"Wow," you're wondering, "where the hell was Rob? We needed him, and he was nowhere to be found! Oh, the moaning and gnashing of teeth there will be tonight!" Um. Well, sadly enough, I was vacationing this weekend. I spent my weekend safe in the arms of rest and sleep and entirely too much food and even a little bit of the pleasurable arts -- for which they do not have boy scout badges (or any other similar type organisation), but if they did, trust me, there'd be one sewed to my undies right now. I really needed a rest after a very stressful term, and I'm feeling so much better. I convinced myself that I was going to be in a better mood tonight, and for some reason this actually worked. I'm not entirely certain why, but I know that I'm feeling uplifted, and inspired, and I did a whole bunch of writing when I came home. I also found the sweetest message upon the messageboard (a blackboard at our front door where everyone has a name and a space to write their details whether they're in or out... usually it's just a forum for people to be witty) upon my return. Pixiegirl had written down, for reasons I'm not sure of yet (I was touched nevertheless), Rob T. is an angel, but Rob F. is a god! Beside my name on my own slot, I was informed that Cthulu loves me. Which I'm assuming can only be a good thing, knowing that wiley cephalopod.

Rob T., I should explain, is the human being Pixiegirl adores more than any other on this world. She has massive throbby feelings for him, and that's been the way for some time. And it's not that her message represents any particular shift in those feelings. Nor would that be any hope of mine (how complicated!). I get the feeling I've just done something neat, and I'd really be interested in knowing what that is. However, it's a wonderful feeling to be liked by people, and my step is a bit springier for the time being. At least in the sense that it's sluggish and fussy and seems to be springing me into bed. The moral so far is, bed is where I'm heading, and that's where I'll be for awhile. Expect me to be up and about on Monday morning, though, because it's reading week, and I'll be busy, but not quite so busy as before (just my job and assignments to keep on top of), and I'll have, I should hope, all kinds of time to add to this entry.

F e b r u a r y 24

I hope you can understand and forgive my abberant behaviour (that is, inexcusable tardiness). I don't know how to make it up to you exactly. Please don't lose faith, though. I have these horrible nightmares about people losing patience with me and giving up on their gloriously recurrent perusals of my page; and that would just destroy every purpose I have for doing it. I have to go. I'm sorry.

F e b r u a r y 25

Love, Broken.

F e b r u a r y 26

My boss is preparing to leave for a conference in Sweden next week, and he's giving a presentation that will involve oodles and oodles of slides. So in desperate preparation, we've been making said slides up out of thin air. The process is really neat. We scan in photographic plates, negatives, drawings, and charts with vigour and determination, touch them up where possible with Photoshop (there are entirely too many instances to clean up anything but the most atrocious of images), and import them to CorelDraw where we turn them into slides. Somewhere downstairs is someone in charge of printing slides through some nefarious process which is, I believe, to take place tonight. So, I spent two days scanning, retouching, and importing, and while I love my job and I completely understand the critical nature of these tasks, I'm nevertheless extremely worn out. I left a message with my boss's voice mail today -- in particular to give him my contract number, because he couldn't find it and we needed to sign an invoice yesterday that would mean I get paid next month (one thousand eighty dollars -- yay!), but I also made sure he knew that if he needed me to come in and help out some more tomorrow, I most certainly would. I'm a tired egg, but a good egg.

I'm nursing my spine with a hot water bottle. I won't deny that I'm a most pathetic sight, but it must surely be a sign of my advanced years that I can no longer rebound from stress, sleep deprivation and physical fatigue from my labours with a single can of Jolt cola and a phone call from a friend. Maybe if it were two cans, or if the friend were going to give me a backrub I'd do better. Oh well. I shouldn't really be whining about trivialties, and I'm sorry if that's boring at all. I'm actually devoting a lot of my brain to worrying about certain people in my life, but I don't feel up to talking about these problems right now (I also don't think it's time to mention such things), so I'm left only with the most immediate of subject matter -- how I'm feeling. I'm trying to spend the remainder of this week of (so-called) leisure to reconnect old friendship circuits that have been frayed with time and busyness. I have about a bizillion letters to write to friends around the country/world, and nearly as many telephone conversations that are way past due. I most definitely require a conversation with Clorinda, but the pressing requirements of urgent crises aside, I've got enough high school companion-related guilt to power the Starship 'Loser' to the outer boundaries of the galaxy.

Zoom.

I'd like to close, if I could, with a couple of inspiring thoughts to people you don't really know, but who are such an important part of my life that there really wouldn't be a life (or a Snivel) without them. My thoughts go to Caira, who is in crazy upheaval, smitten by bitterness and trust issues. She entertained both Broken and myself the other night, fed us, and in some way might have gleaned just the tiniest bit of useful information from my abortive attempts to teach her HTML (at least, I left her with an instructional guide that serves as the only required text for my history of cognitive science class) while servicing her poor back with my overly large and tireless monkey hands. If nothing else, I am skilled in all pleasurable arts, and at least I'm good for an exquisite massage now and then. And she deserves them -- Caira is one of the best. Everyone I know loves her very dearly, and I'm not about to exclude myself from such a prestigious group. Caira is excellent. I don't know if her decisions are permanent, or if the future is quite set, but I do know that as long as she's happy and safe, I'm rooting for her.

I'm also thinking long and hard about poor Clorinda. She's one of the shiniest things in my magpie's world of beautiful objects, and as you've no doubt gathered by now, I care about her greatly. Clorinda is very unwell of late, and it's perhaps a sign of my obsessive general affection for her that I feel so crappy myself. I've been in a kind of communication with her, but she's been sad, and I've been out of the house and working for the past two days, so our friendship is basically comprised of phone messages at this point. It is no doubt difficult for her to envision happy endings right now, but so long as she knows that there are people who care about her, and who will do anything to help, anytime and whenever, maybe she'll allow those who care to reach out to comfort her sad self. I wish I could actually be there to do something. I wish I could do more than be here and worry about how she is. Sometimes all a person needs more than anything in the world is to be held and made safe. Sometimes it's all I know how to do.

Oh well. I have stamps, a telephone, and free internet access. I'm sure I'll figure out something.

F e b r u a r y 27

Broken was with me all night. We'd spent the day hanging out, being poetic and all that, and because she'd treated me to coffee and tasty baked goods at the H'Tog cafe, I decided to buy us both dinner. So, we indulged in a rare splurge, and ordered in. This, at the time, seemed like a good idea. We experimented a little, and while I've yet to ever find a place that delivers really exceptional falafels (a falafel is a mediterranean sandwich served in a pita... it's a vegetarian's dream, and is essentially comprised of a mixture of fava beans and chick peas, which are peeled, mashed, molded into little balls and deep fried. You add yummies like pickles, lettuce, and tzatsiki sauce (which is probably misspelled here) and boy! are they ever delicious. Broken makes absolutely the best falafel, which is why I'm always disappointed when I get them from restaruants. However, because I've personally assisted in the peeling of soaked fava beans, I can honestly say that falafel is a bitch to make, and there is a certain desirable convenience about paying someone to do all that for you), I took my chances once again. Broken got some chicken wings and fries, and I'll admit guiltily that I was dipping the occasional french fry into the honey garlic sauce that came with the wings.

Therein lying the adventure. Our operating theory right now is that they marinated the chicken wings in the same delightful sauce which they ultimately served them, because some nasty amount of bacteria survived and wreaked their usual havoc with unsuspecting human digestive tracts. I got a little sick. Broken was ill for the entire night. We were going to see her off to a bus, and made it about halfway down the block when she asked if we could just put off the whole adventure and turn around and set a course right back for the house. I've never actually had food poisoning before -- one of those advantages of vegetarianism is that usually you can avoid such ills as e. coli bacteria, because vegetables and dead decomposing chicken carcasses are basically worlds apart. Anyhow, I'm feeling bitter and slightly queasy today; two feelings which are gradually fading into irrelevancy, but I still admit that if I had lawyers and such things, I'd sue my way into at least getting my twenty dollars back. Wretches.

I also spoke to Clorinda, at long last. She called while Broken, Pixiegirl, and myself were watching Powder; which is one of those movies you might not necessarily wish to watch alone due to the fact that inevitably you'll start crying. At least, that was the scene last night. Neither Broken nor Pixiegirl had seen it before, so they were ripping through the tissues by the time the movie was half over. In this sense, I was lucky because I'd seen it before, and I'm generally pretty hardened to such tragedies after the second or third time (and anyway, I'm not much of a crier unless whatever is happening is happening to me), big tough guy that I am. Clorinda and I wound up having one of those sorts of conversations that I feel awkward about all the way through, and then obsess over afterwards, wondering what I should have said differently, or instead of those words I actually did say. She was in good spirits, all things considered, which helped things, because she was talkative and I was apparently more in a listening mood. I've always been weird about telephone calls in the sense that when I'm talking to someone I terribly admire or adore, I'm exceedingly nervous, so I'm never really... myself. I'm never as clever or interesting as I think I ought to be for the first five or ten or twenty minutes, and it's only afterwards that I (hopefully) start to relax and regain control of my gibbering brain.

I'm presuming that I can at least say, without fear of death, that Clorinda broke up with her boyfriend Monday evening. It was an unanesthetized surgical procedure for her; it was horrible, bloody, painful and she wasn't at all inclined normally to do such a thing, but in the penultimate conversation he finally made it clear that he planned never to change for anyone -- not even her -- and in spite of her deep running and determined love for him, she ended their relationship. So, I've spent the days since worrying about her and feeling more concerned than normal humans probably ought to. I've also had to deal with a lot of guilt issues stemming from the fact that I've been quite mean to said boyfriend since meeting him; at least, I haven't been a very positive influence. It's not that I suspect that Clorinda was in any way swayed by the opinions of myself or her friends -- Clorinda is not susceptible to old Jedi mind tricks -- but I've tried to compare it to when you spend your days hating someone passionately, and then they get cancer and die. You feel kind of like a weasel -- well, I do. Or maybe I'd feel great. I'm not sure. In this case, I feel bad. I don't feel bad for him however. Clorinda made a necessary decision, and acted in a manner that was meant to ensure her ultimate good. I'm very proud of her for taking decisive action, even though it didn't make her happy. But I guess I'm feeling like I could have been a better friend.

It wasn't a relationship I was especially supportive of. I cared about Clorinda's happiness and safety, but my first impressions of her boyfriend were negative -- influenced of course, by my own feelings at that time (I won't comment as to what those feelings actually are right now). There were times when my outright sulkiness lead to conflicts in our friendship, and Clorinda and I would spend weeks at a time without communicating in any way. During those times, our lives went on, and when we actually did speak in any form, I tended to hear about the things that were upsetting my friend, and these things would typically involve one of two culprits. I'll give you a hint: one of them was me -- the other wasn't. I was out of the circuit a lot, but I would form my continued impressions of one of the biggest factors in my friend's life using the biases of my slanted emotions and the upsetting tales she would include me in. So I grumbled and bitched and my responses resembled those of a paramecium in a petri dish that was lit at one half -- I went to the Dark Side. With last week's Snivel as my example, I feel now like a buzzard circling over a wounded antelope. I sent a few more e-mails to Clorinda on similar veins (but much more personal and they shan't be spoken of) last week, and it's odd now that their breakup didn't seem more imminent at the time, as she actually never took issue with anything I said.

Clorinda did what many people do in terms of their various pelvic affiliates throughout history -- she focused on the positive. To this day, I'll growl at anyone who speaks ill of Lucretia and my many painful attempts at a relationship with her (my mother, especially, has never liked her; not from the day they met), even though there were times when she hurt me, and even though our personalities were in many ways in complete conflict; I was thoughtful and attentive (obsessive) and she was more casual and careless (normal). So my feelings were often hurt, and she was often defensive. Contexts switched, Clorinda rationalized a lot of what her boyfriend did, and made excuses both to defend him to others, and make herself feel better (Clorinda's rationalizations and my completely insane ability to blind myself to reality with desperation and hope should never be confused). Anyway, towards the end, Clorinda stopped rationalizing everything so much.

I try to slap myself in the face and snap out of it by asking myself, "Well, would you have felt better if you spent all that time trying to convince Clorinda that she would never find anyone better than him?" and the answer is obvious. At the same time, it didn't make me happy that they broke up, and I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing. I was miserable, and fraught with gobs of concern when I received Clorinda's e-mail at work on Tuesday, and I can only suppose that this is better than being sadistically delighted at the chaos and upheaval of her loneliness and tears, because someone who were only motivated by their own selfish feelings probably would. Clorinda did what she thought was right, and that is, to me, the best she could do. Maybe it's because if I have any negative thoughts about him now, then it's like walking around sneering "I told you so! Wasn't he a crummy boyfriend! Nya ha! I was right all along!" and the snipers of justice would have to dispatch me in the fair way they ought to if I tried to elevate myself by rubbing it in. So ultimately I have no idea what to say to her, as happened last night, except babbling about me being sorry, because that's all I really know how to feel.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll look down into the pit before you, you'll see the cruellest joke of nature -- Wishy Washy Boy. Watch and mock as he flip flops in vain attempts to always do the right thing, like a rainbow trout struggling to free itself from the fibreglass killing floor of a bass boat on some godforsaken fishing show.

Please, no flash photography. He spooks easily.

M a r c h 1

The bank machine closest to my wacky house of goths is kept at my branch of Scotiabank; it's kept inside a funny little enclosure that remains locked to the outside world until you swipe your bank card at one of the two doors that lead into it. Bums like ATM shelters because they're warm and safe; a bum with a plastic card (sometimes a plastic card with a magnetic stripe on it) of any sort can get a good night's sleep inside an ATM shelter. If you don't eat anyone when they come to use them machines, the police will usually leave you alone. This is useful information if you ever become a bum, and I know some of you will, so just remember that you got it here first if anyone asks you why you're such a successful bum. Now, bums aside, the shelter is heated, and it is located conveniently beside a bus stop, so in cold or inclement weather there will also be chilled humans waiting for the bus taking advantage of this nice, windowy, warm enclosure... which is also fine so long as they don't get in the way of my monetary concerns. This morning it was pleasant, but rainy, so the ATM enclosure was slightly occupied. Upon entering I was assailed by huge clouds of thick smoke -- cartoon smoke that you can't see through, and that follows you and sticks to you like little fluffy brownish-gray cottonballs when you walk away from it.

As Broken pointed out to me last night, I'm actually a pretty irate person, in spite of my periodic bouts of sweetness and innocence. I get very, very grouchy when confronted with stupid people, or selfish people, or stupid, selfish people. As it happens, today the stupid selfish people were out and about bright and early too. I need to vent, and you're here to read, so bear with me if you possibly can. You see, as it happens, many of my best and dearest friends and lovers happen to be, or have been, or someday will be, smokers. With the exception of me, everyone in my family is a smoker too. This is a habit I've always been exposed to, and I don't tend to have particular issues with smokers at all. Much in the same way that I'm a vegetarian, I consider it to be an individual choice. I may have my own preferences, but I would never presume to enforce my beliefs or assertively impress them upon others.

However.

However, there are some very naughty smokers in the world, just as there are some very naughty vegetarians (for instance, read this Snivel). I don't like it when people put their personal convenience above the rights of everyone else in the world, and sadly this is something that many smokers can be accused of.

Especially when they belong to the wretched unwashed masses of the proletariat. Bad weather can bring out the worst in smokers. Granted, no one wants to stand outside in the rain (except me, but I'm crazy and I like rainy days) or in blizzards, but the societal price paid for an antisocial habit like smoking or masturbation is that there are, shockingly, those people who simply don't need to be present when one indulges him or herself. So you sit in the smoking section, or you huddle outside with all your civil service chums by the drolely titled "Butt Stop" that exists outside so many government buildings these days, and it's all good because nobody hates you and if you're me (like when I visit mys sister who, because she has children, one asthmatic, smokes in their enclosed front porch, even in the winter when it's extremely cold in there), you might even go outside to hang out with your friends who are smokers who can't smoke inside.

But. I was standing inside a confined, more-or-less airtight enclosure that my little twin bed could just nestle inside, and there were two people inside who'd been in there smoking and having a jolly for twenty minutes, judging by the unbreathable quality of the air. And you know what? That really pissed me off. I don't ask much from people, except that they do unto others and otherwise utterly leave me alone. But it happens all the time. When you're in an enclosed bus shelter on a rainy day, it's inevitably full of smoke. When I'm visiting Broken, there's a family in the apartment directly across from theirs, and because someone in that apartment is pregnant, they all thoughtfully smoke in the hallway, right outside Broken's door, and it drives her mother insane because she has high blood pressure and poor nerves and she's very sensitive to all sorts of chemicals. Everytime I visit, they're outside, filling the entire hallway with smoke even though there's a door to the outside they could puff out of not ten metres further down the hall. Every bus stop in the world is an orchard of discarded cigarette butts that stick to your shoes in slushy weather and look disgusting every other day of the year. Someday I'm going to go insane, and I'm most unfortunately going to wind up stalking the streets with a rifle, and I'll go to bus stops on rainy days and ask smokers who are filling enclosed shelters with smoke just what the hell, exactly, they think they're doing. And when they ask me if I want to live forever, I'm going to say "YES." Yes, I want to live forever. And then I am going to shoot them, because I'll be insane, and because they drove me to it by being utterly thoughtless, unlike the many, many good and thoughtful smokers out there who can at least admit they do not in fact, have dominion over the earth.

Seethe. Seethe.

And having said all that, no, I'm not really as hardcore as I sound here. I'm just taking advantage of my ranting powers to rant just a little. But yes, I was angry, because I'm a meek, sweet person, and meek sweet people are just the sorts to turn into mass murderers if they swallowed, internalized, and repressed absolutely everything that ever happened to them. I could have gone about how the sight and odour of mounds of reeking ashes and greasy, mashed-up cigarette butts absolutely nauseate me, but, hey, after all, it's just good-natured, inoffensive, not-terribly-fastidious-or-obsessive-compulsive-about-filth Rob here, and not... well... not someone who's terribly fastidious or obsessive compulsive about filth. I just hate human filth a little. So anyway, with that said, go on and have yourself a cigarette. I'm burning incense, myself, and goodness knows that stinks up my room, and (in fact) my house more than cigarette smoke ever could.

P.S.

I've temporarily hidden a web counter back inside my main page (index.html) so that I can figure out how many people are reading my site. It probably won't be up for more than a week or so, but it will probably make loading that one page a little slower for a bit, because web counters suck and that's what they do. Please, be patient.

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

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