fear of the dark

i'm going to iron maiden! i thumbs me nose and sticks me tongue out at those who are not. yoho!

speaking of pretending to be hard (but really being a bit of a dag), i got a new flaming skull tattoo. it's the gift i gave myself to celebrate giving up smoking. i had to wait three months since i quit, essentially because i thought i wasn't doing a very good job of it. i'm starting to trust myself not to start again now, though i haven't yet evolved an actual dislike of the habit, just of its nastier effects.

i believe the lack of regular suppressants in my system to be directly responsible for the surfacing of some funny little emotions. occasional emotions aren't so bad. i still have several techniques left for suppressing them, which is something you need to do if you a)suffer from periodic bouts of dysthymia and b)wish to retain your friends. cause whinging about a) generally precludes b).

which brings me to the writing/mental health matrix. i've been thinking about it a fair bit lately, as i scratch out the shape of this new book and abstractedly wonder, between bouts of staring into the middle distance, what makes us scrabble for meaning in the dust like curious chooks. i have come to a few conclusions:

art is therapeutic only until you become ambitious. this is partly because marketing is the opposite of therapy.

going a bit mad is not unavoidable, but it's useful. getting into character lets you explore things, as they say in acting school (i assume they say stuff like that, i've never been). because mean bastards are inherently interesting, you eventually end up writing about them, which means pretending to be them, which is... a bit like giving yourself nightmares for kicks.

(trade secret: chilli and pickles before bed.)

it is a solitary but full life. to my apparent surprise, writing books does not neatly replace human relationships; it just hangs around being obnoxious until they get out of the way. this is a trick which also works well in pubs when you need a table.

there is only one thing to be done about all this, and that is listen to screamingly loud metal which sandpapers the inside of your skull until it is nice and shiny and clean.

speaking of headcleaning, there's been a bit of activity around the ol' Alice lately, with the festival and all. i was in two things. one was the poetry reading on the lawn in the mall, which is an annual event, and was well attended by about three individuals, and at which we got to hear one of our alderpeople recite 'the owl and the pussycat' (this town is odd). the other was the 'trashed' tip shop exhibition (art made out of rubbish, yeah!) but only because i snuck some audio into someone else's artwork.

neither of these things were anywhere near as much fun as the cabaret night and in particular a rendition of the thriller dance that will be hard to erase from our collective memory. did i mention this town is odd?