Tag Archives: life

Brief encounter

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Hi *****

Of course I remember you.  You’re the one who replied to a few Tom Waits lines some years back but never got to meet in the end.

I hope your life is unravelling nicely and you met some incredible woman (or women, or men, or pets) since. I fled **** and conformed.  I have a Tesco Club Card now, and a child, and the child’s father for company. I occasionally think about colour schemes for the living room, and harbour other dangerous thoughts. But I did manage to see Tom Waits in concert since, and live a life loosely based on the principles of unavoidable heebie jeebies according to The National and John Grant. And weren’t those opening notes from Paul Buchanan’s re-launch on Later… worth the wait?

I’m in two minds about ****** now. Thanks for the warning.

All the best

****

We singularly failed to meet up about a decade back. I believe we were both hopeless and disorganised, although not a whole lot has changed for me on that score!

I seem to have executed another un-innocent, (not so) elegant fall into the unmagnificent life of adults over the last ten years. I now have a daughter, a son and their mum for company, plus a Tesco Club Card (on my keyring, no less) and a Nectar points card. My partner and I don’t see eye to eye on Club Card vs Nectar: I like the money-off points, she likes the vouchers. What can you do?

Where did you see Tom Waits? Was he good? I caught him at ******, which was pretty amazing. Spent most of the last ten years writing and writing. I did an awful lot of music writing, interviews and the like. Still doing a few bits and bobs though not features. Managed to meet the National – the guitarist lent me his hoodie as I shivered outside a rustic French venue in the small hours, then we sat by the lake for a few hours doing an interview thingy the next day, which was all good drunken fun and, er, very much the stuff of nostalgic pangs now that life is a circus act of nappy juggling, precarious school dashes and vertiginous views of the slip into middle age.

 

Congratulations on becoming a mother! And glad to hear you’re thinking colour schemes. I may frame some pictures in the office this week if the urge to do something dangerous strikes. I didn’t see Paul B on Later… but I’ll rummage around on YouTube for it later….

 

Yeah, so  ******** – not that good, I gave it three stars but I think that was a bit over-generous. I seemed to remember you being a cinephile! Do you find that parenthood eats into crucial film time? I’m still reviewing so I have an excuse but the allotted movie-time never feels like enough…

 

Anyway, nice to hear back from you!

 

*****

Ah. A Nectar card. That’s a relief. I feared you might’ve gone the way of the damned into the wide aisles of Waitrose, or become a Mumford and Son fan. Such are the vagaries of middle-age and parenthood.

So, true love found us both in the end then, as Daniel Johnston sort of predicted, although I was more reassured by Beck’s assertion. Thanks for your kind wishes. I’ll see them and raise them – your family life sounds perfectly frenetic. Warm congratulations.

Yes, I’m condemned to Netflix and rentals these days. The cinema occupies a rare form of respite from Waybaloo and intense discussions on the contents of any given nappy despite getting off to a good start a week into motherhood. I sashayed up to the ticket office (Steve McQueen’s Shame – 4 stars?) while ****** watered ***** in the foyer, and paced the corridor for several miles although he failed to mention that bit. That probably tells you more about him than me, and why I knock about with him. I would’ve alluded to his winning ways in my wedding speech but didn’t get to make one. We eloped two years today coincidentally. Who needs dysfunctional family or a first dance song? (I’m thinking Talking Heads’ This Must Be The Place’). I’m sure I’ll get to praise him publicly some other time. If he’s up in court or something.

Great you’re continuing to make a living from your passions. I must remember to seek approval from your reviews before taking any chances, although there’s no preventative measures for impulse as evidenced by the twee induced hangover I’m suffering from About Time. Nick Cave must be twirling in his stately pile.

I moved back to Ireland the year Tom Waits played Dublin in the appropriately named Rats Cellar within glitter kicking distance of the President’s residence in Phoenix Park. He summoned up our fixed gazes along with the dust on the first stomp of his foot and that was my general state till he took his leave. Magic. From there to the North (the things we do for love) where I’ve been since.

It’s been good to hear life is grand. We should check in with each other again in another twenty years to compare pension plans.

Best wishes to you and your (no doubt) lovely clan.

******

Hardy perennials

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Summer time. And being dragged around various ‘nice’ respectable events like Bloom and Taste of Dublin won’t be easy. The organisers were obviously up all night thinking of those awe-inspiring titles. How can a garden show consider itself a festival? Unless someone relieves themselves up against an exhibit. At least the Ploughing Championships don’t bother with such pretensions and are undoubtedly twice the laugh.

These excursions come courtesy of my folks who were given tickets as ‘prizes’ when they crossed the final frontier of respectability the other week into the audience of The Late Late Show. Admittedly, I enjoyed telling my in-laws that one. But their patio is still bigger. Ah, well.

Apparently Ryan Tubridy really is so thin he only needs the one eye. And the audience have to exit through a gift shop where a branded mug is theirs for the price of a small internal organ on the black market.

We gathered round the box with The Fear my Da would be caught picking his nose on camera. Or my Ma would be caught nudging him right after said offence with him clearly mystified as to why he’s been attacked on live TV. Following a few tense minutes of crowd-scanning, I heard her unmistakable laugh at Jason Byrne’s irreverent bouncy castle Jesus joke. She had made it on to the front row following a generous helping of wine. We all settled down after that. But are paying dearly for it now in concept gardens and ingredients we can’t pronounce.  And I’ll be forced to issue a report to the in-laws, who’ll force themselves to pretend they care.

I’ll leave out the bit where my mother missed The Undertones in the flesh by watching them on the studio monitor, and verified her own laugh at the Jesus joke when it was repeated two days later. They’d never have done something so sacrilegious. Like ignore The Undertones.

gaarden

What’s the Latin for “where’s the bar?”

In neutral

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Saturday morning. An authoritative knock at the door. I don’t bother opening my eyes but considerately, if reluctantly, take a moment to assess its forcefulness. On the scale of urgency it’s somewhere between a car-blocking incident, and an exasperated delivery-person giving up grappling with a stubborn envelope. Whoever it is, they’re too impatient to await my plan of inaction so swiftly move next door to keep the rhythm going. Violet’s chirpy greeting is soon punctured by a monotone male. Or Violence, as I prefer to call her, on account of her overbearing inoffensiveness.

My curiosity yawning now, I make for the window just as her door shuts. A PSNI officer flees the driveway. Shit.

On the scale of catastrophe, reason gauges this approximately somewhere between finding my fella collapsed on the park-run circuit (I feared it all along), and an offer of a witness protection programme after my decision to throw a vote at one of the local Unionists was rumbled (I feared it all along). In a way, I’m relieved my dirty secret is finally out.

Earlier that morning…

“A Chara, he was the only candidate who supports same-sex marriage and is pro-choice. See? Only a pretend Unionist. With a font size 2 U. Oh no, please, not the kneecaps. They’re my best feature” *bolts upright in cold sweat from nightmare*

So I knock on the window fully intending to comply. He looks up, shakes his head disappointingly before consulting his watch.

“What sorta time do you call this to be in bed?”

It’s 9:45am. This is nothing, pal. But I’m wearing pyjamas with a family of sparkly rabbits on the front so it’s no time to willingly participate in sadistic interrogation without my lawyer present, who for I all know was found collapsed on the park run circuit moments earlier.

“Small child. You know yerself”. Thankfully the 53-month old is at her relos. I don’t know where I got the giggle from. Possibly Barbara Windsor circa her Carry On days.

The relief on learning the woman three doors down had her car robbed overnight is immense. Yay. My fella’s still alive.

“Some time after one this morning”

“Oh that’s dreadful”, I reply in slightly Violence-esque tones.

“They broke into the house and got the keys”

“Oh no”

It’s impossible to feel anything but pity for the plight of our neighbour. But discussing it with a police officer through an upstairs bedroom window with upside-down hair while in novelty pyjamas isn’t usually my thing.

So I do that thing that one shouldn’t ever do when one is feeling comprised. I relax.

“That happened my brother last year”

I can tell he’s wondering what this has to do with anything. Time to crank it up a gear.

“Down South”

He backs away slowly.

“And guess what? When he replaced the car, they came back and did it again. How mad was that?”

He returns to his watch.

“Well, thanks for your time. If you hear or see anything suspicious you can call the station”

He momentarily looks at my car, declining the opportunity to issue a reminder to keep it locked. We both suspect if anyone bothered to rob it, they’d probably leave it back shortly afterwards.

14%

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Battery left on this device

The result of a secondary school maths exam I managed to change to 44 before the relos got their mitts on the report card

Level of interest in getting off my arse this evening to attend a surprise 40th

Level of surprise the person celebrating will likely experience on being surprised

Chance of me adding an exclamation mark to the end of the last sentence

Average satisfaction with this post

Kitchenstool blues

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Another Friday, another restless afternoon battling a hankering that only comes knocking at the height of warmth and winter. One that creeps up to ensnare its victim on a Thursday evening; when the proverbial tie comes undone and the decompression has begun.

There are weaker moments to follow when it will catch its prey fully aware. The last meeting endured. The last phone-call made. The last email sent. The last scan of next week’s diary advertising the hardships to dread with all the force of Ken Dodd’s tickle stick. The last slam of the door shut till Monday.

It’s Friday. It’s the first one in gets them in. The first clink of the glasses mid-air. The first joke cracked. The first yarn spun.

For some of us, it was always that moment between the last sip of the first, and the first slip of the next. With our lip to the precipice of bonhomie and break-through. To The Present. It could be a long way down but we were willing to risk it. Just the one…time of the week to let it all go.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the pub to see his mates. To blather and belly-laugh his way into the here and now. In the one place where you’re judged by your character and ability to hold your own, not the letters that trail your name. Where one person’s laughter is the background to another’s loss. Where bosses are skewered on a stream of consciousness. Where no-one is conscious of time passing.

Our relationship with drink goes a long way down, but we know a charming tour guide of the soul when we hook up with one. And though long broken up, the longing can still come knocking, as loudly as ever.

Just the one… fleeting thought of a pint leads back to the last sip of the first, before the first sip of the next. Freeze it there. To before I moved away and waved goodbye to my people. Before other people started drinking. In. Their. Houses. Before wine became a hobby before ending up as a personality trait. To Friday.

To The Pub.

*raises cuppa*

Sláinte

Where was I again?

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Once upon a time in a headlock…*door-bell*

***

Some other de-railed posts about to go under the delete button:

Ad Men to that

Now that Mothers’ Day is over, it’s back to bog standard commercial exploitation of motherhood. Do you feel a rant coming on? Me too. Only messin’. I’ll keep this short.

Let me start by saying I’m an advocate of suspending the cynical curled lip at the commercialisation of Mothers’ Day. When I say advocate, I mean I’m always up for any Hallmark holiday from which I can derive a lie-in. There’s plenty more where they come from that I could be doing with. Daughter’s Day. Wife’s Day. Middle-Age Crisis Day. And so on and so forth. I’m on call to suspend my right-on worldviews if the rewards are edible.

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Cloudbusting

[title only]

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Third parties

If there’s one thing I regret about the pair of us buggering off to get married on our own, it’s the ocassional absence of..

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Top 5…least read posts ever

[title only]

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[Untitled]

“I didn’t realise your feet were so small”

“Ah that’s just because the rest of me is so big”

I can’t get hang of compliments.

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Social and personal

Mary and Brendan Kelly of Goatstown, Dublin 14 are delighted to announce the engagement of their favourite son, David to Eimear, least daughter of John and Margaret Casey of Furrow, Mitchelstown, Co. Cork.

Imelda and Frank of Elphin are delighted to announce dinner is ready.

Noel and Breege Boland of Sandycove, Dublin, are delighted to announce they came 1st place in Sandycove Bridge Club last night (without any handicap applied).

Sheila and Noel Smyth of Clonakilty, Cork, are pleased to announce they had a ‘natural’ birth last week.

Linda and Duncan FitzGerald, Canada (formerly of Drogheda, Louth) are delighted to announce they have identified all the reasons why other women don’t breastfeed (without asking any of them).

Brenda

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[Untitled]

Every time I clap eyes on James Connolly, I see the face of David Ervine sthick [sic] tache and

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Cornered

She expertly fans the napkins open before draping them across our knees while presenting the first serving. We polish the sandwiches off in less time it took her to detail their contents, pausing briefly to speculate over which of the dainty displays might harbour the ham she rhapsodised about.

It’s all rather excruciating in that way sitting next to people with impeccable posture and ability to articulate credible career aspirations tend to be, but we’re here now. He with his generosity and courage to make an occasion of our rare time alone together; me with my middle-0f-the-room anxiety eyeing up every corner with unquenchable envy. Including the one occupied by a grand piano being tickled to indifference with a few Sunday afternoon standards.

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Five good fats

Of the bass kind

1. This

2. This

3. This

4. This

5. And this

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Headphones: The woman’s hour

Mazzy Star – Ride it on

Cocteau Twins

Gillian Welch

Lucinda Williams

Lamb – Gorecki

Mary Gauthier

Mary Margaret O’Hara – Body’s in Trouble

Kate Bush – A Choral Room

***

On being ordinary

I can see now the ambitions our parents had for my siblings and me. Sacrifices made in a country (still) hospitable to the idea of equality of opportunity. One presided over by clerics; their cohorts in charge of classrooms, and select postcodes, and surnames compatible with success; the pre-ordained good stock destined for greatness. But none of this explains why, at the average milestone reaching age of ten, I

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Life in a Northern Town

Two churches to the left of us; one to right, an interminable cricket game straight ahead. It’s no Clapham Common, or Phoenix Park, or Stephen’s Green, but at a circumference of one kilometre, this park is the greenhouse for many an ambition. From the prospect of that first kiss, to the first wobbly pedal withoutstabilisers, and determination to fit into that outfit.

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Perfect opening line

I demand the finest opening line available to bloggerkind and I’ll  (try) to take it from there.

Thanks

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Making ground level look mountainous

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You know the way I’m mad into competitive sports?

OK, let me rephrase that.

You know the way I like to loll around looking for insignificant shit to get obsessively worked up about?

Exactly.

Well, today isn’t one of those days. Because it actually kicked off yesterday. In the moment I eye-rolled in response to a request from one of the relos to vote for a contender in the prestigious Donegal Player of the…(wait for it)…Week. Exactly. This is big shit. To one particular 14 year-old’s Da at least.

That was, until I dragged my lazy arse fingers round to the site for a blast of the button whereupon the sight of our boy in second place unleashed such staggering levels of indignation, the conversion from mild-mannered indifference to canvassing crusader was worthy of nomination.

If I’m going to succumb to this unfair and unregulated popularity contest, then I should at least back my lobbying up with 5 credible, if arbitrary, reasons why he should win, which are (in random order):

– he doesn’t take himself seriously
– he drives his Irish teacher mad by refusing to exhibit any fear of her
– he can hold his own in company of all ages
– he surprises me with parcels of ill-fitting sports gear he forgets to tell me he ordered for himself on Amazon
– he’s not averse to giving occasional sly hugs when no-one’s looking

Exactly.

Things I always thought were hard to make but aren’t

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French onion soup, for instance. A dish that can instantly transport me to a Montmartre corner café where someone is sure to be playing a sombre number on the grand piano that takes up half the room while everyone looks away determinedly grumpy. But for some reason it feels like it should feel like the zenith of cultural immersion, and I am convincing myself I am completely at one with the place.

I do native very well in places where there is no requirement to smile, speak, or wear a bikini. I was once asked the time by a local in Poland back in the 90s. Or at least I think that’s what he said. Maybe it was “cheer up, love, it may never happen”, which would’ve been a bit rich given the strong whiff of austerity about the place, and the main dish on any given menu being radiator soup. “Yeah, well, as least we’ve started to partially pay for our own road repairs”, I would’ve nose-flingingly scoffed had that been the case, as an acknowledgement of Ireland’s then revolutionary weaning off its over-dependency on the EU infrastructural improvement budget. The only reason I knew that, was because the government of the day used to notify us on massive roadside signs (rough translation: “Don’t get us wrong – we’re still scrounging, just not as much”). These youthful accession states could only dream of such misplaced smugness.

I also almost cut it as a drunk Dutch person once when I confidently demanded frites from a street vendor after a few *mimes rapid movement of glass to mouth action* only to give the game away by requesting an immodest amount of Thousand Island dressing in Ireland’s native language – English. Not content with presenting myself as a knob-end, I went on to helpfully try  to explain my urgent need further in reeeeeeeeeeally slloooooooooow, yet R E A L L Y L O U D, English. But hey, I’m merely boasting now.

So yeah, I braved the recipe book earlier and it turns out all you need for French onion soup are the following:

A miserable face
Shitload of onions
Beef stock
Red wine
Garlic
Jackie-O shades (for preparation).

And, voila.

Only this is not one of those blogs that parades its culinary triumphs visually while labouring under the notion it looks exactly as it does in the book, or that anyone gives a hoot either way. I’ll leave this one to your imagination.
Picture yourself tucking into a bowl of authentic onion-soup, mandatory tear-jerker radiating off the ivories, everyone looking suitably glum, odd woman in corner trying to frown a little too hard and drawing attention to herself with eager brow furrowing and…….CRASH.

That’d be the sound of my mate tumbling down the spiral staircase. There’s always someone to take the bad look off me.

Random

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On a railway platform somewhere between Boston and Philadelphia, the shoulders of a young woman droop in defeat as the train pulls away from her. All her belongings shrink inside as it rounds the corner out of sight. She aims the string of curses away from herself towards a train she can no longer see. The mutherf*ckin’ train.

An aggressive window-knock commands her eyes from across the tracks. From the stationary carriage she can make out a smiling stranger pointing enthusiastically to the seat opposite him. Except it is not a stranger but the bloke she had been flirting poorly with on the train that just pulled away. Except it wasn’t the train; she turned left onto the opposite platform on her return from the bathroom.

Her belongings are exactly the same size as before; her complexion a little more flushed as she composes herself.

*****

“Did you enjoy your day then?”, he asks, holding the prosecco bottle up to the light to read the x-ray of its emptiness.

“Sure. It was very relaxed”, she replies, sniffing the glass twice to make sure it’s hers. It is the only one on the table.

By relaxed, they both mean the successful suspension of mutual hostilities. And the absence of political ‘debate’.

“Courtesy and civility assured at all times, as Mary used to say”

“There was plenty of food to go round, too”

“And what about the speech?”

She arches a brow before looking away.

“Ah”

“For a moment I thought of interrupting him to ask if I was dead. And you seemed a bit emotional”

The accusatory tone is a reliable indicator that the thick wall of the garage succeeded in concealing the cracks in sibling civility; his crimson face chalked up to investment in the moment. The moment his father’s rehearsed words tumbled out feet first masking the sincerity of thanks for the sacrifices she made down the decades.

Not the moment his twelve year old self suddenly lost it with his ten year old sister minutes before he handed toasting duties over to him. When he rashly pulled her pride until it hurt as much as it once did her hair. He instantly regretted it but, like cranberry sauce, sorry isn’t something ever known to be brought into the house. Like all regressive juvenile combat, it will lie forgotten until next time a land-mine is unwittingly trodden on.

“Aye. I guess so. I’d just never heard him talk that way before”

His overriding memory from today will tumble out in correct incorrect order. He will always be glad to have been of third party service: to have enabled one of them to say things to the other the soundproofing of a long marriage prevents them from hearing when alone.

*****

“What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?”

“There is not always an answer to every question”

“No, I mean –“

“No, that’s the best piece of advice I was ever given”

*****

You couldn’t make it up

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I don’t wear make-up, except on the rare occasion such as a wedding including – to the relief of one friend – my own. Professionals are enlisted to trowel me up as I self-sedate with small-talk in preparation for the unveiling of results in the mirror. The reactions are usually consistent: a sharp attack of reflux followed by the assurance of a job expertly done before narrowly avoiding several car collisions as I sneak glances at the stranger in the rear-view on the way home. Once there, I am free to gratefully acknowledge the recoiling of my two housemates as confirmation of my aging drag queen status with an eye-roll.

The reasons for going it plain have less to do with wilful rebelliousness than laziness, and a proven lack of skill in the area of application. Early experimentation produced a look consistent with stereotypical domestic violence injuries; this lack of knack gradually overtaken by a penchant for wide earrings and high hair. Henna became my armour, and I still feel naked without my lobes covered up. Chunky shoes remain the only reliable foundation for keeping my thoughts upright; to the extent my boots were wrestled off me on my wedding day.

Mostly, it just never occurred to me to wear make-up, in the same way it didn’t occur to me to try on a sustainable career, or open a savings account. Or take up drinking wine. Maybe it was because I was the only girl in a household unaccustomed to the power of powder. Maybe it might’ve been different had I moved in more glamorous circles. Maybe it’s just the way it was. Nothing of note propelling me along, reasonably comfortable in the skin I’m in that has seen considerably more gravity-defying days.

Which is why I study my army of sisters-in-law now as intently as my own complexion looking back at me accusingly, engraved by life. The impressively smooth contours of their liquid eye-liner competes with a lack of self-consciousness for my envy. Their ease of application and chatter of cost comparisons leaving me somewhat at sea half-filled with envy and fully with fear. Unable to navigate across the moat surrounding my comfort zone to the camaraderie and empowerment that make-up yields. A chink in the armour of many women I’m uncertain is worth auditioning for a place in my own at this stage. An uncertainty now attacking the assumed durability of my life-long shields and signatures.

Maybe I’ll get a handle on eye-liner. Maybe I won’t get round to trying. Maybe I’m just re-adjusting to the next phase of aging and taking stock of my lack of any. Just as the ambassadors of make-up are beautifully poised on the pages of supplements, cheerfully reconciled to the penetrative value of their product. A conviction that has them vociferously challenging the dismissal of women’s love of make-up as trivial nonsense at variance with ‘serious’ matters. This is patently not the case, idiots.

The recent proliferation of articles by Laura Kennedy and others is an admirable and necessary defence of women’s armour. Few could take umbrage with the defence of make-up in the context of it being seized upon as evidence of its use being at odds with intellectual activities and other worthy endeavours. Which I assume include parallel parking and speedy recognition of TV theme tunes. I haven’t heard non-users of make-up make any counter-claims.

Which is why Tanya Sweeney should have known better than to misrepresent Jenny Beavan and Emma Donoghue’s casual approach to award-ceremony glamour as self-regarding acts of rebellion against scrubbing up. Neither woman claimed conventional dressing up was beneath them. Surely, like every other woman, they should be free to lean on whatever armour gets them through without unnecessary correlation to where they might fit in the intellectual firmament, or an appearance in the dissection of the justification of sartorial choices of other women attending. Neither group require approval from the other. Everything else is lazy stereotyping we’re all apparently against.