Please note, if you are getting this out of context, this essay was written as part of a Costumer’s self-help book of advice back in January 1995

“I, MYSELF, AM STRANGE AND UNUSUAL”: Just because I’m giving out advice, please do not assume I am in any way “well-adjusted” or (God forbid) “normal.” I am, and have been, to my earliest memories, one of life’s outcasts. The Weird One. Born as one of those crazy artist people who is oh-so-creative but really, cannot possibly deal with the real world. I do not mean to say I am helpless. Quite the contrary. Being strange and unusual means you are pretty much on your own most of the time, and you get very good in dealing with problems from moving to finances to flat tires on your own. But I am the sort of person who decides to enliven a dull day by going out in a false mustache, monocle and frock coat for the evening. I’ll sit at home, watching the same videotaped TV show over and over while I paint giant twisted faces on canvas night after night. Or write this book in my flat for days, when I should go out shopping, because I think “another day of using newspaper for the toilet won’t be so bad.” So I’m giving advice, not as one of those superior “cured” people, who has found Jesus, or is listening to Prozac or whatever, but as one of the sick crazy people, who wants to remain a costumer, remain strange, remain unusual, because, really, art (self-expression) is more important to me than toilet paper.