Today, SLB and I went to T*rg*t and bought cleaning products. We decided, together, not to get the string of coloured lights that can be set to flash in time with your music, but instead to get a really choice set of stainless-steel cutlery. Later, at home, we held the amazing pop-up sponge under the tap together and witnessed its magnificent yellow tumescence. This is what I spent the day doing; Se�oras y se�ores, it is not the life I ordered, but I'll eat it because I'm famished, because it looks pretty good, too, because I'm not sure there's anything else.
This morning, whilst cleaning, I kept dusting up some kind of fine hair from the wainscotting. We've assumed all along that this hair is being shed by the cats, but today I shed light on its true origins: it is being secreted by the walls. It must be: the cats were upstairs for the whole morning, holding a conference on borders and territory-marking conventions in ancient Manx, and the "fur" kept oozing out, particularly up through the crack next to the fireplace. Moreover, at the bottom of the stairwell, where the cats almost never go,it is the shoes closest to the wall which sport the deepest deposits of so-called "fur." Eventually, it attaches itself to the cats, too, which is why we think it's the cats' fault. QED. As SLB put it: we shave our cats with Occam's razor.
* * * * *
I stopped by at the courtesan Vittoria's palazzo yesterday evening to partake of sweet wine and a read-through of mynheer Willaert's newest canzone villanesche. A young man of extraordinary beauty was slicing the canteloupe and feeding it to that illustrious Jezebel, from the tip of his knife, no less; if I had to compare him to any earthly thing, it would be Ryan Philippe, but such comparisons can only tarnish the mirror I would hold up to nature. He was in the first flush of his beard, which he wore at a length which indicated a philosophical temper but not a lack of soin, and his eyes were deep, polluted lagoons of corruptible avarice and vanity; I knew, in short, that I must have him. The whore was complicit (as she explained to me in the fresh air of her private roof-garden) -- she had had her fill; I thanked her warmly (and for more than thirty minutes), and forthwith, my minions were dispatched to florists, haberdashers, booksellers, and the more pliable apothecaries to purchase the finest instruments of seduction. Tomorrow morning, as the sun rises over the stinking Adriatic, I send my gondola to Vittoria's palace to collect him, wrapped in an enormous grey cloak and wearing a feathered mask. With luck, his reputation will be ruined by three o' clock tomorrow, which leaves me time to shop for groceries and clean the upstairs bathroom before work Monday morning.