the rub

All these people quitting all the time where I work, and there still isn't a decent place to park.

big pimpin'

Pros-perity bonuses.

Of all the fucking nerve. Our provincial government, the biggest player in the ninth largest economy in the world or something like that, is raking it in thanks to the recent spikes in the price of oil. What they've decided to do with the money is to give every Albertan a four hundred dollar cheque.

First off: I have a pretty massive credit card debt right now, and it would be plain irresponsible of me to do anything with the money other than pay that down. But I reserve the right to burn with anger about this ridiculous choice.

We could have done something real with the money. We could have built the high-speed rail link between Edmonton and Calgary that we keep talking about. We could have built one to Fort MacMurray and enabled people to actually work in that festering cancer of an infrastructure-less cocaine-crazy cesspool without having to live there. We could have given rebates for fuel-efficient cars. We could have hired more teachers, or reversed the rate increase for seniors' homes. And these are things that come to mind immediately. What if we had a provincial government with some actual imagination? Think of what we could have done.

Instead, we're going to pretend that the skyrocketing price of gas is just a great thing for everyone in Alberta, and there are no systemic problems that we have to fix, so fuck it, let's all go bowling!

There are so many people in this province who have to drive to jobs that don't pay well enough to keep a car on the road. How the fuck is four hundred dollars going to do anything for these people but keep the wolf from the door for one month? Nice fucking legacy, Mr. Klein. Don't let the door crush you into powder on the way out.

quick like bunny

That last post was me trying to be obnoxious, instead of doing it by accident. Felt good.

There's a mass exodus happening where I work these days - out of somewhere in the vicinity of fifty employees, half a dozen have left in the past two weeks, and every day I hear a rumour that someone else is leaving. I understand why - there's a pretty significant morale problem. But it has left me torn between applying for their jobs, staying with the cushy job I've got, or joining them.

Which I have to do eventually anyways. It's a place to work, not a place to build a career. Right this second though, it looks like I have a few possibilities. I could even end up a plant operator, which is serious money and would look like gold dust on my otherwise shitty resume.

I wish I'd been this confident in my abilities when I first got my B. Comm. I'd be so rich right now.

What should I do?

smokin' weed and makin' MONNAAAYYY!!!

I slept in really late this morning. Having lots and lots of really mindblowing sex with someone you love and trust will do that. Now I'm going to turn off my computer and go outside, walk up some winding stairs leading through an autumnally lush green river valley, have breakfast where they make the best vegan pancakes in the city, and linger over the arts weeklies that are staffed by people who can write almost as well as I do. Then later I'll go work at my unbelievably easy and well-paying job.

Tomorrow I'll probably practise with the most talented songwriter in Edmonton. Then more easy, remunerative work - unless I use a sick day and go see the Electric Six play at the bar that's three blocks from my apartment. Life is rich with possibilities.

Toodle-ooh!

well, that was strange. hey, who wants a peanut butter sandwich?

Overtime again. Real life continues, you know. I came across the strangest thing there today: a sandal into which someone had drilled about a dozen three-inch long screws. Kind of a makeshift cleat. Absolutely impossible to wear. Who the fuck would make something like that? Probably some tortured junior high school student with the intention of turning his foot into a lethal weapon, is my theory. The sandal of death.

o, i am slain!

Well, I have a comment from someone other than my girlfriend again. This is big news around here. It seems that someone picked up on an offhand, fairly negative comment I made about someone else's site - a site I'd found by hitting the "next blog" button top right.

This was something I used to do a lot of, back before my old computer died. Now I use a dead man's computer, and to tell you the truth I hardly ever surf anymore because it's just so frustrating when the thing keeps crashing all the time. Who's got all the good blogs these days? Fuck if I know. Maybe the one I'd dismissed is now a repository of spectral wisdom. I don't even know what's going on in my blogroll anymore. I do know there's at least one dead link, and it'll stay there because it was glittering genius when it was around.

Guh.

You know that part in Hamlet where he kills Polonius and resigns himself basically immediately to the fact that he's going to be made to answer for the death, that the heavens have punished him with Polonius and Polonius with him? The moment he accepts his fate, he finally sets himself free to act. Almost the next words out of his mouth are that he's going to have Rozencrantz and Guildenstern meet an accident. It's just a fleeting thought, but in that instant his two friends are doomed. Then he starts talking shit about the guy he just made a corpse out of!

I did this thing, so let me try to be as clear as I can while acknowledging that there's no way to write my way out of it.

I don't dislike blogs like Overworked & Underfucked because I think they're badly written or not entertaining or misinformed or whatever. I despise the ethos of which they are a part. I despise a world in which it's okay, laudable even, to write an anonymous blog about the people you're having sex with and the way you have sex with them, while keeping it secret from them.

I understand that much of the western world is not in agreement with me on this. I also expect that many enjoy reading cutesy lists about sexy subjects that get passed along cool-hunting blogrolls. I read the thing for awhile, too, so I'm a hypocrite. But that's me. This is my anonymity.

And I do accept that it was probably mean of me to single out one particular blog of a type of which there are so many. I should know better than just to assume that since noone is reading my blog I can say whatever I like.

But it's too late to take it back. Heaven has punished me with you, Sergei C., and you with me.

And the worst of it is that no matter how much I might want to be Hamlet here, and the Overworked person to be Gertrude and this guy to be Rosencrantz, the truth is that I was hiding behind a curtain and just couldn't keep my big fat mouth shut.

Addy's top left. Come and get em.



EDIT: I never would have known if all this hadn't happened, but there's apparently some kind of shipwreck in my code that removes the comments link if you choose a specific post. That's why sergei was able to get through but a lot of haters weren't. I apologize for this, but in a sense it probably saved me from having a heart attack. You can post comments. You just have to click on the blog title and lo and behold it'll invite you to "wheedle." I might fix this glitch. I might not. It sort of means you have to work harder for it.

dildo reconnaissance

This is not my story:

A man climbs to the roof of his neighbor's house and masturbates into the eavestroughs. It is a grey dawn mottled with heavy clouds. Noone is awake, his son has not yet returned home with the Explorer. The familiarity of his semen is a private corruption of the dirty plastic rain gutters. It hardens his fear. He feels the steep grade of the roof in the tendons of his calves. The morning air is cold on his exposed parts.

He zips his pants and climbs down where the fence meets the house in the back. His son has not yet returned home. He needs that car to make it into work. It's early Sunday morning but he's going where he's needed. Or he would, if he were able. He wakes the wife to borrow her car. She calls the police. Work waits. His semen is washed by a mid-morning rain to the roots of an old spruce.

future generations will just have to charge it like we did

Girlfriend is learning to drive. I can tell that it will be a quick learning curve for her, which I think is a relief to us both. But she is just beginning, and she has problems with left turns. So today she kind of edges up to a green light, not sure what to do, and I realize that there's not enough time to say anything but "go" when she's asking what she should do. The driver behind us is honking, which throws her even more. But it's too late. Her hesitation leaves us right in the middle of the crosswalk at a red light. Our follower refuses to back up and give her room to back out of the intersection (I understand you're not really supposed to do this, but to me it's one of those grey areas - if it's possible to do it safely, I kind of expect it as a courtesy), so we're stuck.

Then this crony old woman glares at us and mutters something about bad driving as she crosses in front of us. For the first time, my girlfriend is on the other side of the driver-pedestrian standoff. I feel badly for her, so I roll down my window and yell, "Did you ever learn to drive?", which basically makes things worse since I'm now creating an even bigger scene at a busy intersection downtown, calling attention to her goof-up. But I honestly felt like hopping out of the car and grabbing the old carp by her hair and swinging her around for twenty minutes, so I feel like this comment, together with my calling her an old battle axe as we found our opportunity to exit, to be a fine display of restraint.

Driving is a culture of anger. It is all about entitlement and hurt feelings, personal boundaries and competitive melodramas. Consider: If I can just get in front of this car, I'll get to where I need to be faster than they will and I'll be that much further ahead of them in life! If I can keep pace with this coupe de teenage shitheads, I'll make sure they can't change lanes to pass the car in front of them, and that will teach those zitty little fuckers a valuable life lesson! I am a good person who deserves respect, so why is there not a parking spot for me?

Being a pedestrian is also a very confrontational choice. Every step off the curb is a promulgation of burning moral clarity - I have the right to be here! Who says I do not? Reclaim the streets! End the tyranny of the automotive age! I am here, and I am walking, dammit!

To which the standard motorist will respond: You are walking because you are not in a hurry to get where you are going! I am driving, ergo, I need to get to my destination in due haste! Get the fuck out of my fucking way, you self-righteous, pot-smoking, walking enthusiast hippie!

It's a real boar's nest.

And once she gets good enough that she feels comfortable, and not nervous or freaked out, and she'll even be able to react appropriately if something unforeseen happens, the fear of death will subside. But it's the whole driving culture thing that will last. She's going to experience that side of modern life. I feel a little guilty, in fact, for enabling it.