The Spanish Exposition

Keep A Diary And One Day It'll Keep You

2012-01-17T08:08:00.001Z

Andrew didn't come to bed til late one night last week, because he was too busy standing in the kitchen, reading old blog posts of mine on his phone. "You wrote 364 of them in 2008!" he said "but only 44 last year". I think he feels responsible and, in a way, he is. I was busy in 2008, probably busier than I am now, out too late and drinking too much, falling in love, frantically documenting every minute of it because sometimes it seemed like so much was happening all at once that I could only get my head around it by writing it down and sharing it with strangers offof the internet. By late 2008 some of those strangers had become friends, Andrew and I had become lovers and the frequency of my posting had declined dramatically. Maybe leading a good life is better than keeping a good diary.

I still want to write. I haven't started that novel, nor my memwah for the Fish contest, but I still wake on weekend mornings with a garrulous itch. "Been ages since I heard from you" wrote Conortje in the comments on my last post. You and everyone else, Mister! I thought, so I sat down and wrote him a letter.

Well, an email. My handwriting would break his heart.

Hello there!

Sincere apologies for not having written in so long. You know when you start to compose a reply to someone's email and then work gets in the way and you save it to come back to because it's already epistolary in length and you'd like to spellcheck it before you send it and then it gets relegated to your drafts folder never to be seen again and it's only weeks later when you think "funny I never heard back from Conor, I hope I didn't offend him in some way with my inane ramblings because sometimes I just let my mouth run and run with no consideration for other people" and then you get a comment on your sorely neglected and consequently little-read blog and you realise that that email you sent has been mouldering away in your drafts folder like that cat chew stick that you found down underneath the cushion of the armchair.

I am sorry I didn't reply sooner, I had the best of intentions. I also discovered a couple of weeks ago that the texts I had sent to you inviting you to a party and wishing you a happy Christmas were not in fact sent to you at all, but to some random number that I had saved as yours (Catherine put me right). So I also need to apologise to you for making a balls of inviting you to the party, though there will be others and I'll make sure I get it right next time. I trust you didn't have an unhappy Christmas as a consequence of my neglecting to wish you a happy one? Do let me know if that is the case, as the power to influence the lives of others by way of omission on my part would be awesome (though obviously I'd only ever use it for good).

All's well with me, life is tipping along at an amicable rate here in Stoneybatter. Catherine has invited me to go for a cycle in the park with her this morning but as it's approaching 11 and I've not heard from her, I am guiltily hoping that she's forgotten, as though I am happy to cycle to the park and even around it a little bit on my own, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for anyone else to see how much I huff and puff with the shameful exertion of it all. If we do end up going for a cycle, I will make doubly sure of it that she comes to yoga with me this week so that I can exact a sweaty revenge. Andrew, his brother and I have started a new class with a woman who lives around the corner (she does the classes in her front room, but it's not as odd as it sounds) and I am determined to rope Catherine in too. Last week's class was so intense and the room was so warm (though it's not a bikram class) that I almost fainted. Luckily, we were engaged in a complicated pose that involved standing on one leg and keeping your trunk horizontal and parallel to the floor at the time, so everyone else was falling over too and I'd have gotten away with it.

Apart from yoga classes and imaginary cycles in the park, life at the moment is mostly consumed with work. From now to April will be my busiest period (though I recall saying something similar in September about the stretch from September to December...) and I'll be on the road a bit more than usual, working on the talent contest I run for secondary school kids. Woe is me. At present I've no plans to travel to Kerry but rest assured, should work take me in your direction you'll be getting a call! I was sorry to hear that the job you'd interviewed for didn't work out, it must be very hard to keep the chin up. It's been a while since I've been in your position and for all I give out about my job, I count myself lucky for it. It's not so long since Andrew was where you are though, and I remember how tough he found it. I'm still keeping an eye out for anything I think might suit you, though I suspect I might be looking in the wrong places. I hope something comes up soon. I'm thrilled to see you back blogging in the meantime, I may not have written in a while but I think of you often and your writing always makes me smile. Keep up the photo archiving too - and be sure to take some photos of Kerry while you're there. I used to holiday there every summer as a kid and even now when I think of holidays I long to go back to the Glen, to spend long days indoors, looking out at the rain over the top of my book and talking about holidaying somewhere sunny.

I don't really like the sun. Kerry suits my demeanour and complexion.

Andrew sends his love, shouting it from bed as he loves a lie-in on a Sunday morning. I get restless (but not restless enough to want to go cycling) and these days the Glenroes (a paralysing fear of Monday mornings precipitated by hearing the Glenroe theme tune on a Sunday evening) start from the moment I wake, so I spend the day busy, batting them away. I'm off now to make some porridge and think about what to do with what's left of my weekend. Give my love to B, you must miss him like I can't even imagine what, and I hope you've plans to see him soon. Keep in touch, remind me publicly when you haven't heard from me for a bit (maybe I should kill two birds with one stone and post my emails to you on my blog, a la C and L on Right Now, Forever which I think you'd really like) and do think about coming up to visit us some weekend, the bed is always there for you and the kettle is always on.

love,
Rosie
x

Even Rocky Had A Montage

2012-01-04T09:53:00.001Z

I've Other Work I Want To Get Done

2011-11-30T16:37:00.005Z

November was busy too. The short days seem to leave me with little time to do any of the things I'd like to. "I'm going to make all my Christmas presents this year!" I boasted to my colleagues over lunch. "Wow!" they said. I should eat lunch alone, under my desk. To prove that I was serious about it, or at least more serious about it than I was about knitting a scarf for Andrew last Christmas (I got ten rows done, one plain, one purl, one plain, then I forgot overnight how to do purl...) I bought 10 kilos of wax and a spool of wick and two teacups with saucers. I bought 6 yards of floral fabrics and some fat quarters, I borrowed my mother's sewing machine and I spent an hour collecting pine cones (in the pitch dark) on my way home from work one evening. I've been collecting jam jars since the summer. I have more of them than you'd think.

Any of you on my Christmas list should lower your expectations accordingly.

I said that I am left with little time to do any of the things I'd like to, but that's not strictly true. I have little time to do the things I aspire to. I seem to have found enough time in November to read 3 novels, a book of short stories and the whole of the internet. I found the time to watch countless hours of television; countless only because I tell myself that it doesn't count if I only watch programmes that I've recorded. Documentaries. Subtitled crime thrillers. The Big Bang Theory.

I haven't found the time to write anything.

"Can I refurbish that old computer and take it home?" I asked my boss on another lunchbreak. "I want to write a novel." Sure, she said, just don't write it about us. I took it home and set it up in our converted attic, where it keeps the sewing machine company. I visit them both occasionally, when I'm hanging up the washing. "As soon as I have a bit of time to myself" I whisper to it, and the half-hemmed skirt on sewing table heaves an exaggerated sigh.

Haven't Seen You In Quite A While

2011-11-08T21:54:00.001Z

October was busy. We went to Colm's birthday party. I love him, his lover, their dog and their friends. They have an extraordinary talent for celebration that I feel I lack. I drank wine and smoked 'til my feet felt funny and my tongue got thick, then asked Andrew to bring me home. "Need a seat for the lady!" he bellowed, steering me towards the couch. "I'm not disabled!" I hissed. "I'm not pregnant" is what I meant, but my words weren't coming out right.

I went to Holles St. later that week to have blood tests done prior to our appointment with the fertility clinic. I was shown to a waiting room full of heavily pregnant women queueing for weigh-ins and widdle tests. "What week are you?" asked the nurse. "I'm not" I said. So I was sent to another waiting room across the hospital where nobody was pregnant and two of the waiting women were crying. "Where are you in your cycle?" the nurse asked. "I don't have one" I said. I can't win, is what I meant.

The following weekend, Andrew and I spent the Saturday taking care of my two-month-old niece and I thought "I could do this!" and I looked at myself sneakily in the mirror as I cradled her, trying her on for size, trying to imagine myself as a beautiful young mother. I am not young to be a mother any more. We spent the day cosseted in the sitting room, making Tilly burp and smile and watching television when she slept. That night, I asked Andrew if he thinks we'll ever have a baby. The "ever" makes me sound like I'm impatient to be a mother. I'm not. I am just so tired of thinking about it all the time that I just want to be told, one way or the other, so that I can get on with everybloodything else. "I don't know, my love" he said.

Andrew turned 30 and I felt better for it. It bothers me that I'm older than he is. I used to tell anyone who asked that he was only 4 months younger than me, but I'd counted backwards instead of forwards and I'm actually 8 months older than him. I am not good with numbers, even the single digits. "Who do you think looks older?" I ask small children whenever I have an opportunity to. They invariably say that he does. They are smart enough to recognise that I am needy and that he has the thicker beard.

His grandfather sent him some silver serving spoons in the post as a birthday present. I am charmed that George bestows practical heirlooms upon us on significant occasions, and that he thinks to post them with a letter. His great heart and good manners are inspiring. Since moving to our new home this summer, we've been able to employ all of the chattels we'd been gifted when we married; cutlery and crockery, crystal and candlesticks, all of it pleasingly old-fashioned. I feel like I have arrived in the world, now that we have a spare bedroom and eat with our own cutlery. We have a happy home.

We took a holiday from it to celebrate Andrew's birthday and since our return, Biscuit, our half-baked cat, has started scratching at the bedroom door at night. Every night. At 5am. Scratching and crying and then running away to hide under the bed in the spare room or halfway down the stairs to the kitchen. I chased him off last Wednesday night and he smashed a sinkful of crystal wedding-gift wineglasses in the kitchen in retaliation. At 5.15am. I hauled on a dressing gown and stood barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, surveying the damage and feeling every minute of stolen sleep seeping out through the soles of my feet.

"Do you want a cat?" I asked Gimme in the pub the following Friday night "because I'm going to put him in the fucking Buy & Sell". "You don't want kids" said Gimme. "No" I said, and I lifted my pint, pinkie extended.

Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns In All The World

2011-09-23T08:00:00.002+01:00

I ran into an ex boyfriend in Whelans last Saturday night. I hate drinking in Whelans for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that it's just the kind of place you might run into an ex boyfriend. I've only got two ex boyfriends, but they are both the sort you'd expect to find drinking there; square indie types called David (yes, both of them) who were always louder than they were funny.

It was David the First I ran into on Saturday night. I had seen him prairie dogging through a doorway a few minutes before he sauntered over, not to talk to me but to drape a proprietorial arm across my shoulders and ask the three men I was with for their permission to "borrow" me for ten minutes. He was met with blank stares and a hostile silence. How I love the three of them for that! “Five minutes?” he asked, still not acknowledging my presence other than with his request to appropriate my person temporarily, for reasons unspecified. His joke was wearing thin now, and his confidence waning. “Two minutes?” he said. I’d have said you could hear a pin drop, but we were in Whelans, so all you could hear was shit indie and shouting culchies. “Rosie’s very famous, you see!” he said, still looking expectantly at the three men, who were, to their credit, still staring stonily back. “Hello David” I said, sighing like I do when the cat trails shit from his litterbox across the kitchen floor. I introduced him to Andrew and he made exaggerated “I’m impressed!” noises before exclaiming “In that case...”, grabbing the woman standing behind him by the wrist and pulling her forward to introduce her to me as his wife. I shook her hand. “We were talking about you on our honeymoon” he said, and I felt her toes curl. He made more shouty noises about me being famous and asked again if he could “borrow” me. I asked him what he meant by saying that I was famous and he said “ah now, I think you’re exaggerating a bit there! Famous!”.

Sweet Jesus.

Feeling sorrier for his wife than you should for someone you’ve just met, I tried to instigate some kind of normal conversation. The what-are-you-up-to-these-days sort. He hadn’t rehearsed this, though, so he just stood there, braying like a donkey and farting like a dog after a chip-shop curry, while his wife gently tugged at his sleeve, saying that she’d lost her handbag and that they needed to go and look for it. “Give us a hug” he said, so I gave him a pat on the back. “A proper hug!” he said. “I’m holding a pint” I said “but it was nice to see you.”

“You don’t mean that” he said. “Not really” I admitted. I don't think he even noticed. He still had an inane grin plastered across his face. As his wife pulled him away, he leaned in close and whispered conspirationally “I bet you thought this would go better than it has”.

I'll admit that I indulged in revenge fantasies for a time after he broke up with me. Ones where he asked me to take him back and I dismissed him with a tinkling laugh (in my fantasies, I had a tinkling laugh and twinkling eyes and big breasts and a small waist and a pony) and strolled off on the arm of my handsome black fiancé. I was 17 at the time, and such was the scope of my ambition. Within a year of us breaking up, however, I'd moved on to David the Second, and though I thought him a vast improvement, he was alarmingly similar to David the First and thus not really anything to boast about. Our relationship didn't last long, and my revenge fantasies post David the Second changed to reflect my newly adopted sense of myself as an independent woman (basically the same fantasy, minus the handsome black fiancé. I still hadn't come to terms with being a husky, small-breasted, thick-waisted woman - that came later). I didn't have any more boyfriends til Andrew, and my revenge fantasies these days largely feature heavy plant pots falling on the cat (because the little fucker keeps knocking my potted herbs from the window sills).

Had I thought about it, I imagine David would have been right. I would have thought it would go better than it did. I couldn't have anticipated how badly he'd handle running into me again after twelve years, and I'd have thought that if he did, I'd feel good about it. But I didn't. I felt embarrassed to have seen it and I felt a furious pity for his wife. I felt an immense gratitude to my friends who stood by and made no attempt to diffuse his buffoon's bluff, and I felt smug that I'm not on Facebook, where hideous long-time-no-sees happen with horrible regularity and ugly photographs.

It's A Sad Sad Situation, And It's Getting More And More Absurd

2011-09-14T15:47:00.005+01:00

Colm tells me that he's fighting with strangers on Twitter about new t-shirts in Topshop. Fucking Twitter. Fucking Topshop. Sometimes I want to punch the internet.

"Pop quiz" he says. "What's this t-shirt about?"
"Feminism?" I say, wondering if there is some new meme I missed the memo on, if it's Keyboard Cat's new catchphrase or something. I am always behind with this shit. Sure look at me, blogging, while everyone else is on Twitter. But for once I'm on the money and Twitter's knickers are in a twist because the t-shirt is proof that Topshop hates women.

Topshop hates me, I'm pretty sure of that. I feel Brobdingnagian in their changing rooms. But I digress.

Twitter thinks the t-shirt is making lame excuses for domestic violence. I'm not so sure. It's a tasteless item, sure (insert catty comment about their choice of font here) but I think the unfunny joke is doing men an injustice, not women. I think the implication is that as a man (Topman's target demographic appears to be 18 to 30-too-old-for-that-year-olds) you shouldn't need to offer any emotional motivations for unacceptable behaviour. Just get drunk, act out and offer a mealy-mouthed apology. Hell, the side of "so" served with the sorry suggests that you might not need to apologise at all, much less talk about your reasons for being a bollocks in the first place.

Statistically, men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women, despite there being a higher incidence of depression among women. Young men are consistently identified as being the group most at risk, and among the contributing factors listed is their reluctance to talk about their feelings. There's few of us who haven't lost friends and family to suicide and fewer still who don't know someone who suffers from depression. Sure, there are excellent mental health initiatives to try to address some of the problems men face, but they are stigmatised by virtue of being mental health initiatives. 18 to 30-too-old-for-that-year-olds are more likely to be influenced by fashion and pop culture than by a press release from the Samaritans. The likes of Topman and their comic sansy slogans encouraging swagger, bravado, piss and bluster do us all a disservice, whether we read the t-shirt as an anti-feminist statement or not.

Tilly Kid

2011-09-12T08:58:00.002+01:00

My niece, Tilly, is twelve days old today.

Twelve days! You'd think I'd have mentioned her before now. I meant to, but I was a bit of a mess for about ten of those twelve and I've only just gotten around to snuffling up my snots. It's times like these I feel especially grateful that I'm not on Facebook and socially obliged to share my status updates. OMFG AM AN AUNTIE! SO DEPRESSED!!! The week I spent feeling sorry for myself because my brother and his wife have a beautiful new baby (and I don't) was not my finest one.

And she is a beautiful baby. "Gorgeous!" says my nana "I thought she'd be ugly, you know the way they are." But she has auburn hair and big dark eyes and little bow lips like her mammy's. She smells like milk, and I like that after I've held her I can smell her on my skin. The same is true of our cat, of course, but he smells of piss and catfood.

We visited Tilly the day she came home, and my brother gave her to me to hold. I fed her and winded her and tried not to look scared. She burped and I felt like a champion. I can only imagine how proud her parents must feel just to hear her breathe. "It's like we won the Lotto" my brother said, and he sounded like he still couldn't quite believe it. I called him the day after we'd visited to see how they were, and he called me back later that evening to see how I was. He knew I'd find it hard. I couldn't even begin to tell him how grateful I was that he acknowledged that, and that he found any room in his heart to feel sad for me when it must be spilling over with love for his wife and daughter.

It's an awful thing, to feel upset at the birth of a child. I felt selfish, mean-spirited, small. And very alone. I felt like there was nobody I could talk to about it, because I was ashamed of feeling that way and I thought that my friends and family would feel ashamed of me too. So I cried at home, curled up in Andrew's lap, red and angry-faced and colicky. And I hated myself for it. It was only when Andrew got upset some days later and I felt like I might burst with love and sympathy for him that I realised how my family had been feeling for me.

There's a whole lot of spilling and bursting going on here, I realise. Cut me some slack. I'm emotional.

My aunt Patricia spoke to me on the phone on the evening Tilly was born, and she heard the catch in my voice. "You know now how I felt when I heard you'd arrived" she said, reminding me that I too am special and loved, that my shine hasn't worn off. I felt a little like a child again, being consoled on a sibling's birthday, but I appreciated the kiss and cuddle all the same. I have a brace of aunties who take good care of me and I am determined to do the same for Tilly. Though I'm not sure about this "auntie" stuff. My aunt Carol has never allowed me call her "Aunt Carol" and it's only now that I understand why - it sounds so dowdy, so old. But I'll grow into it.

So here's to my good fortune and my happy family. "Tilly" (from the Irish tuilleadh) is a lovely, little-used word for that little bit extra over the standard measure. The thirteenth bun in the baker's dozen, a small, unexpected gift. I think it'll suit her.

Review: La piel que habito

2011-09-08T11:59:00.004+01:00

Juan Gatti's beautiful teaser poster

I do like horror films that don't have jumpy bits and that have you rooting for the monster from start to finish.

Assuming you can figure out who the monster is.

And Then I'm Happy For The Rest Of The Day

2011-08-29T13:13:00.001+01:00

We went for a walk in the park yesterday afternoon, me with my tail wagging and Andrew with his tongue hanging out. It was lovely and sunny. We walked up Chesterfield Avenue, past the entrance to the Zoo. Sticky kids spilled out from the gates onto the path, clutching parents in one paw and stuffed penguins in the other, waddling two by two towards their cars. We borrowed my brother's Zoo pass a couple of weeks ago. I thought we'd get great use out of it. I had notions of us swinging with the lemurs after work on weekday afternoons, purring at the tigers and reading the red pandas a story at bedtime. But the Zoo closes at 6, and we've been busy at weekends. So we haven't gone at all.

"What would you like?" asked Andrew, rooting in his pockets for change when we got to the ice-cream van. I would like a three-day-weekend every week so that we have more time to do nice things like eat ice cream in the park and go to the zoo. "A 99, please" I said. But we only had enough change for two small cones, so that's what we got. And they weren't small at all. We slowed our pace, the better to eat our ice creams, and wandered off the path towards the polo grounds, taking care to avoid the oddball dressed head-to-toe in khaki raingear lying in the grass a few metres in from the road. He could only be playing with himself, we concluded.

The polo was in full thwock. "Hockey on a horse!" said Andrew and we stood at the fence on the far side of the pitch from the pavilion to watch the game. An unseen voice provided a running commentary through the pavilion's PA, though the only other spectators were in a huddle of three on the upper tier. "And Whompey comes in again for a challenge... eh, do you want to come in here?" the commentator said. Attention please, a child has been lost in the tunnel of goats...

Then the rain came. We finished our ice creams and headed for the shelter of the chestnut trees that line the Avenue. Some of the lower branches had been picked clean already, even though the conkers would still be white in their shells. "Snuggle for warmth" said Andrew, and he pressed up against me and kissed me. I remembered the oddball lying on the grass (playing with himself) and looked over to see him getting to his feet, soaking wet, and picking up a plastic Tesco bag from the ground beside him. I wonder what was in it. Binoculars and cheese and pickle sandwiches, I bet.

We made a run for it then. Well, we walked. We were too far from home to run. We held hands and Andrew told me that I looked very pretty in the rain even though I knew my fringe was hanging in rats tails down my forehead and my wet summer dress made me look like a sack of spuds. The rain was coming down so hard that drops were running down the sides of my nose and up into my nostrils. Sure what could you do but laugh. We got to the Fountain Road and Andrew broke into a trot. "Run with me, Pussycat" he said, and I huffed up the road after him, trying in vain to suck in my tummy and swallow my lungs.

It had almost stopped raining by the time we squelched around our corner. We got to our door and I laid my hands on the warm red brick of the house, feeling all the happiness in our home seep up my arms through my fingers. Andrew apologised later for taking me to the park, what with the rain and the pervert and the two small cones.

Husband, you warm the cockles of my heart.

Review: The Inbetweeners Movie

2011-08-25T14:17:00.005+01:00

Lydia Rose Bewley. I couldn't find any pictures of her from the film itself.

I spent the whole film anxiously watching to see how they'd treat Jane. The Fat Girl. Because I'm a Fat Girl. She's pretty. I'm pretty. They even put her in one of my dresses.

Jay called her a fat pig from outer space and ran away when she took her clothes off to go skinnydipping. Later, she gave him a blow-job in the toilet. He'd grown as a person! Yay! Happy ending!

I'd rather he'd given her head, to be honest.

They did manage to squeeze a fat joke in about eating out though, fair play to them. In the post-credits sequence a door opened to catch them in the act while they're in bed ~~having sex~~ feeding each other slices of pizza. Dirty pigs! LOL! It reminded me of the post-credits sequence in Bridesmaids where Megan talks about the open flaps on her big bear sandwich.

Big fat fucking sigh.

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-18T08:49:00.001+01:00

Charlton Heston Not Included

Apes eatin' biscuits, ridin' horses and beatin' up polis. Quality entertainment, if you're into that sort of thing.

The Magic Number

2011-08-10T14:40:00.002+01:00

I wrote the post below for the feminist blog The Anti Room, who kindly gave me a platform for my inane and smutty chatter. I'm reposting it here for your delight and entertainment, and to save me having to write anything else for a couple of days because I am very lazy. Aren't you lucky?

I waded diddies-deep into one of those conversations about sex at a party on Saturday night. You know the kind, the two-drinks-too-many kind that leaves lasting friendships in its wake. Because they know too much. By the time I rocked up they’d already gotten through the bravado part of the conversation (concerning the more exotic aspects of their erotic histories) and were down to that unlovely question, the one with no right answer and an infinite number of wrong ones. How many people have you slept with?

I don’t know. I have an idea, and I could count them out on my fingers, but I have no head for figures and no desire to go streeling through their names as a party trick. I answered with an assured smile and an approximation, and then proceeded to make excuses for myself because I wasn’t sure whether my play was higher or lower than expected, and what they’d read from it.

I also confessed to them that I did keep a list at one stage.

It sounds vulgar, I know, but it was closer to lovehearts on a copybook cover than notches on a bedpost. I wrote their names in a little hand-bound notebook with a banana-leaf cover, and I gave each of them a page to himself. I never added any other detail, though I briefly considered developing some kind of code to qualify my relations with them. A little loveheart for the ones I thought I loved (most if not all of them, woe is me!) with a line through it where they hadn’t loved me back (sigh).

I spent most of my twenties wearing a thick pair of beer goggles and my heart on my sleeve, living in an apartment in the city centre and working in administration, like a heroine in a romantic novel written on someone’s lunch break. Having spent my teens cocooned in long-term relationships with unremarkable boys in a small country town, the world became my lobster when I moved back to Dublin. I don’t want to take the seafood analogy too far, but I made a right pig of myself.

I threw my banana-leaf bound book away when my fondness for office efficiency and Excel spreadsheets had me considering opening one in which to catalogue my lovers. I liked the idea of being able to rank them chronologically or alphabetically. I liked the linguistic frivolity of keeping them in a “spreadsheet”. I couldn’t think of a good name for the file, though, or of an appropriate place to save it, and these practicalities made it seem distasteful. Probably because it was. I reconsidered my book in the same light and binned it.

I used to dread that a lover would one day ask the question. I worried that the number of men I’d slept with would make him think that I was a SLUT. Or that he’d expect me to have kinky tricks up my sleeve. Or that he’d think I had a vagina like a wizard’s sleeve. I worried that the number of men I’d slept with would make a new lover feel insecure. I worried that the number of men I’d slept with would tell a new lover that I was insecure.

So I talked about it with friends. But not before I googled “average number of sexual partners” because if you want to know something and are too embarrassed to ask, The Internet is your friend. Or not. “Less than you think” said The Internet. OMFG! I thought AM BIG SLUT AFTER ALL! and then I set about qualifying my query by googling “average number of sexual partners for Irish woman in late twenties who works in administration and lives in an apartment in the city and so on and so forth” until I arrived at what seemed like a more realistic figure and felt better about myself. Then I talked about it with friends, thought a little more about what they’d had to say and how it changed my perception of them (or not) and wrote a giddy article for a magazine about it.

Which is why you shouldn’t talk to me about these things at parties.

A year or so later, I was lucky enough to meet a man so good and honest that I stopped worrying about what he or anyone else might think about how many people I’d slept with. And, Reader, I married him. What has surprised me since is that far from sweeping my sexual history under the carpet now that I’m a Married Woman, I’ve found that the grounding my relationship with him gives me has allowed me to talk about sex with a frankness, lust and humour that I wouldn’t have thought possible back when I was gallivanting around the city, euphemistically enjoying myself.

As for my totty tally, I’ve abandoned all notions of keeping a list. Assigning each of my past lovers a number doesn’t give any idea of their value. It assumes that they’re all of equal worth to me – they’re not. But they deserve to be acknowledged (though not by name) for how they’ve each contributed in some small way to making me who I am.

Review: Harry Potter and the [whatever the last one's called]

2011-08-03T12:57:00.003+01:00

in-joke

I spent the first 127 minutes biting my nails. Which is just as well, because I spent the last 3 minutes wishing I still had nails so that I could claw my eyes out.

Kinda like Lord of the Rings, then.

Absolutely Good

2011-07-22T13:04:00.000+01:00

I had to nip out to the shop the other day to buy some eggs. It's about 10 doors down from our new house. Andrew offered to run down to get them for me, but I didn't want it turning into another of those things that I get him to do all the time because it makes me feel anxious. I have enough of those already. Scooping dinner scraps out of the plughole in the sink. Getting a round in at the bar.

I feel inexplicably anxious about every aspect of our move to the northside. Parking the car. Doing the shopping. Getting the bus. I research it all meticulously on the internet before leaving the house.

Stoneybatter is very authentic. I would like to be authentic too, but I feel like a pretentious, yuppie fake. You don't hear "yuppie" much any more, do you? People are always talking about hipsters, but I'm not one of those. I can't wear skinny jeans and I drive a Mitsubishi Carisma.

Andrew had gone to the shop the day before to buy some bin tags but forgot what he was looking for when he walked in and the lady behind the counter was having a smoke. It was just so unexpected. Maybe I should have a cigarette on my way there I thought so that I'll smell of smoke too and she'll be my friend. Or maybe I should just cop on and go and get the fucking eggs. "I'll go, love" I said. I shoved on some shoes and checked my purse for change and my handbag for courage and marched out the door towards the shop. I hope I don't look like I'm posh I thought.

I didn't. I don't think I could if I tried, what with all the shopping I do in Penneys.

I stepped out onto the street and straight into the path of Fireman Sam, helmet askew as he pedalled furiously on his plastic truck, shouting NEE NAW NEE NAW NEE NAW and swerving to avoid my shins. His grandad gave me a big smile and an apologetic hello. "Where's the fire?" I asked Sam, but he clammed up and hid under his yellow hat, so I walked on to the shop.

It was stacked high with boxes, bursting with biscuits and promise. I picked up some caramel digestives, a small batch loaf and some eggs. I was at the counter, about to pay, when the little fireman came bursting through the door, shouting "WHERE'S THE FIRE?!? GET ME SOME WATER!". His grandad followed him in, the plastic fire engine under his oxter. I wanted to stay and chat, to make friends with the smoking shop lady and the proud grandad and the little fella. I wanted to tell them that we've just moved in and for them to say that we're very welcome and ask who we are and where we come from. They might have. Or they might not. A lot of people move in and out on our road. But I just went a bit red and counted out my coins and said "tanks" and went home.

Later, there was a knocking at our front door. I froze in the kitchen. Stranger Danger. Andrew went for a look through the spyhole. It doesn't have any glass in it - I suppose it's just a hole. I like to freak him out by looking in it when he's coming to the door. I know he'll look out and see me staring back at him. There was nobody outside when he looked this time. He shrugged and came back in to the sitting room, then the knocking started again. This time he opened the door, to find a little fella with a plastic hammer and saw, fixing the jamb. "Hiya!" said Andrew. "Just fixin' the door" said the little fella, all business. "I'm really sorry" said his mam, who was standing beside him, wrestling with bags of shopping and the key to her front door. It turns out that Fireman Sam is Kevin (age 3) from next door on his days off, and when he's not attending to emergencies in the shop, he likes a spot of DIY. "Now" he said, looking at his imaginary handiwork with the air of a man who takes pride in a job well done "I'll just get some paint". He wobbled in home and returned a minute later with a cardboard cut-out of a can of paint and a little cardboard brush. "Just a quick coat, Kevin" said his mam, "I have something I need you to paint for me inside". She was worried we'd be too polite to close the door on him. She's right, we would.

We haven't met the neighbours on the other side yet. Our kitchen looks right into theirs, and our yards are separated by some rusting, waist-high virgin-blue railings. Neither of us has curtains up, so I spend a lot of my time in the kitchen busily not looking into theirs. They look a little like us. One of these days I'll wave, and smile, and hope that they wave and smile back. And then I'll put up some curtains.

All Pretty And Petite

2011-07-13T12:00:00.002+01:00

I wrote a guest post for the Anti Room yesterday. See if you can guess what it's about from the illustration above (lovingly drawn by my very own Quentin Blake). I like the way he's given me a pointy nose, one overdeveloped bicep and the suggestion of a penis. I'm glad we didn't meet as teenagers.

I've Had My Share Of Sand Kicked In My Face

2011-07-12T08:48:00.002+01:00

One of the biggest downsides to becoming an adult (along with worsening hangovers and the slow, inexorable crawl towards death) is dealing with service providers. I know this because I used to work for one, and because I have spent the last two weeks on the phone to Eircom.

All through my college years I worked in a call centre for one of our national banks, the one that rhymes with "make the tea". I spent five years with them, evenings and weekends. So I know all the tricks. What freephone number to call. How to bypass the automated phone system. When to call, who to ask for and how to speak to them. I am prouder of this than my college degree, and it has probably been of more use. But Eircom, oh how they've tested me.

We signed up for a broadband bundle with them in January and have had shambolic service from them since. We're moving house on Saturday and I've been determined to take this opportunity to kick them to the kerb. They wanted a pay-off as we'd be breaking our contract with them. They couldn't decide on an appropriate fee, so I decided that they shouldn't impose one at all. And I finally got them to agree.

I AM THE CHAMPIONS.

What's more, I did it without calling anyone names or reducing anyone (myself included) to tears. I am, justifiably - I think, proud. Stacked up alongside my square-offs with An Post and the Passport Office earlier this year, I'm thinking I should consider a career change. I'd be the Supernanny Jo Frost of service providers. I could work from home. In my underpants. I could get superhero underpants, if that would make anyone feel better about it.

We sat down to dinner with friends last night and upon being asked how I was keeping, I said "Great! Today was a Really Good Day. I told Eircom to go fuck themselves!". Nobody applauded, which was disappointing, but I trucked on with my dull little story anyway, and my husband sat quiet and proud by my side. Later, when they asked about our holiday, I got all puffed up with self-righteousness again at the mention of our hire car. It had broken down on us and we were left for 24 hours without a car, then had to go on a €130 taxi ride back to the airport to get another (and the replacement car was a Kia. The injustice of it all!). I wanted our €130 refunded, plus monies for the 24 hours we spent without a car and monies for the downgrade from a Ford C-Max. "Maybe we should just let that one lie" said Andrew. "After all, we did fill their diesel car with petrol".

Review: Senna

2011-07-06T12:34:00.006+01:00

When we were kids, my dad went back to college at night and got a PC to type up his thesis on. My brother and I were allowed to use it to play games on, though for a long time we only had one. It was a Formula 1 racing game and we always played it together, even though it was designed for a single player. Whoever sat on the left would man the brakes (the spacebar) and navigate using the small course map at the top left of the screen, while the one on the right used the arrow keys to steer. I still remember Eoghan making a screeching sound one day as he leaned (somewhat unnecessarily) into a corner, so excited to be in pole position that he'd forgotten the word for "brake".

I'd forgotten about the dim evenings we'd spend in front of the computer, up in the converted eaves of our attic in Palmerstown, so engrossed in the game that we could swear we smelled petrol and red-hot tyres on tarmac. Until last week, when we watched Senna.

Review: Bridesmaids

2011-07-04T16:22:00.005+01:00

Like Mean Girls, it was pink and funny. But is either film feminist?

Discuss.

WLTM

2011-06-29T14:00:00.000+01:00

When the landlords told us that they were hoping to sell their house, I cried. Not right there on the street in front of them, because that would have been mortifying, but quietly, sitting on the couch in front of the television when we got home. Because that's not embarrassing at all. Then I had a cup of tea and reactivated my Daft account.

Daft makes looking for a new home easy in the same way that maybefriends.com makes finding your soulmate and getting married and buying a house and having babies easy. You could get lucky, I suppose. Or you could go on a series of disappointing dates and learn that looking for love is about managing your expectations and paying for your own drinks.

For the last few weeks I've spent hours and hours browsing dowdy and typo-ridden profiles, the photos blurry and careless, full of the trappings of small, rented lives. I can't imagine living in them. Or worse, I can, and I can't imagine being happy.

There are some lookers out there. I fall for the ones whose profile photos were taken in soft light, circa 2008, with a fisheye camera. I imagine how my pictures will look on their lovely cream walls and I mentally rearrange the furniture, like a dog turning circles in his bed. And when I have myself convinced that I (we) will be happy there (and nowhere else) I click Email Advertiser and send them an email full of hope and promise, signed with a shortened version of my name to make it easier for them to pronounce, to prove that I am considerate.

When they reply, I am effusive. When Andrew and I visit for viewings, we dress like we're going on a date. We wear perfume. I bring my chequebook. I show up expecting each and every one to be The One.

So far, none of them have borne the weight of my expectations. Most are smaller than they looked in their pictures, grubbier, lacking the charm and GSOH their misspelled blurbs claimed for them. A "culterially authentic" two-bed in the Coombe has stains on the carpets and grease smears on the walls. "Just painted" says Colin The Agent in his brown pinstripe suit, his tongue piercing clacking off his pointy little teeth. I used to have one of those. I'm glad I took it out.

"I'll call you" I say to Carol, another agent, a groomed and mannerly mother-of-two who shows us around an empty two-room flat on Heytesbury Street. I don't, though. I don't call David either, the landlord who spends his weeknights in the flat above the one he showed us around on Lennox Street. "Would you be willing to negotiate on the rent?" I asked him. "No" he said. He looked like the kind of man who might riffle through your knicker drawer if you told him you'd be away for a week. It was easier to pretend that we couldn't afford it than to explain to him that he gave me the creeps.

We're in no hurry, but the uncertainty is making me queasy. I want it done, I want us moved out and moved on. I'm just worried that my headlong rush to settle will see us settling in the wrong place. "They're like boys" says my colleague "if you don't fancy them, don't kiss them." I laughed, thinking of the fishy kisses I've suffered for the sake of seeming polite. It's patience and confidence I need, not perfume and chequebooks.

And Rosie's Peelin' Off Her Silk Stockings

2011-05-30T13:18:00.001+01:00

Remember the time Andrew met Crystal Swing? We had such a good weekend at the FlatLake Festival last year that I never even got around to telling you about it. This year's lineup is KILLING ME. John Banville. Kevin Barry. Robert Fisk. Paul Murray. Little John Nee. Jinx Lennon. The Sons of Robert Mitchum. Ha'penny Mariachi. Paula Flynn. Crazy Dave's Juke Box. Read the full lineup here. I can't look at it anymore. It gives me a pain in my tummy because I can't go.

I have to go to a wedding next weekend. Well, I don't have to go, but I've been invited, and I love them, and it would be rude not to, etc, etc. I have two weekend camping tickets for FlatLake, and for the good of your souls I'd like to pass them on to one of you. Whoever promises me they'll enjoy it the most. Make big bould promises in the comments, or email me (click the little "write me" up there in the sidebar) and I'll gift you two free passes to the best weekend you'll ever have in Monaghan.

Or possibly anywhere. Ever.

I Need More Than Tom Jones Songs

2011-05-24T21:21:00.003+01:00

Here’s another post about my marriage, my myriad insecurities, my infertility and my cat that I’ve thinly disguised as a humourous anecdote to mildly entertain you. I generally intend to steer my blog clear of the conversational icebergs that are all of the above (see also: my weight, other people’s weddings, work) for fear my readers might think me banal and average.

And yet.

I also generally intend not to eat Snickerses and chips.

So.

Andrew and I babysat for my boss last week. "Why are you babysitting for your boss?" asked Gimme. "Umm..." I said. "I had the same in work" said Andrew. He'd told someone that he couldn't go to the pub because he was babysitting his wife's boss' son. I don't know why neither of us thought to say that we'd offered to babysit because my boss is a friend. Or why we'd mentioned that she's my boss at all. Sometimes I forget that not everyone works in an office like mine.

I had the best time. The baby screamed and balled his little fists, refused to take his bottle and then scuttered his nappy so magnificently that I had to wring the yellow squits from his babygrow into the sink and then scrub and scrub at it with soap and water til my hands were blue and the babygrow was still a squittish yellow. I left it in a pile by the washing machine, along with the shirt and pants he'd puked on (his own) and the rug from the couch (don’t ask).

Andrew had taken him home to our flat for an hour while he waited for me to get in from work. I trudged across town through the barricades and bus cancellations, imagining the two of them cuddling with the cat on the couch, burping and gurgling, a happy little trio. Sometimes I want a baby for Andrew so much that I wish he hadn’t married me. He will make a wonderful father. So imagine my surprise to arrive home to find that the baby was apoplectic, and Andrew looked close to tears himself. "I can definitely see the silver lining in not having one" he said. “The cat’s hiding under the bed”.

We decided to get him home, hoping that the short drive there might lull him if not to sleep then to a state of not-screaming. It worked, and he was like a different child once we got him there. Smiling, chewing my hair, making those ack ba ab ba ba ba noises that babies make. Squealing with delight when I blew raspberries on his belly. "HE LOVES ME!" I said to Andrew, who was still struggling to bring all his paraphernalia in from the car. "I mean, he's probably just happy to be home" I said, backtracking hastily when I saw that Andrew looked put out. What I actually meant was "HE LIKES ME BETTER THAN YOU! IN YOUR FACE!" Babies never prefer me to Andrew. Nor do small children. If we were to survey a representative sample of adults (and I am not suggesting that we do, so please don't express opinions either way in the comments) I am confident that he would top that poll too. He's just more personable.

I spent the rest of the evening playing with the baby and making him laugh, sending photos of him to his mother’s phone and (unbeknownst to me at the time) making her cry. When he destroyed himself and the soft furnishings with his nappy ‘splosions, I had Andrew wipe him down and then I gave him a bath. He kicked his chubby little legs in delight, and I got him settled into bed happy and asleep in no time. I felt wonderfully smug and just the tiniest bit guilty. I have always worried that if we were to have kids, I would be the bad cop. Andrew is affectionate and indulgent, and I am a cranky, houseproud nag. But I worry needlessly; it seems that all goes out the window when I have something small and cute that I can manipulate into loving me. Into loving me the most. I do the same with our cat. When he’s to be kicked out of the bedroom at night, I have Andrew chase him off. When I get up in the morning I let him in and give him a cuddle and a gravy breakfast.

We’re going away on holidays in a few weeks time, and Gimme’s offered to babysit the cat for us. To catsit our cat. Whatever. He didn’t so much offer as acquiesce; at the time of asking he was at the wrong end of a double mattress on a narrow staircase while I was helping him move house, so you could argue that he didn’t have much choice. Whatever. “What if he loves him more than me?” I asked Andrew one tired and emotional evening. “What if he doesn’t want to come home?” “He will” laughed Andrew. I sniffed, unconvinced. “Maybe if I just give them dry kibble to feed him instead of those gravy pouches that he loves and then I give him nothing but pouches for a week when we come back?” I asked. "Sure, Pussycat" said Andrew, laughing at me again.

I'd be the worst kind of mother.

Review: Cedar Rapids

2011-05-16T11:45:00.002+01:00

Office parties we've all been to.

Sad and funny, with occasional inappropriate touching.

Some Days Have Bouncers That Won't Let You In

2011-05-13T18:35:00.000+01:00

I had an uncomfortable conversation with a client yesterday afternoon. I often do. It's the nature of my work, and I am suited to it. It’s my job to listen and be polite and diplomatic and accommodating when dealing with these frustrated and sometimes frustrating people. And I’m good at my job. So I let her say what she felt she needed to and then waited for the conversation to trail off with the usual pleasantries once she'd made her grievances known. This personal touch, too, is part of my job. She asked me how married life was treating me, and I told her it was treating me well. "I fall asleep in the arms of the man I love every night" I didn't say to her "and he reads to me to help me sleep". No. People ask after the measurable things in your marriage. Houses and children. Not love and happiness. I sucked at my teeth, remembering how, at her request, I’d emailed her the link to our wedding photos. I feel embarrassed by that now. “You’ll have to send us some photos!” she’d said, as everyone does when you say that you won’t make a meeting because you’ll be taking some time off to get married. So when next I emailed her about some event or other, I sent her a link. No point in being precious. My colleagues ended up publishing one in our newsletter anyway.

She asked me then about another colleague on maternity leave; a soft topic of conversation for all callers to our office and as suitable as segue into pally bluster as you could hope for. I reassured her that mother and baby are very well and then braced myself for what I knew was coming.

"Tick tock! It must be nearly time for you now, ha ha!"

"We'll see!" I said. Last time someone asked I made the mistake of saying "here's hoping!" and then spent five minutes nodding mutely as my new friend reassured me that it would happen soon, please God, and that it would be all down to the power of prayer and positive thinking.

"Are you not working away at it?" asked my client; bubbly, rather than curious. "We'll see" I said again, my tone a little flatter. Which of course made her curious. So she needled a little, and my patience snapped. "Actually" I said "we've been referred to the infertility clinic in Holles St. and we're having a bit of a hard time of it". This, I figured, was as good as saying "fuck off and mind your own business". I thought she'd drop it, that she'd say goodbye and give me sympathetic looks next time we meet, but she continued, undeterred. "You've probably heard loads of these stories but..." she began, and then told me all about her next-door neighbour who adopted a Little Mexican Boy a year ago. He's a lovely little fella, so he is, apparently. Her unfortunate neighbour travelled to Mexico three times to be there for the birth of three babies, having covered the mother's medical costs each time in the hope she might be allowed to adopt her child. "Surrogates, I suppose" said my client, though she seemed unsure as to the ins and outs of the arrangement. Not that I asked. I sat silent, waiting for her to finish. The first two mothers decided to keep their children, she said, but isn't three the charm! And so her neighbour brought her new son home that summer and hosted a barbecue to celebrate his arrival. Over spitting meat and chardonnay her neighbour announced to all assembled that she was three months pregnant. "She kept the Little Mexican Boy too" my client reassured me. I can imagine how some of the neighbours might have made jokes about her keeping the receipt for him. "And she was forty!" she added "so..."

For the first time since I met her, it occurred to me that this client might well be the same age as I am. I find this depressing. I like her very much, but in that way you like people who are that bit older or that bit younger than you are. You make allowances for their behaviour, their attitudes, their sense of dress. Not that it matters, one way or the other. It’s still my job to listen and be polite and diplomatic and accommodating.

I didn't know how to respond to her story. It's not the first time I've been told one like it, nor will it be the last. Everyone's got one, a brother's wife's sister's neighbour who thought she couldn't but then she did and sure maybe so might you! They usually end with an exclamation mark on a hopeful, high note. They're inspirational stories of lucky and inspirational people. I don't want to hear them. I want to be listened to, both when I want to talk about making babies and when the flat tone of my voice says clearly that I don't.

Review: Hanna

2011-05-11T13:45:00.000+01:00

Nice poster. Stupid film.

"I thought it was better than Source Code" said Andrew. "Oh yeah?" I said "Which bits, exactly?"

I suppose it was better. Ish. Hanna looks great, all indie typography and Eric Bana in a beard. There's a lovely scene where he emerges from the sea in a pair of grotty longjohns and you can nearly make out the outline of his willy. The film's Chemical Bros. soundtrack was very exciting for the fighty bits and it made me want to take drugs and punch something that wouldn't skin my knuckles. But that's about the height of it. Hanna's all fur coat and no knickers.

Review: Source Code

2011-05-06T08:45:00.002+01:00

I couldn't find any interesting images from the film to illustrate this post with. So here's The Best Picture On The Internet instead. You're welcome! I like this picture so much that I have it framed on my living room wall.

Cheap comparisons abound! Throw The Jacket, Groundhog Day and Sliding Doors into a blender, have Gyllenhaal reprise some of his Jarhead stuff and have Monaghan look like the vacant and confused lovechild of Sandra Bullock and white Michael Jackson, add a spoonful of saccharine, blitz, sieve and pour. The result? Unappetising gloop, equal parts patriotic and dystopian. To be consumed with very salty popcorn.