Pick up a pen and write.

It stops you from going mad.

(Reply) (Thread)

Heh, whoever invented writing was a smart cookie. It's like trepanning, without any of the pain!

My young lady, who is a counsellor, told me the other day that a sometimes-suggested therapy is to write stuff over newsprint, so you get it out of your head but it's too illegible for you to go back and read over it. Which seemed like a pretty smart idea.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Reading stuff over embeds it more firmly in your brain, so it sounds like a good one to me. I have a tendancy to burn things I don't want to read again, something very cathartic about it but it's the same principle of letting it go. You sound like you could do with something like that. Not pretending to know you, but writers who don't write for a long time all seem to end up miserable in my experience.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Just hand-writing it works for me - I can't read my own writing at all.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Interesting list. I wonder what sparked it.

Take care as always... writing does help.

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm sorry for your tragedy, small or no.

(Reply) (Thread)

Hope you're okay, dearie.

(Reply) (Thread)

The "moving" thing is a good one. Even for someone like me who hates moving, when something goes horribly wrong, and even though I [partly] own my house, I've been recently pondering getting out, selling house, buying camper van, disappearing.

A camper van is how you move fast enough to take the system by surprise.

(Reply) (Thread)

Here is a bird to cheer you up.

And here is the emoticon it is imitating.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Camper van, what a brilliant idea!

Um. How long does it take to learn to drive again? ;)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Oh yes, you too. Which reminds me, I must phone that driving school again.

Which is either a bastard or really good, in that by the time I'm allowed to drive I'll probably have gone off the idea of disappearing into the wilds with a camper van. But in the meantime it gives me something to do that feels like at least I'm trying to disappear.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

You still write. Keep on. Hugs. Hugs. Hugs.

(Reply) (Thread)

pick up guitar.
Plug in amp.
Turn volume up to loud- then turn up some more.
choose two ridiculously easy chords.
If that proves too involved just pick one string and move your fingers between two different locations.
Bang on guitar alternating said finger locations.
Wait for words to vapourize.
Sing them quietly into Mic.
then sing them again-
Loud.
Turn on drum machine.
Feel like Rock god.
=all is fine!

(Reply) (Thread)

Did the move go THAT badly then? Or are you simply trying to freak as many people out as possible?

(and go mad? it's hard to go somewhere you already are!)

(Reply) (Thread)

The *move* didn't go that badly. But this week I have to face... THE CLEANING!

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

ah, yes. That part. Maybe you need to have a cleaning party. Or maybe just burn the carpets, bleach the rest & be done with it. ;P

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

But Matthew, I always worry about you! Don't expect me to stop today...

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm going to borrow the phrase "industrially processed despair" unless you have any objections. :)

(Reply) (Thread)

Not at all, I think it should be more widespread :)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I'm stealing it and going to meme it if I can. It is brilliant.

Sorry to hear that something is ~that~ wrong.

Oh.. buy the Cohen CD. Really. Or be really self-indulgent and buy some Tom Waits.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Come to think of it - go buy the Dresden Dolls' "Yes, Virgina". Wonderful mixture of despair and rage.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)