close buddies. Which is, I think, a wonderfully
progressive and happy viewpoint to have (and is made all the more sad
and ironic the reality of his feelings).
According to his good-bye letter, reading my thoughts had been very
eye-opening for him. I've been trying my best to figure out what I've
said exactly that might motivate a person this way, but I've never yet
been able to accurately pin anything down and cry "Eureka! This, this is
what must be the source!" I do like to think cool thoughts like -- "My web page destroys
lives that aren't mine! Yippeeee!" I feel bad for Charlotte, and wish I
could help, but in typical "her" style, she's coping better than I could,
and just lives day to day as healthily as she can.
To my dismay, finally, I found out that most likely a ticket to
go visit my friend, the lovely and talented Clorinda,
is going to cost six hundred dollars (and then some) after tax. I'm
hoping a better deal can be arranged, or that sneakiness will allow less
money to be spent, but it's hard to say right now. Most likely I
will spend a ton of currency to go and see my friend, because I've
gotten my heart set on meeting her, and once I get my heart set on
something, you'd better not so much as touch it, lest my big sad eyes and
pouty lips destroy the human race... for they are mighty
heartbreaking to see. And I can technically afford to go... it's just
that living won't be so carefree and consumeristic until I get the second
half of my student loan, so I have to worry about budgeting before I
leave. And also, it just makes me sad that the price is so prohibitive
that most likely we won't be able to see each other very often.
Sigh.
But, as I nod downwards onto the keyboard again, I realize that it is 3:49
in the Morning, I have class in entirely too few apples, and I hope you
human beings continue on loving me.
As a parting thought, consider (as I am, complete with blushes and
dimples) that people have compared my penis to roses. I'm not sure how or
why this particular comparison should be applied to my genitive tissue,
but it's got to be a good thing, and anyway, I'd ultimately like to
include at least one thing that no one knows about me each day.
And that's one to grow on.
Anyway, read the posters, and
love me!.
Like many days in many lives, today started out reasonably well. My only
shock upon waking was an e-mail from my friend Caira, two floors up, in
which she mentioned almost offhandedly that she brought up my mild griping
towards the situation I've faced of being the unofficial doorman at the house
meeting last night (I attended an hour and a half of it, then dashed away
to watch the season premiere of The Simpsons at Broken's house) after I
departed (because she knew I'd never bring it up myself), to which someone
who lived on the second floor replied "Well, if he doesn't want to
answer the door, then he shouldn't have taken the front room."
Now, first of all, the logic in that stinks. It's like if you
look at one of the guys who lives in the basement, who is still waiting to
get the electricity working in his room, and say to him, "Well, if you
wanted hydro, you shouldn't have taken that room," or to another
fellow downstairs, who mentioned that he would appreciate people turning
the kitchen light off when they use it late at night, "Well, if he wanted
a good night's sleep, he shouldn't have taken that room!" It's not
a matter of the room you take, so much as the courtesy of the people
around you. I have no problem with letting people in -- especially when
people didn't have their keys when they first moved in, and would get
locked out -- and never complained or treated anyone badly when guests
would show up and need to be shown around the house; but frankly, it's
technically not my problem when someone needs to know if Joe is home, or
awake, or if the Bell installer shows up to install someone's line, and
needs to be taken to a mysterious point in the basement he wouldn't have
found on his own. And when I do things out of the guilty
goodness of my own heart, I may certainly not expect to be thanked
for it, but catching lip for something like that is a real fork in the eye.
Damn roommates. Getting on my damn nerves.
Charlotte is home from her vacation to North Carolina at last, which
brought me much happiness and relief, for I missed her so, and she calls a
lot, so there's always a message on the phone when she's around, which I
like because it makes me feel like something other than a grubby loser.
She brought me back a present which she only describes as "requiring 2 AA
batteries," so my curiousity is piqued even if it won't be half as kinky
as my imagination hopes. And she called this morning to see how I was
doing, and how Cupid, her darling pet rat, was faring after ten days in my
care. I told her how spunky Cupid was, and how much of a pleasure she'd
been to have around, and that I'd taken good care of her, at which point
she mentioned she'd like to have her back, so we tried working out
visitation schedules and all that. And since Broken had no classes today,
she stayed in my room while I romped through the city, so Charlotte would,
we thought, be able to drop in quite conveniently as she liked. Which she
did.
I called Broken after my classes, because tonight we'd planned to plaster the
campus with new
Carleton League
of Super Villains posters, and all she could say was that she had bad
news for me.
Cupid had died. Charlotte is under considerable pressure, too. She's just started a
new job, and today they're flying her northwards for two days for an
orientation conference. So she's barely home and moved yet, has to bury a
beloved friend, start a new job, and yet still has to get it together, go
on a trip, shmooze and enjoy herself, and then come home and deal with
everything. Additionally, I got the most cryptic e-mail from the friend
she had gone to visit (at one point they were intimate, but are now just
friends... in any event, though, he still has very strong feelings for
her, and it cast some tense moments on her trip to see him), essentially
stating that he'd read my web page and completely agreed with it, and that
it helped him to make a very hard decision. I had no idea what he meant,
and mentioned it with concern to her this morning, which caught her by
surprise. Anyway, one of the messages she left tonight (and I feel
terrible for being out... she kept saying "I hope you're having a
good time," which was sweet, but it wasn't actually the reason I was out
at all, and it made me feel so guilty to be out when what I really
wanted was to be there for my dear friend tonight...) involved her
mentioning that the cryptic message had been explained by events, and I'm
waiting to hear what they could be, hoping ever so much that nothing
insane or frightful has happened -- though such portentous statements
rarely lead to anything else, unfortunately.
And I postered tonight. I printed up 200 new posters from a set of four,
which you will be able to see in the poster gallery as of September 24,
and after saving personal copies for various friends and fans, ended up
slapping 150 copies around the university tonight, with the help of some
of my very useful hired goons. Unfortunately, the tunnels on campus
(where I do most of my work) are patrolled by maintenance staff with golf
carts, who were viciously efficient tonight. I heard the grating
whine of an electric motor as we doubled back, perplexed at many missing
posters where only an hour before there had been a fruitful population,
and saw behind me a maintenance monkey zip up the tunnels, stop, rip down
a poster, zip ahead, stop, pull down the next, and keep going. Let me
tell you, after everything else today, that crushed me. It felt so
futile. And in a way, it was my own fault for being greedy and postering
so visibly in areas that weren't meant for posters, but really -- two
hours? I thought I'd have at least a day. Maybe it was just bad
timing. Like tonight was "rip down poster night" or something. But I'm
sure of the original effort, only half are still up on campus right now,
and that's so depressing to think about. I hope it was even worth
it. Hopefully they'll all still be seen, puzzled over, and loved.
Of course, I'd be happy just to know that my ex-girlfriend, known to
you as "Phil," saw them. That's half of the point behind their existence.
Just so she, who didn't want me at the same university as her (for
understandable reasons, like our painful breakup), can read them, and know
-- just know -- that somehow I'm involved, and that I'm doing well,
and still using my brain for obnoxiously clever things.
Of course, I keep waiting for the e-mail that says "Rob, I was wrong to
treat you so badly. You were the most considerate lover I ever had, and I
need your magic hands back in my life bad!" so my perspective, it must
not be forgotten, is quite small and sad.
Still, I guess I know what to ask Santa to bring me for Christmas.
My assumption for the moment is that he only
read some of the Snivel, and got way more out of his
interpretation of my life than I'd ever expected. Like, I think he saw
Charlotte and myself as lovers -- if erstwhile lovers -- and this sort of
put things into a weird perspective. He seemed uncomfortable with the
idea of Charlotte having so many different lovers this year... and I think
this just clinched the skittishness for him. He couldn't have her as a
lover, and perhaps those who have been that part of her life before
were something he just couldn't accept (even though, really, I'm not even
close to being one of the illustrious ex-boyfriends, and never will be),
and he decided to duck out gracefully... which I find bothersome,
reactionary, and dumb, but again -- it's just not my place, and it's
really his problem.
Goodnight.
S e p t e m b e r 24
Well, I'm in a rush, and can't explain too much about my life, but --
look. I have new Carleton League of Super-Villains posters for you. We
put them up Monday night, battling against time and maintenance staff
(bastards... when I become president of Carleton University, my first
act will be to kill the whole lot of them). Overzealous freaks.
S e p t e m b e r 23
This has, for whatever cause and reason, been one of those astoundingly
pointless days, where so many things of all sizes and importances go
smashingly wrong. It defies explanation. Which isn't to say I won't tell you
all about it.
Charlotte had come by that afternoon to pick her
up, and ten -- even five -- minutes before her arrival, that dear little
rat was in perfect spirits, and seemed as healthy as she could for her
age. But by the time Charlotte made it inside my room, Cupid had curled
up and soon stopped moving, just twitching a little. She died in
Charlotte's hands, while she cried tears for a beloved pet, and afterwards
all she could do was wonder wherever she might bury the poor little thing,
and throw out her cage. Broken asked her if she were sure she
should be throwing it away, to which Charlotte replied, "Why would I keep
it now?" I suppose it's possible she might even buy a new rat someday,
but I completely understand the desire not to have the memory of what has
been Cupid's home for her entire life remain near to my friend.
Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.
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