In Tent On Making Friends

My usual teddybears can't make the picnic this year, so I've spent all week fretting over where to pitch my tent and how to wangle a man to carry my shit from the car to the campsite. There are plenty of people going that I am on wonderfully convivial drinking terms with, but almost all of them have a crew of their own and as my shower of poverty-stricken recessionites sold their tickets one by one, I had visions of me camping alone, spending the weekend sprawled in my deck-chair, sobbing with loneliness over a tin of cider. Wearing his underpants on the outside, a heroic friend last night agreed to my crashing with his party of five merry men so long as I promise not to make too much of a nuisance of myself. The Corkonian is bringing his girlfriend, he told me, so I shouldn't be too much of a problem. "Great!" I exclaimed "someone else with a vagina! We're sure to become BFFs".

His brow furrowed. "Actually, I have a feeling you might get on better with the lads".

See You There?

Boats Afloat

Another tiresome meme; Andrew wants me to list six things I like. His list was full of sweet things like his comfy spot and his little friend Baxter, but I have neither a snuggly girlfriend nor a beautiful Tanzanian child to dote on. So, in order of preference (if your preference happens to be for the alphabetical):

1. Deep, dreamless sleep.
2. Eloquent turns of phrase.
3. John Banville's The Sea.
   
4. Memes.
5. My beau's freckles in the early morning sun.
6. Tingly lube.

Nah, just kidding. I fucking hate memes.

Celebrity OneUpManShutUp

I waved at beardy weirdo Eli Mordino as I passed him on the canal yesterday, but the ignorant fucker left me hanging. I'm bad at seeing people, he said, although I did pass Sonia O' Sullivan on Baggot St. the other day. I had seen her myself on Nassau St. a few weeks back, streaking past like a whippet chasing rashers, but my excitement at my most recent celebrity sighting eclipsed all others and I jumped straight in, delighted to have the opportunity to tell someone about it*.

me:

Ann Doyle, The Swan Shopping Centre, Rathmines, at lunchtime today. POW!
him:
Nigga please, I once saw Ann Doyle come out of her house in a dressing gown to check her postbox.
me (going for the kill, but missing the point of the game):
I fondled Alan Cantwell's bum.
him:
I followed Marty Morrissey around Power City one Christmas. He was buying a blender.
me:
I asked Daniel O Donnell for his autograph. He said no.
him:
I walked past Eddie Hobbs being hassled by an old lady. He was not impressed.
me:
Mundy stood on my toe.
him:
David O'Doherty was at Leeson Street Bridge once wearing very large headphones.
[really, he should lose points for that one]
me:
David Kitt was in the Horseshow House this one time.
[and before he can get a word in textways, I clinch it. It has finally dawned on me that I have the ultimate in pedestrian celebrity with their pants down stories]
me [with an already triumphant tone in my voice]:
I declined Ronan Keating's credit card. He was trying to buy a Christmas tree.
him:
That is pretty special. The rest of my stories are about Ray D'arcy's taste in scarves and everyone and their mother has met him.

Everyone bar me. Were I to meet Raymond I would like it to be late at night, in the driving rain... down a dark road, on a dangerous bend. Him in his lycra unitard and cycling helmet, me in a RangeRover with bull bars.

*Truth be told, I'd already told my colleagues in work about it but they'd looked distinctly nonplussed, and so do not count. I know what nonplussed looks like too, because that's exactly what Steve Cooney's face said when I said "How's it going, Steve? It's great to meet you!" before vigorously shaking his unproffered hand in greeting on Saturday night.

Sunday Segues Into Monday

Stranded with 23 cent to my name, work in the morning and a hangover waiting for me under my bed, I sent him a message to see if maybe he might like to come fetch me. Because every ATM in Fun Laoghaire was fucked, because he's kind and I knew he wouldn't mind. When he called to see where he should pick me up from, I was sitting down to a late supper of paracetamol and milk, having realised that taxis can also be employed to drive one to a cash machine.

He turned the car around and dropped over anyway, just to kiss me goodnight. I apologised insincerely for my tipsy state and sighed into his shoulder, wishing he didn't have to leave. "You're about 40% proof alright" he laughed, and kissed me again. "40% proof but 100% honest" I mumbled, gee-eyed but trying to channel doe-eyed and winsome.

"Have you fallen for me?" he asked.

Fuck.

Because I have, just a very tiny little bit, though I have tried hard not to. The call came on Saturday morning; next Monday he leaves for London, indefinitely. And the rug is pulled out from under my feet once more.

Isn't That Stevie Wonder?

World Culture's flavour tends to spoil a little in the persistent rain and Saturday afternoon brought a downpour, so after a late breakfast we went back to bed to read the papers. I snuggled up to him and proceeded to read his newspaper over the top of my book (because the grass is always greener) feeling smug and pleasantly bourgeoisie (I reckon it was the pancakes). He started to laugh. "How delightfully middle-class! Perhaps later we should go to that little ethnic festival, darling!" he trilled, in an awful approximation of a plummy southsider. "I hear they have some brown chaps with drums!"

I Am A Heinous Bitch

So, Andrew wants to know why I don't like blogrolls. I left a comment over at his saying as much,after he tipped his hat at Darragh Doyle's AA style open invite to bloggers to state their name and occupations. Andrew has promised to buy me a Toblerone, so for the moment Andrew gets what Andrew wants. I have a terrible weakness for airport confectionery.

Oftentimes I think that I am not a very good blogger. I've broken a cardinal rule in doing away with my blogroll, after an unsatisfactory attempt to make an honest list of it. I think of those links in terms of endorsements; I read this and I think it's super so you should read it too. But mine inevitably became political and I found myself linking to blogs out of a misplaced sense of obligation, or gratitude, or confused cynicism. Linking to some that I thought would make me look clever. Leaving out others, my guilty pleasures - the blogroll equivalent of a Dido album. I stuffed a couple of the widely-read blogs in there in the hope I might earn a link back. I commented on posts elsewhere just because they would guarantee me a mess of curious traffic. I felt sullied when so few of those who strayed stayed.

So I am trying to be a bit truer to mine own self with my blog, at the expense of staying true to the accepted (if not quite set in stone) principles of blogging. I try to keep external links to a minimum - my blog is not Wikifuckingpedia and you all know how to use your googlemachines. You're well able to look shit up, it would be patronising of me to spoonfeed you with definitions. I try to keep from unnecessarily referencing my own posts; I find it unbecoming. I will not link to other blogs just to draw traffic; if I link it will be out of deference to the author for something they have said, done or written. I will not keep a blogroll because I cannot trust myself to maintain one; I am too concerned with trying not to offend people with my sins of omission, and I am too concerned with my image to keep anything there that I think might show me in a poor light. That's the ugly truth of it - it is a heady mess of manners and ego that has me reluctant to play the game.

I'm the same with dancing. Rhythmically dyslexic, I feeling like a big, uncoordinated, unsexy lump on the dancefloor. But play the right song and I own the motherfucker.

So I think of my Rosie Loves button in the sidebar as my choice choons. I thought about sharing the feeds I subscribe to, but that would be filling the floor with a party mix rather than playing something I think you'd like to dance to. There are blogs in my reader where the content is so inconsistent that I have subscribed and unsubscribed to them umpteen times - I'm not sure if this indicates the patience of Job or ADHD on my part. Rather than test your patience too, I'll link to posts I like. There are other blogs in my reader that I don't care for at all but I feel I should at least skim their surfaces once in a while; whether I like it or not, the Irish blogosphere is a small place and it pays to have some idea of what the neighbours are up to (feed readers make for excellent net curtains). I keep a folder named "Not Dead, Just Sleeping" which I have littered with abandoned blogs. I have an orgy of sex blogs (good, bad and ugly) that I read for research purposes. *cough* I think you're better off for me not sharing all of these with you in the sidebar.

My understanding of blogging's communities, civilities and courtesies is growing. And while I think of myself neither as a bitter cunt or a belligerent contrarian, I didn't like Darragh's post because for me, blogging is not about the readers. I don't like that people feel the need to advertise their blogs, to shout for attention. I went through an unhealthy phase of thinking my blog was valid only if (lots of) people read it, if they commented, if they loved it (for "it" read "me"). I spent more time poring over Statcounter than I did writing posts and I lost sight of why I wanted to keep a blog in the first place. I am happy enough to make some aspects of this blogosphere's etiquette my own, and disregard the rest.

Because that is what I do.

At Least Spellcheck It

I got an email yesterday from a former lover. An ex lover? I don't know what's appropriate in this case. There was never a relationship, so it's difficult to articulate. We met through a friend two or three years ago (how time flies when you're not paying her any attention!) and spent a debauched night together, but he moved to Cork the very next day, having lived on my street for a year. A friendship of sorts evolved; we'd talk, and email, sometimes sharing confidences and sometimes just sauce. We met a couple of times but he planned on travelling, had commitments at home and had no interest in pursuing anything more with me. Not that I ever asked, but it was abundantly clear.

Of course I kept up appearances with the mutual friend, allowed her to think that it might become more than it was. I was too embarrassed not to, crawling with mortification at my spineless lack of self-esteem. She thinks the world of me. I didn't want to let her know that I thought so little of myself, and that I'd managed to make nothing more of it than a tawdry, take me for granted so long as you'll take me affair.

He stood me up one night, leaving me standing on the street for an hour because he'd blacked out just after he'd called me. Two days later he called to apologise. Two days. "If I ring from the pub, ask me how many pints I've had. If I say more than eight, hang up." He knew that it was a problem, and planned on giving up smoking and drinking once he turned 30 - revelling in the damage meanwhile. He probably will quit, and I'll probably continue to court my hangovers at weekends and call it a habit. Or a hobby.

And now, after a year abroad, he sends me a mail. One line, fishing. Saying nothing and splattering it carelessly with typos; a bored and halfhearted tap on the shoulder. Time was, I would have been thrilled at his lazy dangling of the bait. Time was? Time might be again, but right now I'm working hard to cultivate a sense of self-worth that sees me hope for more than an occasional booty call.

Fish Fingers And Toast

They say that the surest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, so here I am decked out in my most fetching pinny and housedress, cooking up a storm. By 9pm he'll either be hopelessly enamoured of me, or in A&E.

Perhaps I should just try sticking my tongue in his bellybutton.

Safe Keeping

Sometimes I save up all of the nice things that someone has said to me so that I can savour them as I walk to work. Especially on rainy days. This morning the sun tickled the banks of the grand canal, and people smiled. As Boc Maxima flooded my ears, I peeled off my rain mac to give my freckles an airing and cracked open my safe of warm fuzzies anyway. There's no need to keep these ones for a dark, dank day.

Shag Tobacco

Have you read Mr. Drumm's recent series of posts? They're touching, and a cheeky delight. As he treats us to tales of his forays into online dating, Conan has shown himself to be a master of the slow reveal. His posts are laced with a charming, quiet humour and his photographs are thoughtful and occasionally beautiful. I found his blog through the droll comments he had left elsewhere to encourage others, I'm always delighted when he leaves one here. "Pearls before swine" he remarked on one of my posts, encouraging me to try writing something of substance. Flattery like that makes me blush with pride and pleasure, so the least I can do is send you folk over to him with a feather to tickle the next in the series out of him.

Reader's Choice #4

My Favourite TV3 Weatherman

for Andrew, who had better bring me a Toblerone home from Egypt

Weather reports on Irish television have become laughably redundant, what with global warming and the coming apocalypse. When I was a kid it was all sunny spells and scattered showers, now apologetic RTÉ presenters (I'm looking at you, Gerald Fleming, and that other fucker with the mad Louth twang) give anxious warnings about rain, and announce sunshine with such tentative, doubtful optimism that you wonder if they fear a lynching. I think that if I were to accidentally pay a TV licence fee, the weather report would be an awful way to waste my money. Perhaps not awfuller than Fáilte Towers, but RTÉ weather neither informs nor entertains me and the European forecasts that they occasionally carry on with are just insulting; like watching cheffy wonders on Saturday Kitchen while you hoover up stale cornflakes. Those two minutes would be better spent with a second Angelus. That at least raises a smile.

So respeck!! to Martin King, who jazzied up the weather reports in the early days of TV3 by turning it into some Winning Streak cum Parish News style form of entertainment. The weather slot opened its sticky embrace up to Joe Public and invited viewers to bump uglies with its content. Birthday wishes! Send us in a photo! It's like the art slot on The Den, only for nanas. Nanas from places like Longford, and Ballina.

TG4 have the right idea; just go with some tits. Scorchio.

But I digress - this post is supposed to be all about Mr. King. I did develop some small affection for the bould Martin back when I worked as a fraud detective* for an Irish financial institution whose name rhymes with "make the tea". I'd rouse myself from my bed at 7am each Saturday when Martin's dulcet tones shrilled at me from the radio alarm clock. His Breakfast Show on Today FM was the perfect soundtrack to those mornings; wake up, sniff the air (vodka, cigarettes) and realise with a crushing sense of defeat that it was Saturday and I had to go to work. His pithiful patter seemed to sit well with my awkward transition from drunk to hungover, as I sat looking balefully at my shoes, trying to find the will to breathe, and to tie my laces. I'd muse over "What's That Sound?" and marvel at the chirpy idiocy of the contestants ("is it Rice Krispies, Larry?" "Well Pat, it's Martin King here and I'm afraid that's not the answer we're looking for!" "Oh..." says Pat, trailing off confusedly and uncomfortably). Our hero Martin lets that awkward silence hang.

These days I can't bear to listen to talk radio - inane presenter prattle and insane, irrelevant callers. I no longer work on Saturdays, I have more pleasant ways to spent my time and more pleasant sounds to rouse me from my slumber. Like the heart-attack inducing beep of an alarm, or the insistent whine of my bladder.

*Not as exciting as it sounds.

Hell Freezes Over

The Swede wandered into the kitchen to find me ankle deep in puddles and tits deep in tantrum, the floor destroyed and the contents of the fridge laid out unappetisingly over every surface in the flat. It was 5pm on a Saturday evening, and I was defrosting the freezer.

"Are we feeling guilty for something?" he asked with a lewd wink, presumably referring to my propensity for men and mayhem as opposed to mundane housework. "No" I snapped, all set to berate him for not noticing the cleaning I do around the place and then biting my tongue as I realised it's generally limited to my own bathroom. He laughed at my temper and reminded me that he'd done it last time (a year and a half ago) before setting down to watch The Simpsons. I recommenced hacking at the solid ice with my makeshift pick (a bottle opener) and boiled the kettle for the 47th time, huffing and muttering direly to myself. Because in truth I was feeling guilty. Not because the Swede does all the work around here (he doesn't) but because I had spent all morning and most of the rainy afternoon luxuriating in the easy company of a new beau. And I'm just not used to things being that easy. The irrational idiot in me feels undeserving and sits eating her hair, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She shouldn't. I'm prettier than I let on. I'm smarter than the evidence would suggest. I need to learn to accept good fortune with good grace, and stop peeling the silver linings off my clouds.

4 bath towels, 8 tea towels, two scalds and several floods later I gave up, and went to meet Annie for a pint. She was appalled at the idea of me spending Saturday night standing on a chair with my head in the fridge, thought it very un-Rosie. But it's very me. Swings and roundabouts, rock and roll. Tuesdays are dreary enough without housework - there's no better time to do it than on a Saturday night when you're still basking in Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's glow. I arrived home in a pleasant fuzz of wine, well-being and patatas bravas and made straight for ground zero to inspect my handiwork. The ice was melting; coming away in satisfying, weighty chunks.

The Most Important Decision I Have To Make Today

(as I've already chosen an "outfit")

Curly or straight?

Reader's Choice #3

Real Women

(Because Some Are More Realier Than Others)

So the SWF was first in the door with her suggestion for my occasional series - If I had a blog [it's not for lack of me trying to persuade her] I think I'd have a good rant about the concept of 'real' women - the notion that some women are somehow more real than others. It drives me mad!

She continues: I can appreciate where they're coming from and that adverts do show women who are physically very different to the average girl on the street, but if you replace 'real' with 'average' the term loses some its pleased-with-oneself aura. There's nothing wrong with being pleased with oneself but the use of the word 'real' somehow infers some sort of moral superiority over less 'real' women - i.e. models and thin actresses - miserable anorexics the lot of them, traitors to the gender!

Yikes. This should have been Reader's Choice #1 by rights, but I couldn't figure out what angle to approach it from. See, if we're talking angles, I am best approached with a wide and vaseline-smeared lens, for I have weighty issues with my posterior. So although I can appreciate the cause of my beautiful slim friend's irritation, I can't say I share it. I identify with these Real Women - I find them less intimidating, more beautiful. I don't know if it's because I identify with them that I find them attractive - I have an eye for women who are roundy of bum and plump of thigh and I wonder if this is just narcissism on my part, my ego subconsciously kicking my unflattering insecurities up the ample arse. I appreciate that advertisers are trying to flatter me by referring to these women as "real" and I buy wholesale into their pitch. The tubster in me is absolutely delighted at the vilification of the models and thin actresses, these traitors to my gender. The SWF is right though, "real" could easily be substituted with "average" in this case, causing the phrase to lose all appeal - no woman wants to think of herself as average.

Ordinary.

Plain.

So the slim women, the ones just like those models and actresses, feel discriminated against. I thought about this, and tried to affect sympathy as I tried to squeeze into a skirt in Zara last Saturday. No dice. Fashion and its herald, popular culture, are still weighted very much in favour of skinny malinks. So what if a few liberal-leaning features editors and clever advertisers have set their sights on the plainer janes in stretchy jeans. Big deal. It makes the bigger deals amongst us feel a little better about our muffin tops, when all around us judgement screams FAT!

*Ah* she said, it's nice to rant. She's right, it is. This rant's not one for me though.

It's Like Poking Her With A Stick

A month late meme, courtesy (?) of B:

List two things that irritate you for a reason (and list the reason!) and two things that irritate you for no apparent reason whatsoever!

Lots of things irritate me, but my ire is not groundless. Many if not most of my life's banes are banalities and while I'll grant you that my reasons are often unreasonable, I'll still make every effort to spell them out. I don't much like the exclamation marks in the above instructions, for example. I feel they lend a forced jollity to text as I read it aloud in my head; they smack of overstatement, of a nudge in the ribs at a poor punchline. It's telling me that the sentence is supposed to be funny, or zany, or somehow exciting. It's not. There was an extra ! at the end of that line that I couldn't even bring myself to replicate, because bad as ! and !!! might be, !! is surely worse. I am by no means a grammarian (I have that Truss book but have never read it) and will forgive many things, but excessive use of exclamatory punctuation is not one of them.

Of course, I was already ill-disposed to the above sentence even without its canned-laughter punctuation. For I also dislike blog memes. My brain insists on mispronouncing meme for starters, preferring me-me to meem. It fits more with my perception of their purpose - it's all about me!!! (irritating exclamation marks fully intended). I know that they're supposed to be a bit of fun and that they're supposed to flatter the recipient, imitation being the sincerest form and all that guff. They're designed to help you to reveal quirky aspects of your personality, but my quirksome personalness is all over this kip as is. I generously overshare, and unlike Annie, rarely feel dirty for it. You folk know more about my current state of mind than my mam does (or at least you did before she started reading this - hi mam!). I need no further encouragement. I think that all too often blog memes provide lazy, uncharacteristically narcissistic content for otherwise witty bloggers. I'd much rather read something that they wanted to share; a post they've crafted rather than a chain letter they've filled in the blanks on.

I feel almost guilty for being such a curmudgeon on this. For the record, I'm also the joyless wagon who refuses to sing at karaoke. No matter if everyone else is as tone deaf as I am. It's not a bit of fun, it's embarrassing. My self-esteem is too fragile, my ego won't allow it. Perhaps that goes some way towards explaining my antipathy towards blog memes? Maybe I'm afraid that my answers won't be as cool or unique as everyone else's?

No.

Other things that irritate me include pantyliners (why should women be "fresh"? Why can't we be sweet and musky?) and the Stereophonics. I am no paragon of musical virtue (I own two Dido albums, and I sometimes listen to them) but the Stereophonics...

...nah. I can't even motivate myself enough to explain their pedestrian awfulness. More irritating than an unstuck pantyliner.

C'mere To Me Youngfellah!

The electrician who keeps disappearing into holes in the office ceiling this morning flashes a hairy happy trail every time he reaches up into the wiring.

It's very distracting.

My brother emailed, asking if I plan on heading to Panti's Make and Do Do tonight. "I dunno" I replied "I'll see how I feel yesterday."

It could be a long day.

Ghost Writing

me:
write me a blog post, will you? my weekend was so dull that my brain has died.

alarmingly charming and biddable man:
Sure! What topic were you thinking of?

me:
anything.

Honestly, kids, were it left to me I would have summarised my weekend thusly -

Sweeney Todd was okay. Funny Games U.S. was disappointing. I brought the dogs for a swim. It rained a lot. I waited ages for a bus. For nothing. Kings was depressing. Tesco was closed.

~The end~

I went on a wonderful camping trip to Cork last weekend but by the time I had recovered well enough to tell you about it, the stories were stale. Overcome by ennui after my attempts to stay on the straight and narrow this weekend, I spent my evening chatting idly and making plans instead of writing anything worth posting. But the alarmingly charming and biddable man (who has been holed up in a shed writing a script for the last few weeks, and will evidently do anything to avoid it) has kindly summarised my weekend for me, in snappy lines and short scriptwriter sentences:

I awoke last Sunday to a tent filled with the bilious tang of my brother's puke. Some wake-up call. After three solid weekends of debauchery, I decided I should probably take it easy. I would give my overworked organs a weekend off. A decision aided by having various friends and housemates abandon me for weddings and other dubious reasons.

The reward of a boozy Sunday afternoon helped steel my resolve for the barren desert that is Kildare on a Saturday night. My sobriety was quickly taken advantage by a sister wanting a lift into town. The journey that followed featured a leaky roof, aquaplaning and at least one near-death experience.

Upon returning home, I discovered my body covered in welts the size of pound coins. Not midges this time, but my other bete noir: MSG. I knew full well that those jalapeno tortilla chips wouldn't do me any favours, but was a bit much. I finished off the night with a shitload of antihistimines and a cold shower.

I awoke this morning at 8:30. I'm usually looking at this time from the other side. At least there was the boozy afternoon to look forward to.

My ostensible drinking partner returned from coaching spin classes and had a lie down. (A correspondent ponders that spin class 'sounds like an aerobic version of sufi dancing'. I clarified that it's more like cycling on the spot with someone shouting at you.) Too much shouting, perhaps, as he decided to get a head's start on the night's puking instead.

Now, it's all well and good to enter a weekend anticipating wholesale mischief and being denied... But to spend the weekend behaving yourself, even helping others, only to have the rug pulled out at the last minute? Well... that's just plain mean.

Forward Planning

Click

I'm there. You coming?

When Solitaire's The Only Game In Town

Noody Nady

Originally conceived as Naked Tuesday, the muggy weather these past few weeks has encouraged me to abandon trous as soon as I fall in the door from work each evening. In the hallway. Although I find it quite liberating, I still give myself the occasional fright when I pass a mirror. I have never been comfortable in my skin but for the past few weeks I've been practicing hard, making every effort to subscribe to Jack's Nice Dream.

Rhubarb Roulette
Mother is the necessity of invention - we had a bumper crop of 'barb back on the ranch this summer and I am doing my level best to get through it. This game of chance involves finding out how much stewed rhubarb you can eat before you get the runs, and I can now conclude that it is unfortunately not as much as one would think.

Pillage & Spillage
Where I raid may flatmates cupboards because they have heartlessly abandoned me, and also because I have been too lazy and/or absent to shop. I then cook with such gusto and Gordon Ramsey-fuelled abandon that the kitchen looks like the aftermath of [something apocalyptic] as painted by Jackson Pollock. I do not clean up. I shrug, wipe the soot from my chin and the tears from my eyes and sit down to enjoy a beautifully presented meal at a table set for one; crockery, cutlery, coaster and all.

See? I'm not an animal.

Reader's Choice #2

On Medication

for mysterious Billy, who likes pharmacists too

I've mentioned before that I have quite a close relationship with my pharmacist. He's short of stature and bald as an egg, with a winsome demeanour and creepily small hands. I entertain his awkward flirtations, he fills my lengthy prescriptions. We make it work. So imagine his surprise and delight this morning when I hobbled into his shop and hoiked up my skirt. Did I say delight? I meant horror. He licked his eyebrows for a second or two as the hem lifted but when he saw the state of the thigh I was proffering for his inspection - puffy and swollen with a nasty red bite - there was a flicker of revulsion before he forced his solicitous face back on.

The bite in question was not from an adventurous lover, but a midge. A common-or-garden in my fucking back garden midge. I am n'allergick to the little bastards and am usually careful (that intoxicating fragrance? It's deet, darling...) but in a fit of overtiredness and hangover I shed boots and tights when I got in from Cork on Monday evening and sat bare-legged in the garden, eating my dinner. When I woke yesterday morning, my thigh had swollen to the size of a tree trunk (and okay, it wasn't that far off it to begin with, but at least it was pleasantly milky in colour). I stuffed myself with antihistamines and slathered on the cortisone before heading into work, where I divided my day between whiny complaining and narcoleptic napping.

Determined to rid myself of stumpthigh, I shambled stiff-legged into Pharmacist this morning to demand that he make it better. I showed him my grievous injury (much to the amusement of the mean lady pharmacist*) but all I got was sympathy, an ice-pack and more fucking antihistamines. Unwilling to suffer another dozy day in work, I took some Pro Plus to counteract their soporific effects and found myself wide eyed and knackered, cranky as a crack addict for the morning (and with a freezing cold, massive and still red and itchy thigh).

Good times.

My sympathetic co-workers suggested that I shut the fuck up whining about it and try a poultice when I got home. I reckoned it couldn't hurt, so I've replaced the ice-pack with some warm soggy bread, and made quite the mess in the kitchen. Honestly, I don't think I've ever looked this fetching - in my pants, covered in sog, living in squalor, wild-eyed with itchy distress, and blogging about it.

*I've just realised that that post is dedicated to Billser too. People will think we have a problem.

Poppin' Cherries

I met another blogger for tea last week, a charming fellow who was stuck for neither words nor wit. Manners maketh the man, as he says himself; I got a mail from him the following afternoon to thank me for bringing him out on his first foray into meeting fellow bloggers and to say that he might now have the courage to do it more often.

He seemed so at ease and self assured that he had me well fooled. I still get butterflies pigeons every time I go to meet someone new. As I walked towards the gallery last Thursday evening, lost in reverie and cigarettes, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea, of pure what the fuck am I doing? Not that I was doing anything even remotely untoward, but sometimes I step back from this blog and wonder how I ended up here. I came perilously close to texting him (the ultimate in passive-aggressive communication, no?) and giving some lame excuse. Worse still, I contemplated telling him the truth - that I just couldn't go through with meeting yet another stranger. What a shitheaded solution that would have been - it would have made him feel that there was something untoward about meeting another blogger for a coffee on a damp Thursday evening. But I had forgotten to bring his number. I wandered through from Clare Street to Merrion Square, trying to look breezily unconcerned at the marked lack of friendly stranger at the entrance (had he stood me up?) until I spotted a likely candidate waiting outside on the steps.

He was lovely. Warm and friendly and funny. Had I not met him I would have been going home to an empty flat, in a bad mood, with a guilty conscience. His mail the next day credited me with breaking him in, but really all of these folk I've met in the last few months are breaking me in, and doing it gently. They have convinced me that this blog might well be a thing worth keeping.

Reader's Choice #1

A Time Before I Was Old

for B, the cheeky little Longford bollix

Looking back, I am mature enough to recognise that my greatest success during my teenage years was not the 8 As and 2 Bs I got in my Junior Certificate examinations, but the acquisition and retention of a boyfriend.

I was not an early bloomer by any means, so it was quite the unexpected coup when I managed to land myself a fella at 15 and hold on to him for two and a half years. It remains my record, which is something I am both disappointed by and embarrassed about at my now tender age of 27 (I know that I shouldn't be, and that makes it worse).

Our romance began as most do - with a little cack-handed help from a friend. One of his mates told me that he wanted to meet* me around behind the school, so I broke away from the herd and went to wait for him - I had to go first, because he was more popular than I, and couldn't be seen to wait on me (yes, even then I was the submissive). But I was thrilled. Thrilled that anyone liked me, but more particularly him because he was popular, and when you're 15 that's pretty much all that matters. He eventually sauntered around the corner and without so much as a how's-yer-father proceeded to wear the face off me for about 45 minutes straight. It was crap; messily uncomfortable and magnificently exciting. He asked me to "go out with him" about a week later (it was all very formal back in the day) and I became, for the first time, a girlfriend. We broke up after two years, but got back together again for a miserable six months during which I tried desperately to please him, and failed. He had noticed that there was greenish grass on yonder hills and fancied a roll in it, and nothing comes between a sexually confident teenage boy and his egotistical imaginings. I remember the agony of the aftermath, the crushing defeat. I cried for the longest time, sure that my heart was broken beyond repair. I didn't sleep or eat for, oh, two days. I ached physically with gut-wrenching sorrow. I wanted to die, and everything was in italics. SOMETIMES EVEN IN CAPS AND ITALICS.

Such melodrama is mortifying to remember. I was as tempestuous in my love as I was in my loss, and for the longest time I couldn't even think of him (or more specifically of me with him) without wincing. But now that I am contemplatively meandering through my twenties I have come to realise how much that relationship has given me. I was happy through the toughest times of my teens, happy and secure. I felt attractive, confident and occasionally even loved. Sure, I got a knock, but I've managed to carry that self-assurance into my relationships and though my love life may be an unmitigated disaster for the most part, my friendships endure. He was a bit of a gonk, but I have to give him some credit for who I've become.

Because she's not that bad.

*it was Clondalkinite for "shift" back in 1996.

Reader's Choice: An Occasional Series

I've been tinkering for a while with the idea of writing a series of posts on topics suggested by readers. Because you continue to read in spite of my lazy posts (for photographs of myself asleep and rants about bastards and Tuesdays do not make for a scintillating blog) and you deserve to have something better to read. I'd recommend that you look elsewhere... but I really like the attention. So because I do not have the wherewithal to be a better writer, I will occasionally attempt to pander to your readery whims. Any and all suggestions will be welcomed with open arms and a warm, wet kiss; leave them in the comments if you like, or email them to me (if you're shy and you don't want to be ridiculed by all and sundry for suggesting something stupid). The SWF has already suggested I pen a rant on her behalf on the myth of Real Women, so that will be my starting point. I'm not really sure what I think of Real Women or even if I qualify as one but I plan to write something anyway because let's face it, I'm not exactly an expert on any of the topics I touch upon here (apart from my vagina, and that pun was totally intended).

You folk read it anyway. I love you for that.

So, any requests?