January 14, 2001

2000 was a holding pattern year; the charm of three fat zeroes far more appealing than the asymmetry of two fat zeroes and a one. It was a year of lust based on appearances, and aftermath once those gleaming white teeth and perfect skin proved insufficient for a real relationship.

At the beginning of 2000 the stock markets on either side of the border were rich old men doting on their sixteenth nineteen year old wives. Little did their new brides know they'd wed the brothers Bluebeard and soon they'd be just so many moldering heads on the wall.

Politically we saw the same in both Canada and America. Voters turned out for no good reason and nothing good came of it except a six week ratings spike: in Canada before the election; in the US, afterward.

There were few books or movies that made us wish we were good friends with their perpetrators.

There were no great triumphs in the year 2000 because, as much as we wanted to discount both the pedants who insisted like stepchildren "you're not our REAL millenium"; as much as we wanted to cancel out superstitious numerology, atheism and rationalism are new conceits and do not easily displace the unease in sleeping arteries. Perhaps one blood cell can rise up and attempt to overwhelm its fellows: stop, I say, turn that oxygen around! But the majority, however educated or enlightened or superficial they feel to be, are still subject to the smooth thud of the heart.

Corroded old hearts showed themselves, purply overripe and slick, marbled with white strata, full of lampblack and boredom. One cannot imagine them supporting a body. They are not evil, they are not savage, they are simply old.

There is neither virtue nor shame in being old; the merits of age are largely inventions to justify keeping someone alive who can no longer chew his own food. This is not a mean-spirited observation: more foolish things are done for love every day by those who believe that they are purely rational beings.

Now that we know we can have money without love, we're asking, can we have love without money?

It's astonishing that the western world outlaws prostitution, when virtually all its successes say the best thing to do in life is "find what you like doing and then find someone to pay you for it"! If that isn't prostitution, what is! If it is prostitution, so what? The only sick thing about prostitution -- which was once a sacred, ah, position -- is that people can be forced into it because they feel they have no other option -- which is only a little sicker than someone being forced to become a lawyer or a plumber! What kind of jackasses are more interested in defining why ice is lighter than water but not why Jim hates his job?

Nothing can be resolved so long as the preservation of the ego is more important than the sanity of the host. So long as a restriction is absurd it will be violated, and the definition of justice simplified to "that which is not laughable".

Talk, talk, talk! We want to have fun! We want to wave our wild tails where it pleases us! We want to be happy, we want to love, and if this isn't what all our civilization is leading us to, being happy and having fun and being able to love, then what good is it? None! So screw it all! Strip down, 2001, let's see that womanly round belly giggle, spread your legs and drive us into the new millenium!