Winning at life

My two favourite hobbies in the world are being awesome and winning at life. So how is it that I’ve spent so much time and energy lately doing my worst two hobbies in the world; being lame and losing at life? Sitting and moping and sighing are not awesome activities. In the ‘Sazzictionary’ next to awesome are pictures of robots and Michael J Fox and falafel. There’s nothing to illustrate sitting and moping and sighing. So today I make a pledge – no more laming. Lame times are done with. I’m following the advice of one Barney Stinson; ‘when I’m sad I stop being sad and be awesome instead’. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll just stop being sad and be awesome instead. But maybe from tomorrow cos today I’m a little hungover. Might I add, ‘a little hungover seven days into my new teetotal regime and the second day of hungoverness in this period of time at that’? Yes. I rule at being teetotal. We’ll add that to the list of things I rule at. Though, in fairness, I did get a half rather than a full third pint of Stella last night. That, to me, is quite a concession to make. I don’t think I’ve ever ordered a half pint in my life. Unless it was for someone else. Half pints are for girls who listen to Westlife and think movies without Reece Witherspoon constitutes edgy filmmaking; it’s just science. Although I’m happy to be an anomaly in many other respects I don’t like to argue with the immutable laws of science itself. But a half pint was ordered, thus creating a rift in the universe that will only be repaired when a version of me from a parallel universe wearing a Westlife t-shirt and with a ‘I [heart] Reece!!!!’ badge comes to find me and, despite our differences, we have to work together to put everything right. I’ll write about that more when it happens.

Anyhoo, I decided that teetotalism was a ridiculous idea for someone that is, how to put this.. erm… fairly liberal with their drinking habits. I’m someone that, when told of others who ‘don’t drink that much, I assume they mean ‘I only get comatose once a week through the healing power of liquor’. That is until I saw a tiny American girl get drunk on one pint and overheard a woman at work saying she’d gone all out at the weekend and had two glasses of Lambrini. This is a completely alien concept as far as I’m concerned. I understand teetotal means ‘no alcohol’ and that’s fine but ‘not much’ actually meaning ‘not much’. That’s… weird to me. How do you stop drinking once you’ve started? I mean really, I want to know. I guess you need a degree of restraint in the first place. I was busy listing my favourite robots when God was giving that particular life skill out. I toyed with the idea of cutting alcohol out altogether but I think my body would go into total shock if there wasn’t a certain level of Kronenberg or red wine in my bloodstream so plumped for only drinking on one night a week. Friday of this week was earmarked for that and I even managed to not go completely overboard. Half a bottle of red wine and then a pina colada while you watch Wayne’s World is pretty low-key as far as I’m concerned. Having zilcho dollarbucks meant I wasn’t tempted out of the house on Saturday but then on Sunday a certain gay boy phoned and said he needed a drinking buddy. Normally when I’m watching Curb’d and decorating mixtape covers I will refuse to leave my spot but when it’s your favourite gay and he sounds in distress you have no choice.

‘Now?’
'Yes'
‘Well give me five minutes so I can make myself presentable’
‘Should I give you an hour or so?’
‘I feel I should tell you I find that really insulting’

Anyway, despite that we went to the pub and bitched about boys and my resolve to drink only one night a week crumbled pretty much the minute I picked up the phone. If your favourite gay wants to hang with his favourite alcoholic skank then it seems disingenuous to not have her come out to play. I’m glad I did. It’s steeled my resolve to not be lame anymore. But the fact remains that this teetotal thing is not going quite as planned.

So why are you even bothering being ‘teetotal’ (try and imagine the quotations are pool of sarcasm in this instance) in the first place I hear you ponder (that was pondering right? What you did just now? Ok good, just checking). Well, there are two things, over the last few months I’ve given up a lot of things; sex, drugs, being awesome, which I kind of needed to for my own sanity (except for the last one… but it turns out if you use something to make yourself feel better and then take that away you’re just confronted with the alarming realisation that you have to make yourself feel better and then the awesomeness is left a bit battered and bruised for a while) but I haven’t ever considered not drinking anymore. Partly because I think teetotallers are boring and lame, and partly because I think I’m mildly addicted to alcohol (if addiction means that you can’t actually give something up) (see above). So I kind of wanted to see if I could. Until I realised that I couldn’t (see above). Secondly, I’m loathe to admit this, but I have started a new diet plan: The Good Life Diet*. Of course, at first I picked it up thinking it would give me some hints and tips on being more like Felicity Kendall but alas no, it’s to make you be less of a lard arse (which, I guess could be considered being more like Felicity Kendall in many ways). I don’t really go in much for diets and stuff, particularly after living in a house of bulimics/sometime anorexics. Apparently, being super skinny doesn’t equate to happiness. I know, I know. It’s going to take a while to process this fact but I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes. However, although I’m not looking to be Portsmouth’s version of Mischa Barton, I would like to be able to run away if I’m in imminent danger or late for a train rather than just stand there huffing and puffing like Homer does in that Simpsons episode when Marge becomes a policewoman. That kind of fitness is quite useful even if it’s infinitely more exciting to sit on a sofa watching The Hills and trying to work out if it’s real or not. It’s a reality show where they pause to get reaction shots? And act surprised when they’re enemies or whatever turn up even though they must have known about it because surely the producers would have mentioned it? Is it a soap? These aren’t really their real lives is it? IS IT? I find the whole thing incredibly perplexing. But yeah, this diet dealio, it’s got Oprah’s seal of approval and seems very sensible (the ethos being – eat less and move around more) but while you ease yourself gently into the new routines this contains you have to [cue sinister ‘dun dun dun’ music]… stop drinking. So that’s mainly why. Because a book told me to. But then I kind of ignored the book and did my own thing anyway. I have however been exercising the last couple of days. For reasons and motivations I’d rather not get into here I’ve amassed a fair collection of workout DVDs, some of which I like better than others (For instance, ‘30 Minute Workout’ with annoying piece of string Grade A bitch face patronising bitch is not as fun as ‘Bodylicious’ with Vogue from Gladiators and this dance dude guy who was a judge on Wade Robson’s Shakedown).

Saturday was my first try at my ‘Hip Hop 2’ DVD. Of course we all remember the existential pathos that Hip Hop 1 gave the world but would Hip Hop 2 deliver the goods? Well, yes and no. If ‘deliver the goods’ means ‘make you look like a twat’ then it did so in spades. I can’t do a freaking pas de bourrée to save my life. I can do jazz hands quite well. Pas de bourrée less so. It also doesn’t help that I don’t know my left from my right so when you’re being told to do something most people find fairly simple such as ‘move the left leg back’ I either have to pause for long enough to work out which is left or just jump and twirl and hope for the best. I did eventually start getting the hang of Hip Hop 1 and can now donkey kick with the best of them (assuming the ‘best of them’ are not actually that good) so I will probably keep this one up. Then, on Sunday I did ‘power yoga’. Sweet mother of Keith Moon. Basically you’re just standing and stretching and balancing. That’s all it is. It’s been a fair while since I did any yoga but I remember it mostly for the interesting noises it caused and having to hold wacky poses for a really long time whilst a kindly camp Italian man said things that you weren’t sure you couldn’t understand because of his accent or because he was a yoga teacher (knowing of course that yoga teachers are, by nature or design, nuts and therefore likely to be fairly incomprehensible). That, and being utterly rubbish (but surprisingly limber for a chubby chick). But this shizz is way more effed up than that. I was sweating like a fat dude after eating a 16oz steak. Profusely. You have to twist and turn and press and pull like playdoh in a three year olds hands. Up and down and round and round. Stand here. Do this. Now put your leg here. And jump back and do the downward facing dog. Now stand up and swan dive. It’s like a mildly more energetic form of twister. Yet, when all is said and done, all you’re doing is standing and stretching and balancing. I don’t get why it’s so hard. Unless it’s just that I genuinely am the most unfit person on the planet. But today I am aching from the tip of my shoulders to the backs of my thighs. But in a slightly smug way so I think I’ll do it again (being smug is my third favourite hobby).

Yeah, I can rock this being awesome thing. I think I owe it to the world to give it my best shot at any rate.

*It's actually 'The Best Life Diet' which is much less funny when it comes to referencing 70's sitcoms