'Guess how many thoughts the average person has each day,' I say to Geoff.
'10?'
'45,000,' I glance back at my computer screen, 'and a significant percentage of them will be worries about something which has a 92% chance of never happening.'
'Fascinating,' Geoff yawns from the sofa.
Geoff's been staying with me for over three weeks now and the mid-January deadline seems to be drifting further into the horizon. Most evenings he's out driving the taxi but he has found the time to knock up his trademark carrot curry.
I return to my 'Mental Health Special', which my editor commissioned months ago. The basic idea for this first article is to encourage readers to watch their thoughts and notice how many of them are 'fear-based'. 45,000 thoughts is an awful lot of thoughts to watch, 'fear-based' or not. I get out my mini calculator. Assuming the average human sleeps for 8 hours a night, that's 16 hours left, which makes 2,812.5 thoughts careering through our heads each hour.
I don't have to do much thought-watching to know that a large proportion of my own hourly allocation has been focused on Wilson. Where is he now? What's he thinking about? Is it definitely over between him and his ex? Why hasn't he texted me today? Was he serious when he mentioned he might be moving to Madrid for a few months? Could I move to Madrid for a few months? How would I manage if the only sentence I can say in Spanish is Mia Casa es tu casa? Maybe I ought to buy one of those Michel Thomas books? Or maybe I'd be better off with a more traditional language course?
'Here's a thought,' says Geoff, 'I'm hungry.' He levers himself off the sagging sofa, ambles to the fridge and sticks his head inside. A minute later, he emerges with a plate of extra mature Cathedral City cheddar, a heap of Branston pickle and a little wobbly tower of Ritz crackers.
'Where's my snack?' I say.
'You didn't say you wanted one.'
'You didn't ask.'
Geoff sighs.
'He who eats alone, dies alone,' I say.
'Who said that?'
'Can't remember.'
Geoff rolls his eyes.
I stare out of the window down onto Portobello Road. Directly below me I can see people's heads emerging from Poundland and I picture all those 45,000 thoughts squeezed into their little skulls. Then I imagine the skulls splitting open like ostrich eggs through the sheer pressure of it all, and the thoughts tumbling out, scrambling naked like thousands of little Gollums along the pavement to take refuge in the Manuka honey shop.
My head is all foggy now, either from too much thinking or too much time in front of the computer, so I stand up from my chair and do the exercise a computer specialist once taught me. Tapping my head with the fingers of both hands from the centre of my hairline in a straight line to the back of my neck, I repeat this several times. Weirdly, it seems to work.
I've just sat down again when my phone vibrates.
It's a text from Wilson. 'Just thinking about you.'
To be continued next Friday...