So, I woke up from a dream about demonic cellphones (I typed sellphones by accident and almost kept it, ha) and in a mood that is 180 degrees different from where I was at 5pm yesterday, but oh well. I've been more intouch with my feelings and trying to be more talkative lately but that doesn't necessarily make me a more likeable person. I've been reading Dennis Cooper's blog and it reminds me how much more I trust art than therapy. It's tricky though, because that could be a denial, but I think it's the main crux that's been keeping me from having successful therapy in the past. There is a place I can get to in art (what I would also call my writing, pornography, comic books, film, daydreams -- those things I could also think of as my escape valves, but are actually art, and always art, even if they are used as tools sometimes) that feels more alive, more right, more real, more believable to me. Especially when the rest of life seems like a fraud, which it often does. And with my job I feel more like a fraud than ever. I feel fradulent talking about certain fantasies I have, because of what I do and do not act upon. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, which is why it's extra difficult to deny as a whole, because sometimes thoughts and sparks are all that's there. My job definitely feels unreal/fake/untrue where I fit into it, and sometimes I can find a sense of humor in that, but I think it also makes me very bitter. And impossibly stressed.

On one hand, I can understand the importance of therapy, and facing down all denials, and getting to "reality" and really dealing with people on a basis that works. But I don't think it's something I believe in as much as I believe in art, and transcendence, and creative spark as savior. There is a balance, the more I try to connect with people the more blank/nonexistent I often feel. Online, I could often pretend (notice I call it pretend because it's online, not taken as seriously, though almost always more serious to me than anything else (the way I've adopted those outside judgments as my own) and once in awhile I think I might understand this in the way that others do, but it's not what I really believe) that there was an understanding of that same level of art, even though connecting with people online is often as frustrating/hard as real life people. Artists have always seemed very social to me, and I've always considered myself more of an academic, though academics have their own social side, and that makes less sense to me now more than ever. I wish I could drop any academic/realistic pretenses I have and just be an artist, though I feel I lack the discipline for both. If I've never taken an education course, I've certainly never taken an art course. There have been creative writing courses, but often just as encouraging/frustrating as everything else. I don't find an answer in formal education anymore. There are novels I think I have it in me to write, but I become frustrated by the society of the literary even if I take just a peek.

I wonder how much of this is mirrored self-hatred, and don't think I haven't thought of that before. I quit reading slash three weeks ago and I've tried to stop daydreaming about the characters who have been my main focus for years now. It's worked; I mean, I've stopped. It does make it especially hard to sleep at night, to wake up in the morning. But I think it does force me into reality more. Doesn't necessarily make me a more pleasant person. More healthy. I was getting frustrated by my lack of ability to connect with many in my slash circle, and the risk/inherent futility of posting fanfic. I don't know, I feel kind of petty about the whole thing. But in order to do my job, I had to give up slash to try to gain some more focus. It's only been three weeks, but that's longer than I've gone without it before. I used to think I'd die. It's kind of hard as it is, because without certain characters to focus on, I tend to wander looking for something to fill the void when the void absolutely has to be filled, and it's sometimes strange and dangerous what shows up. But I'm not there yet. I do feel this kind of bitterness and emptiness though that sounds awfully familiar and reminds me of certain people I don't want to be reminded of, people who erase future hope.

Anyway, I'm going to see 'The Aristocrats' today, because eighty minutes of the dirtiest joke ever told is just my kind of thing.