I tattoo.
Needles, skin, ink—the usual triad of violence and permanence. I stab people for money and they thank me afterwards.
I read. I write.
The reading is impeccable; the writing is… debatable. Whether it’s good or not depends entirely on your definition of “good”—and more importantly, on whether you’re the sort of person who lowers the bar preemptively or raises it just to watch me trip. I recommend the former. It’s kinder to both of us.
What I do is take simple tales—bare-bones, almost insultingly straightforward—and dress them up in so many words, so many detours, so many unnecessary qualifications and parentheticals (this one included), that they start to look complicated. Important, even.
It’s a cheap trick, really. Like putting a fancy frame on a stick-figure drawing and calling it art. But if the viewer buys the frame, who am I to complain?