Reader's Choice #7

Cock Shaped Zogabongs

For John, who doesn't blog any more, but wrote this and made me cry into my cornflakes. Damn him.

Over glasses of wine in Toast, we compare non vital statistics. Seven this year! one announces, and five hens. The SWF seems a little put out that she's had two hens and no weddings. I am appalled. I've been to two weddings... ever (chronicled here for your convenience - #1 and #2 - and I make the same awful "without a hitch" pun in both posts). I have never been to a hen. I am, I think, the champions.

Hen parties are great fun, I'm told. A bit tacky, sure, but after a few drinks you get into it. There are all kinds of things I get "into" after a few drinks; I would be well advised not to add hen parties to the already embarrassing list. I'm not sure just what it is I find so abhorrent about the idea. The costumes? I am no fashionista but I am allergic to Claire's Accessories; they bring me out in a rash. Cock-shaped zogabongs flatter no-one, least of all those with a head of curly hair that looks for all the world like a crown of badly trimmed pubes. A look I happen to be totally rocking at the moment. "Humorous" matching t-shirts are no better - distended photos of the bride-to-be stretched across her best mates' diddies don't flatter anyone either, and there's always one lumpy bumpy budgie who does not look glowing in lycra. Me.

I lie, though. I was once at a hen, of sorts. A quiet dinner affair with my mother, sister, aunts and I playing the part of the the in-laws. In an effort to imbue the occasion with a little zany bachelorette fun, the bride-to-be's sister had had some table mats printed with photos of the hen as a chick. But oh my. This leggy, beautiful blonde had not always been the belle, it seemed. She was once quite the proverbial duckling. My sister and I exchanged horrified sideways glances, a silent and secret pact never to betray one another's egos so. The bride-to-be thought the photos were hilarious. I admired her strength of character and sense of humour. And died a little inside.

As for the nuptials themselves, the "afters" of a wedding, I am assured, don't count. It's just as well. I was invited to an afters once, in a castle. I turned up midway through the speeches, awkward and inappropriately dressed. I had been invited as the bride's cousin's date (having previously dated another of her cousins) and so the groom introduced me to his family as Jezebel the Harlot. Not big on the Old Testament, they amiably called me Jess for the night. I, of course, lived up to my moniker and ended up crashing in the priest's room with the cameraman. One hates to disappoint.

And yet my reasons for hating hen parties are nothing if not disappointing. As with most of the things in life I profess to dislike, my disdain for hen parties is borne of nothing more than unattractive insecurity. I worry that I lack the requisite oestrogen to pull a hen night of my own out of the bag. I worry that I don't have enough female friends. Then I realise that I do, and begin to worry that they're all prettier than me. Which is nonsense, because as you all know, I'm a total fucking ride. I must be, if the company I keep is anything to go by.

In fact, I'm amazed that someone hasn't tried to marry me already.

I have warned my mother that should I ever dupe some dope into tying my knot, it will be done on the sly. There will be no pomp or circumstance, no photographer or cake. She pronounced herself disappointed, unconvincingly so. She knows I'm full of shit. I bluff and bluster about caring not a jot for marriage, but my raging insecurity will no doubt some day be won over by the idea of a sworn statement.

And I may relent on the cake bit.

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.

Coming On Strange

I was chatting away, attention focused on my audience, when suddenly she presented herself in front of me. Presented, like a puppy in expectation of a bellyrub.

"Hi" she beamed up at me. "Um" said I, which is becoming my customary greeting these days, as my wits slowly desert me. I gave her an encouraging smile, assuming that I had met her before, or elbowed her drink, stood on her hair or inadvertently chatted up her boyfriend. "Are you from Ireland?" she asked, which threw me a little, though on reflection is a reasonable opener in multicultural Dublin. "Yes!" I beamed, relieved to be able to answer her question with absolute conviction. "I am from Sweden!" she beamed right back, so I told her how the Swede is also from Sweden, dazzling her with my grasp of geography. She didn't seem terribly interested, didn't ask his name in case she knew him, but perhaps that's an Irish thing. "Are you from Dublin?" she asked then, her blue eyes widening and her blonde curls bobbing in time with her breasts. "Yes!" I replied, again, puzzled if pleased that my affirmative answers were so pleasing to her. "You're beautiful" she said, and I blushed. "I love the colour of your hair. Can I touch it?" Sure, I told her, amused that the colour of my hair could be perceived as anything other than nondescript in the dim light of Whelans, even more amused that she'd want to fondle my curls. In their current state, they look like they might bite. She stood on tiptoe and raised her hand to touch them, then asked if she could hug me. At this stage she could have asked me for my pint and my shoes and I'd probably have acquiesced, confused and bemused as I was. So I hugged her, caught my friend's grin over her shoulder and then watched her wander off into the crowd, no doubt to make some other girl's night.

Reader's Choice #3

Real Women

(Because Some Are More Realier Than Others)

So the SWF was first in the door with her suggestion for my occasional series - If I had a blog [it's not for lack of me trying to persuade her] I think I'd have a good rant about the concept of 'real' women - the notion that some women are somehow more real than others. It drives me mad!

She continues: I can appreciate where they're coming from and that adverts do show women who are physically very different to the average girl on the street, but if you replace 'real' with 'average' the term loses some its pleased-with-oneself aura. There's nothing wrong with being pleased with oneself but the use of the word 'real' somehow infers some sort of moral superiority over less 'real' women - i.e. models and thin actresses - miserable anorexics the lot of them, traitors to the gender!

Yikes. This should have been Reader's Choice #1 by rights, but I couldn't figure out what angle to approach it from. See, if we're talking angles, I am best approached with a wide and vaseline-smeared lens, for I have weighty issues with my posterior. So although I can appreciate the cause of my beautiful slim friend's irritation, I can't say I share it. I identify with these Real Women - I find them less intimidating, more beautiful. I don't know if it's because I identify with them that I find them attractive - I have an eye for women who are roundy of bum and plump of thigh and I wonder if this is just narcissism on my part, my ego subconsciously kicking my unflattering insecurities up the ample arse. I appreciate that advertisers are trying to flatter me by referring to these women as "real" and I buy wholesale into their pitch. The tubster in me is absolutely delighted at the vilification of the models and thin actresses, these traitors to my gender. The SWF is right though, "real" could easily be substituted with "average" in this case, causing the phrase to lose all appeal - no woman wants to think of herself as average.

Ordinary.

Plain.

So the slim women, the ones just like those models and actresses, feel discriminated against. I thought about this, and tried to affect sympathy as I tried to squeeze into a skirt in Zara last Saturday. No dice. Fashion and its herald, popular culture, are still weighted very much in favour of skinny malinks. So what if a few liberal-leaning features editors and clever advertisers have set their sights on the plainer janes in stretchy jeans. Big deal. It makes the bigger deals amongst us feel a little better about our muffin tops, when all around us judgement screams FAT!

*Ah* she said, it's nice to rant. She's right, it is. This rant's not one for me though.

On My Lonesome

The Leitrim Lady left me a week ago, she's off frolicking out foreign for the next eleven weeks. I'm not bitter; or at least I wasn't until the Swede fucked off to Kenya for a few weeks on Friday. Now I'm just scared. He left me with a fridge full of liquid sustenance and a plea not to burn the flat down in their absence - I'm trying hard, but to be honest I'm more concerned that I'll adopt a cat and start wiping my arse with my hair in the absence of human company of an evening.

Obviously they've left me unsupervised before, just never for this length of time. I worry that I will start talking to myself. Or become so accustomed to walking around naked that I'll turn feral. So in a desperate plea for some form of human company, I broke the washing machine. Saturday morning then was spent in the company of deliverymen and plumbers, and while none of them quite lived up to my bored housewife fantasies (I really must lay off the porn) they were affable and chatty. Also, one of them is a helicopter pilot in his spare time. None but the finest of hired help for Rosie! Sadly, he charges by the hour, and is very bloody expensive.

Having exhausted his patience for demonstrations of the spin cycle, I put on an overdue wash of dirty knickers and set forth into the sunshine in search of some convivial company. I met the SWF and the Vet for a stroll around the chocolate market in Temple Bar. The place was jammed with wild-eyed women in search of of a cocoa fix who, like me, just read "chocolate" and bolted for the square, neglecting to check times or dates - the chocolate market is in fact on today. We ditched in favour of a spot of accidental handbag shopping (a little brown leather mini-suitcase from Urban Outfitters) and a table in sunny Bloom's Quarter where we drank wine, talked shite and snarfed tapenade.

From there I headed off to dinner with a pretty lady, feeling all cosmopolitan now that I was full of wine and olives. My date had chosen our destination because the waiter is "one hot motherfucker" (and she figured we could both do with a little sexy distraction) but she proved to be more than ample distraction herself. We spent a pleasant few hours gossiping about boys and bloggers, comparing lies and statistics and solving the world's ills. A few drinks and a charming young man later I tottled home, slightly squiffy and chuffed at the idea of having the flat to myself. Why, I could do what I liked! ("Have lots of sex" counseled Annie. Which is great in theory, we agreed, but short of my stopping men on the street it is unlikely to transpire over the next three weeks).

In the end I had a cigarette on the balcony, with a cup of earl grey and two paracetamol to ward off this morning's hangover. I texted my date to tell her how lovely she is, while slathering my lips in the honey balm she'd so thoughtfully brought as a present for me. I somewhat ill-advisedly texted last week's date to see if he has indeed disappeared in a puff of smoke up his own hole. Quite probably - I didn't get an answer. Then, reasonably full of tea, affection, and philosophical thoughts, I went to bed happy. Saturdays on your Todd aren't so bad after all. My Rabbit may not cuddle but it gives good head, and I don't need to make it breakfast on a Sunday morning. What more could a girl want of a weekend?

Link Love*

So I have another dirty big crush. On a girl. Well, four of them to be precise - the budgies in The Anti-Room. Group blogs usually do nothing for me (being the shy sort, I always feel like I'm gatecrashing a party) but, well, this one makes me fidget. In a good way. An absolutely marvellous place to start would be with Leigh's Fat Kid Theory because, well, it's inspirational. Also, it has curved mickeys and the word "gonkleton" in it.

*I deleted my Pretend Friends link page a while back (yes, after that post) and waited for the backlash to this breach of blogging etiquette... but nobody noticed. It had started out as a list of the blogs I loved, but my loves are fleeting, fickle and too easily won with flattery. And the list was too long. Being too much of a chicken to cull, I opted for a clean slate and the sexy Rosie Loves link in the sidebar (thanks, AJ). So chickety check that shit out when you tire of my whining about hangovers, boredom and boys not calling me.

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.

Blog Budgies All Aflutter

The three redheads and I strolled across to Hogans, chatting idly about how odd it was that we were spending our Sunday afternoon in the company of strange women off th'internet. "Annie'll be in later" I gushed, stopping just short of shouting "I know her!" in my efforts to prove that I'm a well rounded human being with fleshly friends (even though Annie is, technically, another strange woman off th'internet). Anyone else? "Ricochet" I replied, casually. There was a confused flutter - who the fuck asked him? Um... "He's a celebrity!" Helen squeaked. Is he? I wouldn't know, I don't listen to the radio.

My sister wants to know if I'm hooking up with Dusty Rhodes next week.

We behaved ourselves well enough for a while but by the time Ms. Atkins arrived (with my stuffed dog Chico in her handbag) we were easy in one another's company and our gossip was greased with gin (the determinedly sober Ricochet had beaten a wise and hasty retreat by then). Boys and bloggers formed the basis of conversations best not reported, the ladies indulged my louche loquaciousness, friendships were forged and my Monday morning ended up being sponsored by the makers of Lucozade sport and Nurofen Plus.

Sure what else would you be doing on a Sunday?

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.

Aon Focal, Daw Focal

I rose from my bed at an unreasonable hour today to spend an interminably long morning interviewing trainee teachers. So keen was I to get the fuck out of there afterwards that I didn't even stick around for the free lunch, and I was starving. But I needed to get away.

For those of you unfortunate enough not to be Irish; a little background. We have two official languages here, Irish and English, and though most everyone speaks English only a minority are fluent in Irish. It is, however, a compulsory subject in both primary and secondary education and as a consequence all primary school teachers in the country are obliged to have a proficiency in Irish (let's not open a can of worms and call it "fluency"). Teachers who have trained abroad must pass an Irish language exam before we let them near the kids and teachers training here study Irish language and literature as part of their course. Which is where I come in. I don't teach them (thankfully) but I am drafted in a couple of times a year to put them through their paces and make sure they've done their homework.

It does not make for an ideal Saturday morning, and it's a good job they pay me an obscene amount of money* to do it. I had the same conversation 19 times over with 19 young women, each of whom broke out in a nervous rash at the sight of me and then did their level best to stay schtum for 10 minutes in order to avoid making any grammatical errors. Eventually most of them twig that I can't/won't let them go until they've spoken to me so that I might assess their language skills but this usually takes about ten minutes of gentle cajoling from me and a lifetime of fucking fidgeting and avoiding eye contact on their part. The conversations are excruciating, banalities exchanged in pidgin Irish** punctuated by uncomfortable silences and nervous laughter. They do, however, give me a valuable insight into the criteria for primary school teachers in Ireland:

• You must be from either Mullingar or Wexford
• If you don't play sports you damn well better play an instrument (preferably brass or woodwind)
• You must express a distaste for all things Dublin and a burning desire to move back to Mullingar/Wexford and Mammy as soon as possible (Mammy is always to be referred to by her full title and with a capital M)
• You must have no interest whatsoever in reading books (bar P.S. I Love You) or watching films (bar P.S. I Love You)
• Your summer holidays will be spend in Santa Ponza.
• Your musical interests will include Pink, Boyzone, Celine Dion and (bizarrely) Meat Loaf.

I fear for our nation's children. There is a strange and conservative atmosphere in the college - it feels more like a school (or a nunnery) and you know instinctively not to run in the corridors. The students are almost all female and wholesome with it, it's like one big girls' club.

Not for me.

*It's probably not an obscene amount of money to anyone who has a real-life grown-up job but when you're a monkey like I am and you're accustomed to being paid in peanuts, it's quite the pot o' gold.
**Occasionally I get a fluent one and the conversation flows. It's still limited to Mullingar/Wexford and Cecelia fucking Ahern though.

Every Girl Ever

This made me laugh, and cry a little on the inside. Please, let this never ever ever be me.

Like a Monkey with a Minature Cymbal

I'm checking in again today with a hangover. I'm beginning to think this blog should be sponsored by Lucozade Sport and Nurofen. And yes, it's Tuesday, I went boozing on a Monday, I'm suitably ashamed of myself, yada yada. It's been a surprisingly productive day on the work front so I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

And I had a great night. It was myself and three friends from school, that I don't see often enough but whose ability to pick up wherever we left off, no matter how long it's been, never ceases to amaze me. It's a wonderful quality, and I really appreciate these easy and happy relationships.

I did feel a little like a fish out of water at times though. It's rare that I'm out in the company of women. They scare me, truth be told, and a girls' night out for me would be a nightmare. I've never seen myself as a girly girl but abhor the idea of myself as some kind of tomboy, so it leaves me a bit stuck. I don't wear fake tan or have nice hair (I suppose I might -if I brushed it- but it's awful curly, you see) but I do wear pretty skirts and paint my toenails, so I'm not a complete lost cause. But groups of women intimidate me. We're disgustingly competitive, us females, and I worry that I just can't compete. The conversation inevitably boils down to men, and at the moment (who am I kidding? for fucking ages now) I find myself tragically and bafflingly single. Plenty of my friends are in the same boat, but I have this tendancy to overdramatise my own singledom and assume that their men are just around the corner, whereas my Prince Charming is hiding behind the couch stuffing his fingers into his ears, thinking of a happy place.

I wouldn't blame him. I suffered what we'll politely call a romantic setback some time ago, and I haven't really been acting like ideal girlfriend material since. I'll grow out of it. In the meantime though, my tales of drama, disaster and debauchery have made for good conversation when in the company of my female friends. I may not be able to compete with the shiny hair and the size 10 jeans, but I can tell a good story. It's great to sit and talk shite to people who have a genuine interest in what you're at and how life's going for you, and to make them laugh while you're at it.

I'm worried that I've taken self-effacement to a new level though and I find myself a little deflated sometimes, wondering if I'm turning into some kind of performing idiot. The trouble I get myself into is usually as a result of my own short short span of attention, but I'd want to watch out that it's not stemming from some unconscious desire to amuse everyone else. A comedienne I ain't, and it'll do me no good to behave like one.

So i'll go get a haircut. Wear some heels. Spend more time with these strong, clever and funny women and try to learn from my past mistakes. I'll tempt that fucker out from behind the couch yet.