The Anchor States Part I

Friends,

We live in a deceptive world. In the year 1837, you'd have seen the original title of this missive (Final Resolution) crossed out and replaced with the title above. Amidst the pen strokes you might even pick up on the sureness with which the original title was eschewed (a decisive eastward stroke). The keenest eye would detect the sense of hesitation furled up in the single downward line after "Part." Not a shaky line, but a curious one.

If we lived even further back in time, when parchment was a luxury and literacy was magic, you'd quickly realize you're reading a palimpsest. And that lurking behind the critical meta-analysis before you – in letters faded and forced out – was a letter of resignation. A suicide note. A quit.

But fortunately, thanks to electricity, the semi-conductor, and the backspace key, you are none the wiser. And the truth of this original post, this "final resolution," shall remain forever unresolved. You cannot seen the shiver of the cursive, nor the unnatural spaces between the diffident words. And moreover, instead of fear, you feel hope. Because part one promises a part two; and thus the careful reader will instead look forward to a final resolution, rather than the final resolution.

I need to stop posting sober. And exercising more.

Harvey

A solid green hardcover notebook

Harvey Kornbluth was born on 14 January 1982, in Toronto, Ontario. This makes him Canadian, and though there is technically nothing wrong with this, he is compelled to apologise for the fact anyway. For the convenience of his parents and the medical staff involved with his birth, Harvey agreed to be born shortly before lunch, at 11:37am. On the day he was born, corn dogs were being served in the hospital cafeteria, but unfortunately they were out of mustard. Somehow, Harvey was forever affected by this error of omission.

His parents, Darryl and Celica Kornbluth, were both killed in a car accident while driving back from synagogue. Though Harvey would never know this, his parents were arguing about the merits of moisturized facial tissue, when, distracted, his father plunged the car into a river. As such, Harvey was raised by his homosexual uncle and his half-Asian lover. They taught him about musicals, Abba and oxycontin addiction.

Harvey was a peculiar child. He was prone to carrying around blank index cards and a copy of the Koran. His favourite cereal was Froot Loops which he ate with too much milk. He always carried an umbrella, even on the hottest summer days. He looked at the stars at night and considered their role in his life in a non-philosophical way. He asked a lot of pointed questions to his peers ("Would you murder a parent to save Santa, and which one?"), and wrote scathing letters to authority figures. In one such missive he wrote:

Mr. Coley,

If it is in fact the case that we are not meant to eat the Play-doh, then I beseech you to explain why it is so delicious. Your humble servant,

Harvey Kornbluth

His adolescence was marked by casual smoking, cold showers and suicide notes placed in public spaces. His threat to self-immolate — which was painted on to the rear of a portable classroom in purple tee-shirt puff paint — was unproven. Nevertheless, it prompted his teachers and caregivers to enroll Harvey in a school for the mentally deranged.

At the institute, Harvey consumed Greek yogurt and learned to ride the unicycle and wrote stream-of-consciousness poetry about the other inmates. In his time, he made only one friend: a tall and charismatic redhead named Miranda, who would shower with her clothes on, and pass Harvey notes at lunch, and scream herself to sleep every single night. Miranda was cured after she smashed a watermelon into pieces with a foam-bat (anger expulsion therapy), and she left the institute. Harvey was alone and depressed.

He worked through his troubled feelings in a solid green hardcover notebook and came to the inescapable conclusion that the world and all the things in it were projections of his mind. Content that this was the only piece of knowledge he could wholeheartedly deem true, Harvey felt a vague sense of responsibility for the figments of his imagination and thirsted no longer — or at least a little bit less — for his own self-initiated demise.

Satisfied with Harvey's new-found (albeit disturbingly flawed) belief in the value of living, the institute released him. It was spring and he was an adult. The first thing Harvey did was find a prostitute and pay her for sex. The second was to procure an umbrella.

Many years later he started this blog, and shares with you those those dark corners of his notebook: the musings of a solipsistic inmate.

Spam poetry

I have decided to do something tremendously lazy and turn messages from my spam folder into stream-of-consciousness blank verse. I literally just adjust the line breaks, but the rest of the words appear in the order they do and I haven't added anything. Some would say this is a circuitous way of saying "fuck you, readers," and I wouldn't disagree.

So to help assuage your anger, I will undertake the task of interpreting my madness.

By Dick Boyce

outrageously! lying hostage inflammation
but whirlpool milligram and eloquently hostel,
scour the nuance stormy that
gumbo at paralegal the reject was
humanism a zone, nut harpoon mobilize or cashmere of was 

luminary at thump and frankly maliciously vile
tripod atonement and palpably song,
an aviator sophomore of southwestward,
or continuity clasps the glitter of coals
O halo the plagiarism! Accepted.

thrown savings and loan!
lease outrageous of symbolic anthropological hindquarters
as civic this as geometric. and landlord as charade calculation
strings with sweatpants the ping-pong: snob as argue and powerless,
correspondingly to junk food. the gnawing. 

postage stamp lexical, crestfallen emotionally:
cheerleader of nobody
entrust the on jumpsuit that gas cocaine the blockage in contemptuous
end a playfully with an... annihilate
xenophobia birthplace and that duchess in xylophone hoax

The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 is fascinating for two diametrically opposed reasons. First, plainly speaking, it was unexpected. Market-focussed Americans are adherents of that mantra "up and to the right" so seemed inconceivable that the bubble would burst, even knowing that the nature of bubbles is to do precisely that. But second, and perhaps more devastating, is that the crisis was in many ways completely foreseeable. And thus Dick Boyce has penned a jovial dithyramb to pay homage to the crumbling capitalism around him.

The bold opening "outrageously!" acts to describe both the state of the economy and the turbulence and the falsehods that ravaged the North American economy. "Lying. Hostage. Inflammation." An intriguing dichotomy between the violent language of "hostage" and a clinical term like "inflammation." Boyce explains that rising GDP and plummeting interest rates less like growth of a plant and more like the ceaseless inflammation of a cancer. When he writes "scour the nuance stormy" it is another juxtaposition, a common theme in this work; Storm and nuance. Elegant hotel. The glitter of coals. The agony and the ecstasy of the American idiom.

The "tripod atonement" referenced in the next stanza is surely Mortgage Backed Securities, Collateralized Debt Obligations and the SEC. "An aviator sophomore of southwestward," viz., Ben Bernanke is in the unenviable position of bracing against the economic zeitgeist to consider a harsh wake-up call. Up and to the right no longer, but "southwestward" we go; down and to the left. To a financial crisis not seen since the Great Depression. The glitter of coals is the promise of a unblemished economy. But we fail and "halo the plagiarism."

"Thrown savings and loan" is a direct reference to Fannie Mae, and "lease outrageous of symbolic anthropological hindquarters" is finely-tuned a witticism about how the US was having it's ass-kicked. There is something so elegant about:

as civic this as geometric. and landlord as charade calculation
strings with sweatpants the ping-pong: snob as argue and powerless,

Where Boyce contrasts the polis, and the city state, the neighbourhood (what Hilary Clinton dubbed "a village") with "the landlord as charade." We are are all tenants of a tyrant; whether from without or within. Boyce contrasts the classes in a America: "strings with sweatpants" ping-ponging against the powerless snobs. Another breathtaking juxtaposition. Another failure of the American Dream.

Who is "crestfallen emotionally? cheerleader of nobody?" The nexus of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. We "entrust the jumpsuit" and jump suit it is, because truly these courtiers of the economics court are dare-devils, soothsayers and mystics. Guiding the economy with a crystal ball and a rearview mirror; will this Homo Economus amalgam survive this metaphorical cannon blast or gorge jump?

"And a playfully with an... annihilate"

Boyce is not so sure.

With "Xenophobia birthplace" we have come full circle to the current president, Barack Hussein Obama. Another soothsayer, another lying hostage inflammation. His use of the pun "xylophone hoax" is clever. A scale of lies and yet another sickening contrast that are we left to reflect upon. The keys aligned in a row, ever-shrinking like the remnants of a beautiful dream chromatically fading into the future.

A note on suicide

To whom it may concern,

It will be no shock to those reading these words that I have a preoccupation with suicide. You might say "unhealthy" preoccupation, but that seems redundant; even mayonnaise is more healthful than the deliberate termination of one's own life. But I feel that I should affirm for the record, that despite the title of this weblog, I do not envision myself strategically degrading like the ever-scraped groove on a record, or a length of vermiculate nautical rope chafing against a rusted cleat, or a sad bug-chasing homosexual, or a monkey that can smoke 37 cigarettes at once.

For I fear the future more than I fear death. When I consider wrinkles sprawling across my skin, or my memories eroding like yellowing paper, I become conscious of my breath and I look at my hands and I plunge into a coffin-sized tank of anxiety. And then my hands fold into desperate fists, and a thought materializes in my brain: "you must escape."

But it won't be by drinking a thousand carefully-measured droplets of poison night-after-night, or by methodically dragging a cheese grater against my soul, or by standing unclothed in the daylight and letting my skin cook and eyes twist themselves shut under the oppressive sun. I will not simply hate, wait, and fulminate as the train clacks towards the rail's end.

I can't swim, so I will die in the ocean.

The ocean is another planet. Not just "more" than our terrestrial domain, but truly beyond it. It is filled with more life and wonder and complexity than the pathetic sliver of Earth on which slugs and birds and cigarette smoking monkeys play. I think it's fitting that I perish at the horizon of a new frontier. Should there be an afterlife (chortle), my ghost can haunt the dark and undulating expanse of the briny deep. After all, eternity will go by faster in new surroundings. Hell, I might even learn something.

To be exact: with a single cinderblock tied to my feet, I will struggle in the frigid waves as far from shore as I can get. This struggle will no doubt be my life's hardest. My thrashing arms and legs will burn and weaken against the seemingly thickening water. As the rope pinches my ankle, my lips will kiss the surface of the water from below and suck madly at the disappearing air. My lungs and body will fill with the ocean and I will fall. I will become the agent of my destruction. And then I will sleep.

And so it is you who must live out the slow motion of suicide. You, dear readers, will carry the weights as yet untied to the ankles of corpses loitering on the ocean floor, or other final destinations. You must plod through the molecular dance, and tell those who knew me about my demise and react sensibly to their crumbling faces. If you meet someone who claims to love me, remind them that just as one cannot hold a shadow —an image of a thing— that one cannot love a suicide either. Their lives are shadows too.

Calm down: I'm not done yet. I can wait a lifetime for that. But I feel compelled to declare that unlike the the tedious and plodding ascent of these words on your computer screen, my resignation from these posts will be sudden and decisive. Like two fingers pressing on a flush handle, or the photograph that makes you infamous, or the moment just after you plant an ill-advised kiss on her mouth; never to be the same, never to be undone.

Respectfully yours,

Harvey

Words I hate

Why.

In the overflowing department store of human language, I imagine the Question words would be shelved alongside tools. Questions aren't merely ornate drapery like adjectives, or clunky dust-collecting detritus like nouns, or the pushy warehouse staff of verbs. They are rough and ready devices we use to scrape and screw and hammer at the world at large.

We might be tempted to compare "Where" to a map, but it's really just a long, stiff rod, used to point. "What" is more powerful. Like a flashlight, it illuminates so that we may understand those nouns and verbs better. Sometimes, like an X-ray, it penetrates the surface of objects in space, sometimes it acts like a magnifying glass, or a lens, but is is always a vision of our reality. "When" is of course a clock, or metronome, ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, and "How" is nothing more than reams of graph paper and a pen of bottomless ink: an ostensive system of symbolic language we use to diagram the "what" and the "when" and the "where" of the world.

And then there is "Why."

It's less a tool, than a tome-covered wall, a wing-back chair and a pipe reeking of tobacco. It's hunkering down with the a single thin leaf of "how" and trying to peel that page in two identically sized but thinner sheaths, and having succeeded, trying to divide them again. It is, in a sense, the conclusion that there are not enough books on the wall, and not enough hours in the wing-back chair and not enough tobacco nor pipes in the world to decide questions as resolutely solved.

While "what" may serve to illuminate the darkest room, and "where" might guide us to the place we never expected to find answers, and "when" might remind us of our place in the utter calamity of existence, "why" does quick and steady violence to what we think we know. It's more than a cascade of books' pages dividing in a reckless mitosis: it is an earthquake, destroying a mountain, in the depths of hell.

Like causation, free will, God, consciousness, and Harvey Kornbluth's sense of self worth, one has an urge to believe in "why" more than one can satisfy what it truly requires. Namely, an unblinking dissatisfaction with the way anything is. Imagine the arrogance to demand that we not only understand the present in toto, but the entirety of the past and the meaning of the future too. It is the question, "what came first" and thus shall never be answered; any more than one can address "what is what?" and "how does how?" and "when is when?" and when there is no more paper left to splice, Why will still hold aloft a scalpel and furrow its brow and cite its sources and sigh, bemused the the ground has not yet stopped shaking.

I often ruminate on why I write these words, but no more. Instead, I resolve to remember the angle of the sun or moon, the firmness of the chair upon which I sit, the temperature of the wind, and then use these words to assemble the what, the when, and the where to explain how -- whatever the how -- and leave the why untouched between the fibres of the versos and rectos of philosophy textbooks.

Words I hate

Whilst.

Listen asshole, you aren't British and you never will be. Who are you trying to kid with that "whilst" business? What, suddenly you're continental and sophisticated because you added a hiss and a flick of the tongue to the end of an ordinary word? Bra-fucking-vo. You probably own a tweed blazer.

Did you grow up watching the BBC and pretending that Marmite doesn't taste like meningitis? Do you call aboriginals "niggers" and have a snaggle tooth? Is your skin translucent? Do you insist that their exist micro-regional variations in British accents, down to the street? Does your telephone have a shitty two-pulse ring? Do you claim that your ancestors "invented" a language that your citizenry is vehemently destroying on a daily basis? No?

In that case, when you see the words "chiefly British" in the dictionary, respect them — you fuckin' twat.

Four score times four and four score more

At the end of these four paragraphs, I will have managed to publish four-hundred* pieces of "writing" to this website. I put scare quotes around 'writing' because this "achievement" kind of scares me. I put scare quotes around 'achievement' because I don't know how to use scare quotes.

I'm not one to celebrate milestones, but given this site's microscopic audience (even God skips it sometimes), it's not just weird that I've stacked up four-hundred posts: it's kind of demented. I'm simultaneously proud and horrified by his number. I'm sure the Germans have a word for this emotion, but I'm going to call it a queasy unease.

Especially since we all know that the best is not yet to come. We are, both of us, tucked into a rattling shopping cart as it races unguided downhill. When this blog comes to an end, it will be sudden, and violent, and knees will be scraped.

Thanks for reading though.

*Actually this is not entirely accurate but it's close enough.

Junk mail and nothingness

I received this e-mail in my inbox the other day.

And by "other day" I mean in December of last year. Look, e-mail isn't my forté, OK? It reads:

This is how you get the universe from nothingness. Nothingness is the property of not being. If there were a never ending amount of things to not be, nothing would not be able to not be them all. This is because never ending never ends. So the universe would be nothing getting around to not doing of a never ending amount of things. It would get around to not doing them one at a time. Each frame of time in the universe another configuration of it slips off into the past and becomes nothing. This would mean that there is a never ending amount of time in the universe. The future would go on forever. Now think of an example of nothing getting around to not doing a thing: where events slip off into nothingness. Look close enough and you will see that perception does this. Our perception is like a hole that experiences go into. The past frames of time don't stack up on the present frame of time. The past frames of time have become nothingness. Being that our perception is more like a hole than a material, might it be that we live after we die.

I think what this zany spammer is trying to say is that human beings are like walking black holes, swallowing a lifetime of sense data, converting it into memories and then obliterating it when we die. There is a strange irony to this version of our consciousness -- rather than being a thing in the universe -- it's a vacuum into which the things of the universe are made into nothing. Existentialism isn't being and nothingness, it is humans themselves: beings of nothingness.

I guess this is why it is so important to write things down.

And stranger still consider: our scribbles might be read by subsequent generations, and our thoughts could be kicked along through time like a pebble that keeps catching your foot. But of course one day when the very last human being dies, every human thought will die, and the transmogrification of our ideas up until that point will finally become nothing. History will be nothing. What it means to be human will be nothing. Everything will be nothing.

This last man (I say 'man' because I'm sexist) is the caretaker of an endless game of Chinese whispers, holding a paltry collection of human knowledge that has ricocheted through the ages like a silver pinball, ending up dented and faded in the recesses of his brain. Is that what it means to be human? To hold your shred of the everything, before your failure to exist turns it into nothing?

I need a better spam filter.

Recipe for disaster

Ingredients:

• 1 ex-girlfriend
• 1.5 bottles of Jameson
• 2.5 hour long discussion about her most recent trip to Venice, and her period of "self-discovery" whatever that means
• 1 dash nostalgia
• resentment (to taste)

Method:

1. Combine ingredients vigorously in an enclosed space.
2. Increase temperature until mixture begins to thicken.
3. Lower temperature and the mix will begin to separate on its own.
4. Once complete, throw the entire thing out. It's over for fuck's sake.

Yield: 0

Fuck the 90s

I'm not adept with women. My hamartia is not that I'm brusque, awkward or unfunny. I'm smoove as fuck, y'all. But I do have a weakness for batting eyelashes on brunettes with the gentlest of waves in their hair, especially when they flash Pan-Am smiles and find everything I say hilarious, and indeed down another cocktail and talk with me until the bar closes and put then they put their hand on my kneecap and follow me home. That's like, totally my type.

But guys, she was born in the '90s.

I don't know what to make of this. When it comes right down to it, I can't in good conscience fuck someone who I know was struggling with cursive writing when I was breathing in Must-See TV and wearing No Fear shirts. Can I?

Chris Isaak is as relevant to her as Frankie Goes To Hollywood is to me (i.e., not very) and Nickelodeon is something completely different for her. I'm a YCDTOTV and she's an All That. She also uses words like "cray" and "hella" whereas I can't even handle the use of "impact" as a verb.

In a town as small as this, it's likely I will see this girl again, and I will have to ask myself: does it matter that she doesn't know who Bronson Pinchot is? I haven't even mentioned pogs.

She's hella cute though. This is so confusing.

A decree

I found this scrawled in my notebook:

I hereby Decree, that, in an Effort to drastically improve the Fruits of my creative Endeavours, I shall increase my output, to a degree conducive to Improvement in the Arts, and shall not cease until such Improvement is Realised proper. 

For some reason this resolution is signed "the management" and is dated 12 July 1708. Even in the 18th century, I was beating myself up about not writing enough. Sheesh.

Reasons for committing suicide

Oh, hi. You're still here? I could have sworn you had already left. Serves me right for not delivering these to you sooner. Pay attention; these are some more-than-convincing reasons to get your butt in gear:

• Got pwned by a n00b
• Lost a sizable portion of your tortilla chip in the communal guacamole and people noticed
• Hummed Carly Rae Jeppsen, tapped foot
• Ordered and enjoyed the bland meal on an airplane
• Kicked ass but forgot to take names
• Watched trilogy in the wrong order
• You don't understand how life insurance works
• First contestant eliminated
• Purchased Alien Ant Farm CD
• You're adopted
• Married the least interesting of a pair of identical twins

Now get outta here you crazy schlub.

An optical illusion

As Lydia tediously unwraps the packaging of the day's events, Harvey listens with the intensity befitting the utterly smitten: with open, searching eyes and gentle nods of reassurance.

"Anyway, I'm rambling on," she says. "How was your day?"

Harvey smiles a tight, forced smile.

"Just fine."

His lips tense, almost buckling from the deluge of unfiltered emotion sloshing inside his head. Words press against the back of his clenched teeth like prisoners in a burning prison. Words like, "I'm just fine, except for the stultifying feeling of loneliness I felt at 3:18pm this afternoon. It felt like between me and the distance of furthest star space — the furthest speck in space — there was no one I can count on. I told you this, and when you texted me back:

Maybe you need some new friends

Instead of:

You're not alone

Or:

Don't worry

Or:

You have me

My spirit slackened and I begged to see you tonight and you said

Sure thing

And here we are, in deep conversation about your day, and interdepartmental elementary school politics, and not once have you inquired why or how I suddenly feel like the only beating heart from here to UDFj-39546284, and I finally understand, in the way that an optical illusion tumbles in your mind until the moment you understand it, that I am alone. And that you an are an optical illusion too."

But the words never leave Harvey's lips. And he forces his lips to relax.

Outmoded measurement

Jerry Seinfeld is absolutely right to mock our continued use of "horsepower" to measure modern machines. We should at least switch to elephants or something. Or politicians. They're pretty powerful if you think about it. The amount of power it takes to build one dam could be measured in congressmen. Who wouldn't want to drive a 220 senator-powered motorcycle?

The fractional use of horsepower is also ridiculous. Half a horsepower is, properly speaking, half a horse's power, which is zero. A horse torso moves no carts. In cases such as these we should use mice or ferrets or something.

A country of broken necks

Spines are shattered; everyone's neckless
Rubbernecks never run for office
Let's just quit this rat race, looks like
God should flatly concede all trace–

Danglin' floppin', cubicles-airplanes
Chemicals taint and paint the insane
Pop the suicide champagne, looks like
Broken necks have marred our campaigns

Let's talk longings primitive instinct
Elements meet forever they're linked
Life's just endless rethink, looks like
Your march rages onward hoodwinked

Two cars meet in promenade conflict
Butterfly floats and stings to afflict
Us like meaning addicts, looks like
Our scribe deems us worthy handpicked

See the sea? It's literal magic
Bitterness corks longings pelagic
Yes, doctor it's tragic, looks like
Our neck's wring is automatic

Real letters from real geeks

Dear reader,

An excellent thank you letter must be gracious, kind and forthright. You, dear reader, will refer to the reader by their first name, because that will allow an air of ease and levity. It is not a formal letter, but rather one to make the reader understand that (and how) you have been touched by his or her gesture. It matters not if your feelings of gratitude are not sincere; you words shall indicate nothing less than that you were utterly humbled by the reader's magnanimity, and that your mere letter of thanks could never suffice to propitiate their generosity.

A thank you note is not a place to criticize a gift. You must never mention if a gift is unfit for your consumption or is not of your taste. Even if it is something you would never ever use, you must convey in words how you could never live without having received this gift, and that your erstwhile life was nothing but a shadow -- a falsehood dreamscape, where your disjoint body and mind have synthesized only upon receipt of said gift, action or token of generosity upon which you are now conveying thanks.

A letter like this is not a platform on which you may expound upon your political and religious beliefs, or otherwise offensive or distasteful views. Be careful to avoid profanity and if you must, please do not write them in majuscule letters, for that is utterly charmless.

Do not use racist language.

It is not appropriate to post-date your thank you note (because this makes no sense) nor should you pen this missive under the influence of drugs, alcohol or God. Be sure to close with a warm and compelling salutation.

Thanks for the memories, fuckers,

Harvey

Memoirs of the unemployed

A few years ago, as a condition of receiving Employment Insurance (dole, pogey, etc.,), I had to enroll in a government sponsored program called the Job Hunting Club. Calling it a club was probably a marketing move to give it a sense of cachet, like we were clinking gimlets and black people weren't allowed in, but it was far from that. We sat in a small classroom on the 9th floor of an office building, watched a lot of dated videos on how to make resumes and learned how to apply to jobs without sounding like mongoloids. Because I had a university degree and was 100% literate, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Or rather the opposite: the sole thumb devoid of hammer marks and bruises.

I exaggerate; most of the people in the course were just normal folks who got laid off. One of them in particular caught my eye. I took some notes on him in class:

Toronto Job Hunting Club

It's the island of misfit toys. There's the guy who pronounces his Rs like Ls; the obligatory Little Person, eastern Europeans, some other coloureds, and me.

We start with an ice breaker that proves surprisingly effective. Sample queries: find someone with your same sign, find someone who likes pasta, find someone who's seen The Sound Of Music. Quickly, we mill about to collect this useless data. But it works – the ice is broken.

We spend the morning discussing "skills," and post-job-loss-feelings. Relief, shock and frustration are mentioned. Myself, I offer "rage" and "homicide" but am quickly rebuffed.

*   *   *

Evan's presentation today is short and sweet and weird. He wrote a book on consumer advocacy? Didn't I just see this guy trolling for casual sex in the computer lab?

*   *   *

Let's get back to Evan. What a guy. He has a face that's swollen like a drunk's and a mop of greying unkempt hair. His small, dark eyes are hidden behind huge, square glasses better befitting an old lady. He talks like an old townie. And I believe most of what he says is completely untrue. 

He has apparently owned a "legal company," designed a website and written a book. Yet this guy never takes off his coat the entire time he's in class. He looks like Barney Martin on heroin.

He seems to hate working. One of my first conversations with him goes like this:

Evan: Pretty boring, huh? (In reference to everything being discussed.)

Harvey: (Trying to seem positive) It's not so bad. Kind of useful.

Evan: I'm only here because my mother wanted me out of the house.

Harvey: Oh.

*   *   * 

He sees me pull my BlackBerry out and he comments that "it would probably work better if it was made in a Canadian union shop." It's not like I am having problems with it, but I can tell he hates the idea of offshoring. Evan is not shy with his redneck-level politics. I mention, politely, that the phone would probably cost $2000 if built with union labour. He doesn't like this.

I'm not sure what this guy's deal is. He is bitter that more jobs don't offer full training. "They expect you to know everything when you walk through the door." In this room full of over-educated immigrants, his attitude is a sharp contrast.

His arms are folded, and his gaze is far from empty. It's full of ire and bitter disappointment from a sense of entitlement and unfulfillment.

I'm being hard on him, and to be honest I don't know why. It's not that he's lazy. Maybe he's not. But he seems defeated. And petulant.

I'm lucky enough to be put in a group with Evan. We have to come up with things to research before interviews. He insists we write "is this company a scam?" When we don't, he skulks off to look up free sex in the computer lab. It's clear he's showed up to a few scams in his life. Maybe he thinks his whole life is over?

*   *   *

Evan has this strange move where he rubs his ring finger with the opposite hand like he's trying to warm it up or jam it back into his hand.

*   *   *

We just watched his videotaped interview. It isn't just bad. It is textbook bad. I'm starting to get the impression he has been hired by the career centre. A stooge. A real life "Donny Don't." The first words out of his mouth during the video interview are, "I need a job." 

I wonder about Evan, and even worry about him a bit. The guy was clearly a nutter – he was a 50-year-old man that lived with his mother, surfed porn at a government job searching program and had delusions of grandeur – but I can't help but think: there, but for the grace of God, go I. Could the world become so topsy-turvy? Maybe one day I will sit in a room with a winter coat on, surrounded by younger and more enthusiastic voices, as I rage silently: "I could have been something. But the world failed me."

It's not right to mandate experience, but I do feel there are certain things one should do before they can consider themselves informed citizens. One is to travel to a non-English speaking country. Another is to fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back. Another is to confront the downtrodden and listen to their stories. I am certainly not the same after meeting Evan.

Wild speculation

On polar bears:

God: Tracy, could you come over here for a moment?
God's P.A. Tracy: Yes, sir. What is it?
God: What's the cutest animal we have designed?
Tracy: I think that would be the white bear with the black nose.
God: Right. We need to move it far away from the humans.
Tracy: Why?
God: Because they will be too distracted by its cuteness.
Tracy: (writing in her pad) OK, white bears to ice caps. What about puppies should we move those too?
God: No. That's different.

Water's a waste

Water isn't great. I mean, it's everything not to like about liquid. When people tell me how awesome drinks like whiskey and Diet Pepsi are made, they usually start with water and add a fuck tonne of yummy ingredients to it.

It's not unreasonable therefore to assume then that water sucks. You don't see people taking Diet Pepsi and adding a shit load of ingredients to that do you? (I mean, maybe some assholes do but that's fucking heresy if you ask me.) Diet Pepsi is fine the way it is. But water? Water needs some serious work.

Humans are so desperate to turn water into something it's not. We purify it, desalinize it, add sugar, take out minerals and other minerals, add colour, add the fermented byproduct of various decaying grains and/or fruits/vegetables, we even add bubbles for fuck's sake.

The only thing it's good for is bathing and water slides. Pass me a scotch.

Who goes there?

I don't tell people about this site, yet somehow people find it in droves. They also tend to leave it in droves, but I'm still surprised that year over year, more people visit.

And what is it that they expect to find? Popular searches include:

• euphemisms for vomiting
• "have you ever kissed a girl"
• ass licking slow motion
• 1 sentence cause of galactosemia
• egg mcmuffin fresh cracked eggs
• poem using apostrophe which should be about your daily activities (10 lines at least)

As I plug away at this project, it occurs to me that I'm certainly not meeting the expectations of my non-existent readership. And I should be indifferent, but I'm not. To the sad fucks looking for ass licking in slow motion, I truly apologize. My ramblings aren't going to get you off, and part of me feels like I've let you down. You dead-ended on a jet black page about Toucans and self-loathing, dick in hand. Neither of us wanted this.

When web was young I used to devour blogs. Now, like everyone else, I merely snack; pecking away at an endless buffet of content. 

I wonder then: what will happening to this endless stream of text inching skyward? It's not that I demand readers (I really don't) but I don't want to be a forgotten, flung open cupboard door in the frantic kitchen of the Internet. I sincerely hope that one day I can satisfy the needs of some lonesome surfer on the other side of a search engine. That someone searching for "reasons to commit suicide," will finally have found his home.

Break up template

Dear _______,

I'm sorry. I know this might come as a (shock/surprise/relief) to you, but I don't think we should (see/fuck/date) each other (for a while/anymore/until these meds start working).

The thing is I (like/love/mostly love) you, I really do, but I just don't feel like we have a (real connection/fighting chance in this crazy world). I have lots going on, what with the (economy/hockey lockout/turbulent job market/upcoming comic-con) so I think it might be best if we (took it easy for a while/called it quits/never spoke to each other ever again).

I definitely have some issues to hash out with my (therapist/shaman/mother/ex-girlfriend/personal trainer), so I really think this the right move for both of us. Plus, you've just fucked too many guys.

Also, I'm sorry about (your couch/christmas dinner). I will make it up to you.

I hope we can still be (fuck buddies/pen pals/friends on Facebook).

Harvey

Forwards and backwards

In my dream last night
Well, I was drunk and you sent a note
Much like this one
Where the message works both backwards and forwards
Are you familiar with this?
This is totally strange.

This is totally strange.
Are you familiar with this?
Where the message works both backwards and forwards

Much like this one

Well, I was drunk and you sent a note

In my dream last night.

Leap years

...are stupid. And I'm glad we don't have one this year. You can't just add a day to a year. If our calendar is inefficient we should suffer the consequences. And if that means in five hundred years Christmas will be in July, well who gives a rusty fuck?

Let's roll the dice from now on.

The raft

Life's not an ocean, it's a raft. The ocean is the universe; existence at large. But that fragile, malleable, flimsy tarpaulin of a vessel we cling to desperately in the choppy waves is Life. And though it is tempting to puncture a hole through it and escape into the ocean's dark depths, most of us succumb instead to starvation and the sun, never knowing even the tiniest expanse of the wide undulating sea.

(The sun is a metaphor for time.)

Words I hate

Cotillion.

Sure, I'm no connoisseur of elegance in the form of dresses, long white gloves, the American south, young women, and curtsying. In fact, I would be lying if I said I've never entertained a drowsy afternoon fantasy of driving a Volkswagen Jetta on to ballroom floor of a debutante ball, whipping a Koran at some old lady's head, and then lighting myself on fire.

But all the same this word's just gross. Every time I hear it, I can feel the tip of a quill being lifted from dusty parchment. Knowing that its origin is French doesn't help any.

Keeping it clean

It can be really, really difficult talking to my friend Darryl:

Darryl: Washing your hands is bogus.
Harvey: I couldn't disagree more.
Darryl: It's a waste of time and a waste of water. Do you hate the earth?
Harvey: You're objecting to hand-washing on environmental grounds? Just yesterday you said "recycling" is bogus.
Darryl: Recycling is totally bogus.
Harvey: Look, not washing your hands is disgusting.
Darryl: My hands seem OK, and I haven't washed them all day.
Harvey: They're not OK! Your hands are filthy. What the hell did you do to them?
Darryl: It's chocolate. I mean, I think it is.
Harvey: You don't know?
Darryl:
Harvey:
Darryl: Maybe I should wash my hands.
Harvey: I gotta go.

Religion reform #25

The Book Of The Toucan is filled with lots of fucked up lists. The Toucan is particularly weird about his proclivity for ordered lists. From a section called "What Frosts The Toucan's Cupcakes":

1. Short forms. Thou shalt say the whole word or words.

2. Men kissing. I don't want to see that shit.

3. Biting of styles. Thou shalt be original and on trend.

4. Speed dating in general. It's creepy and weird.

5. Bragging about one's virginity. Punch that v-card already. 

And on and on it goes. 

On books unread

I have a confession to make.

There sits on my bookshelf an entire row of books unread. I even buy new reading materials as these books sit with their spines intact and their contents a mystery to me. Why? I derive utility from merely owning books with titles I find pleasing to me.

What utility? It's not like I brag about the books I own, nor do I give tours of my bookshelf. The only person it would seem that I am trying to impress is me, which is obviously really goddamn fucking sad.

I even borrowed a book from a friend the other day; it's almost abusive on some level. Should I read it? I think I might just return it with a note that says, "I am a failure." I feel like a man with a filthy secret.

But now you know it. It's not that I can't read; I merely don't. This explains a lot doesn't it?

Bring on the terrible teens

And here we are.

We managed to survive the non-apocalypse and must face yet another tortured year on this botched science experiment. And what's more: that thing they wrote about in Popular Science ("The Future") is no longer a distant prospect like the barely perceptible whistle of a train; it surrounds us like rising floodwater, dampening our strides and threatening to void the air in our lungs. The train is in the station, and it's going to murder us all.

Clearly the wet and salty coast has permeated my bones and my brains. I am so close to the Pacific but ironically anything but clear. I am like a stranded man bobbing in a lifeboat holding a megaphone, watching the rippling waves and wondering precisely how long until I am rescued.

My resolution for next year is fairly simple. I have stolen it wholesale from the mouth of Alexandra Stoddard:

Slow
Down
Calm
Down
Don't
Worry
Don't
Hurry
Trust The
Process

I will pretend this weblog has relevance and I will write. I will pretend that I am cared for by people and I will take care myself. I will pretend that this ominous Future will succeed in forcing our mouths to the sky and gurgling us all into non-existence; and that I might as well have another cocktail. I will write, I will care, and I will pretend, though probably not in that order.

I will also try to eat less bread and dairy. That stuff will kill you.

Reasons for committing suicide

Sometimes you got it. But you definitely don't. For that extra push, please consider these reasons for doing the right thing:

• Kicked out of Tommy Lasorda fan club
• Only talent: folding fitted sheets
• Wore bowling shoes home
• Caught mid-air-guitar
• Shouted "anal beads" really loudly in restaurant
• You can only parallel park
• Misspelled every word in your offensive tattoo
• Could only afford pre-owned discount anal beads and admitted it loudly in a restaurant
• Broke the first rule of Fight Club
• Not a thing to wear
• One quarter short for the dryer
• You hate your goddamn worthless fucking life
• Spent all your savings on pre-Mayan apocalypse debauchery
• Bored

The window is to your left.

Real letters from real geeks

Dear purveyors of electronic music,

I've had just about enough of your squeaks and squeals, your grinding bass, your thumping and testicle shattering bass, all of it. Give it a goddamn rest. I know, I know, you're really clever with that laptop of yours and you look badass in a pair of headphones, but I don't give a rusty fuck. I'm trying to get some reading done here.

There is a time and place for that kind of "music"; namely cavernous warehouses or hangars on the outskirts of town. So baffling is the experience of this artform, drug use is basically mandatory. Who could listen to dubstep sober? Why would you?

But now I endure this cacophony even as I sit down to the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle (I do that shit with pen, fuckers) in the comfort of my own home. It so happens that my neighbours are people with devastatingly, heart-achingly, terrible taste in music. I shall carbon copy them on this note, and remit a third carbon copy to God (In the remote hope that he empathizes and makes all your heads explode in a messy fell swoop. He might recall that he owes me).

Signed an old fogey,


Harvey

Animal fuckability

It can be really, really hard talking to my friend Darryl:

Darryl: So I called up the ASPCA the other day.

Harvey: I already hate where this is going.

Darryl: And I innocently say: "I'm looking for your most fuckable puppies."

Harvey: How could you possibly say that innocently?

Darryl: And you know what they did?

Harvey: I assume they freaked out...

Darryl: They freaked out!

Harvey: Imagine that.

Darryl: I mean, I don't necessarily want to fuck the puppies.

Harvey: But clearly it's on your mind.

Darryl: Fair enough, but until I penetrate--

Harvey: Darryl, please.

Darryl: Fine. But what I really wanna know is, do they have a metric by which to assess the fuckability of their animals? I seriously doubt it.

Harvey: I gotta go.

Words I hate

I'm assuming the male equivalent of a seamstress is a "seamster." This is a leap of logic to be sure (and certainly wrong) but let me roll with this and declare for the Official Record that I hate this word. A seamster is just a softened Teamster, and I already hate those fucks.

Steamster is just a gayer version of same. I don't know what a steamstress does.

Observational humour about patently false things

I can't believe that they're still chopping Filipino babies in two. I mean, I get it. We need more Filipinos, but aren't there enough Asians already? There isn't enough lumpia! What's the deal?

Now I love getting popcorn at the movies, but occasionally I'll be on a date and we'll get to that awkward point of whether or not to get butter on it. Right? Because we all know that it's not really butter, but hot oily horse ejaculate. Talk about awkward. I never really know what to do at this point. I mean, if this girl is so willing to eat popcorn slathered in horse cum — on the first date — you gotta ask yourself: what's Thanksgiving going to be like? This is why I always go for Sour Kids.

I think the problem with most classical music isn't that it's boring: it's the risk of being gored during the performances. Do they really need to release a live, rabid bull into the concert hall? What is this, 1856? Yeah, I appreciate an authentic rendition of the Brandenburg Concerto as much as the next guy, but I'd rather keep my spleen unpunctured. Thaaaaanks.

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Harvey: If you could send one thing up into space, what would it be?
Miranda: Nothing.
Harvey: But whatever you send, if discovered by a superior alien race, would serve to represent all of humanity. Don't you see? This is important!
Miranda: Fine, I'd send you up there.
Harvey:
Miranda:
Harvey: (choking back tears) I'm flattered.
Miranda: Please don't be.

The things that I hate

I took an improv class once.

On our very first day we had to stand up in front of everyone and rattle of a list of things we loved. The seated students were meant to cheer, loudly, in hearty approbation of the presenting student's list of loves. An accountant stood up and informed the class excitedly that she loved her border collie, and the class became giddy. A social worker awkwardly revealed that he loved beer. The other students roared, and bolstered, the man shared that he loved TV dinners, and the Toronto Maple Leafs, and AC/DC, and weddings, and snowboarding, redheads, Mountain Dew, fuzzy slippers and martinis. The other students went nuts.

I found the exercise difficult. I would have preferred instead to be asked to recite a list of things I hated instead. I wouldn't consider myself a hater necessarily, it's just that those feelings are just more accessible to me. If my mind had a desk, the things that I hate would sit in the top drawer.

"My feelings," I would start. "I hate my feelings and the voices in my head. The voices that insist and prattle and fill my veins with doubt. I also hate sharp cheddar and the taste of envelope glue. I hate obligation and thus I hate the fabric of most social interactions. I hate that my default mode is a combination of guilt and passive-aggression and fear. I hate grippy socks, and fingerless gloves, and I hate when people talk about cars or sports or music that I have not heard of. I hate my shriveled attention span and the cold, oh, how I hate the fucking cold. I hate the ocean and I hate the sound of the oboe. I hate snowboarding, and redheads, Mountain Dew, fuzzy slippers and martinis.

"I hate my proclivity to buy books that I will not read, and I hate when people walk four abreast on sidewalks and then slow to a crawl for seemingly no reason. I hate the practice of dentistry.

"I hate my most interesting acquaintances for they are the most selfish and demanding, but I hate the rest of my acquaintances also. I hate having to consider and empathize and sympathize and acknowledge other minds, and feeling this way, I hate my own selfishness, my thoughts, my hypocrisy, and thus, myself.

"Oh, and though I haven't quite made up my mind on the subject, I am sure I hate the cosmos too."

And at this point the class would look at each other bemused, and Ted, our instructor would surely lead us in another game of zip, zap, zop.

Wild speculation

On the invention of coincidence:

Bib: Could you imagine if two people had the same idea at the same time?
Bub: I was just thinking that!

Verby day

I am writing this missive on the evening of 28 October 2012. A passable Sunday. Here's what I did in order:

1. ate scrambled eggs and bacon
2. sat on the bus for exactly one hour and 
3. read The Atlantic
4. bought groceries at the supermarket
5. placed clothes in a washing machine
6. cooked up a storm
7. nibbled on a medicinal marijuana chocolate bar
8. removed clothes from a washing machine
9. listened a supremely moving podcast
10. ironed shirts
11. saw Giants fans celebrating
12. washed dishes
13. lay in bed
14. typed out words

In order words, I'm pretty high right now. Thanks for reading. 

Real letters from real geeks

Dearest munchers of kale,

I've had just about enough of the Vegan Agenda pervading all aspects of civilized life. Just yesterday I bore witness to something so horrifying I could have snapped a vegan's neck in two and sucked the marrow from her bones like a zombie crazed by bloodlust. A carton of vegan eggnog.

Have we all lost our minds? For too long I have personally tolerated the choices vegans make as a quaint (but laughable) dietary choice. Sure, not everyone has to enjoy meat, or cheese, or eggs. (Honey offends you too? OK, whatever.) But when you concoct alternatives to decidedly unvegan things like eggnog, I have to speak up.

Because —you lactarded grass-eating fucks— eggnog is not for you. Not for you! Eggnog is not vegan. It doesn't just contain dairy and egg, it is dairy and egg. That's the essence of the product, like dead animals are the essence of meat, or being perpetually cranky and having a holier-than-thou attitude is the essence of being a vegan. It's a decadent fucking beverage for people who love life, not self-hating imbibers of green smoothies.

One of the things you give up when you become a vegan (besides all of my respect) is eggnog. You don't get to drink it, because it's not a vegan beverage.

Now, before you say in your shrill, malnourished tones: "but eggnog is delicious and we would like to partake," I must preempt and say, "Go fuck yourself." I know eggnog is yummy. It's made of sugar and eggs and cream: amazing fucking things that you have chosen to eschew. You want to get in on the action by making a non-dairy, non-egg version of a dairy and egg drink? That's offensive. That's worse than drinking non-alcoholic beer; that's like drinking grape-free wine. It's almost spiteful in its idiocy.

Live with your goddamn stupid choice, and leave the eggnog to grownups. You can't eat your walnut-based-gluten-free-stevia-sweetened cake and have it too you fucking clods.

Go to Hell and happy holidays,

Harvey

Wild speculation

On the creation of doorknobs:

Marcus: And there you are. You shall now have privacy in your chambers.
Selene: I am most grateful. How does it work?
Marcus: You simply press the door closed like so. (Click)
Selene:
Marcus:
Selene: And how do you open it?
Marcus: Fuck.

Religion reform #24

The Book Of The Toucan is filled with lots of fucked up lists. The Toucan is particularly weird about his proclivity for ordered lists. From a section called "What Frosts The Toucan's Cupcakes":

30. Put no Gods before me. Or after me. In fact, try not to think about other Gods.

31. Readeth not borrowed books when on the toilet.

32. An umbrella is a privilege not a right.

33. You and me do not equal the world.

34. I can see you when you jerk off, so stop making that stupid face.

And so on, and so on.

Real letters by real geeks

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on securing a second term as the president of the weirdest fucking country on the planet not counting the Philippines or Japan. Actually China is pretty weird too. Not to mention Australia and New Zealand; those two are completely fucked up. I suppose I should also include Guinea-Bissau, but then I would have to mention a host of equally shitty African countries. Let me stop there.

So good luck. America hasn't been the since country since I was first told about it about two and a half decades ago. Back then America was mostly interested in hairspray and soft drinks and Ronald Reagan. Now in 2012, hairspray has been replaced by a divisive vitriolic brand of politics, soft drinks remain soft drinks, and Ronald Reagan is now you. So don't fuck this up.

Not that you need any more pressure, but it's important that you do (whatever it is that you do) stronger, faster, better and harder than you ever have before. Be sure never to mention those words in that order in public.

But seriously, sucks about the gig. I can't imagine you'd prefer the stress of being president when you can write a book instead and make appearance fees for walking into the auditoriums of the highly-willing-to-pay and watch your country crumble around you. It's not too shabby.

So in short, good fucking luck. You're going to need it.

Harvey

Crossing the line

Dear reader(s),

I'm actually kind of excited about this news, though I shouldn't be. The act of Not Writing is nothing to be proud of, and barely producing more posts this year than the worst year of content on this site (2006) is certainly nothing to brag about. But I am doing precisely that. I have written more than thirty posts. This year will not be my worst year. Hoo. Fucking. Ray!

That said my goal is more than that paltry number. Something over fifty-two posts per calendar year suggests that I think about this blog on the regular, and I won't shun it so easily for other pursuits like drinking and fucking. Writing over a hundred posts would reveal my designs on being a writer; writing over three hundred would mean I actually am one.

Which is to say: I may have failed, but I did not colossally fail. When historians look back upon this weblog (unlikely) and note my periods of high and low activity, they will not say: "twenty-twelve was the worst." They might say that "it was the second worst" or that it was "pretty bad" or something altogether negative, but they cannot assign superlatives like "worst," "least," "most pathetic" or "most impotent," etc.

Well, I suppose they can, but what I'm saying is: I've crossed the line. The line that failing students rely on when calculating what's the lowest grade that will still net them a course credit. It's the same line burnouts teeter upon when being drug tested at work. It's showing up to work minutes before your boss, or texting your wife from your mistress's apartment to wish her happy birthday.

But I have officially crossed that line. Thanks for reading.

Harvey

Desktop calendar

Dear Martin,

As I write this there are three-hundred and fifty-one published posts on Slomosu. I too am surprised. Considering how infrequently I update this site, you'd think I just crossed twenty. Yes, I know this is a sore spot for you but I like to antagonize you, Martin. For example, I've referred to your name two times in this letter, and I know you hate that. I also know that you hate when I spell out numbers and I have done that already five times. And I'm just getting started. Fuck you two.

But I digress. Three-hundred and fifty-one is a fairly significant number. And as I'm sure you no doubt have already realised, just fourteen short of a calendar year.

If I was telling you this in person, it would probably go:

HARVEY (shouting):

...just fourteen short of a calendar year.

MARTIN (confused):

What?

HARVEY:

A fortnight, Martin! A fortnight! Doncha see?

MARTIN:

Why you knucklehead...

Or something like that, which should make crystal clear why I'm writing this letter instead. But this letter is obviously a waste of cyber ink. You're so intuitive and wise and judgment free and you love electronic music — see, I know things about you Martin (four things to be exact) — you have no doubt already considered and developed the idea I'm about to proffer, namely, that you should publish a one a day calendar of all my posts. Imagine waking up one May the seventh to find:

Words I hate

 The term, "wobbly pops."

And then I can quit. Please let me fucking quit.

Yours always,

Harvey

Exuberance would be purple, I think

I'm not really sure how to spell the word halloween. I've seen it spelled "hall-o-ween"and "hallowe'en" and "all hallow's eve" but I'm not really sure what the crucial differences are between these. It's not a holiday I ever celebrated with much gusto. Even as a child, I spent more years doling out candy than soliciting for it door-to-door. Begging isn't my scene: I prefer to evaluate people and watch television.

That, and I'm very picky about costumes. This is a day where one can be anything they want (my emphasis), so to don oneself in a Dollar store mask is not just unseemly, it's a tremendous waste of an opportunity. ("Gypsy" is a pretty lame costume idea also.)

Here's a few ideas I've been kicking around. This h'allowe-en, feel free to go as:

• CareBear™ that doesn't give a fuck
• The answer to the sphinx's riddle
• Hitler wearing a yarmulke
• 4" dildo (not to scale)
• Hot dog enthusiast
• Guy with cancer and AIDS and a headache
• Sundog
• The laughter of a young child
• Chinaman from the future
• Ku Klux Klam
• Procrastination
• The answer to a multiple choice question
• Natural causes
• Irish potato famine
• Obesity scare personified
• Frank discussion
• Part one of four
• Exuberance
• Flood insurance
• Unblemished record
• World Promise Keeping Champion
• Tired of listening
• Fussbucket
• "Pre-drunk, I mean--drunk"
• 1880s
• A basic assessment
• A halloween costume list

Not for the novice to be sure, but nothing that a quick trip to a craft shop can't fix. Make sure to pick up extra hot glue sticks.

Words I hate

Succulent.

The word is just gross. It's unsettling to guide the movements of your mouth from the sibilant "suck" to the obtuse and tongue-heavy "lent." You can't merely utter this word. You practically fellate it as it wriggles out of your mouth. "Succulent" is the creepy uncle of words, fondling your soft genitals as you sleep.

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.

Reasons for committing suicide

Thinking about ending it? Don't just think about it. Consider flipping that off-switch if any of the following has happened to you:

• Coworker called you out for throwing out birthday cake
• Zipper broke on your laptop sleeve
• Ran for bus, left wallet at home
• Ill prepared to explain why browsing in incognito mode
• Finally decide to accept the advances of the homely girl that digs you; get rejected immediately
• Awkward run-in with ex-girlfriend's, ex-roommate's ex-girlfriend at a movie theatre
• Jerked off to someone else's porn (without knowing)
• Have to update Calibre every time you open it
• Referred to George Harrison as Geoff Harrison
• Knocked a baby over while holding a beer
• Can't get rid of that moldy smell in your towels

What's the worst that could happen?

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Harvey: You don't sell carrots do you?
Miranda: They're right over there.
Harvey: But those are bright orange.
Miranda: And...?
Harvey: Isn't it obvious?
Miranda: Not to me.
Harvey:
Miranda:
Harvey: These pants are chartreuse. I'll be a laughing stock.
Miranda: Those look more nyanza to me.

Bitches versus bitches

I'm not sure but I think I might prefer dogs to women. Some key points in favour of canines:

• I'm not tempted to have sex with dogs, and am therefore less likely to waste my time watching them eat and chuckling at their not-really-that-funny observations.
• I never have to pretend that I like the same music as a dog.
• Dogs are 100% sure of what they want at all times, viz., to drool on you. 
• Dogs don't text me with "UGH. I hate men" at two in the morning.
• Were a dog to ask my opinion on something (which it won't) it would not respond with "Really? But those shoes are so ugly."
• Dogs can't talk, and they don't have stupid ideas.
• Dogs aren't obsessed with yogurt.
• Dogs don't own 50 pairs of shoes.
• Dogs don't tell you that it's OK if we don't visit their parents this weekend, but then check with several times leading up to Friday, if you "still don't want to go," which like, I clearly don't — that's why I said I didn't want to go — but then, will get her way with persistent and healthy doses of guilt and then while driving up North say, "you know, you didn't have to come if you didn't want." And then continue to paint her nails in the front seat of the car, but won't roll down the windows because it will mess her hair up.
• Dogs always prefer it doggy style.
• Dogs don't mind if you forget their birthday.

Also, having them put down is socially acceptable.

Religion reform #23

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive. -Albert Schweitzer

I must confess that once, for the briefest-flicker-of-a-moment-that-was-over-before-I-knew it, I felt it. And by it, I mean the staggering presence of a creator. You heard me. The G-man. I felt it and I believed. Really.

And I should explain that I was neither high nor intoxicated when I had this feeling. I wasn't melancholy, suicidal or bristling with Baptist levels of glee. I was simply doddering around the parking garage underneath my apartment, and pondering the myriad of conveniences that pervaded my life:

• my sweet apartment
• the storage locker under my apartment that is super cheap
• the fact that we have two Zipcars in our parking garage
• the dope coffee beans I had just purchased from T.A.N.
• that I had all my limbs and mental faculties

And then I looked down at an oil slick in the filthy and poorly-ventilated space and realized how nothing was in my control. That if life was an enormous and undulating flag, gripped on all sides by a million frenetic arms, I could contribute little more than a pair of thumbs and forefingers clinging desperately to the waving sheet. And I'd watch my arms lift and fall, but feel nothing but the flag pinched between my fingertips.

The feeling evaporated in moments, but heck, I'd feel it again. The pins and needles of irrational belief is kind of intoxicating.

(It is worth mentioning that the garage is poorly-ventilated, so I might have been getting high on CO fumes.)

Lest we forget a blade of grass

Grass is unimpeded by our efforts to thwart it. It elbows its way through crevasses in concrete and asphalt. It bears the footfalls of animals and man. Grass's modern lifestyle plainly sucks. It endures ceaseless trampling and it is decapitated on the regular. People think nothing of the gaping green throats releasing the scent of plant-based violence into the suburban air. And while we often think about grass as sod — a blanket of green clinging to rolled up dirt — we mustn't forget the blade.

The Struggle exists in the solitary blade. It is He that is threatened by pests and disease, by competition for nutrients and the predation of an altogether different blade, namely, that of the whirling mower, caked with the carcasses of a thousand already-hacked brethren.

To forget the solitary blade would be to dismiss whole of humanity as "A brief flash of lush foam/On a cold stone/In a vast and soundless void." As they say.

And yet, that is the perspective of the cosmos. What blades of grass are we.

(Right? Right?)

The memory of a scent

I am walking down Valencia and my nostrils have filled with a strong sense of nostalgia.

As I pace, my brain and my senses struggle to source the meaning of this smell. I find myself on the first day of university, carrying luggage into my new student residence. Inhaling once more, I am on the grass by the banks of the Thames river. I can feel the thousand or so footsteps to class, the drunken destructive sprints home from the bars, and a calendar that was more spiral than schedule. I remember the taste of dollar beers and make-out bandits and the associated angst and indifference, and I can still hear the clunk of empty bottles of Jack Daniels accumulating on the windowsill.

I'm transported to the dark forest behind our residence where among the tall trees we would — oh, wait. It's weed. The smell is weed. Someone is definitely getting high around here.

Stream-of-consciousness recipe for brownies

Ingredients:

• Baptize my birthday
• 1 cup sweet death's surrender
• Equal parts tale untold sifted with story unspeakable
• 200g shortening
• The Rage within an old man's fist
• 4 tsp sebum
• Might
• 2 eggs
• Rieux's doubt in a blood- and phlegm-soaked nugget on the cold tile floor.

Method:

1. Striptease my funeral.
2. Revel scot and devour the elephant sutures break.
3. Mix vigorously like blood and love do mix and stare at your hands in horror.
4. Stare at your hands.
5. Stare at your hands in horror.
6. Beat in eggs slowly. Wake with a single thought that feels like a dull guillotine against your pinch-sealed throat. That thought is "pre-heat oven to 350 degrees."
7. And that's when I realized that alienation is not a place. It is a binding poison, as pervasive in your mouth like saliva.
8. Bake at the temperature of desire. Let cool. Let die.

Yield: 24

There be dragqueens

It can be really, really hard talking to my friend Darryl:

Darryl: What's your stance on drag queens?
Harvey: In what sense?
Darryl: Bone-ability. Obviously.
Harvey: (Sigh.) Why? Why?
Darryl: Well, Trent asked me a few days ago.
Harvey: OK...?
Darryl: It was Tuesday.
Harvey: Yeah, I don't care about that. What did you say?
Darryl: I told him I would get back to him. I need to check what the word on the street was.
Harvey: "Word on the street?" Listen, to answer your question, I'm not into to drag queens. Are you?
Darryl: Dude, I'm not gay.
Harvey: Clearly. But you are attracted to drag queens.
Darryl: No.
Harvey: Right.
Darryl: Now, having said that—
Harvey: Here we go.
Darryl: I've been dabbling in straight guys dressing as women for the purposes of comedy. There's a kind of appeal there.
Harvey: Dabbling. OK.
Darryl: Remember Jonathan Brandis in Ladybugs? You weren't even a little bit curious about what was going on under those soccer shorts? (May he rest in peace.)
Harvey: Christ.
Darryl: Hey, judge-mo, this isn't a sexual thing. It's aesthetic. You have to admit Dave Foley was pretty cute wearing a dress in Kids In the Hall.
Harvey: Please stop.
Darryl: He's gained a lot of weight since then though.
Harvey: I can't accept this.
Darryl: Terry Jones really tore it up too.
Harvey: Dude.
Darryl: And Gilda Radner.
Harvey: She's a woman.
Darryl: Hm. I guess I'd still fuck her too.
Harvey: I gotta go.

On returning underwear that is not yours

Those with girlfriended roommates and on-site laundry might relate to this problem.

That issue when you find a pair of your roommate's girlfriend's thong underwear in the bottom of a laundry machine. This problem is awkward for me because I don't have the kind of relationship with my roommate (or anyone really) where I can calmly discuss the underthings of loved ones. But what do do with the skivvies?

I've parsed through the scenarios. Here they are in descending order of bravery required to execute:

1. Knock on roommate's door, hold out thong in outstretched arm. Loudly ask, "This yours?"
2. Quietly leave the item on your roommate's office chair while he is out. He is sure to see it later, and realize what happened. Never speak of the incident.
3. Subtly monitor roommate's laundry schedule over time. When is about to do a load, wait until he is out of sight and drop the offending article in. When sorting the laundry later will probably not notice the sly addition of the unmentionable article, but even if he does he probably won't think much of it.

This third option involves the least probability of the roommate knowing that you handled his girlfriend's panties. That said, my mind is just demented enough to consider the invisible flaws with this scenario.

Like: What if he was sorting his laundry and recognized the underwear as an item lost weeks ago? And further, what if there was no other underwear in that load, and this thong stuck out like a sore thumb?

He would realize that I have been stalking his laundry habits and waiting for just the right moment to drop this thong into the laundry machine. Which would mean I'd been biding my time with his girlfriend's underwear for days, possibly weeks. And then he would look at me cock-eyed and probably announce over breakfast, "Jesus, Harvey, you need a shrink."

Fuck that. I had to go with option number four:

4. Place underwear in brown paper bag, place in metal garbage can. Move out.

On updating this weblog from a mobile phone

I refuse to do it. On those rare circumstances where I am on "the go" it's probably on one leg of an alcohol procurement journey which means its 100% likely that I am not in the mood to peck out meaningful missives on the screen of my smartphone. Besides there are very few ideas in my head worthy of immediate publish. My thoughts are like ground pork: always best to let them cook for a little bit longer.

Your flat react

I witnessed drones in east LA
A red auto speeds down this hill
Nudges my feet back to the curb

A street dog gnaws upon his bone
And the steps to your flat react
As though we've never met before

Six days and six bottles it took
To put to ink inchoate thoughts
And tuck inside this envelope

I read your name in my printing
And I think of your ceiling fan
I can feel the blades' empty air

"Finding out the girl you like is
Seeing someone else" -- is poetry
Though instead of rhyme there's the chop

Of fan blades; And words; And the air

Religion reform #22

Occasionally, one meets a religious person that isn't a nutcase. This is kind of annoying. My distaste for religion must be diluted somewhat when I encounter adherents that have no repellent opinions or values, which is obviously less fun.

Besides, for what other purpose des religion exist but to hold controversial/unprovable/batshit-crazy ideas that can't be justified without appeal to a deity or supernatural force? Most of us believe in the scientific notions of say, friction or gravity. I don't need to picket a soldier's funeral to get those points across. Actually, the sum of what I actually believe:

• that children are loud and stupid
• that one should not speak to another human being without having had a sip of caffeine
• that the sun will surely come up tomorrow

Are pervasive, non-controversial and dare-I-say-it, Solid Ideas, that are prima facie accepted by most reasonable persons. Well, I want to be unreasonable Goddammit. I want to hold some weird fucking beliefs, justifiable only by appeal to the Toucan. Namely:

• that there really hasn't been any quality music produced after 1973
• that there is no rational reason to care about the welfare of future generations, but we should anyway
• that anyone with a Klout score above 50 is wasting his days
• that marshmallows are a metaphor for the purposeless of life and we should eat them daily
• that teetotaling is just so stupid
• that if everyone were honest the world would function in an altogether more helpful way
• that you should be able to call into work and say "Listen, I'm not coming in. I'm hungover."
• that contests of public office should be decided by '80s trivia contests
• that vegans have missed the point completely
• that yes, being gay is sometimes gross, but who gives a shit
• that if you don't like Prince you should be exiled to lands remote
• that the singular purpose of human beings is to transcend ourselves and pretend (until it is true) that we are united, and subsequently turn our heads in concert to the sky and consider the darkness from which we all came. (Rather than say, which fucking type of hat our stupid clans should wear.)

If it's not the case that you think these things are self-explanatory then let me appeal to my creator, the Great Bird in the sky. For these are His words, and they are Good, and if I capitalize enough These Nouns, then surely a point has been made, and you should suffer eternally for your dissent. And also, it's not my fault I believe any of these things; I was raised this way.

The people of MUNI

These are the people standing on the platform at Powell station at 22:37:

An oriental girl wearing neutral skinny jeans, dulce de leche-colored moccasins and an azure tee. She is leaning heavily on her left foot.

A girl wearing red jeans, black chukka boots and a grey leather jacket. She has a slender face like a jackal, and she is pretty. She holds a tan purse big enough to stow a bowling ball.

A bearded hipster wearing black vans with white laces and skinny black jeans and a dark, dark camo jacket over a black and white horizontally stripped shirt. He is leaning against a pillar and he is also wearing a hat. He hair hasn't been washed in a month; there is little doubt of that.

And older Asian lady with mom-length hair and white running shoes with pale blue accents. She is wearing a dull lime-colored windbreaker and has a canvas grocery bag slung over her shoulder. She looks tired.

Wedge heels and blue jeans and a slender brown leather bag. I can't see her face, just her hair pulled into a neat bun. Brunette. A black leather jacket hides a printed blouse. She seems fun.

An old lady wearing pearl white sneakers and hair to match. Her skin is wrinkled and she complains out loud about the N Judah. I barely notice her large earrings with cats on them, and now I can't look at anything else. She's wearing loose-fitting grey slacks and a black windbreaker.

Light-grey-to-the-point-of-white tights (maybe jeggings) and calf-high black leather boots. An electric red cardigan sweater cinched with a shiny leather belt over a black tee shirt. She is much older than she dresses. Her died black hair is fading at the roots. She is curvy, but not voluptuous.

And old man with white hair and glasses. He doesn't know it but he's monochrome: verdant khakis and a plaid shirt that mixes emerald and forest green. Even his beige shoes are kind of green. He's pulling a pale mint-colored bag and holding an a taupe notebook. His black duffel bag stands out.

Black leather shoes, black tights, shiny black jeans., She's wearing a black nylon jacket and holding black backpack in her lap. She's Asian. Only the shock of her red hooded sweatshirt makes me curious about her.

Patent-leather heels, dark slacks, a grey pullover sweater with a floppy collar. She's holding a canvas bag in her lap, her hair is pulled back in a bun, and she has a round sweet face accented with pearl earrings. She smiles oddly, as I furiously scribble down notes.

Return muse

I'm notoriously bad at writing down ideas. During dinner I had a great idea for a blog post. Between mouthfuls of chicken I vowed to myself that I would remember what that idea was. Hours (and half a bottle of wine) later, my mind is... well, I don't want to say "clear." To be precise, it's dark, red and opaque like a Petite Syrah.

My idea (probably) had something to do with people. Generally my ideas about people are that a) they are untrustworthy and b) that they are malevolent. Sometimes they are both. To me this is the most egregious offense. I prefer the villain who declares himself so and even dresses the part. The pseudo-seraphim ready to pierce you between the shoulder blades are plainly: the worst.

But I'm veering from the track. Though most of my thoughts are paranoid delusions on how shitty people close to me are, I don't think that was the premise that popped into my head while eating curried chicken and naan. It might have had something to do with "ghosts." Or perhaps, it had something to do with the process of hiring interns. Fuck. What happened to this thought?

This is troublesome. Not because I think the idea was something brilliant that merited mentioning, but because it was a jumping off point. A launch pad. A point of focus. And somehow, I have lost my hold of this talisman, and lost it to the hot magma in the volcano of my mind. Perhaps, the idea was that my mind is like a volcano? No, that can't be it.

Tom Waits once commanded the muses that circled his head to "come back another time," since they had reached him at an inopportune time. Perhaps while eating I should do the same.

Another strange interaction between Harvey and the portly store owner

Harvey: I can't seem to find any hand soup.
Miranda: You can't find what?
Harvey: Hand soup.
Miranda: Hand...
Harvey: ...soup.
Miranda: Right. I thought that's what you said. That doesn't exist. I think you made a verbal typo, and you're not owning up to it.
Harvey:
Miranda:
Harvey: Do you have bar soup instead?
Miranda: Just get the hell out.

When I go out...

I wanna Van Gogh out. (That means a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the stomach.)

Wild Speculation

On the Higgs boson:

Tracy: Sir, I need you for a minute.
God: I'm sorry did you say something?
Tracy: (sigh) This is important, sir. Can you tear yourself away from that football game for just a second?
God: But they need me! It's regional championships.
Tracy: Sir. This is important.
God: (Slaps his Macbook shut.) Fine. What is it now? Sloths too slow?
Tracy: The humans are asking serious questions about matter. Particles. They want to know what gives them mass.
God: That's it? Just burn the answer into a taco or something.
Tracy: But we don't know sir.
God: Shouldn't we have figured this out already? Just look in the Big Bang Binder.
Tracy: (curtly) Well, the day we were supposed to have figured it out it was the NCAA finals.
God:
Tracy:
God: Fine, just develop a new force.
Tracy: That won't work. They have a model.
God: OK... then make it a field that interacts with particles to give them mass.
Tracy: A field? Made up of what?
God: I dunno, more particles?
Tracy: Whatever you say, sir.
God: And make these actually hard to discover for My sake. I've gotta get back to this game.

A train station prophet was wrong

It occurs to me that exactly five years ago, a train station prophet foretold the transmogrification of my two-wheeler into a German automobile. Truth be told, that bike was stolen and so while it is possible that the long-pilfered frame and wheels were (somewhere, somehow) melted down and folded into a new 3-series, I doubt this is the case.

Besides, this would be a needlessly literal interpretation of that Asian man's pronouncements. He meant that I would no longer be riding a bike, but instead be driving a BMW (and not to put too fine a point on it, my own BMW) though this has not come to pass. I still ride around the city on two wheels, and neither my vocation or lifestyle or income admit of a luxury sedan at this time.

It's hard not to interpret this as a failure. Even though I didn't know this strange Chinese man loitering around the train station at sunset, I took his prediction seriously. Possibly because it was unsolicited but probably because it was positive and so personal. Over the years, I have forgotten the many suggestions of my inevitable failure, but I have not forgot this. I can't help but feel that I have let him down somehow.

That said, he was probably shit-bombed when he said that. I wonder if he remembers my face or his prophecy of so many years ago? What would he think that it has entered my catalogue of remembered thoughts?

Words I hate

I think we should be friends.

As in, "I like you and all Harvey, and it's clear that we have some chemistry, and I'm obviously attracted to you on some level since we have progressed this far, but in spite of all this, I feel like yanking the ripcord on this freefall into possible happiness. And rather than tell you the truth: that I think you're not as attractive a man as I could possibly acquire if I tried a little harder, or that it takes you too long to get me to orgasm, or that it's really just too far of a bike ride to get to your place (and uphill no less), I shall opt to deliver a meaningless falsehood, viz., that I don't want a relationship (a statement that has never been true for anyone, anywhere) and that we should really just be friends. And obviously, I know this course of action is as effective a catalyst for friendship as jamming a railroad spike into someone's brain is for iron deficiency, but when I smile with my small perfect teeth and match my light brown eyes with your dark sad ones, I shall mouth the words "I wish it didn't have to be this way," and say those words too, feeling all the while that I have been rescued from the oppressive weight of the pernicious rock that is you."

I don't care for these words in this order. Please don't say them to me.

Dotsy, eh?

Gentle reader(s),

It's not without cause that the author of this web log lifts his head from his glass of whiskey and addresses the (of-course-you're-not) morons that read this site. Here are four things:

It embarrasses me to say that I don't know the exact day that this website transformed from a dot com to a dot-cee-ay. It is true that I have become neglectful of late, but nevertheless the domain change hit me like a tonne of bricks. Like a deadbeat dad finding out his teenaged daughter is rounding the bases on her second abortion, it's still a massive shock, even if I am late to the proceedings.

Many of you can't appreciate how distressing this is. As a Canadian, it's downright derogatory that our culture is so often defined by tacking the word "Canada" on to existing artefacts, like Time Magazine or So You Think You Can Dance. It's less a modifier than a warning label that says: what you're about to consume tastes different. Now this web log has become the unwilling recipient of just such a label.

It can be argued that my zest for writing suicide-y missives has waned. I've become older, less boisterous with my hate, and my muses have fled. It's also worth mentioning (though briefly) that no one actually reads this site. This slap in the face by Blogger was just about the impetus to throw in my towel completely.

I did something crazy. I moved to San Francisco.

This strange act served the dual purpose of correcting the domain on this site to something palatable, and removing me permanently from everything I have ever known. If I wasn't already alienated enough, I have finally succeeded.

So in the interest of fairness, if I will mull over excuses to quit, I must also consider prods to continue. And so it goes.

Yours always,

Harvey

Words I hate

Bromance.

I don't really know what this concept is. I feel, however, that if "bromance" was a pliable substance stretched liked putty or clay, the result would (metaphorically) resemble a goateed gentleman wearing a fitted baseball cap backwards screaming "NO HOMO" right before he goes down on a guy playing Madden on Xbox. Fortunately, there is no such substance so you can do whatever you want with the provided mental image. You're welcome.

Cyberbullying

Two parents argue from opposite sides of the breakfast table.

Dad: Tyson! Where is that kid? His food is getting cold.
Mom: Derek, stop. He doesn’t want to come down. You know he’s feeling low.
Dad: Why? Because of that kid online?
Mom: Yes. He’s being cyberbullied.
Dad: How is that a thing?
Mom: It’s very real.
Dad: Getting bullied online? What kind of a vagina is this kid?
Mom: Derek!
Dad: Look getting bullied on the playground is one thing. Tyson is a twerp and will obviously get pounded by someone bigger than him. But isn’t the computer supposed to be his domain? He’s constantly in front of that thing. Don’t tell me he’s a loser online too.
Mom: Derek. Our son is not a loser. But the other kids are making fun of him online and—
Dad: Can’t he just turn it off? Am I missing something here?
Mom: He’s not going to turn off his computer every time.
Dad: Then tell him to close the tab!
Mom:
Dad:
Mom: I don’t know if he’s using a tabbed browser.
Dad: Jesus, then what kind of a nerd is he?