Unfortunately tonight, our hero has taken quite ill, so there can be no sniveling other than to the effect of how very ill he is. I spent four hours in the hospital dehydrating myself in such entertaining ways as dashing into the bathroom just in time to projectile vomit once, twice, thrice... and then a powerful comeback by the fourth. I'm amazed by how much fluid the human gastrointestinal tract holds... I'm still trying to make up for it.
Humble apologies for describing to you what normally count as among a human being's most tabooed secrets.
Fear you not. Soon I shall have even more names for the folks in my little life.
I was relieved, though, and yet disappointed, that my friend got very little camera time. I was fearing for her, because the camera people have this way of following the girls with the largest or flounciest breasts, and yet her only exposure was this occasional cute little head sticking up through a sea of dance people heads now and then, with her hair piled up and a nice dour expression on her face. Soon she shall be home, and then she shall be rewarded with tons of attention and love for such a brave stand.
And I must say, I was awfully touched by the sacrifice of
another sweet character in my life. One of my best friends, now known
forever here as Charlotte (because so few other
names fit), had been considering taking a summer job in a mystical,
faraway land where she's been attending university instead of coming back
here. For my own part, I wanted her to have money and self-esteem, so I
was hoping all would go well, but certainly I was unhappy at the idea,
being the selfish attention whore that I am. So.
The interview was
today, and it went smashingly well. In fact, Charlotte got a callback later
in the afternoon from the person who had interviewed her, offering her the
job. But, as she put it when she called me tonight -- friendship
mattered more than a job. I was horribly touched, though I didn't
even begin to express it nearly well enough, since when she called tonight
at 7:30, I guiltily admit that I was still in bed, and as perhaps you do
or don't know, people freshly awakened and naked under blankets are the least
witty of all.
Now of course, there were other factors. The job itself took place in a basement, and her job would technically be "Summer Employment Officer," and it would be her responsibility to supervise young people working with her for the summer. The appeal lessened. And as she was going through her day, she had visions of biking along the canal, and hanging out in the Byward Market, and exploring the Gatineaus, and it occurred to poor Charlotte that maybe spending an entire summer in her faraway enchanted city that she hadn't wanted to be in when the year began anyway wouldn't be that fun. So -- she didn't take the job, and she's coming back to hang out with meeeee. Me me me me me me. I love attention so.
In exchange, I think I shall serve as her personal male slave.
However, I have a 9:00 exam today, and while it is entirely multiple choice, it is also psychology, and I only managed to succeed with a B on the last psychology exam, so it would probably be a good strategy for me to go and partake in at least some last minute preparations for it.
Excelsior, y'all.
Or maybe you've decided that your race pride is somehow more paramount than the constitutional rights your dumb militia friends keep yammering about. Blah blah blah. If you like the colour of your skin so much, well great! Strip it off and hang it on the wall and stare at it and stroke it and call it nice things. Leave everyone else's epidermal layers alone.
And stop blowing up things! If you're going to blow up anything, blow up a sitcom set, or a Gap store, or Pepsico, or something that deserves destruction. Make a statement like "Meat is murder" by murdering the buggers inside McDonalds headquarters. There's one in Toronto, if you'd like to start. Government buildings -- what a waste. It's the destruction of good government employees that makes arts grants and student loans much harder on more worthy citizens.
The rest of you hear voices in your head from God or someone, telling you to be righteous about this or that, and blow up the heathens who fail to see your specific ideology, much in the loving, compassionate, forgiving way instructed by Your Lord God.
We only get to make fun of people when they screw up and chase comets and castrate themselves, but the ironic truth of the matter is that even now, the people who live next door to you and I probably deserve some amount of public ridicule for their psychotic approach to civilization.
Meanwhile, this ripe, plump juicy world is just inches from your grasp, but does anyone even think to just go ahead and seize it? Of course not. You're too concerned with myopic ideologies and political statements and Biblical passages for anything so liberating and jolly as Total World Domination. IDIOTS! If I had half the artillery, fertilizer explosives and face-paint that any of you did, I'd already be in charge of 34% of the entire planet, based on a projected campaign initiated sometime after my gruelling Christmas exams. While you grub around in bunkers and eat canned beans, the rest of the non-compound inhabiting continent would be hailing Lord Rob, who rules with magnificence and beneficence daily from his harem of 26 well-oiled super-geniuses.
So that's why I have to end this little monologue with the command: if you're going to bitch about anything, bitch about yourselves, you pathetic whiners. If you're going to overthrow anything, overthrow yourselves, and maybe something useful could be left in your places, like garbage cans or monuments to me, or parks, or ice cream stands, or balls of twine.
PS. Don't forget to watch my beloved stalker dance with bitterness tonight as she and her unfortunate comrades are forced to appear on the Electric Circus, on this very Friday night at 9:30PM EST on Much Music. Details available below, in Thursday's Daily Snivel.
My friend will be the bitter girl dressed all in black who looks rather like Princess Leia (but never go up to her and say "Hey, you look just like Carrie Fisher!" For she will bite you.). I think in that position I would find some way to escape or create a scene or snap and kill every living thing in the CHUMcity building, so I'm really proud of my poor brave beautiful friend, who is compromising her principles and misanthropy just because she's that committed to her dance class, and the figures of authority who control it.
So, I've decided to go ahead and set up a cast of characters, because I'm tired of alluding to the existence of people, referring to them only as "my friend," or whoever. This will be the tentative list of people I shall most likely be writing about, with more added to the list as they enter the story. At this point, my family members will all have their real names, because I couldn't possibly say anything scandalous about them. Expect it to appear within a day or two -- but remember, anyone can petition for a proper pseudonym of their own choosing just by e-mailing me here
The weird thing about this philosophy course was the students in the class. I love philosophy -- I hate philosophy STUDENTS. Bleah. I never actually ended up speaking to anyone, preferring to show up late, hole up in a corner with a can of Jolt, and doodle in the margins, but of the entire class, the only person I ever really wished I could have chatted with was the class freak. Every class has one, and usually it's me. But there was another one, and she seemed neat, if only for that superficial difference. But also she had this knack of doing things with her hair. It was a different colour, or set of colours, every week. Myself, I prefer to be more conservative and just keep it to the same old three -- purple, blue and black. I was never sure how she did it. Sometimes it would be black, sometimes it would be violet and red, or blue -- today it was orange and red. I was fascinated. Still, the entire year went by with me never saying a word, and in fact I always felt a little self-conscious, because I'm big and goony and somehow felt unworthy to meet her gaze. Yes, I'm a painfully shy colourful freak. The irony is astonishing.
I ended up sitting across from her tonight at the exam, for no particular reason other than the natural law involving cool people. Cool people sit at the back. It's just the law. And eventually, after the struggle noted above, I finished the exam with forty-five minutes left (usually I'm writing to the bitter end on account of my verbosity. This would say something about how unprepared I was), and sauntered off, never to take first year moral and ethical philosophy again.
As I was getting on a bus to head downtown and meet some friends at a reading, I noticed the freak from my class putting out her cigarette. I studiously avoided bringing attention to myself (like the demure, maidenlike creature of virtue true that I am), but she was getting on the same bus, and came up to me anyway. She asked me if I found the exam hard as well, and I admitted to wishing that I'd studied more (I always feel guilty for leaving while there are still a number of other people writing. Often I'm dead last, with the proctors just staring at me with the bitter knowledge that I'm the sole obstacle between them and going home early). And she admitted to having not studied at all, and then I said something about the accursed short answer questions, and she laughed and sat down, and I smiled and kept right on walking to a seat quite far away.
You might ask yourself why I didn't just sit down and be pleasant to this very nice young freaky person.
Heck, I did.
Nevertheless, the frogs have returned to us, and I am exceptionally happy. I've always had a soft spot for frogs. They're really quite adorable little creatures. Frogs just have this look on their face, of perpetual paranoia, like they know something's up. And speaking as one who once waded so carefully through ponds and shallows and lakesides and creeks with a bucket in hand and a twinkle in my eye, they tend to be right. I love frogs. When I was just a wee thing, my father -- and I really must have been something back then, because my father was always a little indulgent towards me -- would look at my love of frogs, and he'd get my older brother and sister, who might certainly have wanted to go off and play, and he'd give them a bucket and regardless of what they wanted to do, they'd have to go off and not return until they had some frogs for me to adore.
Because, again, I love frogs.
Frogs actually have a few things to say, so you should listen to them while you can. Practically the only thing of value I gleaned from linguistics this year is a better understanding of frogs. Frogs produce a range of sounds, generally used to communicate bodily function. The size of the frog affects the sounds it produces, as does the precise temperature of the water. Frogs in general have four potential topics for communication:
The first has to do with the search for mates, and potential mates. Female frogs will only respond to the calls of male frogs at certain times of the year (like right now), and this is why presently they are so vocal. The male frogs are all saying "Me! Me! Me! Me!" and it is up to the females to make their selections accordingly.
Another thing frogs will vocalize about has to do with their territory. Frogs will outline certain areas as falling into their domain, and much like birds, will make a lot of noise to spell this out in no uncertain terms.
Frogs also have a call for when it is raining. Weather is quite important in terms of changing the conditions of the water in which they reside, encouraging or discouraging predators, and either is associated with insects, or a lesser chance of insects being about, depending on what weather conditions the bugs find most favourable for forays.
The most interesting thing frogs have in their vocabulary is what is known as the "male release call." You see, in the mass confusion of mating season, there is an orgy of noise and frog bodies in a pond or river or lake, and occasionally male frogs will get so caught up in attracting mates that they will fail to notice that their new sweetie is, in fact, another male frog, and they will attempt to mate with him. The male release call essentially says: "Hey! Hey you! What are you going back there! Hey! No! Not me! I'm a male too! Hey, get off me! Yoo hoo! Yoo hoo! Get off of there! Thank you!"
While I may not expect to win any converts to my side, I would nevertheless like to just say "Rave on, my green friends. Keep on mating, keep on loving, and grow, grow, grow up and overthrow the human race!"
I'm not actually saying anything to bring people into my world of painful addiction, nor am I attempting to downplay the wonderful world of heroin that awaits you outside the confines of my teachings; all I can talk about is the fact that no other chemical is quite so cheap, legal, or invisible. I have little concern for anybody trying to legalize this, or decriminalize that, though I must say that when the day comes when they take caffeine away, I'm taking as many of the bastards down with me as I can. It's every junkie for himself.
The typical sources for caffeine would include coffee, tea, cola, chocolate, pain medication, and my blood. But hands off the blood. Honestly, I'd love to help (and there have been times, oh there have been times, when I'd see some guy walking down the hall or down the street, sipping away on a can of Jolt, and I'd think to myself -- "I'd drink every drop of his blood in his body just for the caffeine."), but it's hard enough to keep it inside of me with all of my depressive episodes as it is. Only creepy girls with teeth, nails, and a fondness for Robs may break my skin.
I've always thought a little bit about those glorious medical advances known as "Wakeups," with their 250 milligrams of caffeine in each glorious pill, but always I turn away. I look at such things as the Dark Side of the Force. Morally ambiguous or not, once I headed down that dark path, forever would it consume my destiny.
The essential thing to know about caffeine addiction is that it is ridiculously easy to break. The withdrawal symptoms go away after you've gone 3 or 4 days without any caffeine. I do it periodically, by accident, so it's with no particular guilt, or even joy, that I go back. I just like it. Most of my social relationships are tempered by caffeine. An old girlfriend, whom I shall refer to only as "Phil" (she was sensitive to the exact pronunciation of her name, and as to avoid any potentially goofy mispronunciations, I just decided Phil would be an easier thing to call her at first. I only did it once, of course, because I actually could say her name. I'm not an idiot.) used to bring cans of Jolt over when she came to stay over, and we'd spend the night sipping away, such as to fuel our consciousness until late into the night, when sleep would have been stupid. And of course, whenever I see anyone these days, we just end up "going out for coffee." It's my preferred means of (public) social interaction. Going out for coffee precludes annoying distractions that most people consider to be quite important when they have fun, those being loud music and dancing and a lot of other obnoxious bastards making noise everywhere they look. Coffee allows me to interact the way I do best: I drink coffee, I blab away about bitter intellectual things like a bitter intellectual geek, and meanwhile, I drink more coffee. And when I'm in the company of beloved humans, much hugging and cuddling fits in there too.
So yes, what I'm probably saying is that to me, caffeine is equal to love.
Man I want a cup of coffee.
Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.
Onto the next week of Classic Drivel.
Back to Purple People Eater Town.