Today I am feeling pretty darn lazy.

I’m on a stint of early starts and, because I have terrible self control, I don’t put myself to bed early enough which means I don’t get enough sleep, which means my brain isn’t running all that crash hot at the end of the day, which means by afternoon tea time I may as well have a tub of lukewarm sour cream in my skull. A massive cup of proper strong tea and a rush of I’m-a-morning-person endorphins means I can make it through the early hours with sometimes almost unnerving pep but by the time the midday movie is wrapping up, I’ve begun to conk out.

As such, I’m not feeling all that inspired or intelligent this afternoon, but I find myself yearning to feel accomplished in some way. I suppose it’s nice to know that, even when your thinkbox is on the blink, that internal nag who pesters you about being a piece of shit still has some pluck about it.

I have decided to tackle my to-do list to appease this Badgering Beryl, but I’m going to be half-arsed about it.

That’s why I’m combining two jobs at once: prepping my breakfast for tomorrow and documenting the process in order to produce something that resembles a blog post. It’s part recipe, part diary, part evidence of my afternoon mental decline. Prepare to be whelmed*.

Step one: Sit up from the couch and feel a rush of blood to your brain, half closing your eyes like you’ve just eaten a really, really juicy mouthful of steak. Suddenly become aware of the faint pain in your tailbone, neck and lower back. Curse your poor commitment to good posture and the ever marching conga line of misery that is time. Note that you tried to write “neck” like “kneck”.

Step two: Take a clean glass from the kitchen cabinet, placing it safely on the bench.

Step three: Walk to the pantry, feeling a twinge of knee pain as you bring back oats, walnuts and shredded coconut. Again be reminded that your youth is fading.

Step four: Add a pinch of oats and coconut to the glass. Coconut adds an exciting texture to the yogurt, which mildly spices up an extremely early-morning breakfast. Acknowledge that the coconut might be the only thing you’re looking forward to at the moment and make peace with that.

Step five: Crush two walnut halves into the glass, deriving joy from the metaphor of crushing nuts with your bare hands.

Step six: Slop in a spoonful of Greek yoghurt. Feel pride in that you went full fat, because  you deserve full flavour and low fat is often full of sugar anyway.

Step seven: Drop exactly six blueberries on top, because seven would be too many.

Step eight: Drizzle a bit of honey on top, licking the spoon afterwards because you are fucking reckless.

Step nine: Add another pinch of oats and coconut. This repetition is symbolic of the repetitive motions of life that we are all doomed to endure.

Step ten: Crush in more walnuts.

Step eleven: Snack on tiny portions of what you just dealt out. Be mildly concerned that you just nibbled on raw oats, mostly by how much you enjoyed such an underwhelming morsel of food.

Step twelve: Dollop another large spoonful of yoghurt into the glass before quickly whisking the container back into the fridge before it melts in the Brisbane heat.

Step thirteen: Chuck nine blueberries in this time. Those oats clearly gave you a bit of spunk.

Step fourteen: Drizzle with more honey and, again, suck on the spoon. Thank the heavens for bees.

Step fifteen: Put glass in fridge, where the oats will hopefully soften to the point they are gooey and life-affirming.

Step sixteen: Put on the kettle, you’ve now officially accomplished something and are free to spend the rest of the afternoon being a complete piece of junk. Savour that feeling of knowing that, when you wake up at at bullhonkey-o’clock, you’re going to have a cup of yogurt waiting for you.

* I looked up the meaning of “whelmed” because I was led to be believe that it was the medium point between underwhelmed and overwhelmed and you can only be in such a state in Europe. But Merriam Webster defines it as to “cover or engulf completely with usually disastrous effect” or “to overcome in thought or feeling” or even to “to pass or go over something so as to bury or submerge it”. So that’s not entirely the right word choice, but I felt like leaving it in as both a learning opportunity and a chance to link out to a clip from 10 things I hate about you.