may 18

Yesterday I saw Dirty Rotten Jack who is back from tormenting his family in Lebanon- we went for a drink and I found that he doesn't register any more on my love radar. I have sprung back from the impression he made on me with the resilience of rising dough -into which, to extend the parallel, he stuck his finger without much interest or intention, just to see what would happen. There is sexual tension but it isn't mine - I had a minor (and not particularly welcome) revelation that despite the great intellectual advantages that a union with me could provide, he has only ever been interested in my body.

I have just been sitting for an hour listening to an aging man in a pink shirt lecture his beard on the greater transitivity of kicking dogs as opposed to drinking beer, and a further hour in front of the computer writing about politeness, a subject which interests me less and less as time goes by. Every day I have to fight my way through a crudescence of paper from which I am trying to extract something concise and elegant - if I had the energy I would make some gross generalisation about the waste generated by the creation of the most unimportant product, but I won't. Home instead to my spinster's larder with its tin of bean and bag of green sprouting potatoes- thank you and goodnight.