Posted by Elemental Grace on Jan 13, 2010 in
When Things Get Rough; Roll with the Punches Yesterday was a a monster of a day, otherwise known as evil ‘everything sucks’ Tuesday. It was one of those days where everything I touched turned to dust. I broke unimaginable amount of crockery by accident (and felt like breaking more on purpose by the end of the day!), the website I’m working on broke for no discernible reason and the new project I was working on got shelved from lack of funding. In short, it just sucked.
As a result, this morning I was feeling just a little bit wild, unpredictable and devil may care. I have these moods from time to time, and they most commonly come upon me when I’m bummed and feel like I have nothing left to lose, however far that may be from the truth.
These are the sorts of moods that often precede me doing something indefinably stupid, including for example:
- Pointing out to my boss that he’s an idiot (Done that)
- Quitting my job when I have nothing to take its place and not a lot in the way of savings (and that)
- Taken off to a new city or country just because I bloody well can (yep to that on multiple counts)
- Wandering the streets alone and unprotected in the midde of the night and into the early hours of the morning (umm, that too)
Well you get the general idea. So when I woke up feeling slightly wild, irresponsible and ‘damn it all’ this morning, you can imagine my trepidation knowing I had a full day of work at the emporium of mad metaphysical delights. It’s the sort of mood where I could have some real fun, share some of my own metaphysical insights, randomly hug customers or grab them as the mood takes amongst others and generally inflict upon them the insanity they inflict upon me from day to day.
The temptation to tell the lady who thought she was a mermaid, who told me she’d been electrocuted by God that she was (a) crazy and (b) that I quite like fried fish … absolutely overwhelming to the point that I REALLY don’t know how I contained myself.
I’ll pass through it soon enough to do the sensible thing and fight my way back to take my dreams and , as Dolly Parton says ‘shine, design, refine until they come true‘ but for now I’m battling the desire to spare the tact, tell people exactly what I think of them with added vitriol and ride off into the sunset eating the biggest chocolate cake you ever saw.
Tags: Rant
An acquaintance popped round earlier on this week, bearing as a gift, a bottle of plonk, which has rather inspired the musings for this post.
Contrary to its title, this post is less about drinking and more about abstinence, for I personally am not a big drinker. To those who knew me at University, this may trigger a moment or two of hilarity but it is nonetheless the truth. I don’t have a personal problem with alcohol, the drinking of it doesn’t upset me and I’m happy enough to have a glass if one is plonked in front of me, but truthfully, I’d probably rather have a cup of tea.
During my formative years, as we have all done, I experimented with alcohol, found my limits and occasionally exceeded them with less than desirable results. Somehow, over the years, it just stopped being a part of my life. I’m not a solitary drinker so I have always tended to keep the drink for presents or when I have guests and as someone who lives alone (well to all intents and purposes until I get my new lodger) I simply got into a habit of drinking fruit juice, tea or whatever else when I fancied something to drink, rather than reaching for the plonk.
That has its upsides. Drinking, for me, doesn’t have the associations it has for many of my age group – of relaxation and recreation, or of solace after a hard day and so I tend to enjoy what I do drink, however occasionally, on its own merits.
I find the current culture of drinking for the end result (getting drunk) rather than for the taste and experience of what you’re drinking completely alien. If you’ve ever been the sober one amongst a seething mass of drunks, it really can alter your perceptions of the human race, or indeed a few episodes of Booze Britain tends to have the same effect. I have no problems with the occasionally tipsy, particularly the slightly shambling but always amenable type, but what I can’t fathom is how from it being acceptable to be occasionally tipsy but always civil, it has become the norm to be loud, lairy, falling all over the place, vomiting copiously and generally creating an unpleasant effect on those around you.
As I was pondering, I thought I’d have a meander through some articles on binge drinking and a thread of comments particularly caught my eye. After some discussion about the weekly limits for men and women, somebody commented that as a woman, that meant that you could only safely drink one standard (175ml) glass of wine a night and that was ridiculous. It particularly caught my attention because my initial reaction was to question why exactly it was ridiculous.
I have quite often found, if going out to dinner with friends (and most of my friends are not antisocial or big drinkers) or colleagues, I am by far and away the slowest drinker amongst them. I rarely accept a top up (because I’m that much slower a drinker) and upon occasion I get a gentle ribbing for ‘nursing’ a drink all night, and I always have a couple of glasses of water with it. It’s all in good humour and luckily for me, my friends know me and would never be the sort of people to pressure me into drinking more. They know my limits as well as I do and accept them as much as they accept me. It’s not a requirement for a good time.
That said even I, at times, feel a pressure to be more like other people and perhaps stretch to that extra glass. I felt ever so slightly guilty for being a bit of a stick in the mud but when you think about it, there’s nothing to feel guilty about. I drink in moderation, know and stick to my limits and enjoy what I drink. That doesn’t seem in the least ridiculous to me.
Tags: Rant