I spent the long weekend trying to catch up with an enormous backlog of paper: clippings, notes, replies, queries, oh yes, and cheques, even in this age of online payments. I missed writing my blog-for-the-day yesterday because I was writing so much other stuff. Now it's 3 a.m. the next day and I have a stiff neck and I'm wide awake and grumpy. I'll tell you why I'm grumpy.

I've complained about this for a long time but I haven't written it down. I can't get the right note of grievance, bitterness and righteous indignation into a written report. But I'll try. I can't suppress it any longer, not after spending the entire weekend "keeping in touch". And I know I'm not good. I can tell because of the dates on some of the clippings I am only now sending to people; they go back 3 and 4, sometimes 7 years. (I still need to get a round Tuit.) But...

Am I the only one who even tries to keep in touch? Am I the only one who feels guilty because I fail so miserably? Why doesn't someone try to reach me? Why doesn't anyone else feel guilty?That goes for having people over, too. I think I must have someone for tea or wine or dinner and sometimes I do. Does anyone ever think about me in that context? Not that I've noticed.

Well, you can tell I'm tired and stiff and midnight-weary. I'll feel better in the morning. Maybe my neck will feel better.

Anyway, I forgive you.

Or maybe all at once. Edith Sitwell commented that life isn't one thing after another, it's the same damn thing over and over again. It feels like it, anyway. I was so busy at the computer yesterday with a load of disparate tasks that I never got to my Blog - too stiff to sit there any longer. But then I sat and watched The Bletchley Circle on WNED, a new three-part murder mystery series, all three.

I had lots of busy things to set up: a return flight to London England for a theatre tour in January, plus the insurance; a breakfast speech to WEN (Writers & Editors Network) to give in a couple of weeks; a pitch to Ryerson University for some playwriting workshops and a reading (very time-consuming!); contact with a new-to-me travel agent for my Easter Island cruise in April; the dispatch of a photograph of my cracked toilet seat to my son, asking for advice and a few acknowledgements and replies to my e-mail messages.

Every day I keep saying I'm going to catch up with my paper correspondence with people I must honour with snail mail. And every day other things get in the way. Ah well, it's long weekend, so I'll have more time to work.

I'll think about it while I swim. Maybe I can think of something worthwhile to write in my blog.