Category Archives: Uncategorized

Silence

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Human beings suffer, they torture one another…

Of the umpteen ways I torture my fella, I’m guessing urging him to have an opinion is way up there among the top five. Somewhere between insisting he demonstrate what my snoring sounds like, and launching a late-night screed on the meaning of life, just as he’s about to fall asleep.

“What do you think?” That most feared refrain guaranteed to have him turn away to (I suspect) chew his fist before  re-arranging his features from Munch’s Scream into a mild-mannered shrug.

As folk with a neurotic disposition towards shrugs can verify, this is enough to send the most stable of us hurtling towards righteous despair in the time it takes the shrugger to add a fake pout to dupe the other into thinking they’re formulating an opinion. Only they’re not. There is nothing at the end of the pout except “what do you want me to say?” And the only thing to follow that with is “have an opinion!” (exclamation mark optional) It’s our very own special torture routine.

Sometimes, when I’m bored, or hungry, I call him up to find out what he’s had for lunch. Just for the predictably forensic detail, right down to the order of item consumption. All delivered without the hint of deviation from a straight face. For some quality dirty talk, I’ll ask him to detail the  contents of his desk-tidy, or to read a paragraph from something he’s working on, pausing to highlight the semi-colons, like he’s reading a telegram. He uses a lot of semi-colons in his work, so I tend to pardon his reluctance for over-thinking things back on Earth. Where over-thinking is a world away from not thinking about things at all, which would require some heavy sedation and a well-insulated cave without electricity.

It’s just he doesn’t feel the need to externalise his thoughts all the time. Torturous though it can be, it’s still one of the top five reasons I fell for him. It frees up more air-time for me, and, in a double whammy way, ensures his scarcity of words command more attention. The fucker. It’s also as valid – and sometimes necessary – a response as any other.

So we sat side-by-side last week watching events unfold in Paris. Four lips clamped shut by shock and an uneasiness from the almost voyeuristic immediacy of real-time events. Modern warfare as we have come to know it.

Eventually one of us stood up. “I’m going to bed”, he sighed without another word.

 

Running to stand still

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“Was the realtor here then?” I enquired on detecting the ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the house. I never get to say realtor with a straight face, or in a context appropriate situation, so I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. Or pretend to be a grown-up like my fella and utter the words ‘estate agent’ with disturbing maturity. Until now, I’ve managed to navigate life without slipping into the void between immaturity and death otherwise known as mortgage. But having failed to read the small print on the marriage vows, it transpires that what’s his is mine; and what’s ours is now being dealt with by a pre-pubescent with enough positivity to make your average children’s TV presenter sound like Christopher Lee.

Ever since I was persuaded to ink half the deal on a new house, I’ve been experiencing strange new ailments that demand a second opinion from Google. It turns out that worry over “how far back does a credit check go?” and “random but intense curtain envy” are symptoms consistent with stage III conformity. It’s probably terminal and will likely culminate in a B & Q loyalty card. Sadly, many of my friends and family have succumbed to its vicious clutches. I’ve seen the devastating effects of decking.

for sale

One second-hand soul. Only one owner.

In exchange for a reasonable sized mortgage ONO

Having spent the last six years delivering a regular screed on the hazards of living where we do (mental rigor mortis, hardened vowels, phantom bell’s palsy), and jointly hatching escape routes from same, it has become something of a hysterical laugh that we’re condemned to settle a mile out the road. Forever. As cosmic jokes go, it’s one of the best. The more florid the alternatives became (Toronto! Leitrim! Mongolia! ) the more inevitable the end result. On the plus side, we can never go on holiday again so all complaining is not lost.

Determination – reality + wishful thinking x one party’s chronic immaturity. You do the math s.

If you’re going to wear a poppy, wear a white one

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weegingerdug's avatarWee Ginger Dug

Every year the poppy parading gets earlier and earlier like Christmas adverts. The poppy police have been out in force since mid October, complaining that there are people on the telly not bearing the obligatory badge of British militarism. If you don’t wear a poppy you don’t support the troops, and if you don’t support the troops then you’re practically a member of ISIS.

It’s not enough to remember the dead in your own way. It’s not allowed to light a quiet candle in your heart. It’s not permitted to make a donation in private to a charity of your choice. You have to make a show of it. You have to make a public display in an establishment approved manner, a way that doesn’t challenge or question, a way that won’t rock any boats or change anything that the powerful do. Poppies are the regimentation of remembrance. We remember…

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Merry pop-ins

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Our one’s teacher doesn’t walk, she glides. I imagine birds circle her head every morning chirping Taylor Swift songs as she clicks her fingers to summon the perfect hair-bun before fiddling her gossamer wings into a timeless dress that floats behind her like a magic carpet tucked into her knickers. I haven’t had a crush on a teacher since Miss O’Shea when I was 13, yet here I am kneeling next to a three-year old smiling just as inanely up at one without the excuse of an inability to go the toilet unaccompanied, or distinguish between the sleuth talents of our neighbour’s jack russell and Scooby Doo.

Stepping into her enchanted castle  office for the parent/teacher meeting, I was presented with a detailed progress report. After initial thoughts of “what the fuck?”, I concluded it was a good job since I was mesmerised by her green liquid eyeliner. So evenly applied. So compatible with her skin tone. So not more than 28 …Sorry, what was that?.. Oh yes… hand-to-eye coordination. I nodded earnestly, equal parts impressed and alarmed by the A4 breakdown. Impressed they’d obviously paid her considerable attention since arrival; alarmed she’d only been there a matter of weeks but was already firmly lodged in The System. Not to mention disappointed my own mother never got to experience a thumbs-up report on me.

In my day *pipe lip-smacks* reports were strictly the preserve of secondary school; intercepted, of course. At three years of age, there was a good chance I hadn’t yet reached the developmental milestone of helping myself to an extended lunch-break. We’re in the golden age of school reports, I reasoned; an opportune time to register any non-threatening concerns either of us have. Enjoy it while it lasts. Ten years from now I’ll be drowning in thought infested waters struggling to offer a reasonable explanation for why she fired soggy bog-roll up at the gym ceiling.

Unsurprisingly, I learned she waits until she’s home to externalise her thoughts on all of life’s injustices. Her Dad will be proud she isn’t bringing shame on the family, I scoffed. Following in his footsteps, she looked bewildered as her Granny later commended her on the report. Oh no, here comes the merits-of-a-career-in-medicine talk. I jest. That’s not for another year.

I maintained a steady ambivalence about it all, interrupted by an irrational rant on the dangers of making pat assessments so early on in a child’s life. Then I bumped into Ashleen, who supervises the breakfast club. We get to call her by her first name so already we’re on the level, and I don’t smile like I’m on something, like sleep deprivation, or Skype. Without a desk between us, she reminisced about the quiet girl that turned up in the first week compared to the one full of chat now, who gets the jokes and is not afraid to a crack a few of her own. Sounded to me like she had her down pat.

Suggestions for teachers unsure what to do with children opting out of sacramental preparation

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  1. Have them listen to an entire Mumford & Sons album and ask them to re-assess their view on the possible existence of The Devil
  2. Original sins: Get them to think up and agree a new one, thereby developing their capacity for moral reasoning and consensus
  3. Role play: The Silent Majority. Get them to just sit still and say absolutely nothing (Confirmation class age only)
  4. Host a Q & A session with Jim Corr. Facilitate them to decide which one of them will be Jim Corr (Communion class age only)
  5. Play Spot the Difference:

enyachris de burgh

Chris de Burgh                        Enya

Top 5… soundtracks of our lives Part One

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walk across the rooftops

A Walk Across The Rooftops – The Blue Nile

The title track came hurtling through an old fashioned one-piece earphone attached to my Da’s wee transistor radio I used to sneak to bed for Mark Cagney’s Nightrain. Showing me vintage there. The radio was later confiscated by my Irish teacher when she discovered I was using it as a life-support machine in her class. Was just stepping into my teens and devouring all the music I could get me ears on. Cut to our school tour months later…Golden Discs on Middle Abbey St. (RIP). A Cure album in one paw, The Blue Nile in the other, just enough dabs for one. Plonked the former back on the shelf and a lifetime’s soundtrack was born. Paul Buchanan was designed by nervous angels with a caffeine habit and a fondness for getting their harps out in the dead of night.

Hatful of Hollow – The Smiths

1985. Electricity has recently arrived. Wow. Motor cars, battery powered sheep, and now electric carving knives men can buy as presents for their wives at Christmas. People are euphoric, wild with excitement. Meanwhile, in my brother’s bedroom I delicately place a two-pence coin on the record player needle to help its journey over that scratch in the middle of the first line after Johnny Marr’s clinker of a lead-in. “Punc…tured-punc…tured-punc…tured”. Rarely works. Always needs slight pressure from the index finger to get it past check-in. Too much pressure and it’s fucked. “Punc-tured (holds breath).. bicycle on a hillside desolate”. And we’re off (checks naff hairdo in mirror)

The Lion & the Cobra – Sinead O’Connor

I remember it, Dublin in a rainstorm. Sitting in the long grass in summer, thinking we were cool freezing our balls off. We were so young then I thought that everything we could possibly do was right. I know different now.

Closing Time – Tom Waits

London by night. A room in a house in a street in a city where the neons stay lit longer than the dreams of most dreamers washed up there. The re-grouping is complete; time to return and find the one willing to waltz around to Little Trip to Heaven. Any old kitchen’ll do.

Boxer – The National

I think you’ll like this, she says, handing over a copy to him, correct ink pen used to delicately write the track-list. One misfit chaperoned two others home through an album of sonic anxiety played out through four speakers crisscrossing the country in opposite directions. Was it the second meeting or third? The album sounds like 1:30am behind the wheel on the open road, getting blinded by the headlights of your on-coming thoughts and the realisation of what might be. They share a tiny kitchen with enough space for bad dancing.

Profane cow

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Bless me, Comrades, it’s been *thinks how long since Glen Hansard’s Oscar speech* a few years at least since my last confession, and these are my transgressions:

I didn’t do what my parents told me so I don’t have a pension set up.

I said bad words like absolutely! (in that way) And one time I think I said..going forward. Possibly not in jest.

I had impure thoughts about Amy Huberman. It didn’t involve removing her clothes, just thon Newbridge Silverware that brings out her Stepford side. Only I went in for a swift but almighty boot up the arse. Kick like you mean it etc.

amy huberman

Amy opens up for the first time to Tommie Gorman about the trauma she endured at Newbridge Silverware

I called my brothers names. I’m ashamed to admit they included solvent, capitalist, over-achiever, and funds manager. OK, I didn’t really call any of them a funds manager. I wouldn’t want to be disowned altogether.

When Bob Geldof invited refugees to stay in his gaff, I was concerned they might be exposed to the music of The Boomtown Rats. Haven’t they been through enough?

Yesterday, I legged it into the nearest shop when I spotted my Mother-In-Law advancing. I’ve no idea why I did this. On the plus side, my mate said she never saw me run so fast.

Michael Palin. I still would.

I mean-spiritedly, if accurately, assumed the judges of the Irish Blog Awards were a mixed ability group when I discovered my favourites didn’t make the cut.

Stephen Fry. I still would. Even if it meant life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

I didn’t LOL at any of the excerpts from the current glut of books out on the Irish condition. I’m too afraid to name names for fear of risking torture for outrageous acts of social disobedience and sacrilege. As the quest for the true essence of Paddy continues, I’m sure there are a few chapters in there dedicated to the perennial curmudgeon, impossible to please. I’ll be bitterly disappointed, if not. I aim to do my bit in contributing to that most complicated and elusively layered beast: The middle-aged Irish woman.

I typed LOL. Twice.

My self-loathing has spread to wincing on people greeting me in our native language, and any time I’m exposed to Irish dancing. Richard Dawkins claimed Catholic education was worse than child abuse so that woefully misplaced hysteria has already been taken.

Yeah, Richard Dawkins. etc.

I typed Richard Dawkins. Three times.

I’m responsible for our wee one cultivating a Michael Jackson obsession. It started one afternoon when I innocently introduced her to The Jackson Five on youtube. It ended with her insisting on watching Thriller every night after dinner, just before one episode of Peppa. Here, have a listen.. “Darkness falls across the land..” Sorry, wrong link, I hit the Amnesty film, Chains, there by mistake.

I’m a fan of all of Graham Linehan’s commendably great work, though The I.T. Crowd did it for me better than Father Ted. And Moone Boy gives the latter a run for its money.

Finally *whispers* I might’ve laughed at Liam Neeson’s voiceover. A baby laugh. A whimper. More of a cough when I think about it.

*Bows head solemnly for absolution*