It's cold now, especially downstairs. I basically own downstairs, I'm the king of the ground floor of this house, because the others prefer upstairs. Sam visits me occasionally, but then returns upstairs because that's where the real action is. Have you ever been to a big house party, the kind where there are people chatting in every room practically, and you're in a room with a couple of other people, and they leave to go get drinks or whatever, and for some reason you stay in that room by yourself for a bit, and someone walks by and sticks his head in the door and sort of sizes up the situation and even makes eye contact with you but then moves along without entering, and you feel that you've just been evaluated and found to be insufficiently interesting in some way? Well, it's just like that when Sam comes in and rubs against my leg and then goes back upstairs.

It's cold now so I'm reading a lot in bed. I climb in fully dressed, at any time of day, without my shoes on but fully dressed, and read my book under the warm covers. Actually it's not particularly warm upstairs either, but downright toasty compared to downstairs, which any guests, if we ever had guests, would surely find uncomfortably cold to sit in even for a few minutes. I would describe our living room in wintertime as forbiddingly cold.

When I read in bed, I usually lie on my belly and prop myself on my elbows and lay the book open on the bed under the tiny reading lamp. This makes for an intimately close reading environment. The small, small area of brightness from the tiny clip-on lamp, the illuminated book, and my face. It's very intimate and very quiet. I can literally hear myself blink sometimes, which is always a little disconcerting. First of all, what exactly is making my blinks audible? As far as I'm concerned, my blinking mechanism has no clickable parts. Secondly, it makes me overly aware of the ordinary operations of the human body. The body is a machine made by nature, but it is also what we are. I, for one, do not like to be reminded in any visceral way of my status as a biomechanically operating automaton, especially when I am trying to read.

Another uncomfortable aspect of this bright and intimate reading environment is that when I have an itch and, say, scratch my cheek, I can see tiny flakes of skin like dust motes jump off my face and drift down to the bed. I also see real dust motes floating in the air whenever I shift my weight. They say that the majority of household dust is comprised of human skin. I wonder just how much of me, what volume of material, is distributed around this house at any given moment. You could possibly make another me from it, or a tiny scale simulacrum of me, a me-doll made of my own discarded skin, hair, and other sheddable detritus. This is a revolting idea and I do not wish to pursue it further, so just be quiet.