Joey Comeau
Canadian writer.
Be the trouble you want to see in the world.
You've spent every penny going out for adventures, and you expect the people back home to be your safety net. I know that, but again and again I get restless, and I need to just sell everything and take off, and I tell myself that I won't rely on people to catch me afterwards, but of course, they're always there, and they always catch me, because they love me whether I'm stupid or not.
My dead family and I are in your debt, and I long to help you in any way I can.
There are jobs I could work, temp jobs, call center jobs, tech support, if I had to. I have before, and I suspect that there will be times in my life when I have to get those jobs again, when I have to make ends meet. But I don't have another career waiting for me. I don't want another career.
Sometimes Margaret tells herself that there's a moral difference between killing kittens for no reason and what she does.
When I played "doctor" I played to win.
I've always known I'd be a bank robber. So judge all you want, ladies and gentlemen. Because you never did become an astronaut.
I would keep writing even without the eventual possibility of glory. Really, with writing, the idea that I was going to be able to support myself was a long shot. I’m living off my writing now, without grants or a part time job, and it feels so tenuous. It could go downhill tomorrow, you know? I was writing before I thought it was even a real possibility to support myself with my writing, and I’ll keep writing after it becomes clear that it isn’t a real possibility after all. Not because I “must write” or because it’s “in my blood” or anything poetic like that. Or maybe those are just fancy ways of describing this certainty I have that all of my worth is wrapped up in my writing. From very young it seemed to me that writing was the only thing I did that was worthwhile. That had a chance of lasting. So, my work is something I have always given priority. The rest of my life can be falling apart, and it often seems to be, and I still take the time to work on the comic, or short stories. I am always moving forward with my writing. In a way I do treat everything else as a support system for the writing, but it isn’t really. And by treating it that way, I tend to neglect it.
Now I feel I am ready to face a world with sharp corners and all. I feel I am ready to come to work for Abrasion Enterprises.
Sometimes I think dent-resistant side panels are a waste of money, but then I remember ladies be always throwing themselves at my car, and titties can wreak havoc on a paint job.
The family that prays together, still probably dies in the fire.
My problem is that I can't come unless Johnny Cash is playing.
You say catastrophe, I say, fuck yes.
I want to make something, and I want people to know I made it.
Now, I recognize that these are very real possibilities." I said. "But let's pretend for a second that they aren't.
My other pro-tolerance message is also condescending.
Alzheimer’s disease is death before death, and I’m terrified of it.
...There’s a romance to danger. There’s a romance to drinking, to drugs, to petty crime and to heartbreak and loneliness. All of those things can be used to make the STORY of our lives better.
When the end comes, I hope it’s as strange as that. I hope that the sky tears open and the world is washed with colors that we’ve never seen before.
We need a new Mario game where you rescue the princess in the first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try to push down that sick feeling in your stomach telling you she's "damaged goods," a concept detailed again and again in the profoundly sex-negative instruction booklet, and when Luigi makes a crack about her and Bowser, you break his nose and immediately regret it. Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom castle bedroom, "Do you still love me?" and you pretend to be asleep. You press A button rhythmically, to control your breath, to keep even.