Email

I’ve just completed a ceremonial Skimming of the Email. Puhh. Do I take milk with my porridge? How often do I read Keats? Do I actually campaign for real ale, or do I sit back while others do the footwork? I used to receive such questions with glee, knowing that my answers fuel worlds. I still feel that way, of course, but typing responses has become a hassle. Someone has pried the H, A, R, Tab, and 5 keys from my keyboard. The keyboard itself cracked in April when I whaled Rafe with it. Some good-natured indoor shotgun fire recently damaged my monitor casing and cast a permanent yellow haze over the screen, and my mouse mechanism appears to be clotted with some sort of fruit-based mucosity. Last week I took the side panel off the tower and found, amongst other things, the afikomen. E pur si muove. I can still use the contraption to play Minesweeper, so my weekends remain full.

A Sorry Welcome Home

Devastation. Just returned from my seaside holiday to find my moth collection ravaged by squirrels. What’s more, I’m not even sure it was squirrels; it may have been field mice, or a wayward vole. This reminds me of the time I brought my moth collection over to Violet’s house when she was ill with the croup. “This will cheer her up,” I thought. Wrong - she took one peek and suffered a series of acute seizures. How was I to know of her winged-thing phobia? Fortunately, Violet is a family friend and not a friend of my own making. I would feel horrible about it all had I met her in school, or at the park. As it stands, our friendship is an ancestral accident, like red hair or strange earlobes, and I really can’t be bothered.