Dammit, I like banana. I like them by themselves, I like them sliced up on cheerios or rice crispies, or in a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I loooove banana cream pie. If an ice cream parlor has banana milkshakes, I'm down. When I was 12 I used to ride my bike halfway across Winnipeg every Saturday to get the best banana split in town. When I get my teeth cleaned (no, my gums don't bleed), and they give me a choice of fluoride flavors, I pick banana every time. I'll take banana nut muffins over stupid bran any day.

Banana rules. Banana is king. You must all bow down to banana and worship him. Damn kids.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah...Simon, the pie is here. or possibly here.

Kara, I kick myself for missing your birthday. So in an attempt to redeem myself, here's some amusing musical entertainment involving lobsters and magnets; hope you haven't already seen it. Even if you have, happy belated birthday. (Have you ever noticed that belated birthday cards are usually funnier than regular birthday cards? That's because we procrastinators need to have a great sense of humor.)

Beef, your giddiness is infectious. I am so happy for you, seeing the colors come back into your life. I am also envious. I have made myself a slave to earning, mostly because I need the money right now, but I miss being able to take the time to do stuff I like to do. Anyway, big smooches to Beefi. Keep going, and enjoy the ride.

Simon, your comments on the dangers of writing a boring, pointless journal are undoubtedly academic with this group. I sense we are way too eclectic and eccentric to get into a too-comfortable groove. I love how we all riff off each other, in a kind of chain reaction of the imagination.

I'm already enjoying reading Mendi and Tim's stuff. More please.

Feb. 24, 2001

Wow! It's like half our little group is on the move. Sarascara has a new place, Delphia has a new place, kara is packing up to emigrate for god's sake, Carol is still shaking the sand out of her underwear, and Bleu is off in the land of cheese. All very nice, but who's feeding the cats?

My take on telling the truth to your loved one. You have to do it, or as kara says, you're not being real. When you hold back the truth, even when you are trying to avoid hurt feelings or arguments, you are holding back a part of yourself. One evasion leads to another, one white lie leads to a whole fabric of not-telling, and eventually you become one person with your lover, and another person to the rest of the world. Take my word for it, that never turns out well.

It has become a standard joke, recognized by all guys, that some questions are just invitations to trouble. "If I die, will you get married again?" "Do these pants make my butt look big?" "Do you really like my eggplant casserole?" "Am I getting fat?" The conventional wisdom is that you are never supposed to answer such questions honestly. Ha ha, we all laugh about it. But I hate the underlying assumption.

To me, honesty is really a trust issue. Can you trust your lover enough to be honest with her? Is she mature enough to deal with what's real? If not, you have big problems ahead. By all means, frame your answer to minimize the sting. But tell the truth. She might feel hurt in the short term, but in the long term your relationship will be stronger if you are always honest with each other. Always.

I was going to do a big rant about internet companies and web design, but I'll save that for next time. One rant per entry, isn't that the rule?

Feb. 22, 2001

Okay, so I finally added an archive. Now you can peruse my past journal posts and see just how brilliant I really am. Hee hee.

So Paul, can I get a job as a web designer? Just kidding.

It's now 3 in the freaking a.m. and I have to put in a full day at the salt mines tomorrow, so I'll make this a short one and go away. But I do want to say one thing: where the hell is Foam Pants? I want to read her stuff! NOW!

Also, Carol, those entries you recovered from your vacation are excellent. Thanks for posting them. Oh, and Lisa, your new short-haired look is sporty and kind of professional looking. I think it suits you. Even though I wish every woman kept her hair long because it's sexier, but that's just me. Ignore me.

Feb. 16, 2001

I'm just posting something before rushing off again because frankly, I'm scared of Kara. I think if I don't keep up with my journalling she's going to hurt me. I think of her as a younger, more attractive version of Joan Crawford. *shiver*.

The last two weeks have been an absolute hell of work stress and not enough time to take care of myself or have any fun. I'm such an idiot when it comes to managing my time. I take on too much, fritter away my time early on, then get into a horrible last-minute rush and either burn myself out or miss a deadline and have to tap dance my way to an extension.

There is a lot I want to comment on, with the other journals. Paul especially has written some things that have triggered some thoughts. But right now, my lover has plans for me, and I hate to keep her waiting. Woo hoo!

More later.

Feb. 3, 2001

Just keeping in touch here, before I sink beneath the waves, drowned in a sea of unreasonable deadlines.

Speaking of which, I fear that Lisa finally did hop on one of those buses and has started a new life in Costa Rica, doing sketches in the village square in exchange for food and tequila.

OK, sara, I swear I didn't smirk about your toque. Well, maybe just a little. But as I sit here typing, my 14-year-old daughter (staying with me this week) is playing a video game, Grand Theft Auto, which involves running over pedestrians and speeding through red lights pursued by police. (She just set fire to an ice cream truck and thinks it's hysterical.) Anyway, she's wearing the navy blue snowboarder tuque that's been on her head all week, everywhere except in the shower. I think you have a kindred spirit.

Dogma's thoughts on community made me think of my years studying anthropolgy, when one of the central questions was "what makes us human?" And a big part of that is how we distinguish "us" versus "them".

There is a school of thought that argues human cultures are shaped entirely by utilitarian motives, which we then gussy up as religion or ethnicity. In other words, we do stuff because it works. This tribe steals women from other tribes? They must need the outside genes. That society regards certain foods as unholy? They must have had problems with food poisoning in the past. But another POV is that many differences are self-imposed. "We" wear fur hats and only eat things that start with the letter R, because that's how you can tell us from "them". What matters most is group cohesiveness. No matter how dumb the secret handshake is, you gotta know it to be considered part of the group. In this sense, distinguishing us from them goes to the heart of what it is to be human.

What makes a community? I think it has to be defined by those inside it, not outsiders. I think a community is any group of people who feel a connection, who identify with each other and feel a common interest, common goals. They don't have to be physically close, but they do have to be in touch. Membership is not permanent, because we are so mobile now, and go through so many changes in our lives. But belonging still matters to us.

Speaking of community, Kara, I love the concept of an artist telling the audience to fuck off, even before they get the chance to not like her work. I think there should be an opportunity for the audience to tell the artist to fuck off too. Let's diss everything, including ourselves and each other, coz cynicism is so cool, and such an easy outfit to wear. It says, the world sucks, and pointing that out to other people who think like I do is pretty much all I can do about it. To me cynicism is mostly an admission of powerlessness. Nothing to feel superior about, I'd say.

You, on the other hand, are not powerless. Nobody has ever come to me with tears in their eyes over something I've written. That's power.

Note to Paul: I started reading sci-fi in the early 60s. I expected to have my own personal mini-copter in the backyard by 1975, and I've never gotten over the disappointment. I don't read much contemporary sci-fi these days, but from what my kids read, it seems to be mostly fantasy. Magic is the power, not technology. Maybe this reflects our collective disappointment that technology hasn't solved the important problems, and isn't actually making our lives easier or more fulfilling. Magic is the not-science solution. We yearn for answers, but we don't want to put in the hard work to get an engineered solution.