Combing fleas from the dog.

Aside from being the most gratifying experience of the day, it allowed me to postpone my preparatory reading for the course in London and, in particular, enabled me to avoid Assagioli's Psychosynthesis, whose interminable positivity has actually constipated me since Sunday.

The Tuesday group. In low moments I sometimes entertain the dull idea that in running this therapy group I have at last found a group of people that cannot exclude me, but then I prefer to fantasise scenarios in which they do. And as I sat there, glancing at my own bookshelves, it slowly dawned on me that my deepest wish was coming to pass. Six months ago, when the group began, I had noted the sexual attraction between L. and (married) P. and I've assiduously monitored it ever since. Today, yearning to pull some Dante from the shelves, I began to feel the altered dynamic. They were gently avoiding each other and yet, while the idea of their consummation was bothering me, I was more disturbed by the collusion of B. Perhaps sensing a new maternal role for herself, B. was politely covering for the libidinous couple. In fact, she was doing it with such a confident, distasteful relish that I wondered if the group, in moving from my quiet, but firm patriarchy to this slovenly matriarch, had willed the entire romance. It's a shambles.

Later, having done the dog and feeling morally fortified at somone else's scandal, I was aware that at least I had something substantial to divert Buckley with at my next supervision. However, I still feel vaguely voyeristic and detached from today's debauchery and the desire to discipline them, or throw B. out the window, has not yet arisen.