So, to say that this past week has been "historic" would utterly, in every way, fail to describe with the same poetic irony and melodrama precisely how transitional and busy the events of my life -- and those lives of the people around me -- has been. To this I largely attribute my delay in writing any kind of coherent entry, because classes resumed and I found myself racing between the world of sleep and the world of lectures, and in between stopping at work for a couple of full days of hard labour. I anticipated the beginning of the winter session at Carleton with the same sort of dread that men with kidney stones anticipate the burning, tearing ungodly agony of passing a lump of calcium through the narrow, sensitive, prized urinary tract which eventually becomes a penis; through which this same lump must be forced with only the pressure of your own pee to guide it out with horrifying leisure. So I guess my first lecuture, on the afternoon of Monday, January 4, 1999, was one I regarded with the same curious dread that such a man contemplates the tall, cold glass of water before him. A glass of water which, though he admits he is wretchedly thirsty, would through the machinations of his stupidly faithful kidneys, invariably increase the water pressure throughout his urinary tract, and thus his exquisite pain. I hated to admit it, but after the previous three years of classes, with the many joys of the classes I adored, but equally the many frustrations of classes I found pointless, I was worn thin, and was starting to find school to be unrewarding, ponderous, tiresome, and worst of all -- empty. I looked into the faces of so many of my friends, who were so eagerly anticipating a return to class with enthusiasm, optimism, relief, and even glee, and all I saw reflected in their eyes was my own boredom and frustration after tedious linguistics classes, pointless computer science classes, and monotonous lectures regarding philosophical trivialties.

I, Rob F., a boy who can find delight in shiny pieces of glass, was bored.

This was a very unpleasant prospect for me to be facing, indeed. I mean, there I was, wondering if I was even in the right goddamn degree. I couldn't imagine having to spend another two years engaged in the pursuit of a simple bachelor's degree, possibly more, thanks to Carleton's inability to provide to its cognitive science students the very courses our course calendars told us we needed in order to graduate. I wondered if quite possibly I was allowing my dream program to pass me by while I tiresomely engaged myself in a field of study which only mildly interested me at even the best of times. I thought, "Ooh! Anthropology!" "Ooh! Criminology!" "Oooh! Religion!" and so on. I know these all sound like boner degrees, but trust me, I have dumb interests. Still, you keep reading, so there has to be more to me than my winning dimples. In any case, I felt the same sort of tired malaise I felt at the beginning of last term, and so it was that, moaning and groaning, I made my way into room 281 in the Tory Building at Carleton University (that's right -- I'm making it easy for people to stalk me) for my first philosophy of mind course of the term.

If you're clever like me, you can tell that all my aching and moodcasting is all in the name of foreshadowing the surprising, ironic turn of events responsible for the context from which I write you now, almost a week later. And again, I freely admit how much I sucked for taking so long to say anything. That said, I was in for the pleasant surprise of my life as I sat through that lecture -- namely, that I was, for the first time in the past year, fascinated by what was being taught to me. Philosophy of mind is the focus of my cognitive science degree, and beyond a first year course that I very much enjoyed, I haven't seen a bit of it in my studies since. The professor for the course was someone I'd never heard of before; but he was young, lively, brilliant, witty, funny, and he made me laugh and think, like that amazing movie, Roger & Me, and not like that horrible and contrived movie -- well, pretty much everything else Hollywood has ever managed to cough up on my rug. Very few professors are Michael Moore films by my ranking. Far too many of them are tiresome summer blockbusters pinched out of the asses of pandering artistic lapdogs with IQs on the shadowy side of the bell curve (I really am proud of that ranty sentence). If a professor doesn't engage you, it's just that much harder to find the subject matter gripping. Luckily for me, as I was saying, I'd finally found a professor who reached me. He genuinely seemed interested in what he was teaching; he genuinely seemed to enjoy being there. He wasn't thinking about the next article he was going to publish, and he wasn't thinking about the topic of study he'd rather be discuss instead of the class he was forced to teach. He talked to us about intentionality and Aristotle's understanding of the soul. I sat back, spoonfed such delicious morsels of fascinating knowledge, wanting for more.

I realized that this was a class I was going to genuinely enjoy. Even if not a single other person in the whole room found any love in the course at all through the entire term, I knew that I would be in my own personal nirvana. Of course, more than half the students in the room were either cognitive science undergraduates or graduate students (some of them were just auditing the course, which means you still pay for it, but you don't receive a grade for attending and participating), so you'd assume many of the people in the class would also get a tingle from it. But to blazes with them even if they write love poetry about the second year philosophy of mind course I'm taking -- this is my journal, and so all I care about is ME. So, the course simply blurred past me, as I sat, drank my caffeinated water (how nerdy is that? But it's novel and rather tasty, too. I mean, it's just the simple goodness of pure, cold springwater... but they've made it better!) and quite honestly enjoyed myself silly. Oh yes, indeed, I was happy.

And then I wasn't. I'd forgotten where my next lecture was, so in the earnest attempt to find it I'd stopped in a lab to check my schedule online; Carleton's internet accounts quite smartly provide you with all kinds of handy course information automatically; add a course and follow the link, and it's there. Change a course over the touchtone system and try it again -- and the system already knows. Brilliant. Anyways, I also (habitually) checked my e-mail, and among the delights of eletronic literacy I found waiting for me was a message from my roommate, Pixiegirl.

Who had just read my web page, you see.

In particular, the snivel.

You know, the one where I rant about all my roommates.

Yeah. That one.

So, I quickly digested a very large and very angry discussion of the topics I'd just weeks before been whining about. Fair enough. I dealt with a few digs into my character, considered the side of the story that was presented me, and decided that this was all well and good and in the tense moment of choosing how to respond, I basically wrote a letter that said, with unnecessarily many words, "Oh." I didn't want to debate the finer points of living in this house issue by issue, because it seemed counter-productive, and instead very much wanted to go home and talk about this matter face to face, so I granted a couple of things, probably contested a few others, and decided that I shouldn't go to computer science that night.

The scene was, of course, emotionally charged. I felt tense and upset, knowing that the kitty dumplings had finally hit that proverbial fan, and there was a mess everywhere. There I was, confronted bluntly with my own crime by the wounded party. I felt embarassed and ashamed, and guilty and awkward. The more I thought about it, though, the I could focus and realize what a golden opportunity I had been given. I was still upset and worried, of course, but increasingly I became eager and even a little excited. I mean, I knew that this day had been doomed to come. The thought that the very people I was ranting about might read the rants themselves hadn't actually stopped me from ranting -- I mean, does it ever? I knew I was being indirect and sneaky, but from my perspective, everything said came in the form of being my biased and subjective little pressure valve; a way to vent steam and do something about the increasing amounts of anger I had to somehow manage so often inside our house. To Pixiegirl especially it would probably sound odd to think that I really do think of myself as an honest person, in that I spent so much time lambasting events and people around me while coming home with nothing but quiet civility to show for it, but I really and truly do believe that usually the face I show the world is the face I really feel. And this was why I was so eager to get home and talk. Finally, finally, we were going to be able to get all this out and discuss some troubling, emotional details like adults. Finally I got to be honest. Finally I could tell it like it is, and hear "it like it is" from someone else's point of view.

So when I got home, I was very pleased to see that Pixiegirl herself was definitely also willing to talk, and was as calm and mature as anyone could have hoped. Which is commendable given the inflammatory circumstances. But we chatted in the kitchen for a good long while, later moving upstairs to my room, where I sincerely think we came to a great understanding. Basically we just got to see various situations through one another's eyes -- that is, as much as I had been complaining about a perceived clique consisting of Pixiegirl, her boyfriend, and Kincaid, she herself felt that there was some kind of united front consisting of myself, Broken, and Ben. Each of us admitted to at times feeling unwelcome. Each of us admitted to at times feeling like we were powerless to change anything. Each of us admitted to anger and frustration. Simply put, we admitted to feeling almost exactly the same way about most things, except reflected in reverse through a mirror. It was powerful and eye-opening. I confessed to the fact that I should have been honest and direct, instead of so passive and sneaky. I felt genuinely sorry that I'd caused such hurt and anger, but explained that I was trying to release some extremely negative feelings through the snivel, in the interest of not taking my anger home with me and sparking direct conflicts with people I wanted to like. Pixiegirl admitted that she, too, could have said something directly, and was good enough to grant that it can be very difficult to confront someone, and that everyone has his or her own biased view of the world. She also said that it's impossible to be 100% guilty or innocent of any problem, which I think is especially true in terms of the roommate situation. We each had difficulties and tensions regarding some issue or another. Maybe it's how often the dishes get washed. Maybe it's about the cats. Maybe it's some kind of deep-rooted suspicion that someone living in this house is really in cahoots with aliens -- I don't care what the issue is. We all had them. We all got upset about them, worried about them, and talked about them with everybody but the people we had the direct problems with. Anything touched upon at all was only done so indirectly; with poetry magnets on the fridge, or a sign over the sink, or a hole somebody (and we'll never know who) punched in the wall. In my case, I ranted in my online journal.

I wasn't capable of debating what I'd said -- but rather I was sorry that I hadn't voiced my problems directly. It just seems like for me, ranting about things went a long way in solving the problems, because it put the hostility somewhere else. But it didn't, really. I still felt tense and upset, because the issues never cleared up. My fears and suspicions never went away. My perceptions didn't change. I could just put the anger away, but not the causes. Well, now it's so very different. We resolved that in the future, we should just talk about our problems directly -- talk to each other, not just about each other. I promised Pixiegirl, and Pixiegirl promised me, to just talk. Talk about good things. Talk about bad things. Keep the communication going. Prevent the breakdowns and mutual jumping-to-conclusions that comes with a lack of dialogue and understanding. And that's what I was left with -- renewed understanding of the people I lived with. In my mind, I felt like the openness, and honesty, could finally be a reality, and the cool, tense icing of civility might truly be scraped away and replaced by a harmony far more productive and sincere.

Do you know how I felt now?
GREAT. I feel cleansed, and purged, and honest, and free. I feel healthy and empowered. I feel swell. I haven't felt this good since we moved in. I haven't felt this optimistic in over a year. It's funny, but I feel like the New Year has brought the best possible kind of change. I hope it continues.

It's like eating rancid meat for months and months. It just accumulates and festers and oozes and rots deep within your bursting stomach, bloated with foul gases. Then, suddenly, you explode forth with vomit, covering the floor with putrid slush. And maybe it stinks, and maybe it disgusts you, but when it's over, you just feel so Goddamn swell that you have to dance and sing and maybe, in a couple of days, eat a salad. I feel so renewed and wonderful. I hope nobody is expecting me to slink around with my head hung low in shame for being such a bad, malicious, two-faced person who was caught in the act, because I don't felt that way at all. I feel wonderful. I felt wonderful as we talked, and I feel wonderful now. I love honesty. You should all know that. I really do. That's why I do this. And sure, "my" honesty (TM) won't always accurately reflect what other people see or believe, but quite sincerely, I do believe the things I say to be true; and I stand by them all as such, even if they're only true through my biased eyes. Man. It's great. Do you know, that on Friday night I had the first relaxed, genuine, open and complete conversation with the people I live with in months? We talked -- we laughed. We addressed one another as a group. I introduced everybody to Mike, our new roommate, and one of my oldest friends in the world. I met him when I was twelve in Smiths Falls, and he's replacing Ben here while he attends a college this term in Ottawa. I hope everybody felt the same way as I did, because I had such hope all of a sudden, for a fresh, revitalized, pleasant home atmosphere that could be clear of tension and hostility and all those terrible things which absolutely do not belong in a home -- the one place on earth that should be safe.

As it turns out, the world of my gainful employment couldn't be going better itself. I came into work on Thursday to find that two (count 'em, two) people were chasing me down in the hopes of hiring me for contracts in addition to the one I have now with my present boss. I'm going to be taking care of some simple HTML at home for the first of them, whereby I take work home, purty it all up on my computer, add my hours up and fill out an invoice each month, and sit back and wait for paycheques on the scale of as much as twenty dollars an hour for my time. Pretty sweet, no? The second contract is more complicated; for one thing, it will involve more work and take more time -- they have me budgeted for twenty days. The contract will probably take place in April or May, but the thing about working within the government is that if you don't spend the money you're budgeted for by the end of the fiscal year, it goes bye-bye and you'll never see it again. Perhaps not even in next year's budget. That said, the fiscal year ends before I'd be working, so I have to be paid for that contract now, because otherwise there's nothing to pay me with. I feel kind of funny about that, but apparently there's nothing to be done for it. Luckily they can trust me not to run with it to Mexico, but still I hope I'll be able to keep my grubby paws off the money until the summer, when I'll really need it.
That said, after a long week of classes, it felt tremendously uplifting to be so pursued and desired, as if I had something to offer. As if my skills were worth all this time and money. I felt like a million bucks.

My boss, Jim, has also been helping me fix the hole in our kitchen wall, which is just grand. He explained what a simple process it was, being quite handy in the ways of insects and home repair, and has in sequence lent me the tools and materials I need to effect the repairs myself. So far all that I've managed to do is cut a larger hole into the wall with a drywall saw so that my boss can cut a board to act as a kind of patch, but I also have the drywall compound and trowel-type tools I'll need to spread it over the hole and build up a layer of plaster once I have the board and glue it into place, flush with the inside of the drywall. The process, once begun, should only take a few days, but in gratitude Broken and I will be having my boss over for a home-cooked meal of appreciation, because after all, he has been of such exceptional help during the span of my time under him -- he has been supportive and kind and generous and understanding (and yes, he reads this) of my emotional frailties and unfathomable idiosyncrasies.

And beyond all that, I'm noticing myself walking around with far more peace and confidence than once I might have even thought possible in myself. I'm relaxed, usually, and composed, and optimistic, and.... happy. Really happy. I have bad days, and down moments, and little stupid things still make me sad, but it is truly amazing how good I've been feeling just of this week. How a couple of up-draughts have allowed me to soar and see for myself the changes which these past years have brought to me. Two of the most beautiful, wonderful, special people in the world happen to think I'm a pretty neat boy, and how can that do anything but make me the happiest Rob I'm capable of being right now?

This year went off to a poor start, but I'd heard tell that most people I knew found twenty-three to be personally wonderful years. I'm hoping this momentary goodness will extend and hold true for my twenty-third year, too.

"Lady, shall I lie down at your lap?"
"No, my lord."
"I mean, my head upon your lap?"
"Ay, my lord."
"Do you think I meant country matters?"
"I think nothing, my lord."
"That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs."
"What is, my lord?"
"Nothing."

that he is spending the whole time talking about Ophelia's genitals? Shakespeare guided the dialogue in such a way as to suggest that Hamlet was initially offering to bury his face between her legs. When he says "country matters" he apparently actually means "cuntry matters" I mean, egads! I wish they'd given us this kind of insight in high school. In saying "nothing," Hamlet is supposed to be referring to a zero; a round shape; that is, vaginas. Jeepers! Broken is writing a paper on the Oedipal subtext of Hamlet tonight and this revelation is among the fascinating but rather shocking tidbits I've picked up. So maybe you should go read yourself some Shakespeare instead of cruising web pages for pictures of naked anime chracters.

You ever see those kinds of notes in the margins of the copies they make you read in high school? Not hardly! Heck, if you read a copy of Shakespeare's plays printed before 1950, most of the sexual lines have either been taken out or replaced by the words of puritan hacks. Zounds! There's a whole world awaiting you.

Broken says: Read a book!

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

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