This afternoon I feel like I am driving with the parking brake on: the drag hindering momentum, resisting progression, sucking fuel.

The numbers on my computer monitor click by in slow motion, as if it is a signficant effort for the pixels to rearrange themselves into new digits, a momentous task to announce the passage of another minute.

Only 450 minutes to go.

I would to bottle whatever makes the hours between Friday at 5:30 and Sunday at 10:00 disappear with alarming velocity -- and then apply liberally to Monday through Thursday.

But I love breathing in the deep, rich colours and delicious winey smells. And I thoroughly enjoy the feeling of a nice round mouthful splashing down my throat, warming everything in its wake. The best part is the second glass: the first has started to simmer in my stomach, sending out a delicious coziness to swim blissfully in my blood. And, ah, that coy mind haze...

After the fourth or fifth glass, the world is just simply a kick-ass place to be.

The next morning, when I wake to realize that perhaps a little more food would have been in order, and that just maybe a few glasses of water would have been a prudent move, I want to blame the wine. But I don't: I lie back onto the pillow and acknowledge the punishment, whilst hearing the mantra whispered from behind the clenching ache in my head: respect the grape, respect the grape.

I don't know why I cannot seem to commit to writing every day. Where does the pressure come from? Why is it so necessary to say something relevant or beautiful, witty or wise?

I look at some of these old posts -- most of which fit into none of the above criteria -- and ask myself: just what the hell is your problem, anyway?

Well, sod all that. I'm writing again. I herein commit myself to documenting more moments in tiny boxes of black.

I love the catharsis of pitching PowerPoints and sales decks into the recycling bin. Useless trinkets, old pens and disks, plastic forks and sugar packets crest the top of the plastic liner. The fuller the bin, the purer the soul.

Oh, it's that time of year again, my colleagues joked, as their eyes swept over the pristine and gleaming faux finish of my little desk by the window.

And it's true. Every August I prepare for September: the leaving month. Because I am practical, even when I am sentimental. I prepare. I organize.

I have eliminated the need to quickly stuff belongings into a canvas bag folded neatly in a drawer for the occasion. I can simply switch off my monitor, offer one of a few choice hand gestures, and leave my desk empty-handed.

And then a patch of green. A tree with tiny bulging buds, trembling with anticipation. A plump and contented sparrow blinking large brown eyes down at me, tilts its feathered head, and sings the new season toward me.

My fear is ingesting something that is going to kill me. I'm not sure whether this is toxiphobia (fear of being poisoned), pharmacophobia (fear of drugs), pnigophobia (fear of choking/smothering), or a fear yet unclassified. However, every time someone thrusts a spoon at me and tells me to try this great new dish made with spices only found in the mountains of Peru or it it necessary for me to take a new pill for some ailment, I quiver in my boots and calculate how much time it should take for allergic symptoms to surface and how close I am to the nearest medical facility. Although I have never suffered from an allergic reaction, I fret at the possibility of suffering anaphylactic shock, swelling up, and ending my days on this planet.

Please understand: I have a great passion for food and respect for drugs -- the kinds I have previously ingested and know are safe, of course. It's those potentially fatal new foods and pharmaceutical timebombs that worry me.

Thanks to the Dedsigned Thinking phobia list.

Killer daddy (KD) is worried that his adolescent cygnets won't get enough to eat. When a tourist starts tossing stale bread chunks into the water, KD rounds up mother and the five patchy-plumed teens and finds the most strategic place to catch the flying food, elbowing out the ducks and making rude gestures to the geese as he floats to the forefront. KD is King Cob.

In a few months the kids will have grown enough feathers to fly. By the winter, if food is scarce, KD will even fight his own children to survive. They think that they can kick the old man's ass. But KD has a lot of fight left in him.

By May, he will have turfed all of the kids out of the house.