Author: Irks and Quirks

I’ve realised I will never really love exercise…

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I wasn’t blessed with good health. Or chiselled features, or washboard abs. Good general tone and muscular structure? Nope. I got that family ass though. That was my gift. When it comes to staying healthy, I have to actually put the work in. How I wish I was one of those people who could do nothing and look and feel fabulous, but that is and will always remain nothing more than a pipe dream. When it comes to my health I know that simply eating healthily isn’t enough, I need to pair the eating well with exercise, yet when it comes to exercise I simply cannot motivate myself. My willpower is less than zero, I go through enormous amounts of effort planning a week of barely intense workouts…then fail miserably and give up halfway through the first week. I’m kidding of course! Halfway through the first minute would be more accurate. I. Just. Can’t. The only times I manage to consistently (and temporarily) stick to any kind of exercise routine is when it’s physiotherapist/doctor mandated. …

Things that ruin books…

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I love books and always have. I’m that person who would rather stay in and read, than go out and party (a book is like a party in your mind right?). But, I tend to find that no matter how great a book is. No matter how good the world-building, or how strong the characters, or how intriguing the plot…there are some things that leave me feeling cheated. Surely, I can’t be the only one who gets unnecessarily infuriated by the following: The “It was just a dream” ending… This is something that has irked me since I was a kid. You know how it goes. The plot drew you. You were left laughing, and crying, and scratching your head wondering how the main character was ever going to get out of whatever sticky situation they were in because every possible outcome you could imagine was completely illogical…then you get to the end and it was all just a dream. Like, what? I am lose use of properly English to explain how much I hate this. …

It’s almost Valentine’s Day again…

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That rush of emotions and feels you get when you fall in love is pretty incredible huh? Especially the first time around. I remember my first time well.  The clammy hands, heart palpitations and that flushed hot and bothered feeling…then the stress of wondering if those feelings were reciprocated…then the crushing pain in the pit of my stomach when I realised with some degree of certainty that the feeling would of course not be reciprocated because I’d fallen head over heels in love with a manmade object and as far as I knew they couldn’t have emotions like love (could they? Cos that could potentially solve a lot of my problems. Just saying…I’m not weird).  Yes, the thing I had fallen in love with was a Casio CTK-450 electronic keyboard (really not weird I swear) and we had many a phenomenal year together making beautiful music – until a…misunderstanding involving a friends Yamaha (which later moved in with me. The Casio responded by throwing an almighty strop and quit working a week later. I keep …

Don’t fight the bibliophilia…

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I tried not to buy a new book last month. I really did try. Then I realised I was being an idiot, and I bought a book. And then, before I paid for that book I realised that book would be lonely…and what kind of monster would buy a single book and take it home to books it has never even met before – that’s how you give an innocent book a complex – at least if there’s two of them from the same shop they have each other right? And anyway, it wasn’t real book shopping because I bought it used from a charity shop, therefore it wasn’t technically new and didn’t count.  And when you think about it, I was supporting a worthy cause. And if you’re going to do that you might as well go H.A.M right?! Cos otherwise you’re just a heartless, stingy… …long story short, my new bookcase arrives next week. I guess what I’m getting at is I really like books. And it’s becoming a bit of a problem. …

It’s not easy for some people to ‘switch off’…

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I find it reeeaaalllllyyyy difficult to switch off. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that my mind protests vociferously every time I try to – have you ever tried ignoring your own brain? It’s not easy – it’s like an over-excitable toddler who’s been fed adrenaline then gifted with a drum kit and a klaxon. My brain seems most active anytime I try to relax. That’s when I solve problems, create new problems (it’s not just me is it?!), and come up with my best ideas. I’m mentally reviewing my day, planning my future, thinking of the perfect comeback to an insult hurled at me in the playground when I was six (I know you are…but what am I?)  it feels like if I’m trying to relax and I’m not at least thinking about something, I have failed. At everything. I think it’s because we’re always hit with messages about how to make every second of every day productive. In order to be good at life, you have to constantly be doing. …

Wait…is this Tide Pod Challenge thing real?

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Like really? Is it actually a real thing? Are people actually doing it? Because in this moment, I am kind of confused. I’ve read a few things along the lines of: People are eating Tide Pods…and the makers of Tide Pods have had to issue a warning telling people not to eat Tide Pods…because they are dangerous to ingest. If you don’t know what a Tide Pod is…it’s the soap you put in your washing machine along with your dirty clothes to get them clean.  That’s right. It’s laundry detergent. And allegedly people are choosing to put it into their bodies instead of into their washing machines.  And not teeny little toddler people you can excuse for not knowing any better. Grown-ass people who without doubt should absolutely know better. Although in the interest of fairness – I understand that they aren’t all eating them…some of them are just putting the pods into their mouths, biting them and then spitting the detergent out. Which is obviously much better. My understanding (and somebody please correct me …

Why I gave up following health & fitness advice…

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Basically, it got to the stage where I felt like each week I didn’t die was a miracle – especially if it was a week where I didn’t fill my body full of certain ‘superfoods’, or partake in whatever the latest exercise craze was. I felt like I was starving my body of the vital nutrients and minerals it sorely needed, and it was only going to be a matter of time before my body crumbled from the sheer effort of keeping itself upright – despite the fact it had somehow managed to survive for so long before I even knew what a superfood was (I’m still not 100% sure I know!). …And then the following week I would find myself dicing with death again because I was eating goji berries (which are sooo two years ago, it’s like I’m not even serious about my health), not putting butter in my coffee (I hear this is a thing now?!), and still only doing mat Pilates instead of hardcore swinging-from-the-ceiling-from-a-bungee-cord-HIIT-workout-Pilates which, it was recently discovered, would …

Happy Belated Everything 2018

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Happy Belated Everything! Well hello there! Hope you’re enjoying 2018 so far especially since we all know what a godawful year 2017 was. Can I really have been the only person who felt it was one huge crap-fest year which left me in a perpetual state of What The F?! I doubt it. You can therefore imagine how the coming of 2018 was a highly-anticipated, fanfare-inducing event, during which…no person fell asleep prematurely almost missing the very event they waxed lyrical about for months (but that’s neither here nor there, and yes, I’m just going to gloss over the whole ‘haven’t posted anything in six months thing’ but I refer you back to my ‘crap-fest year which left me in a perpetual state of What The F?!’ statement made previously). But anyway, I am so far revelling in the New Year Positivity and have consciously left as much of the previous year’s BS as possible in the past where it belongs and I’m not going to dwell on it…too much…at least after this post because …

Sarcasm Reloading…

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Oh, hey there….hi, um…*slowly waves* it’s been a while since I checked in huh? Ummm….so… Ok then. Just a quick note, my lack of activity wasn’t (exclusively) due to flakiness. I promise. It’s just that, as you probably know, there are moments…sometimes, just sometimes…when life is a next-level special type of bitch. I guess it’s my fault, I got too comfortable …and life being the way life is inclined to be reacted appropriately and brutally beat my ass. Some things had to be put on hold while I dealt with situations that seemed inspired by some ridiculously cheesy, overly-dramatic TV drama, and after deciding I was done dropping to my knees at random times and screaming “whhhhhhhhhhhyy?!” at the top of my lungs, and having mini (but still pretty damn epic) breakdowns in café’s/supermarkets/public transport, I’ve decided to perform a factory reset on myself and get the hell on with whatever it is. So yeah… If you’re still there…um.…how’ve you been?