I'm a nice person in real life, I swear. But somehow, as soon as I connect to the Internet, I turn into a vicious, snarling, mangy cat. So here are things that I've seen fit to complain about.

April 22, 1999

What can I say that hasn't already been said?

I'll try.

I went through the day in a daze. I don't think I was the only one. But I think, maybe what happened at Columbine High School affected me for a different reason, or at least in a different way.

My morning paper told a story of two troubled teenagers, miles away from my quiet street, who were "so very different." They dressed in black trenchcoats, the paper said, and combat boots, and black lipstick and nailpolish. They held hands in the hallway and pretended to be bisexual. They liked Wicca and German industrial music.

I might have been reading a description of myself. My high school self, that is.

There were three of us, back in high school. I won't give names. This was our Trenchcoat Mafia, a small group either mocked or feared by the "less different" ones. They thought we were Satan worshippers. We weren't, but I guess we looked the part. Every high school has people like this. In our case, we were proud to be pariahs...we considered ourselves superior, lone thinkers amid a herd of sheep. We mocked them as much as they mocked us.

And yes, we talked about killing them. Quite frequently, in fact.

Disturbing? Yes. Surprising? Not at all.

These were the people who hated us, who went as far as threatening our lives.

We thrived on that hate. Our teenage conception of oppression united us. It gave us a sense of belonging.

I have heard that there was a racial motivations behind the massacre in Colorado, and I have heard not. It's really too early for much more than speculation about what was going through the minds of the killers. And I don't think we'll ever know. The only certainty now is tragic death - there are only victims now.

Beyond this, all I know is my own story...the story of the three of us. One is dead, the other, if not clinically insane, was permanently scarred by years of hardcore drug abuse.

And me? I'm alive, sane. But there is a part of me that is still the teenager in the black trenchcoat who won't go near the cafeteria because it's filled with jocks. And who weeps, while reading the morning paper, not only for the dead children of Colorado, but for something dark and buried and lost.

Rest in peace.

April 19, 1999

So, Ashlea is finally done school, gets a great job, and guess what happens?

You got it! The fine people at the Toronto Transit Commission have decided that the $20 an hour they get for driving subways with already astronomical fairs is just not enough, so they have to go on strike. As a result, Ashlea had a lovely 40 minute walk through the pouring rain home from work, after getting up at a quarter to six to make it to her exam...guess who is not in a good mood right now?

That's about all, actually. Ashlea is in a fairly decent mood today.

For Ashlea, anyway.

March 24, 1999

Can you believe how long it's been since my last rant? Luckily I've saved up a lot of things to bitch about.

Requiem for an Old Friend

1993-1999

That would be my walkman, for those of you who were curious. After 6 years of close companionship, it finally passed on...no word yet on whether it is fixable. Regardless, Ashlea is now left to face the horrors of the York Bus alone, without the comfort of broken earphones buzzing in her skull.

Goodbye, my friend. I will miss you.

my tuition

$6100 a year.

That, I believe, is cause for a rant.

How the @#$% am I supposed to afford that, oh York University Powers that Be?

I swear, my university is run by the Consortium. Gak.

news flash!

According to some study done in England, yours truly, as well as much of the British population, is...that's right...borderline mentally retarded due to sleep deprivation.

Of course, this probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my fanfic. But it did come as a wee bit of a surprise to find out that the majority of my 8:30 class also suffers from the same condition. (Except for this one girl, who is just dumb. ) Now, when I think of the number of people out there who just aren't getting enough sleep, it comes as no surprise that the world is probably being run by a bunch of borderline...umm...mentally challenged persons.

Maybe that's why the US got the idea to bomb Yugoslavia.

Hmmm...

January 29, 1999

So, it's 2 in the morning, and Ashlea is still making cue cards to help her memorize muscle groups for Human Anatomy, while waiting for her server to decide to load up Geocities, which keeps crashing. Not to mention that Dear Ashlea has spontaneously decided to cease to exist. Having just had a *wonderful* lesson in Human Anatomy from her tovarich next door, Ashlea *should* be in a good mood, but...well, she is stressed out. And about all she can remember of her studies right now is that CSM has a NICE gluteus maximus.

So...what shall we rant about? "Two Fathers" seems like a good subject, and the stupidity of even SUGGESTING that CSM has a name. Well, he does have a name. Cigarette-Smoking Man. Or Cancerman, if you want to get personal. I hope to hell this preview is just a tease. And all CC's apparent talk about stripping CSM of his mystery. Clothes, Chris! Clothes get stripped. Not mystery.

How about we get a bit more personal? Like, why Ashlea's housemates keep having nervous breakdowns? It's not fun. She doesn't like it. Two of her housemates have snapped, and her house now has the reputation of being "the crazy house". Yeah, the one where everyone goes mad.

Another thing to bitch about. Ashlea's house is filthy. It's just disgusting. No one makes any attempt to clean up after themselves. This is why socialism will never work.

And finally. There are not QUITE enough cue cards left for every muscle in the body. Just barely. Ashlea hates Human Anatomy, oh yes she does.

But maybe she's just bitter.

January 4, 1999

Hey, looks like I haven't ranted for awhile. Don't worry...there's still a lot of things that piss me off, I just haven't had the time to blabber on about any of them. So...let's get up to speed...

york university

My God, I'd nearly forgotten how depressing York is. Especially in the winter. For those of you who live outside of the Toronto area, let's get a nice mental picture going.

Imagine a box. A big, tall concrete box. Now imagine several different variations of that box, spread out over a large, flat plane. This is the campus. Now picture a Canadian winter. That's right - almost 2 feet of snow, and gusting winds that whip around the buildings at an impossible speed, creating a vortex that sweeps little people like Ashlea right off their feet. Brrr. It's very cold. Now, imagine a fashion victim. You know the type. Big hair, bad makeup, one of those annoyingly colourful backpacks. Clone her. Use the clones to fill the campus.

This is the happy place where Ashlea now finds herself.

the show

Will somebody tell me what the point of last week's episode was?

Thank you.

my ongoing site problems

If you're sneaking a peak at my site from someone else's computer and have made your browser window as small as conceivably possible, you may have noticed that the navigator graphics look absolutely disgusting. Why? I don't know. It just does that. I suppose it's my fault for not knowing how to code properly, but...uck. I just noticed that today when I was popping a look at it in my design class. Anyone know how to fix this? Please?

That's all for now. I was going to rant about the stupidity of the latest flame war on ATXC, (The Fallacy of Limitation) but I figured, hey, anyone who has found this site is probably not interested in knowing how silly it is to compare fanfic to Conrad, or claiming that MSR is superior to any other genre, or how juvenile the whole shipper-noromo debate has gotten ("You hit me!" "You hit me first!") so...hey, I won't bother.

September 17, 1998

Today's Rantworthy Subject is: Gross Things in Ashlea's House.

Y'know, I've been blessed with some DAMN good housemates. I mean, who ever thought that 10 people (I still haven't met the 11th and I'm not convinced she actually exists), more or less randomly thrown together, from different places, going in different directions, could get along so well? I certainly didn't. Despite hearing nasty rumours about what the Mysterious Eleventh is like, I haven't had ANY problems with my housemates. Even though they're sometimes loud.

But the HOUSE is another story. Don't get me wrong. It's BEAUTIFUL, an old Victorian house in one of the best areas of Toronto. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of GROSS THINGS to be found here.

1) Mice. Now, I don't mind mice. I used to keep pet mice. But I object to them defecating in my drawers and doing unmentionable things in the fridge. It's just not polite. Sadly, I am forced to poison the little buggers, which does not sit well with my karma. Now, one of my NICE housemates decided to buy a live trap. I'm praying it will work, so I can discard the poison packages and replace them with a more humane alternative.

2) Squirrels. Lots and lots of squirrels. They manage to get inside the house and into our rooms. I'm on the first floor, so I just need to combat the mice, but other people have had their Oreo cookies stolen. Not to mention the squeaking. Aggressive little buggers, they are!

3) Speaking of aggressive, how about the Hitchcock-worshipping pigeons frequenting the area? They like to eat. They like to engage in orgies. They like to attack people. They like to do all three at once. Scary.

4) Off the subject of animals now, and onto eggs. On Ashlea's VERY FIRST DAY at her new home, some IDIOT decided to boil eggs and then completely forget about them. Ever wonder what happens when eggs get boiled for six hours? I'll give you a clue - it doesn't smell nice at all.

5) Or how about the genius who shared my affection with Mr. Noodles. So much so, that he or she burnt them right into the pot. So now the pot has a nice texture. Burnt Mr. Noodles are not as tasty as the normal kind.

6) What's all that petrified gum doing in Ashlea's desk?

7) Cobwebs, anyone?

8) How about the killer dust bunnies?

9) Two words. Fruit flies.

10) Another two words. Dumpster. Gross.

That's not the worst, though. The worst is that after undergoing a serious emotional crisis with my own personal cryptic Man in Black, I was awakened at 2 in the morning by the lovely sound of the smoke detector. Much to my chagrin, it was not as a result of CSM having entered the building. I suspect it was actually due to the mice and squirrels running around in the walls and chewing the wiring. Anyway, we couldn't get it turned off, and all of my housemates who DIDN'T have 9:30 classes in the morning were SCREAMING and LAUGHING and to make a long story short, this rant was brought about as a result of having about four hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, and eating nothing but a package of Mr. Noodles and some chips. Have a nice day.

September 12, 1998

Not actually much to complain about today, other than my housemates being loud. I mean, really REALLY loud. Someone is laughing and although I have the door closed and music on, I can STILL hear them. Not to mention that people keep on moving in. Currently, there are 10 people officially living in my house, and only 3 washrooms. Does this strike anyone else as a bad situation. As university hasn't started yet for most people, not all 10 are actually LIVING here at the moment, but in a few weeks I think it's going to get pretty crowded.

And we're not the ONLY people living here either. Today I woke up to find a homeless person sleeping on the chair on the front porch. Conveniently, he had parked his shopping cart on the sidewalk. He looked very content there, but some of my housemates were not so content. We decided to just leave him there - he wasn't really bothering anyone. I've been inside all day and I don't know if he's still out there - could be. But to come to my point - Canada was once again voted the #1 country to live in by the UN. As all Canadians know, Toronto is the best city in Canada (I can just hear Manik's computer gearing up to argue that point!) so by extension, Toronto should be the #1 city in the world to live in. Y'think? So why is there a man who has nowhere better to sleep than outside my front door? How come there are five squeegie kids on every block? Why are the mayor of Toronto and the Ontario government conspiring to criminalize poverty when it's so clear that there's a PROBLEM HERE PEOPLE and fining a homeless kid $200 is NOT going to solve it? Why was the cap lifted on housing prices so it's now almost impossible to find a decent, affordable abode in this city?

Yeah. That's what I thought, too.

Oh, shut up, Ashlea. Let's go home.