Just Like That Wan Offof Big Brother

The Talk of the Bike Shop stopped by this morning for a coffee. With his bike. There aren't many coffee shops cater for that kind of thing. Asked to move his bicycle so that they might paint the gate, he assumed offence on behalf of cyclists everywhere in much the same way as I do for Gaeilgeoirí when prats refer patronisingly to them as "your people". "Sorry, we're going somewhere else" I muttered to the waitress, my hand outstretched to retrieve my twenty and my cheeks reddening with morto.

And so to Moda. As I waited for the double espresso (for his jitters) and the hot chocolate (for my nerves) I watched a young mother wrestle her newly bipedal son into his unwieldy buggy. She knocked a table. Dropped her coat. The waiter picked it up for her, and I scooped her straw hat from the floor. She made for the door like Moses parting the waters while the other patrons scraped their chairs in bellycreasingly close to the tables, knees tucked into their teeth. The waiter followed in her wake, reached around her to open the door. What a hassle. I remembered Billy Whizz waiting outside, minding his own bepedalled babby and seething at the injustice of it all, and I smiled a little wider in the hope that the barista would hurry the fuck up.

We took our takeaways to the low wall outside my office and sat amongst the builders, me in my freckles, him in his clickety clackety bikety shoes and them in their visi-vests, eating sambos from their hard hats. "Did you shave your legs?" I asked him, imagining him with painted toenails and a lather of Immac. "I'd have shaved my eyebrows if it'd make me faster."

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.

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.

An Scríbhneoir

I've taken up a class. My Ego persuaded me to sign up for the intermediate level, because she thinks I am a Great Writer. But my Ego and I need to sit down and have us a talk, I think, because I am all aflounder. I sit quiet as a mouse in class, hoping that the others might think I'm mysterious. Or clever. They just think I haven't done the homework. I find myself too timid to form opinions until I've heard some of theirs, and then too polite to interrupt the flow of their discussion. I apologise profusely for bumping elbows and dropping pens, I dread the five minute break when my classmates talk amongst themselves. I sit and smile awkwardly through their conversations, penned in place by the uncomfortable seating arrangement.

Last week, I sought refuge in the jacks. A piss, a sense of purpose, my nerves poking insistently at my bladder. There was no toilet paper left. "Good job I had a tissue up my sleeve" I announced to the queue as I stepped out of the cubicle. I didn't. I needed them to think that I did.

On Tuesday, the tutor invited us to the Hop House for a drink after class. It had been arranged the week before but I had missed the memo, presumably too busy being embarrassedly self-involved in a corner somewhere. "Please come" he said, "even if it's just for a glass of water. It's important that we're comfortable with one another before the workshopping begins". I made up eleventy elaborate excuses in my head, each ridden as raw by cliché as the prose I'd just turned in. Pressing appointments. Poor health. Dependent relatives. I shuffled my papers, put on my coat and made for home.

Holly Golightly

She followed me through to the lounge, met me halfway as I swept back through the bar, trying to look as if I wasn't looking. I think I hugged her, or at least I hope I did. She admitted to being nervous, because it's weird. "Nah!" I insisted, reassuring her that people off the internet are very nice and that it's not at all scary meeting them because after all you've been reading their diaries for so long before meeting them that you know more about them than their real friends and anyway that's how I met the Jaffa Cake and sure you know him from school anyway, isn't that mad? and... and... and so on and so forth because I chatter like a monkey when I'm nervous and I was every bit as nervous as she was. I had a half hour of tardy and a pile of discarded clothes on my bedroom floor to prove it.

I'd worn the shoes to impress her. Pewter jazz shoes, very smelly, but to my mind very fucking snazzy. "I love your shoes!" she exclaimed as she made to hug me goodbye. Delighted, I lowered my face in mock modesty, straight into her fist.

After Three Days In The Valley

I sat up in the bed, a eureka moment. "I've just realised that Ann and Annie have the same name!"

I fear that my bubbling idiocy may well be frothing over.

Let's Spend Time, Not Money

Port Macquarie, New South Wales and my travelling companions, lily-livered with hangovers, are bedridden and moany. It's raining. My hostel bunk and tired book hold limited appeal so I decide to indulge in some retail therapy. It's been raining for days now and my optimism re the Australian winter is beginning to wane - I thought it would be just like an Irish summer. And it is. I leave the hostel determined to buy a sensible jacket and instead spend the afternoon shopping for sweaters with a little old lady who asked me to choose one for her son, then took a shine to me. She's about 147 years old, so I imagine her son as a pot-bellied and balding bachelor and choose the duds accordingly. Lovely! she exclaims. If only he could meet a nice girl like you... she says wistfully, as we finger some more argyle.

Fast forward two years and a wet Tuesday evening finds me in A-Wear on Grafton St. shopping in vain for Christmas Clothes. Everything seems to be covered in sequins. I am trailing around with a Peter O' Brien dress over my arm, imagining how like Gráinne Seoige I will look in it (ignoring the fact that I have neither her handsome face nor her hugglesome boobies). As I make my way to the changing rooms in order to effect this miraculous transformation, a wheedling American accent tugs at my sleeve.

"Hey miss!" Dum dee dum dee dum mumbles my face as I determinedly ignore her trills for attention. Shoo. I am not in the mood. "Miss!" she shouts, tapping me on the arm and smiling up at me through her orange lipstick and massive teeth in that sweetly formidable way that all ladies over seventy seem to master. Most people are suckers for puppies and small children. Me, I cannot help but indulge the elderly. Which is why I am always the one who ends up sitting uncomfortably on the oul lad's knee at parties, or trying on clothes for ancient American ladies who are shopping for their granddaughters and who surmise that we might be of a size.

I am too polite to refuse, so I reach out, horrified, and take the proffered items.

Mumble pants*. Sparkly mumble pants and, to strike Balance squarely in the knackers, a jumper the far side of dowdy. I pull the leggings on and the jumper over my head, hoping that it is just about long enough to cover all unsightly bulges. The changing room curtain is heavy with my humiliation but I step out, frumpy dumpy, to face ridicule. Instead I am faced with a little old lady, so enchanted by my appearance that she claps her hands in glee. I do a little flounce, a mortified taa daa! before I am allowed to struggle out of them again.

Relieved, I hand them back to her and slip the Gráinne gúna over my head. Seoige svelte and sexy in 3... 2... 1... Oh fuck. Dog's dinner does not cover it. I throw a strop, take a hump and cart my lovely lady lumps home.

*Leggings so tight that you can see the lips move... Blame Felix.

Caught By Defuzz

I was blessedly ronnie-free until relatively recently. I spent ten years on Dianette as a result of my having polystyrene ovaries and so never had to worry about facial hair, so bursting was I with ingested womanly hormones. I was fat, mental and darkly depressed, sure, but sublimely smooth of skin.

Yes, until relatively recently. Some three years ago I began to wonder if my chubby crackedness could be blamed on the meds rather than my gen for chocolate and high drama, so I sought alternative treatment. In the hope that I might some day be able to have babies, and the like. Though I haven't dropped any sprogs just yet, I now sport the merest hint of a mustache and a pair of peachy soft sideburns. I'm told you wouldn't notice them, but then he also tells me that I look beautiful in the morning, when I know fucking well that I look like Wurzel Gummidge after a bottle of cooking rum when I wake.

It's been bugging me, though, and now that I'm shaving my legs and waxing my ladygarden in an effort to appear kempt and tempt his affections, I decided it might be time to tackle the 'tache. Depliation seemed wiser than epilation what with my delicate skin, so I came home this evening and slathered my mush in Boots' finest no-more-mo' cream. Timed the four minutes carefully, washed it off to reveal slightly reddened skin and luxurious swathes of sideburn still stubbornly clinging to my rosie cheeks.

Rinse, I did. And repeated. Four minutes later I washed it off again, this time revealing the makings of a rash. Not all over, just where the 'tache and sideys had been. A nice dead giveaway. With a bit of luck the makeup I put on to try to hide it in the morning will cake to the cankers and my glamorous new look will be complete.

It ain't easy, being this sexy.

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.

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.

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.

Automatic, Systematic, Hydromatic

I decided to take her out for a spin, this impostor, this shiny replacement for the car I had loved like a pet. Like a pet who chews at your wallet and breaks your heart.

I was determined not to like her much. No, she wouldn't win me over with the warm embrace of her buckety seats or the tight, comforting hold of her functioning handbrake. Most of all, she would not impress me with her lack of gears. A glorified go-kart, I scoffed, she'll be dull as ditchwater.

So I took her out on the open road, and she was okay. Nothing special. I'm bored, I rambled unconvincingly to myself while I jabbed at the stereo. I had a leisurely flick through the stations, followed by a good root around the glovebox, and a browse through the CDs. I slapped on some Bowie, that Earthling album that I love and all other earthlings hate. Or at least ridicule.

All the while, motoring. And falling slowly for this accommodating new machine, this purring automatic.

We got as far as Baggot Street before she started to complain of thirst, so I pulled in to the petrol station. Sidled up to the pump, savoured the admiring glances from the guy at the next one over. She is pretty, with her sleek blue lines and soft top. I slip her into neutral, subtly adjust my knickers and step out to fill her up, and flirt with your man. Except that I don't, because the key is stuck in the ignition. So I fiddle with it, faking an exasperated smile as if to imply that this happens all the time. No big deal! Jiggle the steering wheel. Pull a little more insistently. I realise as my panic mounts that there is a queue of cars behind mine, snaking out onto Mespil Road and blocking traffic. So I start the engine and move forward to the conveniently vacated pump in front of me, then repeat the whole charade. This time with the shop assistant watching me intently through the window, and pointing me out to his customers.

Defeated, I pull out into the traffic, mortified but fucked if I'm going to let on that there's anything the matter. I just like cruising forecourts, is all... I am all but whistling a tune, trying to stem the panic as I drive the half mile home, reviewing my less than favourable options. I have no fuel. I have no idea how far this new toy will run on fumes. I have just made a monumental tit of myself at the only petrol station for miles. I cannot leave the car, because I cannot lock the car, because I cannot get the fucking bastard key out of the ignition. I will have to sleep in it overnight, I think, or at least for a few hours until one of my parents arrives to fix it. I have no idea how they might do this, but once they sit in to the driver's seat I plan to run away and hide. They decided to trade up, so technically, this is their fault.

I fell for her, and she has betrayed me.

I pull up outside the flat, resigned, and slip her into park. Kill the engine and give the key a lacklustre turn. It slides out easily.

Meet David Sedaris

We sat fidgeting in our assigned seats ("sit there" growled the attendant) avoiding the glare of the furious harridan who had been keeping them for her friends. We turned to watch David Sedaris instead as he made his way along the front row, shaking hands, signing books, smiling. "I don't want to meet him" muttered my BGF, and under the circumstances I was inclined to agree. The room was too bright, we were too sober, we had no books for him to sign and no sparkling wit with which to dazzle him. So we sat and snarked affectionately at one another, and we waited for the show to begin.

And we waited.

When I looked to the front again Sedaris was halfway down the third row. Everyone else in the audience seemed to be clutching one of his books, some enthusiasticators were clutching several of the fucking things. The lonely ones were reading them. The BGF scrabbled in his pocket for his ticket, and reread it carefully. "Meet David Sedaris, it says" he pointed out, somewhat redundantly. "What if this is it? What if this is all there is?" There was a note of panic in his tone. I laughed dismissively, then paused for thought. Sedaris was now just one row from ours, and the show was billed to start a half hour ago. It's not that I feared that I might be denied some earth-shattering performance; I had, after all, paid to see a man read out loud and perhaps answer a question or two. But if I had indeed misread the €12 invitation, then this was going to be very uncomfortable.

In an effort to maintain his cool in the face of impending awkward social interaction, the BGF had produced some heavy hardback tomes from the library and was attempting to educate me on matters of science. I was feigning interest, leaning over and pretending to be absorbed in the book to such a degree that I may have even followed some of the words with my finger. I glanced upwards and noticed that Sedaris had reached our row, and seemed to be inching his way along, smiling and scrawling witticisms on the proffered books. Seeing this, the BGF snapped the book shut and slid it under his jacket, nearly taking my finger with it. "Fuck" I hissed; the sudden movement had drawn Sedaris' eye and now we looked like we were up to something. Cue eye aversion so comically exaggerated that we may as well have started to whistle as we feigned fey nonchalance. Thankfully the Waterstones gonk who'd been hanging out of Sedaris' shirt-tails suddenly decided that it was (show)time and steered the author towards the podium, saving us from making even bigger tits of ourselves.

Later, I tried to think of what I might have said to him. What I might have asked him had I been lucky enough to shake his hand before he took to the podium, or confident enough to raise my own hand when he invited questions from the floor.

Mr. Sedaris, what advice would you give to a 27 year old girl who wants to be you when she grows up?

Reader's Choice #1

A Time Before I Was Old

for B, the cheeky little Longford bollix

Looking back, I am mature enough to recognise that my greatest success during my teenage years was not the 8 As and 2 Bs I got in my Junior Certificate examinations, but the acquisition and retention of a boyfriend.

I was not an early bloomer by any means, so it was quite the unexpected coup when I managed to land myself a fella at 15 and hold on to him for two and a half years. It remains my record, which is something I am both disappointed by and embarrassed about at my now tender age of 27 (I know that I shouldn't be, and that makes it worse).

Our romance began as most do - with a little cack-handed help from a friend. One of his mates told me that he wanted to meet* me around behind the school, so I broke away from the herd and went to wait for him - I had to go first, because he was more popular than I, and couldn't be seen to wait on me (yes, even then I was the submissive). But I was thrilled. Thrilled that anyone liked me, but more particularly him because he was popular, and when you're 15 that's pretty much all that matters. He eventually sauntered around the corner and without so much as a how's-yer-father proceeded to wear the face off me for about 45 minutes straight. It was crap; messily uncomfortable and magnificently exciting. He asked me to "go out with him" about a week later (it was all very formal back in the day) and I became, for the first time, a girlfriend. We broke up after two years, but got back together again for a miserable six months during which I tried desperately to please him, and failed. He had noticed that there was greenish grass on yonder hills and fancied a roll in it, and nothing comes between a sexually confident teenage boy and his egotistical imaginings. I remember the agony of the aftermath, the crushing defeat. I cried for the longest time, sure that my heart was broken beyond repair. I didn't sleep or eat for, oh, two days. I ached physically with gut-wrenching sorrow. I wanted to die, and everything was in italics. SOMETIMES EVEN IN CAPS AND ITALICS.

Such melodrama is mortifying to remember. I was as tempestuous in my love as I was in my loss, and for the longest time I couldn't even think of him (or more specifically of me with him) without wincing. But now that I am contemplatively meandering through my twenties I have come to realise how much that relationship has given me. I was happy through the toughest times of my teens, happy and secure. I felt attractive, confident and occasionally even loved. Sure, I got a knock, but I've managed to carry that self-assurance into my relationships and though my love life may be an unmitigated disaster for the most part, my friendships endure. He was a bit of a gonk, but I have to give him some credit for who I've become.

Because she's not that bad.

*it was Clondalkinite for "shift" back in 1996.

Down With The Kids

Anyone else going to Woxegen this weekend? I've been stopped for ID twice in the last week while trying to buy booze in Aldi, so I'm totally going to fit in.

Contenders, Ready!

I sat down to a dinner of toast and marmalade and lo, what was on the tellybox but Gladiators! It was like being 12 again, but with the critical eye of a hungover 27 year old... Good fuck, it's all camel toe and budgie smugglers! Was it like that in the 90s?

The official site is flashy, loud and annoying, but worth a look simply because the little arrows to navigate the animation in the main screen poke the gladiators in their bulging crotches. We'll assume this was accidental. Sunday evenings will never be the same again.

The Unwelcoming Committee

We had a visitor from Japan chez nous this weekend in the flat (perhaps I should refer to it as an aportment? It is in Dublin 2...) I was headed to the wilds of Kildare for a couple of days so being a generous but absentee hostess I picked up all of the dirty knickers off my bedroom floor and made it habitable for him. I was due back on Monday night and was warned that he'd be staying then too, but that the Swede was off to Sweden on Monday morning so he'd be fending for himself. "Don't worry!" I trilled, "I'll mind him!"

My hoop. After a weekend spent studying and trying not to murder the nextdoor neighbour's child, I was in no mood to entertain. The Swede had made more than mention of our guest's not speaking any English - which translated to my ears as "he will be hard work, very hard work". Fuck him, I'd had enough hard work for one weekend. Sometimes I truly am an arsehole, and a selfish and lazy one at that. So I timed my arrival back to the flat with when I knew he'd be out with the German, just in time to watch Lost and then scuttle off to bed. The Leitrim Lady had the same plan and my brother tagged along for the craic, so by the time the German arrived home with our guest we three were lost in Lost and they were made to feel as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.

Grunts and nods without tearing our eyes from the screen, an absentminded shuffle over on the couch so that he might sit and enjoy the spectacle with us, staccato bursts of conversation during ad breaks and then mumbled reassurance that we'll talk to him in approximately 50 minutes when the programme had finished. Which we did, to be fair; we gave him a plot synopsis so that he might enjoy our further discussion of the episode's events and their relevance to previous episodes. The German made him (and us) some tea and we chatted for a bit, which was when we copped that actually the guy had fluent English and was pretty fucking sound. He was wrecked though so once the German had left, he excused himself and headed off to bed.

"Shite" we mused, "he was nice. We should have made an effort." His name was Naoki but in my study-addled idiocy I got Nokia stuck in my head instead, I had already forgotten it by the time we guiltily returned to the telly and our tired grouches, which was when he arrived back in with his camera to ask if he could get a photo with the three of us. Mortified, we put a shape on ourselves and said cheese. He headed off to bed happy and we sat there feeling like the miserable cunts that we are.

The Government Stooge

I have a new hero, and she blogs over here. She writes about life as a civil servant with the flair and wit of a female Flann O' Brien or an English-speaking Máirtín Ó Cadhain; her guide to the typical civil service day is eye-watering (parts one, two and three). What I really love about her though is that she could have been me. Or I could have been her. I'm not sure of the semantics, to be honest. What I mean is that I came horribly close to taking a job as EO with the Civil Service.

Having finally graduated from UCD in 2004 with a degree and an MA in nothing particularly useful, I panicked. I hated my part-time job in the bank with the kind of passion I usually reserve for commenters who correct my grammar, but I hadn't a clue what else to do. I tried teaching for a short while and had what I can honestly say were the worst two months of my entire life (a story for another day) but given that that was the only thing I could obviously apply my qualifications to, I worried that I would end up stuck with it. My previous work experience had seen me work as a fruit picker, shelf stacker and professional ironer of other people's shirts so I was starting with pretty low expectations - the civil service's open competition for executive officers sounded like the short-term answer to all of my prayers. I rattled off an application and a short while later found myself sitting an exam with 50 gazillion other hopefuls of varying shapes and sizes, a sizable chunk of whom looked like they might be dangerous and/or mentally ill. The test was a piece of piss compared to the car crash that was my MA - I just skipped all the bits with numbers in and had a bit of craic with the word puzzle ones. A few months later again I got a letter, I'd done alright in the tests, alright enough to be allowed to repeat the experience.

This was to be a more intimate and intense affair - three short exam papers, an Irish oral exam (optional bonus round) and an interview. Again, the papers were a breeze, bar the one with all of the numbers on it which I more or less ignored. The super Gaeilge bonus round was fun, as evidently the examiners had been expecting some dolt who was just scooping for points and couldn't string a sentence together, so they were thrilled when I proved both able and happy to converse with them. A short break and a cup of tea, then it was time for the interview proper.

I sat in the comfy chairs in the lounge and fidgeted for a bit. Wandered off to the bathroom to use the loo, paused to check that my face was still on straight, nodded to the competition and sashayed confidently back out into the lobby (I was wearing my favourite interview combo of black poloneck, mustard swing skirt, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels). A grey and worried looking man came out to fetch me and ushered me ahead of him into the interview room, where two other grey looking types awaited me.

It was an interview format I hadn't come across before and I've not come across since, in that they asked me if I'd like to consult my notes and reassured me that they would be asking the same questions as they'd asked on the original application form. Em, notes? It seems that all of the other candidates were aware of this bizarre let-me-read-you-what-I-wrote style interview process, and had come along with their scripts to hand. I was the only fucking idiot who hadn't read the small print and had planned on ad-libbing my way into their hearts. Already unimpressed by my non-conformity, they kicked off anyway with a barrage of questions that all started with "It says here that...". I relaxed after a bit and got into my stride, waxing lyrical about my superpowers and beaming smiles at them in a vain effort to lift their grey pallor. And that was when I realised that I could feel the cold plastic of the chair under my thigh. Just the one thigh though, the right one. I shifted in my chair, puzzled. And then realised that my skirt was tucked firmly into my knickers, and had been since my earlier trip to the jacks. The sashaying around the lobby, the confident stroll into the interview, all done with my arse on display.

I spent the remainder of the interview shifting in my seat like one plagued with piles, thankfully dislodging the hem of my skirt just before I had to shake their hands and scuttle out of the room again. The bitch I'd nodded to as I was leaving the jacks earlier was sitting there with her notes, looking smug, thrilled that I'd made such a literal arse of myself. I shot her a filthy look and sloped off home.

A month later, my results arrived. No. 1 on the panel. Fuck her and her trouser suit.

Hollywoods Ain't Glamourous

Bikini waxing: a not-strictly-necessary evil* that hovers somewhere between smear tests and root canal treatment on the scale of things I don't want to do on a Wednesday evening. I decided to try a new salon this time, having fallen into a bad habit of overexposing myself to Sinéad in the place across the road with my panicked witterings while she waxed (she burned my skin the last time and I'm not entirely sure it was accidental). So to Urban Wax for what proved to be a markedly less traumatic experience than some of my previous adventures - though no matter how reassuring and professional a beautician is, pouring hot wax over my ladybits and ripping it off again before she goes for the finish with tweezers and a determined look is never going to endear her to me.

*Unfortunately vaginae with sideburns just aren't in at the moment.

Childhood Trauma #73

Davey's helpful comment yesterday that "learning is for sissies" got me thinking generally about sissydom and what a complete and utter sissy I was as a kid. I'm still a bit of a sissy these days, but now I think it suits me. Back then it didn't, but I was such a fucking sissy that I hadn't a clue what to do about it. Then I read Felix's #5 this morning and the true extent of my sissyness as a kid washed over me again in a wave.

There is incident from 1988 that haunts me yet, a public humiliation from my time in rang a haon with Múinteoir Ciara where the memory of the burning in my cheeks is still so vivid that I have to lay a hand to my face to check that I'm not blushing again. It was the year of our first Holy Communion, that rite of passage that signified, well, I'm not too sure on the whole Catholic side of things but it was significant for me in that I bought a set of swings for the garden with my communion money. Before we could get stuck into a bit of Holy Jesus, however, there was the ritual of the First Confession.

The process was explained to us in detail, the priest introduced, we were reassured that our confessions would be heard on the altar rather than in the confessional boxes lest the claustrophobic amongst us have a shit attack on the big day. We then had a quickfire Q&A as a prelude to the practice confession we were going to make to our teacher. Which is when it all went horribly wrong. My friend Martha put her hand up, the picture of genuine, worried sincerity, and asked what would happen if you hadn't got anything to tell the priest, because, she reasoned, "Rosie doesn't have any sins!"

Cue silence while the 32 eight year olds and their teacher ponder this hitherto unforeseen snag caused by the innocence of the class Goody-Poxy-Two-Shoes. That's right, I thought miserably, as the lot of them stared at me and my already red cheeks turned puce. I don't. I'm 8. I could make one up, but that would be a lie, and a sin on the altar.

I went home that day mortified at having been singled out from the crowd because of my virtue. I gave my brother a thump, muttered a bad word under my breath at my mam and thought about dipping her purse for tenpence (a step too far - but thinking about it was a good start). I resolved once and for all to rid myself of the nickname the class clown had bestowed upon me - "The Walking Talking Statue".

I've been moderately successful.