The guilt! The not finishing, the failing, the landing my problems on someone else's shoulders with only a fortnight and a half, the conviction that I can do it, really, and who needs sleep ... the fact that I appear to be somehow sharing my brain with a Jewish grandmother, when it all boils down to it.

A genuinely chipper day with the cat. It's still heartbreaking, but compared to he last two people I saw off through cancer, she is having a ball of a time and not being a daily source of heartbreak. We are both prepared to fall completely apart when we have to put her down, though. Happily, the place where I am freelancing has told me that I am to stay home and cry whenever I feel I need to, because they are all crazy cat ladies, too. It's quite lovely.