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 isnosy 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.
I have to ask the pharmacist where the earplugs are kept. "What are they for?" she asks, because she is
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.
