Manuel's day off, a lesson in wasting time.
9.30am - Alarm went off, I swore, then I realised I was off work and tumbled over for another couple of hours snoozing.
9.33am - Swore again as it dawned on me that I had arranged to meet both my sister and The Boy Who Writes Backwards for lunch. That ain't gonna work so someone needs lied to.
10.05am - Much more swearing as I've dropped off again and still haven't cut someone from lunch. TBWWB gets sent a text message. Shitty I know but I'm not very talkative this early in the morning. I summon the TV into life and then the Mac. I say summon but really I just used the remote which I had been sleeping on and have now got remote control shaped ridges on my left cheek. Voice activated stuff would be so much cooler.
10.27am - Wake up with remote control in my hand and a creak in my neck, that'll be more swearing then. It dawns on me that I fucking swear too much. Check emails, blog stats, comments, and delete spam. The spam monkeys really are worried about the proficiency of my pee pee. It's nice that somebody cares.
10.50am - Finish second smoke and then begrudgingly haul my ass out of bed. Cant be bothered making bed as the sheets need changed. I'll do that later.
11.50 am - I'm at the bus stop with two old ladies who are giving me very dirty looks for smoking. I move, but not before blowing a nice big puff of smoke in their direction. Passive eh. The busman is very nice for once, probably because it's a woman busman. I take the back seat safe in the knowledge that all the happy slapping, knife wielding, puffa jacket wearing kids are at school beating their teachers and stuffing the heads of younger children down toilets.
12.15pm - Muriel's Cafe Bar. Sister is already there. This perplexes me and has me on edge. I like to be seated before others. I don't know why, I just do. Total control freak. We order and I tick off the standard family questions. My sister is the oracle of all family related business. You get updated on everything from babies to impending deaths. We have one of each at the moment, so I've dropped my suit off at the dry cleaners.
12. 30pm Food arrives, we both have the Chorizo and bean stew. I slightly regret it, not because it's not delicious because it very much is but because I'll suffer with heartburn later. I'm so old it's not true. This thought distracts me right through lunch and I end up not really listening to my sister's list of family related instructions pertaining to upcoming birthdays etc.
1pm - Get shot of my sister and go for a wander about the town.
1.17pm - Fuckity fuck fuck I'm so bored. Have a smoke and consider my options. Forced to stub out my smoke and move on as a very strange man decides to sit beside me. He smells of feet, lots of feet, and not just human feet either. He had a collection of newspapers in a plastic bag that he clung onto for dear life and looked too similar to Paulie Walnuts for comfort. And I'm convinced there's something moving in his pocket. Way too weird.
1.22pm - New smoke rolled and a much more satisfactory seating arrangement obtained. Well it was free from creeps and weirdos which is the best you can hope for. I sat back and considered what to do with my day off. I have cash, I have time, I can do whatever I want. So I just sat there and watched the citizens of Belfast. Five horrifying minutes later I thought that I had better move on before people start throwing money at my feet or worse, feet at my money.
1.28pm - Fuck it, I'm going home. Taxi this time, I'm not gonna push my luck and try and get two agreeable bus journeys on the same day. It's not possible. I'll chalk the first one up as a success and leave it at that.
2pm - Bollocks, missed Doctors. Could this day get any worse. Checked blog stats, oh look seven people searching for "biggest cocks" and one for "how long does it take for ebola to kill you?" and another for, wait for it, "beetroot anal fissure". The mind boggles. Sometimes I feel like taking a hose to the blog and blasting the filth off the walls after these dirty people have been in. Oh their disappointment must be so deflating when they find no large penises or beetroot. This blog has been beetroot free for a year and a half and I intend to keep it that way. Big dicks may appear from time to time but that has little to do with me. Check email, dull, dull, dull, dull, "satisfy your woman with...", dull, dull, dull.
2.20pm - Decided to phone Dad to see if his Setanta viewing card has arrived. It had, not that he was able to figure out what to to with it. I could just see him there with the TV taken apart and wires in his mouth and the viewing card on fire. Bless, but he is a total technophobe. As predicted it wouldn't work. He fell at the first hurdle, re-scan TV. Someone's gonna have to go and do it for him. Someone else....
2.30pm - 3.55pm NOTHING HAPPENED. DIDN''T DO A THING. NOTHING. NADA. NOWT. ZILCH. SO BORED! Desperate times call for desperate measures. Considered cleaning. Mulled over mopping. Looked at laundry. Dismissed them all. I'm bored not mental.
4pm - Spot my next door neighbour out cleaning her step and decide for some unfathomable reason to pop out and pass a moment with her. She's an old dear and really quite lovely, in every way the perfect Hallmark Grandmother. I often pass the time of day with her and discuss the weather. Always the weather. I light a smoke and meander my way outside. She misses nothing and hails me with,
"How yi's doin?", she shuffles towards me with cleaning rag in hand.
"I'm very well, how you doing? Getting some cleaning done?"
Completely ignoring my questions she jabs the rag in the direction of the "TO LET" sign on the house next door and asks if I'm moving out.
"No not me, I like it here, nice and quiet. Next door is empty again though."
"Ah right...", says she and follows up with, "....I'm glad it's not you, you can stay as long as you want."
"I hope he doesn't move any students in, far too noisy." I was stunned by her reply, stunned, shocked and slightly perturbed.
"It's not the students yi's need til worry bout. It's the bloody Chinks....Bloody Chinks and the Japs too. I hate them bloody Japs."
"Oh......Eh....Right ho, must be going....", says I walking backwards away from her. This was most awful, my cute little old neighbour is a racist. My arse was I gonna hang around and wait for her to get stuck into some other random race. Maybe the Icelandic or the Fijians annoy her too. That's another one off the xmas card list.
4.10pm - Sighed. Had a cup of tea and biscuit to try and get over the horribleness of it all. And then considered a wee nap. But reasoned against it because I might enjoy it too much and then want to have wee naps everyday and that's not a route I should be going down at this age. So I lazed about, which is a different thing altogether.
5.56pm - Decided I still couldn't be mithered changing bed sheets so I tidied the bed but left sheets out just in case LMM felt like doing it for me.
5.59 - Put sheets back in the cupboard as I realise LMM isn't coming round tonight. That'll be another week then of funky bed sheets. I'm not talking James Brown funky either.
6.06pm - 6.58pm Stared at the fridge for a very long time, so long in fact that my man nipples went hard. Lashed together some pasta, sauce, bread and tapenade, and felt pretty smug about it too.
The rest of the evening was spent watching the football and writing this. What a waste of a day. I suppose it wasn't all bad though as I learned a few things - Grannies can be just as racist as anyone else, I smoke and swear too much and that I need to plan my days better. Thank fuckity Wednesday is a new day. I will endeavor to be more productive and avoid conversations with racists Grannies. Oh and WDF did swish past the two hundred thousand mark, so the day wasn't all wasted. Thanks folks for popping by, it cheers my cold black heart.
9.33am - Swore again as it dawned on me that I had arranged to meet both my sister and The Boy Who Writes Backwards for lunch. That ain't gonna work so someone needs lied to.
10.05am - Much more swearing as I've dropped off again and still haven't cut someone from lunch. TBWWB gets sent a text message. Shitty I know but I'm not very talkative this early in the morning. I summon the TV into life and then the Mac. I say summon but really I just used the remote which I had been sleeping on and have now got remote control shaped ridges on my left cheek. Voice activated stuff would be so much cooler.
10.27am - Wake up with remote control in my hand and a creak in my neck, that'll be more swearing then. It dawns on me that I fucking swear too much. Check emails, blog stats, comments, and delete spam. The spam monkeys really are worried about the proficiency of my pee pee. It's nice that somebody cares.
10.50am - Finish second smoke and then begrudgingly haul my ass out of bed. Cant be bothered making bed as the sheets need changed. I'll do that later.
11.50 am - I'm at the bus stop with two old ladies who are giving me very dirty looks for smoking. I move, but not before blowing a nice big puff of smoke in their direction. Passive eh. The busman is very nice for once, probably because it's a woman busman. I take the back seat safe in the knowledge that all the happy slapping, knife wielding, puffa jacket wearing kids are at school beating their teachers and stuffing the heads of younger children down toilets.
12.15pm - Muriel's Cafe Bar. Sister is already there. This perplexes me and has me on edge. I like to be seated before others. I don't know why, I just do. Total control freak. We order and I tick off the standard family questions. My sister is the oracle of all family related business. You get updated on everything from babies to impending deaths. We have one of each at the moment, so I've dropped my suit off at the dry cleaners.
12. 30pm Food arrives, we both have the Chorizo and bean stew. I slightly regret it, not because it's not delicious because it very much is but because I'll suffer with heartburn later. I'm so old it's not true. This thought distracts me right through lunch and I end up not really listening to my sister's list of family related instructions pertaining to upcoming birthdays etc.
1pm - Get shot of my sister and go for a wander about the town.
1.17pm - Fuckity fuck fuck I'm so bored. Have a smoke and consider my options. Forced to stub out my smoke and move on as a very strange man decides to sit beside me. He smells of feet, lots of feet, and not just human feet either. He had a collection of newspapers in a plastic bag that he clung onto for dear life and looked too similar to Paulie Walnuts for comfort. And I'm convinced there's something moving in his pocket. Way too weird.
1.22pm - New smoke rolled and a much more satisfactory seating arrangement obtained. Well it was free from creeps and weirdos which is the best you can hope for. I sat back and considered what to do with my day off. I have cash, I have time, I can do whatever I want. So I just sat there and watched the citizens of Belfast. Five horrifying minutes later I thought that I had better move on before people start throwing money at my feet or worse, feet at my money.
1.28pm - Fuck it, I'm going home. Taxi this time, I'm not gonna push my luck and try and get two agreeable bus journeys on the same day. It's not possible. I'll chalk the first one up as a success and leave it at that.
2pm - Bollocks, missed Doctors. Could this day get any worse. Checked blog stats, oh look seven people searching for "biggest cocks" and one for "how long does it take for ebola to kill you?" and another for, wait for it, "beetroot anal fissure". The mind boggles. Sometimes I feel like taking a hose to the blog and blasting the filth off the walls after these dirty people have been in. Oh their disappointment must be so deflating when they find no large penises or beetroot. This blog has been beetroot free for a year and a half and I intend to keep it that way. Big dicks may appear from time to time but that has little to do with me. Check email, dull, dull, dull, dull, "satisfy your woman with...", dull, dull, dull.
2.20pm - Decided to phone Dad to see if his Setanta viewing card has arrived. It had, not that he was able to figure out what to to with it. I could just see him there with the TV taken apart and wires in his mouth and the viewing card on fire. Bless, but he is a total technophobe. As predicted it wouldn't work. He fell at the first hurdle, re-scan TV. Someone's gonna have to go and do it for him. Someone else....
2.30pm - 3.55pm NOTHING HAPPENED. DIDN''T DO A THING. NOTHING. NADA. NOWT. ZILCH. SO BORED! Desperate times call for desperate measures. Considered cleaning. Mulled over mopping. Looked at laundry. Dismissed them all. I'm bored not mental.
4pm - Spot my next door neighbour out cleaning her step and decide for some unfathomable reason to pop out and pass a moment with her. She's an old dear and really quite lovely, in every way the perfect Hallmark Grandmother. I often pass the time of day with her and discuss the weather. Always the weather. I light a smoke and meander my way outside. She misses nothing and hails me with,
"How yi's doin?", she shuffles towards me with cleaning rag in hand.
"I'm very well, how you doing? Getting some cleaning done?"
Completely ignoring my questions she jabs the rag in the direction of the "TO LET" sign on the house next door and asks if I'm moving out.
"No not me, I like it here, nice and quiet. Next door is empty again though."
"Ah right...", says she and follows up with, "....I'm glad it's not you, you can stay as long as you want."
"I hope he doesn't move any students in, far too noisy." I was stunned by her reply, stunned, shocked and slightly perturbed.
"It's not the students yi's need til worry bout. It's the bloody Chinks....Bloody Chinks and the Japs too. I hate them bloody Japs."
"Oh......Eh....Right ho, must be going....", says I walking backwards away from her. This was most awful, my cute little old neighbour is a racist. My arse was I gonna hang around and wait for her to get stuck into some other random race. Maybe the Icelandic or the Fijians annoy her too. That's another one off the xmas card list.
4.10pm - Sighed. Had a cup of tea and biscuit to try and get over the horribleness of it all. And then considered a wee nap. But reasoned against it because I might enjoy it too much and then want to have wee naps everyday and that's not a route I should be going down at this age. So I lazed about, which is a different thing altogether.
5.56pm - Decided I still couldn't be mithered changing bed sheets so I tidied the bed but left sheets out just in case LMM felt like doing it for me.
5.59 - Put sheets back in the cupboard as I realise LMM isn't coming round tonight. That'll be another week then of funky bed sheets. I'm not talking James Brown funky either.
6.06pm - 6.58pm Stared at the fridge for a very long time, so long in fact that my man nipples went hard. Lashed together some pasta, sauce, bread and tapenade, and felt pretty smug about it too.
The rest of the evening was spent watching the football and writing this. What a waste of a day. I suppose it wasn't all bad though as I learned a few things - Grannies can be just as racist as anyone else, I smoke and swear too much and that I need to plan my days better. Thank fuckity Wednesday is a new day. I will endeavor to be more productive and avoid conversations with racists Grannies. Oh and WDF did swish past the two hundred thousand mark, so the day wasn't all wasted. Thanks folks for popping by, it cheers my cold black heart.
So what did you do on your last day off? Eh?
30 People trying to get Manuel's attention:
Jinx!
If I drank Coke, you'd owe me one, Manuel. Paulie Walnuts and a racist granny, what a weird coincidence today, hmmm?
Your smoking makes me jealous, btw.
I had a lovely day today and found this dress I had imagined for weeks now. It was snowing as I headed home. Sweet.
medbh: too freaky by half.....Your non-smoking makes me really jealous. The time is soon approaching...
i dont have days off. i work 5 days a week as a youth worker and 2 days as a play therapist. and i go to college 2 mornings a week. and i teach first aid 1 night a week. and i have a scout group to run. and i get drunk far too often. bwahahaha.
byw: if anyone needed to explain their day's/nights off it's you....spill...
i'm always too knackered to do anything! i go home and sort out my admin/arts and crafts for the next day and sit watching ab fab all night...or get roaring drunk at one of our fine establishments and show up all dishevelled and unprepared the next day :)
the life of a belfast youth worker seems to be one filled with glamour and glitz....arts and craft eh, bet your up to your neck in stick prit and glitter...
Sounds like it's time to do something different.You need to go to Paris as planned and set some goals.You need a challenge.I see a change coming for you.
How about a beetroot shaped like a penis?
I have had the flu for 3 days and feel like sh*t. I have done absolutely nothing besides laying about. All without pay *sobs*
You young uns don't know what its like to be nipped by the chinks. I fought the Japs in the cold war which was bloody freezing if the Yanks had dropped 5 nukes instead of 2 I wouldn't of had to fight them. Are the chinks not just japs anyway?
You live in Belfast, walk ya lazy bastard the city I live in here is small (35 miles long)you have no excuse.
What an exciting day.
I had something else I wanted to say, but I forgot what it was.
'Dear Diary,
Today I didn't change the sheets.'
heeee
You may have had a boring day, but you gave me a very entertaining few minutes while i procrastinated about going for a swim. Thank you!
My last day off I stayed in all day ignoring the ringing phone, reading books and blogs and the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue and noting such Google searches as "Tiny cocks with ginger pubes".
I'm retired, every day is a day off. And they run about like yours, except that I don't smoke, and spend way too much time on the internet. And this is the third day in a row I've "forgotten" to do the laundry. If I don't tomorrow, I'll have to go naked.
I enjoyed one off just this Monday passed, and bloody fantastic it was, too.
I sat in bed until about 11 with the laptop, when I got up and put some clothing on, and got back into bed again for more laptopping. I eventually got up, watched some trashy telly, played some RockBand, and then mustered up some energy to give the house a once over and tackled the forest of a backyard with a whole bottle of weedkiller. Fantastic!
last day off... last day on is a better question. Glad to see belfast hasnt changed too much without me. racism still alive and well unfortunatly. oh well they will all die off eventually.
last day off.......hmmm. I held up a bank.
Anyway Manuel you need to go to the movies, or perhaps browse in some shops that you find agreeable. Going home ends the day (especially if you are forced to deal with jap hating old dears)
lol, the life of a belfast youth worker is a finely tuned blend of childcare, white wine, trashy tv and metro day tickets. but i wouldnt change it for the world :) i am always up to my neck in fabric paint and junk art... :D
Manuel, nice blog you have there. How about reading a book? You don't have to leave your bed to do that and some people claim that reading books is less worthless than worthless.
Two questions:
- I like your blog and I like Adam Sandler movies at the same time. Does that make you feel dirty?
- How do you check your blog stats? I have a blog on "blogger" too and don't know how.
Pretty much any day off consists of: hangover, food, tv, pub - in whatever ratio the day dictates.
I'm having such a productive day I don't even have time to reply to comments.....check me out!
okay okay I was having a wee nap.....
the "beetroot anal fissure" was me.
Sorry.
was that REALLY a day off, because it seems you'd get more rest at work.
I'm a parent - I don't get days off. Up at 7.00am every single morning as I've got a diabetic daughter and she needs insulin and feeding by 8.00am. No Saturdays/Sundays, no Christmas, no New Years off.
I had Monday off, as it happens. Unfortunately, my body clock wasn't notified and I was wide awake at the usual school hours. So I went down the shops, got a few ingredients, came home and watched trash tv for a while til my eyeballs starting hurting. So that was all of 10 minutes then.
Checking my blog reveals someone looked for 'can big birds eat small birds'. One of the great metaphysical questions in life, I'm sure you'll agree. I thought about writing a blog post but then nap time beckoned. Nothing better than the self-satisfied snooze of one who knows their co-workers are slaving away at that very moment.
There then followed a whole lot of doing nothing in particular, and it was a delicious waste of time. Later on, I tried making marshmallows, which are also delicious but turned out to be a waste of time - but in a bad way as I ballsed them up.
I must have done something between then and going to bed but I have no idea what it was.
Who is The Boy Who Writes Backwards?
steve: change? I should be so lucky.....
sherry: I feel your pain..get well
old k: walk? pfft.....how little you know me
minnow: oh yeah every day is gang busters round these parts....
kate: glad someone got some benefit out of it...
mj: the internet is such a lovely wholesome place....
silverstar: laundry...what a drudge....
rantoloti: swapsies?
niall: fingers crossed
redleeroy: I find nothing agreeable....nothing
byw: we should definitely swap some time....
anonymous: yes but when I'm reading books who's annoying old ladies eh eh? Add sitemeter or statcounter to your site then watch as your obsession grows....adam sandler is always wrong and I can never condone such behaviour...
sheepo: living the dream there fella....
you usually make your bed?!
lordy, lordy i love your blog.
a.b: Oh I very much doubt that......but just to be on the safe side explain yourself?
trekkie: okay no swapsies with you
jen: making marshmallows.....nice.....life cant be all that bad if there;s time to make marshmallows....
frank b: Mr RGS......hope that helps
ponies: meh....from time to time....
melissa: awh thanks for that. check back soon....there's more in a half hour....
I'm not sure if you could call a day off studying/doing homework and begrudgingly going door to door surveying people on who they're voting for in the next presidental election. If the activities above don't apply, I can't remember the what I did the last time I had a day off- I probably listened to some music, watched an indie or classic hollywood movie, and maybe wrote more on my screenplay- much more boring in comparasion to yours.
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