To the three women that have dumped me

I

We met in that period of high school where I "Didn't Give A Fuck" and wore t-shirts emblazoned with animals and openly sneered at my classmates and used words like "artifice." You were a platinum blonde firecracker with a similar chin to Jenna Jameson. When you called me out for being casually racist, I thought you were OK. When you dedicated Dancing Queen to me at a bowling alley, I had to ask you out. We went on one (group, movie) date and sat across from each other at lunch for a week. Then you dumped me, by proxy. My cellphone rang, and your proxy said merely, "Hi Harvey, are you sitting down?" in her dulcet South African accent. She explained that you thought that I put you on a pedestal and that you would never be good enough for me. I'm baffled to this day. We made out in a bathroom months later at a house party. Then you became a lesbian. Then you moved to Salt Lake City and got a bunch of piercings. I don't think about you.

II

My first and only epistolary romance. If you don't think a calendar year of well-paced e-mails loaded with PoMo jive and self-congratulatory pop culture references is sufficient to make two hipsters fall in love, you're wrong. (But in a way, you're also right.) Each salvo felt like a secure stitch in an ever-unfurling fabric. I felt like our correspondence was Pulitzer-worthy; hindsight reveals it was not. I erred when I decided to meet you in real life. We met and had sex, and two weeks after that you told me you Wanted To Be Friends. Though I have not lived through an earthquake, I distinctly remember sitting in your living room and feeling the earth move beneath my feet. I smiled and lied that "the feeling was mutual." I am finally over you, but I still think about you sometimes.

III

My last duchess. Our dalliance was brief and potent like the impact of a syringe. You laugh at all my jokes; especially the casually racist ones. Your eyes are perfect, and I fell for them immediately. Then one day you opened your lips and ground started to move. I didn't brace myself, nor did I reach out for a handhold, or breathe into a paper bag until it all blew over. Like a man with two bite marks in his chest, I ran; down the stairs of your apartment, and into a black cab, and away from your intoxicating laughter. I never stopped thinking about you.

Four valentines to the library

1

The fortnightly visit of our town's bookmobile was my favourite childhood memory. The bookmobile was an RV full of paperbacks that drove around the parts of the city not served by a library. It would park for an hour or so, in the parking lots of schools and community centres. Children from throughout the neighbourhood would climb on, clamber all over the worn paperbacks, and then return to whatever it was they were doing. Not me. I would show up prepared with a canvas sack. The bookmobile was also useful to pick up holds, and inter-branch transfers. I liked it. That's not to say it didn't have problems. It was smaller than a bank vault inside and all you could really find in there were Choose Your Own Adventures. Well, that's all I read at any rate. (Ask me about The System.)

2

When I was a little bit older, I undertook weekly pilgramages to the Central Branch on Saturday mornings. This weekly geek-ly was a two bus wonder. These days the thought of redeeming a transfer due to multi-stage transit makes me sad and municipally frustrated. But as a kid, anything is possible. The media section was heaven. CDs, VHS tapes and eventually DVDs. I could "rent" movies and keep them for a week, for free. And more than this, I could rent R rated movies with ease. Only occasionally would a librarian call me out on a Juliette Binoche flick or something directed by Bertolucci. Results weren't always spectacular, viz., Paris, Texas. Recognizing the iconic mask, I once signed out The Phantom of the Opera. It was a potent gateway to the rest of Lloyd Webber, and Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Boubil and Schonberg, Maury Yeston, and the rest of the sopping gay world of musicals. Could I out-fag a cum-guzzling Mormon about that shit. Try me.

3

One of my exes hates the library. She had a nose-ring and worked at a used bookshop if that's any indication. She considered a book (a word she emphasized by pressing her crossed arms against her chest) to be a personal artefact. Borrowing a book is like borrowing a sip of water, she once said. This, of course is a dumb and worthless opinion. I actually think collecting books is offensive; you can't really own knowledge so hoarding it seems ridiculous to me. To whomever invited the library, I salute you.

4

I dig the library so much, I have even had sex in one.  Not with the aforementioned ex -- though I suspect she would not object to the concept. Rumour has it that the fifth floor of Weldon was the place, so in my final year of university me and the GF at the time trundled over. It was a Tuesday night in Winter. When we got there, we couldn't find an empty enough space amidst the stacks, so we slid an upholstered chair into the stairwell that connects floors. Though the ultra-sensitive echo, fluorescent lighting and concrete were contrary to both eroticism and the library atmosphere, it was sex all the same. Plus, in terms of altitude we still qualify for inclusion in the almanac. I would think.

Religion reform #20

Around The Beginning a kind of, sort of, fucked up thing happened. It's described well in the Book of the Toucan, chapter 11:

11 And after the great Toucan squawked, and obliterated the void a small and almost imperceptible crystal —the size of 1,000,000 suns —landed on the tip of the Toucan's beak. It was a clock.

12 The perfect crystalline structure was a machine operating by precise laws. Though it appeared to be a pure crystal, inside was a magnificent lattice of light and energy humming away, in service of an idea greater than itself.

And later,

²³ When the Toucan leaned his mighty beak over the nascent universe and sneezed, at once the marvel of crystal clockwork was shattered as the infinite power of the Toucan's sneeze hurled an infinity of clock pieces in every direction.

Scholars have debated the meaning of this tale. Is the crystal a metaphor for mankind's fruitless quest for knowledge or is this just a cautionary tale about making sure to have taken anti-histamines? And just what is the point of a clock in a timeless pre-existence void?

Underdogs Bite Upwards

Friends,

I'm not really technically or statistically minded, but fuck if I'm not obsessed with this site's analytics. It all started when the fine people at Blogger (and I really have no idea if they are "fine," it's more likely they are complete shitheads) added a "stats" tab. Now I can retroactively stalk the the dozens of people who accidentally make it to this site looking for ways to kill themselves (slowly, of course) or find discounts on facial tissues.

As it would turn out, half the traffic this site has ever received is thanks to another blog penned by an anonymous miscreant. That site is a lo-fi and moderately shitty-looking blog, in the way most blogspot sites are, but heavy on readable content in the way most Tumblelogs are not. Did you even know those gay-ass hipster-pages were called tumblelogs? You're welcome.

Now, I don't read the site. Not that it's poorly-written; quite the opposite in fact. It's a hilarious screed against nanny-state bull-jive written in the most British way possible. It's so dry, I have to moisturize after reading each post. It spreads on the anger so thick it's like smooth peanut butter; it really fills your mouth and sticks. A sample:

The antics of the antismoker are now so ludicrous that only a politician could be taken in by them. Unfortunately, we are plagued by low-energy politicians because the EU has banned the old tungsten ones. The current lot take ages to warm up and don't do much when they get there.

You can see why I don't read it: it's too damn good. Remember Deuteronomy 4:24? That's me in a fucking nutshell. But you ought to check it out loyal readers. The both of yiz.

Ta,

Harvey

Five Years

It occurs to me that five years have passed since I started this blog. The project started, in earnest, as a way to bring my enemies down a peg and woo ladies "teleblognetically." Obviously I have failed in in those efforts, but what have I actually accomplished in that time?

Word up:

• Writing a double-dactyl
• The craft of self-aggrandizement
• Endless listery
• Racism
• Mustard
• Perfecting my recipe for stream-of-conciousness pancakes
• Creating my own religion
• Making complaints not really worth writing about
• Alienating you, dear reader

I couldn't possibly explain why I've kept up this weblog for an audience of none. And stranger still, why I have this feeling that this project is far from finished. That I'm just as far in as I'll ever be out.  What do I hope to gain from this? Why am I here? Where is that pussy I promised myself? And are those Anna Nalick lyrics?

To all those questions, I can only supply what I promised at the outset; a resounding "go fuck yourself." There are no answers on the ground I tread. Nor is this wall of text climbing into the sky a magic beanstalk.

But it is a calendar. And looking back over the past five years, I see what this this blog is: a tree in a vast forest, stretching its arms to the sun, growing by only the smallest and imperceptible progress, and living in silent fear of an inevitable axe or chainsaw.

(Perhaps one day the forest will be felled altogether, in a controlled blaze or brushfire. But that would be at best, stretching the metaphor, and at worst, needlessly apocalyptic.)

So, I'll keep at it for another five years, and maybe longer if I haven't grown up by then. If you have any objections, go fuck yourself.

Your pal,

Harvey Kornbluth

Compatibility test

Before a first date I like to ask the following three questions.  Depending on the answers to these questions, I can gauge whether or not the relationship will be a success.

You are waiting in line at Burger King and the person in front of you is taking a long time to order.  You're on a date with a person you really like, and you're both too hungry to find another restaurant. Do you:

1. Tap your foot impatiently then sigh loudly.
2. Patiently wait until it's your turn.
3. Blurt out, "Jesus Christ could you hurry the fuck up?"
4. Strangle the straggler with your bare fucking hands.

After a long day at work, you board the commuter train and spot only one seat left.  You and an elderly woman notice it at the same time.  You know the right thing to do, but you're tired.  Do you:

1. Move quickly to take the seat before she does, and pretend you didn't notice her.
2. Offer the seat as a kind gesture.
3. Glare at the old woman until she backs down.
4. Push the lady off the train at the next stop.

You are at an outdoor concert for your favourite band, U2, and it starts raining.  Problem is, you're wearing your favourite leather bomber jacket.  You don't want to leave what's sure to be an amazing show.  A person nearby has an umbrella.  Do you:

1.  Ask politely to step under the umbrella.
2. Ask politely to borrow the umbrella.
3. Take the fucking umbrella.
4. Get wet and enjoy the rest of the concert singing out loud with glee.

Consider for yourself what your best answers would be.  If you chose "A" for all your options, you fail.  Ditto if you chose all "B"s or "C"s.  If you answered "D": are you fucking kidding me?

Or any of the answers really.  Because this is more than an compatibility test, it's an aptitude test.  And if you can just sit there calmly while I hypothesize that your favourite band is U2, then sorry, this isn't going to work out.

The ideal candidate would answer (a little) something like this:

1. "Why am I on a date at Burger King?"
2. Either "B" or "If I lived in the 'burbs I would decapitate myself with garden shears."
3. "I would strangle Bono with my bare fucking hands." or "Obnoxiously request "Discotheque" until I am escorted out of the concert by force."

I would also accept sexual overtures for partial credit.

From the archives

13 October 2007

I'm high and out of breath.  I just raced into the bowels of St. Patrick station and it feels like the hardest thing I've ever done.  Buying tokens used all the mental capacity I left the house with this evening.  I was staring at the transfer machine for about four minutes when I heard the rumbling of the train below me.  I sprinted down the escalator with both hands on the rails, in time to see the doors of the southbound close in my face.  I tried to shrug it off like I wasn't really interested in that train anyway, but everyone knew better.

So here I am on the platform trying to catch my breath and waiting for another train.  I figure I might as well document this trip since I have nothing better to do.  Tonight should be a good night.  And by "good" I mean stressful, trying, and awkward.

But I want to mention something quickly. Before I started writing these words, I leafed through this notebook and a rather disturbing realization hit me.  This is a God damn diary.  I feel like a girl admitting this.  And worse, I've whipped it out in public.  An expression of awesome

*    *    *

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!  I am now standing on the Northbound platform having missed my train a second time.  Well, it's the first time missing my train, but the second train I missed tonight.  If that makes any sense.  In my state of being completely baked I attempted to catch, and missed, and subsequently waited for a train I didn't even want to take.

Only after a few minutes of notebook faggotry did I catch the sound of the approaching Northbound train and my synapses snapped to life.  I barely had time to jam my notebook into my pocket and run to the other side before missing the train.  Again.

God, I am so fucking high right now.  I hate first dates.