In our lounge, against the big radiator underneath the big window, there is a big sofa. Technically, of course, it is a bed – but one that folds up into a sofa if one desires so. Since its installation, it has been in sofa mode; distressingly, a couple of slats recently got loose and it has developed an alarming slump in its centre as a result.

I’m nervy about sitting atop it, now, but it’s still nice to lie on.

Which is what I was doing this afternoon. I took a long walk shortly after lunch – ostensibly to deliver Christmas cards, but more realistically in order to have something to do – after which I came home to a girlfriend who was on the verge of going for a lie down herself.

Loath to interrupt her, I cleared some space on the sofa, and stretched out on it. I didn’t even bother to turn the TV off – I just crashed out.

First time in a while I’ve been able to do that. Glorious.

After a stressy experience a few days back, I’ve gone off the concept of porn. I mean, I love porn – some of it, at least; I’ve got quite discerning tastes – but, for the past couple of days, the mere idea of watching porn is more exhausting than exhilarating.

I lost my job yesterday, so maybe that’s got something to do with it…

Hazy ILB, however, appears to have completely different feelings towards porn. In my lazy, semi-conscious state, watching porn was something I was so fixated upon that it consumed my very being. Here I was, completely immobile on the sofa, starting to feel more rested than I have in a very long time… and becoming more and more aware that mainlining Emmanuelle riding Haffron was, in fact, MY PURPOSE IN LIFE.

The problem was, of course, that my computer was on the opposite side of the room – a whole five steps away – and, while Hazy ILB was drowning in a world of glossy smut, physical ILB wasn’t willing to make the effort. (Conscious ILB had long since safeworded out of the conversation.) And so I lay there… partially pondering my existence, partially remembering through sensation how comfortable our sofa actually is, but mostly just becoming aware that, although I didn’t have to be watching porn, if I wanted to, I probably could.

Until, at one point, Hazy ILB suggested the concept of actually doing so.

That would be easy – of course it would. Just haul myself off the sofa, slope over to the PC and fire up VLC. Work up the energy to do so and I could even turn off the TV. Easy as π² – right?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“What’s that?” said my girlfriend, suddenly materialising in the doorway as the people downstairs started to turn up the bass – probably the entire song, it was all bass – to somewhere between “ouch, my ears” and “please let me die”.
“I don’t know,” I slurred, “maybe it’s the people downstairs?”
“But I was having such a nice nap…” she protested.
“When it comes down to it, so was I.”

Fuck!