Mind The Gap

The train was filling up. Praiseach de phótairí strewn about the carriage, spreading legs and luggage across the seats in an effort to secure some space for their hangovers. Morning-after-the-night-before gaeilgeoirí. The worst kind.

She blustered onto the train at Mala, and the other passengers averted their eyes. Mine, however, were fucking glued to her. Mad, brassy burgundy coloured hair, denim jeans and a fringed denim jacket, she was all rhinestones and righteousness, looking about her like she wanted to batter the face off the next one who looked crooked at her. So I swept my handbag into a cuddle on my lap and nodded at the seat beside me. She looked grateful, and a little like she might bite me. Once she'd settled, the natter kicked off; each episode illustrated with photos from her camera phone. I'm pretty intimately acquainted with her domestic situation at this stage, everything from her ma's fibroids to her dog's gluecoma. He has a good heart though, she tells me, so he'll live for ages with it. He just keeps walking into things. I know people just like that, I tell her. She makes me smile all the way to Thurles, this pavee lackeen, and leaves me with a hug and a thank you. For what? I asked her. Nothing, she laughed, and she barrelled back out through the carriage with the same fonn troda on her that she had when she stomped in.

I think I fell a little in love with her.

As the train pulls away from Thurles we pass acres of flooded farmland. There are sheep standing in grumpy little clusters atop the hillocks that punctuate the dreary landscape. A pair of swans glide majestically across the submerged pastures, looking for all the world like they own the place. I stretch out and slip my headphones on, pleased that for the next two hours I can idle in daydreams. There are no more stops until Heuston, so I cast my thoughts adrift again to paddle across the sodden plains. More swan than sheep.

Here Come The Girls

I love watching breasts bounce past me on their way to work on a sunny morning, dressed in v-neck pastels and wrap-around blouses, dusted with freckles after a sunny weekend. I adore the sight of curvy hips stretching the fabric of Dunnes Stores Career Casuals trousers. Pink cheeks showing through freshly applied makeup, wafts of sweet perfume trailing in their wake and turning my head as they sashay past me on their way down from Charlemont bridge. They smell of optimism on a Monday morning.

Romance

The Kiss, Rowan Gillespie, 1989

Do you think that after dark, when everyone has gone home and Earlsfort Terrace is deserted, her hands reach up to caress his face and draw his lips closer to hers, and his arms encircle her and cup her arse, pulling her to him?

I hope so.

Dating Service

I see that that Disgrace has been pondering his single status of late, which I suppose makes a change from him just muttering direly about his last relationship.

My honeymoon period as novelty single guy has come to an end. I'm now becoming an embarrassing loveless lump of drunken typical single sleaze bag.

[in conclusion] Ok girls, come and get it...

This has me thinking once more about blogging as a dating strategy. I read recently (via JazzBiscuit) about the British Psychological Society's advice to women on choosing an online dating name, advice which seemed to support my previous feminist(ish) rant about men not being attracted to clever or funny women. "She advised female lonely hearts to avoid screen names which attempt to be classy, or show how clever they are."

I've had two affairs* as a result of this blog, though you know that already. It makes for an interesting way to meet someone and I'm not sure if I prefer it to conventional methods (getting wankered and seeing what fate has to offer by way of entertainment). I met LC sight unseen and took my chances, I ended up spending two fantastic long weekends with him. I went out as a pretend friend with OneFor (whom I had met once before but didn't pay any mind to) and ended up sticking my fingers in his beard and asking him to kiss me.

Neither of my affairs were disasters, exactly, but nor were they raging successes; I still sleep alone. Both were short lived and disappointing in their way, both were a little easier because they keep blogs too (and I had read them) so I knew more or less what I was letting myself in for and both were a little more difficult because they had read my blog (and it was far too late to try to make a good impression). It can make for frustrating conversation, having your own flippant remarks and faux pas quoted back to you almost verbatim. It also drastically reduces your stock of witty anecdotes with which to fill conversational lapses, "I read that!" effectively unravelling your yarn and leaving you looking like a one-trick pony.

I'm not sure how accurate a picture I paint of myself with my writings here (SWF reckons I'm pretty true to form) but I do try to be classy and even when recounting my most idiotic adventures I try to do it in an articulate and clever manner. Because I find classy and clever attractive, though I suspect my definitions of both are a little different to the ones one might find in a dictionary. So am I fishing for romance through my blog, in some long winded form of online dating?

In between odes to my family, my friends and the demon drink, maybe.

*What else to call them? They were neither relationships nor one night stands. Can anybody suggest a more suitable term? (Note: anyone suggesting "thing" will be barred.)

Picking Scabs

Other women (I'm told) daydream idly about meeting the man of their dreams and falling madly in love with him. The object of their affections is a shadowy figure, half imagined and eminently possible; being a man very much of the future. I, on the other hand, have an unhealthy tendency to find myself very much mired in the past. Mucked up to the oxters in coulda-woulda-shouldas, poring over every little thing I did or didn't do and generally assuming the blame for any and all of my failed romances (presuming that if it wasn't something I did or didn't do, then it must be something I am). I daydream about ex-lovers suddenly repenting and declaring their undying affection for me. As I've said, it's unhealthy.

I keep letters, emails, texts. I've maintained platonic relationships with some - or tried to - but what betrays my imagined feelings for them is the presence of their friendly messages in my various inboxes long after I've replied, when normally I would delete them. I don't reread them, that would make me feel worse. But there is comfort in knowing that they're there. Occasionally I will be tempted to follow one up, suss him out, revisit familiar territory, scratch at old wounds. It invariaby ends in disaster.

So today I decided upon a purge. Wiped the archives clean.

Midway through my deletathon I got a text from someone I haven't been in contact with for more than a year, someone I had had a brief affair with and (unusually for me) I decided that I didn't want to see him anymore. He was getting very involved very quickly and talking about making some pretty big decisions based on a three week casual affair and I just wasn't interested. I told him so in no uncertain terms; I was very nice about it, but firm. I balked at his suggestion that I forget about it and we go back to something casual ("if that's all you'll allow me, well it's better than nothing..."). When all I'd said seemed to be falling on deaf ears I broke all contact. And now an innocuous text a year later, to ask me how I am and to let me know he's in town. All I could think was seriously, fuck off, wouldya?

There is no surer sign that I should quit flogging my dead donkeys. I don't want to be anyone's seriously-fuck-off-wouldya.

Letter To An Older Rosie

I Even Stole The Major's Picture

Rosie, a chroí,

How's 35* treating you? I'm writing to you on the eve of your 27th birthday, looking for some reassurance: That you kept up the jogging and that you still pronounce it yogging, in homage to Ron Burgundy. That you've published your novel, and that someone's read it. That you've still got so many good friends. That you've grown out of jaegerbombs. That you've found a better cure for your black days than hot chocolate. That you've gotten a haircut that doesn't make you look like George from the Famous Five. That you've sorted your shit out, stopped having short-lived affairs with men who are plainly not going to fall in love with you and found one you're mad about who will. That you're healthy. That you're happy.

Ag súil go mór le do fhreagra,
R

*Inspired by the Major's Letter, it was originally to be to Rosie aged 30 but the chances of me having my shit together by then are slim to none.

The Leafy With Love Banks Of The Grand Canal

Some Dodgy Oul Lad Hogging The Bench

The canal bank walk to work was so lovely this morning that I stopped a while and took a seat beside Paddy Kavanagh. Smoked a cigarette and sat there just thinking for a bit. It was nice. I was never crazy about Kavanagh's poetry (Paul Durcan and Dermot Bolger are more my style) but today it seemed to fit the morning.

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

Maybe next week I'll take a seat further down, on the bench that makes me smile every morning as I pass. Its inscription is not so grand, but the sentiment is no less poetic. The photo is courtesy of OneFor, who's a big fucking softie at heart.

Some Dodgy Young Lad Pouring His Heart Out

Good Morning

I think the new Metro guy on Leeson St bridge fancies me. He gave me a big beaming smile this morning, and a "hello".

I know he's paid to smile at people. But he was finished work (I was running late) and just having a sit down. He didn't even try to give me a paper. So he must, right? Besides, I look radiant in the mornings when I'm running late for work.

I could fancy him though.