Tuesday 27/1/09 St Faustina & voodoo

Glad this year is zipping along nicely, and hope it will be memorable for better reasons. It got off to a bad start with the sudden death of an uncle. Relics of saint faustina of divine mercy fame, are now doing the rounds, and my mother got her hands on it. She knew better than to approach me with it, as I consider it to be very insulting bullshit, with a voodoo quality which harks back to a more primitive yesteryear. The small inlaid box, containing a part of her bone or whatever was tentatively put before me on the kitchen table, along with a story enthusiastically told about someone who's tumour disappeared after being blessed with it.

We are only now beginning to appreciate the power of the mind, and the changing power of thought, and the idea that an older person can be cured by kissing this particular woman's ass, while younger people with their lives before them can be refused any sort of divine help, is an irreconcilable dealbreaker for me. How people find this nonsense at all comforting is absolutely beyond me! But the reality is that a lot of people do, but desperation and ill health are an especially lethal combination.

Went into chapters bookstore yesterday to stock up on misery memoirs for mother. Got a good book on opus dei, which I look forward to reading. I am determained to read more, and never complain about boredom. Got my resistance bands in lidl, and it does feel good to get out of the chair and do any sort of exercise. Even if it is only sitting on the floor and trying to hold yourself upright, you're working some practical muscles. I find youtube to be a fantastic resource. Definately I'm fighting a losing battle, but it feels great to get out of the chair for a bit. Getting ready to head to celbridge for some swimming (or at least my version of swimming, as i have'nt mastered the ability to come up for air). It is a priority for me to go, even in these freezing days and one of the exercises I love most, is when they bring me down to the deep end with a woggle around me, and just let me stretch out. I swear the first sunday back after their summer break, you could almost hear me unwind. After all these years, my body is like a compressed accordian.

Still hanging onto my job by my fingernails, and horror of horrors, am even having the audacity to contemplate a holiday in new york later this year, even though given the way things are going now, I might be on a permanent holiday soon enough. During the last few weeks, my feet have been icy cold. When I was in cape town a few years ago, I spent hundreds on ugg like boots and slippers. Now my feet are so deformed that I cannot get them flat into the boots, so I am reduced to wearing more flexible slippers. The bloody state of me. I officially have no shame!