Ah, the clear bright sound of rushing water

Nothing says "Sunday" quite so clearly as starting the day by plunging your hand halfway to the elbow in filthy stinking black liquor, to clear a drain in the yard.

Now I want to change all my clothings, all of them, for I can smell it yet. I would shrug and suppose that to be just my imagination, only the boys can smell it too.

On the other hand, the clean one, yes indeed: there really is a satisfaction in doing stuff like this, a little rush of pleasure as the water rushes away. I have done a thing, and my life in the house is better for it. (Also I get a secondary pleasure, because my friends are always startled that I can do stuff like this, I can be oddly practical. It's always fun to surprise your friends.)

On the other other hand, night terrors. Presumably they come at night because you're caught in the bed there and there's nothing you can actually do about whatever anxiety it is that seizes you; presumably they fade in the day because that's when you're actually up and doing.

Sunday, though. Not much one can do on Sunday, when all the anxieties are official and bureaucratic. I had a bad attack of "Christ, I can't do this," and it lingers like the stink of a blocked drain.

Still. Books to pack, and a book to write. Those things I can do.

There may be an edge of hysteria to my laughter

Real life has too many cats categories.

I was trying to sort books, see.

I have this ... three-dimensional stack between the arm of the sofa and the nearest bookcase. It started out as a neat pile of overflow SF hardbacks, and became the-place-where-the-SF-hardbacks-go, and then the-place-where-the-new-SF-goes, and then the-place-where-what-I've-just-read-goes, and like that. It's kind of a book-and-paper mountain, and I can't get to the second case of SF hardbacks until it's clear, so. It was meant to be a project for today.

I had a box.

Actually, I had looked at the box and thought that's not going to be big enough, but hey. We do what we can.

Just, I can't. I can't deal. I was trying to put hardbacks-that-survive-the-first-filter into the box; but that leaves open the question of paperbacks, and hardbacks that don't, and paperbacks that don't, and, oh, paperbacks that I might well want to read in the next week or two (Steven Brust, largely), and...

And I thought I might put a CD on to help me through, but then I thought I might not hear the phone when Karen calls; and then one of my piles just fell magisterially over, and then I couldn't stop laughing until I looked down at my hand to try to understand the sticky, and realised that I was bleeding.

I don't even. Don't ask me.

As soon as the potatoes are done, I'm opening a bottle of wine and giving up down there. Coming back up here to seek refuge in work. I've written 2K words today; there will be more.

A question! It's grammatical!

Euphony aside, why do we say "one person fewer" rather than "one fewer person"? [And yes, all right, I know most people would say "one person less", or more likely "one less person", but still. The question abides.]