overlap

Hmm, this is a tricky one. The article that the title links to is an edited extract from Wendy Jones' forthcoming book on Grayson Perry, as featured in the Guardian today. There's plenty of personal detail as would be expected from a life story, and a certain amount of generalisation about the nature of TV-ism. Naturally enough, I read the generalised elements and I respond by vague recognition or more frequently think 'not me!' - so now I'm trying to pick my way through the conflict caused by this. On the one hand, it's fair to suggest that beyond Izzard there is a lack of role models or wider public examples to further the idea that it's more a less mainstream branch of 'normality' than some kind of extreme freak zone - it is after all a popular enough standard deviation. And on the other hand there's a part of me that would prefer not to have the broad brush of Perry says so it must also be true of... applied to me, especially when that would be hugely misleading. Then again, if I don't share my own thoughts and experiences, perhaps I can't really complain if someone else does so with theirs. I have a pretty good handle on what bits come from where in my own development, which is good enough for me, but then there's no money to be made from my story in the way there is with that of a prize-winning artist! Over the last couple of years, my attitude towards disclosure has been shifting most of the time, and I'm pretty comfortable these days, so I guess the question is exactly where should I start.