... isn't as fun as one might think it is. Yeah, that's fiction for you. All these shows and all these books and all these movies, they make screwed up people look pretty cool and appealing, don't they? At least, that's how it's been for me. I grew up admiring the drama, even craving the drama. Because the drama always looked and felt so glamorous and meaningful in the lives of fictional characters. But real life isn't like that at all; and no matter how often people tell you this, you don't believe it until you actually get there yourself. There's no glamour in screwing up your life. None at all. I suppose that's why we're so avidly pouring it in any kind of art form, to make up for the lack of it everywhere else. Because, really, you don't look good after throwing up in someone else's bathroom at a party, and you don't find it funny when you're so dead tired, you throw your lingerie in the garbage instead of the washing machine. Not cleaning your house for days because you're too much of a fuck up to care won't make it look ideal for a Dazed & Confused editorial, it'll just make it stinky and unhygienic. Your teeth don't stay white if you smoke your brains out everyday and there's no way you'll look fit and healthy and attractive while snorting drugs in pub bathrooms on every occasion you get. Smudged make-up doesn't look sexy, it just looks smudged. You don't meet people who'll change your bloody life at every street corner. At the very best you'll meet someone decent who won't try to stalk you for cash. Not having a job won't mean hanging out in edgy bars bumming cigarettes from edgy artists. It'll mean having to deal with not being able to pay the hospital bill or the internet bill. And having a fight with someone close will always end up in an uneasy and incredibly hurtful silence; no Joy Division song to make it all look cool and feel worthy of a bloody Kerouac novel cinematic adaptation. And there's certainly nothing glamorous in feeling like you're failing at everything.