Through the Looking Glass - Saturday 6 September

So today it's raining and I'm wondering how best to spend my day. When you're a work monkey like I am it's important that you make the most of what little free time you do have.

But that's fine provided you live somewhere with: a) good weather; and b) something to do. I don't. And I don't.

So I mooch around the house for a bit, cleaning my bathroom and running the vacuum cleaner around. I can hear my neighbour upstairs. He's arguing with his girlfriend about something, but I can't be bothered to try and work out what. I don't know why he doesn't just dump her. She seems a bit flakey to me and whenever I bump into her she's got a strange look on her face. (But that may just be her face.)

I didn't get up until ten o'clock so I don't think about breakfast until around twelve; by which time it's obviously closer to lunch so I ditch the idea of cereal and focus my attention on something more substantial. Only I don't know what I want. So I end up eating nothing.

I tidy up a bit more - by now my flat is cleaner than it's been for the past month - and read my book, but I can't get into it. I flick through Private Eye - snorting at some appropriately amusing cartoons - and look out the window. It's still raining.

My mood's in serious danger of matching the weather so I force myself to walk into town to pick up some stuff I don't really need. Boots has an offer on some Nivea moisturiser and face wash so I stock up. Then I walk back home and the rain gets heavier. By the time I get in I'm soaked through.

I contemplate changing into something drier, but then realise it's all a bit too much effort so sit down with a satisfying squelch on the sofa. I can do what I like now. Rebel me.

Only within five minutes I realise I'm actually quite uncomfortable and so force myself to change into some cargo trousers, courtesy of Next, and a t-shirt from Burtons. I forget when I buy all this stuff. It just collects.

I flick through the TV channels, settling on perennial favourites Dave, E4 and BBC News 24. After a while I realise this really isn't the best way to spend my day, so I ring round a few friends and spend most of the afternoon chatting shit. I've perfected the art of this over the years and so can easily waste an hour or so per call. And some of the people I'm talking to, I don't even have to say anything.

One friend - let's call him Frank - is so self-absorbed that he can talk and talk for hours and never once think it's strange that you haven't said anything. Today he was concerned about a friend who seems to be developing an addiction to Special K - that's the drug, dear readers, not the cereal. I think in fact he's really more pissed off that his friend isn't sharing than he is genuinely concerned for his welfare. For some reason, Frank assumes that - simply because I'm gay - I must have a close affinity with ketamine.

I explain the closest I come to ketamine is when my Mum takes it in liquid form, in a very low dose, to help fight her chronic back pain.

Frank gets bored - only about an hour after I do - and we hang up.

I wonder for a while if I'm as self-absorbed as Frank. I mean, it's not outside the realms of possibility. We all like to talk about ourselves. (And, if I'm totally honest, posting this on a blog does smack a little of narcicism.) But could I talk for hours without comment from others? No.

So it's now four o'clock and I put a DVD on that I'm not really watching. And that's how the rest of my afternoon goes.

Life is marching onwards and the rain's still falling. I've got to get my act together.