It’s everyone’s favourite day today! Yay! Valentine’s Day! The day when single people worldwide are informed that we’re pathetic lumps of some unknown blobby, emotionless substance with no worth to society in general or to that phantom potential someone in particular.

To make everything that much more fun and real, also on this day in 1389 in Strasbourg, 2000 Jews were accused of causing the bubonic plague by poisoning the city’s wells. All 2000 were then burned alive and Jews were subsequently banned from the city for 100 years. Similar murderous acts were committed against Jews all over Europe around this time.

Hurray for being a single Jew on a day named after a Christian martyr for people who feel all superior because there are 2 of them! Hurray!

Canada’s ruling minority Conservative party is starting rumours that it may or may not be wanting to hold an election this year because they’re worried about Quebec (what a shock) and barbecues or something. Broken yesterday, the story has died a quick and painless death because everyone knows that if an election were held anytime soon, Canadians – almost all of whom now equate politicians with traffic cops, tax auditors, and that substitute teacher you had in elementary school who you could make cry within 10 minutes – would vote for Rick Mercer or #6 from Battlestar Galactica rather than deal with another middle aged, self-important ex-businessman with boring hair.

Canadian elections are boring. Why? Because they focus on such tedious minutia as “issues” and “topics the mean something to Canadians” and stuff like that. It’s nothing like the rollercoaster of American elections where everyone from your campaign manager’s best friend’s wife’s boss’ daughter to your kindergarten teacher is thrust forward as a character reference while icky stuff like issues are given snappy titles and bullet points. Hurray for making things palatable!

Read what will happen when I rule the country after the jump!

Of course, Canada’s Conservative party makes it a big, verbosely expressed point to take a page (made from Canadian timber, of course!) from our southern cousins’ playbook and launch all sorts of personal attacks on opposing candidates (who, admittedly, probably deserve a little razzing). But they do this despite the fact that most Canadians view personalised politics with distaste and, in poll after poll, state that they pay no attention to them, except maybe to decide to vote for the ads’ target instead of against.

But the other parties are no better in their own particular ways. Quebec has a regional separatist party that play hypocritical federal mind games. The NDP – supposedly leftist – is run by an egomaniac married to another self-righteous egomaniacal politician (some kind of dream power couple, they would have the media have us believe) who has no qualms making bizarre deals with the rightwing in order to maintain his tenuous grasp on what little power his party has. And then there are the Liberals, beige and about as thrilling as a day-old bowl of oatmeal, and with as many innovative ideas too.

So as you about to see, I have fantastic ideas and should be made Benevolent Ruler of the Hyphenated -Canadian and -Quebecois People for All Eternity immediately. When this occurs, I will:

• Rename the country Jessica (I like the name’s all) sand move the capital to Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador (Yeah, it’s really called that! Cool!) – except that I will stay in Toronto, or maybe Montreal;
• Exile all smokers to the French principality of St-Pierre and Miquelon. Let the French government deal with them;
• Saskatoon and Regina will be renamed Little Edmonton and Little Winnipeg respectively
• Resettle all vegans in their natural homeland of Vancouver Island, whose regional flower will be the brussels sprout, so that the rest of us can get on with our lives in peace;
• Enact a law enforcing the use of French and only French in the workplace in Alberta;
• To add linguistic balance, I will enact a law enforcing the use of Inuktitut and only Inuktitut in the workplace in Quebec;
• 20 lashes in public for Toronto wanna-be hipsters caught calling the city T-dot (please please please begin enforcing this even before my reign of benevolence commences!);
• Force Maritimers to watch over and over again every single heart-warming family drama that takes place in a small, cheery, CBC, 19th Century Nova Scotia town, where people are good people and neighbours look out for each other and all that stuff, that has ever been inflicted upon Canada ever since it was discovered that Scottish settlers were way cooler than anyone else ever;
• Make Northerners do something – anything! – so that we know who the hell they are and what they hell they do (besides drink);
• Enact a winter anti-tax for Manitobans whereby the government will pay them to live through the months of November through April, inclusively and a similar giant, blood-sucking, vampire mosquito anti-tax for the months of June through September. Why else would anyone stay there? (I admit it; I grew up in Winnipeg, which is a fine city with ballet and orchestras and art galleries and cafes and running water and electricity and stuff)

So as you can see, my rule will be wise and people-centric, because I know what Canadians really care about. Vote for me, or pay the consequences later.

If I spent as much effort on my career as I do trying to get laid, I would have been able to retire at my venerable age of 36. I can think of no reason why I should want to spend so much time in a naked, vulnerable situation with men since I can’t stand them and wish them nothing but horror and agony (aside from me of course). I am occasionally struck with the idea that my life would be much simpler if I were a lesbian instead of a gay man.

Most of my efforts are spent on online dating (typed with air quotes around “dating” – see?). Here are some things I have learned about the language of online dating over the years:

• “In shape” – Means bulked up on steroids. It does not mean “can run 10K no problem and then cool off by doing a little astanga yoga” as I myself can do (which I think means I’m a little more than “in shape”). This also means this guy looking for other in-shape guys has steroid-related rage issues, medically shrunken testicles and is looking for someone just as vapid as he and who lives and loves in the gym. Sexy!
• “Normal” and “discreet” – still in the closet. Come on. It’s 2007, boys. Often coupled with “non-scene” or some variation. “Discreet” is more often than not misspelt as “discrete”, which is a very telling error.
• No picture – In the closet (see above) and cheating on wife. Probably has kids and the whole household is miserable. This translates as a very selfish, greedy man.



• Only pictures of body, cock, or butt – Basically saying, “All I have to offer are my muscles, enormous dick, bubble butt”. Yawn.
• “Down to earth” – If one more guys describes himself as down-to-earth (yes, it requires hyphens) I will drown myself in my smoothie. As far as I’m concerned, it just means boring.
• “Masculine” – Asshole
• “Str8-acting” – Do you mean like Don Knotts or do you mean like Dame Edna? Both straight. (See “Masculine” above)
• Acronym-filled, punctuation-free profiles – Avoid at all costs unless you don’t mind being saddled with someone who doesn’t really care how he comes across and wants you to do all the communication work. I guess some people are into that.
• “Looking for other lonely guys”/”I understand your pain” (or more frequently “you’re pain”) – psycho killer
• “Looking for sincere, honest guys. Not into game-players or liars” – Do they honestly believe that someone will read their profile and think, “Oh dear. Not only am I disingenuous and dishonest, but I also just loooove to play mind games. I’d probably better not contact this guy because it obviously won’t work out”? These phrases and their variations (“openness required”, “genuineness a must”) demonstrate a doormat with baggage, and not a very smart one. This is not very attractive.
• “Drug & disease free” or “D&D free and want to stay that way” – This is the absolute worst. Not only is in insensitive but it boldly and quite stupidly states, “I know absolutely nothing about safer sex”. This is an invitation to self-infect since the implications. Think about this: since the incubation period for HIV is around 3 months, and because some guys never get themselves tested, a guy who claims to be HIV- may actually be HIV+ and not even know it. Is using a condom so very hard (pun fully intended)?

Why should all this matter if you’re just looking for sex? Well, you have to have standards or you might as well be standing on the corner propositioning anything that walks by with something dangling between its legs.

But more importantly, if you’re like me you still want your lust with a tinge of romance. It makes the connection much more intense. And who knows? Despite years of evidence to the contrary maybe romance is only in a self-induced coma instead of completely moribund. You never know who you’ll connect with, so it’s better to be prepared.

Check out one of my profiles here and see if you can tell me why I attract mostly freaks and losers (WARNING: you learn the approximate size of my penis).

My breakfast today is my third cup of coffee of the morning and a delicious power bar, with a hilarious label exclaiming, “Now more moist!” (chocolate-flavoured Egyptian mummy. Yum!). Later I may have some orange juice for, y’know, vitamins and shit.

It’s Saturday and there are several practical things I could do. I could clean my apartment which these days is tending towards crazy cat lady chic. Hey! – If bears don’t have to clean their dens in wintertime, neither do I.

I could do some yoga since I’m skipping my actual class this afternoon do go on a date. But why bother? It’s Saturday and it’s like Saturday.

Just to make sure I’m in prime condition for my date – I haven’t had sex in three whole weeks! – I could rest and relax all morning. Maybe go back to bed and read my book, a history of ancient Sumer. This will make me sound brilliant and witty when I just happen to mention that there are competing theories on the origins of the Sumerian people and totally get me some sugar. Hooray!

I could also sit in the bathroom all morning and flush my toilet over and over again, making showers a quick hellish trip from the Equator to the Arctic and back for my neighbours. It’s what they seem to do to me when I shower, eh.

I could go for a jog, but it’s like snowing and everything. And like, yuck.

I could play tag with my cat. This is his favourite game ever and he probably won’t stop mewing at me until I’ve chased him around the couch a few times. This has the added bonus of irritating my evil witch of a downstairs neighbour who bangs on my floor with her broomstick whenever my neighbours play their music loud. Old bag.

Or I could just go back to bed.