Oat overkill

Finding herself bored with life and too lethargic to do anything about it, Sophie White does what she always does — dreams about breakfast

Lately, I have run out of things to do. Usually, I’m all over doing stuff. My enthusiasm and energy has been known to seriously piss Himself off, in fact. However, since this strange, unfocused lethargy set in, we have been getting on much better, as it has brought me down to his wavelength of inertia, and we are just generally more compatible this way.

During my old life as a pretty active doer type, I’d always been a great spouter of the ‘ask a busy person’ maxim. Very annoying. Retrospectively, I would like to tell my peppy, irritating, can-do former self to bore off. Sadly, I’m just too lazy now.

In fact, I’ve discovered there’s a whole array of things that I’ve decided I can’t be bothered with. In the last year, I’ve practically given up on watching TV, for example. That’s right, I’ve actually hit some hitherto-unexplored lazy level where I cannot even summon the will to sit watching moving pictures on a screen.

I believe it is related in part to the sheer volume of the ‘workload’ — this is how I’ve come to regard the near-constant barrage of excellent TV programming. There’s just so much to get through. I’m shattered from it all.

At every social gathering now, I find I’m having a perfectly lovely time until someone brings up the new Twin Peaks or House of Cards, and a thudding headache starts up in my temple at the sheer insurmountable task of watching all the shows.

As a result, some time ago I decided to abandon the TV in favour of podcasts. I’d come to terms with the fact that, post baby number two, I just wasn’t up for ‘open eye’ activities in the evenings anymore: it was just too demanding. Apparently, this is the life stage I’m at — TV is too demanding.

Of course, the next thing I know everyone is going on and on about this podcast and that podcast that I have to listen to. Sheesh, it’s getting to be like homework. Also, the problem with podcasts, as I see it, is that lying down, with your eyes closed, while a gorgeous American man — OK, Ira Glass — whispers stories to you, is basically like a sedative. A few sentences in, and I’m asleep. It’s cured my insomnia, but sadly I can’t follow a single bit of the narrative. And, I’ve found, if you’re not up on your podcasts, you’re treated with contempt, like an uneducated swine (or someone who’s never seen The Wire) in some circles.

I’m too lazy for all this agonising, and instead I’m paring my evenings back to an even more torpid activity: lying with my eyes closed, planning what I’m going to have for breakfast. It’s really all I’m able for. Couscous for breakfast is a nice change for when you’re bored of the oat monopoly perpetrated by porridge, granola et al, and it’s easy if you, like me, are mired in your own laziness malaise.

“Retrospectively, I’d like to tell my peppy, irritating can-do former self to bore off. Sadly I’m just too lazy”