The "Whiching" Hour

Which tastes better: dinner before sex or dinner after sex? Which jokes will I tell? Which parent will die first? Which crap foods won’t give me colon cancer? Which newspaper prints the most truth? Which lung will I lose? Which roast beef sandwich has listeria? Which side will I nod along with, pretending to understand? Which recreational drug costs the least and lasts the longest? Which detail do I expediently omit? Which chick will slap me inna face? Which church finally tells the truth? Which wall will I punch? Which bone will I break? Which of my eyes will I blacken? Which job will I get canned from because of some stupid Peruvian bimbo who only wanted a fuck? Which planet might my abductors be from? Which booze will make me cool and confident and better-looking? Which voice will I use? Which vice will land me inna least trouble? Which repressed fart will finally split me apart? Which crucial Friday p.m. appointment will I miss because of a dwarf carpenter who boarded up my bedroom door and went home early for the weekend? Which woman will stab me inna heart with an escargot fork? Which hockey team won’t win the Stanley Cup this year, just like the last forty-one? Which questions are most important? Which bridges are burned? Which questions are answered? Which whistles are blown? Which answers are questioned? Which atrocities am I responsible for, even inna tiniest? Which way will I die? Which day will I die? Which —

I was gonna — seven more pages of ‘which’ questions — but I can’t. Even I admit, the thing got tedious fast. Sorry, courageous reader. I’ve learned my lesson. Lists can be fun. But the important thing to realize is that lists aren’t real. They’re idealized non-binding itineraries set to theme park music. That means you can stop following them, reading them, writing them any time you want. You mustn’t let them dictate your life. Just remember: The list can be your friend, but it can also be a fascist addictive agent. Play safe, kids.

We Don't Need No Stinking Hope, Not This Year

Let me make one thing clear: The last thing Maple Leaf Nation needs is raised expectations. Having said that, I now submit that Toronto’s season opener victory Thursday evening was an unequivocal tragedy. Not only did the Leafs shock the champion Red Wings in Detroit on the night the Wings raised their Stanley Cup banner, but they did so with an effort and enthusiasm that may have shocked some fans to death. At least two men were rushed to one Toronto hospital (not so far from Woodbridge) with vital signs absent and similar stories: each had keeled over in his chair while watching the Leafs game. Their wives had called ambulances. Both men died. So. A moment of loud noise, please . . .

Thank you. Now I will rip into the Leafs for raising a certain cultural entity’s expectations with Thursday evening’s victory. Those stupid selfish inconsiderate boneheaded sons of bitches. What were they thinking? Oh, they’ve gone and done it, all right. I see the hope in people’s eyes and sprightly step, I hear it in their voices and laughter, I feel it in their handshakes, the sad cruel hope that maybe this year won’t be so bad after all. Now, hope is never in short supply in Leaf Nation. And hope is certainly not a bad thing. But hope raises expectations. Especially in Leaf Nation. And this year more than most, well, expectations nurtured in Leaf Nation will more than likely be shit on, gang-raped, bayonetted, and fed to the crocodiles. I’m not an alarmist, I’m a realist. Maybe a bit of a sensationalist. Anyway Ron Wilson publicly lowered the bar for a reason. To put it kindly, the 2008-09 Toronto Maple Leafs consist of many unproven parts. How can you expect anything from a club that replaces its core players — core players on a mediocre club, remember — with a bunch of guys no one’s ever heard of? But then they go out and beat the Wings at Joe Louis Arena, thus stirring their masochistic bipolar fans into a flash frenzy of hope and raised expectations. And of course the higher they rise, the farther they fall. Right now, Leaf Nation has been falling for about forty-two years.

Though you know what I can’t get out of my head? The Leafs won by doing something Pat Quinn and Paul Maurice couldn’t or wouldn’t make them do, something I haven’t seen the club do in ten years: base their game around defensive conscientiousness. They worked hard, they checked, they showed speed, tenacity, determination, discipline, youthful hunger, and they protected a lead. They basically erased any memory of the Leafs of the last decade. For one night, anyway. I can’t remember the last game I saw where the Leafs weren’t once hemmed in their own zone for minutes on end. They played enthusiastic, energetic hockey. Trap hockey, but inspired. With the solid if not spectacular goaltending they’ve generally received all decade. At times their forecheck made the Detroit D look bad, for godsake. When did the Leafs last manage that against any team, much less Detroit? Though I wouldn’t start saying “Mats who?” just yet. One huge question needs answering: who’s going to score goals?

You aren’t supposed to be good, Leafs. You’re a flowerbed with all the weeds cleared. New seeds planted, with intentions of acquiring more new seeds. We’ll see what grows. If you guys play inspired like you did Thursday, I’ll actually look forward to watching. The last couple years, I sooner would’ve watched ice melt. And you guys must also do one other thing, in two parts. Make amends by losing your own home opener tonight against Montreal. And please guys, for the sake of Leaf Nation’s fragile psyche, by all means play your games hard and tough and disciplined, make them if not entertaining then at least exciting for Leafs fans to watch. Just don’t win. We need those high draft picks. And besides, you don’t want to kill any more fans.

Hilarious and Pathetic

Must be the summer of class action lawsuits. Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases went up in several brilliant balls of sunrise earlier this month, and the surrounding community brought class actions against the facility, the City of Toronto, the Ontario government, and the Technical Standards and Safety Authority. Now hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Canadians have caught class action fever, apparently a symptom of the fear of contracting listeriosis, after Maple Leaf Foods screwed up big time by distributing listeria-tainted meat. Now, I know basically nothing about the legal side of class action lawsuits. Too lazy to do any research. But I know a little bit about the human side, the psychosocial side. I see a class action lawsuit as like the legal equivalent of a pack mentality, with the litigants experiencing deindividuation and embracing a primitive strength-in-numbers philosophy. Thus far the media has cooperated to confuse the shit out of anyone trying to determine an accurate count of confirmed deaths and illnesses from the listeriosis outbreak. Anywhere from five to fifteen people have died, to date, and maybe two or three times that have fallen ill. I suppose those numbers will continue to rise in the next month or two, with the disease’s 30-day average incubation period and all. But I’m guessing they won’t hit the hundreds, let alone thousands. So I find it a little hilarious, a little pathetic, that so many people feel entitled to jump on the class action bandwagon. Listeria hysteria! Oh the mental distress of eating a bologna sandwich and then turning on the news and learning about the listeriosis outbreak and the Maple Leaf meat recall and then wondering if your sandwich may have had a secret ingredient and wondering what symptoms to look for and then learning nausea is one and almost immediately feeling nauseous and dragging yourself to the phone and calling an ambulance and going to the hospital and arriving only to discover that the ER waiting room is filled with people who ate processed meat and now think they have listeriosis. Oh the lost wages from being too distressed to attend work. What’s that you say? Class action lawsuit? All I have to do is sign my name on it and I’ll be part of a big faceless gang led by lawyers going after hundreds of millions of dollars from Maple Leaf Foods? And I’ll get me some of that money? I’m all in!

For better or worse, the class action lawsuit is here to stay. Why not put it to good use? Bring a class action against the Catholic Church. The Pope. Seeking remuneration for lost wages of sin, mental distress (i.e., guilt), and centuries of boys and girls growing up learning very wrong things. The epic battle between lawyers and priests — two thousand years in the making. Watch Holy Water and Habeas Corpus live, only on C-Span.

If---when

“It should not have been there. Nobody did a damn thing. And now the damage is done.”
–quote from BBC News article, Toronto Recovering From Fireball

So. Asbestos I can tell, the air quality following Toronto’s propane explosion is a-okay. This proclamation by no means exonerates any actual threat. Indeed, I’m renowned in certain circles for flubbing air-quality predictions. Who knows what the inevitable if—when cycle will bring. Maybe five years’ hindsight will bring a tear to the eye. Or maybe glaucoma. In the meantime, I’m stayin. I’m finishin my coffee. All right, one more cigarette, said the asbestotic caretaker, wheezing his way up the stairs.

Among the wreckage, a relative absence of bodies. A godsend, if you’re so inclined. Take what you can get, I say.

I need your strength, she said, not your weakness. He wasn’t listening. Instead he was drifting from thought to thought, and most of them weren’t good. Horrorshows and worst-case scenarios.

“It’s been about forty-five and a half hours since the Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases propane repository blew skyhigh in the YouTube event of the year, Melvlem, and most of the evacuees have been allowed back to their homes. And boy I bet I can guess the first thought on their minds as they walked up their driveways: I hope we weren’t looted. Now I’m about five kilometres from Ground Zero, Melvlem, and whether or not there’s really asbestos in the air, lead and silica dust, as many people are speculating, well I really have no idea. But I can tell you this: I’m sneezing, my nose is running, my tummy hurts, I’m having chest pain, not to mention a splitting headache and a fever of a hundred and one and a ruthless case of the chills, I’m coughing up blood and pulmonary fibroids and black cancerdots, a psychopath with a machete is hunting me down, a classified spy plane is shooting at me, a lion is nipping at one heel, a grizzly bear at the other, an alien is trying to get out of my stomach, there's a poison dart sticking out of my neck, a knife in my gut, a spear through my side, a thorny crown on my head, my hands are tied behind my back, my bursitis is giving me fits, my gout acting up, my knees are killing me, and if I don’t run any faster this bullet behind me is going to slam into my thigh any second. Frankly at the moment I could care less about asbestos.”

We interrupt this bulletin to bring you a silly little poem:

Scissors are fun
With them you run
You used to have two eyes
Now you have one.



For Bob Leek and The Other One RIP

leaders of men

A bunch of European leaders sitting around having a secret summit, a picnic under a cluster of trees in a lush green meadow near the apex of an Alpine mountain. They’re eating cold chicken, ripping apart the carcasses and playfighting each other for the white meat. One of the guys — no women at this here summit — says, “You know, the other day I captured a whole bunch of ants and put them in a glass jar and watched them wander around in there, slower and slower, until they all died. Watching that sure was neat.”

“Heh heh,” everyone chuckles. A few add, “I did that when I was a kid.” A single cloud drifts across a sky so blue and vast and breathtaking that one of the picnickers idly contemplates imposing a sky tax.

“Can you do that?”

“I don’t think you can do that.”

“How would you enforce it?”

“Simple. Every day there’s a beautiful blue sky, collect a dollar from each taxpayer.”

The chicken is gone, lunch ends, greasy fingers wiped on groundsoil and groundsoil on pantlegs.

“So, you guys, what do you feel like doing this aft?”

Frowns and grunts, hems and haws.

“I dunno.”

“Me neither.”

“What about you?”

“Well actually I’ve been kind of thinking lately about — well it’s kind of silly actually.”

“Just say it!”

“Yeah! Out with it you master of suspense!”

“Oh all right. Outlawing freedom of sexual preference.”

Silence from the others.

Hopeful smile. “Heh heh. Silly, eh? Any of you guys ever have silly thoughts like uh, like that?”

“Brilliant!”

“Can you do that?”

“I don’t think you can do that.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Don’t you think it would be nice to be remembered for something?”

A one-and-one-quarter-second pause; then, “I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who outlawed freedom of sexual preference.”



A bunch of American leaders in cowboy hats sitting around a mahogany table in a secret meeting room with smouldering coils of cowpatty incense and high sooty ceilings.

“What do you wanna do today boys?”

“I dunno sir, what about you?”

Mr President chews his chocolate with mouth open and brown drool squirting from the upturned corners of his retard grin. He swallows, twice gulping like a retard kid trying hard to get that big bite of hotdog down. Then he looks up and to his right, the tip of his tongue protruding from pursed lips. Presently he snaps a look straight ahead, at no one.

“Let’s gather up a whole bunch of people,” he says, “and put them in a giant Texas-sized glass jar and watch them wander around in there, slower and slower, until they all die. Wow!” He shakes his head, grinning and panting like a mangy dog. “Watching that sure would be neat.”

The Wheelchair Goblin: Up Close And Personal

Just returned from a nice brisk walk. Everyone should return from a nice brisk walk every now and again. Feels great to get out there and walk as fast as you can as far as you can until you puke. Get the heart thumping and those legs burning. Sometimes I get all the way to Belleville. So tonight I went out to return two DVD’s at my “local” video store. “Local” meaning all the way to Ridley. That’s almost Avenue Road. That’s like a brisk 10-minute walk. Like shinsplint-inducing brisk. Leisurely, it’s a 16-minute walk. I chose brisk. So there I am walking under the 401 bridge and then along the grass on the north side of Wilson Avenue, few cars, no pedestrians, just me. Walking briskly. I prefer to walk on grass rather than concrete. Softer surface, less impact stress on my back for each step my 215-lb frame takes. So I’m walking along the mostly deserted street, coming closer to the lights at Ridley, and on the other side of the intersection, the northeast corner, on the sidewalk there, beside the bus stop, I see something. At first I can’t make out what it is. It looks like two people on a bench. But I don’t remember a bench being there. Finally I’m close enough to see. A person in a wheelchair. Not moving. It kind of creeps me out. A person in a wheelchair on the sidewalk, all alone, no other people around, just sitting there as though waiting for the light to change. But the light changes and the wheelchair person doesn’t move. Just sits there all alone at midnight on the side of the road. I come to the intersection and begin crossing Ridley. Presently I notice that the person in the wheelchair is a woman, old and large. Reminds me a bit of Gramma from Stephen King’s story by that name. Big bespectacled lumpy face that looks like it’s starting to slide off her head, toothless sunken mouth, eyes big and venous behind cokebottle specs. She’s staring out from her oversized wheelchair across the intersection toward the southwest corner. The wheelchair looks part-ATV, with gearshifts and big fat mag wheels. Good low centre of gravity. She doesn’t look my way, which suits me fine. Then I start to wonder if I should ask if she’s okay. I mean she’s in a wheelchair, all alone, not moving, on the side of the road in the middle of the night, looking out across the street. Surely at least some of these signs point to her needing help. Like a sinister version of the old lady needing a hand crossing the street. But I’m creeped out enough that I don’t want to even acknowledge this creature, lest she (if indeed it’s a she, this wheelchair goblin) turn her placid gaze on me and smile and open her mouth in a grotesque continuation of that smile to an insane, impossible, face-consuming degree of openness, and out of that over-open mouth slither tongues, many of them, along with a slow-building banshee wail, not tongues but hands, hands of ectoplasm growing and stretching, reaching for me and wrapping their oozing ectoplasmic digits round my pale gulping throat . . . Wouldn’t want that, no sir. Dodging a car and making it across the intersection, I pass the wheelchair woman on my right, passing sort of behind her, in her peripheral vision. Her hair is that of a fitful sleeper who’s just risen. I pull the DVD’s out of my shorts pocket. As I’m pushing them through the storefront door’s mail slot I tell myself to get over my creeps and just ask the woman if she’s okay, if she needs any kind of help. But then what if she’s offended by my assumption that she needs help? Hmm. I turn and retrace my steps. There she is, in my sights, sitting in the same position, unmoved, her back to me. At the last possible second I instruct myself on what to do. Beside her I stop and say Hi there!

Ahh! she cries and jumps halfway out of her wheelchair and thumps back down again.

Her reaction makes me almost shit my pants. For a nanosecond there I thought I might see hands reaching from her open mouth, sinister digits oozing and stretching toward me. I grab my chest and try to calm my breathing.

Jeez, she says in a smoker’s gritty voice, you scared me half to death there, eh?

Yeah me too, I say. I’m sorry about that, really. I didn’t mean to scare you. Actually I was just going to ask, are you okay out here?

Yeah sure, she says, smiling a toothless leer. I’m just waitin’ for my sister to come home on the bus.

You sure?

Yep. Still smiling.

All right then, cheers, I say, smiling back at her. And I turn and head on my way, still smiling. Mainly at our exchange of surprise, two strangers sharing the jarring shock of interface, but also because that jarring shock of interface was for me the release of accrued tension, that creeped out feeling I’d had in approaching the wheelchair goblin. And thus the monster became human, right before my eyes.

Impudent Hackese: On Writing

I don’t know what I’m going to write because I haven’t written it yet.

Still.

Every great writer has written on writing, and said probably everything that needs to be said. Yet impudent hacks like myself continue to try to muscle in on their territory. Why? Because we’re impudent hacks. We think we have something to add, something fresh and vital. And perhaps we do. Usually though it’s the same old drivel, variations and permutations of impudent hackese, the kind of writing that would never see the light of day if it weren’t for cyberspace. So without further ado, here’s my nickel’s worth (adjusting for inflation and gradual eradication of the penny).

Writing is an exercise that seems simple and straightforward, but is actually a collaboration of various disciplines. First and foremost, writing is a literary endeavour. Without a fair grasp of the history or trends or rules of the written word, good luck. Although many a piece of popular writing has been perpetrated by, well, illiterates (see, for example, L. Ron Hubbard).

Second, writing is a communicative endeavour. Not only must a writer have something to communicate, but also an interesting angle from which to communicate it. Not to mention an audience to receive the communication. Ideally the audience is delighted. Occasionally though the audience dismisses the writer’s work as experimental.

Third, writing is an exercise in observation. Look around, notice details. Situations. Personalities. Responses. A and B come together to produce X. Notice it all and steal mercilessly. Take whatever serves your literary purpose, forget the rest, or file it for possibly later. Appropriate reality, translate it into words and communications.

Writing also delves into psychology. People, their motivations and ecstasies and disappointments, how the psychologies of character shape and intersect plot to advance theme. Main characters, secondary characters, even the ornamental bit player. That fleeting pedestrian’s solitary line of dialogue should evoke at least some sort of cultural dimension, some sort of psychological dimension, some sort of pathological dimension, some sort of dimension. Otherwise what’s the point of the ornament? Psychology is the human dimension within the words.

Writing is definitely a form of self-excavation, for those who use it as such. A way to orchestrate an internal dialogue. Story, poem, editorial, journal entry: all forms in which to explore personal boundaries. To give fair warning, one’s discoveries are not always pleasant. Though unpleasant discoveries make for entertaining and enlightening material. If you can summon the courage to honestly write about them, you’re halfway to being a writer.

Writing may also incorporate a degree of philosophy. The meaning of life, the meaning of meaning, the life of meaning, the Dalai Lama’s Swedish levitation coach’s existential dilemma . . . The larger questions are best addressed in print, and considering how dry and difficult some of these philosophy texts read (see, for example, Jacques Derrida), what better way to ingest philosophy than through a novel of fiction (see, for example, Ayn Rand)?

Finally, writing permits the insanity that is censored and censured in the minds of non-writers: the visualisation and actualisation of another reality, however divergent it may be from the “real” reality. This is where the real fun begins.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to chop off my pliskapoo.

*

Writers in the throes of writing tend to isolate themselves, and sometimes forget their audience, which can produce disastrous consequences. When a writer becomes his or her own audience, exclusively and without exception, it’s time to call in the legbreakers.

An Open Letter to Proud Aryans Thinking of Moving to the Calgary Region

Now then, I know you folks have gotten a lot of bad ink in the way of your intolerance and violence, that you “don’t play well” with certain “kinds” of people, particularly Jews and blacks and gays. Yet I’m willing to give you the benefit of certain doubts re: your relocation plans, especially considering the Aryan Guard’s desperate promise of rent subsidies. But might I make a suggestion or two. First: I know you proud Aryans are an industrious people, you like to work. And no one likes a long commute to work. Yet Calgarians suffer the fifth longest average commute-to-work distance (in kilometres) of all Canadian metropolitan dwellers. Kind of a bummer, I know. But you deserve to know all the facts. Second, and perhaps more important: according to 2006 StatsCan, Alberta has the third highest visible minority population among Canadian provinces, the vast majority of it settled in Calgary and Edmonton. Not only that, but Alberta’s visible minority population is growing three times faster than its general population, meaning that for every one of you proud Aryans that moves to Calgary, three nonwhites will show up too. Since 2001, Calgary’s visible minority population has increased by almost fifty percent. It is now the Canadian city with the fourth highest such population. Soon the place will be as colourful as a rainbow. I’m not sure about Aryans’ feelings on rainbows. Which brings me roundabout to my second suggestion. Now, while I imagine some of the stories about your intolerance and violence toward certain “kinds” of people may be a tad exaggerated (by both sides) for propaganda purposes, I also imagine there’s some truth to the notion that — for whatever reason — you don’t particularly like these certain “kinds” of people. So why not avoid them? Instead of Calgary, try a place like Trout Lake, a town about six hundred miles almost due north of Calgary, a quaint and culturally homogenous locale with beautiful hiking trails and great fishing. On the other hand, if I’m being utterly naïve and you are in fact interested in Calgary for its booming immigrant population — for whatever reason — might I suggest some places where Jews and blacks and gays are even more prevalent, such as Tel Aviv, Israel; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Provincetown, U.S.A. I hear they all have breathtaking sunsets this time of year. Though I should tell you that Zimbabwean inflation and unemployment are a tad high at the moment. Caveat emptor. And happy househunting.

Thank Odd I Still Have My Sense Of Humour

I am sown soil under mounds of manure. The flower under the shit, with the crushing weight of heartbreak the impetus for my blossoming. I’ve dragged my mind through the shit and muck of mental dystopia for months now, my beleaguered body along for the ride like a child stuck in a car with a smoking, drinking adult. I’ve surrendered completely to neurosis and paranoia and yes even anger. I’ve punched myself. I’ve punched walls. I’ve trashed bookshelves and overturned desks and engaged in suicidal ideation and generally done everything I’d hoped not to do. But anger issues can bare their fangs when you least expect, and also when you most expect. The trick is to not give in. I have not learned the trick. Sure, I’ve learned how to do the trick some of the time. But this isn’t the major leagues, when you can fail seven out of ten times and still be a star. This is real life, when one slip-up can lead to fatal stupidity. I know this because I’ve seen it in visions. Not like supernatural or psychic visions or even psychotic delusions. Just visual imaginings of situations I’m familiar with taken to perhaps gruesome and far-fetched but by no means illogical conclusions, based on levels of anger and fundamentals of physics. Scars the shit out of me. Ha, that was supposed to be scares the shit . . . Great typo, Freudian and everything. My anger sure has scarred the shit out of me. Anyway, I feel like a pitcher who’s struggling with his stuff in danger of losing the lead but guts it out and there’s runners on second and third with two out and their three hitter at the plate with a three and two count and this next few days or weeks or months is that three-two pitch for me. I can’t miss the plate, can’t walk the bases loaded for the cleanup hitter. But I can’t just groove the pitch either. I must be sensible with it. After all, I can strike the batter out and get out of the inning. Shit happens, runners get on base, runs even score. But I will protect the lead. I am sown soil under mounds of manure. The flower under the shit, with the crushing weight of heartbreak the impetus for my blossoming. I will burst forth into the open arms of sunlight and warmth and love and I will make peace with my neurosis and paranoia and yes even my anger by cutting my pinky finger off. That should really scar the shit out of me.

Greeting Cards You'd Rather Not Receive

(cover) Sorry For Your Loss
(inside) And for the damage to your window and door. But we appreciate the DVD and stereo and plasma TV set! Thanks a bunch!
Signed,
Anonymous

(cover) Thank You!
(inside) Your girlfriend was very hospitable and warm. And moist. An absolute pleasure to ravage in a drunken one-night stand. Thank you for arguing with her earlier that day and calling her a boring wallflower.
Signed,
One Guy You’ll Never Meet

(cover) Everyone Has Problems
(inside) But you can never seem to handle yours! And it’s so much fun to watch, we all agree! Thanx for being such a fuckup!
Signed,
Your Co-workers

(cover) Happy Confirmation
(inside) Now you know, now we know: you have lung cancer, you smoker you.
Signed,
Your Life Insurance Company

(cover) Congratulations Daddy!
(inside) Remember me? No? That’s okay, I remember you! That night in the empty subway car. Well, empty except for us . . . We need to talk. Call me. 89 86 43 1
Signed,
Fulda Burstyn
p.s. I have loads of the necessary antibiotics.

(cover) You’re A True Friend
(inside) The kind who doesn’t realize he’s being robbed blind.
Signed,
Anonymous

(cover) Printemps [colour image of blossoming magnolia tree]
(inside) For some reason the time of year you fucking frogs are rudest.
Signed,
We English Pigdogs


(cover) God Is Beautiful
(inside) But for some reason he chose to steal your beautiful, loving, uninsured wife ripe with child via gruesome auto accident. Suck it up, buttercup.
Signed,
Your Life Insurance Company

(cover) Merry Christmas
(inside) You fucking Jew.
Signed,
Mel Gibson

(cover) Felice Año Nuevo, Peace On Earth
(inside) And peese on you, Señor Gringo
Signed,
Every Local Who’s Ever Smiled At You

(cover) Happy Anniversary!
(inside) Bet you never expected to hear from me again! One year later and I’m still glad I dumped your sorry ass! Hope you’re still breathing and heartbroken!
Signed,
Evelyn Icee

(cover) Thinking Of You
(inside) Constantly. Obsessively. Neurotically. Can’t get you out of my mind. Can’t perform basic tasks. Can’t focus. Can’t go ten minutes without wanting to talk to you and see what you’re doing and ask if I can come over and maybe we can work things out and if not today then maybe tomorrow and why won’t you return my calls and I don’t even know why I want you anymore but for some reason I still do. Won’t you have me back?
Signed,
Fulda Burstyn

(cover) You Are Invited!
(inside) But you’re not wanted! Come, but expect no hospitality. Participate, but expect no cooperation. And then leave, knowing you were invited!
Signed,
Several Of Your Peers Who’d Rather Not Be Named

(cover) I’ll Never Forget The Day I First Saw You
(inside) I’ve jacked off to you every night since.
Signed,
Another Guy You’ll Never Meet


(cover) Happy Chanukah
(inside) You fucking Gentile.
Signed,
Every Orthodox Jew Out There

(cover) Congratulations On Your Baby!
(inside) Too bad it’s dead!
Signed,
The Guy She Left For You

(cover) Holiday Greetings
(inside) High time for suicide!
Signed,
Your Psychiatrist

(cover) I Love You
(inside) But I love him more.
Signed,
See ya

(cover) Get Well Soon
(inside) Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re terminal. Sorry.
Signed,
Your wife

(cover) I Want To . . .
(inside) Rape you.
Signed,
Your Samesex Boss

(cover) Happy Birthday!
(inside) Too bad you’re dead!
Signed,
The Guy Who Killed You And Stole Your Wife And Kid And House And Job and Car And Dog

(cover) Happy Haemorrhoidectomy!
(inside) It may have hurt at first my friend, but things sure worked out in the end!
Signed,
All Your Nosy Colleagues

dim cry from black hole

Boy have I got the motivations. I am so eager to put something down (on paper) that I got the jitters. I’m even writing outside the bounds of good grammar, but I don’t care! I walked out of class that morning thinking I was finished school forever. No more essays, no more exams. Exams I despised the most. Hate being put on the spot. Maybe that's a reason why I have no stamina for regular blogging. The good news is I’m still not writing exams--though I continue to take advantage of my access to paid-for education. The bad news is, an old nemesis is back: waking up early. I despise it. I loathe waking up early like I loathe despising things. (I have been known to love to loathe, however.) Utter helplessness overcomes my body when I wake up most mornings, and when I don’t have to get out of bed, it’s all good. When I am forced to rise by some heinously early engagement--a class, a dentist or doctor’s appointment, an expedition to the passport office, an early lunch date, a church sermon, a phone call one must take to break up with one’s girlfriend--it’s all bad. Nothing worse than having to relinquish that warm foetal state. The jarring coldness of the new day takes me back to that first jarring coldness which I cannot possibly remember. The first day of class.

X was enrolled in classes on a steam Thursday evening in the Louisiana Bayou, a bar on Peter Street. X’s mother Effie went into the men’s washroom with a white male, approx. 6”3’, slightly greying brown hair, blue-grey eyes, with a circular scar on the back of his right hand and a Kafka essay on his mind. Effie proceeded to enroll X in classes which would begin roughly nine months hence.

Later: If a tree falls in the woods and a mute dives out of the way, does the mute make a sound?