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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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I fancy myself a "Healthy Smoker". By which I mean, while I smoke it's not excessive, not a heavy smoker by any means, and I do all sorts of ridiculous and unrelated things to compensate.
I take vitamins. I drink diet coke. I drink all sorts of fruit juices with world renowned anti-oxidant properties, it says so right on the label. I think an awful lot about physical fitness. If I get a chance I go for Indian Buffet, the Turmeric in the curries is reputed to be a powerful anti-carcinogen. I take Omega 3-6-9 capsules twice a day.
I work a job that keeps me on my feet. Never mind that my diet, 5 or 6 days a week, consists of pasta with tomato (or tomato based) sauce, I'm moving, I'm on my feet, that's far, far better than any desk job. (if you're reading this and know of a job opening, give me a desk job and a salad, please....). I sleep regularly, once a day even. I think about Yoga and Breathing exercises for moments on end, and on those painful hangover days I even think of quitting smoking. Because it's never the liquor, it's always the cigarettes. I eat light, because eating lightly is supposed to be good for you. I have the figure to prove it.
I'm a healthy smoker.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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The temperature minus thirty degrees and dropping.
The first taste of winter this winter. We can't complain, temperatures hovering at the +10, +12, degree Celsius range, now, however, winter's here.
In the morning the temperature in the house is 10 degrees. I crank the heat, the cats perch upon the vents, clouds of fur and dried cat-feces fill the air. Winter's here.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Walking with the boy through Kensington we pass a shop, or ground level office space, the window decorated with a logo of a naked man surrounded by rays of what presumably are light, or enlightenment, above is text advertising "Pure Leadership", beneath it the word "Homoluminous".
"Use that in conversation 5 times today" I tell the boy. It's the challenge.
We peer through the window, I've walked past this shop before. It's an office space, computers, desks, the floor covered in file folders and stray papers, on the desk beside the apple-branded computers are large rock crystals, geodes, there's a magic carpet carelessly knotted underneath the castors of the desk chair, a globe upon another desk, and I find myself wondering who on earth buys this bollocks. Really. I mean, what are they teaching leadership skills for? Getting people to drink the kool-aid? Who in their right mind walks into their office and looks at the mess of new age paraphernalia scattered across the desks and floor and decides that these people have something to teach them?
"Without seeming prejudiced" I tell him "It's pure bullshit".
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Now it's been a couple of months - before the Christmas rush, since I've been well and truly sober, by which I mean neither drunk, hungover, or looking forward or immediately back at either of the two. It was a long Christmas, and the parties and late nights were the only way of coping with an otherwise untenable schedule.
And having noticed that it was becoming far more habit than occasion I put a slight brake on it over the weekend, drinking, yes, but in far more moderate quantities, a reasonable bedtime and absolutely no hangovers.
The weekends are too short, I'm flawed enough without adding more vices to my list, I'm sure the boy would appreciate a less-hungover father...
Some observations, then:
#1. The job I do is almost impossible without some alcohol or chemical anesthesia. I marvel that I do it, and frequently find reason to prematurely throw in the towel, I haven't the patience. 4 more months, I suck it up, breathe deep, find the patience, I oscillate, I stand outside the kitchen having a cigarette, listening to the cursing in the kitchen, the thrown pots and pans, I haven't the patience, need the patience, the owner on his tirades, customers with preposterous requests, or reasonable requests in preposterous quantities, it's all trying me to the limit.
#2. I work in the realm of great drinkers. Customers who can down a bottle, 2, 3 of Amarone over a lunch hour and still find the legs to return to work. And while I've practiced, gotten the knack of it as it were, I'm not yet able to get back to work, and there's a lot of work to be done. A bit of a shame that my lifes work begins when I finish paying the rent, and having to work around that can be a bit of a pain, but for the moment it's the way it is. So it goes.
#3. Sobriety is over rated. Greatly. Nothing feels better, true, than the day after hangover day when you awaken fresh and well rested and ready to take on the world - to address that three day or three week old list of chores and errands, but that greatness is quickly destroyed by the realization that one must change and return to work. One solution would be to make post-hangover day a national holiday, in the line of Christmas and Easter, but I don't think it's going to happen. On it's own sober is merely sober, in line with the other vices, as a day in a timeshare with the rest of the demons it becomes an altered state all to itself. Mind a few days sober and the novelty quickly evaporates, the routine of the job becomes a sort of numbing anesthesia to any of the greater joys in life.
Still, there's #4...
#4. Dreams come back, nighttime, each morning with the quickly evaporating shreds - "I'll remember that" I tell myself as the coffee percolates, by the time I've returned the dream has gone. And ideas, stray ideas or flying in formation like some winged migration, not always with a pen in hand to jot them down, but they're obvious, now, like a flock of geese in the winter, obvious, because for the past couple of months they've been absent, vanished, south for the winter, now they cut a line into the sky....
And there are the remembered plans and ambitions, waylaid, the recognition of a thousand things that must be done before going up North, only now in the heightened light of temperance they acquire an urgency that was somewhere postponed or forgotten....
***
These are only the initial observations, curious, Sobriety exercising it's rather limited appeal, G swore on with me, then waited until I'd left on Friday night to reunite with his demons, Saturday, a little annoyed that I was left out, but to see his face, recall that feeling of working misery - well, I can do without that as well. 4 months and counting.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Time is run out, Xmas 2011, there's only work, no time for anything. No decorations, no tree, only work.
I make lists, the gifts I'd like to buy for people, to make for people, but there is no time for making.
The buying, there's no time for this either.
The siblings, give them wine and liquor, these things they will consume, they need nothing material. Easy enough, the restaurant is across the street from a liquor store, after work on an early departure this is done.
My father, he needs nothing, this is more tricky, try as I might I can add nothing to his list.
My daughter, she's abroad, needs little, money sent will be applied to a modest gift, of this I approve.
My son, there are ideas, shops to go to, but there's no time, a list of things to look for requires time to look for them....
There's one gift, expensive, an IPad, that I've considered for him, dismissed, I generally hate technology as a gift, but it's a last resort. It can replace - if necessary - thought and time, and at the job, at this time, there is no time for thought or shopping, no time for inspirations....
Brother and Sister are looked after, a rare - pleaded for lunch off and while wandering through a department store I have inspiration for my Father. A few shops later and I've found something closer to what I was looking for. This will suffice - the toughest person on my list by far.
But there is still the boy. There are numerous inspirations here as well, but this shopping for my father, it has consumed all of my free time....
In the end I purchase him an Ipad, I justify it with the fashion-ability of it, the argument that it will be useful (but really, how?), that he should know a different OS than windows, that everyone (who, exactly, is everyone?...) has one...
He appreciates it, thanks me, offers to return it, he knows my finances aren't THAT good...
And me, I'm the guilt wracked parent, not spending enough time with him, not spending enough time finding him the right gift, instead throwing - like so many others - money at a problem that really should be addressed by my parenting or involvement, instead I'm the guilt wracked father, throwing away money where I should be throwing my time...