Last night something or other in my bedclothes bit me, about twenty times. My rather sheltered, first-world upbringing has left me with a morbid, faintly hysterical dread of vermin and parasites, so I didn't take it as well as I might have. Sigh.

When I was in first-year biology I wrote an essay on parasitism, which looking back was probably a poor choice. It's taken me eight years to forget it. But if you do very much reading on the subject, you come to the conclusion that in nature as most organisms experience it, disease and parasitic infections are commonplace and unavoidable, and the associated morbidity is a fact of life. This seems to be something our society seems to take great pains to avoid acknowledging. I suppose I have four observations to make: firstly, that the thing I have the most trouble with is the idea of another organism either living inside me or consuming me or both; secondly, thank God and the scientists responsible a thousand times over for penicillin, which permits our society the luxury of this permanent state of denial; thirdly, I'm finally beginning to grasp why some people want to abandon their organic bodies for machine ones; fourthly, my ardent loathing of cats feels gratifyingly justified this evening (I'm assuming that whatever's biting me came from one of Matt's cats, which I cordially despise, and although I could easily be wrong the argument is a plausible one and it feels really good to fall back on a prejudice so that's what I'm going to do because I'm tired, hungry and on edge and feel very much in need of whatever small comfort I can scrounge). Oh, and fifthly: I am such a wuss.