On the way home I very nearly got creamed by a cube van, and I had to pull over for a minute to regain my composure. I was spooked, because if I hadn't swerved at the last minute, my skull would certainly have cracked open on the hood of the truck, or if not there, then on the ensuing collapse onto the hard paved surface of College street.

I quickly realised that it would have been an ironic death. Mostly because the 'rescuers' would have to pry "Staying Alive" out of my cold dead hand; but especially if my skull really did crack open -- and if the eggs didn't crack at all.

Let's hear from the head of the commission, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger:

"There was sadism on the night shift…sadism that was not authorized,"

Really? Oh, okay, so that's what happened...

Can someone please tell me that the U.S. government doesn't authorize sadism. Cause that's what it sounds like from this dude's statement. He makes it clear that this sadism was of the variety that was un-authorized. As opposed to the authorized kind, which isn't supposed to exist, so it's usually not necessary to make a distinction. Like, I'm not trying to sound naive here, I know there's a bunch of nasty CIA dudes hanging around any kind of prison like that who are going: "Come on, lets shove some stuff up their asses, it'll be fun!"

We all know that shit goes on. We all know that the U.S. is gleefully beating and starving and pissing on all those "Al-Qaeda" guys/any poor Arab they could scrounge up, down there in Guantanamo Bay. We know this. But what the fuck is Schlesinger talking about? Surely any there is no way that sadism, (sadism! dictionary def: 1.The deriving of sexual gratification or the tendency to derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain or emotional abuse on others.
2. The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
3.Extreme cruelty.)
Surely there is no way that sadism could be "authorized". So why is he making the distinction? Is it just so that we all know that those MPs -- the ones who made all those Iraqis jerk off and pretend to fuck each other; the ones who electrocuted their balls, and dressed them up in Halloween costumes and shit -- decided to do so themselves? Without any "authorization" from anybody else higher up? Well no....because he also said this:

"There was institutional and personal responsibility right up the chain of command as far as Washington is concerned,"

So what does he mean by:

"sadism that was not authorized,"

No shit it wasn't authorized Jim. What the fuck are you talking about?

But yesterday, as I was sitting in a make-up room with two girls, while one was applying mascara, and the other was painting my face with eyeshadow and blush and lipstick and teasing my hair out, I wondered, am I turning gay? I mean, I loved it! I love having a pretty girl who smells all sweet and girly applying make-up to my face. For one thing, now that I'm single and all, it was nice just to be touched by a girl in an intimate way like that. Girls are so gentle. I can remember when my male roommate shaved my head one time and he was so aggressive he was pulling my hair and shoving my head left and right -- maybe because he didn't want it to get too gay or something.
But what I realised was this:

Gay exhibit A: I love wearing make-up.

I have noticed that many of my tastes are gay. I mean, My favorite band is The Gossip. My favourite contemporary writer is David Sedaris. My favourite filmmaker? I don't know who that is actually. But I like that show "Queer Eye for The Straight Guy" a lot. I love Home Improvement shows in general. I watch that show "What Not To Wear." I like Sex and the City. I painted my bathroom pink. I have started to appreciate fashion a lot. My whole career I've worked for women or gay men. I mean, my boss right now is straight, but there's tons of gay guys in the building and we get along great. A lot of gay men I've met are very smart, very witty, very dark and cynical but also don't give a shit about social conventions and I appreciate that in a big way.

Wow. I just got interrupted for a second by one of the interns here who's tits are so massive and wonderful that it totally un-gayed me for the time being. I'm staring at her tits right now and I want them.

Anyhow, I guess what's weird to me is that I grew up with a lot of guys that would raise an eyebrow if you wore a pink shirt. And now, working downtown, on Queen Street, I feel like I've started to let myself get all metrosexual and shit. Maybe it was growing up with brothers only, or maybe it was going to an all boys school, but now I crave girly things. I love pink things and sweet smelling soft gentle girly things, especially femme-y girls, and now I actually give more of a shit about what I wear. And all my new friends since I broke up with filion, have been females. So what the fuck? I mean, I'm not attracted to men in a sexual way, but yesterday, sitting in that make-up chair, I was one of the girls. And it was fucking great.

Is it just a reaction to spending the majority of my life hanging out with guys and doing guy things like watching sports and drinking hard, and being fucking rude all the time? Or is it something more...

Don't get me wrong, I mean, girls can be a real pain in the ass to hang out with too, but I crave crave crave it. I've spent so many days and nights with boys, in smoky rooms, talking about film or tv or sports or how chicks are sluts because secretly we're pissed that they're not hanging out with us.

But I don't want to be the femme dude that is all girly and shit. I don't care for that whatsoever. And yet, I love it. The smell of lip gloss and perfume and nice, honey vanilla mosturizing cream (damn you filion!) What's a guy to do, you know?

I realise that this is barely an interrogation in to my own homosexuality. I've spent most of this entry rationalizing my girly-ness. But because I don't feel that I long for men in a physical way, I find it hard to take myself seriously in this regard. Maybe all of this addiction to girly stuff is secretly a stright-male longing to infiltrate the secret world of girls. I don't know. I'm horny. All the girls at work dress so great. I don't want to work. I want to have group sex with all the girls at work. I want to play dress up and wear lipstick and mascara and roll around on sweet-smelling sheets with lots of pretty girls.

And then ultimately kick them all out as soon as I come, so I can smoke pot and watch hockey.

I thought I wanted to write about this guy who works at the Tim Horton's at Dundas and Bathurst but there's really no way for me to describe my fascination with him. He looks to me to be in his late 30s, sandy blonde hair thinning a bit, big mustache. The first weird thing about him is that he's white. You really don't see a lot of older white guys working the cash at Tim Horton's in downtown Toronto. It sounds racist maybe, but it's not meant to. It's just not something you see a lot of. And he's not so old that he's like a retired guy looking for something to do. He's at an age where he's getting toward the peak of his earning potential and he's working a minimum wage job where he has to wear a dumb looking uniform, and where 90 percent of the time it's so busy that you can barely keep up.

Anyhow, the thing that fascinates me most about him is how much he lights up when any young asian woman comes within four feet of him. He takes my order like he has contempt for me, but when the asian girl in line behind me arrives in front of him he's not just friendly, he starts cracking jokes, he starts doing characters, and he starts doing whatever it takes to keep the conversation going. It becomes very weird. He happens to work with a lot of young asian girls, so a lot of the time he is pretty animated, but I've seen that other side of him, that side that doesn't give a shit about me or my order or anything else. Now I don't expect him to care about me -- nor do I really want him to. But when I get to the cash and I say "One large regular please." And he's like "What?! What do you want?" "A large reg--" "Hold on! Okay what?" And he's looking at me like I'm actively trying to piss him off. Then...the asian girl behind me steps up...her order is ten times more complex than mine, her voice barely above a whisper. He has no problem hearing her. He's grinning ear to ear. He says something like: "Step right over here while my team of scientists prepare your special elixir..."

I mean, we all respond more favorably to people we find attractive. You can't help it sometimes. Even when you don't like their personality you find yourself fake laughing at something they said. Or at least, trying to fake laugh, sometimes it comes out as a monotone yelp. But this dude is just so cut and dry about it it's incredible.

I don't have much else on this guy right now. But needless to say, I'm busy observing the behaviour of this total stranger, and judging him on it wherever I can, in print.

Happy long weekend!!

By the way, did you know that your application for a vanity plate can be rejected if it's considered profane, sexual or even religious? All the less reason to get one. Nevertheless, if you are an idiot or an egomaniac or something, and you want to find out more about these stupid waste of money license plates, you can go here.

The last hairdresser I had was Erin, a girl filion found, and she was really great. Unfortunately, filion lost her number and she's left the salon she was at. It's kind of a tragedy, but then again, she was pretty expensive.

I've most often gone to barbers in the past, but so many of them don't give a shit I think. The last barber I went to was wearing a really tight track suit that was COVERED in hair, a lot of it cat hair, and he reeked of cigarettes. Shitty haircut. One of the worst ever.

After that I tried a hairdresser. I found a great place, but for some stupid reason, once one person cuts your hair in a salon, you have to go back to that same person all the time, and the woman I ended up with, though she was very nice, didn't pay attention to what she was doing, ever. She talked constantly and would be looking out the window, looking at the person next to her, or having a conversation with someone behind her, all the while snipping away. By the end of it I looked like I'd cut my own hair with a machete. Once, while she was away I got a great haircut from another girl that worked there, but for some reason (and I even asked the owner) I couldn't make the switch. They were afraid to tell her that I preferred somebody else. Instead they started calling me if she was away on vacation: "She's away, you need a haircut?"
"Uh...I was just there yesterday, remember?"
But she went away so rarely. She'd brag about never taking sick days and whatnot and the whole thing just got too annoying. I guess they figured it would hurt her feelings or something, and maybe I should have just said something to her, but I couldn't do it either.

I'm definitely not going back to the guy yesterday. While I'll admit that it was interesting to hear about his stint in rehab and his twenty-four year bender sniffing coke and smoking crack the bottom line is, it wasn't a good haircut. I'm so stupid though. Here's this guy who looks like a Vegas magician telling me he's gonna cut my hair "just like all the boarders" since he saw my skateboard when I came in. First of all, I don't even know that there is a consistent "boarder cut", and second, you can be damn sure that if there was one, this guy didn't know what it was. And most importantly, I didn't even want my hair cut that way. But somehow he appealed to my vanity and I glimpsed myself on my board, with my cool new haircut blowing in the wind, younger skateboarders hollering approval as I whizzed by. Big surprise, it didn't turn out like I expected. I should have been more clear about what I did want. I know for sure that my request of "like an 80s dad" went over his head, and somehow he argued successfully against my request of "shorter, please" so that I ended up with kind of a bowlish bob which displeased me greatly. But I only have myself to blame.

So now I call upon all who read this post to provide the names and locations of the best hairdressers and barbers in Toronto. The only way you find someone good after all is through word of mouth -- or in this case, word of text -- but it would be great if we could get a list going so that the next time I need a haircut I can find, for maybe the first time ever (not counting the elusive Erin) somebody decent.