out of body

I was listening to Ethel Caine when my dog attacked. I said, 'Don't sink in me with your dog teeth'. 

freedom and bondage

We long for freedom, but we think that freedom is about doing what you want, when actually it's as much about doing what you don't want than it is about doing what you want. 

When you just do what you want and only that, you aren't free, you're a slave to your desires. 

a kind of selflessness

I'm reading my way through all of Patrick White's novels and short story collections. I finished The Vivisector, which I've actually read before, and today I started on A Fringe of Leaves. At first I felt like it was OK, but then, once it got going with the main story, it was like - yes, this is good stuff...this is great literature. 

There's that unmistakable thing. Is it always the same thing? It feels like it in a way. It's a kind of vividness and immediacy. It's a kind of flow, where you cease to be aware that you're reading a book, and you experience the story. 

signs and portents

Being able to be interested in things seems like such a small matter. It's a low bar. But to me it's huge, because depression takes that from you, so to be able to hold that interest is a precious gift. 

human

The ability I have to create in writing and in art, brings me life even in the midst of darkness. 

stimming

I was reading a book the other day, and someone asked me what the book is about. I answered the question and then straight afterwards I had to go off and do something else, but I felt pretty good about my answer. I hadn't realized that's what I thought until I said it, and then afterwards I was pleased because I thought it was a good take on the book. I summed up the whole thing in a few words on the spot without any warning. 

Then afterwards it occurred to me that I wasn't really giving the other person an overview of the book or an outline of its thesis. In some ways I was giving them that but more so I was giving them my response to the book. 

appreciation

After exhibiting Andy Warhol's set of 32 Campbell's soup cans, Irving Blum told Warhol that he thought they were truly profound. He promised Andy that the set would be kept together and that, one day, they would be housed in a great art museum, and that's what happened. 

Blum bought the set for $1,000.00 in 1962, sending Warhol a cheque for $100 each month for 10 months. Now they're in The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and they are estimated to be worth at least $250 Million.