I Could Totes Be A Fashion Blogger

As the bus slung itself around the Green this morning, I saw a middle-aged man standing at the lights. He was wearing sensible black shoes and slouchy grey socks and his tufty grey hair was topped with a jaunty leather cap. He checked something on his phone while he waited for the lights to change, then strode across the road, his bare legs and knobbly knees bristling in the breeze and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his gooch-length cerise pink ladies coat (with bracelet-length sleeves, black buttons and trim).

He looked gorgeous.

And How Are You Settling In To Your New Job?

It's not that I spend a lot of time in the bathrooms at work. But it's nice to get away from the desk now and then. To sit somewhere quiet, to pick my nose in peace.

We have two bathrooms, one with two chipboard stalls and a liver-spotted mirror and the other with a picture of a wheelchair on the door. I use the latter. It's roomy and sparsely furnished; a sink, a toilet and a low mirror, perfect for admiring how your knickers sit just so under your bellyfat as you button up your jeans. It has a toilet roll dispenser that dispenses institution-grade toilet roll, stiff enough to scratch your arse and soft enough to put your finger through. There's no toilet brush or air-freshener, but on the shoulder-high sill sits a bottle of perfume labelled "Age & Opportunity". It smells like something a gamey oul' wan might go for.

I'd been there two months before I realised that "Age & Opportunity" is the office upstairs. To pass them in the hallways, you'd think their shit smelled of currant cake. Turns out it's Ralph Lauren's Glamourous. It contains a rich blend of pearl flowers, plumeria, lily, ginger flowers, tuberose, Siam wood, Cashmere musk, clementine and an extra U in the spelling to confuse Americans. "It's a perfume to get you noticed by women, men, dogs and children!" enthused one online reviewer. "It's a scent stronger than shite and a sight more expensive than Glade!" enthuses this one.

Review: (500) Days Of Summer

It's been hailed as the best romantic comedy since Love, Actually. And that should tell you all you need to know.

An Cion Go Dtí Seo

I left a vase of roses to rot on my kitchen table last Tuesday. I should have thrown them out once their petals drooped, but I was drooping with them and I hadn't the heart. Or the stomach. I hate the smell of dank water and my skin crawls at the thought of touching their slimy stems. I sat for a few minutes, looking at them, wondering how I might fold them so that their stalks wouldn't tear the bin liner. I didn't want to touch them. I thought I might smother them with a paper bag.

I didn't realise that I was crying until a tear tickled the side of my nose, making it itch.

I wasn't crying about the flowers. I'm not sure what I was crying about. I left them there and went for a walk. I stole a cigarette from his sock drawer and stuck it behind my ear, then spent ten teary-eyed minutes searching for it before leaving the flat.

I had calmed down by the time I reached the Rathmines Road, but I smoked it anyway. When I got home, I made tea and took it to bed with me. He called and said that he was sorry not to be there, sorry that I was alone and feeling so low. But I was glad. He shouldn't have to hoosh me arse-first out of every ditch.

He was home and elbow-deep in dishes when I got in from work on Wednesday. The flowers were still there, looking like a prop of Miss Havisham's. He hadn't wanted to throw them out without my say-so. I wondered, for the 385th time, what I have done to deserve a man so considerate. I worried, briefly, if I deserve him at all.

On Thursday evening I sat staring through the snot-smeared windows of the 128, taking in the misery of the North Strand road and a city clogged with taxis. I'd finished my book. I'd forgotten my headphones. I was running late for Fat Fighters and edging closer to that dangerous deadline whereby you have to wait til the meeting's finished for your pat-on-the-back weigh-in. The bus driver dumped us on Hanover Quay. It had taken us twenty minutes to cross the bridge. "But I need to get to the far side of Rathmines!" I hissed as he hurried us off his bus. He didn't give a fuck. His day had been long enough.

I had blisters biting at my heels by the time I reached Camden St. I stopped at a stall to pick up some strawberries for tea. She was finishing up for the evening, plastic packing crates and slim black buckets filled with flowers. I thought of the roses, and asked her for four sunflower stems. And for the first time that day, I smiled from the soles of my shoes.

"How did she get them already?" he wondered, seeing the yellow bloom against my red coat as I came down the cast-iron stairs to the front door. Inside, on the kitchen table, he'd laid a bouquet of lus na gréine.

Caption Competition

Photo taken by Annie at the Taming Light exhibition in the Lighthouse Cinema.