The Autism Diaries?! (Part 13)

A new occasional series here at “Sounds Good“

I used to make these scrapbooks when I was a kid. Just cut-outs of anything from magazines. And I mean anything — jagged edges to the cut, a vase of flowers next to a car from an ad, next to an Olympic weightlifter, next to a closeup of a bee in a garden, next to a deal for a dozen cassette tapes for a penny, right by a ladies knitwear commercial, and then a swimming pool, sometimes with a collaged business man in a suit standing on the water with his briefcase, which was either some metaphor for taking the plunge or slowly drowning or more likely just dead space that I could further use and fill up. And well, there were dozens of these books. A couple of them surivived the metaphorical fire. And I brought them home a few years ago and looked through them and felt like I was looking at the ravings of a lunatic; we joked — uneasily — about how if you saw this in a movie you’d trace it to a serial killer, some murderer. It was that type of easy characterisation-thing. We didn’t quite mean it, but you know as far as writing tropes go, it could been cut (hapzaradly, jagged edges) to fit the bill. I have carried on a similar approach to blogging, to social media. It is my giant scrapbook. “Publish and be damned” has long been a catchphrase. Neil Young’s level of quality control and worth ethic and ethos and his instant detachment from certain projects past whilst always knowing where the valve for his nostalgia hides has long been a formative influence. And through the madness of turning up at the wheel and grinding the wheel and grinding the wheel and grinding the wheel (and only sometimes poking a stick in it while riding) in my most generous days I might say that I’ve developed something that resembles a type of swagger. It fits me like trackpants. In the less charitable moments I could wonder what the fuck it is I’m doing and what I’ve ever done of course. But it all started with a kid with scissors, some glue and a scrapbook. And I’m not sure it’s ever really moved on from there. The realisation now is that not only that it doesn’t have to. That it might actually be a giant shame if it did. You find yourself best when you’re not actually looking.