Holly Golightly

She followed me through to the lounge, met me halfway as I swept back through the bar, trying to look as if I wasn't looking. I think I hugged her, or at least I hope I did. She admitted to being nervous, because it's weird. "Nah!" I insisted, reassuring her that people off the internet are very nice and that it's not at all scary meeting them because after all you've been reading their diaries for so long before meeting them that you know more about them than their real friends and anyway that's how I met the Jaffa Cake and sure you know him from school anyway, isn't that mad? and... and... and so on and so forth because I chatter like a monkey when I'm nervous and I was every bit as nervous as she was. I had a half hour of tardy and a pile of discarded clothes on my bedroom floor to prove it.

I'd worn the shoes to impress her. Pewter jazz shoes, very smelly, but to my mind very fucking snazzy. "I love your shoes!" she exclaimed as she made to hug me goodbye. Delighted, I lowered my face in mock modesty, straight into her fist.

You'd Have To Laugh

Last night he cooked me dinner and I brought him flowers; role reversal rolled over into this morning. He's never so tired as when he wakes, but this time it was I who straggled down the street, a grumpy little face and a leaden pace. He bounded along. Like I normally do. It was very annoying.

"Will I make farty sounds on your face?" he asked, before blowing a slobbery, squelchy kiss on my cheek. At Holles St. he stroked my temples with mock concern. Diddums has a sore head. "How about I numb the area?" he said, before diving into my collarbone, mumbling "num! num! num!" as he laughed at his own joke and nuzzled my neck. Well, my boobs, if I'm honest.

We got as far as Clare St. before we passed the small man who works on my street. He, like me, had a nasty cough. "See" the Jaffa Cake squeezed me "it's a very phlegmy dwarf. You don't see that every day."

Another Thing That Happened On Saturday

My brother called, sounding excited and maybe a little drunk. He wasn't, though. "Guess where I am!" He was in New York, that much we knew. He was calling from Macy's. Hardly newsworthy in itself, but he did seem uncommonly giddy. I was reminded of the last time I was in Macy's, the time I found the Nine West stiletto heel dolly shoes in my size for $14. I say the last time I was in Macy's like I go there all the time, but you and I both know that it was only the once. $14, though! Bargain! I still wear them all the time very occasionally when I have to dress up for something that I know will be a strictly sitting-down affair.

Anyway. This is his story.

"What's that Beyoncé song?" he asked. I could smell a pun coming, but my knowledge of popular musics is paltry enough for my palate to have trouble sniffing him out. "Put a ring on it..?"

"DONE!"

He had, too.

Lá Breithe Shona

On Saturday morning I woke up, 28 years old.

On Sunday morning, the Jaffa Cake wandered into the kitchen to find me cooking a fry, wearing only my knickers, and decided then and there that it must be his birthday.

Review: Bolt 3D

Rhino. Just too fucking cute.

Like every other kid in the cinema, I want a hamster.

Recovery: Day 7

I ordered scrambled eggs. I wanted the porridge with honey but, as the waiter had already apologetically explained to the lady at the next table, he didn't really know how to make it. He had to apologetically explain himself to me too because I hadn't been paying attention the first time. I was too busy picking at my nose.

The eggs, when they came, were bland and disappointing. He caught me looking covetously at his fry. "You can have a sausage" he said, generously. "What?" I said, squinting, like that would help me to hear. This fucking flu has me deaf; swollen glands either side of my neck are making me mumpy grumpy. He forked the sausage onto my plate and I cut into it lengthways. "I can smell it!" I exclaimed, wide-eyed with surprise and snot. This fucking flu is turning me into Helen Keller.

Romance Isn't Dead

But she's very fucking ill.

Don't turn into one of those people that disappears once they start getting a regular ride... don't do it... cautioned the Dublinista. Unlikely, my dear, unless he learns to breathe through his ears. We share most everything (including, to my dismay, the occasional toothbrush) so karma saw fit to divvy up a dose of febrile disease for us on Valentine's Day. Nothing says "I love you" like a giftwrapped box of Uniflu.

He got me a card too, but that will probably have to be burned along with the bedlinen.

From The Archives #2

Just Like That Genie From The Meteor Ad

Annoying Cunt

You meet a few times and hit it off. There is chemistry, reactive elements fizzle and pop. He asks you out on a date, dinner and a show. Showing his age, or yours (you're used to a few drinks and a fumbled kiss on the way home). You're a little overwhelmed by him but being a thoroughly modern Millie, you insist on buying dinner. You have a ball and so does he; you know this because he says so. You let him know that you'd like to see him again. And then *poof!* he disappears off up his own hole, leaving you to imagine what it is you might have done wrong this time.

Nothing, I'm pretty sure.

Rosie Is Boring, Unfunny

I haven't been blogging much because I'm trying to maintain the illusion (here, at least) that I am a hilarious and fascinating individual. I haven't been blogging much because I have gone up a cup size since starting on the pill and and my bouncing B cup bosoms now get in the way of my keyboard. I haven't been blogging much because my human feed reader resolved not to read any more bad blogs so I've started reading some of them myself because I sometimes miss the sad thrill of sneering at shit grammar, but it's gone too far and they've put me off blogging.

I'm small like that. Other than my ears, it's the only small thing about me. My arse, for example, is as ample as my ego, which has kept me from blogging too.

Review: Revolutionary Road

I expected to be moved, but Frank and April were so self-absorbed that it was hard to imagine they'd ever been in love with one another. I saw no tragedy in the demise of their relationship, just a dull inevitability. Watching them wring the drama out of it felt like another indulgence of their egos.

When Howard Givings turned the volume down on his hearing aid, that was love. When the Jaffa Cake asked his sister to swap seats with him so that he could hold my hand, that was embarrassing.

But, you know, nice.

A Slip And A Slide

"That'll be €9.10, please."

I pocket them and dodge the traffic, skidding across the slush on Aungier St. I'd spent so long thinking, sitting on that grimy grey couch thinking about the cigarettes that I won't have time to smoke one. So I peel off the cellophane and sniff them. Old socks.

Bás nádúrtha, a deir siad, and there is some cold comfort to be taken from that. I am a lady perpetually in search of succour. Of course, the end result is the same; he's gone. I hope that there might be reassurance for his mother in the manner of his loss. I think then of another mother, and wonder if it is any less natural to end your own life, searching for something that has remained resolutely just out of your reach.

I switch off, pocket the cigarettes and step inside.

It's snowing again when I leave work to walk home, fat flakes like the ones I've been picking from my psioratic scalp. It's been a picky day, and the thin skin behind my left ear is red raw. I remember sitting on the couch with the Leitrim Lady not so long ago. "Stop picking it!" she barked, and I paused, hand halfway to my hair. The Jaffa Cake took his finger from his nose, and she slapped her own hand away from the scab on her scar. Three guilty giggles.

I don't wonder fancifully if I am pretty as a postcard today, I just want to be home and dry. Still fingering the fags in my pocket, I nod to Oscar as I pass him on Merrion Square. A man walking towards me mistakes my nod for a greeting, and begins unbuttoning his coat. No, I think, please not today. He fumbles in his pockets, then asks through broken teeth if I might have a cigarette for him. I hand him the packet, relieved. Then continue on my way, a little motherfucking Teresa.

With Flawless Pause And Intonation

He's a classically trained Shakespearean actor, you know.

I've gotten too used to my morning natter and I've gotten too used to his late night chatter. My mother was mortified to hear that he reads to me in bed, and more embarrassed still that it was he (not me) who oh so casually revealed this aspect of our romance. Maybe she hadn't imagined that I'd allow such a thing.

Anyway, on the nights when he's not there and in the cold mornings that follow them, I've begun to substitute him with Timothy Dalton. We've spent two nights together now, Timothy and I, and he walked me to work this morning. He's reading some Benjamin Black to me and making a fine fist of it, except when it comes to Dolly Moran's name, which he makes a pig's ear of. Mor an, Timothy, not Mo ran. Potato potato, tomato tomato.

Duty's calling for my Jaffa Cake at 5am this Thursday morning; he's off to Madrid and I'd envy him were it not for the 56 teenagers he'll spend til Sunday with. I mention this as it has absolutely nothing to do with me pirating every audiobook in the Rathmines public library last night.

There was nothing on telly, is all.

Review: Rachel Getting Married

As if Bride Wars wasn't enough of a reason to dislike Anne Hathaway.

First We'll Make Snow Angels For Two Hours, Then We'll Go Ice Skating, Then We'll Eat A Whole Roll Of Tollhouse Cookie-dough As Fast As We Can...

Good morning, gorgeous. There's a beautiful snowy wonderland waiting outside for you. Just don't slip and crack your skull walking along the 'nal.

He's a very optimistic realist, my Jaffa Cake. It had rained on Love Lane this morning, so I flaghopped with care down Mount St. What snow had fallen overnight was now in puddles of slush, sat like pizzas of sick in the centre of each paving slab, turning the street into a slick chequerboard of calamity. I'm clumsy in the mornings (afternoons and evenings) so having to pick my way in to work fairly cooled my heels. I'd planned to prance in my new boots. Nobody's noticed my new boots yet, but I'm trying not to sulk about that.

It's going really well.

It started to snow again, and the flakes stuck to my red coat and curls. I must look pretty as a postcard! I thought to myself, before catching a glimpse of my sodden reflection. It is only now that it dawns on me; people look pretty as pictures, places are pretty as postcards. I am all bumps and hillocks today, my tangled undergrowth stretching this metaphor further than either of us wanted to go.