Verging on Despair

Oh dear, life is spiralling out of control again. I was beginning to head into financial penury, so had to go looking for some paid work, and so the mammoths of commerce have determined that I return to gainful employment. This is a great pity, and certainly a tragedy to me, but unfortunately my (very) expensive lifestyle dictates such strictures from time to time. I have so many things to do, and now that I have to re-start turning up at the orifice every day, I have very little time in which to do it. I'm reading the eulogy at a funeral on Thursday (and I haven't even written it yet), and I also have my financial report for the Studio's AGM to write, as well as reading dozens more scripts for the Triliteral Festival (shortlisting begins on Sunday), and that's on top of an absolute snowdrift of paperwork to wade through... it's all quite ridiculous. I've long argued that working for a living is a poor use of one's time, and I don't swerve from that view now.

So, my recent sojourn of leisure is about to end and this means that I have to make the best use of the (short) time available to me before I have to begin ironing shirts and filling the car with petrol etc. How best to use that time? Well, I could try polishing up my latest novel 'Twice Into The River' because I have a meeting with a literary agent about it next week, but I don't feel quite in the mood for that today. Alternatively, I could start to tackle any of the numerous chores – some of which are detailed above – that befall me à ce moment de l'heure, but somehow that too seems rather onerous and sensible. I think what is needed right now is a bit of debauchery. Pure, insouciant, decadent, self-indulgent debauchery. This, I think, would be a fitting end to my recent period of – well, to be honest - pure, insouciant, decadent, self-indulgent debauchery. Hmm, there's something about my priorities here that I find vaguely unnerving.

The long and the short of it is that I have to go back to work in order to survive. This, clearly, is a disaster. But talking of disasters, did I ever tell you about the time (years ago) when I bought a pair of jeans that were too small for me? I went into a shop to buy a new pair, and the woman assistant insisted that denim should fit like a "second skin". She selected a pair for me that were really too small, but she was somehow convinced that they were appropriate. I struggled into them, and although I could do up the top button, I couldn't pull up the zip. This, the woman assistant saw as a good sign. "If you can get the top button done up, then the zip will follow," she said, full of confidence. I began protesting that it was impossible, when she suddenly reached in and dragged me out of the changing cubicle. She then began struggling with the zip herself, but her talon-like nails were hampering her efforts. Exasperated, she then demanded that I lie on the floor which I did, whereupon she then knelt, straddled across my body, and began tugging and heaving at the said zip. "Better not let my husband see me doing this," she grunted through clenched teeth. Finally, after a Herculean effort, the zip was up. Triumphant, she dusted her hands and stood up. "Get up then, and let's have a look," she said. Finding that I couldn't even bend my legs enough to get into a sitting position, I remained where I was. So, the woman called for another assistant and between them they took my shoulders and heaved me into a standing position – I was upright to be sure, but I was as rigid as a cardboard cut-out of myself.

"What do you think?" she asked, smiling widely. What I thought didn't really matter – there was no way I was going to get out of the jeans anyway, so I had to keep them on. I paid, she put my old jeans into a bag, and I shuffled out of the store in a somewhat stiff-legged manner. I can't remember how I managed to get into bed that night, but I rather suspect that I wore those jeans continually for several weeks thereafter.

My old friend Horace asked me to remind you of this: "Choose a subject equal to your abilities; and then think carefully what your shoulders may refuse, and what they are capable of bearing". If you bear nothing else in mind in your busy lives today, bear this, gentle reader.