The Crushing Lonliness

Thursday 14th February

My darling has left me. I won't go into the reasons for it, but she did so a week and a half back and it's now Valentine's day and I'm on my own.

Which means that in due course I've got to look after myself, a game I've never been overly successful at since I discovered that being pathetic and starving yourself to death generally mean that somebody will make you a fish finger sandwich. Which is lovely. But now I'm looking after myself and it's time to do it right. I've already made on fish finger sandwich all on my own.

The pride … the pride was overwhelming.

It's strange to be in the house on my own. There's housework to do first of all, and by that I mean to do it before it clogs up every square inch of carpet with paper, frogspawn and lichen.

I do have to admit that last week I had run out of forks. Looking into the sink I had come to realise that the cats had caused more washing up than I had, damn them and their twice daily feeding. Which meant that I had no forks. Or wide dishes either. So I either had to do the washing up or use a dirty fork.

A decision needed making.

I had cereal. You don't need a fork for cereal.

I eventually cleaned all the dishes and cutlery. Then people came round to deliberately make every single dish dirty again. There was blood. Oh yes, much of the blood.

Of course getting back to the cats for a second, you would think that once my darling had left, they would transfer their affection to the person who fed them. Which in all fairness they do. When it's time for food. Otherwise I have a bugger of a job finding them, you know, to check if they're still alive. Little things like that.

The ginger one decided to be extra affectionate on Sunday. I let them both out in the morning and the ginger one didn't come back for lunch. After calling him and rattling his sweets jar and even summoning the flying monkeys he still didn't come home, I left to go run some errands. And by errands I mean go play dumb games all afternoon.

When I got home it was dark, but he still stayed out for another hour just to annoy and worry me. Just as I was pondering how to phrase a missing persons report on a ginger cat to the police he showed up and demanded dinner. Of course now that my darling's away he's decided that the house needs firm leadership.

So bowing to my new feline master, I fetched a clean dish, sadly not made of gold and skipped passed the pouch foodstuffs and reached for a fresh entire tin of tuna. Garnished with tuna juice and moderately mushed, I laid the tuna feast onto the floor for his lordship and returned to my menial duties, namely playing Bioshock in the lounge.

Few were the minutes I was granted peace though, for a strange noise summoned me back to the kitchen, for his lordship had vomited all over his dinner.

Very regally, of course.

So with work during the day and an empty house at night, I find it difficult to keep myself occupied. While my darling was around, there was always the possibility of watching a film, or possibly arguing about something.

But I'm not one for watching films on my own, and the last time I argued with myself the neighbours called the police in the hope they'd take me away. Ha! Not only did I get away with it, but I proved myself wrong at the same time.

But I digress.

So finding things to do, I've so far rediscovered the joy of going to bed at 1am. And getting up for work even more pissed off than normal.

I've discovered the joy of gaming. Well, since I'm doing it on my own I'll pretend it's a joy, but at least I can shout obscenities at the tv without the feeling that I'm distracting anyone from doing the Guardian crossword.

Late night TV has also fascinated me recently with it's endless episodes of Top Gear and Mythbusters. I have, over the course of one night's television watched ...

• a man nearly drown inside a car (on two different programmes),
• seen a guy shoot at a toilet seat with a crossbow,
• watched a fascinating piece about a Finnish two-part missile that can breach a wall or blow up a building (depending on the delay),
• found out about Hitler's babysitter,
• seen a cellist on a toboggan
• and watched a collision of a pram and a train.

And then there's the porn.

I love the porn channels.

There's ten minutes of free viewing of REALLY REALLY BIG NASTY PROGRAMME TITLES of obscene and crude natures, generally involving a job and an adjective. "Fast Librarians" wouldn't be out of place, and anything with the word "Student".

Then there's the one playboy channel that isn't locked, which is either showing a slow striptease on a sundeck, or a "how we make hard core porn" programme, or a soft core erotic movie made in 1993. Though the most disturbing programme I've seen on that was the sexy urban myths show, which basically involves two people fucking until a friend in a gorilla suit jumps out at them from a cupboard with a video camera, and it's not even a hidden camera show, this is a dramatic re-telling.

And finally there's the sofa channels. These channels show one to 5 women all waving telephones at the camera while jiggling. They all wear their sexiest outfits, or that which they think men think is sexy, and jiggle in the hope that someone is lonely enough to carry on a conversation while the person on the other end of the phone is being watched by thousands/hundreds/twelve men, twelve angry men all in the same lonely situation. Occasionally one will turn around and bend over and jiggle her buttocks for an extra treat.

If it's a really posh sofa channel, then one of the girls will have a microphone and explain how she and all of her lovely friends are ABSOLUTELY desperate to talk to you, you manly stud hunk of meatyness you are. Of course, look at them, they don't want to talk to you, their being forced to be there by their daily wages and the man to the left of the camera with a gun. It's like watching the extras on Tenko or Cell Block H or Look North-West… you know they'd rather be playing cribbage than waving a phone at you.

But at least they're wearing lingerie. And some have got their tits out.

I did mention that my darling had left me, didn't I?

But then again, I suppose I should get on with the hoovering.

She gets back on Sunday.