And so, to Wednesday. Wedders, weddo...weddington. The big W. I got up feeling better than the day before, less clogged of head and altogether more shiny. I was due to play squash with my mate Nick in the afternoon. I like squash, it provides the happy medium between stress relief and exercise. You get to hammer a tiny rubber ball against a big, consenting wall, and it makes a really satisfying thwack each time. But also, if that wasn't enough, it's really really tiring, because the ruddy opponent always insists on smacking it to parts of the court that I'm not in, the git. So off I thunder, round and round the court, bashing into walls with merry abandon, getting quite alarmingly sweaty. Sometimes, people stand in the little viewing gallery at the top if they're waiting to get on a court. When this happens everybody tries harder. I put a much more earnest face on and wryly shake my head when a crucial point is lost. Cos that obviously makes it look like I'm usually brilliant, but today it's going badly, perhaps because of some painful mental turmoil.
Never liked tennis, I served like a girl. Cricket I'm ok at, but sometimes hilarious, and don't even get me started on football. But squash, I think I can sort of do squash.
Problem is, gang, I'm ever so unfit. I smoke too much, laze too much, and eat far too many carbs. I have the necessary 'squash guile', can usually hit the ball where I want to, and when I hit it try really hard it looks quite impressive. In my head. Jamie Redknapp, doing a spot of punditry, would probably say something incoherent about the sheer quality of my play, in which he woefully misinterprets the the word 'literally'. Trouble is, when it's not going well, when I keep spazzing it into the floor, occasionally missing the ball entirely, I get quite angry with myself. This bizarre spectacle takes many forms, all of which only serve to make me look like a right bell-end. Kicking the wall, punching myself in the leg, shouting 'ARRRRRGGGHHH!' and booting the ball away, none of these are below me. It's quite an embarrassing spectacle, and it needs to stop. Plus, there can't be many sights more pathetic than a large, sweaty man flailing his foot at a tiny rubber ball, barely connecting and having it then bounce, pathetically away to the other side of the court. It doesn't dissipate the rage at all. The only thing that can do that really is to win the next point, when all of a sudden everything's hunky dory. Sadly this time I lost 4-2. But mark my words, I'll do better. It feels good to do well.
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