Ten Things About Me.

I am not used to this, so forgive me if it goes a little odd.

1: I hate talking about myself. You know this, but this is why: I would much prefer to talk about you, you are far more interesting and have lots more to teach me than I probably have to pass on to you. It's not like I've lead a dull life, but I find talking about myself almost unforgivably rude.

2: I can't not answer questions if I think I have the answer. Or even if I think I think I know the answer. It's a flaw, I know, but it's like a nervous tic.

3: Just at the moment, I'm not really me. I write like me and I can type like me but I don't feel like me. Yes, I'm currently going through some quite unpleasant things and I was expecting to be a bit out of sorts but today and most of this week it feels like I'm wearing me like a coat. And I hate it.

4: I am, I think, bipolar. And from what I understand I have an up and down cycle that is massively long. From experience, I have depressions and manic periods that last about three or four days each with a curve to both extremes that lasts weeks. Right now, I am manic. I have had insomnia for the past week, resulting in a sleepless night last night and a day of utter energy and scattered thinking today. I feel stretched, wound out, racked, and totally aware. My head is so clear and my ability to put things together - ideas, plans, concepts - is really sharp. The downside is that thinking about anything for more than a few minutes is like sandpaper.

I am not currently being treated. I ought to be. Right now, thanks to American medical care, I can't afford to get treated. In January, though, I am planning to see a doctor.

Edit: Since 5:30am yesterday I have had perhaps two hours sleep. It is 22:23, and I am still not able to relax my brain enough to sleep.

5: I love the art of the con. Perhaps more than any other aspect of human expression and endeavor, it reveals tons about who we are and what we want, and how we think we can get it. I particularly love the artistry involved in setting up and playing out the con. Unfortunately, the more I look for cons the more of them I see. So I try not to look. But when one comes up no matter how appalling the damage it's done, I can't help myself...I smile, and very occasionally I cheer just a little bit.

6: I tell fortunes. I can read Tarot cards, and I can cold read well enough to read palms. It's a con, I've no psychic talent at all - although sometimes people claim I've been accurate enough to surprise them. Of course, reading Tarot cards is technically not psychic, it's magic. Cartomancy. So maybe practicing that Art is what I'm doing and the person I'm conning is me. Or not. The point is, I don't trust "psychics", because I have found it ridiculously easy to pretend to be one.

7: I met my wife online, through a site that has since become defunct. We messaged, corresponded and spoke for nine months, met and married within three days, were separated for a further ten months and believed that having got through all of this we could meet practically any challenge. Of course, the things we weren't prepared for were the changes in ourselves. We're not the people who put themselves through two years of living at a distance; we changed because the tensions and stresses of being together, the peculiar stresses on me being a stranger in a strange land...an evolution took place in my wife and I did not evolve in the same way. I've been, in retrospect, badly depressed for two years and should have noticed something or done something much sooner. Instead, I withdrew as far as I could and tried to fix myself. I should have asked for help, demanded it. Be that as it may, I have some very happy memories and experiences, and I would not have chosen to do this differently. I have learned. The future will be better.

8: I write. Most of the time I write garbage. I love to write; I have written for H2G2, I have written for assorted sites and purposes, and I have written some fan fic. I have also written for CT, something that gives me a sense of pride that I have not felt in years. I used to write at school; kids do this - creating amusing fictions for groups of friends, portraying themselves as heroes. For me it was a way to express something that I wasn't being allowed to express by life. I am still very interested in writing, in the act and the technical details, in the how and the why. I wish I could create stories in as prolific a manner as some other writers because there is, honestly, no better feeling.

OK, there are one or two better feelings.

I write at work too. It's not strictly parody but I do re-write popular songs for the nefarious purposes of a singing group. They sing at company events, like major meetings. I am known as the lyricist and have been told I am brilliant. That's nice, of course, and I hope it's true. It would be nice to be noticed for doing something I enjoy. Adore. It's fun, and it seems like cheating to get applause for being happy.

9: The first book I remember reading was an Asterix book. When you're small, it seems unlikely that heroes would live in any other country but your own and the translations of those gorgeous books and stories were utterly engaging. I also read the James Blish novelisations of Star Trek, the Target novelisations of Doctor Who, and a bunch of science fiction novels. I remember something called Dragonfall Five, and a novel called Trillions, and a surprising amount of John Wyndham. I'd started with "Chocky" and graduated to "Day of the Triffids" before I'd found stuff like Tolkein or Douglas Adams. I'd also developed a lingering fondness for Ian Fleming. Not the Bond books - those came later - but for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which had a recipie for fudge in the last chapter. Whenever I took the book out of the library I would pester to be allowed to make the fudge; sometimes I was.

The end result is a love for escapist books. Science fiction more than fantasty, and it wasn't until much later that I realised how lucky Trekkies were to have James Blish and Joe Haldeman writing Trek stories or novelising the TV show.

I still love words and pictures. I admit a lingering fondness for the words, on paper, in a book with pages that slip and slide between fingers and slap shut, and flick. And I particularly adore second hand books that people have made notes in. It's like getting two books in one, and having a second hand book is like rescuing a puppy from the pound with the advantage that it won't eat your shoes and shit everywhere.

10: This was going to be sixteen things, but I am reaching the point where I can't concentrate on it any more. Sandpaper, and reticence.