I stayed up last night and watched Factotum, though I'll have to rewatch most of it because I was writing and you know that way when you get caught up doing something and you realise the tv's been on for hours and you barely noticed a damn thing. I've probably caused the death of a fair few polar bears that way. Anyway I remember the first half hour pretty well and the problem with it is the source material. It's Bukowski. Reading Bukowski isn't so much depressing as deadening. Nothing I've read of his has shocked me but I sort of figured everyone's a cunt and crazy to boot so I'm more surprised when people are nice. Desensitisation!

It's deadening though reading page after page of such a loser and watching him is just sad. There were good bits though like when he and this girl tried cars until they found one that was unlocked so they could steal cigarettes. Or he talks about how when he doubts his ability to write he reads other writers and feels better. I always feel worse when I do that. It's like look at all these terrible writers lining shelves of terrible bookshops and they're better than I am because they finished something and they had the guts to sell themselves and terrible people will buy them. It's the selling myself I'm concerned about which is not the best thing to think about going into a job interview. I can fake it though if I really try and by god I'm gonna try my ass off.

I started reading Women by Bukowski ages ago and then misplaced the book. I think it's under my bed, haven't checked. It's about when he's become successful and he goes on an awful lot of how he tried to be better at sex. Reading books by old men about how to satisfy young women is odd to say the least. I suppose you'd think it would be more disgusting but I always get this smug feeling. Haha I can satisfy women and you can't. Sucks to be you. Anyway I haven't read Women in months and months but there's this scene when he's staying in the female dorm of a college he was invited to do a reading at and he gets drunk one night and wanders up and down the halls knocking on every door shouting that he's this big time author and didn't anybody wanna fuck him. Nobody opens up and he goes back to bed and laughs and drinks some more. I dunno why but it's stuck in my head.