Displacement

If cat- or other hoovering is what occurs when one is displacing work, what does one call those distractions that tumble into play when one is displacing the hoovering?

'Specially when they're work-related?

I pause in my endeavours, simply to point out:

(a) that I have been interviewed for the little magazine "Visionary Tongue", which is now out, contact visionarytongue@hotmail.co.uk (there is a website - www.visionarytongue.co.uk - but for some reason I can't get past the first page); and that my interview therein sits back to back with a story by m'friend'n'publisher Ian Whates, which is convenient, because it acts as a prompt for

(b) which is the most oblique plug you may yet have seen for a book, because I don't want to pre-empt any public announcement, but I do feel entitled to murmur that two stories from Ian's "DisLOCATIONS" anthology have been selected for a major year's-best antho. Which for a slim volume from a tiny publisher in a very competitive global market is damned impressive. (In the interests of clarity and ego-unboo, I should point out that my own Terminal is not one of them; but it's still not too late to nominate it for a BSFA award! Act now!!)

Oh, and

(c) the third "Phantoms at the Phil" volume of ghost stories - two each by Sean O'Brien, Gail-Nina Andersen and me - is now available for sale, for a mere ten quid. Beautiful hardback volume, bargain of the century. Buy now. While I hoover. I need some reward, damn it...

Cat-vacuuming

Oh, my poor Baz.

He was just boldly sniffing at the very nozzle of the Evil Noise-Making Machine (aka vacuum) when I switched it on. So then he had to leap high in the air and run away, which is never good for a cat's dignity. I don't think he's come out of the bathroom since.

I did try to warn him, but you know what boys are like, they just don't listen...

In other news: not today, but I really must throw out the bathroom carpeting. The ancient strange black lino underneath is surely preferable to mouldering carpet-tiles. I should rip the peeling paper off the walls, too; exposed plaster is surely preferable to paper hanging like examples of inefficient excoriation for the sultan's apprentice skinners to learn from.

Bored, bored, bored...

I am not, on the whole, easily bored; there's generally something interesting in my head, even when the life I lead appears to be dullest of the dull.

The vacuum, on the other hand, sucks everything remotely interesting right out. I suddenly have the attention span of a Zabriskan fontema; I'm running back here every ten minutes or less, crying "internets! amuse me! for I am desperate...!" I can tell it's that often, because the screensaver has no chance to cut in.

And the damn machine even drowns out the music. What's the good of that?

On the other hand, it does have to be admitted that the hall seems brighter when the stairs no longer resemble an autumnal forest floor. (Dead leaves, from the ficus benjaminae above: not so much fallen as stripped. Baz likes to pull 'em off and watch 'em fall down the stairwell; Mac likes to lurk at the bottom and pounce on 'em as they come down. Cooperation is better than conflict.)