Gick Wan

"Ha ha, you look like Leo Sayer!" He burped his Guinness, such was his mirth. I gave him a dig, and patted my 'fro. "You look like Brendan Grace" I said. That shut him up.

***

I presented my outfit for his approval. "You look like a sexy Amish dominatrix" he said. "Shut up" I said. I don't always have a good comeback ready.

***

"I think those boots would look better with black tights" he said. He's right. The boots are ankle length and pointy-toed. I like the witchy click of their heels but they make my legs look fat. He'd never say as much, and has probably never thought it. I can't admit that he's right about the tights though, so I choose another pair of shoes.

***

"You have winter colouring" he said. He's been reading that Trinny & Susanna book on his break again. He told me what colours would suit me, but I wasn't listening. I was busy feeling flattered that he'd thought to look me up.

***

I saw him through the window, elbow-deep in the dishes. He was wearing his new jeans and his new purple jumper with the blue spots (or is it blue with purple spots?) that makes him look like James P. Sullivan from Monsters, Inc. He gave me a big bear hug when I came in. I need that when I come home from work; a hug and some evidence that dinner is under way. "I wore my snowpants and my orange hoodie to work today" he said, gesturing at his clothes. "This is the equivalent of putting a ribbon in my hair to look pretty for you when you come home". I should shave my legs more often, I thought to myself. Then I gave him a grateful smile and a happy kiss.

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.

Plumbing For The Socially Disadvantaged

I went out on Saturday night with feathers in my hair. More budgie than peacock, I wore them to fit in and not to stand out. The red eyeshadow was a mistake - already jam-faced with a cold sore, I looked like a myxomatoxic rabbit. I sat there, plumage adroop, feigning aloof and balancing precariously on my high stool.

"Here she comes, boogedy boogedy" I muttered under my breath.

In the bathroom I ducked into a stall, relieved to have made it that far. Through the night, through that crowd. The toilet was clogged with paper, the handle hanging loose and useless on the flush. I could hear high heels and hair outside. I lifted the lid on the cistern and placed it across the bowl, then carefully picked the lift rod out of the water and reattached it to the flush arm. I replaced the porcelain cover and flushed.

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.

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.

Things Not To Do When You're Premenstrual (At Least I Hope That's What's Wrong With Me)

Clear out your wardrobe.

I threw out 57 pairs of jeans last night, convinced that they made me look fat. I shall be spending Christmas in my pyjamas, which is just as well given that I seem grimly determined to spend much of it on Grand Canal Street.

Shop for shoes.

By the time I reached the third branch of the same shop in search of elusive size eights, my feet had swollen to a size eleventeen and the fucking things didn't fit anyway. Instead, I came home with a pair that cost me €8 and make me look like a glam rock golf enthusiast. Gold flats with beige laces. Fashion won't know what's hit it.

Purchase a party frock.

I came home with a cream lace babydoll number that makes me look like I'm making my first holy communion. It will go well with the shoes. In an admirable refusal to learn from my first mistake, I then went on to purchase a tartan babydoll number which makes me look like a Bay City Rollers groupie. It too will look only smashing with the shoes.

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.

How Many Syllabubs Is That?

Fréamhaíonn sé mé a deir Gabriel Rosenstock agus é ag caint ar haiku a chleachtadh. Tugann sé dearcadh eile dom ar cad is áilleacht ann.

Labhair Rosenstock freisin ar an íonghlanadh intinne a ghabhann leis an haiku. Go dtugann scríobh agus léamh haiku peirspeictíocht nua dó ar an saol, saol atá níos glé agus níos glaine dá bharr. Táim tógtha leis an smaoineamh seo - go bhféadfainn machnamh a dhéanamh i seacht siolla dhéag. Ach is dócha go n-oirfeadh foirm an senryū níos fearr domsa - baineann siad le faona daonna seachas dúile an dhúlra, agus is duine daonna lán faona mise.

Trathnóna inné bhí mé i mo shuí ar bhínse in aice na canála, ag fanacht leis an Jaffa Cake le dul ag gig an Jimmy Cake. Bhí seisean ag rith mall agus bhí mise préachta leis an bhfuacht, le creathanna i mo cholainn, ar tí an chantail. Chinn mé ar haiku a scríobh; triail breith ar an nóiméad agus an ruaig a chur ar mo cholg.

ag feitheamh, foighneach,
an fuacht, láimhíní in
uachtar ar fhaisean

Dá bhféadfainn chuile éispearas a bhíonn agam ar bhruacha na canála a scagadh mar seo, bheadh suaimhneas intinne i ndán dom.

Ach bheadh easpa ábhar léitheoireachta oraibhse ansin.

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.

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.

Pineapple Head

I dressed with careless abandon this morning. Pulled on my blue stripey t-shirt, the one with the scribbled cartoon and hurry up! break time is coming!! written in a childish scrawl across the front, which makes my colleagues laugh. Black jeans scraped from the bedroom floor; they flatter my arse and say shimmy on the label. This morning it reads like a request. Then my flowery runners, which squeak with every step. On paranoid days I blush, convinced that everyone must think I have horribly sweaty feet. Why on earth I wouldn't just assume that everyone thinks I have squeaky runners is anyone's guess, and a psychiatrist's wet and sticky dream. I leave my hair in a wet, messy tousle and my face sleepy-eyed and apple-cheeked.

I was going to dress with careful deliberation today, straighten my hair and paint on a pretty face. I was going to sit down to a courteous conversation that I'd rather not have. But I look prettier when I smile with flushed cheeks and freckles than I do when I have a powdered nose and runny mascara. My life is too short for that shite.

I saunter into work. There may even have been a shimmy to my shake - showing some spine feels good this morning. I listen to Crowded House because you can't pretend to be cool all of the time. When the lights change at Charlemont Bridge I curb my urge to sit down on the kerb. It's one thing to be feeling easy in the morning sunshine, it's quite another to share your contentedness to wait for the little green man to the point where other commuters are looking at you with naked concern. Je suis bien dans ma peau et ma tête, I think, pretentiously and in French. Because I do feel good in my skin this morning, more so than I have done in a while.

This ain't no sea-change, I think. Not yet, anyway. But I had tired of the tempestuous puddle I'd chosen to paddle in.

Reader's Choice #6

Stockings vs. Tights - Which is Cooler?

For Andrew, who probably sticks to socks.

Stupid fucking question really, it's like comparing jeans to leg warmers. Stockings are cooler - they don't have a gusset.

He was very much what I would regard as the typical uptight Englishman, not quite a gent but certainly conservative. His interests included poker and tits, both his own and large ones of the lady variety. His interests also briefly included me, and of course I was completely besotted with him, as I generally am with entirely unsuitable men. He had the typical uptight Englishman's tastes in fun and frolics too - a little discipline, a little dressing up. High heels and stockings, if you don't mind, and it's far from that I was reared. But I am an indulgent sort.

So I swapped the thick opaque tights and sensible flats for silk stockings, a suspender belt and some spiky heels. Not permanently, you understand, just in the bathrooms at the airport. With the pencil skirt and the slim-fitting black poloneck, I felt every inch the sophisticate. I set off with a sexy swing to my gait, brimming with bravado. But I couldn't walk too well in the shoes. And the suspender belt was too big for me - I sized it to skim and flatter my bovine hips rather than to stay put and hold up my stockings. I sat on the tube, thighs clenched, fidgeting, sweating into my slim-fitting poloneck, unable to cross my legs for fear that I might further strain the straps precariously preserving my modesty. By the time I arrived at his door, I was an agitated and decidedly unsexy mess.

Stockings may be cooler, but I can't quite pull them off. Or keep them on.

Oh, Christ

Sunday morning, the croissants are in the oven, the tea is cooling by my elbow, the Sunday Business Show is on the radio. I couldn't give a fuck about business and have never understood money but I find their dull and earnest chatter soothing. And this morning I need to be soothed, to have the strangers on the radio stroke my hair and tell me that really, it'll be okay. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I'd be spooning with my hangover, or maybe taking it down to Merrion Square to read the newspaper and get some air. Normally at this hour on a Sunday I am not primping and preening, trying to iron out my kinks and curls. I've spent the past hour trying to choose the least inappropriate outfit in my wardrobe, brown skirt, tan stockings, gold shoes, bangles (because to me, bangles seem sophisticated). The Swede did a double-take when I walked into the kitchen, and then laughed. "You look lovely" he said, revelling in my obvious discomfort before relenting and giving me a hug.

The cause of all this distress is sitting opposite me as I type, reading Annie's interview in the Times and blithely sipping his coffee. His nephew is to be christened this morning, and I am to be his guest. To meet his parents, and his sister. There is to be a reception, and a bouncy castle, and polite chatter; I am particularly looking forward to explaining how we met.

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.

It's All Fun And Games Until...

I have a date tonight. With a man.

I'm sure normal people don't boast childishly about this kind of shit but it almost never happens to me. The idea that someone (with all his own hair, teeth and mental faculties) would choose to spend a few hours in my company and maybe even try to kiss me at some stage, well, it's horribly exciting. Doubly so when you add to the mix the fact that I have no idea either how to dress or conduct myself appropriately, rendering the evening's outcome entirely unpredictable. I'm only 27 - at my age we generally just get mashed, lunge and hope for the best.

So, a plea for good advice. Lay it on me, strangers off the internet!

Cárta Poist

The wind whipped my bikini bottoms off our third floor balcony and tossed them onto the street below. Mortified, I belted down the stairs while the other three stood at the window, laughing like hyenas. When I fell out onto the street it was deserted, save for a middle aged man with a baby in a buggy, standing right where I'd seen them land. And there was no sign at all of my knickers. Thinking they might have blown further along the street, I walked a little way in both directions, trying to look nonchalant. It was only when I turned to ask him if he'd seen them that the penny dropped.

May he wear them with pride.

It's A Matter Of Some Debate

I spent a bit of time on Friday evening moseying around the NCAD grad show again, and discovered that Logan Mc Lain has designed a bag just for me. Now, do I go with the diagram version, or the handstitched muff?

Mixed Nuts

Friday was somewhat of a social experiment; I fancied getting bladdered in style and good company so I arranged a heady mixture of bloggers, friends, family members and flatmates to provide my evening's entertainment.

Thomas St. was my first port of call, to congratulate my sister on her graduation - first class honours! - and to ponce around drinking cans in the square and pretend that I too am arty, when I am patently not; the truly arty had brought their own booze and were not forking out €4.50 a pop for cans of warm Budweiser from the bar. They were heading on to the salubrious McGruders (memories...) but I had other plans, so off I trolloped.

My enormously flouncy candy striped dress and holy communion style white pumps and cardigan combo were entirely fitting for the NCAD Graduate Show, slightly less appropriate for the stroll into town at scobie-o-clock on a Friday evening and wholly inappropriate (not to mention impractical) for squeezing past drunks and playing table ricochet in the narrow confines of Bowes on Fleet St. But vodka knocks the edge off embarrassment as easily as a net underskirt knocks drinks off tables, I find. We cosied in the corner snug until the kindly bar staff pleaded with us to let them go home at which point we, somewhat inevitably, barrelled into Doyles. And "danced". Though at least in Doyles there's the comfort of knowing that no matter how much damage the drinking has done to your motor skills, you will not be the sorriest creature on the floor. I believe his name was Matt, and he was from Australia.

Home then for "cocktails" (clear as gasoline, came in a pint glass) and "bacon sarnies" (I lied, I had no rashers. Annie had to make do with peanut butter and toast) where I spent some quality time on the balcony, talking to the seagulls. I saw the last of them off the premises at 4.30am, tiptoeing around the glass on the street ("but your bare feet go with your dress") and laughing at the taxi driver's face when he clocked the stuffed dog peeking out from the collar of Annie's jacket.

The Road To Mental

This time last year I was sat right where I am now (at the dining table in the flat, surrounded if not yet swamped by study notes, dictionaries and half drunk cups of Earl Grey). I was dressed in scruffy pyjamas, hair like a madwoman's fanny, my outward appearance generally indicative of my mental health. I'm studying for a HDip, having already got my BA and MA behind me, and for the first time in my life I was worried to the point of distraction about how I would fare in my exams. I had been more conscientious in my study than I ever had when I was in full-time education (when I had attended lectures on a rota basis, left exams before I'd finished because I couldn't wait to get to the HorseShow House and generally regarded anything above 40% to be an indication that I wasn't having as much fun as I should). I don't know if being an almost-adult with a semi-serious job has made me feel like I should try a little harder, but something has changed and success in my exams is now a matter of diligence and pride rather than blind luck.

So with all of this weighing on my mind as I sat here last year, I had a panic attack. I knew what it was (a friend having described the feeling in frightening detail before) but that didn't mean that I thought I was having anything less than a heart attack, followed swiftly by a complete nervous breakdown (I had a similar reaction the one and only time I ever got heartburn - I thought I was going into cardiac arrest). I got over it (though it took all day) and spent the rest of the week before my exams (and the occasional moment since, truth be told) panicking quietly about having another one.

So here I am again, at home on study leave, a week before my exams. As prepared as I was last year and with the benefit of another year's learning behind me, more mature and more worldly-wise (stop sniggering). Determined not to have a panic attack. I am once again sat here at the dining table surrounded by the tools of my trade, but this time I'm sat here with blow-dried hair (my going-out hair, as GingerBeard calls it) in my prettiest summer dress, with a cup of tea and a bowl of fresh cherries. I'm pouring my heart out to my pretend friends (my blog is not yet a year old, so that's a comfort I didn't have then) and I'm going to put some music with words on (apparently if you feel you're edging towards panic, singing helps).

I'll let you know how it goes.