I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

I bought a Chris de Burgh compilation in Tesco last week, for a fiver. I was like a dog with two mickeys at the checkout. I knew it was disgusting, but I was delighted with myself. "Promise not to play it at home" Andrew said. "Or in the car, if I'm with you". He was trying to sound all reasonable and commanding but it came out with a slight whiff of wheedle. Please don't ruin our marriage. So I made a solemn promise, remembering EnyaGate. I love Enya. He hates Enya like I hate Wilco, and we had something approximating a row one recent evening when I didn't take his dislike of her quite seriously enough and assaulted him with a YouTube playlist of 40 of her greatest hits. "I thought you were cool" he says to me "all name-dropping minimalist Japanese electronica on your blog". People let shit slide when they get married. They stop shaving their pits and waxing their bits and they fart at the dinnertable. I play bad music.

This Chris album though, it feels like fate. We were in Slatterys last weekend for a quiet pint when, through five glasses of wine and some distracting conversation, I heard a familiar lyric call its come hither to me through the speakers. Well a railwayman lay dying with his people by his side. His family were crying, knelt in prayer before he died... I waited til the chorus, til the Devil let out his mighty shout, to make sure it wasn't just the drink and the heat getting to me. Nobody else seemed to have noticed. "Listen" I pipsqueaked "they're playing..." but the others were engrossed in some adult conversation I'd lost the thread of, so excited was I to hear the song, so I took out my phone instead. THEY'RE PLAYING CHRIS IN THE PUB! I texted to Gimme, all in caps, my hands sweaty with excitement. "And not Lady in Red either" I added "it's the one about playing poker with the devil". And then I sat watching my phone expectantly, waiting for the small-moments magnificence of a Chris de Burgh song being played in Slatterys of a Saturday night to be celebrated or at least acknowledged with a reply. It wasn't.

We stopped for chips on the way home. We sat down at the kitchen table to eat them and I fired up the laptop, a gleam in my eye that had nothing to do with fried potatoes and salt. Andrew's suspicions were immediately aroused. Whatever ardour he may have brought home from the pub was immediately dampened, however, as the rock-opera stylings of Chris' Spanish Train warbled from the computer. I tried explaining to him about how they'd played it in the pub and nobody'd noticed and and and and "here" I said "listen! It's fucking brilliant!" and then I went on to sing the nah nah nah nah nah nah naaaaah nah chorus of A Spaceman Came Travelling even though we were still listening to Spanish Train because I always mix the two of them up, before lining up Ship to Shore and The Last Time I Cried on You Tube to see if I couldn't tempt him over to the dark side. At which point he reminded me of the Enya incident and I felt the first stirrings of Sunday's hangover, so I shut down the computer and we went to bed.

Gimme replied to my text a day later, when I was wading through the winey hangover. "I can't believe you didn't instantly know its name. It's a title track. What's the matter with you? Also, what pub?" Stung by the rebuke, I resolved to rekindle my relationship with Chris and illegally download an album (my collection was all on tape) next chance I got. Luckily for his estate, Tesco's offer that selfsame week proved too tempting. I got it home, excitedly tore the cellophane off to pore over the sleeve notes and was delighted to see that they included one of those tick-the-box join-the-fanclub inserts that you send off to a promotions company in Leamington Spa. I hadn't seen one of those in years. "Look!" I squealed, waving it at Andrew. "You promised..." he said.

And so I haven't listened to it yet. I'll keep my promise not to make Andrew enjoy it with me. I could have listened to it in the car, but I haven't gotten around to it. Mainly because I keep forgetting to take it with me in the mornings when I'm driving to work and anyway there's always the off chance that I might have to give a colleague a lift somewhere and I'd forget that it was in the player and then lose all the cred I've painstakingly collected by making them listen to obscure shows about Texan music and doo-wop on 2XM instead of endless hours of Mumford and Sons farting away on Phantom. And anyways, I'm saving it. I want to dance around to it in my knickers and sing my tuneless little face off, getting all the lyrics wrong and thinking that these must be new versions because the lyrics are just ridiculous and I remember them as resonant and meaningful.

Tonight was to be The Night; Andrew was to go out to poker and I was planning an evening of glorious self-abuse with Chris and Buffy. Alas, Andrew's laid up in bed with a cold and I'm sat here, telling Conan Drumm and the rest of the internets what my plans were for this evening, before real life and real love intervened. Instead I'll hoover the cat, cook us some dinner, write a crazy post about reliving my childhood lust for getting High on Emotion and then curl up on the bed beside Andrew's sleeping bulk and snotty tissues and sleep until it's Friday.

There's Nothing Wrong With Being Alone No Need To Call The Doctor

On Thursday nights I'm single again. Andrew goes out to play poker and I moon around the flat, talking to myself and picking my nose. Sometimes I watch back-to-back episodes of Buffy. I always think about inviting someone over and then don't, in case they're busy. Last Thursday I did the hoovering. Just after nine o'clock my phone rang, and I skittered giddily into the bedroom to retrieve it, closely followed by the cat, both of us excited by the notion that someone might be calling over on a whim. But it was just the alarm to tell me that the five minutes were up and it was time to scrape the Immac from my chin.

I got in from work a little late yesterday evening. I paused at the door, wondering who Andrew was talking to. He finishes work at lunchtime on a Friday and I spend the last three hours of my working day wondering what he's up to and wishing I was there. I imagine all kinds of exciting things, though I should know better, as he usually pops up in my email chat to ask what I'd like for dinner. "Oh hai, Pussycat!" he said when I came in, looking around the room to see if we'd a visitor. "Don't mind me" Andrew said, looking embarrassed "I was just reading a thirty-year-old book by a dead New York Jew to the cat".

Jive-Talkin'

A chairde dhíl, más de dheasca m’ainmniúchán sa rannóg Lip Service to the Irish Language a tháinig sibh anseo, gabhaim leithscéal. Cé go bhfuil Gaeilge líofa (agus gramadach lofa) agam, ‘sé Béarla mo rogha teanga ar an mblag. Mar a tharlaíonn, níl aon rud scríofa agam i nGaeilge ó 2009. Tuigeann mo léitheoirí go bhfuil Gaeilge agam, is dócha, agus mar thoradh ar a ndea-thoil (agus a ndíograiseacht i leith gach bhosca a líonadh ar an bhfoirm) a ainmníodh mé. Táim buíoch dóibh as smaoineamh orm, ach sílim go léiríonn sé easpa measa ar an rannóg Use of the Irish Language in a Blog go bhfuilim anois ar an liosta don chomórtas ceannais.

Glacaim leis go rabhadar gann ar ainmniúcháin. Is dócha go bhfuil pobal léitheoireachta na mblaganna Gaeilge beag go leor, agus seans nach mbacann roinnt mhaith acu le blaganna a ainmniú do na Mulleys. Níor bhac mé féin. Léigh mé tríd na liostaí, áfach; drochnós ar chomhcéim le mo shrón a phiocadh. Thugas faoi deara nach raibh rannóg na Gaeilge ar na gearrliostaí a foilsíodh an tseachtain seo chaite, agus bhíos ag déanamh iontas an bhfuaireadar réidh leis. Feicim go bhfuil urraíocht ag an gcatagóir – an é nach bhfuil moltóirí ann dó? Go bhfios dom, ní dhearna éinne moltóireacht ar an mblag seo i leith na Gaeilge go fóill, ainneoin gur foilsíodh liosta na n-iomaitheoirí sa chomórtas ceannais. Sonraíonn staitisticí an suímh na cuairteanna ó na moltóirí agus ní dheachaigh éinne acu níos faide ná an leathanach tosaigh, ná ní dhearna éinne acu cuardach d’ábhar i nGaeilge. Bhíos ainmnithe i rannóg eile agus seans go rabhadar i mbun moltóireacht ar sin, ach shílfeá go ndéanfaí cinnte de gur chomhlíon iarrthóirí bunriachtanas na rannóige roimh áit sa chraobh a thabhairt dóibh. Ní haon leithscéal easpa iomaíochta ar an easpa cúraim, agus tá níos fearr tuillte ag urraitheoirí na rannóige (Edgecast Media) agus acu siúd a scríobhann i nGaeilge agus a mbeadh dúil acu aitheantas a fháil as.

Review: Animal Kingdom

The Cody family, making the Sopranos look like the Waltons.

A very good film about a very bad moustache and the very worst of people.

I've Got Flowers And Lots Of Hours To Spend With You

I turned thirty last week, and Andrew got me a cat so that I can live my dream and become a childless old lady who smells slightly of piss and dresses her animals up in hats and dungarees. We adopted him through the DSPCA, and spent an anxious day on Monday waiting to hear if our application had been approved and if they'd received the note from our mammy email from our landlord to say that we had her approval. I think I called them eleventeen times in the space of an hour on Monday. They didn’t answer the phone, of course, so I left slightly hysterical messages and kept refreshing his profile on their website, waiting for his status to change to “RESERVED, MOTHERFUCKERS!” (it didn’t, and it’s still there, so I’m only a little worried that they might call and say they’ve made some terrible mistake and then they’ll try to wrestle him back off us even though I’ve already bought him a scratching post and some catnip and a bed that he won’t sleep in and some toys that he won’t play with because he prefers string and ladies’ pantyhose). But they probably only update the site once a week. They did call us back eventually and we picked him up on Tuesday evening. Since then, he's mainly been hiding under the bed.

The frame, like the post, is ironic. I solemnly swear not to turn this blog into a "what my cat did today" one. I'm too vain for that.

His name is Biscuit. Isn’t he cute? Andrew keeps telling people that he has his eyes, just to crank the OMFG-turned-thirty-and-worried-we-can’t-get-pregnant-so-getting-a-cat creep factor up to eleven.

Yo, Yo, Yo, Yo, Baby-Pop

"Come with a full bladder" said the nurse "and the letter of referral from your consultant". So on Friday morning I put both in my handbag and presented myself at eight in the AM, belly-up and bare, for an ultrasound. The doctor slathered me in cold jelly and ran the scanner across my goosebumped gut, sighed and then told me that I needed to go and have a cup of tea or ten and come back. "But I'm bursting!" I whined as I flopped back down off the bed and wriggled back into my dress. "Come back at nine" he said "and you will be".

I waddled back at nine, bow-legged after two mugs of tea and four glasses of water, to find that the waiting room was full of people shifting uncomfortably in their seats, clutching little plastic cups of water, fear and wee welling up in their eyes. The nurse looked worried for her carpets. By half nine I could take no more, so I went to the desk to ask the nurse if she could have the doctor see me next as it was rapidly becoming a matter of some urgency, but all that came out was "PLEEEEASE". Two minutes later I was on my back again, covered in goo and under cross-examination about my poly-cystic ovaries as the doctor prodded at my piss-swollen abdomen with his scanner. And two minutes after that again, he was done. "I have your measurements now" he said. “TOILET” I said, hoiking my tights up under my armpits and scrambling for the bathroom door without even stopping to slip my shoes back on. He left them on the floor outside the bathroom door for me to find when I’d finished. I suppose he’s used to that sort of thing.

The last time I had an ultrasound was eight years ago. The doctor then told me to go off and lose a bit of weight like a good girl and not to be worrying about having babies til I was old and married. I didn't go back to him. I went home and cried instead, and two years and some internet research later, got a referral to an endocrinologist from my GP. The first doctor was a gynaecologist, and the kind of man no right-thinking woman would let near her vagina under non-medical circumstances. The endocrinologist was a woman in her mid thirties who had a much better understanding of why a single woman in her early twenties would be working to make sure that she'd have some chance of having babies, should she happen to meet the man of her dreams one wet Wednesday night in Whelans. We've a good relationship, and I trust her. She manages to be positive and realistic all at once. I see her every six months or so and I leave her office feeling encouraged. Or I did. Last week, I left it feeling sad. We went over my latest blood results and then, for the first time, we had to talk about how it's not happening. Not that it won't ever happen, because it very might, but it hasn't so far and (given the enthusiastic effort Andrew and I have been putting in) it probably should have. There are a few things she’d like me to try before we talk seriously about IVF, which is why I ended up almost wetting myself last Friday morning. She talked me through what she’s proposing (clomifene and crossed fingers) and then asked me how I was. “I know the hardest part for me when we were having difficulties conceiving” she said “was everyone bloody else”.

She’s not wrong. Well-meant nudges and winks can feel like pushing and shoving when you’re having a bad day, and it’s difficult to know how to handle gentle, unsolicited encouragement. Smile and nod? Confess to having difficulties conceiving a child and joke about asking the Credit Union for a loan to buy one instead? I’ve always been open and honest about my fertility issues with anyone who’s asked, but that’s harder to maintain when you have a partner and his feelings to consider and the dogs on the street are asking when you’re planning on popping one out because they heard you got hitched a while back. I’m still getting used to the idea that we have fertility issues, not just me. Though it’s of no small comfort to realise that he’s thought of it that way from the get-go. What a mighty good man.