I’ve been working late. I don’t want to but I stop off at Spar on the way home. I don’t like Spar type shops. I lose my imagination the second I walk in the door. All notions of gathering wholesome and cheap ingredients are out the anti ramming toughened windows. Diagonal aisles trick me by displaying more frontage of over priced goods. The illusion of choice hides the fact that there is really only one brand of each thing. 

I know where I’m heading for but I don’t want it. It’s always disappointing and bloating. No, not tonight. I slip past though and just have a glance. The price flashes are getting bigger but I can’t remember what price it ever was before. That Chris Barry is on the radio in the background, egging on some illiterate half wit, tricking them into saying something racist. 

I buy some bread I don’t need and more milk just in case. But it’s all just a distraction, a delaying tactic. Desperately, I try to assemble an easy healthy meal in my mind. Why can’t I? I can do it no problem at home. But no, it’s drawing me closer. I pass a second time, a third. It’s pointless, I just can’t escape it. It’s late, I need to eat soon. It’s so convenient, it only takes 20 minutes at gas 6. And I know it will lie like a doughy football in my stomach as I lie on the couch and belch at Primetime. I know how I’ll feel and I don’t want it. 

Bastard processed crap shop pizza. Why, why do I do it?

Holemaster says No to…

• Michael Bublé
• Tesco own brand rip offs replacing my old favourites.
• X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing fans.
• MBNA who kept upping my credit limit to the point where I could buy a car on it.
• Being broke.
• Noel V.Ginnity.
• Down the side of the oven.
• Enda Kenny – I don’t care about the Seanad, what’s your plan for the economy?
• Civil service versus private sector – Divide and conquer. Don’t fall for it. Unite against FF.
• Isolation of the eldery.
• Obesity – learn how to eat.
• Alf McCarthy on late night Radio 1 – You have no place on my radio, ever.
• Jamie Callum – Someone somewhere got the annoying squeaky voice you should have.
• Bill Cullen – Learn to speak English before you try to sound authoritative. That means in charge Bill.
• The slow but sure ruination of Phantom FM by boy/girl combo graduates from the Rathmines College of Commerce and Communications. A convoy of blondes in Fiat 500s any day now if not already.

Anita Guidera in the Irish Independent should be really proud of herself. Her article in today’s rag of a so-called newspaper draws on the morbid curiosity of those who just can’t help themselves get off on the utter horror of other people’s tragedies. In this case, the 999 call to the fire service from a dying child. Lovely stuff Anita. I wonder what got you into journalism. What it is this sort of muck?

Anita Guidera's article online

You might think having a bed which is about 6.5 feet in both directions is great. In some ways it is.. for couples who can’t sleep without walloping each other in the face accidently, going on holidays to the other side for a week, leaving all your clothes, books, letters, laptop on one side and still being able to sleep comfortably, having wild threesomes and still have room for one person have an undisturbed nap.

But there are downsides like having to spend a week washing and drying all the bedclothes only to start the process again straight away and finding very hard to get out of on cold wet mornings. Worst of all though is the Duvet Changing.

Why oh why is it such an ordeal? I usually put it off as long as possible. I do all the inside out corner tricks but still, I find myself inside it, struggling with moving corners and folded over bits of duvet. Exasperated, I stop for a rest, still inside. I have a little nap in this cocooney womb like world. I’m like a tiny cell between the dermis and the epidermis of a slumbering beast. After a few minutes, I go at it again, more stuggling, more sweat. I manage to place the so called corners of the duvet into the so called corners of the cover and slowly retreat back out. Once out, I carefully draw the cover down fully around the bottom corners. Then there’s so those bloody snap things. I start on the left, snap, snap, sssssnap, snap, snap until I reach the right. Shit, one left over.

Fuck it.

Coca Cola HBC are implying 1100 jobs are at risk over SIPTUs threat of an all out strike over 130 outsourced jobs. I wonder if they’ll start shooting them like they allegedly do in South America. It will be interesting to see how this dispute over outsourcing takes shape considering we are a third world banana republic again.

Read the article here

It’s amazing how little you can live on when you have to.

One year ago on this day, I was in a High Dependency Unit recovering from very major surgery. It was surgery which saved my life. I was on major doses of pain medication, drowsy, half aware of my surroundings. I had several drips, tubes, drains, stitches and monitors.

Yesterday, I ran 4km without stopping. This coming week I’ll do that again twice. 

One year ago today, I was just glad to have woken up.

I have a lingering desire for learning. I’m like a kid with his face up against the glass counter front, ogling the sweets. Will it be false teeth, sour cola bottles, part-time business, politics, history of art? Ideally nothing to do with work.

It’s a tough decision. I like to stroll around a gallery even I don’t really understand it. I wonder at buildings, bridges, airports. I have a huge respect for scientists. I read international news and current affairs and I close my eyes and imagine the future. I love music from opera to punk but I have a piano in the corner like a rejected lover. I think I’m slightly autistic and a bit OCD. I like people but not straight away.

I need something I just don’t know what.

Three months in. The things I ignored at the start and now harder to ignore. Being called “dude” is not a runner anymore. Being cut off in mid sentence by her to point out something random is not not a runner anymore. Use of the word random is back to being annoying again. Her eating the rest of my dinner is just a turn off now. Being licked instead of kissed sends me rigid. 

Then I remind myself that this is the ‘change’ which happens around three months. When that part of me that likes being single and staring into space for ages starts to wake from slumber. It controls my eyes and makes them look at other women longingly. It makes me not listen to the talking in between bits of crucial information. It tries to wrench me from her. It tells me that her brother is a witless fool (which he is). That part of me has had me for too long, selfish and stubborn.