Life Is A Bed Of Roses

Oh my, how I hate cleaning the shower. My shower's role in life is to clean ME, so why should I return the compliment? It should be able to clean itself, the lazy fucker. So, having got that off my chest, what else is there to tell you, dear reader? Well, all of life is a struggle (or so the Buddhists would have us believe) and it has been just thus in recent days. However, I am slowly getting my pathetic life into some sort of order - I completed both my VAT Return (very complicated this quarter) and my Tax Return this week. This involved wading laboriously through knee-deep paperwork and bending my head around a maelström of figures (most of which started out as incorrect), until I had a semblance of a realistic financial picture. The wonderful feeling of relief though, when it's all finished, is a joy to experience. As a child I used to suffer from excruciating migraines - the pain was so bad that I often just wanted to kill myself - but the relief when the pain had finally dissipated was so luxuriant that waking up from the horror of it would give me a renewed love of life. And that's how I feel this week.

It's been a bit of a social whirl again recently. I should point out that I am meant to be moderating my lifestyle at the moment, and so have been trying hard to impose some rules on myself. I've been having some early nights with little or no alcohol, and I have sometimes resisted the feral call of the social scene and remained within my apartment (during one celebrated sojourn I realized that I hadn't spoken to another human being in over 36 hours). But there are many demands on my time, and all too often I am just too weak to resist. I like seeing my friends though, so it is unreasonable to think that I can become a total recluse. On Friday I went to see the film 'The Black Swan' and subsequently created a furore on Facebook when I had the temerity to slam the film. I simply didn't enjoy it - I felt that it was cheap and clichéd, and I didn't think much to the acting either. Most people I know have declared me as wrong - and perhaps I am - but if I didn't enjoy it, I can't pretend that I did.

The remainder of this weekend was passed in a haze of drunken revelry - two separate parties and several other general eating and drinking events. If I had saved up all the money that I have misspent on alcohol over the years, I could afford several skiing holidays and would be living in a much more sumptuous apartment than this one, I can tell you. Of course, there are many other important things I could use the money on, but these two items are of particular concern to me at the moment. This is the first year in many when I don't have a skiing trip planned, and this has caused me to yearn for the thrill of the slopes. Unfortunately, few of my friends ski (and my normal skiing chums decided this year to make arrangements that didn't suit me), so I have nobody to go with - even if I could afford it. And this apartment is getting me down too. It has suddenly become far too small - especially as I am sorting out my possessions from my other house and continue to bring more and more items of detritus from there to here. I am knee-deep in boxes and spare furniture, whereas I should be heading for a more minimalist lifestyle. Oh hell and spite! I really should get myself sorted soon.

January has rushed itself to an early conclusion, with little achieved. But as I said above, I do have a renewed excitement for life and so I'm convinced that February will be better. February - usually the month in which I go skiing. Grrr. Now I've made myself unhappy again. Doh!