Donizetti- l'esir d'amore

An extended saturday morning. Sitting on the sofa trying to kill my hangover with strong black coffee and Italian opera. It doesn't get much more self-indulgent than this. One of my cats is looking at me pityingly; I guess I probably have mascara smudged over my face. When will I learn that you can't enter the adult world unless you get yourself a proper beauty routine? But a penchant for black eyeliner and clumpy lashes is my one concession to mad-chic; well, that and the stringbag full of catfood tins and the constant under-the-breath muttering. No, I tell a lie. It's just the makeup. The rest of the time I look [i]just like you[/i]. Or just like you would look in a lacy puffball skirt and a pair of black high-heels (I think you'd look pretty fucking good actually). Scary huh? I'm a genuine bona fide (certified) nutcase and there's a chance I might end up sitting next to you on the bus, contaminating you with my disease, breathing the same air, thinking my crazy thoughts. In the old days, you could tell the crazy from the sane by the fact that the crazies were rocking and hitting themselves in the face and dribbling, had frontal lobotomy scars and, oh, yes, were locked up where they belong. Now, they're everywhere. I expect they're even breeding. Thatcher has a lot to answer for, I tell you.

It's okay, though. I've got a piece of paper which says I am no risk to children. No, seriously. They do actually give you one of those. I laughed so much when they gave me mine I almost fell off my chair.

I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now. I was finally swung by a conversation I had last night with a friend. Half way down the second bottle of cheep red booze, after a discussion of breasts in general (horrid) and the breasts of the barmaid in particular (amazing), she turned to me and said "you aren't crazy". It was one of the purest moments of my week. It's easy to lose a sense of self somewhere between therapy, psychiatric consultation and group. My disorder- my fissured personality- becomes the sum total of myself. I don't want that. And if I can't see myself as anything other than my disorder, how can I expect others to? Particularly when the disorder in question is one which rules relationships with such a cruel and capricious hand.

Later, defending the humour in Sarah Kane, I realised that it was time that I started this. I've been wearing a drunken hat for mad rights for a long while now; it's about time I tried to form my defence coherently.