Oh, Long Years Ago When Men Were Men, And Fancied May Oblong

There's one of them on every bus; an oulfella with the rheumy eyes and dirty fingernails, hefting plastic bags full of what's almost certainly not shopping, who smells of fag ends and stale drink. The 123 this morning was no exception. He got on at College Green and gave the driver a gappy grin, stowing his Tesco handbags on the luggage rack before fishing in his pockets for change. There were just two of us on the bus, me and a nun tucked into the single seat up front. I like that seat, and I resented her for sitting there. I sat instead in the double seat behind her, and when the oulfella boarded the bus I tucked my coat in under me and made to make room for him. Even though there were 40something seats free. It's only polite, and it's why I have only myself to blame when I complain that people always choose to sit beside me.

This fella didn't, though. He sandwiched himself into the seat behind me and we sat there, himself, myself and the nun, bobbing along as the bus rattled out towards Marino. I could feel him bursting for a chat, but he said nothing. A few more passengers got on on O' Connell St. but nobody sat near him. I buried myself in my book. As the bus lumbered up Cathal Brugha St. he started to sing in a low growl behind my ear. Oh poor old Dicey Reilly, she has taken to the sup! And poor old Dicey Reilly, she will never give it up! It's off each morning to the pop that she goes in for another little drop, but the heart of the rowl is Dicey Reilly... He giggled to himself. She will walk along Fitzgibbon Street with an independent air! And then its down by Summerhill, and as the people stare... I got the joke, and giggled two. Like schoolgirls, the pair of us.

The bus had emptied out again by the time we got to Croyden Park, and there were just the three of us left. Himself, myself and the nun. He rang the bell to get out off the roundabout, and I could hear him rooting in his pockets as he stood up. "Here" he said "this is for you. Have a lovely day now!" In his hand he had a bar of chocolate. "Are you sure?" I asked, and he pressed it into my hand and gave me a wink. He shuffled forward and looked down at the nun. "And one for the clergy? I don't think so!" he sang in falsetto. He picked up his bags and knocked on the driver's window, proffering another bar of chocolate. "For your good self, sir, and thank you very much. Have a lovely day". He stepped off the bus, pulled a face at the nun as it was pulling away and blew me a kiss. And then, delighted with himself, went off about his day.

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.

On The 16A

The driver turned the last two in the queue away as the people who'd barrelled up the stairs in search of seats all came barrelling straight back down again and sardined themselves into the corridor. The doors closed and I sucked in my breath, afraid to sigh with relief in case I burst the bus at its seams.

A girl in her twenties came running up Dame Street, Our Lady Of Self-Entitlement in skinny jeans. She stopped at the door, fixed her hair, lacquered her smile and then knocked and pointed pointedly. The driver shrugged apologetically and mimed a polite PFO. Really sorry, but we're full. "Fuck you!" she roared, and gave him the finger. I blushed for her and the little old lady beside me shook her head.

"What a cunt" she muttered, then seeing my blushes she added "sorry, love".

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.

I Saw Your Reflection

There was a homeless man stood outside the shop this morning. He was stroking someone else's dog, which was tied to the post by the door. The Labrador had a sleek, glossy black coat. His was green, filthy and full of holes, it looked sick, scabbed, sore. He had a huge bushy beard, stained yellow around his mouth. The dog liked the smell of him, but people coming out of the shop started back when they saw him and sidestepped him, making every effort not to look like they were doing so. He looked up from the dog and saw me coming, then drew himself up by what was left of his lapels and gave me a big wide smile. "Hello!" I looked behind me, in case he was talking to someone else, and this made him laugh. He told me to have a lovely day.

I got a no. 15 from Nassau St. As I walked down the aisle, a man in the back seat bellowed at me. "Ah, hello!" I didn't look up. He sounded delighted to see me. I knew he meant me - I was the last to board the bus and the only one in the aisle. I had my headphones on. I pretended not to hear him and shuffled into a seat. "You're looking very well, anyway!" The woman sat beside me shifted slightly, afraid to make her sideways stare too obvious. She was looking at me, not at him. I could smell him from my seat two rows up, stale sweat and sour clothes. I didn't begrudge her the gawk, I'd have done the same. The curiosity is not the madman but the object of his shouty affections. He stopped talking then, maybe watched people getting on and off. That's what I did. He wasn't quiet. He beat an out of time tattoo on the floor with his feet, stomping to the beat of his own discomfort.

When I stood up to get off, he shouted again. Top of his lungs, which were filled with enthusiasm.

He told me to have a lovely day.

A Slip And A Slide

"That'll be €9.10, please."

I pocket them and dodge the traffic, skidding across the slush on Aungier St. I'd spent so long thinking, sitting on that grimy grey couch thinking about the cigarettes that I won't have time to smoke one. So I peel off the cellophane and sniff them. Old socks.

Bás nádúrtha, a deir siad, and there is some cold comfort to be taken from that. I am a lady perpetually in search of succour. Of course, the end result is the same; he's gone. I hope that there might be reassurance for his mother in the manner of his loss. I think then of another mother, and wonder if it is any less natural to end your own life, searching for something that has remained resolutely just out of your reach.

I switch off, pocket the cigarettes and step inside.

It's snowing again when I leave work to walk home, fat flakes like the ones I've been picking from my psioratic scalp. It's been a picky day, and the thin skin behind my left ear is red raw. I remember sitting on the couch with the Leitrim Lady not so long ago. "Stop picking it!" she barked, and I paused, hand halfway to my hair. The Jaffa Cake took his finger from his nose, and she slapped her own hand away from the scab on her scar. Three guilty giggles.

I don't wonder fancifully if I am pretty as a postcard today, I just want to be home and dry. Still fingering the fags in my pocket, I nod to Oscar as I pass him on Merrion Square. A man walking towards me mistakes my nod for a greeting, and begins unbuttoning his coat. No, I think, please not today. He fumbles in his pockets, then asks through broken teeth if I might have a cigarette for him. I hand him the packet, relieved. Then continue on my way, a little motherfucking Teresa.

First We'll Make Snow Angels For Two Hours, Then We'll Go Ice Skating, Then We'll Eat A Whole Roll Of Tollhouse Cookie-dough As Fast As We Can...

Good morning, gorgeous. There's a beautiful snowy wonderland waiting outside for you. Just don't slip and crack your skull walking along the 'nal.

He's a very optimistic realist, my Jaffa Cake. It had rained on Love Lane this morning, so I flaghopped with care down Mount St. What snow had fallen overnight was now in puddles of slush, sat like pizzas of sick in the centre of each paving slab, turning the street into a slick chequerboard of calamity. I'm clumsy in the mornings (afternoons and evenings) so having to pick my way in to work fairly cooled my heels. I'd planned to prance in my new boots. Nobody's noticed my new boots yet, but I'm trying not to sulk about that.

It's going really well.

It started to snow again, and the flakes stuck to my red coat and curls. I must look pretty as a postcard! I thought to myself, before catching a glimpse of my sodden reflection. It is only now that it dawns on me; people look pretty as pictures, places are pretty as postcards. I am all bumps and hillocks today, my tangled undergrowth stretching this metaphor further than either of us wanted to go.

Grand Canal Dock

They've replaced the seats. I used to like the high benches; I'd perch and swing my feet. These shiny new seats have long backs and rounded bums, with armrests like elbows delineating personal space. I was never sure how many bums the benches were made for. I suppose they were made for four, but I'd mind the gap, wary in case someone thought I was soliciting snuggles.

I think how forlorn I must look, with my little borrowed backpack and my red coat, when the DART pulls into the station. I feel a little forlorn this morning, a little left behind. I am the only one on the platform. The driver acknowledges as much with a nod of his head.

Turns out, I'm the only one on the train. When the tinny tannoy voice announces the stops, she does it just for me.

Dublin is quiet today. The sky is a beautiful pinkish grey, a shade it seems to reserve for early morning. It jars at this time of day. I wonder if it is the absence of life on her streets that lends the city her hue - a matter of mood, not meridian. It's a lovely thought, if a lonely one.

Review: The Gaiety

Grim. Highlights included dancing to Dr. Alban's Tampax Theme Tune in the upstairs bar, while the prostitutes worked the floor and a rotund man in hoiked up pants and pink pinstripes tried to molest my brother.

Next week: Rosie gives it socks to "Whooooah, Bodyform!" in Copperface Jacks.

What The Fuck Is Video Art?

Last night saw me in The Joinery up on Arbour Hill, pretending to be cool and wishing to fuck that I was wearing a black poloneck and a mullet instead of curls and a pink satin alice band. I never know what to do at art exhibitions, particularly avant-garde ones. This is in part because I'm not actually sure what avant-garde means, other than it generally applies to stuff my nana wouldn't like.

But it's all about leaving your comfort zone, right? "They have Alsatians here!" exclaimed my brother as we darted nervously through the traffic in Stoneybatter. Presumably it's all poodles and pomeranians in Monkstown.

Having trailed across the city from Grand Canal Street, we loitered outside the gallery, finishing our cigarettes. Smoking makes us look cool. I lack the manual dexterity to smoke roll ups, so instead I smoke expensive and pretentious slims called Vogue. My cool factor would increase exponentially if I could roll, I reckon, but for now I'll just feign it fashionably in the dim light.

Through the window I can see a huge screen, lots of distressing white and flashing images, tracked by the sound of a baby squalling, a high pitched, insistent cry that makes you want to comfort it, or smother it with a pillow. I think abstract and artful* thoughts to myself as I pull on my cigarette, mulling over what this piece says to me about the human condition (and my mothering instincts). A lady comes barreling out the door with the screaming child in a buggy and I realise that unless we're looking at performance art, I have been talking through my hole.

The piece is called Babel, it transpires, and is an apocalyptic (video) postcard to a technohead with a minuscule attention span. Perhaps it is about me after all. After some earnest posturing in front of the various video installations (there are headphones dangling from the ceiling... should I just hold them to my ear, DJ style, like I'm not that bovvered? Or hog them and stand engrossed, pretending to get it now that I can hear the images?) I move into the second room where I am delighted to discover some bona fide performance art in the form of Julian Longchamp and the Apostroph' Ensemble's Somnambule. This time I do stand, engrossed and pretending to get it while a trio of musicians hide behind a sheet, playing an atmospheric soundtrack to a surreal film. When the piece ends (I know it was the end, because there were credits) the uncomfortably close crowd give an uncomfortably restrained clap. I didn't start it, reigning in my compulsion to applaud their performance for fear it might be uncool, but I joined in with faux ennui. Clap clap, yes, very good. All the while thinking I must pick up one of those sheets on the way out so that I sound like I know what I'm talking about when I write this up on my blog. So that people will think I'm cool.

I'm not. So this evening I reverted to form; dispensed with the poseuring and stuck with what I know. Chilli, mostly. Piquante, with parmesan, grated love, honest warmth and hugs.

*You're right, I don't understand what artful means either.

When I Disappoint Myself

Walking down Camden Street on Thursday afternoon I passed an elderly man, sitting on the stoop of one of the Georgian houses. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye, he looked rattled. There was a girl sitting with him, one arm under his to support him while he dabbed at the cut with a wad of tissue, the other hand clutching a mobile phone. I was, as I always am, absorbed in my own little world. It was only when I drew level with them that the scene registered with me - he'd fallen and she'd stopped, steadied him and called for help. I didn't stop. Didn't even lower my headphones.

That same evening, I turned the corner onto Mount St. Lower to see the traffic backed up behind a small green car which had broken down in the middle of the street. I watched as the driver struggled out of his seatbelt, opened the door and set himself to push it. He was in his fifties, portly, unfit, flustered. I slowed my walk, shifted the weight of the shopping bags that were cutting into my palms. Thought of the old man with the bloodied face and the worried girl sat beside him. But I didn't stop. After the longest pause, a man at the bus stop put his bag on the ground and moved towards the car to help. I didn't look back, but by the time I reached my crossing the traffic was moving again.

Karma is going to come knocking for me. And I fear he will not be wearing his kid gloves.

Reader's Choice #5

Statuesque

For Pinkie, who probably expected something else.

Aspiration
Rowan Gillespie, 1995

As I turned down Love Lane this evening, I looked up to her. I usually do. Like Gillespie's lovers who never quite kiss, her title strikes me as cruel.

Aspiration.

For what can she aspire to but this?

Lithe and strong as her body may be, she'll never progress beyond her precarious cling. Never reach her fingertips over the edge of that flat roof, never raise her arms in relief, or triumph, and turn her face to watch the sun set over the city. She must be tired, I think, and lonely.

It was only when I looked for a photo of The Kiss for that post last April that I discovered her name, and began to think of her as tragic. Up to that point she had reminded me of Kiki Smith's Lillith, who I had seen in IMMA when I was studying art at school, and who had made an indelible impression on me as a 17 year old girl. Both women are sculpted in bronze and climbing the walls, but there their similarities end. Lillith is all that we fear, the dark female, a succubus. She leads us astray, serves her own needs and teases with lustful dreams.

Poor Aspiration does not dream, and is teased by impossibility. She can only hope.

Celebrity OneUpManShutUp

I waved at beardy weirdo Eli Mordino as I passed him on the canal yesterday, but the ignorant fucker left me hanging. I'm bad at seeing people, he said, although I did pass Sonia O' Sullivan on Baggot St. the other day. I had seen her myself on Nassau St. a few weeks back, streaking past like a whippet chasing rashers, but my excitement at my most recent celebrity sighting eclipsed all others and I jumped straight in, delighted to have the opportunity to tell someone about it*.

me:

Ann Doyle, The Swan Shopping Centre, Rathmines, at lunchtime today. POW!
him:
Nigga please, I once saw Ann Doyle come out of her house in a dressing gown to check her postbox.
me (going for the kill, but missing the point of the game):
I fondled Alan Cantwell's bum.
him:
I followed Marty Morrissey around Power City one Christmas. He was buying a blender.
me:
I asked Daniel O Donnell for his autograph. He said no.
him:
I walked past Eddie Hobbs being hassled by an old lady. He was not impressed.
me:
Mundy stood on my toe.
him:
David O'Doherty was at Leeson Street Bridge once wearing very large headphones.
[really, he should lose points for that one]
me:
David Kitt was in the Horseshow House this one time.
[and before he can get a word in textways, I clinch it. It has finally dawned on me that I have the ultimate in pedestrian celebrity with their pants down stories]
me [with an already triumphant tone in my voice]:
I declined Ronan Keating's credit card. He was trying to buy a Christmas tree.
him:
That is pretty special. The rest of my stories are about Ray D'arcy's taste in scarves and everyone and their mother has met him.

Everyone bar me. Were I to meet Raymond I would like it to be late at night, in the driving rain... down a dark road, on a dangerous bend. Him in his lycra unitard and cycling helmet, me in a RangeRover with bull bars.

*Truth be told, I'd already told my colleagues in work about it but they'd looked distinctly nonplussed, and so do not count. I know what nonplussed looks like too, because that's exactly what Steve Cooney's face said when I said "How's it going, Steve? It's great to meet you!" before vigorously shaking his unproffered hand in greeting on Saturday night.

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!"

Safe Keeping

Sometimes I save up all of the nice things that someone has said to me so that I can savour them as I walk to work. Especially on rainy days. This morning the sun tickled the banks of the grand canal, and people smiled. As Boc Maxima flooded my ears, I peeled off my rain mac to give my freckles an airing and cracked open my safe of warm fuzzies anyway. There's no need to keep these ones for a dark, dank day.

Filleann An Feallaire Ar An bhFilíocht

I spent the afternoon out at the pier in Howth. The sun was shining. The seals were performing for the crowd, blubbering and snorting for fish, their big soulful eyes looking up my skirt. I bought some cherries at the market, I ordered a glass of wine with my dinner and spent an hour looking at it. I stopped off at a book sale and bought myself a copy of Pat Ingoldsby's Beautiful Cracked Eyes. I've only ever bought Pat's books from him, and for other people; I've always wished that someone would think to buy one for me. I got home, sat down, put on some music and cracked my book's spine.

God It's So Lovely

I am watching a gull walking
into the harbour shallows
at the edges of grey water
walking very slowly
with no hurry on him at all
the water deepening up around his legs
till a beautiful fusion of water and weight
floats him on it.
The sun comes out
and blinds silver lights across the tide.
The gull is moving one way.
The lights are going the other.

Pat Ingoldsby, East Pier, Howth, 16.40, 7-8-98

Rí Rá Agus Ruaille Buaille

I rolled over this morning in a desperate search for the cool side of the pillow and found my hangover snuggling up in the bed beside me, waggling his eyebrows and poking me in that soft spot under my ribs. Fuck off, hangover. I'm feeding him apple & beetroot juice (which he loves) and other people's blogs (but only the ones that tickle him; Saturday mornings are no place for seriousness). He'll eventually start whining for breakfast and I'll have to rouse myself and scrub him from my skin with a shower set to "boil wash", because I was in RíRá's last night.

Yesterday was a game of two halves - I spent a pleasant day playing tourist in the Boyne Valley, trying to be sweet, charming and knowledgeable ("well, I do have a degree in archaeology...") but really just prattling at my indulgent audience of one. I wore myself out with all my bullshit and teeth-gnashing every time a guide said "celtic" but a quick nap on the bus home saw me right. My efforts to impress him further saw me whipping up some vegetarian pasta (because I too can be indulgent) but my mad kitchen skillz were slightly hampered by half a bottle of wine, and I set the place on fire. Luckily the Leitrim Lady was paying more attention than I and spotted the melting chopping board which I had placed firmly on the scalding hot hob. She left me this morning to go travel the world until October so if any of you would like to come babysit, I could probably do with being watched.

Having fed my charge with everything green in the fridge (including the Heineken) we tipped off down to Neary's to meet the Jock, the SWF and other assorted odd-balls and end-offs. Neary's has an upstairs, did you know that? A lounge, with tables, chairs, toilets and service. It puts one rightly in the mood for the weekend. On to RíRá then to see The Glitch Mob, but in true Rosie style I was out by a week on the dates, so we got a couch in the corner and hit the Jaegerbombs instead. The barmaid was less than impressed with my bombing technique; it seems that dropping the shot glass into the larger one before you've poured the Red Bull in just smashes the glass all over the bar. I had a second go, just to make sure. She was even less than less than impressed. There was less than impressedness all round when my playdate stood me up for more illustrious company - he eventually showed after they'd shut the doors and then sneakily disarmed me with sincere flattery after I'd snuck him in past the affable bouncer. Cheek. The end of the night saw some Brazilian dude playing the spoons on the bar to a rapt audience in the Globe, and the Jock and I trying to charm our way into the Odessa Club. No dice, and I can't say I blame them; my argument as to why the doorman should propose me as a member was not entirely convincing, and the Jock's insistent "but what time do you serve until?" betrayed our true intentions. Defeated, I headed home to the Leitrim Lady and a drunken Swede ("may I say, your eyelashes are lovely"). She woke me for a hug at 6am before she left, and I woke again at 10am with a vague recollection of it and a warm, fuzzy head.

Why I Love Dublin No. #1874

The office workers crossing the lock bridge on the Canal Road remind me of ducklings, hurrying across one after the other, waddling into the waiting Barge all of a huddle. I keep walking. A flash of orange in the water catches my eye, a recumbent traffic cone lies like a sleeping koi on the canal bed. The horse chestnut overhead trails its leaves across the surface of the water and I imagine how it must feel - like fingertips skimming skin. Man, I think, I need to get laid.

The prosaic has become poetic now that I lack music for my pedestrian adventures; I dropped my i-pox on its pretty little head and it no longer trills for me. So the world around me takes on a musical air as I meander home along the banks of the Grand Canal every evening.

My imagined soundtrack is silently interrupted as I walk down Wilton Terrace; there is a man lying on the grass between the two pathways. He's curled up on his side, his arm cradling his face and his baseball cap lying comically positioned, two inches above his head. One of the new faces who has made the bank of the Grand Canal his non-home over the last few months. People stare at him curiously as they walk past (once they're sure he can't see them) but nobody stops to make sure he's okay. Something about his clothes tells them that this, for him, is normal. So they keep walking, as do I.

Down at Warrington Place there are two men and a little boy of four or five fishing, the men drinking cans of cider which are strewn around the bench where they've left their wriggling bag of bait. As they cast their lines it's unclear whether or not they're fishing for ducks; the ducks look decidedly worried. The little boy gives me a big hello when I smile at him.

Just one more bridge to Love Lane. Home.

Review: Last Night's Dinner

The venue:
Real Gourmet Burger in Ballsbridge.

The verdict:
Both the food and the decor were as safe and bland as their brown and beige website. Certainly not a patch on Jo Burger in Rathmines (whose site is cute, noisy and a funny shape - much like everything else about the place). Jo Burger, however, are trumped in the beef stakes by the burgers over at Bobo's (who get bonus points for their inclusion of a coke float on the afters menu and double bonus points for referring to afters as afters, but whose cramped tables and high stools are a pain in the hole). Nowhere does a burger like Rick's* though. It's a kip, I'll grant you. The decor wouldn't encourage you to linger (nor would the bouncer) and they don't have plates or cutlery or any of that fuss. They don't have a booze licence either, so it's best to arrive pre-oiled - the atmosphere in there is best savoured at half past time-to-go-home after you've spent a few hours spazzing out in RíRá's. But you won't find a better burger to dribble all down your front as you stagger off down Dame St.

In conclusion:
If you have time to kill, are stuck in Ballsbridge, can't go to the HorseShow House for fear of exam flashbacks, can't go to any of the other pubs along there because they're shite and filled with back-slapping cunts in suits, then Real Gourmet Burger is a safe alternative. Safe; not exciting or particularly tasty though.

*Rick's burgers are so good they don't need a site and RíRá's site is three years out of date and slightly embarrassing so I'm not even going to link to it.

Why I Love Dublin No. #1347

La Peniche

And just a few feet downriver (if one can say downriver when talking about the leafy with love banks of the Grand Canal)

La Peniche II