For two of those days, the actor, Mark Ruffalo, was referred to twice in one post as Mark Gruffalo. I guess that has been the least radioactive of my blushes here, but for someone unable to fit comfortably in to a parent-size blog, the signs of having a child will continue to give themselves away unwittingly. Our bedtime reading has since moved on to  Hugh Jackman and The Beanstalk.

Not that I embarked on carving out a parenting blog. Good luck to all those brave folk who maintain one. I salute them with the leftover gusto from cheerleading those willing to walk down an aisle in the company of more than three people.

It just happened to be an idle afternoon in my mean abode when I followed my fingers round the keyboard until they took out a mortgage with WordPress and moved into a surprisingly familiar neighbourhood.

For a woman on the perpetual hunt for escapism from where I live, one would’ve expected me to dive headlong down the portal to freedom. But instead it banged loudly on the keyboard. Northern Ireland doesn’t do touchy feely, so there won’t be an open love letter to it anytime soon, but I might go halves on top ten things about it by chipping in five eventually.

Tops fives. The cornerstone of any topic worthy of a stroked chin. Blogillions of blogs are buoyed up on them; scores more boast cheap imitations (top 7s, top 9s, top 15s.) . Given my dependency on them as a mechanism for coping with conversation, combined with the availability of an edit button to quell the corresponding OCD, they should be all over my shop. Top five reasons why they aren’t…

1. Top 5 signs that blogging is a middle-class pursuit wasn’t really going anywhere after number three

2. Ditto Top 5 kinds of parents I’d like to see start a blog but could probably never do so

3. I just thought of one now that probably won’t ever be written either  (Top 5 reasons my fears of hanging out with Irish bloggers overlap with the reasons I avoid them abroad)

4. Top 5 reasons I like hanging out with Irish bloggers would inevitably lead me to expose my favourites and I’m too Irish to risk someone not liking me for not loving them even when they couldn’t give a shite. Especially when they couldn’t give a shite.

5. It’s just so exhausting being Irish. The anxiety. The chip on my shoulder. The killjoying. The endless comparisons. And that’s just the blog themes.

I went through more theme changes in the first week than Garth Brooks’s estimated income for this year. Those sheep are authentically Donegal by the way, The Fonz of the local animal kingdom. They can been seen hanging precariously off cliffs, and playing chicken on the roads.

The photo replaced the one of my wee girl and her Da that briefly loomed large at the top of this page. It’s a lovely photo but by day three I couldn’t take their heavy presence on the screen. Even with their backs to me. I can’t swear in front of her, and I can’t be freely cheesy about him while he’s within earshot. Third cousin of your-deceased-Granny-popping-in-to-your-head-while-you’re-in-the-sack-with-someone syndrome.

Living with them is one of the few forms of exercise I actually enjoy, but we need a break from each other sometimes. Because I work occasional evenings, I tragically never get to avail of that most popular mythical method of meeting others – the night class. If I did sign up to a ten week course on how to grow your own willpower, I’d probably produce top five perfectly justifiable reasons why I should quit after two.

But waffling on the internet rarely feels a chore. So here was my chance to make it appear like one.  It’s already compatible with sitting on my generous behind, watching TV, talking shite, and enjoying the occasional slice of cheese. A blog: half-way between a hobby and a discipline with your own terms and conditions attached. The deal I made with myself: write with some regularity for 100 days and she how she goes.

So I’ve made it (buffs fingernails on lapels). 100 days today. This is the part where I get to tell you about the enjoyment I derive from writing, and the ambitions I’ve had for my little words since I was a nipper (poignant background music here).

Bollocks to that. Tonight, I want to say farewell in the style of a successful comedian who hasn’t sold out, about to announce an interval in his own show.  Like Dylan Moran, trailing off mid-majestic monologue, unsteadily raising a glass in a faux drunken gesture to his audience while imploring them to get a drink. If I have any ambitions for my words, I should at least treat their trail-offs to an occasional dress-up game where they get to inhabit the mere moment of coming up for air of someone who is a master of them. Fantasy. It’s everywhere. And I’m paying for this.

I’m off now to fill up my glass with some holidays, and other stuff. Hope to see you after the interval in another 100 days or so.

Thank you all very much for coming.

Now go get a drink.

Let me guess. You’re reading this with a neutral accented low deep-sounding voice. Somewhere near a four on a scale from Barry White to Orville. You were once mistaken for an American and almost baulked at the notion. Am I right?

Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It wouldn’t matter anyway because I’ve already, unconsciously, assigned you a tone. Refined. Never whiney. The more austere your blog page, the more quietly spoken you are.

Do you hear the voices of other bloggers? Fonts become accents, themes become tones. Excessive use of capital letters are the leaned-on shift buttons that spell emphatic feelings. Family photos the itallics of your happiness.

Your About page is spoken in your best phone-voice you don’t know you have. Yes! That really is you. It’s like reading a post back weeks after publishing and not recognising it. Is that me? No way. I DO NOT sound like that. Do I?

Swearing always sounds better in American. Though not as good as Canadian. I can tell the subtle difference. The Canadian bloggers I read usually combine it with a fuck off point on something tremendously socially serious. All feminists, and the me during work meetings, should sound Canadian; then everyone would take us seriously. Ballsy English women all sound like Sally Phillips’s sweary mate in Bridget Jones. They make beautiful profanity from the sacred.

The speed of the clicks on the keyboard mirrors the rattle of chat on the screen. But time to retreat back down to the din.

Oh I wish I could fly.

Please, Pilcrow; just hear me out. I swear to you, it meant nothing.  It’s just you weren’t here. I couldn’t get on-line. I had too much coffee to drink. And, well, one new Word document led to another. I was lonely.

But nothing happened. Honestly. I don’t remember anything after the fourth semi-colon. Next thing I knew I woke up with the mouse still in my hand for Chrissake so nothing could’ve happened. Except for that one paragraph. I can’t even remember the font’s name. Comic something or other. I recall thinking it was a bit too matey for a font I’d just met. A bit full-on.

It felt like my thoughts were being channelled through a children’s TV presenter to a two-year old. Or Scooby Doo. Not like your dulcet Frances McDormand-cum-Christopher Lee tones. I know that probably makes you sounds like Joan Burton on paper. But Joan’s words are dragged down a blackboard in Gothic  size 80. They’re not deliberately small letters like yours, like my tight tiny handwriting that some say is proof of my secretive side.

My secrets have always felt safer with you. You get me. And no, this isn’t remotely like the one-night stands I had before we met. I’ve seen you eyeing up Twenty Twelve and Adelle, so you can’t really blame me for trying. Admittedly, Next Saturday was a mistake.

You’re my first serious theme and I really want us to give it a go. I can change. I can be better. I can make a better effort with visuals. I’ll throw in the odd quote, if you really want me to. Exclamation marks? I’m on them already!!!!!!!!

This is probably a premature and overly ambitious post given this blog’s small (but beautifully formed) following. I haven’t elaborated on why I took to the electronic quill, and I don’t know if it’s worth thinking about too much. If there’s a certain freedom to be found in writing, that feeling is maintained by keeping the space between the words free from reasons for them.

I’ve had to credit spontaneity more than once for progress in life (“Let’s stick a pin in a map! Denmark? Fuck it, let’s go live there” “I’d love go to the Netherlands. With no money” “Work with a triple X hard-core paramilitary infested community on every other side of the track? Fuck it, why not!” “Let’s run away and get married” etc.). This blog was another small act of defiance against boredom.

Being undisciplined in every aspect of life bar work and love makes for occasionally fun  – but sometimes chaotic – consequences. I find myself now in need of applying occasional discipline to the words here. Blogging is mostly about giving, but receiving the thoughts of others gives the thrill of thinking on the hoof. I type faster responding to another on a messageboard discussion than typing aloud to myself here to start with.

So if you would like to give me a keyboard up, feel free to throw out a topic or a post title or a line or a whatever you’re having yourself, below this post. I’ll aim to pick it up and run with it to see where it takes me. You can do it anonymously, if you prefer. The response function asks for an email but you can make one up. Pity suggestions to break up the rush of tumbleweeds are also welcome.

Thanks

Not really.

Had you there, eh?

Ho ho