Hello cruel world...

The thing I cant stand about self help books is that they are usually so fucking hard to read... I mean your picking the thing up because there's something not quite right going on in there, then they are usually so pretentious and full of big words, and just well, overwhelming to read!

My friend JA has told me a few times what an important book she thinks this one is (and I figure on such matters she should know!) and trawling though the introduction, which I'm sorry but really does go on a bit and is kind of a bit all over the place, and at times even a little melodramatic (You don't need to be on the edge of suicide to pick up this book, maybe more 'a little bit down' or a case of the 'mean reds' might be more of an appropriate time to read it!). I was beginning to think this was just another one of those afore mentioned pretentious reads, but then I got to this paragraph;

And what about anger? I think Anger is a whole lot more positive a feeling than depression. I feel a lot healthier when I'm angry than when I'm paralyzed in a deep funk. Other people around me might prefer it when I'm not flying off the handle, but most folks who know me now appreciate that my anger is a step up my own personal ladder to feeling better.

Wow, that really blew me away after the way I had been feeling lately! (not to mention my ranting blog posts!)

The Intro might be a bit of a hard slog, but you don't really need to stress about it too much, the 101 alternatives are kind of cute and endearing (mind you I'm only up to #20, They might get a lot more hot and heavy from here on in!), and some of them might seem deceptively simple but when your in that deep funk it can the little things that get you through. It's kind of like giving yourself permission to be kind to yourself and do what YOU need to do for YOU!

And the good thing about this book in comparison to those other heavy reading self help books is that I reckon in the middle of that deep funk you could just pick up this book and look at 2 or 3 of the "alternatives" and find yourself something that might just make that tiny little difference at that time in your life.

Just one little thing, this book is kind of aimed at Teens (Freaks and other outlaws!) but I'm pretty sure I would have found a lot of it pretty overwhelming at that time in my life, especially a lot of the sexual stuff, not the stuff about Kate herself (I say 'her' only because it says 'her' in the biographical info about her, she describes 'herself' as fluidly sexual, transgressivly sexual or a 'Traveler') But the stuff in part one about desire. But that might be just me! and mind you, its 15-20 years ago that I was a teenager (Scary huh!?)

The other book that made me really happy lately was reading Neon Angel by Cherrie Currie of the Runaways. (When is the film going to be released in Australia!!??) Funny that it made me feel happy, it's actually quite depressing all the bad shit that happened to her, makes me just want to give her, and all the Runaways a big hug and say I'm sorry you were treated like such crap! They were some totally hot chicks, totally exploited but totally Hot!