Hello, old friend. This is the past, writing the future.
…This is the sentence I find awaiting me in my drafts. I have no recollection of writing it or the completely paradoxical title which clearly I did at some stage in the past 48 hours.
However, I believe the basic gist is this: This Sunday I declared – as one always does around 6pm on a Sunday – that this week would be the week I very much “get my shit together” and stop dicking around.
Headless chickening = dumped.
Adding whipped cream to every meal = double dumped.
Regressing to my teenage self and reverting to Leaving Cert levels of procrastination now that I’m quarantined in my childhood bedroom and therefore undoing years of hard work to leave my slovenly, acned, perpetually lazy teenage self behind = would like to dump but probably not realistic. Probably will be more like one of those rutted relationships my friends will inevitably not so much fall as slump into once the late twenties REALLY hit (which isn’t until you turn 32, as we all know) where you spend hours fantasising about leaving your partner for some dashing, mustachioed Lothario or carve out in painstakingly intricate – and surprisingly gruesome – detail the orchestrations of their drawn-out murder; where you revel in ridiculing them in front of all and sundry but will nevertheless stay with for eternity because the comfort of feeling them mouth-breathe beside you still marginally outweighs the revulsion you feel over the fact you’ve settled for a mouth-breather.
That’s me and eighteen-year-old Holz (who is definitely not my best self): pretending we’ve been lumped with each other but in reality just too lazy to pack our bags and leave.
ANYWAY. Sunday night self-improvement. That was the guiding principle of the first half of the title I want to change but am also just too somnolent to go back and edit. In fact, I am so horizontally lazy that I just had to look up a synonym for lazy having already used it too many times and my brain is physically incapable of summoning the synaptic energy needed to conjure delights such as ‘indolent’, ‘soporific’, ‘torpid’*, that Thesaurus.com is tickling me with. Jesus, this is positively titillating. I mean, somnolent – what a delicious thing to erupt from a mouth! Thesaurus.com might just be the most fun I’ve had today.
*Please read these adjectives in the voice of Kirstie Young from Desert Island Discs. Also known as the woman who will narrate my biopic when the BBC commission it with Florence Pugh as the protagonist. Yes, we’re all very excited about it.
Pretty sure the lethargy actually referred to my inability to find energy to put a facemask on which is, supposedly, the most relaxing thing one can do and an essential cure for any and all global pandemics. But yet I can roll myself downstairs for 11pm apple tart – how’s your isolation going?
Things I’ve been doing in what feels like a very long time since a daily diary:
Learning the Blinding Lights and Young Offenders dances. I’m very good. On an unrelated note, I am beginning to understand what TikTok is.
Writing long letters in my head to people who keep posting their TikToks on their Instagram stories – GO AWAY.
Topping most meals with hummus and focaccia and being pretty smug about it to be honest.
Puzzling over the correct pronunciation of ‘focaccia’ and wondering if it’s another word that might turn my whole world upside down like ciabatta did when I realised it was actually pronounced “see-a-batta”, consequently forcing me into an identity crisis.
Wondering how stoked ‘Yoga with Adriene’ is to be the corona hotline for the notionally inclined. To those also posting yoga videos with a 7am time stamp – please kindly exit the internet.
Silently freaking out about the carbon footprint of emails – I’m researching this for a piece and inwardly hyperventilating with every Google search, every careless ‘Reply All’ sent for the sole purpose of saying ‘HI, SEE, LOOK BOSS, IT’S 4.57PM AND I’M STILL WORKING – I’M VERY DILIGENT AND DEDICATED’. More unfortunately for my family, I’m outwardly hyperventilating over mindless scrolling – I think if I clear my throat one more pointed time, my phone-fond sisters might actually suffocate me in my sleep. Or worse, shave my eyebrows.
Confused as to why my new Fitbit seems to have a bit of an attitude and seems to relentlessly judging and bullying me at ten minutes to the hour by essentially telling me how HARD a worker I am by not leaving my desk enough. Bit rude, mate.
Appreciating how very, exceptionally, wonderfully lucky I am to live in the countryside and have 2km of country roads and quiet town to roam.
Lusting after jigsaws – lamenting that jigsaw time can’t be all the time.
Wondering if I’m weird for not using this time to reconnect with people but am instead going out of my way to dodge friends and generally be a crap person? Feeling resentful of every stranger who keeps telling me to call a friend or lectures to the social media masses on the importance of connection and Zoom – I currently have no interest in Zooming or FaceTiming and feel exhausted just looking at the Instagram Lives of people interacting with STRANGERS, let alone people they love. People I love, I will talk to you again in 2061 – wait for me.
Also wondering if I’m broken to find it difficult being surrounded by people constantly now that I’m living at home with my parents and three other siblings. On that, pondering if it’s selfish or uptight of me to be reluctant in giving up my very self-centred independent life. E.g: sneaking off to write during family time, exercising during TV time, reading during tea time.
Thinking a lot on how well-oiled my pre-corona life was and if this was a good thing. The gym regimens, the weekly allocations for socialising and time alone, the streamlined synchronicity of weekly washing, one pot wonders, lunch break dashes.
My bloated belly and all the reasons it might be bloated. I’ve narrowed the list to:
- Water weight – cause I’m clearly so hydrated
- Maybe I have a genuine intolerance and should get one of those test things – is it wheat? Am I a secret coeliac?
- I really am just getting fat
Pregnancy– thank you, coronavirus- …Let’s pretend we can blame coronavirus for that
Toying with the idea of starting a podcast. I think it would be quite novel and unusual – I don’t know many people doing them?
Coming up with ideas of topics for these diaries and then promptly forgetting them to write tripe instead.
Tree Tings
- Grateful for the line in ‘Cause’ that goes, “I make sixteen solid half-hour friendships every evening.” What a beautiful, melancholic piece of real-life poetry. I listened to it walking home from the post office this evening and it struck me that it was the best description I’ve heard for online dating – those instantaneous, completely unfounded “friendships” that end before they’ve even begun and yet you’ve already felt so much with so little: excitement, curiosity, desire, hope, uncertainty, inadequacy, hilarity, confusion, anger
- Stuffing. Buttered, sage-filled, thyme-scented, onion-rubbed stuffing. Crunchy and gooey. The overlooked masterpiece of a roast dinner.
- The wise and generous sister who is currently the only woman I would tolerate 11 minute voice notes from.
Earnest & Ethereal 