Proud of the mish-mash

Just to say, somedays I give myself a good pat on the back for my incoherent ragbag of opinions, bucketful of contradictions, random approach to life and frizzy mess of alien hair. I take it all as a brilliant metaphor for my half-formed fantastical life that never comes to anything.

But this pottage of mish-mash is how I've grown to like it.

People who have a consistency of life actions, choices, or decisions which they can pin precisely to an ideological line, who are able to compose clear rationales for what went before, then plan exactly what is to come, well, don't they scare you witless?

I start to worry about them. Maybe they disregard nuance, won't make compromising deals, and fail to tell themselves shifty self-excusing half-truths like the rest of us prevaricators, compromisers and sometime self-deceivers.

I mused on all this today. I happily set out to cut, pierce, and stitch red leather to make three notebooks.


Chain me. All this red dyed leather somehow quickly becomes strongly erotic and dangerous, doesn't it?


No messing. I stamped this one with studs and chains and a long soft tassel for the incongruity. On the inside you can chain the heart, or not. For the inside pages I cut up printed ephemera, the sort I couldn't show to my mother.



Cupid woz here. Red leather with a torn edge to the hide. It made me think me of skin ripped from muscle, so I stabbed it with a sharp golden dart and lashed it with a red leather thong. Satisfying. Blood red pages on the inside, stitched on the binding. When it stabs you, hope it hurts.



Spider Love. Small pocket size. You can't get inside unless you use your clumsy hands to unclasp the chain. Where you'll see I've beaded red thread, like spider eggs. And I found a delicate cobwebbed paper. No good for writing on, but I had to use it: one piece boasted a delightful squashed insect in its fabric, so that went in, top page, obviously.

So, yeah. Red fetishised leather moulded under a cruel and distant eye.

Perfect expression for a wussy, conflict-avoiding type of vacillating vegan who breaks the landspeed record at the sight of spiders, blood, and anything embarrassing, and who last laid down sex on a scrabble board. (I lost. It only made the minimum score.)