Unspirational

The last two days I had the bright idea of getting up early, and heading to the pool and gym respectively, with the hope that it would give me a shot of productivity.  The other benefit of doing this, aside from the sense of well-being that comes with physical exercise, is being able to tell other people about it.  Unfortunately I don't own a smartphone, so facebook and its inhabitants couldn't see that I checked-in to the Mardyke at 6.45 on Tuesday morning.  Fortunately the pool didn't open until seven, so this gave me fifteen minutes to text a huge portion of my contacts to let them know what I was up to.  One would never be so vulgar as to blatantly say: "Hey, I'm just heading in for an early morning swim, it's the kind of thing I do, you know, seeing as I'm so much better than you."  A certain amount of tact has to be observed, so the approach was to send a bland generic text along the lines of: "Hey, what are you up to?  Any craic?"  The replies would be along the lines of: "It's not even 7 am, why the fuck are you texting me?  Is everything alright?"  Then I would casually deploy my answer: "Yeah, everything's grand, just going for a swim, might catch up with you later, yeah?"  If they replied while I was inside breast stroking and back crawling it would be: "Sorry for not replying sooner, I was just having a swim, everything's grand here, might catch up with you later, yeah?"  This lets them know that I was up bright and early exercising, and being better than them is not thrown in their face, but skilfully and smugly implied.

Unfortunately, this did not work out according to plan.  Most people did not reply, because usually when they see a neutral and benign text from me it really means that I'm after something, and that this is just the first move in some game I'm playing.  Of the few replies I received, most were along the lines "Just on my way to work, have you ever thought of getting a job?", or "Just coming home from work, working nights is a bitch, but this is how it goes", or "Just finished the morning feed, teething + breastfeeding + dreaming of sleep = ...."  As it turns out, none of these people were impressed that I had gotten up with the aid of an alarm clock at a time that most grown ups are awake and getting on with their grown up lives.  I also felt that they were giving off the vibe that finding and holding down stable employment, and/or starting a family somehow made them better than me, a 31 year old adolescent and out of work DJ.  Way to go and flaunt your life achievements in the face of the less fortunate.  This did not phase me (ok, it really really irked me, but let's pretend it didn't), as if I cannot get the admiration of the masses for kick-starting my day with porridge, scrambled egg, and good overhand technique, they would surely applaud the immense productivity which followed.

In terms of creativity, Tuesday was a black hole of nothingness and despair.  The hole was incredibly dark and black, as if its owner had been drinking shitloads of stout the night before.  I felt like a jellyfish floating around this void, with nothing to sting and no sting in my tentacles, a cytoplasmic blob of blancmange in a pointless sea of infinity.   There was an hour or so of banging away at the keyboard, but all that poured out were increasingly morose variations on the theme: "Why am I such a useless sack of shit?"  This eventually morphed into: "Why I am such a useless sack of shit."  Reading over it today, it was eloquently phrased and incredibly well-written (as one would expect), but the tone was oh so emo, and the content was far from entertaining, so it will have to be scrapped.  Yesterday I got up early, hit the gym, and again had a day that was a lot less than creative.  The kitchen was cleaned (it's not clean, just cleaner), and I replaced the battery in the smoke alarm.  Visitors always complained about its regular beep to hint that it required a new battery (which had been going on for at least two years), but to me it was like having a slightly annoying flatmate who was a source of company and companionship nonetheless.  The downside was that I didn't have a smoke alarm in the kitchen, which meant I had no way of knowing when the toast was burnt, and all the butter in the world is no match for overly burnt toast (readers of my Toast blog will be familiar with the many lengthy experiments I conducted in this field).  Today I reluctantly decided to write about the lack of inspiration and productivity of the last two days, which means that this topic can never be covered again, and there will be many more uncreative, unproductive, and uninspiring days ahead.