Not By His Measure

On Monday evening I arrived home to find he had left a Bretzel Bakery treat wrapped in a sweet note on my pillow.

On Wednesday night it caught up with me. It and all the other delicious things I have eaten over the course of my entire life. "I need to go on a diet" I mumbled in a teary, accusatory tone. In bed, at 11.45pm. Because that is when I start all of my diets - on a full stomach before a night's sleep. "I'm too fat". He made reassuring, soothing noises and I nodded off.

On Thursday evening I arrived home to find that he hadn't left a Bretzel Bakery treat wrapped in a sweet note on my pillow. He made the bed! I thought, making mental lemonade. My plummeting sugar levels stomped huffily into the kitchen, where he'd laid out a spread.

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A Voluble Talker Both At Work And At Table

We went out for a recession busting meal last night. The Schoolhouse were offering dinner for two with a bottle of house wine for €50. I was offering to throw a mickeyfit if I didn't get to eat, and soon. So eat we did, rib-eyes and rhubarb crumble. And chicken liver parfait and french onion soup and pavlova (though not in that order). Full-bellied, smiling and self-congratulatory, I had to remind myself that recession busting is all about staying home and eating the leftover curry from the freezer.

But going out for dinner is all about the company. "Look at them!" I whispered, gaping at the 40-odd odd members of the Pugin Society seated two tables away. "Do you want one of them too?" he asked, mocking my fondness for pets. "Yes! That one with the long curly hair and the rounded glasses" I said. "He looks like he eats snails. I'll keep him in the pantry".

Bualadh bos mór don bhFo-choiste Ad Hoc Tae agus Brioscaí

Alt. Title: 2 Years And 653 Posts Later (in which the Jaffa Cake waxes lyrical on my behalf)

Rosie cares so much about her devoted readers that she's asked me to whip up some sort of a second birthday cake for you all on her behalf. The lazy fuckwit.

See, I met Rosie through blogging, and now I'm about to good-n-proper grown-up move in with her. It's a little strange, when I think about it. And I thought about it a lot at first, because I suppose I started off by having some weird form of blogging crush on her. I started reading here when she wrote that post that seemed to hack a few very insecure people off in a big way. Flak was flying, and every cunt in the blogosphere (how I hate that word!) was flying in to give their tuppenceworth. She wasn't so much saying what everyone else was thinking, as saying what everyone else hadn't quite managed to get around to thinking yet. "Why are people being mean to this lady who speaketh only the truth?" I thought to myself, and, like the cunt from the blogosphere that I am, waded in with my tuppenceworth

And I read more, and I back-read (but only a little bit, I don't read so fast).

She often speaks the truth! She's pretty funny! She swears ever so elegantly! She uses italics effectively! She's loquacious! She's uses clever words I don't always understand!*

Today, after being landed with this commission, I did a little more back-reading, just to see what she was writing about in the immediate aftermath of beginning this blog. I had to be careful, though, there might be talk of other fellas' mickeys if I looked in the wrong place. It seems she began with this post and has carried on banging on about herself in much the same vein ever since, only with more bad language and a few posts so emotive that you could feel the tears splashing on the keyboard. Lots of people do that, but she's one of the few who have managed to do it and keep it compelling. If Rosie has nothing to say, she'll generally say fuck-all. But the thing is, and I make my apologies to you all here, since we got together her posting-rate has taken a nosedive to rival Ireland's GDP. Mine has too. Because when you're inclined to telling anyone who'll listen about any little thing that has needled its way into your attentions today, then it comes as a blessed relief when you find that there's one solitary person who's delighted to hear about every little one of them.

She'll carry on posting, she's too talented and far too fond of your affirmations not to. And, with any luck, she'll be asking me to do this again next year.

*Incidentally, she tells me she realised that we'd definitely hit it off after I wrote a post denouncing those who use exclamation marks excessively.

D'ya Like Dags?

My brother bought a solid wood bedroom suite for a song, which seemed a far more reasonable sum than the €285000 he'll need to buy a house to put it in. "I'll mind it for you in my new flat!" I said, conveniently overlooking the fact that I don't have a new flat yet and that if I did, the suite would fill it. Flats for two don't seem to fit much more than flatpack. "Are you buying a television?" I asked, thinking that this homemaking lark of his could work in my favour.

It turned out that his colleague was trying to offload one before she emigrated to Australia - a free telly and two goldfish. "Do you want two goldfish?" The Jaffa Cake asks the most ridiculous rhetorical questions sometimes. I want a goldfish and a hamster and a kitty and a doggy and some ducks and maybe a wrabbit. "Well she's emigrating, so they'd be homeless" I said with a theatrical wobble of the lip that seconds later turned to tears when I realised that the fish might be flushed if I didn't intervene. Kinda like the time I found Lila in a car park. He laughed at me. We might end up homeless ourselves, but I'm fucked if those fish will.

The Static In The Flow

Another 6am in front of the bathroom mirror. My skin has a bluish pallor. There is a red handprint on my stomach, the outline of his fingers clearly visible in the harsh bathroom light. He holds me tight while I sleep.

10am in bed, and he's mooching in his sleep. He lifts his head from my chest to roll over and I trace the perfect red impression his ear has left on my shoulder. I think about breakfast, and my worries evaporate in the fading seashell sworls.

On Safari

"Can you call me when we get to the Summerbank Hotel?" I asked politely, giving her my biggest smile with my smallest change, shovelling handfuls of brown money into the fare thingy and sweating slightly in case she said "No, fuck off". She didn't. "Do you mean the Sunnybank Hotel, in Phibsboro?" I didn't know, so I scrabbled in my bag for my phone and scrolled through the texts, looking for the directions I'd been given. Only short of producing a printed fucking Google map. "On Botanic Road" I said.

"In Phibsboro" she said, and slammed on the accelerator.

When we reached Phibsboro, an elderly lady asked me where I was looking for. About time, I thought, I'm always shepherding you doddery old fuckers about. I was thinking unkindly of the gent who had me traipse around Aldi with him last week, because "it's not the same as Tesco". I told her I was looking for the Gravediggers so she walked some of the way with me, then directed me down a lane and told me I'd see it on the corner. I didn't. I saw some fellows who looked like they might eat me smoking cigarettes outside John Kavanagh's. I strolled nonchalantly off around the corner in the direction of fuck knows where, reluctant to turn back in case they'd notice I was lost and, I dunno, heckle me. Once I was out of sight, I called for backup. Who, of course, led me straight back to Kavanaghs.

I am not Northside savvy.

We spent a safe afternoon in the sepulchral gloom of the pub before I had to get a bus home. "€1.80" I said, cocksure and confident. Yeah, I know where I'm going. "€1.60" he said, and I blanched. I was sure I'd put the right change into the machine. Fucking 20c short. I fumbled with my purse and took out the only coin I had left, a shiny €2. I dropped it into the slot. "No" he sighed "I meant it's only €1.60 to Merrion Square from here".

Ten minutes later we were on O' Connell St. Holy Jesus was sweating in his box, and I was farting Bulmers on the bus.

Review: Star Trek

It was very exciting. Like Pirates of the Caribbean, in space.

Opportunity Knick- Knack Knocks

Antigone, by Frederic Leighton. She's the spit of me.

"I don't know, it depends" I say to people who ask me if I'll go. They're disappointed that I'm not excited. So am I.

"I suspect you'll be looking at a change of pace" says Gimme, who labours under the illusion that I am a girl about town. But I am a pudding about couch, a stick-in-the-mud, sedentary slob. I resent his "you'll". I haven't made my mind up yet! I feel like shouting, though until there is a dotted line to sign, that's academic.

I spent Friday evening snotting about it. I apply for these things, never thinking that I might actually be offered them, that I might have to go. Not appreciating them for the opportunities they really are. I spent Saturday evening explaining the if...thens to the Jaffa Cake's brother. It helped to clear my head. We looked it up on the map, and I cried a little on the way home.

"It's a scottification of something classical" I said, "beginning with A. It's not Halifax." I am champions of the vague and inaccurate. Balancing the atlas on his knee, we scoured the map of Nova Scotia. It turns out that Antigonish is of Mi'kmaq origin, and it means The place where tree branches are torn off by bears gathering beech nuts. Mi'kmaq sounds like a DJ from Mullingar. The place where tree branches are torn off by bears gathering beech nuts sounds like Ron Burgundy type toponymy.

Bears, however, sound exciting.

Review: Is There Anybody There?

Some films really make me miss my Crash Grandadicoot.

Friday Afternoon

I'm waiting for a phonecall. It's no big deal. They'll tell me I got it. I'll pretend to be delighted. I might be delighted, I don't know. I'll be grateful. Then I'll puke into the small wastepaper bin under my desk.