40th post

For my 40th post I am using words, not pictures.

I love painting. A lot. I had no idea how much I liked it until I started doing it, though I suspect I did, really, because it was not until I had enough of all my materials not to use my last one that I started doing much at all. And I posted them publicly - it's why I started using yfrog as well as Twitter - so that I would keep painting and not be ashamed of even my beginning ones, my learning ones.

Painting freed me up hugely. It allowed me to use colour consciously, not just to adjust my mood, which I have done as long as I can remember, but deliberately to express myself, rather than as a side-effect of altering my moods. I introduced a whole lot more strong colour and big design decisions into my house - red dining chairs, a red kitchen, big white shelves, silly colourful things from IKEA's children's department, a big painting covering up the telly - and the result is that I am happier, more sane, and having far more fun than I had had for years.

If ever, possibly, but I have had some pretty good fun in other years.

And what started me painting regularly was one of the worst episodes of suicidal insanity I've had since the last ones. I was proper mad. And the cure has made me almost proper sane. I'm delighted.