Goodbye temperance, born in America
Though you’ll never see its shores again
Your virtue was traded for a case of beer
But I’ll never forget it
Falling over rotten fruits
Stumbling and staring like zombies
Yielding to hordes of defiant
Adrift from a safe port
We are the addled, the overfed
Eyes wide at the pornography on show
We are the sexed, we ritualised
Our own descent into vice
We are the Hedons
Second-rate human beings
Grab your beers and a handful of pills
The Hedons have won again!
The theme inspired by a post from the Stoa Letter and words adapted and morphed from The Van Pelt’s ‘We Are The Heathens’
20th Sep 2024 – Submitted to the Word of the Day Challenge – answer
Today I’m feeling:
Positive and also feeling like my energy is depleting quickly. At least Fridays are relatively easy days for me. Annoyingly I woke up about an hour before my alarm with my brain already active and my alarm went off just as I got back to sleep. I got up with a ‘fuuuuck’. The morning sun is enjoyable though, although without the shade over the playground at school, all the short kids want to stand in my shadow.
Today I’m grateful for:
The doctors and nurses who took care of Amy’s dad in hospital and in the operating theatre. The good news is that as far as they could tell the cancer hadn’t spread beyond the bowel so hopefully after recovery, maybe he’s good to go again.
The best thing about today was:
Another successful spelling test with my grade 7s. After the better students finished and left I really enjoyed helping the stragglers to figure out the words using mime and drawing, just trying to lead them in the direction of the answers. It was interesting to see how some students used their phones to help themselves. They also motivated themselves to improve their scores with second and third attempts. It feels like the culmination of the semester’s work has come together pretty well.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
As I went to leave House this afternoon a truck was blocking me in. There is a building being constructed next door and the workers there asked me to pull forward so the truck could get in. I assumed that they just wanted to quickly unload something and wouldn’t take long. They obviously didn’t understand that I wanted to leave but finally came to clarify when I was still sitting in my car with the engine running. I wasn’t upset or rude to them and they quickly let me out. A minor frustration, surely for both of us, but no need to get wound up.
Something I learned today?
I discovered that the new iOS has added a State of Mind log to the Health app. Now I want to figure out the shortcut to take me straight to it.
What do I want to remember about this time of my life?
As I’ve been fairly fastidiously writing this time of my life down here I’m hoping to remember a lot. Also to be able to review the gradual changes and see the challenges I have overcome.
Looking back at my old diaries has shown how little of what I wrote was meaningful and only serves as tiny memory joggers. Most of it is ‘got up, went here, went there, went home, went to sleep’! Even when I wrote that I was pissed off I couldn’t really articulate why.
Even though my life is a lot less exciting now I’m hoping to get down to more of the detail.
What I want to remember is how I turned myself around to feeling good and healthier and I don’t see any reason that that can’t be maintained. I suppose if I’ve forgotten things from 35 years ago then, if I make it to 90 I may forget the things I’m doing now.
1994ever 