Magic at the Supermarket

January is cut-throat competition, and the contestants fall into two groups.

Those determined to live out their New Year Resolutions and those who cave.

Be careful though because Sally’s going to one-up you and cook up a #Veganuary storm while Max is already feasting on books, twirling fancy words on his tongue like spaghetti.

And for the rest of us, it’s getting rid of things that don’t serve us. Sweets, alcohol, crisps – we’re talking about you.

But there is a trick so you don’t have to succumb to the sugary allure of technicolour sweets. And it’s fool-proof.

Here’s what you do:

Enter the supermarket and head towards your biggest craving. For this example, we’ll use a Portuguese rice cake (bolo de arroz).

They’re divine, soft and airy except for the top which is firm. The satisfaction you get from breaking it off and enjoying a bite with the crumblier part of the cake is like no other….

So now you’re carrying a four-pack of these golden cakes.

Carry them around regardless of how much food shopping needs to be done. Even if you have a trolley, hold on to your craving, and as you amble down every aisle, your mind will get louder.

Do I need these?  They’re terrible for me and I know I won’t be arsed to do the exercise to shake them off.

Also, there are four meaning I’ll scarf them down and want more tomorrow. Remember, sugar is government-approved crack so you can’t be weak and let them topple your New Year diet.

By the time you’re lining up at the counter, eyeing everyone’s’ trolleys stuffed with bottles of wine, fruit, and parcels of meat, you realize.

You don’t need them.

Nope.

By the time you have to pay for them, guilt and your interior monologue rip apart everything positive about these delicious, fluffy cakes.

They just feel wrong now.

So you dart back to the bakery section and return them, and a entirely new buzz kicks in, one way more fulfilling than the sugar coating those sweet, sweet cakes.

You’re proud because you SWERVED them. And if you can swerve your biggest craving, you can swerve anything.

You’ve got this guys. Wishing you all a little more discipline this year!

No More Bitching, Bitches

“Ugh, I don’t know, can I say something really mean?” A boy wearing glasses asks, leaning across the table so his girlfriend can inhale every word.

“What?”

She’s almost gasping.

“I just find Olivia has nothing to talk about unless it’s about herself.  She’s really boring.”

“Ohhh my god, right!”

*************************

Everyone gossips and it makes an easy passtime especially trapped in a limbo like a train station.  It’s addictive too and if you have no idea what to talk about with new acquiantances, it’s a quick way to establish common ground.

This happened loads in the hospitality industry, it felt like we had returned to high school.

Employees stole money from one another or stood in the smoking area by the bins, electrified with toxic words, as red-hot anger coiled around their blue plumes of smoke.

Going to vow in 2020 to stop bitching about other people.  A lot of you probably don’t.  But if you do, it’s because you hope to quieten your own self-hatred, if only for a little while, but in a cheap and dirty way.

In 2020, we only speak highly.

❤