I'll just say it. I'm an obsessor. If I like something a great deal, it often becomes the thing I talk about for days on end, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to the poor saps who have to listen to me (most frequently my poor, poor husband). I'm pretty sure I even become fixated on the fact that I fixate.
My over-attention moves me from focus to focus like some strange form of mental transport, taking me from my most recent foray into film noir to the kind of marginal item found in exhibit A above. I saw her staring down at me while I was eating at Yaffa Cafe on St. Mark's and felt the need to tell a number of uninterested people about it afterwards.
When something captures my attention, I rarely want to look anywhere else for a substantial chunk of time. The trick is to balance this impulse with the mental adventurer's craving for the ever-new. The result? A woman of many obsessions.
So, as you can imagine, finding It's a Sickness, the mother of all obsessive sites, was rather stimulating for me. Take a look, and I apologize if you get lost there for hours as I have.
To start you off, here's a charming video in which Zoe Kravitz lets her costume obsession out of the bag.
Zoe Kravitz is obsessed with costumes from itsasickness productions on Vimeo.


Salon.com
Comments
On the other hand, if your worn hobby horse has some built-in widespread appeal, or if you're a good enough writer to make it appealing to people who never saw its appeal on their own, that's your career made right there. I cite the case of James Ellroy. Obsessed since the age of eleven with the Black Dahlia murder -- an affair most decent people would pass over with a grimace -- he made it the backdrop for a bestelling detetctive novel.
Consonantsandvowels: sounds like a good plan
Poppi: Obsessions are definitely fun
Max: You're so right. I've tried to make my obsessions into writing many a time.
Matt: that's fair
Veronica: I totally hear you on that one. I now teach college writing and those obsessions can come in handy
cartouche: I have been known to
Trudge: yup, we have to keep it in check
Bellwether: you might be right about that
owl: hope you make it out of there