Seeing as I’ve just broken up with my longtime girlfriend, 2 years, 8 months, 12 days, (but who’s counting?) it only makes sense that I should welcome our readership to the “Day After Valentine’s Day” issue/installment/docudrama of the Squelch. Ordinarily quite bitter even without being denied sex, we decided to pull out all the stops for this particular issue. For example, if these sentences give the impression of running on and on for no other reason than it is a time of trouble, a pestilence has fallen on us — we’re all losers on Valentine’s day (Mark, especially you).
But back to my own personal deep pain: I’ve gotten a greater appreciation for what that word really means, and it was very hard to pull through the breakup, even though at first I didn’t think I would, and so I’d like to use some more commas, if I possibly could, and tell all those people who are down & out, who think Valentine’s Day only serves to remind us that life equals pain, that you’re worthless, that you never have been nor ever will be loved, that when you peed your pants as a child — that it was actually emotional foreshadowing, that Morrissey just might be on to something, and that your parents didn’t want you, that people snicker when they think of your pathetic state, your life — your pain, or perhaps what Herr Heidegger would describe as your preoccupation with the nothing, “Ze zing i dat du suffer von ze patetik zag of sheie du bist.” … I just want to tell you people that you’re right.
But let’s think happy Valentine’s thoughts, right? Like the kind you had when you were young & ignorant. Remember in elementary school, everyone would make a little Valentine’s Day pocket for the front of their desk, and Mom would buy our cards, and teacher made us — damn her double damn her — write those cards for every one in class including the snot- nosed losers who, incidentally, later became the EECS majors of the world. Teacher subjected us to a process almost as painful and insulting as when Mom made us write thank you notes for all our X-mas presents and then later on for our high school graduation money thank-you’s (sorority types know this type of horror all too well). And don’t forget those shitty chalk tasting candies on Valentine’s day.
Or a little later on in life, when angst has the flavor of eighth grade girls who would dance with the snot-nosed losers in contests to see which and how many of them would get hard-ons. Then the girls would go back into their little wolf packs and compare notes, snicker, and practice smoking. And you went and sulked because you hadn’t figured out how to masturbate yet…
You feel the keen & eager touch of this pain. Woe unto you.
Note: after various paragraphs of self-indulgence, the other editors pimp-slapped Matt until he bled from his most important orifices. However, we were unable to be as vicious as is our normal modus operandi because, like dying Madonna’s hair, we were unable to determine the maximum saturation level. Consolation was offered in the form of several drunken Berkeley high girls but they were rejected in favor of beer.
- BP & KA
Real good beer though.
- MKT
Ladies!! By the way, Matt’s back on the market! Don’t run away all at once! If we all just get single-file and calmly evacuate the area, as planned, we will be fine . . .However, for those sensible women out there who would rather date a man straight out of prison (Tupac Shakur, anybody?) than a man on the rebound, we at the Squelch have taken the precaution of tagging and marking most of the men who are on the loose (this includes almost the entire editorial staff of the Squelch). They are easily identifiable in these ways: vacuous expression, inability to contain one’s saliva, and a tendency to ask girls if they can touch their hair.
- KA & BP
Two slices of bread. Skippy and Welch’s grape jelly.
- PB & J
