Time

Just recently, the dishes are glaring reproachfully at me from beneath thick layers of dessicated stir-in pasta sauce, the bathroom floor is harbouring new and interesting forms of life, the telly is feeling unloved because I don’t even look at it for days on end, threatening paperwork is ganging up on my kitchen table, and I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow. It feels like there isn’t a second in the day that isn’t accounted for, and just watching TV or cooking a proper meal feels like a luxury. This from nine months ago where an entire day dedicated to reading a book or analysing navel fluff was perfectly acceptable.

Even if I wanted to cook a proper meal, the contents of my fridge have been reduced to the level of ‘condiments and sorry looking vegetables only’. A ketchup and pickle-topped tomato with a side order of pesto just won’t do it.

My mate Lou describes this as a good time for a pum pum. Boo hoo you may say. Well, balls to you. This is my blog and I’ll pum pum if I want to.

They say you’re supposed to live every day as if it was your last, but if it was my last day, I certainly wouldn’t spend it running around like a blue-arsed fly. Analysing navel fluff would be just fine – even someone else’s.

London is supposedly all about living life to the full, 24/7, a hectic social life, and saying things to your friends like “I think I can pencil you in for a coffee next August”. As I said to Iain a short while ago, I remember the time when we were seven years old, and if a friend asked you out to play, you didn’t consult your calendar before blowing them off, you just asked yourself, “have I had my tea?”. If the answer was yes, you went out and played. If the answer was no, you still went out and played, you just had tea at their place.

…there is a strong tendency for us to over-commit the future, so that when the future becomes present, we seem to be conscious all the time of having an acute scarcity, simply because we have committed ourselves to about thirty hours a day instead of twenty-four. In addition to the mere fact that time has competitive uses and high marginal utility in an affluent society, this overcommitment creates a sense of pressure and harriedness.
Ivan Illich – Tools for Conviviality

I am overcommitted and knackered. Studies are suffering, work is unrelenting, friends are being put off until next August. All my time seems to be getting spent on all the things I’m least enthusiastic about.

Stress levels rise even further when confronted with the monstrously tacky, hackneyed orgy of crap that is Christmas. I can’t even be bothered dignifying the comments of lunatics like John Sentamu, suggesting that Secularists are de-Christianising Christmas. Actually, I can. When plump-breasted Kerry Katona hovers over plump-breasted turkeys in Iceland adverts and John Sentamu complains about Christians feeling offended (again) by moves for a more inclusive midwinter celebration, while people across the world are suffering and dying, and we are expected to give thanks to an omnipotent deity that hasn’t done a thing about any of it, I’d like someone to tell me what use Christmas is to anyone. This all sounds like I’m going to start singing “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”.

Kerry can shove her turkey up her arse. John can do the same with his offence. No-one’s getting presents. I’m giving to charity and getting some sleep, and if anyone plays “So here it is, Merry Christmas” to me, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.

Possibly related posts:

• All the time in the world
• Time flies
• The office Christmas party
• Saved for posterity. Come in The Onion, your time is up. The Daily Mail is a living caricature of itself.
• Moving time