This seems to be one of those lazy "I can't find my pants" Sundays that conspires to keep you wrapped up in blankets (because, of course, I can't find my pants, and while I have other pants they are not the pants I ought to be able to find) while snow falls outside (in Ottawa, it can start snowing at absolutely any time, with the possible exceptions of July, August, and usually September. My lobbying for a giant clear dome over the city has yet to be successful, strangely) and people who aren't wrapped up nakedly in blankets are outside, slipping on the slushy, icey sidewalks. Really, though, given that I as yet still have no cable in my room, you can't ask for much better entertainment than that -- being able to giggle wretchedly and remark, "Ha! Ha! You're dumb and cold!" to just about everybody who passes by my giant bay window.

I think I'm trying to deliberately enjoy myself, and thus seek that enjoyment of life in whatever source makes itself available. Last night I had coffee with my dear friend Broken, and one of her oldest friends (he and I have heard tons about one another, but only just that night met), who was feeling kind of freaked out because at some point around eleven o'clock PM had accidentally hypnotized his friend and lab partner as they were working on an experiment at the University of Ottawa. After a couple of minutes, his friend came out of it, because he snapped his fingers to illustrate a point, and I'm not sure what was accidentally implanted in his brain, but regardless something was, because then he ran out of the room screaming. And I guess the natural reaction to being accidentally hypnotized is that you inevitably feel really foolish for awhile -- as if you're some weak-minded, easily suggestible automaton who can't resist a simple, old Jedi Mind Trick. So our friend ended up feeling extremely guilty and unhappy about the whole experience, which sort of got us bonding, because I'm extremely guilty and unhappy about everything.

Speaking of guilt, things remain weird and awkward in the ongoing drama of "Rob and Clorinda's Strange and Unusual Sci-Fi Friendship" although for the purposes of accuracy and reassuring my audience who might now well be suffering the hysterium of extreme xenophobic terror, I will confidently state that there are less martians in the real version of our saga than the stories I wind up spinning here. Although, if my brain had been eaten, I'd probably say the exact same thing. Oh well. Caveat emptor. That's an important lesson. Just because a person says he's afraid of evil aliens on his web page, doesn't mean that he isn't really an evil alien himself. If I wanted to lure gullible earthlings into my kitchen, I'd probably spin all kinds of yarns about how "Yeah, those aliens are bad. I say we form a citizen's watch group of some sort... maintain a vigil against their slimey and nefarious ways! Why don't we meet tonight, at my place! Bring guns -- and of course, your tasty brains."

In any event, Clorinda and I continue talking, and lots is said, but sadly our communication is probably going to be awkward and slightly reserved for a little while. I mean, I'm not happy about this, and neither, I'm sure, is she, but nevertheless, bad things tend to happen regardless of how much people want them to or not. I guess the issue for me is that she's really trivializing the way I feel, as a kind of coping mechanism. I've had to experience it before, so I knew to react to it. I suppose it's the grim truth that absolutely every person is, by necessity, as emotionally wacky as I am, albeit in many different ways, in all the colours of manic/ obsessive/ neurotic/ repressive/ insanity in the rainbow. And in the various stages of love I've experienced, occasionally there have been people, close friends and girlfriends alike, who feel in some way incapable or unworthy of love, and as a way of reconciling the strong brand of affection that comes from Sparkling Pure Rob industries, decide that those feelings themselves are nothing more than crushes -- a convenient, fashionable, safe, emotion felt for someone who either doesn't feel love, or doesn't want love.

Which of course always hurt, because in effect it meant that someone I cared strongly for couldn't take my feelings seriously, which to me implied that they didn't actually take me seriously. As if they knew better what I felt than I did, and could pronounce something I considered important and meaningful as frankly quite silly, transitory, puppylike, and... well, I could go on, but the important thing is for me to say that I take everything seriously, and I have serious difficulties and unhappinesses when something that matters more to me than anything is trivialized; when someone I care for can trivialize herself, and her importance to my life, because it's easier than believing I'm really capable of love, and that she might be worthy of it (regardless of whether it can be, or whether I even want it to be, returned).

At the same time, however, matters of such Grave Consequence really aren't in my thoughts at this point. Mostly I'm just worried about my friend. From all indications, she is having complications related to her diabetes, and how serious these are, or what is going to be done about them, is uncertain. With levity, but sincerity, I have extended the offer of one of my kidneys should such things ever be necessary. It probably wouldn't be compatible, but I have at least one good one in any event. I'd keep the treacherous, kidney stone one for myself. Even Clorinda is worried, though, which leaves me tense, alert, panicked and miserable, because (unlike me) when Clorinda is worried about something, there are all kinds of good reasons, and although presently I certainly am sweet on her, she is, first and foremost, a close friend. And giving and emotional though I might be, there is a rigorous and finely meshed selection process that comes into play before someone gets to be so loved as to find themselves one of my close friends; it's just that when they are, all I ever want to do is, somehow, to make things better than they are.

I mean, I don't always make things worse.

Not always.

N o v e m b e r 15

The National Capital Region of Ottawa-Carleton is officially a metropolis, with a one million person population, but Toronto has held this status for much, much longer. Most Canadian television comes from Toronto, notably including the Kids in the Hall (before America swallowed them up, of course... you can still see Dave Foley on News Radio, and Mark McKinney was on Saturday Night Live. But oh, oh... you'd never know they were funny that way), Much Music (like MTV, but wacky and intellectually devoid in a Canadian way) and Degrassi Junior High. The centrepiece of Toronto is a four hundred fifty metre monolith we call the CN Tower; and is, to date, the tallest free standing structure in the world. I took some obligatory photos of it while I was there, immediately marking me as a tourist, but I took comfort in knowing I was a tourist with phenomenally cool hair.

In any event, we caught a bus at 12:30 Tuesday night, and spent the next five hours watching the rural splendor of Ontario pass by. Broken and I both had midterms earlier that day, and as I had two to write (one at 12:30, the other at 6:00), the only bus we could catch was the midnighty route. The advantage to this was that there were only nine people on the Greyhound chariot for the duration of our journey, and nothing is quite so fine as an empty bus. It is quiet, dark, peaceful, no one tries to talk to you, nor do they recline their seat into your knees. Splendid. The only real problem was that there was no heat for the first two and a half hours of the trip, and with a slight breeze coming in from some unknown source on that below zero degree night, and Broken and I huddled under her greatcoat as our noses chilled and my skin temperature was efficiently cooled by the window. The bus driver told us that the heat was broken, and we'd be getting a new bus in Peterborough, but somewhere near Actinolite (no, I'd never heard of it either), where we stopped at three in the morning for snacks, we also changed bus drivers, and after that point the heat did work. I don't really feel qualified to comment, but I think some people just bring the wrong attitude with them to their jobs. I will say, though, that during this trip, there was only one thing more common than trees along Ontario's lonely late-night highways. Coffee Time donut shops. Those red fiends are everywhere. In Toronto, you can use them as landmarks; you can find them every two blocks, peddling their 24-hour brand of convenience and bland egg salad sandwiches.

Somewhere around 5:30 in the morning, or thereabouts, we pulled into the bus terminal downtown. Subways began running at six, so Broken and I had some time to find our bearings, freshen up, eat yet more candy (which, for a lack of any opportunity to buy real food, sustained us during our trip), and poke around a little. Downtown Anywhere is a fascinating place to be at any time of the day, but especially early in the morning, before anybody wakes up, because the city has an entirely different air without humanity. You can also gawk at all the tall buildings without feeling too terribly much like a caveman. This being so, we walked the two blocks to the subway station and caught ourselves a train north. Then we caught a train east. You know what though? We probably traversed the distance of half of urban Toronto on that ride, and I'm sure some people find it depressingly long and dull, but not us. Broken and I live in a city that offers only buses as its major form of mass transit, and lousy buses at that. Ottawa's buses stop running by midnight. A few straggling, major routes will hold out until one, and there's one bus that keeps running until almost two, but even during peak performance, the buses are slow, nasty, inefficient, and prone to striking (grr). Toronto has buses too. They run twenty-four hours. They're fast. They have twenty-four hour streetcars as well. They're fast. The subways are even faster. On a journey that would likely have taken an hour by bus (in Ottawa reckoning) we traveled by subway in less than half an hour. When you wait for a subway train, you wait for no more than three minutes, wherever you are. And you're in a safe, warm, dry environment.

I love subways. I just have to say that so that there's no mistake in the chronicles of history. I love them. I want some.

Arriving to my sister's house, we discovered that no one was up; but instead of waking people with a phone call (because our knocking and doorbell ringing did nothing), we waited in the enclosed front veranda, sat down, and Broken lit up a cigarette (it being the official smoking room of the house, since my sister's six-year-old daughters are most physically unappreciative of such carcinogens) while we awaited the house to wake up, which it most certainly would before long, there being school and work that day. We lit up some candles (my sister has taste, after all, and burns copious quantities of both candles and incense), and otherwise took it easy. My sister's husband came downstairs first, found us, let us in, filled us with coffee, and thoughtfully prepared the futon downstairs so that we could nap.

That day was otherwise filled with a lot of sightseeing. My sister took us down to an area called The Beaches where many fine and unusual shops of all manners of character and selection awaited our browsing. We found this great store called Lush that sells only handmade vanity items... kind of like the Body Shop, but utterly lacking preservatives because everything is made out of food that day, and the shop smelled several orders of magnitude more intensely of goodness. I bought some cool soap comprised exclusively of glycerine, lemon, honey, and some spicy stuff, and Broken treated herself to this oddity they called a "Bath Bomb." Basically it's a baseball-sized quantity of bicarbonate of soda, mixed in with all kinds of good-smelling delights, flower petals, vanilla, and so on, that you put into the bath with you. It immediately explodes into fizzing, and fills the bath with fragrant fun. They came in all kinds of colours and aromas, and I would have bought some for myself, but I only ever take showers, and we have a whirlpool for fizzy fun.

My sister and Broken had to leave rather early, however, so that they could prepare their sets for the reading that night, but I was enjoying my wandering, and mass transit being the delectable delight that it is in Toronto, I decided to stay where I was, and come back to the house by independent means. I had my camera with me, and felt like taking some commemorative snapshots such as to turn them into after-the-fact postcards... sort of like a "I was in Toronto a little while ago... and I was thinking of you when I took this photo." There was this amazing park I needed to photograph especially. It was tremendous, filled with trees, and a giant gazebo, and a plethora of squirrels and seagulls. So I took some snaps, then changed the film and the batteries when, what ho, but I noticed a set of keys in the grass beside me. I didn't really know what to do with them, but I figured that leaving them on a picnic table wouldn't quite be enough somehow, and certainly it lacked my sense of style. So I grabbed an envelope from my briefcase (I always come prepared with a full selection of envelopes, stamps, paper, and writing instruments for whenever inspiration, loneliness, or necessity strikes), sealed the keys inside, and left them there with the following inscription:

INSIDE:

One found set of keys.
If they're not yours, be honest.
Signed - A Stranger.

I was hoping that my wry yet insistent tone might compel those who did not actually own the keys to leave them where they were for those who did, or otherwise arrange towards their safe return by putting an ad in the paper or something. It also seemed like they'd be easier to notice if and when a frenzied individual retraced his or her steps in the hopes of recovering the means to go inside their house. And part of me was also thinking, "Maybe this is part of some study to test people's helpful honesty, or I'm on candid camera or something..." but in any case, I'm sure someone's day was made a modest amount more interesting, and that's the part that always matters for me. Anyhow, I saw many neat things while I wandered around. I gossiped with shopkeepers, bought tons of incense (thirty yummy sticks of my choosing for two dollars? Zowie!), ventured into antique stores (and I saw the most exquisite old silk top hat that was even taller and cooler than my own, which I almost bought on the spot, even though it was kind of frayed around the brim. It was, after all, nearly eighty years old, and only fifty dollars... sigh), where temptation struck me again and again, but I resolved myself not to buy anything until the next time I visisted, when I would be more assured of my ability to splurge.

The reading was splendid. We sat in this extremely cool sort of cafe, with well-chosen colours for the walls in dark reds, blues, and blacks, hung with art for sale and filled with Toronto's coolest cafe people. I want places like that in Ottawa, because I would hang out in it all the time (I am eternally questing for a new coffee type place to hang out in and have coffee, but nothing really says "live here," like Dark City did). My sister and Broken both read supremely, and given that this was Broken's first appearance on a Toronto stage, where the poets are given considerably more guff and honesty from the audience than in a friendly, fake, incestuous circle like Ottawa (poets are subject to the same politics of any scene, but worse, because poets are prone to being obsessive, neurotic, emotionally handicapped megalomaniacs -- I mean, I'm one... could you tell?), she was received very well, and everyone genuinely seemed to love, and appreciate her intense brand of spiritually feminist poetry. It can be extremely difficult to read feminist poetry without scaring half your audience, but if you're very, very good, it can indeed by done, as my sister and Broken have both shown in their respective careers.
I also managed to see my friend Johnny, my dear friend and poetry master, after a physical absence of what must have been a year. He and I babbled when the reading paused in between the sets of each of the three poets, and when I wasn't stuffing my face with a fancy-ass cafe version of what could in some sense be called a grilled cheese sandwich. I missed him an awful lot, is all I can say. That night, though, I was feeling tired and a little sad an lacking in self-esteem (my disease of late), and I'm sure I was rather subdued from behind my sulky shell.

I learned something strange and cool, but disturbing. My sister's husband might well be getting a new, important, significantly better paying job in China early in the new year, which means that they would all be relocating there. This coming only a year after their move to Toronto. And certainly they all agree that this is going to be an amazing experience that they will all be looking forward to (I myself am indeed excited for them), but it does have that unfortunate entailment of my sister, her husband, and my adorably urchinesque nieces being rather farther away than a bus trip. Like twenty hours flying farther away. I mean, at first it was just Toronto that threatened to swallow up my friends and family, but now the world at large is getting in on it as well, and it's harder to say "Well, I'll just have to visit the world more, won't I?" The consequence of this is, though, that they will not be bringing their three cats, Malcolm, Bakunin, and Sue. This lead to an interesting proposal from my sister that I decided to think carefully about; that perhaps I could be persuaded to take care of them. And certainly I like cats, and specifically I like my sister's cats very much, and they for the most part like me. It would, however, involve providing them with much more space and care than I am presently capable of, and this is why my sister mentioned that perhaps it would be the case that in exchange for a good home, they would provide a stipend sufficient for their care, around the order of three hundred dollars a month -- effectively doubling what I could pay in rent. This would allow me to find a larger place, and perhaps a roommate, and thus have the palatial space with which I would provide the cats the home they deserve.

I don't know. It requires much thought. But perhaps. I might well need to find a new home soon anyway. This one may or may not crumble around me.

Broken remains in Toronto until today. I came home Thursday night, and made it to Ottawa at two o'clock Friday morning. I would have happily stayed, and visisted, but work compelled me to return home. Still, at least that seems to be going well -- better than I would have thought for myself, anyway. My boss mentioned that he would very much like to renew my contract, which ends in just over a month, if I could spare the time. I was very flattered. I told him that, the money aside, I was always happy and fascinated by my job, and with almost definitive certainty I had half days I could come in during the winter and spring. So I guess I won't go broke yet, or want for a feeling of productivity.

Not that this means I'm really happy, of course.

But anyway, if I talk about everything, you won't have much to read tomorrow, so that's all I have to say about that.

N o v e m b e r 14

N o v e m b e r 11

Today, I have the distinct pleasure of attending not one, but two mid-terms before catching a bus to Toronto just after midnight. Broken and I are going to be visiting my sister, who is also going to be giving a poetry reading with Broken at some downtown cafe where poets go to test their wits against hardened, jaded audiences of poetry, who unlike the (admittedly gratifying) poetry crowd in Ottawa, are used to inflicting cruel amounts of honesty in their critiques.

Of course, what did I do all last night instead of studying, but sleep? Sigh. I only got two hours of sleep Sunday night, because I had a most futile doctor's appointment Monday morning. It was supposed to be a follow up of my kidney stone ordeal, but they could have done it on the phone, because I was there for all of five minutes (including waiting room time) before they asked me perhaps four questions, decided to book me for an ultrasound, and sent me home, where I'm supposed to wait for a phone call.

Anyway, off I go, to study formulae and transcription notation. I ought to be back Thursday evening. I'm not really looking forward to more travel quite so soon, but maybe it will help take my mind off things. Perhaps I'll send out yet more postcards, anyway, as an attempt to stave off the madness of six hours on a bus.

There has to be a reason for all of this.
There just has to.

N o v e m b e r 10

I've been pretty good, though. I mean, the only thing I really bought in the pursuit of pleasure this year was the trip to Spokane, and that was certainly pivotal and important to me, so it has to count more as a necessity in my life (even if I'm whining about some of the particulars, don't mistake that as actual regret. I'm ever so glad I went, and that's that) versus a mere shiny thing. The moral, anyway, is that when I'm depressed, acquisition can be a solution of sorts. It doesn't help so much as coat my problems, of course; coat them with a thick, sugary layer that allows the unpleasant medicine of reality to more palatably slip through into my ulcerous stomach. Regardless, I pulled the vanishing act with a hundred dollars or so, and feel paradoxically enriched. A small purchase, perhaps, but immensely satisfying: that's right, I bought five new albums this weekend, and boy -- the music never stops around here.

By all accounts, my music collection is meagre and pathetic. In total, I own perhaps fifty-three cassettes, and (since the arrival of my magic spinny laser box two years ago) maybe forty-eight or forty-nine compact discs. I mean, not bad, but people still sneer. I was left vaguely aghast by Clorinda's selection of music, for example, which spanned many filled cases and could only be remarked upon as a declaration of exceptionally good and varied tastes. People who don't even especially like her have fear and respect for her shining archives of Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco, and well they should (though they should also just like her). More to the point, she owned CD's she'd never even opened before, obtained when she worked at the radio station, and it all sort of made me realize that I do indeed have some way to go before I can rest happily with the sum of my musical experience.

Today I woke up, bleary and surly, and committed myself towards the dubious end of spending money for the sole purpose of making my inner ape feel better ("ape likes bananas!"). A few minutes later, Caira interrupted my naked resolution by knocking the door, and I had to cease plotting long enough to put on pants. This is OK, though, since every megalomaniacal shopaholic must occasionally be humbled by reality, lest that bloating feeling of economic power lead to troublesome persecution complexes and the wearing of tissue boxes on my feet. Caira had delved into her own vast treasury of music the previous evening, in order to better inspire me with my quest and my sulking, and while I found a lot of it quite tasty, none of it was compelling me to make purchases, save an album by the Cranes, which was nice and eerie and obfuse. I'd only heard of this band in the context of being one of those essential sounds that most goths probably own, but that aside, my musically inexperienced ears tingled most appreciatively in a way that word of mouth praise cannot at all prepare one for.

Charlotte (yes, it's about time I mention her in a Snivel again... it can be ironic, in a way, that at various times both Charlotte and Clorinda have wanted featuring occurrences in the Daily Snivel. I mean, maybe I'd buy a new tape every month or Snivel, versus incidental mentions, and then, to the ultimate woe of all, they suddenly find themselves mentioned rather a lot for awhile) was kind enough to join me this day. We'd hung out Sunday night until four in the morning, discussing life and sharing secret thoughts about our respective lives, and those pivotal people defining them, and had agreed to meet again in the morning (read: afternoon) to purchase frivolities. In a lot of ways, Charlotte and I are bafflingly similar, as if cast from the same plans and yet modeled in differing ways. My personal analogy is that of Astroboy, and his effective brother, the evil Atlas. Same plans, different robot -- one did more smiling, the other enslaved earth now and then. We both take comfort in little excesses, as justifiable ways to deal with those little emotional disorders we call home.

Charlotte knew more about what she wanted than I did. I just knew that I wanted stuff. I couldn't even begin to figure out what this vague desire would crystallize into. I used to have this huge mental wish list of albums I needed to get, that seemed to grow faster than I could cull, and never did I have sufficient money to really satisfy my yearnings for new music. I mean, maybe I'd buy a new tape or CD every month or two, if I were good. Of late, though, while my pile o' tunes is admittedly thin, it occupies a good section of my "must have" list, and takes up enough of what used to be my "would be nice" compilation that I'm only left with a few desires for albums that I can only justify buying when I have a lot of money to spend, guilt free.

Charlotte quickly settled on the new Verve album, which I was sorely tempted by myself. I've only heard one track from it, though, and my informal rule of shopping tends to be that if I haven't heard at least two tracks from a CD, or already own at least one album by that artist, I'm typically leery of buying it. That way I better avoid buying anything I wind up resenting.

I figure if I reveal enough of my anal-compulsive little habits, then people will either hate me, or pity me, and either way it's kind of like free psychotherapy.

One of my recent role assumptions is that of massage boy. Oafish and huge as my hands are, I receive endless praise about them thanks to all those I encounter with grateful backs. If you're ever having a bad day, try imagining that someone is in love with your long, slender fingers, and strong hands, and so on. Makes me blush till forever. But anyway, in exchange for happy back-kneading, Caira has been breaking down my psychological freakosity in a manner that most psychology professors would probably find unwise, but I nevertheless consider educational.

And now back to our story.

After about half an hour of hemming and hawing, I made my purchases. I'd been trying to find something uniquely Canadian and cool to send to Clorinda (specifically, an album by a group she'd never even heard of before, and yet would be a delicious delight), and gave up, deciding that it felt more like a pathetic "Hey, I brought you a dead bird" offering, and anyway, I didn't trust my judgement. So I selected a few selfish albums, and sucked theoretical numbers from my overtaxed savings account. I wound up buying the new album from Portishead, which I liked immensely. I also spent my hard-won funds on a Combustible Edison album, Schizophonic, which is groovy beyond even brown corduroy, and less of an acquired taste (I personally haven't worn corduroy since I was five, but anyway). Complimenting this selection was She Hangs Brightly, which is my third Mazzy Star CD, and presumably one of their first albums, and it is my gem. This is specifically helping my moping along nicely.
New also to my ranks of plastic music-containing boxes ("Jewel boxes" just sounds so ridiculous in comparison) was the A-sides album by Soundgarden (I've never had occasion to own an album by this band, but it was full of songs I really liked, so shut up), and Karma, by Delerium, which I bought for Broken, who is in love with both Sara McLachlan, and Lisa Gerrard (From Dead Can Dance, a smashing band). All in all, I was quite sated. And the guilt of blowing so much money is barely more than a mild swelling now.

With our shiny purchases stowed safely, Charlotte and I made our way to a pet shop, because the previous night I'd been blathering on about my love for ferrets, and for some reason this put a twinkle into her eye. Charlotte is beginning to think about buying a new pet at long last, following the most awful and saddening death of her precious pet rat earlier this fall. So we spent half an hour gazing into the eyes of one of the aforementioned psychotic weasels, as it nibbled on our buttons, and licked Charlotte's face, and crawled inside her coat, with thoughts of her slightly less accessible shirt. I was in love almost immediately. Charlotte, I think, was as well. Although she has been known to impulse shop at my goading (she bought several beautiful and costly dresses this summer with little more than her own enchantment and my elbowing to spur her on), there was fortunately some part of her that said "Hey. Ferrets live for eight years. Think about this," because I almost thought she was going to buy him on the spot, before someone else did.

This little fellow was a charmer, though. A prince. I think ferrets are amazing little creatures in any event, but this particular individual had an astonishingly good temperment for a notoriously aggressive and psychotic predator species. All he wanted to do was play, and nibble, and explore, and no amount of handling or belly scratching could upset or deter him from enjoying himself. This is markedly unlike, say, a hamster, which the clerk and I both agreed were among the most misanthropic, surly, and genuinely bad-natured pets of all time.

I'm hoping Charlotte buys him. I promised that I'd be over at her apartment every night to play with him if she did. I was tempted to buy him myself, but I'm pretty much aware that at this stage in my life, my lifestyle would not be quite accomodating for such independent, but nevertheless high-maintenance creatures. I did mention that, should she ever need to be away, I would give him the most excellent home I could. Somehow, I suspect that if she can work out some money issues, then she'll find some way to rationalize the $179 cost of this particular ferret, plus his equally pricey cage and care accessories.

I bought music because it helps me feel bad. Buying a ferret would have helped me feel good, which I'm not quite ready for, but Charlotte certainly deserves.

No investment can be more rewarding than one which chews on your toes.

Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.

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