Wednesday Wears Monday's Mask

My third trip to Aldi today, and Agnetha gives me a pitying smile. Agnetha never smiles at anyone. Once, she buried her nose in a bunch of roses and smiled (to herself) before fucking them into my trolley. Two trips too many today.

I have to ask the pharmacist where the earplugs are kept. "What are they for?" she asks, because she is nosy helpful. "Snoring" I sigh, and she gives me an empathetic smile. I dislike her a little for it, and I can't help myself. "I snore like a pig. I'm keeping him awake at night". She gives me the little yellow ones that look like cigarette filters, 80 cent a pop. Instead, I spend a fiver on three coloured pairs from Paris, France, in a little box that he'll fiddle to open. I'm trying to make them look like a present.

Back on the Rathmines Road, a man in a suit lumbers awkwardly towards me, lurching this way then that, briefcase and knees grazing lampposts and pillars. He catches me watching him. I'm lumbering too, unbalanced by the messages that are hurting my hand though I've only just left the shop. His palsy is catching. I smack the shopping bag into Domino's windowledge and hear the eggs crack. "Well well!" he shouts. "Well well!"

I'm better balanced by the time I reach the canal bank. There's a guy walking towards me, brown face, red jacket, pale girl on his arm. He's laughing, and he gives me a big hello as I pass. I met him the night I first met the Jaffa Cake. I didn't think he liked me then. I wonder if he likes me now? I wondered then if it was because I'm a girl. Maybe now I get a smile because he has a girl of his own.

I step off the path onto the muddied track that leads to Leeson St. bridge, making way for a runner. He's broad-shouldered, long-legged, beautiful. I asked him out once. I knew he was heading away to Australia but he didn't use that as an excuse. He just said no, thanks. So I look to the traffic and he watches where he's going and neither of us nod. There's a sweet tang of his sweat in the air, trailing like cartoon perfume.

My bag of breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea is making my shoulder ache. I walk from bench to bench - my version of bus stop to bus stop. One bench before Kavanagh's I fade, and take a seat. My fingers have swollen with the bag, and the thick ring I can't quite get used to wearing is gnawing at me. I slide it over my knuckle and let the clammy skin breathe. There is a man I pass every day, walking his three terriers. They're old, and take it in turns to get a carry. Every time I see him I'm touched by his affection for them, but I'm scared to say hello. I don't want the responsibility of sympathy, because I'm sure that one day soon there'll be a mutt too few when they pass me.

So I sit, there, dawdling. I miss smoking at times like this, because it would give me a sense of purpose. I don't even have my notebook. My post is written in one word sentences on the back of a Rathmines Pharmacy receipt.

I gave up on this last week. I had things to do. The internet is boring. I took a gentle poke and wrapped it up in vanity, then played a solitary game of pass the parcel until all I could see in my blog was the worst excesses of my attention-seeking. I put up a post about not putting up posts, now I'm posting about why I post at all. I want to make the minutiae of my day matter, to me.

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.

Ah Loan

Glasgow opened with a scene straight out of Trainspotting. On the train at that, all pish, chips and vinegar. Athlone opened, appropriately, in a garage. Not the usual piss and a Kit-Kat en route to Galway garage, but a suburban shop with petrol pumps and Polish counter staff. Ho, and indeed, hum. The shape of things to come?

The girls browsed the shelves, making noise about white wine spritzers and Pringles. Except for Strawberry Shortcake, who snotted herself on a yellow Caution! sign in her haste for the bathroom.

The shape of things to come.

Me? I was eyeing up the Bucky. Throwing it the kind of filthy, lustful looks you reserve for your lover after too much wine. Fingering the cans of Bulmers. I couldn't possibly. I was feeling insecure, you see. My hostess noticed me dithering like a dipso at a disco and pointed out that I was in Athlone, and that she was toting a six pack of Ritz. Bucky and Bulmers it is.

Two hours later agus mise ar mo shó, with Strawberry doing her best to get me on my ear. Maybe it's three hours later. We're in Karma, and it feels like we're in 1996.

I stood around looking cool, thinking cool, thinking I am too cool, for this school. Reality begged to differ. I may have looked every inch the aloof city sophistikitty in my head, but to him I looked approachable, and approach he did. You know him. The small, baldy, sweaty one with his creepy little hands deep in his sticky little pockets, rooting at his testicles. The one you hope isn't looking at you. But he was looking at me, and he fancied his chances. "Are you from Ah Loan yourself?" he barked at my nipples. No, I said. Dublin. "I was going to go outside for a bit of a walk" he said, licking his chapped lips. "I was thinking you'd want to come with me, like". Tempting? No. He broke eye contact then and resumed staring at my tits. "The wife's brother's missus is from Dublin" he mused, thoughtfully. "She's alright".

No, I Didn't

My name's Claude. I'm from Athy. I'm here on my own. Do you want to dance?

Call Me What You Like

Me:
i should write something later, otherwise every time i look at my blog i will see Good Charlotte and cry.
The Jaffa Cake:
i was thinking that. you'd feel better if you put something else up.

Me:
i would. but what? i won't write about you. don't fret.
The Jaffa Cake:
i don't mind you writing about me, as long as it's kept fairly oblique. and that's not because i'm trying to hide things, i'll always feel that way. a little bit.
Me:
i know. i hope i haven't put anything up that you're uncomfortable with?

The Jaffa Cake:
not at all, i've really liked everything. apart from the crack about my ginger 'tache.

obviously.

Me:
it's catching, i tell ya. i have an appointment for a wax with the beautician tomorrow. in case it spreads to your beard.

(thinks: this would make for vaguely uncomfortable cut-and-paste blog comedy gold)
The Jaffa Cake: cut and paste away, by all means. i think i have my new nickname for you.
...
Garfield.
Me:
well, i do like lasagna.

How Many Syllabubs Is That?

Fréamhaíonn sé mé a deir Gabriel Rosenstock agus é ag caint ar haiku a chleachtadh. Tugann sé dearcadh eile dom ar cad is áilleacht ann.

Labhair Rosenstock freisin ar an íonghlanadh intinne a ghabhann leis an haiku. Go dtugann scríobh agus léamh haiku peirspeictíocht nua dó ar an saol, saol atá níos glé agus níos glaine dá bharr. Táim tógtha leis an smaoineamh seo - go bhféadfainn machnamh a dhéanamh i seacht siolla dhéag. Ach is dócha go n-oirfeadh foirm an senryū níos fearr domsa - baineann siad le faona daonna seachas dúile an dhúlra, agus is duine daonna lán faona mise.

Trathnóna inné bhí mé i mo shuí ar bhínse in aice na canála, ag fanacht leis an Jaffa Cake le dul ag gig an Jimmy Cake. Bhí seisean ag rith mall agus bhí mise préachta leis an bhfuacht, le creathanna i mo cholainn, ar tí an chantail. Chinn mé ar haiku a scríobh; triail breith ar an nóiméad agus an ruaig a chur ar mo cholg.

ag feitheamh, foighneach,
an fuacht, láimhíní in
uachtar ar fhaisean

Dá bhféadfainn chuile éispearas a bhíonn agam ar bhruacha na canála a scagadh mar seo, bheadh suaimhneas intinne i ndán dom.

Ach bheadh easpa ábhar léitheoireachta oraibhse ansin.

Roses For Rosie

I'm a hoarder. He's a Swede. The autumn spring clean was traumatic. But when he made to put the glass vase into one of the black sacks I had a(nother) little tantrum. "It's our only vase!" I wailed, snatching it back from him and trying to hide my grimace when my grabbing fingers became glued to its grime. It's never been used, he reminded me, and we both looked at the sticky evidence cradled in my arms. But... "Nobody is ever going to buy you flowers!" he pointed out. Or joked. Or pointed out. It's hard to know, sometimes, with his gallows humour and my thin thin skin. But he wasn't being a prick, just pragmatic. We've lived together for three years now and in that time nobody has bought me flowers. But I will not allow him to consign my hope to the bin, so the vase stays.

Then last Sunday evening, the Jaffa Cake arrived over with an armful of roses. I was overcome; charmed and pathetically embarrassed. Til we got inside and my inner four year old took over, making with the in your face!!! for the Swede's benefit and ruining the touching moment. But the truth is, apart from my dad, he's the only man ever to have bought me flowers. Chatting to ma confidante about it (and him) she confessed to feeling the same the first time someone bought flowers for her. She thought he was taking the piss, felt embarrassed. "But he just wanted to buy me flowers because he liked me. WEIRD." She is too much like me, this confidante, and I feel for her in this. Because she shouldn't be. "We need to get over this shit, don't we? I mean, we're pretty loveable birds" I say with a sigh and a giggling optimism. She agrees.

It might take a while though. My roses were wilting by Tuesday and, ever anxious to preserve the moment, I decided to dry them. They're strung up in my hot press, and I am sitting here like BlueBeard, with a cup of tea.

Salt An' Vinegar

I dithered, my conscience eating at me. Fuck it, I thought, nobody will know. And I was almost, almost there when my phone rang. I silenced it guiltily and placed my order, then, thinking I'd have at least ten minutes to play with, I called him back. I got a whole two minutes of pretending I was out for a walk before your woman behind the counter bellowed at me. "I'm out picking up some dinner" I muttered "in the chipper". I trailed off in embarrassment and he laughed. That's not like you!

Yeah, yeah.

I hurried home with my greasy bag, joking that I hoped I wouldn't be mugged for my chips but glaring at the skangers on Pearse St. as they swaggered past, just in fucking case. Mine. I got home, poured a glass of wine, fetched a plate and some cutlery. I don't know who I thought I was kidding - I licked the salty grease from my fingers ten minutes later, then drank the nice warming rioja for dessert. In front of Ugly Betty.

Intellectual pursuits and culinary adventures will resume tomorrow.

The Five O Clock Shadow

And have you any photos of this latest one? Nana never misses an opportunity to get an affectionate dig in. The implication is that I have trailed a string of them along behind me, that I have a short short span of attention. It is flattering; I do have a short short span of attention, she's right, but not when it comes to the romantical stuff. When it comes to romanticaliness I'm all about the slow burn, the long haul, the big romance, the hard-won battles, but more often than not I come away singed. She doesn't see this because I am so mortified by rejection that I scrape off the char and swallow my pride like toast. I would rather she thinks of me as independent and flighty than insecure and um... flighty.

So she's curious about this New Thing. She liked the last one, you see - he had a big appetite (for such a skinny lad!) and was a Catholic (he wasn't, really, I don't even know where she got this from) so that was pretty much all her boxes ticked. She was all about him when I was all about him, but congratulatory and cautionary when I broke it to her that I had broken with him. You need to do what's right for you she nodded, sagely. Otherwise you can end up married, if you're not careful.

Quite.

So I show her a picture. She scrutinises it, like a mugshot. I'm not sure what she's looking for, and I wonder if she sees any of the things that I do. He has one of those chin things she says, and I wonder what the fuck she's getting at. Seeing my confusion, she reaches for the right words. You know, she says, pointing again at his jawline, a 7pm.

I nearly wet myself laughing. She asks me, deadly serious, if I plan to stick with this one for a little longer. Will he stick with you? That's the $10 question, I suppose!

I love my nana. She's priceless.

You've Got Male

Conas tá inniu? I asked him, enquiring after his health. Poor lamb's been laid low for the last week with a horrific dose of the feeling sorries for himself. Oh, I've been sympa as sympa can be, but there's only so much of that I can do before I begin to smell of pathetic. So I sent the text and braced myself for a gulping reply, engineered to elicit sympathy from this egocentric bitch. A moment later, the phone lit up. Better today, I think. Eating, showering, wanking and hoovering (not necessarily in that order).

I laughed. Because he lights up my phone, this friend, I got some Jaffa cakes in for the next time he drops over. It says on the tube that they're ideal for sports bags, but I'm sure they're good for whingebags too.

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.

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.

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.

Reader's Choice #6

Stockings vs. Tights - Which is Cooler?

For Andrew, who probably sticks to socks.

Stupid fucking question really, it's like comparing jeans to leg warmers. Stockings are cooler - they don't have a gusset.

He was very much what I would regard as the typical uptight Englishman, not quite a gent but certainly conservative. His interests included poker and tits, both his own and large ones of the lady variety. His interests also briefly included me, and of course I was completely besotted with him, as I generally am with entirely unsuitable men. He had the typical uptight Englishman's tastes in fun and frolics too - a little discipline, a little dressing up. High heels and stockings, if you don't mind, and it's far from that I was reared. But I am an indulgent sort.

So I swapped the thick opaque tights and sensible flats for silk stockings, a suspender belt and some spiky heels. Not permanently, you understand, just in the bathrooms at the airport. With the pencil skirt and the slim-fitting black poloneck, I felt every inch the sophisticate. I set off with a sexy swing to my gait, brimming with bravado. But I couldn't walk too well in the shoes. And the suspender belt was too big for me - I sized it to skim and flatter my bovine hips rather than to stay put and hold up my stockings. I sat on the tube, thighs clenched, fidgeting, sweating into my slim-fitting poloneck, unable to cross my legs for fear that I might further strain the straps precariously preserving my modesty. By the time I arrived at his door, I was an agitated and decidedly unsexy mess.

Stockings may be cooler, but I can't quite pull them off. Or keep them on.

Oh, Christ

Sunday morning, the croissants are in the oven, the tea is cooling by my elbow, the Sunday Business Show is on the radio. I couldn't give a fuck about business and have never understood money but I find their dull and earnest chatter soothing. And this morning I need to be soothed, to have the strangers on the radio stroke my hair and tell me that really, it'll be okay. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I'd be spooning with my hangover, or maybe taking it down to Merrion Square to read the newspaper and get some air. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I am not primping and preening, trying to iron out my kinks and curls. I've spent the past hour trying to choose the least inappropriate outfit in my wardrobe, brown skirt, tan stockings, gold shoes, bangles (because to me, bangles seem sophisticated). The Swede did a double-take when I walked into the kitchen, and then laughed. "You look lovely" he said, revelling in my obvious discomfort before relenting and giving me a hug.

The cause of all this distress is sitting opposite me as I type, reading Annie's interview in the Times and blithely sipping his coffee. His nephew is to be christened this morning, and I am to be his guest. To meet his parents, and his sister. There is to be a reception, and a bouncy castle, and polite chatter; I am particularly looking forward to explaining how we met.

Mo Cheol Sibh

I saw a lot of music last weekend, some good, some bad and some downright orange (Duffy, but that was a total accident - I was on my way to the "toilets" and happened to be passing the main stage. I stuck my fingers in my ears, and not just for comic effect). Some of it, however, hit me right in the tear ducts. And because this blog is about me and not about music, here are my highlights.

Sigur Ros played a beautiful set on Friday. As Hoppipolla washed over the crowd the world felt for a moment like it had been set to rights, and in a small way it had. I sent a well-timed message to an estranged friend; it chipped at the ice and raised a smiley. Not quite a smile, but that's something for me to work towards.

"We're going to play a nice mellow set, to make up for all the stressful music that's being played around here" announced the bould Sinéad at the start of her set, instantly losing her friends and alienating people. Like most of the assembled crowd, I will forgive Sinéad most anything, even Sean-Nós Nua. Thankfully it didn't come to that. Her short, sweet set tested the audience's patience, but she finished with Nothing Compares 2U. The song will always remind me of my childhood in Palmerstown, my brother and I as 9 and 10 year olds bouncing on the bed, screaming it at the top of our lungs, spiking our hair with soap, playing guitar on our tennis rackets, wearing white vests and pretending we were rock stars. She sang it softly, Steve Cooney accompanying her on the guitar. I got goosebumps. I heard a snuffle come from the guy on my left as she finished, and clocked him wiping snotbubbles on his sleeve. "That was the nicest thing I've ever heard" he sniffed. It was, too. My beau sent me a YouChoob clip of it this evening, but I won't link. It cheapens these small, beautiful moments, makes them look loud, discordant, fuzzy. My memory of it will be of his arms around me, her soft voice lilting, lifting the crowd, and the poor cunt beside me blubbering into his pint.

My Bloody Valentine's set opened with the overexcited middle-aged gent beside me screaming Fuck Bono! We love you, Kevin! Show us your tits! at the top of his lungs, and ended with an almost orgasmic sense of relief when they finally broke from their Holocaust of torturous feedback. Their music washed over me on Sunday night and it tasted like home. I occasionally pump my teenage years in Kilkenny for stories, hugging my adventures to me for nostalgia's sake. In truth though I think of them little enough - it's eleven years and two days since I left them behind me. There is not yet enough space between the sixteen year old me and the person I have become for us to feel entirely at ease with one another, she brings out the worst in me and I become awkward and teenage again in her company. Close friends from those days have fallen by my wayside and even now my guilt at their sinking has not quite subsided. Those four years I spent there seemed like a lifetime ago, seemed like something that happened to someone else. But the swell of their guitars on Sunday night brought all that welling up. I felt again as I did then, when I was becoming the person I recognise myself as now. I like her much better these days than I did then and it has taken me a long time and a lot of hard work to get this comfortable in my skin. I wonder if, eleven years and two days from now, I will still be so easy to undo?

I hope so.

In Tent On Making Friends

My usual teddybears can't make the picnic this year, so I've spent all week fretting over where to pitch my tent and how to wangle a man to carry my shit from the car to the campsite. There are plenty of people going that I am on wonderfully convivial drinking terms with, but almost all of them have a crew of their own and as my shower of poverty-stricken recessionites sold their tickets one by one, I had visions of me camping alone, spending the weekend sprawled in my deck-chair, sobbing with loneliness over a tin of cider. Wearing his underpants on the outside, a heroic friend last night agreed to my crashing with his party of five merry men so long as I promise not to make too much of a nuisance of myself. The Corkonian is bringing his girlfriend, he told me, so I shouldn't be too much of a problem. "Great!" I exclaimed "someone else with a vagina! We're sure to become BFFs".

His brow furrowed. "Actually, I have a feeling you might get on better with the lads".

Boats Afloat

Another tiresome meme; Andrew wants me to list six things I like. His list was full of sweet things like his comfy spot and his little friend Baxter, but I have neither a snuggly girlfriend nor a beautiful Tanzanian child to dote on. So, in order of preference (if your preference happens to be for the alphabetical):

1. Deep, dreamless sleep.
2. Eloquent turns of phrase.
3. John Banville's The Sea.
   
4. Memes.
5. My beau's freckles in the early morning sun.
6. Tingly lube.

Nah, just kidding. I fucking hate memes.

Sunday Segues Into Monday

Stranded with 23 cent to my name, work in the morning and a hangover waiting for me under my bed, I sent him a message to see if maybe he might like to come fetch me. Because every ATM in Fun Laoghaire was fucked, because he's kind and I knew he wouldn't mind. When he called to see where he should pick me up from, I was sitting down to a late supper of paracetamol and milk, having realised that taxis can also be employed to drive one to a cash machine.

He turned the car around and dropped over anyway, just to kiss me goodnight. I apologised insincerely for my tipsy state and sighed into his shoulder, wishing he didn't have to leave. "You're about 40% proof alright" he laughed, and kissed me again. "40% proof but 100% honest" I mumbled, gee-eyed but trying to channel doe-eyed and winsome.

"Have you fallen for me?" he asked.

Fuck.

Because I have, just a very tiny little bit, though I have tried hard not to. The call came on Saturday morning; next Monday he leaves for London, indefinitely. And the rug is pulled out from under my feet once more.

Isn't That Stevie Wonder?

World Culture's flavour tends to spoil a little in the persistent rain and Saturday afternoon brought a downpour, so after a late breakfast we went back to bed to read the papers. I snuggled up to him and proceeded to read his newspaper over the top of my book (because the grass is always greener) feeling smug and pleasantly bourgeoisie (I reckon it was the pancakes). He started to laugh. "How delightfully middle-class! Perhaps later we should go to that little ethnic festival, darling!" he trilled, in an awful approximation of a plummy southsider. "I hear they have some brown chaps with drums!"