Busy. My version of busy.

 Today I've watched the film Max Mon Amour, a sub-Bunuel confection with an excellent theme tune and a fabulous cast. I then recorded a series of vocals for a new Ebbing House song (there's a bit of unwanted grit in the voice, more a plank in the eye than sand in the oyster) and they're not half bad. I then continued my on-canvas painting of James Joyce, finally committing to his eyes, which is more than they ever did for him. It actually came off pretty quickly and well. The painting should be finished tomorrow or, at the very latest, Friday. 

(Charlotte Rampling humming the start of Michel Portal's theme from Max Mon Amour)

Between bouts of waiting for the paint to dry, I've started writing a series of short essays about my books. I'm terrible about talking about them because of the foul disease of Englishness: I dismiss the books, diminish them, bat them away as if they were a bad haircut or a poor fashion choice. They aren't. They're very good books. I'm proud of them. So I'm typing up the reasons I'm proud of each of them, why I wrote them, influences, themes, and all the sort of things people want to know, before I fob them off with a, "Oh I don't know why I wrote them, really, just silly, ha ha ha." I do know why I wrote them. I wrote them because no one else could. I'm the guy. My lucky bag of neuroses, prejudices, ignorance, wit, and style, is the mad scientists laboratory where I cook this stuff up and I have the only key. It's rusted in the lock. 

I've done Fine. Today, I moved onto Teeth. Though the one I really should be working on is the next one, How Ghosts Affect Relationships, which is published next spring and so not very far away now at all. I really should have some idea about why I wrote that book. Yikes. 

Susan is still away. So I can eat mushrooms and tarragon for dinner (she is a fungi-sceptic) and watch something she would dislike. What will it be? Never Apologize? Populaire? Grapes of Death? Iron Warrior? The Fog? (Inexplicably, this is the only John Carpenter film she doesn't like)

Who knows? The night is young. The night, in fact, is afternoon at the moment. 

I like doing things. If only I could get paid for it. There's the fucking rub.