• The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Normal as Hell’ iii. From about sixteen, I began going out. Whenever I did, I tried to look cool – just like any other teenager. I spent a lot of time on my hair, and sometimes blow-dried it, although the hair-dryer – in combination with the gels and mousses I used – always made me feel sticky and stifled. That was something that seemed to be developing as I got older, a physical hypersensitivity to external sensation – not that I thought much of it. I also had good facial growth. Some people said I looked like George Michael, although that was never my intention. Whenever I went out, I’d…

  • The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Normal as Hell’ ii. I finished the first book of my series shortly after returning from holiday – not a bad accomplishment for a seventeen-year-old dropout. It was written by hand, and took up two-and-a-half A5-sized exercise books. Immediately, I redrafted, beginning in a new exercise book, one that was A4-sized (I was moving up in the world, after all) but it felt redundant. I’d done the handwritten book. My productivity tapered until I wasn’t doing much of anything for the next month or so. Then I felt like I was losing myself. One night, I went out with my cousins. We were coming home from a bar when we…