New Growth

If you're hip to the down-to-earth-for-loads-of-money home deco, you might be familiar with them. The twig balls. No one knows why, but they are often found in large bowls or on decorative plates. Tall floor-vase things containing bundles of very long scraggly sticks might be in a corner or against a wall close by. Primitive. Rustic. Twiggy. Is that a piece of not-so-old furniture over there that has been beaten-up, stripped of paint, re-painted, then partially stripped/sanded again so it looks like it came from a 19th century farmhouse? And a very expensive leather sofa beside it? Perhaps a delicate but cozy blanket casually draped across it? And - what's this? Are there some tiny sticks in a tiny delicate glass flute or jar, soaking up scented oils that diffuse an overpowering aroma across the room in the way that potpourri used to, before potpourri became passé?


I've got twig balls. And I've just written a classic blog entry: artificial cleverness about nothing.

What I wanted to say was that today is the beginning of Brain Tumour Awareness Month 2012. I haven't had the time to prepare anything special: I can't run, I refuse to stand in a shopping centre with a coin bucket, I will not sell horrific charity xmas cards. I'd make some of my own, perhaps, but there's too much work to do with finishing skool. So close to completeion! I thought perhaps I would present a month's worth of ridiculous photos of new growths on the outside of my skull as my own little online awareness campaign because it seemed easy and I'm excessively vain, so I started by snapping loads of pictures of myself out in the garden with about 10 different objects pinned into or perched upon my hair. But then I loaded the images onto the computer and discovered what I look like in daylight. Seeing myself in the mirror of the windowless bathroom every day has fooled me into thinking that I was holding up well despite eating crap and being under-slept. The rings under my eyes. The state of my complexion. Maybe I'll feel better about it all tomorrow. Or maybe after a few months when I can be free of skool forever. Because when hundreds of shots produce only a handful of images that are only somewhat alright it means maybe I shouldn't worry so much about skool, or about spreading awareness about brains, and maybe trying to be more aware of taking care of my own brain and my own tumour. I can't finish skool without the brain (even though skool is also killing it). And I'd like to keep the tumour at bay for as long as possible (it loves when I eat crap, don't sleep, panic myself into whorls of vomit about my thesis, and otherwise generally convalesce).

So I guess that's what Brain Tumour Awareness Month will have to be for me. Me me me. Eating the stupid kale rather than buying it and letting it rot in the fridge while I gobble pastry and instant noodles. It's taken a full afternoon of pouting for me to come to this conclusion. This banal post isn't even a report of the conclusion; the conclusion has come to me in the process of writing the whole thing out. Oh blog, your handiness. Your therapeutic qualities, your useful provision of spiritual exercises. Me me me. Is this why everybody blogs? You write your diary to the ether, someone might read it, find it insipid. It's alright. A little click will take you away again.

Off you go! Awareness of brain tumours. Don't grow one: use a hands-free set. Eat your greens. Mushrooms absorb toxins. Sport a grey ribbon! Watch some films about severed heads.