The only good thing about depression is coming out of it.

Not such a good day today. Didn't sleep a wink last night, so I took the day off work. And I thought I was doing so well until that point. Anyway, went to the doctor and got fixed up with some quality medicine. If sleep doesn't come naturally, pharmacy provides. That's good of pharmacy, isn't it?

Just a little reminder to someone to get in touch. You know who you are.

Disarm you with a smile
Cut me like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh Ooh the years burn
Ooh Ooh the years burn, burn burn out
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
What I choose is my choice
What's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
My love
I send this smile over to you
Disarm you with a smile
Leave you like they left me here
To whither in denial
The bitterness of one who's left alone
Ooh ooh the years burn
Ooh ooh the years burn, burn burn out
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
What I choose is my voice
What's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
I send this smile over to you

I woke up today and for the first time in a long time I felt ok about things, about living. Even got I think a pretty good idea going through the old brain for a new novel. Things are alright. It's amazing how spending a bit of time on chat and just letting all your feelings out to complete strangers can be really therapy, for yourself and the other person you're talking to. Sometimes it's better to just surf away until until 4 in the morning rather than lie in bed staring at the ceiling pretending you're going to sleep.

What motivates me to get up in the morning? Why don't I just blow my fucking head off? Well let's see there's music and coffee and sex and fine food and good books and friends and sometimes work and beauty, mostly beauty. Beauty, and stuff to do that's stimulating. A bit more travel could be good. For the first time in years I'm missing the travel.

Why is it that I only ever feel like writing anything, here or anywhere, when everything is just falling apart. People might get the wrong idea.....

It's good to count your blessings. Was watching a thing on the news tonight about poor kids in Congo who have to work in some dustblown open-cut mine. The lucky ones finally get to go to school. School is a building with a hundred-odd desks and a thousand students, no computers and no phone. Plenty of dust in the playground for the kids to muck about in. Here's me, living in what I think is poverty and obscurity in Sydney, with my degree, my career, my 24/7 internet connection, my TV and telephone and conveniences and outside there's greenery and peace and prosperity and inside there are stacks of DVDs and CDs and books and booze in the fridge and a comfortable bed to sleep on and and and and and. Why the fuck do we still find things to complain about?

I should be working on my last essay for the term, but instead I'm here and all day I've been elsewhere, inventing excuses not to do any work. You know how it is. You know how it is when you are determined to invent excuses for not doing anything about what you should be doing.

Ever heard of Elfriede Jelinek? She won the Nobel prize for literature a couple of years ago. She's the author of a book called "The piano teacher" which was turned into a film by Michael Haneke. I admire her greatly. She's agrophobic, and was unable to come to the ceremony in Sweden to collect her Nobel as a result of her condition. I relate to the her for the fact that she gets to be so very misunderstood for simply articulating things as she sees them around her. She gets completely sledged by the near-Nazi right wing of Austria. Jorg Heider proclaimed in his campaigning that the nation had a choice between Jelinek and Art. Having spent a bit of time in Central Europe I can say it takes a brave soul to dare to be an individual voice there and offer something different from the dominant paradigm.

Actually it takes a pretty brave soul to go against the dominant paradigm right here right now. I never realised before just how fascism could take hold, or how things were done in medieval times, but it's all coming clear to me now.

My main ambition in life is to be left alone. I get really tired of people trying to tell me what's what. Most of the time when people try and tell me how it is, I just want to hit them over the head with a blunt heavy object, but I don't, because we're all supposed to be civilised and apparently we've evolved beyond that. Maybe I don't want to just be left alone, maybe what I really want is to find someone who I can actually agree with about things. I get really tired of treading through the minefield of human stupidity and ignorance. I get sick of ignorance combined with stinking belligerence. But apart from that, I think that people are alright.

Anyway I'm not really articulating too well. A couple of martinis is supposed to help the flow, but it's all looking rather clunky. Yeah maybe I should go back to some real writing instead shouldn't I? Yeah alright alright.........

Alas poor Rumsfeld, we knew him well.....

Hi everybody. As some of you know, the big news is that Rhea and I are now officially history. I'm coping with it ok, hopefully Rhea's ok too. After hearing what mum had to say, it dawned on me very clearly that Rhea shouldn't be with a person like me. I can't satisfy her most simple needs, namely financial security and providing a suitable environment for children to grow up in. I don't want a house in the suburbs with a backyard and barbecue and braindead boredom every weekend with endless consumerism to fill the void. I may have talents, but providing the standard suburban lifestyle for anyone just isn't one of them. I was born a bohemian and that's how I'm going to die and that's fine for me but I know that it can't possibly please her. I don't want to say anything bad about Rhea, suffice to say that she'd doubtless be happier with someone a lot more conservative than me. A right-wing person with lots of money would be far more suitable for her than an introspective, liberal leftie type who's clueless about money like me. Rhea, for your sake please find someone like that- a marketing or banking or accounting type and not someone who is interested in art, culture, politics or any of that jazz.

Anyway, speaking of politics, I had a thought recently about America. George Bush asked "why do they hate us?" Sorry Georgie boy but I found your answer to be somewhat wanting. I don't hate America. I don't hate anybody really. There's good and bad in every person and in every country that's for sure. But the thing that I resent about America is the way they've tried to turn the word "liberal" into something dirty. The way they've done all they can to bulldoze the church/state division, to the point where even here in utterly agnostic Australia the politicians are starting to get religion. The founding fathers would have been horrified. Benjamin Frankin was more or less an aetheist and the rest were ambivalent in their attitude to religion at best. I resent the fact that whatever America does, our politicians and corporations slavishly follow, despite the reservations or outright dismay of the populace. And then there's Iraq.....but it's too easy to target them for that, and probably just plain cruel let's face it. I could probably say more...the fast food culture, the history of covert foreign intervention etc. etc. Yeah I know what some of you would say: "Go get a life and get over it". Or something a lot worse. Well fine, screw you too.