Touch me. Touch me like you didn't touch me last night.

Originally published at benchiladaland. You can comment here or there.

Drew a page of a new Fuckbrain Comix: OCD Edition for you last night, but was unable to get it scanned to release today. Two more pages of it to draw, as well as the next page or two of The Wizard’s Lesson. Weekend plans, then.

A combination of factors–persontimes, medication changes, and generalized stress–have been making my Tourette’s extra mean for a few days. I can feel the verbal outbursts just on the edge of expression, but thankfully they haven’t manifested yet.

My hip twitches–to blazes with them!–are increasing again, which often leads to this:

I’ve been having right leg issues, which once led me to have to walk like this for a year or two. I’m still not completely over what my friends affectionately call my Pimp Limp:

Now that I’ve rambled and bitched for a bit, I should let you know that my next blog entry will be better written. I’m adjusting how I approach this site again; not just art, but proper posts, too. I miss talking about things off of FB, and this allows me to connect with other people and discussions through my Twitter, Livejournal, et cetera,

We’ll see how that works out.

Love,

benjamin

Three is The Only Number; in other news, Poisonous Leaves Resume Their Attacks After Years in Hiding

I’ve known for a while that everybody has obsessions, that everyone has compulsions. They’re a simple fact of ordinary life for everybody in the world. Some people must alphabetize their CD’s, some wash their hands when they’re not certain that they’re actually, dirty, and who hasn’t felt that nagging sensation at the back of their skull that even though they just locked the car door, maybe you should go check it again? And please don't take any part of this entry as "I'm crazier than you!" I don't subscribe to the whole "Don't bitch about losing your finger, I lost my whole hand!" method of pain-comparison. All I'm doing with these entries is laying out how I feel and how I work. I understand that others have stronger OCD, others weaker, but none of us get a prize for it, right?
            At what point can one see the difference between standard deviation and the truly skewed? You know that time you knew you had to wash your hands? Imagine that all the time. Had to make sure you turned off the stove? How about doing it nine times?
            I am in no way trying to portray myself as the most OCD motherfucker on the planet, it’s just that some people seem to think that—because they, too, do a few of these things on occasion—I’m just imagining that I’ve got it as bad as I do. Allow me a moment to explain what I mean when I say that my life is a constant fight against the O’s and C’s.  And The OC, but that’s different…
            Three…an interesting word. Say it aloud. Three. Not bad, huh? Do me a favor, I want you to reach for something near you and touch it. Now, try to remember the exact way you touched it, and repeat it two more times. Whoops, that last touch wasn’t quite the same, was it? Okay, remember that one, but try to finish the first trio, please. Okay, good, but now you’ve only got one of that other type of touch. Maybe you don’t need three of that one. Maybe you could get away with one more of it, and then a single instance of another type of touch. Oh, shit, that last one was JUST like the first one, wasn’t it? That makes…four and two? Unacceptable. Let’s see how we can fix this…two more of the first, then three new ones, and a single new NEW one. That will make six of one (acceptable, a multiple of three), three of another, two of a third, and one of a fourth. Nice. That last bit even makes a nice pyramid.           
            Now take a sip of water. Follow above procedure. Tap your index, middle, and ring fingers on a surface, three times. Now just the middle and ring, twice. Now just the index…mmm, pyramid again. Now do this again with everything you ever do in your entire life. You just took a step through MY door.
            Maybe I better explain the pyramid. You see, three is Teh NuMbR. It’s where it’s at. Multiples of three also work, and three times three times three? Awesomeness. There is a pattern of three, however, that works extra-perfectly, and that is to do something three times and two times and a single time. In my mind, this is visualized as a pyramid, built from the bottom up: 

   1
             2  2
           3  3  3

Sometimes I even count off as I do something.
            Am I drinking a glass of water? Count the swallows, benjamin… threethreethree, twotwo, one. Okay, good. Now set down the water glass. Rotate, so that the dimples on the side of the glass match up with the sides of the square coaster. Now, rotate the coaster 45 degrees, so it’s a diamond instead of a square. Now line the corner up with the edge of the table. NOW you can go back to watching the Romanian news on Scola. Until you’re thirsty again. Or need to pee.
            That’s a sampling of the threes. That’s what ninety-some percent of my everyday actions are dictated by. Not that alone, oh no…that’s just part of the process that my brain runs through with nearly everything ever. My OCD piles other rituals, other obsessions on top of that, but three…man, three’s the motherfucking FOUNDATION of my LIFE. Even non-countable things get counted. Hugging somebody? Rub your hand up their back, count threethreethree in your head, rub your hand down their back, count twotwo, one. Nice. Well done, benjamin, you’ve been granted a brief respite.
            Some days I wonder what it would be like not having to do everything in a multiple of that number. Usually, though, I’m too busy worrying about how the poisonous wind-blown leaves have returned after a number of years on hiatus, and are once again trying to stab me in the ankles. Fucking autumn bastards.
            Ask me about them later, I’m going to work. And as I walk to the bus, I will walk three times in one sidewalk square, two in the next, and one in the last, even if I have to leap off into the grass to make sure I don’t go over that number.

 Maybe a little smack, first, to take the edge off.

 Oh, and feel free to add comments about your own O's and C's, or ask questions...

benjamin sTone
Current Music: “She’s The One” – Robbie Williams
Last Book I Read a Page of: The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing: The Experience and Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – Judith L. Rapoport, M.D.

            While walking, I wonder if an MRI will reveal that I have an unnatural brain. Three lobes, or two and a half, or just one massive lobe. Perhaps there’s an unborn, dead, foetal twin in there, nudging up against important bits, like the part that gives me Tourette’s and OCD and depression and all the other things. The part that makes me forget things like whether I’ve eaten, or where I am. Perhaps there is a chicken bone, or a fragment of eggshell, in there, mis-swallowed by my mother when she was fat with baby.
            I think about the Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory that the psychologist had me take a few weeks ago. How many people really fill in the circle for questions like “Do you feel that people are hypnotizing you?” Should I be worried that I filled in all the little T or F bubbles honestly? Is the doctor going to ring up my wife and ask her to tie me to the bed, under the pretense of kink, just so I’ll be restrained when the come to take me away?
            I buy my comics, and wonder if I’ll ever see my name on one of them. I used to see my brother Matthew’s name on comics, but only because I would take them to school, and he’d use a giant sharpie to scribble “MATT STONE” on the cover, so nobody could steal them, or perhaps so that if they did, they’d feel guilty.
            A story floated through my brain, about a man sitting in the corner of a college dorm room, shooting up. Injecting his own spinal fluid, semen, that slop in your skull that cushions your brain, and hot sauce, all straight into his bloodstream. It fades quickly after that concept, as I start wondering metaphysical things, like what if the injection allowed him to witness all of his thought processes as an outsider, albeit an outsider possessing the exact same thought process. When he turns the mirror of his self upon himself, does that diminishing light thing happen, so he can’t see anything at all, or does he achieve nirvana?
            If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you just see him passing by, quickly, in a car, does that count? Should you get on a bike, steal a motorcycle, plug him at the next stoplight he reaches? Or do you actually have to say, “Hell, I’m benjamin, it’s nice to meet you Mister Buddha,” for it to count?

             I have a strange fascination with drugs. I've never done any that weren't prescribed, save for a brief period of taking pseudoephedrine to keep me from sleeping back in college. Addictive shit, but I got off of them. Quit smoking two years ago. Can't drink too close to taking my pills or I fall asleep. I'm not a prude, but I'm running out of vices. Will I ever try a natural psychedelic, like DMT or mushrooms? Why have I never smoked pot? Cocaine is a repulsive concept, I must admit, as is heroin. Don't get me started on meth. You might as well just empty all your cleaning supplies in a bucket, dunk your head, and breath the fluids deep into your lungs. So no drugs for me. Should I be proud or sad?
           I worry that I’m sleeping too much, then I worry that I’m not sleeping enough. They’re adjusting my Tourette’s meds, so I’m twitching like crazy these days. Even the simple act of sitting means I bounce and jerk and so on.
            I spend too much time worrying about my writing and not enough time writing it. I need to submit more things. I need to get off the “do they like my writing?” kick and off the “why am I writing” stump and just fucking do it. Write something worth selling, something readable, something that isn’t just swearing and guns. I swear a lot, so it bleeds into my work. I like to think I’m an artful swearererer, however, and not just an abject curser.
           My stomach hurts from twitching. I’m going to barcode some books.

             “Ray? You and me, man…”

 b