Magical thinking

I tend to experience compulsive obsessive tendencies now and again, especially with writers. I read everything they have ever written and then, when I exhaust their literary work, I feel as if they were married to me for 20 years and suddenly left to buy a loaf of bread and never returned.

My latest is Augusten Burroughs. I accidentally picked up Running with scissors, which was touching and mad and after that I read Possible side effects, Dry and Sellevision. I was in Borders on Oxford Street, picking up his one remaining book, Magical thinking when I noticed a stranger picking up Possible side effects. We then discussed how Dry made us cry, especially when Pighead died and made him the gold pig’s head ornament...and at that moment, possibly gay guy, touched his heart with his hand and said; “That really got me.” (If there was such a thing as hypothetical violin, it would be playing now.)

I firmly believe that Augusten and I are so alike...if you discount the fact that I am not American, male or gay or have ever been a drug and alcohol addict.

Magical thinking really got me. It was probably the most ordinary of his books but since he writes memoirs, one could see how he matured through all of his books and also, he found true love, which always gets me. It is one of those really sarcastic yet ordinary tale of someone average life and what makes it special is the candid portrayal of madness, sex, intimacy and small details throughout the book.

This picture is of his dog, which I know all about because I read his whole life in instalments.