Things I said today in all seriousness:

'If that phone rings tomorrow, it'll be the Prime Minister or the Governor General.'

Then I realised I was a little mistaken. The PM is more likely to email.

Dear lord, this thing's an eyesore.

You don't want to know the price tag.

I have to just say, I am rather surprised and delighted by the efficacy of leg warmers. I am wearing a pair of these:

Callooh! Callay!

I don't think I'll ever get tired of this.

I remember two friends and a lover, but the rest is obscured by the fog of being awake.

Even when I don't recall my dreams precisely, the feelings that accompany them seem to follow me around for a while. Nightmares, then, have left me feeling wary of people who have done nothing to me at all, except have the misfortune to show up in my sleep and embed my legs with shards of broken glass or something similar.

Conversely, I have spent days basking in a warm feeling of glowing affection for others.

Today I feel both wary and guilty but, as I cannot recall the events that transpired as I wandered those oneiric halls, I'll just have to wait for the pall to lift and hope I don't encounter the people in question.

Which, I ought to add, is highly unlikely over the next few days anyway :)

Now, back to plotting and working ...

The wind is rattling my awnings and butting against the walls with the impatience of an attention-seeking child. Hey! Hey! Hey you in there! Come and play! Look at me, look at me!

It's quite lovely, the way it shakes the trees and whips up the fallen leaves in great gusts. It's also cold, so I'm listening to it with half an ear while curling up next to my heater, working.

Today I am wearing new socks that are longer than my legs and lovely, warm, thick things they are too.

As I work, I have been watching the original episodes of The Addams Family. It had been many years since I'd seen any, so I'm rather enjoying the experience.

What I'm struck by, more than anything, is the theme of eccentricity. The Addamses, underneath the macabre veneer, are completely generous—they'll give anything to anybody and automatically believe the best of everybody. Their strangeness is what protects them, I suppose; it does scare people away but, at the same time, without it the family would probably find themselves taken advantage of at every turn.

That may be over-thinking it a little, maybe :)

It's just fun. And Morticia is my new hero. She's as poised as a duchess, educated, creative, resourceful, accomplished, kind-hearted, devoted to her family, and completely and happily in love. And her wry little glances amuse me no end.

Today I was told that my haircut is quite stunning and makes me look exotic, Egyptian.

I am going to take that to mean that I pulled off the elegance for which I was aiming and as a cue to feel good about myself.

Taps and thuds and clicks ... Living alone can be a hair-raising prospect. I've yet to ascertain what the clicks are, but they come from inside the house and always after I go to bed.

I am not terribly worried most of the time, but one does get a little nervous occasionally when one is a smallish lady by herself hearing what sounds like footsteps around her house after dark.

It's windy today, which rattles the awnings and whistles around the eaves. It takes me a little longer to get to sleep when it's windy, I keep rousing to strain, underneath the rustling of leaves and thump-thump-thump of branches, was that feet? Was that a tapping on my back door?

Some nights as I lie abed, just starting to drift into sleep, a voice whispers in my ear; a single word (never the same one twice), so close, I can feel the heat of breath against my neck, the word itself forgotten as soon as it's heard. I wish I could remember, but the syllables jumble up and I lie there, wide awake, frustrated at forgetting and tense with strangeness.

Am I so stressed that I imagine things?

I can hear something tap-tap-tapping on my front porch. It sounds like terracotta dancing on the concrete. Is it Booga*? I'm too freaked out to go and look. Nuh!

*Booga is my terracotta porch cat.