2002-12-10 12:10 p.m.
Grant's chest hair, on display in perpetuity

reposted from http://www.grant-morrison.com/ink_9.htm (so I won't lose the damn thing):

oh grantest of grants, i am consulting you, in order that i might find a way to live, change, and grow in these strange times. i have the will to be born again, to live a new life free from the sorrow and confusion of my old one. but i lack the means. i am confused, spinning my wheels, i feel like a water-breather on dry land.

this is where you come in. i have always admired your deft precision, your ethical model which has you defend even your weakness and vice. i have always been ashamed of that which you exemplify. i cannot be free, confident in my strengths until i am unselfconscious in my flaws. please, grant. i beseech you because no one else has the answers to my questions, and i know you will not turn a deaf ear to my plight. i know that the only way is figuring out life for myself, but i am not quite sure i am up to task. i have an idea that i need to get away, not only from the people who surround me, but also from the model of self which lets itself be surrounded like this. i want to create myself anew, but i know not what to fill the void with.

i would be eternally grateful to you, kind stranger, if you would assist my troubled mind. take me under your wing, this may be last chance for salvation. not to sound too melodramatic, but sometimes i cant aptly drown it out. i am looking for something which you seem to have found, and i must find it too, because i cannot go on living like this, always in doubt. be my friend now grant, i need one.

please write back,

eddie (xxxxxxxxxxxxx, in case you feel the urge)

Eddie! If you can, (and to be honest anyone can, as my young friend and one time INVISIBLES letterhack Michael Sperlinger will testify), buy yourself a Round-The -World plane ticket and GO. Travelling creates anew like nothing else. Go on your own. Go with a good heart and with only enough fear to spur you on. Throw yourself upon the mercy of the world and learn to get by in countries where no-one speaks your language. Come home changed forever and get on with being what you want to be and already are if you'd just get on with it. Imagine every dream come true in vivid detail, then work out the simple steps towards those dreams and start taking them, step by step until the dream enfolds you. Do everything you've never done because no-one else will want or care to do it for you. Time doesn't wait; we are Here To Go and there's only one Now.

You've got the fire in you. You'll do alright but it might feel hard sometimes. That's the point of it.

I wanted to hold onto this little swatch of advice. I'm sitting at work and I feel completely numb, space and time dilating and slow; life feels heavy. It'll pass, but eyes are always on the brass ring.

Maybe I'll file for personal bankruptcy like half of the rest of the world, reminding everyone that finances are complete and utter crap, and all of the junk we've bought with credit and loans is outdated and worthless by the time we've paid for it.

My eyes are throbbing. Coffee and dumplings, and then fresh words in the world of my Brooklyn ghosts.