This morning, however, I got a totally unexpected treat when my sweetie called me at 4:30 a.m., telling me that he was going to drop by in 15 minutes with something he had to give me. To the rest of the world, 4:30 is an ungodly hour, but to us, it’s a perfectly good time to come calling.

He showed up at my doorstep shortly before 5, with a small bunch of red flowers in his hand.

It was just the kind of thing to make my day—or even my week. Or maybe even longer than that.

To all those guys who want to get the girl, take this hint.

(Of course, you may not be allowed to visit at 4:30 a.m., but try to be creative and see where this takes you.)

Then, after a lot of chit-chat and catching up, he pulled out another red pill from his bag of tricks: this really funky, trippy¸ in-your-face magazine called The Stick Insect Hunter (“the website you can bring to the bathroom”). Published by artist, photographer, writer, and creative genius Andy Maluche, it features 36 pages of amazing (if not twisted and perverse) artwork, photography, and scribblings. It carries most of the content from his weblog, http://dont-touch-my.com, and has enough wit, sarcasm, toilet humor (literally), and creative genius to last me several weeks.

His style is eons apart from my own, but here was another red pill staring me at the face.

I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone seeking a little bit of artistic inspiration, as well as a good ol’ kick in the b—. Okay, it may be a little offensive to some, but it’s worth a look-see anyway. And, mind you, the magazine is beautiful… even if the website comes across as amateur and “mishmashy”.

Here are a few interesting lines I stole from page 28:

Doubt is creativity.
If there is doubt, then there must be an alternative.
By doubting you automatically create an alternative.
The urge to find an alternative is what makes an artist or scientist.
As an artist you should doubt everything, even truth.
Don’t try to find the truth.
What are you going to do with it once you found it? (sic)
Find security in doubt.
Art doesn’t make sense.
So you have to do it fast before you realize that.
Before the ugly doubt beast starts gnawing at your insides.
That is the other doubt—the destructive kind—
Self-doubt.

I may not totally agree with everything he says, but I find it interesting, nonetheless.

So… here’s to art, creativity, genius, and red flowers before dawn.