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2015 in Top 5…what? Help a blogger out like the good blogeague you are. Gwan.
*resumes stare into middle distance*
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.
“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.
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.
Sauntering into a shoe shop to punch in my pin number less than a minute later for the first expensive pair tried on would not be considered the wisest move. My working hours have been chopped by 30 per cent; my wages taking a nosedive with it. But for all my reckless spending that fuelled a spontaneous past, it’s a sign my internal compass needle is attempting to get back on its axis.
For a woman with too much say, the stuff left unsaid is only so because it refuses to wear any kind of sentence; or to find a word with a zip that closes. It reached a point where the thought of another changing room encounter led me to avoid them altogether. So while I can’t articulate being at war with my mind, I’m beginning to recognise vital signs of emerging victorious from one vicious battle.
So it would seem that shopping is no longer an activity in which I’m a passive participant channelling my compulsive spending through the children’s section. My underwear drawer might still be a museum of an epoch fashion forgot, but I defiantly choose a shoe shop instead of Mother Care. Actually, I wasn’t defiant at all. My feet just kind of took me that way. There was no cross-roads, no conscious determination to turn right instead of left.
That it was trainers I purchased might not signal full sartorial rehabilitation but it’s a start. To returning to the road I pounded up yesterday after ditching the car after feeling the sunlight on my face and a giddy childhood yearning to engineer the crunch of leaves under my feet. Climbing the steep incline in the glare of weary workers inching home, the only part of me that felt exposed was my ears. I mentally scanned our kitchen trying to remember where I left my Walkman for next time, unconcerned that my glowing face was fast becoming visible from space.
Half-read books are rescued. A full head of hair resuscitated. A burning desire to tear down every set of curtains that have stayed up long past their expiry date ushers a drift towards other interiors in need of revival. Phone-calls and door-knocks no longer go unanswered. Mostly. Unless it’s the pizza delivery guy. Not really, I haven’t gone all born again. But it’s grand again, instead of grand; the grand half an octave too high that strains to mask the reality of the grand two octaves lower, and slower. My daily dose of exclamation marks has been reduced to 20 mg. And I expect to be completely off ducking and diving by the end of the month with the first of a few road-trips. First we take Manorhamilton then we take Elphin. Via the underwear shop.
Is such that to try to unpick its disturbing prevalence would read like the written equivalent of kicking a kitten.
Photos to follow.
Funerals are preferable. Less planning involved. Less scope to get messed about. That tends to happen a lot with weddings you know. Dates change. Or venue is moved. They’re unpredictable. Funerals are more fulfilling in many ways. There’s a short lead-in; the phone-call comes, you’re relied on heavily to navigate folk through a difficult time. The enormity of the occasion, and all that. The event consistent with what the deceased would’ve wanted. In retrospect, usually. Not for the deceased, of course, but for those remaining charged with honouring the wishes of their dead. Often they’re unsure what these wishes actually mean in practice. They’ll often come up afterwards and say “that’s just what so-and-so would’ve wanted”. They couldn’t imagine what all this was about beforehand. But they’re relieved by the time it’s over. It’s enormously fulfilling. Helping to give them peace of mind. A moment that makes it all worth it.
He interrupts himself to offer me a cup of tea before asking me where he left off. I forget because I’m impressed by his resistance to the urge to overturn my automatic decline of the offer. My first answer is accepted. I must remember to remember that as a useful indicator in determining how straight a talker a person is.
Where was he again?
Weddings. Now, the training is completely different to funerals. Different skills required, as you can imagine. There’s less confusion about what it’s all about as the couple is involved in the planning and the length of advance preparation so no-one turns up surprised. The fee is higher but usually capped in and around say £300 to £400. Funeral fees would be much less expensive. No more than £150. Free if the deceased is a member. Now the couple will likely have a preference, too. It gets a bit more personal with weddings. With funerals, the funeral director has a list and will call whichever one is nearest or available. With weddings, it’s all about preference. But it’s never a personal thing. You might remind him of his previous mother-in-law or something. Not saying you will, just that it can come down to something as arbitrary as that. You’ll never know about it. They’ll have preferences for age, gender, too. It’s just chemistry sometimes. But nothing to be offended by.
He hears his wife coming through the front door. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Another offer of a drink. Coffee this time. I’m fine, thanks. I’m sure.
Where was he again?
Fees. A modest living can be made, but only if you live quite frugally, mind. Money can’t be the motivator. Unfortunately corruption has crept in with some benefitting from the training then going off and operating independently, charging fees that aren’t ethical. That’s really why there’s a cap on fees, to avoid this sort of thing. Travel costs can be added on top. But of course it’s impossible to legislate against it, and there’s no knowing for certain that it won’t happen. In addition to the training there is a more extensive interview that helps us make a character judgement. Insofar as that’s possible obviously. The course fees? In around two thousand per course. That includes five days residential and all associated costs.
He was going to say something else before I asked him that question. Details of the courses are available on the website. The training coordinator will do a brief interview based on information included on the application form, and if successful, you’ll be directed back here.
Ah he remembers what he was going to say.
Naming ceremonies. These can only be done if training in weddings or funerals has been successfully completed. And just on the subject of fees. You’re obliged to declare your income on a quarterly basis with ten per cent going back to the Association.
That seems reasonable. Yes, it is entirely reasonable.
This is all so reasonable, I’m two inane smiles away from breaking out into inappropriate laughter.
Humour? Why, yes, you’re entirely right. There is room for that also. There has to be. So any further questions?
Good question! Some people do drop out of the training, though more often they defer it due to personal circumstances, and that can be accommodated depending on their situation. Not everyone passes the training. With funerals, there is an opportunity to conduct a demo in an actual crematorium. People can pass the training but fail on the assessment. Communication skills and personality are vital factors, too. But often, people might start off lacking a degree of confidence but it grows with the training, and it’s lovely to see them blossom.
What was that I asked earlier?
Borders. Well, there’s only three crematoriums on the island. Travelling in either jurisdiction is perfectly acceptable. Weddings, also. There’s no point in someone travelling up from Cork to Monaghan if I can get there sooner. But with the legislation having passed there in 2013, most people will prefer just the one wedding ceremony so we don’t get asked as much.
What was I going to ask again?
Inclusion of prayers. Hmm. Well, that’s an interesting one. And one that is debated at length during the training. The common option is to allow some time for silent prayer. Others won’t allow any reference to a supernatural entity whatsoever. Some, like that one you mentioned, will allow a short prayer but this will only be allowed to be spoken by a family member or guest. I would say that there are times when you’ll have to make a judgement on whether this is for the couple or family or whoever. It might be that what they’re really seeking is a spiritual ceremony after all. And you’ll just have to be upfront about it. But yes, it’s a period of transition for many. As I say, there’s a healthy wave of secularism beginning to wash over the country but we’ve a long way to go. It’s the critical mass we’re looking for. A time when a funeral director can ring up and we won’t ever have to say there is no-one available to do it. Unfortunately, as a consequence of too few of us, there are many who are just not having their wishes honoured.
A big firm handshake at the door. I try my best to see it and raise it. Let that be an indicator to him.
Instead of howling incantations to the moon on the feast of St. Mental, I caught myself indulging in the shameful act of housework. How the hell did this happen?, I beseech the universe to reveal as I hit the bits on the living room shelves visible to visitors.
Allowing unstable hormones within polishing distance of the main exhibition of your life is risky. A sort of emotional Russian roulette. Bang. Oh a lost earring. I wondered where that went. Bang. A car tax reminder. Bang. A moment of clarity pops up and rolls down through the compulsive game of psychological pin-ball.
It starts with dusting around the bills languishing on top of the photo albums on the bottom shelf. Would you look at that. There’s that tree from my folks’ back garden shooting up through their bath with my niece splashing about. My Mother did love to accidently re-use spools of film. There she is again on graduation day. My Dad’s forehead is massive in that. I feel my own receding hairline for a wildly inaccurate prognosis. There’s….another car tax reminder. Before I know it, I’m cross-legged on the floor with a slightly melted Buddha in one hand, and a forgotten book in the other. The latter housing this message on the inside cover:
It was written unhurriedly then handed back to me as I was about to knot my handkerchief to follow the double yellow line brick road. Naturally, I heeded this essential advice and made sure not to walk with any obvious intent, especially towards cakes or airport check-ins. I kept all movements casual. Why? Well, because I was already doing so for years anyway. Plus, as further reasoning beyond the comma reveals:
Exactly. With the exception of airport check-in. And the occasional hairdresser.
Reading back over it, it dawns on me just how faithfully I’ve applied it to life. Dreams and ambitions are also shuffled towards with all the speed of rogue hunger pangs helping me help myself to a fig-roll on the sly. The net result of this philosophy is that you forget to ask yourself where exactly you’re headed. And the cumulative effect of a life-time’s excessive biscuit habit cannot be off-set against the method used to procure them.
The feeling of being adrift is immune to securities assumed with settling down, and dining on the varied privileges of conventional living doesn’t always satisfy your appetite. I’m first generation first world at our feet. It’s wise not to reveal too much, but I doubt that full-stop was ever intended to be included in the interpretation. Next thing you know it’s a lifestyle choice! Whatever that is. (Lookit, I’m still working that modern disease through)
Pin-ball over, I wait for the dead leg to subside before rising to my feet to check the contents of the fridge for dinner with a revised version going forward:
Try to look like you’re on the path to somewhere,
That way you might remember to ask for directions.
But, it’s all direction, right? Ah, just one more game of pin-ball….
She rounded the corner into Wicklow Street that evening with rival gangs of butterflies slugging it out for ownership of her every nerve-ending. On that most typical of September weekends in Dublin. The weather moody, undecided on what temperature it was prepared to settle on as the changing of the guards got under way. Strident shoppers zigzagged home as they were elbowed aside by unhurried hopscotch formations. Nighthawks plotting their next drink. Her outfit wasn’t exactly the colour of hesitancy, more like a shade of relief accessorised with fear. Does this look naff? Would they recognise each other? Will their opening lines clash followed by further collisions of you firsts? Am I naff? Is he naff? Isn’t naff a naff word? With that she flung open the door and there he stood at the other end of the bar.
Under the influence of the need to embarrass her children, my Mother recently resurrected one of my early works from the annals of history for circulation over dinner. I guessed its vintage by the political incorrectness throughout. An ABC book featuring O for Oriental with an accompanying picture of a man who looks like he just wandered out of war-time Vietnam carries a certain social history. One that calls to mind Jim Davidson and other shivers. P is for papaya, whatever they were. P is also for Papal visit, which I can only guess inspired the first of many run-away notes. This one inscribed on the inside cover. I hadn’t mastered the letter e, but in unequivocal, if impaired terms, I instruct ‘Mammy, Daddy, and the Brothərs’ I’m leaving with the assurance I’ll be fine. I urge them to resist looking for me and continue about their business. This included “punching over” to watch Grange Hill, probably that very evening. Something distracted me and detonated a life-time habit of dramatic declarations of ambition followed by lengthy spells of sitting comfortably on my arse.
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I watch The Killing Fields and weep uncontrollably. It’s possible I’ve been manipulated by John Lennon’s Imagine, but I resolutely declare my intention to be a journalist. Undoubtedly, I sit back down on my arse straight after. Having seen E.T., I am torn between becoming a war correspondent and a secret alien keeper. Since the brothers partly meet the criteria for the latter, I settle on the former.
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The name’s Bond, Basildon Bond. My Mother writes with such fury on every pad that anyone receiving a letter other than one of our teachers can make out from the residual indentations I have been excused from P.E.. It runs through the pages like the watermark of exasperated parenting. “I regret M. is unable to attend class today due to illness”, an instruction I soon came to mass produce myself, including that tricky O in her name. Neither of us bank on me sliding the pad back in the drawer after composing a forensically detailed letter on my impending house party to a friend on her holidays. With it still firmly intact. Insert Munch’s Scream here. I remain in this catatonic state for days.
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School’s out for summer and it’s my second working in the local newspaper. I’m unhappy with my hair in the photo accompanying my weekly column – a random ragbag of vox-pops, whimsical promotional pieces for the undiscerning tourist, and the occasional stab at incoherent thoughts on music. The scrapbook smells musty on purchase but it begins to incubate a series of dog-eared cut-outs hanging over the edge of its covers like untrimmed pastry. My ambitions for a career in journalism grow loftier with an ‘assignment’ to review the Michael Jackson gig in Cork, then wobblier as I spend much of it on a bathroom floor. Undeterred by cow-pats of nothingness strewn across my memory, I go on to confound myself with fanciful imaginings of Jackson “gliding through a milky-way of hits”, the only line I remember from events vaguely recalled. I was there though. Definitely. I think.
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I sit nervously across from the course tutor as she leafs through my scrapbook. Her face inscrutable; occasionally interrupted by a slight nod. Or maybe the other side of her neck got tired. She enquires about the roughly produced papers towards the back. I explain my brief foray into independent publishing along with another. Only I didn’t know then that’s what is was called. An older man, though not by much. A socialist, who sought to pose alternative questions on the economic decay of our area. Only I didn’t know then that’s what he was called. I just went along with ‘weird’. The pair of us fancied ourselves as Citizen Smith acolytes. For a while it was all very Solidarność in our heads, but the overheads, together with naively executed plans, rendered it a brief, if mildly adventurous, venture. “Hmmm”, she responds in lieu of a response. I know now what she meant. She thanks me for travelling to meet with her. I start a week later.
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The contributions to the local paper are sporadic now; the rare gig review being the height of it. The scrapbook disappeared a year ago in transit from one flat to another. It never gained weight, and I wriggle out of conversations that turn towards the sureties of seventeen. I learned the truth at seventeen (and a half) that certain classrooms were meant for study queens, and highly-motivated folk with clear-minded goals, who married their ambitions and then got hired.
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Belfast has the jitters but I am in love. I am spotted strolling down the Ormeau Road hand-in-hand with him as we lick ice-creams in between the faces off each other. We are multi-skilled. The friend who spots me is around the corner in her living room watching the news. The first of two TV appearances (the other being in the audience of Questions & Answers some years later – I know, rock ‘n’ roll). I neglect to mention there are tensions intensifying behind us. But we don’t care. Some months later I attempt to end it (the affair, not the tension – that came later) and compose a lengthy letter promptly dropped through the letterbox. Luckily, the post office is in my home place so I’ve a better chance of retrieving it from the postmaster when I explain I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Retrieving the letter is a terrible mistake. It’s another five years before we painfully part during which time I take to writing interminable essays that address, among other things, journalistic practices in the North, and subsequently journalistic regimes much further afield. Propaganda – the machine that keeps on giving.
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Ostensibly, a formal writing career lies long perished, but deadlines are always waiting to be buried. I enter writing competitions now with varying monetary prizes up for grabs for groups of people obliged to prove they need it most. My own wage depends in part on it, the poverty industry. Over the years, it is often impossible to distinguish the difference between the buzz from writing, from winning, and that from the prize bagged in the hope of it going towards some good. I’m no longer convinced that much of it does what it’s designed to do. I wonder if it’s the same for those who go on to carve out that writing career from blogging – where does personal ambition start and the merits of enquiry into much of what they write about begin? What came first – recreational blogging or the inevitable need to convert it into an income, or the self-belief that the writing truly befits one? We’re all writers now, of varying degrees of authenticity and motive.
Relief comes from slipping through portals minimised in the corner of the screen to worlds of strangers colliding in chat of passions. Music. Film. Top 5 Fantasies Involving Cheese. It gives way to unpicking a universal humdrum from which endless entertainment is derived. Keyboards convert into playgrounds for grown-ups who like to climb up words and slide down sentences. The apparatus for making modern connections.
A man regularly appears in the same one, casually leaning with one foot up against the yard wall, unassuming in the anorak he makes no apology for wearing. We take each other in, eventually circling one another with one-liners before discreetly booking a room in hotmail. We marry three years later.
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I learned the truth that blogging is also meant for those who aren’t duty queens or kings, or high achievers with clear-eyed ambition, who married old, and feel somewhat retired. Back to a life with a scrapbook gathering dog-eared entries. A random ragbag of red-mist pops, whimsical pieces for the passer-through, and the occasional stab at incoherent thoughts on music. Only this time without any ambition attached. And that keeps my buzz real.
Thanks to whichever kind brethren among you who nominated this one for the Ireland Blog Awards. It was much appreciated.
Now is the time for all good buns to come to the aid of the party
(Source: youtube)
“Who’d have thought it back then, eh”, she cackled before chomping down on her next pizza slice leaving my eyes raised longer than they’re used to. “You and I here having lunch with our kids.” An observation that didn’t merit such an intensive brow workout but I knew what she meant. “Aye”, I smiled over at her 12 year-old willingly enduring some type of Chinese burn from my one half his size.
Back then I was seventeen going on fifteen, she was nineteen going on thirty-four. She was all Anaïs Nin and Betty Blue, I was wondering if I’d ever catch up. Reading between the mouthfuls, we’re simultaneously impressed and appalled that we’ve made it this far without social services intervening. Neither of us point out we’re the same meaning-seeking junkies who re-cycle soul searching question marks into ninth degree levels of scrutiny. Not that we haven’t modified our behaviour. The smoking ban saw her banish herself from her own living room to the porch, and I no longer pretend to be excited when she offers to read my tarot cards. The game is more or less up. But we never run out of if-onlys that temporarily tear down our doubts. If only for the time we’re together.
Later I’m half listening to my niece breathlessly instructing me on the city’s cultural scene. I’m distracted by her contemporary Nana Mouskouri range glasses and theatre-curtain velvet hair. She’s talking to me with an intensity she is perfectly at ease with so I plant us both in an imaginary indie film we’re starring in without her consent. She’s all cinemas with cool cafés that show It’s A Wonderful Life at Christmas. I’m all up for it this year, and for almost telling her I remember the cinema in its original incarnation a few streets over in the city centre. And how I thought the break during An Angel At My Table was actually the end. But that would cast me as an elder city alumnus desperately going on nineteen. If only.
I can still turn a few knees though so I mumble apologies and sink into the middle seat for the evening to watch the real darlings of indie film. Greta Gerwig is breathlessly tearing down all doubts her thirty year-old character has about her latest business enterprise . But it’s the towering self-belief she radiates that boomerangs to tear the ground from under it completely. That, and her knack for the lack of follow-through.
Just as the Curly Wurly has imperceptibly shrunk over the years, the cinematic mid-life crisis appears to have slid back down a decade. At thirty, my Olympic levels of procrastination had yet to peak, and the ideas weren’t within reach. So I invest my nostalgia in the younger character. One who’s dining out on wobbly self-assurance, as yet unacquainted with the pallbearing potential of fear and laziness. She’s all fresh-faced and woollen-jumpered eagerness; I’m all leg-cramp and delicately trying to open the Maltesers without a sound.
They descend into screwball farce, and I fall for it and headlong into a reverie that shares little with them. Except the nerve tugging soundtrack, their stamina for late-night drinking, and the naïve belief it’ll all come together eventually.
The credits role but I’m left stranded in a frame of my life from long before the one I’m in was written. People travel miles to escape the monotony and humdrum of their daily lives; I flee mine completely for a mere seven quid an hour down the road.
Post-film daze, I stare ahead in the mirror as I wash my hands in the bathroom. Forever make-up free having procrastinated over synthetic attempts at freshness, however necessary now. My feet risk an autopilot return to an old student flat.
I ring the doorbell and await the shuffle of feet, the fumble of keys. The door opens and I wonder how I got here, and who these two people are, if only for a few seconds while I adjust my mind-set and make it back to now. Somewhat reluctantly.
Malteser opening not featured in OST
department of speculation 