I somehow seem to emit secret crazy-people attracting rays from somewhere in my forehead. Or perhaps there's a large tattoo on my back that I was never aware of, located right on that little patch of flesh in the gap between my pants and my shirt.

So this realisation was come to when I was on the metro yesterday and I looked over to where my companion was hanging on to a strap, and oh yes, underneath his arm hair he had slash marks all over his wrist. I began to muse to myself that this was the first time I had seen a male wrist with those kinds of scars-- a guy I knew back in high school had a few, but he had chosen to go for the vein at the elbow. But here they were, vertically down the wrist, almost impressively long. But then I realised that it was kind of weird that I had that kind of familiarity with scarring of that sort at all, and even how to ease in to the conversation about it (and enough familiarity with the idea to realise that this wasn't a conversation I wanted to get into with this particular individual.)

He's... an interesting guy, this one. Former biologist / theoretical psychologist, turned drug dealer, now in Russia to escape his problems and to Write. And write he will, I have no doubt about it... he has a very attractive personality and knows a lot and has a lot of ideas. Unfortunately, though, that in no way precludes him being a fuckup.

We're sitting and talking, and he starts telling me how his psychiatrist friend is building him a sensory deprivation tank, so he can "truly push the boundaries of perceived reality". I was sitting there, thinking that this is a concept with which I have always had a morbid fascination, but at the same time... to actually go through with it? Laudations for the courage, but something needs to be slightly off to want to subject yourself to something like that. Wait... no. That's wrong. There's nothing wrong with trying something like that out of pure scientific curiousity, but the way he talks about it, it seems like he's searching either for some bizarre pure sort of revelation, or to have something twist and snap, so he can justify all his overthinking. He hates any sign of practicality in himself. He told me quite seriously over dinner that he's the reincarnation of Dostoevsky, and that he was thrown into turmoil when he realised that this might not be the case.

I don't know... fascinating guy, but whatever happened to sane people? And how does one keep an escape hatch open, just in case?