It’s all swell when you’re well

Dreaming I was preparing an exhibition honoring Herman Brood. I was being emotionally tortured. In defiance I offered a knife to use against me, and in greater defiance it was ignored and the torture compounded. When I woke up my throat was killing me and I knew I was sick again. Then I fell asleep and dreamed of hamsters, just like the last time I was sick. A man had neglected his hamster – it was in a poor state, all malnourished and half bald. I helped orchestrate the campaign to save the hamster. Later, I walked past the man’s shop. His hamster sat on the sidewalk in front of his shop. The front of the shop was all glass, and the hamster looked tiny. I saw the man inside, completely broken with his head in his hands, awaiting his fate. I petted the hamster, which had completely recovered. The hamster stared stupidly in front of itself, completely unable to comprehend its current state, or even its previous state. It sure looked cute though.
Later Baby mentioned Laika. I always thought Laika survived, but it turns out her spaceship wasn’t even designed to be able to make it back into orbit. Later Laika was honored with all sorts of statues, postage stamps etc, which somehow makes me feel even more sorry for Laika. I bet all she wanted was some food, a place to run around, and a good fuck.
Well, in a nutshell: I’m sick, we’re all going to die, and existence is futile.

Born again atheist

That was an awful 2 weeks. At the end I was casually contemplating suicide rather than spend another day suffering the common cold. Now I’ve entered that beautiful stretch of recovery time. It’s great when you get life handed back to you, and all your blind, reckless, futile ambitions rage up again in full force. This weekend I tidied up my desk and moved a set of drawers. There’s no stopping me. I have plans, big plans, I’m going to be great, and everyone’s going to like me.

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This is a sketch I made a long time ago of myself masturbating. It was a brilliant concept – the violent frenzy of impending orgasm both reflected in, and affecting the drawing. Technically, though, it can easily slip into chaos. All-in-all, though, a fine step in the right direction.

Insult to injury

It started as an annoying, persistent cough, and then became a battle of might between my lungs and some stubborn piece of phlegm holding sanctuary somewhere deep, deep down. Somewhere near the beginning I pulled a muscle in my back from the heaving. Supporting myself on the sink, my body defiantly went into convulsions trying to cough up something that I was starting to think didn’t actually exist. The pain was amazing and the convulsions and choking made me start to vomit. I tasted the spit and salty tears in my mouth and I had a kind of nostalgia of youth and sickness and heartbreak, then I looked in the mirror. Apart from the zigzag of dozens of tiny, red veins, the colour in my eyes was gone, my mouth was all distorted, I looked like the corpse of a man who had drowned – you could see the struggle and panic, but the battle was long lost.
Then the doorbell rang. I didn’t think and obediently answered it, putting on my mask, partly to hide myself, and partly as an explanation I was sick without having to talk much. It was Josie, delivering the banners we’d ordered for Japan. She came in and started to arrange them, saying “I’m sick too” between sniffles, then she took a clear look at my face and said “You’re really sick” and pretty much bolted out the door, telling me I can pay her later.
I’ve never been a monster before. I quite liked it, striking terror into people by my mere appearance. I can see myself, the monster on the third floor, up all night, making poisoned candy to give to unassuming children in the park. People will pity me sometimes, and I will abuse them and cackle with laughter as they run away. I won’t have any visitors, apart from one well-dressed man from the bank who visits on the first Wednesday of every month. I will cultivate an obsession with Natalie Wood and all my plants will be dead.

Hurry tomorrow

Wrong design is happy to announce we will be formally backing Barack Obama to be president of the United States. After careful consideration, I think his wife would make a really good first lady.
I was excited thinking Bush II would be leaving this year, but then I realized he won’t be out till Jan 2009. I guess there’s still a little time to make some smart investments in mortuaries in the Middle East. Then I started thinking maybe someone will kill him before then, and then I realized he has the perfect security against assassination – Dick Cheney. What could be worse than Bush II as US president? Dick Cheney. How clever, they really thought of everything. I also realized for the first time that together they are “Bush & Dick”. That’s funny, right? Why did I never see that before?

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This is drawn from photos of “the Palace”, my favorite restaurant till it closed down and became a real estate office. I don’t know what it was really called – we used to call it the “Gangster’s Palace” because it was full of working guys – sweaty men with no shirts on eating in a run-down hole-in-the-wall, just like the great HK movies they used to make before 1997 when China asked the film industry not to produce anything that made it look like the police didn’t have a firm and trustworthy hand on society.

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My illustrious cold has developed into a persistent, dry cough. I know the routine well. This will subside into an annoying little cough that seems to hang around for weeks. Soon my body will pass the barrier from fighting into healing, and I’ll be full of ambition and an urgent need to impregnate my wife. That, and seeing enormous lumps of what I imagine to be ambergris coming out of my body, are my favorite parts.

Tamed

Deep in the slithery grip of a cold, slowly working the disease out of my system in large, dark green clumps of mucus torn violently from my lungs, I am strangely calm. I dreamed of half-eaten hamsters – one half the cute, furry, white face and fore-paws, walking gaily along, it’s back half, dragging behind it, like a chicken wing with the flesh chewed off, just one bone left, the other one being picked at by some monster rabbit with webbed feet, wrapped in something like a rolled-up carpet of earth, in a cage, in the garden.
I’m not angry anymore, I’m not even participating. I’m disappointed, but it doesn’t matter.

A conscious death

I’ve had a cold over the last few days. It has completely broken me. It’s like life is suddenly stolen from you, and all your petty habits and pleasures are no longer possible. It’s a hateful experience, having a runny nose. You question your very existence. You’re stripped of all your talents, all your strength. Imagine – you cannot fuck, cannot drink; there is no hope for cultivation or fun. All that’s left is a broken you, and all your broken dreams. No outlet, you can’t even lie to yourself. It’s like everything stops and all you have is your past. It’s like a conscious death.