Beo (Ach Ar Éigin) Ón Oireachtas

A quiet dinner, a sociable drink, an early night. Blue steak and white wine (I know, I know) with a generous serving of sparky budgies on the side. The drink was a very fucking sociable one; she batted her lashes and made me loquacious, so I batted my own and I made them laugh.

I did this knowing that I had no happy painkillers to see me through whatever repercussions this morning might bring. What odds, I thought, it's not like a hangover's ever killed anybody. It'll be better before you're twice married. Hoor it out. Offer up your suffering.

The hangover kicked in at 6.30am, and my grave error was upgraded to a possibly fatal mistake. Probably fatal. I wished it were, at least. Four glasses of water and a sorry whimper later, I fell back asleep, only to wake again at 9.30 in pretty much exactly the same fucking state. And what a state.

So I dress, in the loosest sense of the word, to go in search of a cure. I tiptoe into the hotel lift with a grimace so pained and a headache so disabling that the lady in it suspects I might actually be disabled, and presses my button for me. There's a Spar just across from the hotel entrance and never has their slogan seemed more apt; All you need (is paracetamol) when you need it (about 8 hours ago, but you can make it up to me). I trip in and wander aimlessly up and down the aisles, for no good reason. I know that they keep it behind the counter, but my pride won't allow me to totter up, vulnerable and bleary-eyed, and tell the nice lady what I want. It's like buying lube with potatoes and milk in Tesco; I'm trying to hide the fact that I am braless and hungover by buying other "respectable" things too, like, eh, Sunny Delight and the Irish Times.

Mission accomplished, I hurry back to my room (Pride, inconvenient bitch that she is, not allowing me to neck the paracetamol as I stroll across the lobby, and Dexterity colluding with her and not allowing me to open the Sunny D, because Dexterity is just a bit of cunt anyway). Those ten minutes between swallowing the tablets and their tentative massaging of my temples seem like the longest of my life.

Thus fortified, I head for breakfast and sit singing along to Elton John's Rocketman, looking out at the sun shining on the river Lee. Cork looks lovely in the winter sunshine. The rashers glint under their heatlamp, the eggs wobble like runny little diddies in their greasy bath. I burst two in my effort to claim one, only afterwards noticing the slice which surely would have made for a better tool to lift them with than the sausage tongs. Shrug. Laugh. Fuck it. My rubber arms have gotten me tangled up in blue again, but I'm happy. My hangover and I, we're cool. Je ne regrette rien, and she knows it.

A Warm Welcome

The Blonde bounded in, full of joy and hugs, eager to please. She buried her nose in his crotch by way of a greeting, while I ushered the Urchin out into the garden for our customary hello (where I hold her still so's I can pat her on the head and pretend she's a normal dog, and she squrims and wets herself). Satisfied that I'd squeezed her bladder dry, I let her back in. She's cute! he exclaimed, and picked her up to give her a hug, whereupon she promptly sprayed his hoodie with piss.

He'll learn.

Review: Taken

Alt. Title: What To Do In Westport On A Bank Holiday Monday In The Rain When Your Plans To Fly Your Kite On The Beach Are Foiled By Gale Force Winds, Acute Lazy Bitchitis And Inappropriate Footwear

I'll tear down the Eiffel tower if I have to! he says in large italics, and you think really, Liamo, I wouldn't bother my hole. She's an annoying little bitch, and you, with your dyed hair, are clearly no Bruce Willis.

Avoid.

Entrapment

"What's your name?" asked the little girl, wiping her snotty nose in her sleeve and peeking up at me through her dirty blonde fringe. Rosie, I said. "What's yours?" JoJo. "Hiya, JoJo. Are you on your holidays from school now?" Yes! she giggled, and then her eyes widened. "How did you know?" I blustered something along the lines of "I just know" and congratulated myself on not sounding Gary Glitter at all. Oh yeah.

JoJo's eyes narrowed. "Are you a stranger?" Um, yes. I paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer her. Hoping to fuck that the tracksuited twentysomething beside her was her da, and that he'd been listening before we got to the accusatory part of the conversation. Trying and failing to catch his eye, I answered her with a red cheeked mumble. "Um, yes." What? she said, forcing me to repeat myself, loudly.

She started edging towards the door, the little wagon.

The previous evening I had stopped off in Aldi on my way home to pick up some wine for a rather maudlin dinner party. The man in front of me at the checkout made some smalltalk while we queued, then waited for me at the packing shelf and asked me on a date. It was very sweet, he looked very nervous and not at all practiced in the art of supermarket sweep-her-off-her-feet. I stood there, mortified, trying to shove a pineapple into my handbag. And then started edging towards the door, a little wagon.

Photoshop Disasters

Via C'est la Craic, who has far too much time on his hands. I quite like your blog and visit from time to time, he emails. Unfortunately for art, I came across the bath photo and got creative.

Indeed.

What The Fuck Is Video Art?

Last night saw me in The Joinery up on Arbour Hill, pretending to be cool and wishing to fuck that I was wearing a black poloneck and a mullet instead of curls and a pink satin alice band. I never know what to do at art exhibitions, particularly avant-garde ones. This is in part because I'm not actually sure what avant-garde means, other than it generally applies to stuff my nana wouldn't like.

But it's all about leaving your comfort zone, right? "They have Alsatians here!" exclaimed my brother as we darted nervously through the traffic in Stoneybatter. Presumably it's all poodles and pomeranians in Monkstown.

Having trailed across the city from Grand Canal Street, we loitered outside the gallery, finishing our cigarettes. Smoking makes us look cool. I lack the manual dexterity to smoke roll ups, so instead I smoke expensive and pretentious slims called Vogue. My cool factor would increase exponentially if I could roll, I reckon, but for now I'll just feign it fashionably in the dim light.

Through the window I can see a huge screen, lots of distressing white and flashing images, tracked by the sound of a baby squalling, a high pitched, insistent cry that makes you want to comfort it, or smother it with a pillow. I think abstract and artful* thoughts to myself as I pull on my cigarette, mulling over what this piece says to me about the human condition (and my mothering instincts). A lady comes barreling out the door with the screaming child in a buggy and I realise that unless we're looking at performance art, I have been talking through my hole.

The piece is called Babel, it transpires, and is an apocalyptic (video) postcard to a technohead with a minuscule attention span. Perhaps it is about me after all. After some earnest posturing in front of the various video installations (there are headphones dangling from the ceiling... should I just hold them to my ear, DJ style, like I'm not that bovvered? Or hog them and stand engrossed, pretending to get it now that I can hear the images?) I move into the second room where I am delighted to discover some bona fide performance art in the form of Julian Longchamp and the Apostroph' Ensemble's Somnambule. This time I do stand, engrossed and pretending to get it while a trio of musicians hide behind a sheet, playing an atmospheric soundtrack to a surreal film. When the piece ends (I know it was the end, because there were credits) the uncomfortably close crowd give an uncomfortably restrained clap. I didn't start it, reigning in my compulsion to applaud their performance for fear it might be uncool, but I joined in with faux ennui. Clap clap, yes, very good. All the while thinking I must pick up one of those sheets on the way out so that I sound like I know what I'm talking about when I write this up on my blog. So that people will think I'm cool.

I'm not. So this evening I reverted to form; dispensed with the poseuring and stuck with what I know. Chilli, mostly. Piquante, with parmesan, grated love, honest warmth and hugs.

*You're right, I don't understand what artful means either.

Questions And Answers

is the rampant rabbit wave too big?
Yes. Don't mind the saleslady, she's on comission.

faking milk in a tub
It wasn't fake.
*cough*

i have no fun friday
Me neither. Perhaps we should hook up?

where to find skinny spanish hottie
Not here, I'm afraid. Size sixteen Irish potato.

shenanigans, malarkey, tomfoolery
We should definitely hook up.

frotting on the underground
I'm told it happens. Not to me, unfortunately.

Back To Mine: Progress Report

After much indecision, bluster and scribbling notes in the margins as I struggled into a new dress and out of my headphones in the Penneys changing room on Saturday morning, I present the Sleeve Notes. The CDs are stacked on my desk; I have yet to break into the stationary cupboard to yoink a load of padded envelopes. Later, maybe, when nobody's looking.

While you're waiting anxiously for the postman, I suggest you check out the Astonishing Sod Ape's far superior offering. It saw me through the weekend.

Jealousy Is An Ugly Emotion

See the Grinch, with his scowl and pot belly? That's me, this evening.

With Russell Brand's hair.

When I Disappoint Myself

Walking down Camden Street on Thursday afternoon I passed an elderly man, sitting on the stoop of one of the Georgian houses. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye, he looked rattled. There was a girl sitting with him, one arm under his to support him while he dabbed at the cut with a wad of tissue, the other hand clutching a mobile phone. I was, as I always am, absorbed in my own little world. It was only when I drew level with them that the scene registered with me - he'd fallen and she'd stopped, steadied him and called for help. I didn't stop. Didn't even lower my headphones.

That same evening, I turned the corner onto Mount St. Lower to see the traffic backed up behind a small green car which had broken down in the middle of the street. I watched as the driver struggled out of his seatbelt, opened the door and set himself to push it. He was in his fifties, portly, unfit, flustered. I slowed my walk, shifted the weight of the shopping bags that were cutting into my palms. Thought of the old man with the bloodied face and the worried girl sat beside him. But I didn't stop. After the longest pause, a man at the bus stop put his bag on the ground and moved towards the car to help. I didn't look back, but by the time I reached my crossing the traffic was moving again.

Karma is going to come knocking for me. And I fear he will not be wearing his kid gloves.

Suggest Your Own Title

The middle-aged lady at the Tesco till gives me a friendly smile and an approving nod as she scans through my soon-to-be purchases. Potatoes, milk, strawberries and a tube of KY. Now there, she thinks, is a single girl who knows how to look after herself.

Back To Mine - Rosie's

Remember my promise? It's taken me 267 days (I counted, using mine and everyone else's fingers) but I have finally got my shit together and made the damn mixtape. Were we in the wee small hours, I would likely try to ply you with wine, wit, and this.

It probably wouldn't work.

If you're like me and you get overexcited when strangers send you mixtapes in the post, email me with your address and I'll have it out to you in time for Christmas. Probably.

You Can Take Your Kit Kat

To safeguard against recession induced poverty, I have taken on some translation work. It means that after a long day in the office, tearing someone else's translation work to shreds and painstakingly stitching it back together again until it resembles legible text, I get to spend a long evening at my laptop, poking another ream of corporate bumf with a disappointed finger. Drinking Earl Grey, listening to the hiss of the iron as the Swede presses his socks.

I am desperately bored.

I have installed Gmail's Take A Break feature, which allows me to disable access to my mail and chat features for fifteen minutes at a time. To get some work done, should I feel like it. I don't. Go out a walk (sic) get some real work done or have a snack. We'll be back in a minute! it tells me. I sip my tepid tea. Check my blog's statcounter for the bazillionth time today, looking for... I don't know what. Nothing I see there will make this futile enterprise any more valid.

Gmail Take A Break embodies the value of silence, raves one reviewer. But it is in quiet moments like these that I am forced to assess my self worth, and right now I value the silence less for it.

Freak Out Gnomics

I have an ostrich approach to economics and a dose of dyscalculia, I keep hearing that we're in a recession but I don't understand how or why. Where has all the money gone? Surely someone must have it. A gawk at my online banking (and a nod from the barman in Solas) tells me where mine has gone, but my fritterings have hardly caused a crash in the global economy.

I have a good job but I don't get paid much. Enough to cover the rent, enough to live a good life. I don't own a car but I pay insurance on two, I don't own a house but there are two I can call home. My dinner comes from Aldi, my dresses come from Penneys. I couldn't tell you how much a pint should cost but I wouldn't hesitate to buy you one. Even if I didn't like you very much.

So what does today's budget mean for me? This is not a rhetorical question. Make with the pithy, witty answers in the comments please.

Pineapple Head

I dressed with careless abandon this morning. Pulled on my blue stripey t-shirt, the one with the scribbled cartoon and hurry up! break time is coming!! written in a childish scrawl across the front, which makes my colleagues laugh. Black jeans scraped from the bedroom floor; they flatter my arse and say shimmy on the label. This morning it reads like a request. Then my flowery runners, which squeak with every step. On paranoid days I blush, convinced that everyone must think I have horribly sweaty feet. Why on earth I wouldn't just assume that everyone thinks I have squeaky runners is anyone's guess, and a psychiatrist's wet and sticky dream. I leave my hair in a wet, messy tousle and my face sleepy-eyed and apple-cheeked.

I was going to dress with careful deliberation today, straighten my hair and paint on a pretty face. I was going to sit down to a courteous conversation that I'd rather not have. But I look prettier when I smile with flushed cheeks and freckles than I do when I have a powdered nose and runny mascara. My life is too short for that shite.

I saunter into work. There may even have been a shimmy to my shake - showing some spine feels good this morning. I listen to Crowded House because you can't pretend to be cool all of the time. When the lights change at Charlemont Bridge I curb my urge to sit down on the kerb. It's one thing to be feeling easy in the morning sunshine, it's quite another to share your contentedness to wait for the little green man to the point where other commuters are looking at you with naked concern. Je suis bien dans ma peau et ma tête, I think, pretentiously and in French. Because I do feel good in my skin this morning, more so than I have done in a while.

This ain't no sea-change, I think. Not yet, anyway. But I had tired of the tempestuous puddle I'd chosen to paddle in.

Sunday's Milk And Honey

Bíonn rianta le chuile ní a dhéanaimse na laethanta seo, fuaimeanna fileata a bheireann bua, beocht agus brí leo. Sí Jetta's Palace a bhí i mo chluasa inniu, agus blasfaidh mé milseacht meala na maidine as seo amach aon uair a chloisimse a caoince.

Automatic, Systematic, Hydromatic

I decided to take her out for a spin, this impostor, this shiny replacement for the car I had loved like a pet. Like a pet who chews at your wallet and breaks your heart.

I was determined not to like her much. No, she wouldn't win me over with the warm embrace of her buckety seats or the tight, comforting hold of her functioning handbrake. Most of all, she would not impress me with her lack of gears. A glorified go-kart, I scoffed, she'll be dull as ditchwater.

So I took her out on the open road, and she was okay. Nothing special. I'm bored, I rambled unconvincingly to myself while I jabbed at the stereo. I had a leisurely flick through the stations, followed by a good root around the glovebox, and a browse through the CDs. I slapped on some Bowie, that Earthling album that I love and all other earthlings hate. Or at least ridicule.

All the while, motoring. And falling slowly for this accommodating new machine, this purring automatic.

We got as far as Baggot Street before she started to complain of thirst, so I pulled in to the petrol station. Sidled up to the pump, savoured the admiring glances from the guy at the next one over. She is pretty, with her sleek blue lines and soft top. I slip her into neutral, subtly adjust my knickers and step out to fill her up, and flirt with your man. Except that I don't, because the key is stuck in the ignition. So I fiddle with it, faking an exasperated smile as if to imply that this happens all the time. No big deal! Jiggle the steering wheel. Pull a little more insistently. I realise as my panic mounts that there is a queue of cars behind mine, snaking out onto Mespil Road and blocking traffic. So I start the engine and move forward to the conveniently vacated pump in front of me, then repeat the whole charade. This time with the shop assistant watching me intently through the window, and pointing me out to his customers.

Defeated, I pull out into the traffic, mortified but fucked if I'm going to let on that there's anything the matter. I just like cruising forecourts, is all... I am all but whistling a tune, trying to stem the panic as I drive the half mile home, reviewing my less than favourable options. I have no fuel. I have no idea how far this new toy will run on fumes. I have just made a monumental tit of myself at the only petrol station for miles. I cannot leave the car, because I cannot lock the car, because I cannot get the fucking bastard key out of the ignition. I will have to sleep in it overnight, I think, or at least for a few hours until one of my parents arrives to fix it. I have no idea how they might do this, but once they sit in to the driver's seat I plan to run away and hide. They decided to trade up, so technically, this is their fault.

I fell for her, and she has betrayed me.

I pull up outside the flat, resigned, and slip her into park. Kill the engine and give the key a lacklustre turn. It slides out easily.

Something In The Air

Have you ever woken up of a hungover morning, snuffled out of your slumber and let off a thunderous, smelly fart only to realise that the warmth in the bed emanates not from your gaseous emission but from the lover you've been working so hard to impress?

I haven't, of course. Girls don't fart.

We save them all until bathtime, and then we make bubbles.

Rich Tea

I called on my nana this evening for some comfort, some time with my family. They picked me up on Leinster Road, looking sodden and forlorn, tripping along in the rain in my stupid raincoat and stupider headphones. "What's up with you?" Nothing, I sighed, just not in a good mood. She had a big pot of curry for dinner, but I didn't eat much. Then we had tea, and biscuits.

I ate them alright.

Renovations

"I want to borrow their zuum zuum thingy!" He shouts when he gets excited, and I have to suppress a smile. He dashes past in his plaid jammies and comes back two seconds later, victorious. His grin has an almost manic edge. He's wielding the painters' cordless drill. Before I can say a thing he's up on the kitchen chair, making a beeline for the ratty slatted blind that hangs over the window. "What's this for?" he asks, pulling at an untidy but important looking cable hanging loose from the sill, his eyes lighting on the kitchen scissors (which he presumably plans to use to "fix" the wire) as he waves the drill around, for emphasis.

I close my eyes and for the briefest of seconds savour the visions of fried Swede. Then I open them again and ask him not to cut it. "There is just no logic" he mutters disappointedly.

How right you are, thinks his Pebble.

Because Choppy Fringes Are All The Rage

Following on from my critical post and the fraught commenting and counter posting that ensued, I had an idea. "Always room for another awards show" said Damien. Okay, so he qualified it with "even one based on snobbery and elitism", but the idea took hold. So with the help of some friends, I started to draw up a plan.

Well, I started to scrawl witticisms and spidery diagrams in my notebook, to be a little more accurate. The Irish Blog Awards are to he held in Cork this year, on my birthday. Because I do not plan to attend (worrying that there might be WANTED posters of me at the entrances, or worse, that it would be just like last year where nobody knew or indeed gave a fuck who I was) I started thinking that it might be nice to have a little warm-up event in Dublin. An alternative, of sorts. A fringe event. The Ugly Blog Ball.

I got quite excited by this. Even dreamt up some categories - Most Personal Blog, Best Commenter, Best Short Post, Biggest Controversialist, that sort of thing. Pondered venues, almost emailed Panti to see if she might play hostess now that she's a blogger herself. Decided that it should be fancy dress, to lend it a festive feel. Dress as your blog! I would wear flowers, I reckoned, and lots and lots of rouge. I looked forward to seeing Catherine wear wheels, to see Gimme frolic, Flavor Flav style, in oversized timepieces. I couldn't decide quite what to do with Annie, bar glue a tumbler to her ear.

But I lack Damien Mulley's drive and dedication, so I have done nothing to make this happen. Perhaps next year, eh?

One Monday In October

I walked today, the usual half hour into work. A beautiful cold October morning, with wintry sun and familiar faces along the route. I kept my headphones on, managed a wave across the water, a conas tá? at the traffic lights.

I walked again after lunch, from Mountjoy Square back to Rathmines. I could have gotten a taxi but I didn't want to make smalltalk with the driver. Even walked as far as the river and hopped on a bus, but the thoughts of smiling and stating my fare to the tiománaí, perhaps having to share a seat, were too much. So I walked the 5 kilometres. I was wearing my boots, my soft black leather boots that have seen me through three cold and wet winters in Dublin, that have never so much as blistered my heel, that go with nothing but that I wear with everything. By the time I reached Gardiner Street, the scratch I had felt at my heel on the walk from Love Lane this morning had opened. But I walked on. And then after a few hours of sitting at my desk, going through the motions, I walked my half hour home again.

I sat on the edge of my bed, unzipped my boots and peeled off my tights. There is a bloodied scrape on the back of my ankle. The soft, paper-thin flesh that covers the bone just above my heel is ragged and torn. So I climb under the blankets. The sitting room is in disarray, the painters are in and the furniture is piled high in the centre of the room. I go to bed, because right now I feel like I have nowhere else to go. I open my laptop, because right now I feel like I have nobody else to talk to, at least nobody that I can talk to that will not want to make me feel better. And I do not want to be made feel better. I know what I want, and I am biting back a blind and irrational panic that it may be something I cannot have. Something I do not, for so many reasons, deserve.

I wonder at my persistence. At my willingness to fight. At my wearied determination to hurt myself by holding out for the things I long for most, for the things my senseless soul has decided I need to be happy. I write this, and wonder if in time I will read it again and feel embarrassed by it. I remember a quote - do not worry too much about the indiscretion, foolishness or banality of what you write. Leave Time to take care of it all - and decide to publish it anyway. I wonder then if time has ever done me any favours, or ever will. I tinker with the idea of turning the comments off, and decide that blithe responses to well-meaning comments will be easier than heartfelt ones to personal emails.

I'd Love To Cook A Stew For You, But I Have No Pot*

I have spent my morning slaving over a hot stove. It is not yet lunchtime and there is dinner for a dozen bubbling on the hob. I don't have mouths to feed. There's just me here. The Swede will be home at some stage and will doubtless oblige me by eating a bowl of something, but it's beyond even him to polish off a pot of chilli and another of spiced beef stew. It will make me smile to watch him try.

I have spent my morning cooking because I had doubts to quell, and time to kill.

Now that the flat is rich with the smell of garlic and paprika, I can sit down, pour some tea and breathe again. I have done something simple, I have made something good, I have taken my time with it and poured my thoughts into it - the food will taste of heart and soul.

Well, the chilli will taste as it always does. My knee-jerk reaction to bubbling thoughts, it is my most familiar of foods. It will taste better on Tuesday than it does today, it will sit in the freezer until I need warming some evening after a wet walk home from work.

My stew will taste of home.

I might leave it til tomorrow. By then it will taste of onions, garlic and sweet red peppers, paprika, salt, tabasco and beef, mushrooms, red wine, sour cream and love.

And that goes much better with mashed potatoes.

*Title inspired by my current read, Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. Emotional cooking inspired by an old favourite, Salman Rusdie's sprawling epic The Moor's Last Sigh.

I'm Not A Feminist, But

It seems that vaginae are somewhat of a handicap when it comes to parallel parking. News to me! I can only assume that I am fortunate to have one that neither obscures my peripheral vision nor adversely affects my spatial awareness.

I am pretty sure (or at least wholly optimistic) that there was never any sexist intent behind Whoops' post, but that does not excuse its publication or her defence of it. Bar one, all of the comments on the post are glowing - people exhibiting a genuine gratitude for what are undoubtedly clear and useful instructions on how to perform a complex manoeuvre.

Unthinking and casual sexism makes me very mad. That unthinking and casual sexism is politely ignored or worse, simply not noticed, makes me even madder.

Mo Sháith Is Barraíocht

I am fatigued. I think I need a rest.

It might be this. It might be a million other posts like it. Gimme's succinct summary speaks in a soft whisper - it tells me that I am losing the will to blog.

It might be the smell of paint pervading the flat, the weight on my mind, the butterflies in my tummy. It might be the pitcher of Buckfast we drank last night. It might be that things are out of my hands, and that I have a song that I can't get out of my head.

It might be that I need a good night's sleep.

It might be nothing at all.