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.

Buke Worm

No longer under any obligation to spend every waking hour either studying or pretending to study, I can once again spend the majority of my (sober) free time with my nose stuck in a book. I passed my exams by the skin of my teeth... I ended up with a 2:1, which doesn't quite sound like scraping through, but I can assure you that with a 60% passing grade and a 59% mark in one of the modules, it is scraping through with bloodied knees.

And so, unfettered and free, I managed to get through no less than three novels over the course of last week's holiday. The first was Hakuri Murakami's After Dark, purchased in the airport and read on the plane. I always feel cheated when I finish one of Murakami's novels; their brevity may be key to their beauty but they leave me hungry for more. An English teacher of mine once flattered me with a similar accusation but it was years before I got the reference - he marked me down to a B- and scribbled a note saying that my story was infuriatingly like one of Mr. Wilde's cigarettes.* I thought he was just being a cunt.

I read Nicola Barker's Darkmans next, which I'd bought on a whim because it was big and heavy. It meant that I had to carry a shoulder bag rather than a handbag for the week and that I developed a squint and a hunch, but it was worth it. It was clever, confusing and very very funny. The nightmarish images of Scogin the jester seeped into my own dreams, however, and it made for an uncomfortable week's sleep. I believe Ms. Barker has penned a few others so I'll be down to Rathmines library with a list on Monday morning.

A little light reading then for the flight home; Siobhán Dowd's The London Eye Mystery. It had shades of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in that the narrator, Ted, shares many of Christopher's idiosyncrasies. He makes for an endearing, engaging and convincing storyteller and I found myself reading right through the safety announcements on board our Boeing 737, and all the way through the flight home (despite being a confirmed narcoleptic when it comes to public transport). The book is aimed at 9-12 year olds, and as I am all of 27 I feel I should pass it on to someone else who might enjoy it. So if anyone's got a spacky kid like me at home who'd treasure my copy, email me and I'll post it anonymously, and give them a mystery all of their own.

*A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? (The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde)

I Didn't Catch The Bouquet, But

Saturday morning saw me running around town in the pouring rain and a massive tantrum, trying in vain to find something to wear to the wedding. I'd bought a dress the week before only to try it on on Friday and discover that I'd need to magically grow breasts overnight to fit it - I ended up wearing it anyway with a vest, a high-waisted belt, a lot of safety pins, tall stiletto heels and my cherry earrings to distract from my dog's dinner of an outfit. I'm told it worked.

I was anxious about the day already. The friend who was to marry is the same friend who lost his brother a couple of months back, and the last time I had seen his family was the weekend that they brought Conor home to bury him. That Sunday afternoon I spent with them broke my heart, I have never seen such appalling, consuming grief. I spent most of the afternoon on their couch with my sister and their four grandkids, delighted with their easy affection, wide-eyed honesty and sticky fingered dexterity on the Nintendo DS. I was worried about seeing the family again, selfishly uncomfortable with their grief and feeling bizarrely guilty about my own. I had mourned Conor in my own small way here and I had lost my Crash Grandadicoot that same week - weddings make me cry anyway so how the fuck was I going to manage this one?

I managed it just dandy, taking my cue from everyone around me. The day went without a hitch (save for the obvious pun) and it was as a wedding should be - happy, celebratory, lán beocht agus croí. The bride looked beautiful and her husband (eek! he's married now!) spent the day looking like he couldn't believe his luck. His brother Conor was remembered as he will always be remembered in everything his family do and I learned that grief (whether your own or someone else's) is not something to be uncomfortable with or feel embarrassed about. That his family can still take the time to make me and everyone else who was there on Saturday feel special amazes me in a quiet, ordinary way. They're good people for me to take my cues from.

Study's Going Great, Thanks!

The kid next door is a creepy article. I was woken this morning by her screeching "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!" in faux operatic style as she swung with what could only be described as a vengeance on her garden swing. She seems possessed of a violent energy, not youthful exuberance or anything like it but a barely contained malice - like that kid in the Exorcist right before her head spins and she pukes pea soup all over the shop. (I was going to include a picture but they were all too scary). Her treehouse conveniently overlooks our patio so an otherwise pleasant morning spent reading in the garden is ruined by the uneasy suspicion that there's an evil 9 year old lurking in the foliage above your head, reading your unhip science fiction novel study notes over your shoulder.

It's not off the ground she licks it. Her dad is so annoying that my siblings and I now have Ade-Alert, an alarm system* that triggers if he's lurking when one of us goes to leave the house, or if he's passing by and peering in the sitting room window. Which he does a lot. It took me a while to put my finger on who it was he reminds me of and then this morning as his rictus grin drifted past the window again it came to me - Ted, the robotic Bluebeard from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know - my pop culture references are impossibly cool.

It's been an sickeningly long bank holiday weekend; I've been on study leave from work since last Wednesday and am edging ever closer to panic and madness. One more hissed hellooooooo from the treehouse will tip me over and all they'll find of the child will be her shoes.

*When I say "system" I mean of course that one of us spots him and feigns panic, whispering "Ade-Alert" repeatedly until we've all ducked and run for cover. Because talking to him would result in a slow painful death, or a nasty rash at the very least. We're 27, 26 and 22.

Pretending to be young, hip and creative (and suffering the consequences)

Inspired by One for the Road's smashing description of the delight that is the NCAD Degree Show (see here) I was persuaded to leave the comforts of the flat yesterday evening to go join the crowds on Thomas St. Being disorganised and fairly lazy, I managed to miss the show itself (I was sidetracked by the arrival of two visitors, two bottles of wine and Indecent Proposal on the telly. I reckon I was 14 when first -and last- I saw it and I wonder now what my parents were thinking. That bit where Woody's going down on Demi in the kitchen, jeez...) Aaaaanyway, I arrived late but in flying form to meet my creative compadres in McGruders on James' St. A more fitting venue for the after show party they couldn't have found. No fancy decor to detract from the outfits, in fact, no decor at all. Or decorum. Or bar staff.

Deciding to shun the beer garden in favour of the cultural experience that is James' St. on a Friday evening, we loitered outside the front door for a cigarette. Realising what an ordeal it would be to get served at the bar, we tripped the 100 yards or so to Booze-To-Go on Thomas St. (what a shop!) and picked up a few rounds for ourselves. We then spent a happy few hours getting bladdered on the street, while the actual students paid for beer and pouted indoors. The local kids came out and put on some street theatre (the high point was when one of the little girls hammered seven shades of shite out of some poor young lad with her majorette's baton), and the Garda Mounted Unit did a ride-by at about 1.30am, but decided to let us off with a mild caution ("Here, move in there before you get run over by an ambilince. And leave the horse alone..."). Unfortunately there were no after party after parties to go to (or if there were, they decided not to invite us) so we ended up wading through the murky hell that is Dame St. at 3.30am in search of food and home.

This morning's hangover was inevitable, but made all the worse when I realised that I was due in to work by 11am (despite it being Saturday). Of all the things to have to face on a grouchy Saturday morning; a bike ride, 2 Kerry clowns and 50 sugared-up kids. I wanted to hide under a table. Thankfully, despite my complete lack of effort or enthusiasm the event was a roaring success. Na deartháireacha Fanzini abú!