Life is short, and I think I'm intent on shortening it even further. After work I smoked too much in my book-closet, sedated on Nurofen Plus and whiskey, a gift from a client, sipped from a water bottle. Pondered my sins, the dog's movements, the pain that signals the onset of my period. How the mother-in-law greeted me when I arrived home from Galway the other day, in company and apropos to nothing: "No one wants you."

My asshole of a period was two weeks late. There was a moment on Friday when I thought, Wouldn't it be ironic, after all of that, if I was pregnant? Of course I distanced myself from the thought. Ironic thinking can, perhaps, become a form of unconscious wishing, of magical thinking.

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