El Clásico

There is a chance I may have sufficiently recovered from Saturday night’s antics to remain articulate enough to get this post together. I’m not going to lie; it’s been a rough few days. The damage I took such joy inflicting upon myself over the weekend, seems to have been so great that 4 days later I still have lingering pains and a general sense of unease. I believe however, that the uneasiness may only increase over the next few days as the realisation that I may have to do it all again while cluck clucking around Clonakilty at Fay’s hen smacks me harder in the face every day. Perhaps, as I am a grown-up, I could see about taking a few lessons from “Sloshed Saturday”, applying what I’ve learned and concentrate on returning from the People’s Republic slightly less dishevelled and disgraced than last weekend...perhaps, perhaps not. We shall see.

So I’m currently settled on the couch, clad in PJs, cuppa in hand, watching football and wondering whether the headache that had plagued me for the past two days has finally gone away. I haven’t been able to figure out whether I was still hungover (aka dehydrated), had some business going on with my sinuses or simply just “stressed” (not likely). Whatever the cause, I’ve been bothered and I don’t like being bothered. The good news is that two days of a dull thud finally spurred me to get up off my ass and head out for a run. I haven’t been out since I got back from Espana and that’s pretty disgraceful considering I recently agreed to do the marathon again.  I reasoned that whatever the cause, a few miles pounding the pavement was likely to improve matters and so far so good. I have to say, even though I was suffering with a serious case of the belly-wobbles, I very much enjoyed my run in the sunshine. It seemed as though the whole of Dublin was out, smiles on faces, making the most of the weather and the various goings on also had me grinning from ear to ear - the family in the convertible, singing along to the radio at the top of their lungs; the guy, perched on his bike, who’d stopped for a big dirty ’99 on his way home;  schoolkids on their holls making the most of their days off and of course all the happy smiley dogs, overjoyed just to be in the park chasing balls, sticks and one another.

On my return home, I finally got stuck back into the “30 Day Shred”. Owtch. About a week late, but better now than never I suppose. The very intimidating Ms. Michaels had been working miracles on me prior to my sojourn in La Coruna, but 3 weeks away from shredding and all the good work was very rapidly reversing itself.  I decided to just go back to level 1, start there and see how I went. This was a bit sickening to be honest,  as I'd pretty much just finished level 2 three weeks ago before going away and eating and drinking my way around Spain. Funny thing is, I only put on about 3lbs on my epicurean (gluttonous) “holiday” , but I feel like it's so much more. Everything seems to be jiggling again. This leads me to understand that even when I do finally complete level 3, I can't simply stop. It really doesn't take much for all those inches lost and the tightness gained to turn to flab again.  Woe is me – it really is a never ending struggle.

Speaking of never ending struggles, I’m beginning to tire of watching Barcelona play Real Madrid. Ooh, maybe I take that back. As the “Special One” so often predicts, one of his boys, Pepe, has just been sent off. And now Mourinho himself seems to have been sent to the stands for good measure. Actually, tonight has been nothing short of thunderous from the start. The third of the El Clásico tetralogy (thank you The Guardian from teaching me a new word today) has been an exhibition of frayed tempers and pretty dyer football from the outset. This series of 4 matches promised so much and yet is delivering so little. Perhaps these two great teams are saving themselves for the finale next Tuesday. I think boxing may have to be rearranged just in case the fourth El Clásico actually becomes a classic. Still, I can sit here imagining I’m back in Spain, beer in hand and Tapas in front of me with shouts of “joder” echoing  around the bar with wild gesticulating to match. Vamos Barca! Time to squish Los Blancos.

Whoop whoop 1-0. Messi you beauty, el guapo! It's like you were listening to me.

And now it's 2. Messi again. Little genius.

3 Little Words...

"Copper Faced Jacks"

Just typing those three little words is turning my stomach yet again. There is puke on my new blue dress, a cigarette burn on my knee, unexplained cuts on my "décolletage" and I awoke with remnants of baby Guinness dried into my skin. Today has been a complete blur, never mind last night. Am debating (with little lucidity) the merits of texting back the randomer who procured my number in the Bleeding Horse. Merits are proving to be few so looks as though Paddy will not be the love of my life, or even date of the week.

Piecing together the night is proving difficult. Oh it all started off with such promise. Met the girls in Portabello for a lovely dinner in Seagrass, though the BYOB with no charge for corkage should have set the alarm bells ringing days ago. That, and the fact that I skipped off to dinner with 2 bottles of wine in the bag was bound lead to nothing but the drunkest of debaucheries.

Perhaps if I'd gone home post Bleeding Horse, when everybody else did,  instead of going to meet the brother and his mates in effin' Coppers (of all places) I might have come out of the night unscathed. I however, was very determined that at 1.30 am, the night was still young and I was only getting started. Coppers is quite simply a blur of double vodkas. I vaguely remember brother doling out some stern words and dirty looks to one of his mates who may have been trying to chat me up. I do not remember which mate but it's a nice little ego boost all the same. I barely remember leaving Coppers and have hazy memories of getting a taxi back to the lads house. The rest of the night is a mystery. I awoke on a couch in the wee small hours in desperate need of a puke but have no idea how I got there or how long I'd been comatose on said couch. Some kind soul had however put a blanket over me - one of the girls i suspect.

So today I am a shadow of my former self. Easter lunch out with the family was painful. I did OK to a point, largely because I was still drunk. But as the soberness set in it all just became that much more difficult. When I finally did make it home, there was nothing for it but to take to the bed for the afternoon.

Tomorrow will be a very different story altogether. There will be warm water with lemon to start the day, porridge, salads galore, yoga, running and a spot of 30 day shred. The time has come to call a halt to the food savaging I've been indulging in for the past 3 weeks and to return to Fatbook and my quest for the skinny.

As for my list ticking - it's been going ok. Apart from the PhD (surprise surprise) so tomorrow will also be a day of serious work on my part.

God, I just hope the hangover is gone by then. I couldn't handle another day of this. My brother, on the other hand, is, according to Facebook, on his way back to Coppers. Excuse me while I retch a little...

A Poem and a Plan

So I wrote a poem today. I'm not sure what I think about this. I never considered myself much of a poet but I actually don't think it's half bad (for a first timer!). All I know is that I had a heap of stuff in my head that simply had to come out and 20 minutes later I had some words resembling poetry on a page in front of me. There's a lot to be said for waxing poetical, brevity for one. I could write and write in this blog for hours on end and still probably not quite hit the right note, but in a few lines this avo, I had pretty much splurged my soul onto a bit of paper. Pretty cool me thinks. Unfortunately, said poem will not be seeing the light of day anytime soon, the light of this blog in any case. It's just a little too personal and raw, and lets face it, even though I seem to think I'm the next Seamus Heaney, it's probably crap.

Speaking of splurging one's thoughts on paper, I finally made use of that diary I bought back in January and have actually made a plan for the next few days. Go me!  I've a few bits to do that can be long-fingered no more. There's also the matter of some PhD work that I simply have to get finished, primarily because I'm sick to death looking at it and also because my supervisor is about to disown me. Materialism, a topic which I had once found interesting, now just gives me headaches and fills me with urges to hide under the duvet for a very very long time. These urges must be circumvented at all costs and pretty quickly too. If I succumb, I may not emerge for an age, except to eat the contents of the fridge and that's just bad to the very core of all that is bad.

So there are lists. Things I could potentially tick off. Did I mention I'm very bad at list-ticking? I'm just not one of those people who goes to sleep at night content in the knowledge that they did all their little jobs earmarked for that day. I tend to veer more towards the "nothing on list accomplished" gang. Which ultimately drove me to dispense with lists altogether. Yet here I am again, rearmed and ready to tick. Lets see how I do over the next few days. I'm here to sort out my life after all, perhaps list-making and list-ticking are the first few simple steps I need to take on my quest to journey out of the rut.

And sleeping. Shut-eye is also of vital importance. This is me after all.
Oíche mhaith ether.

The Lotto Win...

I was once asked, by a rather kooky recruitment consultant, what I would do if I won the lotto. I answered, in all naivety "a PhD". Well here I am, three years, no, nearly four years in and it's not exactly proving to be the ultimate dream catcher that I once envisioned of it. I'm sure it could be. And I'm sure when floppy hat day eventually arrives it will be one of the happiest and proudest days of my life (my father's too), but holy jesus, I'm going to need some serious motivation and inspiration to get there.

I guess I always knew this would be an issue. To say I have a lazy streak is a gross understatement of the facts. Motivation is also seriously lacking in my world. Coupled together, these two major flaws of mine could spell disaster for my academic adventure. I also have another problem, in that I'm quite happy where I am, thank you very much and as long as I don't bankrupt myself, could be quite content pottering around college for the foreseeable future. I assume this has something to do with the fact that I have absolutely no clue what to do with myself when I do eventually hand the precious Thesis in. The thought of actually applying for jobs, interviewing and making big life-changing decisions pretty much fills me with dread. Possibly because I worry that my efforts over the past few years, which have been mediocre at best, just aren't good enough and that I'll get found out again. Oh god, I think I feel a little bit sick. Time to hide under the covers and dream about massive lottery wins.

For the record, if I did win the lotto tomorrow, the revised list of things to do is as follows:

1. Pay someone to finish the PhD. Ok, so not exactly true. But I may have to employ someone to stand over me with a whip and make use of fear tactics and intimidation to bully and abuse me into working.
2. Buy the bungalow 2 doors down and get the builders in to transform it into a super cosy Cathy house complete with a kitchen Jamie Oliver himself would be jealous of. Oh to have an island in my kitchen and to cook with gas....
3. Do that creative writing course I've always wanted to do. Considering, at this point, how much of my PhD I may have to fabricate, I feel it's important to be able to tap into the inventive and imaginative side of my brain.
4. Haul ass down to Ballymaloe for a few months and have Darina et al teach me how to chef it up and really tickle the taste-buds. What's the point of the gas and the island if they're underutilised?
5. Hola! Finally learn Spanish. "La copa está bajo del autobus...". With phrases such as these I might see about finally bagging me a Spanish Senor. 
6. Get me a personal trainer. Actually, I probably wouldn't. I'd just go to boxing and yoga more often & use that killer combination of Zen and aggression to get rid of the belly wobbles.
7. Volunteer in the Dogs & Cats home and spend my days with some tail-wagging flea-bags. This however, is on the condition that I don't go crazy and adopt every dog I see. How many is too many I wonder? Anything over 4 I suspect.
8. And if I won big, donate some cash to the good folks at Barratstown. Either way I'd have to dessert the dogs for a few weeks and go have fun with the kids.
9. Travel and all that Jazz. First stops, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Best go buy me that winning ticket...

Here we go...

So, it seems I'm back to the world of blogging. Evidently, having a presence on Facebook, Twitter and Fatbook (times 2) is not sufficient internet exposure for me, so here I am.

Since I can't afford to pay for therapy, and lets face it, who'd want to listen to my very average and banal problems over and over again anyway, I thought perhaps I'd send them out into the ether and see if "putting pen to paper" or whatever they call the click click of online soul bearing these days could somehow

1. Furnish me with a degree of mental stability - just a little bit of sanity - please...
2. Trigger me into actually doing some work on my Phd or ultimately, even finishing the damn thing
3. Motivate me to get that last stone off my belly...ooh how it wobbles...
4. Figure out the love life - or lack thereof. No doubt I've made some ill judged choices in my time but surely karma can't have it in for me that much.
5. Think through life in general and try to determine what's next

Essentially, this is the place where I will be coming to sort myself out. How often I turn up and how much I have to say has obviously yet to be determined.

Yogi Berra once said "when you come to a fork in the road, take it". I feel I'm approaching that fork again and it's time to plough on through but there's a huge part of me that wants to turn around and run back. I'm 33 and have no idea where my life is going and that scares the bejaysus out of me. All I know is, one day I'll wake up and I'll be old, like proper "needs a nappie" old and I want to be able to look back and know that I achieved things, that I took chances, that I should be proud of who I am.

Don't get me wrong, I've done things I'm proud of. I just feel like I'm floundering at the moment. At a time when some friends are making life changing decisions, getting married, having babies, jetting off out of this bankrupt country, I wonder what's my destiny? What should I be doing?

The getting married and having babies option, is (unfortunately?) closed to me at the moment. Perhaps I've closed that option off to myself through some of the choices I've made. Perhaps it's not the most important thing in the world to me anyway. When I imagine my future, for some reason, husbands and kids don't really feature. My little bungalow with its fabulous kitchen is what stands out. Who knows, maybe I've been alone and cooking for one for so long that that's all my limited brain can conjour up. Where that little bungalow will be is also a mystery. Do I really have the balls (or the financial freedom) to just hop on a plane and move my life to some other country or am simply all talk?

So basically, heaps of decisions to be made. I'll try to get to them one at a time but I feel that this could be more like a big old cauldron of thoughts, musings and wonderings. As long as it doesn't boil over I should be fine.

I may even get inspiration for that book I seem to believe I have in me....