Readers, it's been a busy week. It's not my wont to go to things: invited to even the most glittering of occasions, I will fake a pathetic cough and croak, "I'm sorry, I'm at death's door". When it comes down to it, if I have to choose between writing and standing at a party with a Daiquiri in my hand, I'll choose writing every time. Writing appeals to the very essence of my being: sitting alone in a quiet room, twitching uncomfortably every time somebody addresses me, and avoiding eye contact with those I know and love. Writing gives me the perfect excuse to avoid all human contact, save for that between the characters I have made up in my head. Beats trying to make small talk with people I've never met before any time. (Although the one disadvantage is that as yet, I've been unable to find a way to profitably combine writing with drinking. If you have any solution to this problem, please let me know.)

The pull to the typewriter succeeds the urge to clean the house any day, and when my beloved is away, I allow the house to slide into complete sluttery. The bin stinks, and is never emptied; the counter-tops are awash with crumbs, and spilled liquids. I allow cat hair to gather in the bathroom sink. Pig Destroyer leaves paw prints and hair everywhere: I do not wipe, nor do I vacuum. These minor motes, these agents of allergy and disgust, they are allowed to gather all over the house, their combined efforts gathering momentum until at last, when I come in from my day-job on a Friday night, I see with disgust that apparently a student has been living in my house for the past seven days, stinking the place up and leaving plates everywhere.

Regular readers here will know how much I despise housework, so I will not ennumerate the many reasons for this opprobrium, but suffice to say that a, I consider housework an affront to all the great works of Emmeline Pankhurst and Germaine Greer, b, I have tried a number of times to get very interested in housework but somehow cannot, c, You inevitably have to do the whole lot again five or six days later, which seems like a disgusting cheat, and d, every time I lift a duster, vacuum cleaner, or wet-cloth, and begin to scrub, a voice in my head numbers all the more profitable and interesting things I could be doing with this time, for example "you could be watching Gossip Girl", or "you could be in the garden", or "you could be sticking hot skewers into your own eyeballs".  

And worst of all.... I could be writing...