Inside Voice

You ever argued with yourself in public?
Hmm?

Right. Just me then, is it? Again.
Longer-term readers will know that I am entirely shameless about singing in public, and inflict moments of my warbling on passers-by when I'm out walking. This has, on many an occasion, caused odd looks, but never, in all fairness, comment.

Today though, I found myself having an argument with myself.
It all started with the weigh-in of course. Up 3.25 pounds this week, back to 16 stone 5.5. This is irritating, but didn't seem entirely serious - I haven't done the work this week, so obviously, the weight is going to go up. I figured I'd get to it in maybe a week or so, once my pressing work and business commitments were out of the way.
I walked up to my local Currys, where my laptop has been undergoing brain surgery - or at least, brainwashing - for the last few days, and picked it up. On the way back down the hill to home, I bitched at myself:
"Ach...up three pounds, man...gotta do something. But I'm just so tied up right now..."
Then I stopped.
Looked around me. The sun was high and bright, the sky an eye-watering blue in my home town. I work from home. I'm busy with work for both my day-job and the side business I started.
"Exactly how much easier do you want it, schmuck-face?" I asked myself.
"Well, I mean..."
"Nonono, you don't get to play the 'It's all sooooo difficult for Little Me' card. You really don't. You have time. You have opportunity. You have a gym card you haven't used in weeks, and a bike that's gathering dust in your office. You've switched meaningful, small doses of bran-based breakfast cereal for larger bowls of a couple of actually-pleasant cereals. You're not lacking time. You're not lacking opportunity. All you're lacking is discipline!"
"Ohhhh, what crawled up your kilt and tweaked your pubes?!" I said...
Just as the guy who'd been walking up the hill passed me.
"What??" he said. Not without reason, all in all.
"Oh! Erm...sorry!" I said.
"What??" he said again. Still not without reason, but in a notably more arch tone of voice.
"Sorry," I said, raising my hands. "Arguing with myself!"
He saw my hands, and raised me a pair of eyebrows.
"Oh aye?" he said.
"Really!" I said. "Honest. Sorry, just talking to myself."
"Sure about that, are you?" he checked. His shoulders were quite broad.
"Yep," I said, daring to move off down the hill. "Sorry!" I called again, looking behind me.

And I escaped down the hill.
"Inside voice," I said to myself - not actually using one. "Or better still, just think this stuff!"
"Right," I said. "Will try to remember that. Meanwhile...discipline."
"Yeah," I said. "Discipline. Discipline is easy. Miserable, but easy. Just do it. Balance your time. Get the fuck on with it!"
A woman walking on the other side of the road looked at me sharply. I swallowed, smiled at her in a non-threatening, but probably, now I think of it, vaguely "they don't let me have spoons, you know!" kind of way. She decided the world would be better all round if I wasn't in it, and got on with pretending that I wasn't.

"Seriously!" I muttered to myself. "Inside voice, for God's sake!"
"Right," I agreed, walking on home.