August 02, 2005 | 5:43pm

I've been slacking, on everything. Writing, work, domestic goddess duties, everything. Dishes piled up in the kitchen creating strange new forms of architecture, dirty socks chased each other around the apartment, my journal was embarrassed by its empty nakedness, all due to one thing...

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out and life was put on hold. I slowly savoured my way through the book. I took my time with each page, to enjoy the language, take in every detail, and to pace myself and make it last a little longer. And I loved it. Until the end, that is. And then I didn't love it anymore. I hated it. Hated JK Rowling for doing IT. How could she?!

That's not to say the book isn't every bit as good as the previous ones. It is just as good, perhaps better. And I do like it, but hate what happened at the end and had to take a day to cry and mourn. Harry Potter books will never be the same and yet, I'm all the more curious about what's to come in the next one. Not to mention sad that the next book is the last. Damn that Rowling is good. There should be a law to require her to keep writing.

So, I finished the book (cry) and life can now resume. Or at least it could if I weren't having the worst bout of dyshidrotic eczema I've ever had. The hot weather has caused my eczema to go nuts and my fingers and hands are covered with uber itchy blisters, my hands are red, dry and cracked, and then there's the painful sores the blisters turn into when they pop. Which is another reason I've fallen behind on things. Turns out life's rather challenging when you can't use your hands.

Sigh. Where is Madam Pomfrey when you need her?

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