That was the year that was

Right, Christmas is done.  It's over.  Let it go.  It really didn't touch the sides, Christmas, this year.  Not a festive thought scudded across my brain the entire time.  We didn't watch a Bourne film, or Bad Santa - not nothing.  I used to love Christmas so much.  I really did.  Now that's gone.  Is this inevitable?  Perhaps.

I think I may have fallen for that idiotic trope of reviewing myself that people tend to do at year's end.  I'll be honest with you: I didn't like what I saw.  I have a boring, alienating job.  I don't work nearly hard enough at my interests.  I'm not thoughtful and/or dutiful.  And I drink far too much.  So, what to do?  Well, the drinking is easy to remedy.  The trouble is it then leaves a big old hole in my schedule, which is likely then to be filled with boredom.  I dread boredom, really really fear and dread it.  I've always run from its shadow.  This no doubt explains the drinking.  But I know I can't carry on as I am, so I'll just have to suck it up a bit, as they say.

Why am I bored the whole time?  Anyone?  What is boredom anyhoo?  I'll look it up.

This is interesting:

"To be bored, some scientists reasoned, 'is to be in a state of longing for activity but unaware of what it is that one desires and to look to the world to solve the impasse,'" - http://www.livescience.com/23493-why-we-get-bored.html

That's it in a nutshell.  But what to do?  It appears I have to pay attention to my thoughts and outside stimuli more.  It doesn't say how one is to do this though.  Should I take up meditation again?  I did a bit of this during the summer but packed it in as a bad job.  You guessed it: it was boring.

Shit.

 

The afternoon before Christmas...

I'm at work.  It's Christmas Eve, and, as you'd expect, the office is vee quiet.  I work for a newspaper, and Xmas Day is the one day of the year that our industry traditionally draws breath.  I'm alone in my department too.  It's an odd experience, working on days like this.  It's sort of fun, in that it's different and certainly less pressured than proper works days.  But there's also that strange feeling of missing out.  You can't help thinking that the rest of humanity is having a rare old time, necking sherry in front of a roaring open fire while Bing Crosby croons from the mantelpiece.  I'm sure the truth is catastrophically more prosaic than that.  They're all probably watching shit telly and eating Jaffa Cakes.

The plan is to leave very shortly.  I don't know what I'm planning to do with the rest of the afternoon though.  I can't go shopping without having to be restrained by by armed officers and a Taser.  And I hate watching television in the afternoons.  I find it disspiriting...and common.

I might clean the oven.  Merry Christmas.

When is Christmas this year?

I've taken my psychological eye of the yuletide ball of late.  This is particularly irksome as I'd promised myself about a week ago that I wouldn't.  I should explain - "taking the PE off the YB" means allowing yourself to get swept up in the pre-Xmas brouhaha too early.  You keep thinking tomorrow's your last in the office for a few days when in fact you've still got twenty days left to toil

It's a real pick axe to the optimism when the alarm clock goes off at 7am then.  "Oh, fcuk, not another work day?" your brain complains as you fill the breakfast bowl with Bitesize Shredded Wheats yet again.  Also, "evening-Jerry" can be relied upon to drink too much and stay up late at this time of year because he, too, is convinced he's on holiday.  And there's nothing I can do to disabuse him of this misapprehension.

So, I'm stuck with it.  Could be worse I suppose.  I could be in an iron lung.

Gloam is where the heart is

I'm typing this at seven minutes to four in the afternoon, and it's virtually pitch black out.  You certainly wouldn't be able to negotiate a country lane without a miner's helmet on, not unless you like being run over by threshing machinery, that is.

Still, onwards and upwards.  I'm off out for a drink with former colleagues this evening, and it's good weather for gathering together in a cosy boozer on the banks of the Thames to share a couple of mugs of foaming mother's ruin with friends.  It's starting to feel like Christmas already.  And, let us face facts, Xmas is a bacchanal.  I know the Pope or Aled Jones would have you believe otherwise, but don't listen to them; the pagan festival that takes place at the end of the year, with all its attendant dancing, boozing and rutting, far far predates the arrival of Christianity.  The church simply chose to hitch its star to winterval's wagon.  So, be in no doubt, it's all about the carousing.  Happy Christmas - debase yourself.

The only downside to this season is its length.  Everyone is clammering to get drinks in the diary - former colleagues, relatives, old school friends, tramps I once gave money to - everyone.  This makes matters a little cluttered.  In a couple of weeks' time for example I've got carols (and drinks) on Tuesday, drinks with former colleagues on Wednesday, work's Xmas do on Thursday and a shindig at the neighbours' place on Saturday.  That leaves Friday free, and Friday, as everyone do be know, is pub night.  Phew is right.  I'm getting bilious just typing out the schedule.