any of the best friends
you can spend any amount of time with them, and not grow bored. you can panic in front of them without fear, and if needed, pee in front of them.

falling

I started scribbling cause i was bored at lunchtime. Previous to 1st year high school, i'd been home schooled, and then sent to a state school about 50m from home. I spent a lot of year 7 not at school. So enforced attendance in a small christian school of about 40 high schoolers (year8-yr10) was pretty dull. Specially that hour at lunch, where if you didn't have anyone in particular to hang out with, then you were screwed.

I took up computing. Which was fun. Unfortunately it was at the boys end of the school, and for one reason or another (boys and girls didn't mix - which meant I had about 7 people to talk to) it was discovered that I had been mixing with boys. Which was not allowed. I do remember being very annoyed at this. It seemed unfair, especially since there wasn't that much interest from the boys (not in the computers, and certainly not in me).

So I started drawing. I found some draw cartoons book, and I was bad. But the art teacher made some encouraging noises, and I found out that scribbling was a vice that whittled away the hours, got you lost in your own little world, and created a nice feedback loop between me and the outer world.

It also tends to show my preoccupations. I quite liked drawing dicks for a while (little harmless ones rather than throbbing raging erections). Boxes, and all there mysteries was another.

I think I vowed that I would stop drawing at 30 if I had achieved nothing. As I've gotten older, I've drawn less. Stopping has proven more difficult than I thought. I'd like to think that when I retire I'll be curled on the couch with the dog, watching the Bill (still!) with a sketchbook on my lap.