Ibo came over again to clean yesterday, which he did with German efficiency. (Goblin was apparently traumatized by the vacuum cleaner, a contraption she almost never encounters during my own housekeeping endeavors. She bit him on the hand--"a love bite," he generously called it.)

Ibo now wants me to work with him on the logo and marketing materials for his natural cake-baking business. He offered to clean my house in exchange for my professional services, and in a phone discussion this morning, he also offered to help cure me of my allergies, an unappetizing process during which I would be forbidden to eat any foods containing dairy, meat, gluten, or processed sugar. I have been an advocate of such diets for years, which is very easy to do if one does not actually have to partake of one. In fact, since I met my ex-boyfriend Michael, and continuing through the Rob Administration, I eat almost nothing but dairy, meat, gluten, and processed sugar.

Now that I am faced with the very real prospects of a perpetually clean apartment and radiant good health, I want nothing so much as to buy a stack of McDonald's hamburgers and eat them while rolling around on the floor.