In other words, it's slightly chaotic in there.
Not to worry, that's not in any bad way. I can think more clearly than that. (It's partly to do with the physically exert-y week I've had at an industrial job. It's time to rest up from that schlepping...and be ready for next week's schlepping at another temp job.)
It also means both Thompson and Andy Kaufman are on my mind. I won't explain the Kaufman reason, as at the moment that's both a little complicated and a little embarrassing for me to say, but last night I finished listening to Terry Gilliam's commentary on his film version of the Thompson's kind-of-novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I'm fond of the film, though I'm still not convinced it's great; and my sense that something was missing from the end was confirmed by a deleted scene that I'd read in the screenplay but never seen (to explain more, I'd forgotten where in the film it was meant to be). I understand Gilliam's sorrow -- that's the word he used -- for not being able to make the scene work, because it gave the Hunter stand-in character Raoul Duke a teachable moment followed by a happy moment. "God's mercy on you swine!"
And it was a reminder -- which I needed even after I'd read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (twice) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, which I think is a still better book -- of just how phenomenal Hunter S. Thompson's writing could be. I know, obvious, right? But I never mind being reminded of how great it is to get the thoughts thought then down in writing in that way that's never quite been done before. Makes me want to be "a mutant reincarnation of Horatio Alger: a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."
* That is possibly my most obscure title ever. I LOVE IT.