Holy Moly. My Small Person will be 16 next week. I probably shouldn't call her that anymore but if you have kids yourself, you'll know that they will always be small people whether they be 16 or 46... though the very idea of her being 46 strikes fear into my heart. That will make me what I'd call an 'old person'. I'd like to think that I'll be finished with my laser tattoo removal by then (because no matter what anybody tells you, it hurts like a bitch) but most of all, I'd like to think I had achieved something of value in this life and that everybody I currently need to watch out for has it all figured out so I can revert to being irresponsible and hit the road now and again in some peculiar glam rock variation on Seasick Steve while funding the whole adventure with money from writing.
Pretty simple if you ask me.
Anyway - small people: over at the Big Bear Rescue donation page today, a tenner got dropped in the kitty... by an eight year old girl called Hope. I've met her a couple of times at family orientated tattoo shows around the country through her Mum, Sarah - she's very funny and for an eight year old, has a heart of gold along with a huge passion for art. I'm not sure I would have thrown £10 of my own cash into a project to save anything at eight, twenty-eight or even thirty-eight. This seemingly small, but really quite huge gesture, restored my faith in the whole project because frankly, if I can inspire a little girl who has better things to spend her pocket money on enough to dig into her own pocket, then it's entirely possible I can reach anybody.
I seem to have bitten off just about as much as I could ever chew on the reading front.
Because I'm writing, I decided not to read at all but I missed it, so I figured I would read something out of the ordinary and went down the rabbit hole into Russian lit with a Bulgakov novel which has been lying around on the shelf here for a while now.
But I also favour a good audiobook in the car or on a train, so I'm also letting Murakami's 1Q84 wash over me... except 'wash over me' is something that Murakami doesn't do - it's more like jumping into his fire and being consumed from the inside out.
I have to say though, neither of them are a struggle. I didn't know much about Bulgakov but with a rummage, I found that he began writing The Master in 1928 and it was finally published by his widow in 1966 - twenty-six years after his death... which provides hope for anybody that may be struggling even though you may never get to see your magnum opus in action.
...and now, back to work.