Scarle' fer ya!

I really didn't know where to put this story. It happened in the waiting room of the maternity hospital, so it could have gone under the Insomniac Baby banner. It involved a group of society that I don't have a lot of time for, so it could legitimately have been posted on the Insomniac Shit List. In the end, I decided it wasn't a tale I'd like to associate with my happy pregnancy and nor could I easily categorise it for the Shit List, so here it is, on the Tirade:

I was sitting in the waiting room of the maternity hospital for a few hours yesterday. It was really busy and lots of people were taking and making phone calls to say "I'm still waiting. I've been here for hours." The waiting room was incredibly busy and there were stacks of people waiting for visiting hours to begin aswell, so the whole place was jammers.

There was a young couple - aged anywhere between 16 and 20, their skin was too bad to be able to tell - sitting beside me on the benches in the waiting area, who had been getting streams of phone calls (about four or five each) all day. They'd had essentially the same conversation with each caller: "Naaah! I'm stiiill bleedin' waitin'..." or "Naaaah! We're stiiill bleedin' waitin' ta be seen by de dooooctor, bud..."

Eventually, she went in and was out again after 10 or 15 minutes. "Y'aaal righ'?" says he. She replied at the top of her voice, in the middle of the crowded room: "Yeah. I'm grand. 'S only de trush."

"Oh, my God!", I thought to myself. "I can't believe that you've just yelled that out in front of everyone. I am absolutely mortified on your behalf."

"Ah, just de trush?", says the boyfriend loudly, to be heard over the din of the waiting visitors. "Ah, jaysus, dat's alrigh' den."

"Oh, my God!", I thought to myself. "I can't believe that you've just yelled that out in front of everyone. I am absolutely mortified on your behalf."

Then, one by one, the girl begins to return the phone calls of her concerned parents and friends: "How'r'ya Ma! 'Sgrand. 'Sjust de trush!"; "How'r'ya Concepteh. Yeah, 'sgrand. 'Sjust de trush!"; "How'r ya Angeleh. Jaysus! 'S de bleedin' trush!"

At this stage I was beginning to wish that they would either vacate the bench beside me and leave the waiting room, or failing that, the the ground would open up and swallow me. I didn't think it could get any worse. I was wrong.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and starts dialling. "How'r'ya Ma? Yeah, she's grand. 'Sjust de trush!"

Enough! In the parlance of our maternity hospital waiting rooms, "Jaysus! I'm bleedin' scaaaaarle' fer yez!"

It all started innocently enough

It was all fairly innocent to begin with. Gerry, who misses us terribly and wants to feel like he’s still part of our family even though he now lives a couple of hundred miles away, sent us a copy of this article about a dumb-ass couple who named their son Drew Peacock (say it out loud and quickly a couple of times – you’ll get it).

This is the e-versation that followed…

Gerry: Ideas for Mr Murnane Jr... (Drew Peacock article)
Sinéad: yeah, I don't think so...
Gerry: Drew Peacock Murnane? I think it has a certain ring to it. Come on, its almost like calling the kid Jim
Conor: Hahaahaha.
Sinéad: yeah, still no...
Conor: Dirk, Al, Joe, Konrad, Rico, Tyler, Pancrazio (I really like this), Pious, Agbatha, Duff, Abbadon, Dagobert, Ahitophel, Tatnai, Ur, Krisna, Pancho, Dallas, Parker, Yan, Bob, Dagget, Constantine
Gerry: I really don't like to question this, but are you sure you should have kids? The list of names seems a bit cruel. The kid;s gonna get his ass kicked each and every day. I think Sue is probably a better option. And how do you pronounce Pancrazio?
Sinéad: Please leave my unborn child alone, you mean bastards. Joe is off the list, by the way
Gerry: How about Michael Badly Murnane. Then all the girls will be after them... Think about it a while...
Sinéad: Ok, I give up. I don't mind admitting when I'm defeated - I don't get it...

(I’ve lost the next bit of the conversation – the strands split a little here. The upshot was that all the girls want Mickey Badly… Conor brings us back with a bit of Blankety Blank (an eighties game show))

Conor: Clint after Clint Cassidy. After all, he was probably the product of some____
Sinéad: The answer had better not be "some cow from Montana"
Conor: 150 blanks. Fooling around during Doc
Sinéad: y'know, we could always go a bit Posh'n'Becks with this and name him Blanchardstown, or Sofa
Gerry: Not The Sofa™ that every time you left Jim there he sat there naked with the cat on his lap, lad in one hand and jay in the other? And as for what he did there with the mars bars… The poor kid.
Sinéad: Could be worse, Gerry - we might want to call the child "Gerry's Pillow (Both Sides) Murnane"
Gerry: Krusty Murnane?
Conor: Was away from my desk doing some work. My, the conversation has progressed. Sin, let’s have a dinner party, drink some of that vino. How does the first weekend in December sound?
Sinéad: Sounds wonderful - would sound even more wonderful if *I* could drink some of that vino too...

(I’m missing the next bit, where the possibility of getting Jim and his missus out of Cork and up to Dublin for a weekend this side of Christmas is discussed)

Gerry: You should do, Jim has been talking of heading to Dublin. I'm trying to change Barcelona to that week tho.
Conor: Sin, you can drink some vino. Two glasses only. No more. No sirree. Gerry, does that mean you'll be entertaining Mrs.Conor next weekend? Could reschedule dinner to second week in December? Or this weekend coming?
Gerry: I’m hoping to entertain Mrs Conor next weekend. If by “entertain”, you mean let her sit there and watch me smoke grass all weekend. The thing with Barcelona is it’s a Saturday to Saturday job, so its most of 2 weekends gone. I’ll let you know once I have dates for it. Is Mr Conor coming down to help me entertain Mrs Conor? Or should I be prepared to show her what a Real Man™ is like? (Only happy to do so, got shit loads of ironing to give her)

So, you may wonder why on earth I thought you’d be interested in reading a conversation I had yesterday. I was really just looking for your sympathy votes. D’ya see what I have to put up with from my friends? Supportive, my arse!

Insomniac ShitList: Public Transport

Item Six (added 9 November 2004)
This could go under so many headings that it really was a tough choice...
You bastards who smoke on the bus really give me a pain in my tits. This morning there were two of you and you were incredibly abusive to the man who asked you if you really couldn't wait the few minutes till you got off the bus before you lit up. Then one of you filthy scrotes started to blow your cigarette smoke over me. When I asked you to please not, I suppose I should give you the credit that's due because you stopped (blowing smoke over me, not smoking). But then you both proceeded to have a loud conversation about how the abused man and I would never last on the #38 bus if we were so offended by a little bit of smoking.
This begged the question, Why didn't you just take the damn #38 this morning then, you morons? Then you'd have been able to share some needles to shoot up your early morning heroin, died of an overdose and everyone would have been happy...

Item Five (added 15 October 2004)
It was on my list, but I'm very glad to see that it's not just me who finds this unbearable. People, turn your walkman down. I don't need to hear your music. I don't want to hear your music. Mostly, I hate your music. If I'm listening to my walkman, I don't want to still be able to hear yours. Ditto, for when I'm sitting three rows behind you on the other side of the bus. Ditto, forever. Ditto, for all circumstances. I am hormonally unbalanced enough to break one day and make you eat it. I believe that battery acid is very bad for you

Item Four (added 14 October)
Having worked out an approximate arrival/departure schedule for your bus, it is very useful if the driver has an approximate idea of the route he (because it normally is a he) is supposed to take. As you can see, this is a problem that specifically affects people who take the bus, rather than train or tram commuters. That is because trains and trams travel along tracks, which do not usually encourage independent directional decisions from the driver. While this may not be very empowering, at least you know you'll be taken where you're supposed to go

Item Three (added 14 October 2004)
You might think that having lived in Ireland my whole life, I would be accustomed to the rather spurious correlation between timetables and the actual arrival/departure time of the [insert chosen mode of public transport here]. You would be wrong. Though there has been some headway made in this regard recently, there is still vast room for improvement (as immortalised by the "We're not there yet, but we're getting there" ad campaign). While I find it irritating enough when the [mode of transport] is late, it really pisses me off when the bloody thing is early. Grrr

Item Two (added 13 October 2004)
The selfish bitch that I sat beside on the bus this morning. I hope that her bag was comfortable on its own seat. What the hell was she carrying in there? Live organs for transplant???

Item One (added 11 October 2004)
People who prop their knees up on the back of the seat in front of them. It really hurts the person in front's back

Insomniac Baby: Just for Kicks

For the past few days, I've been feeling slightly achy in the belly region. Mostly, I put this down to growing pains and internal bruising from kicks that I can't feel.

Last night, I finally felt a proper kick. Though to be honest, at first I thought it was some sort of weird in-my-belly-fart. It felt like the way your mouth goes when you use your finger to make a 'pop' noise. Then it happened again and I said to myself "Eh-up! I'll bet I know what that is!"

I called out to Conor so that he could join in with the feeling of bonding and impending parenthood (I was in bed, he was watching telly). He couldn't hear what I was saying to him and rather than come in and find out, I had to get up out of bed and flounce (yes, I flounced) into the sittingroom.

"The baby's started kicking. I just felt him", I said.
"Oh? That's exciting", he replied, without moving his eyes from the TV screen.
"Yeah, just now... there he goes again!"

At last, I got a reaction. Conor started to laugh: apparently, the guys on 'The Panel' were being very funny last night.

Guess what I did last night...

Before your little eyes light up with the anticipation of some rude internet stuff, it's nothing kinky.

I made a fly. For fishing with. It had lots of sticky-out flarey bits, it was really small and finiky and it was incredibly good fun.

I should have taken a picture of what it looked like and what it ought to have looked like to allow comparison, but that might detract from my sense of personal victory. Perhaps I'll do another tonight and I'll post pictures tomorrow?

Insomniac Baby: Say "Hello" to Frank

Finally, I've got my act together and can now share the latest pictures of the Insomniac Baby with you all:



This one shows the head (on the right) and belly (on the left). If you use your imagination, you can see little arms and the shadowy bits on the front of the head are (according to the midwife) his eyes.

This second scan shows the baby looking straight out (though he is lying on his side - the top of his head is on the left of the picture):



Personally, I don’t think that this is the best look for my baby. The resemblance to Frank the Rabbit from the movie Donnie Darko is too close for comfort…

Insomniac Baby: Naming Conventions

So now the arduous task of picking a name for our son begins. Frank really isn’t an option. I would also like to take this opportunity to rule out Jim (though James may still be a runner), Gerry (Gerard doesn’t make the cut either, I’m afraid) and Dirk (Karel, how could you?).

I am inviting suggestions but there are a few ground rules to cover before we embark down this road:

• The name has got to fit well with the surname “Murnane” (pronounced mur-nan for those of you who think that doofus on RTE2’s news says his name properly!)
  
• Preferably, the name should not begin with the letter M. This rule may be waived in the event that the first rule is satisfied
  
• The name should neither end with the letter M, nor a combination of letters that rhymes with "an" or "ane"
  
• Conor reserves the right to veto any name that meets the requirements of rules 1, 2 and 3 above without having to give any reason
  
• I reserve the right to veto any name that meets the requirements of rules 1, 2, 3 and 4 above without having to give any reason
  
• I reserve the right to change the rules without prior notice or warning
  

Suggestions can go into the comments box. There will not be a bottle of wine for the commenter who suggests a name that we use!

Insomniac Baby: It's a BOY!

I had my second scan yesterday. It was great! The midwife pretended to be vague when we asked whether we were having a boy or a girl but a few moments later, she pointed the scanner contraption appropriately and there were definite boy-bits in evidence. So, with “95%” certainty (and a cover-your-ass-margin of 5%), we’re having a boy! Hurray! Just one! Hurray!

This scan was much more fun that the first because there was so much more to see: there was a head (very large – he gets that from his father) and a face, arms and legs (very long – he gets those from me), fingers and toes, and as mentioned a penis and scrotum. Seriously.

The mini-menace is now almost 21cm long – his head measures 4cm across and his thighs are nearly 3cm long (each). He was tumbling and kicking and moving like crazy. I’m really surprised and at the same time, so glad that I can’t feel that yet, though apparently I will start to in the next couple of days or weeks.

The bummer of this was that, unlike last time, you couldn’t see all of him at once on the screen, so the images were a bit like a jigsaw that you had to put together in your head.

Anyway, I haven't got the pictures ready for posting yet - they'll go up in the next couple of days...

Insomniac Baby: Coming soon to a hospital near you...

So, my next scan is due in just over a week. I will be at 18 weeks by then. Presuming that the child is not modest (and given its parentage, that's not likely) we will be able to tell whether we're expecting a boy or a girl.

I can't wait to find out. I have enough difficulty at Christmas time leaving the presents under the tree alone - there's no way I could not know.

I haven't decided yet whether or not to tell other people what we're having though. Knowing me, I probably won't be able to keep my mouth shut. I have enough difficulty at Christmas time not telling people about the brilliant present I just bought them. (Are you seeing the pattern here?)

Insomniac Baby: Welcome to Insomniac Baby

Instead of just giving out about the crapness associated with being pregnant, I should probably say some nice things too. Christ knows I don't want Junior to end up with some sort of "My Mommy Doesn't Love Me" complex!

So, all the good stuff and the fun stuff about being pregnant and having a baby (I don't think the actual having will feature too heavily though) and being a mommy will be posted here.

As time goes on, I will post photos and other stuff too. Maybe Dr Spock will end up coming to me for advice!

Insomniac Baby: The Announcement

Whoooo-hooo!

Before you ask:
Yes, we're really pleased. Both of us.
No, I haven't been sick. At all.

Now, say hello.




As you can tell, I had a scan a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, what we're looking at here is a mini-me, but I can't really make head nor tail of what I'm seeing. All the various bits had to be pointed out to me. I just nodded at the obstetrician and smiled. For those of you who, like me, really can't see anything other than a mass of grey in varying shades, here's the map:

Introducing the Insomniac Baby

(and madly hoping that I'm not going to have one...)

This may well be a truly radical departure for me. Instead of souring up the saccharine sweetness, I have opened a sugary palace devoted entirely to singing the praises of pregnancy (just mine) and babies (again and definitely, just mine), as an antidote to the venom that I've been spewing forth on the Shit List.
This is also a rather belated effort to prove for posterity that "Junior, Mommy has always loved you!"

Enjoy!

Insomniac Baby

Insomniac ShitList: Being Pregnant

Item Eight (added 19 October 2004)
Growing pains. I've been assured that they're normal, but owwwieee. Also, I'm not sure if this is paranoia or true, but it strikes me that my stomach gets huger (and I do mean "huger", my rant against poor use of English notwithstanding) after every bout of growing pains

Item Seven (added 15 October 2004)
Being hormonally unbalanced. I have a short fuse at the best of times. Now, I'm like 2000AD's Mean Machine. I go straight to 4. Even if you don't know 2000AD or Mean Machine or exactly what "straight to 4" means, I reckon you can probably make an educated guess

Item Six (added 15 October 2004)
Being asked if I am (or worse, told that I must be) having twins.

Item Five (added 15 October 2004)
Advice from other people. Everyone's an expert. I've been told to get used to this. Sometimes it doesn't bother me, but other times, I'm just not in the mood. And no, thanks, I don't want to watch the home video your husband made of you giving birth to your children. No, really, I don't

Item Four (added 14 October 2004)
No substance abuse

Item Three (added 14 October 2004)
No smoking

Item Two (added 14 October 2004)
No coffee

Item One (added 14 October 2004)
No booze

Insomniac ShitList: Stuff I Have No Control Over

(The sub-text here is that I am being overwhelmed by frustration at a situation for which is no single cause. I get overcome by a pointless and impotent rage as there is really nothing on which I can vent my spleen. This means that any minor irritant has the potential to catalyse an utterly irrational and disproportionate reaction. Beware!)

Item One (added 19 October 2004)
Traffic.
A concrete example: this morning, it took 15 minutes for the bus to cross a junction that would have taken 2 minutes to cross on foot - even if I had waited for the little green man. This was not the fault of the bus driver, nor even any of the other drivers at that junction. Nor was it purely because it was raining and in the middle of rush hour. There were too many factors converging at once to be able to get suitably and appropriately annoyed at any single one of them. And that pisses me off

Insomniac ShitList: What Other People Think is Cool

Item Three (added 18 October 2004)
Being constantly bombarded with ads to "tag your mobile", "get the latest tunes, straight to your mobile", "be the first with the funniest jokes" and the like drive me crazy. Whether you see your mobile as a fashion accessory (and I'm really not judging here) or not, these ads probably have the same effect on you. Let's organise a rally, find the 57777 server and jump heavily on their toon-selectas and their advertising executives' heads. Who's with me?

Item Two (added 18 October 2004)
Controversially (?), I believe that mobile phones are communication devices, not fashion accessories. A lot of people will disagree with me on this point and I really don't mind

Item One (added 14 October 2004)
Mod-ed cars. UV lights, tinted windows, massive woofers, go-faster stripes, flames... Have I left anything out? Oh yes, your gold sovereign jewellery, your white-trash girlfriend, your heroin habit - and you've just spent over €20,000 making a €10,000 car look "cool". Or just as stupid as you do when you're driving it

Insomniac ShitList: Work-Related

Item One (added 15 October 2004)
Bureaucracy. It's a pain in the arse. But often these incredibly convoluted and intricate mechanisms have evolved for a reason. So even if you are sick of the bureaucracy, please don't try to by-pass it; especially if I'm involved in the loop. You are only making things more complicated. So stop it

Insomniac ShitList: Poor Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar

Strictly, this is a thing on its own. I feel, however, that there is such a casual attitude to the proper use of the English language that notable examples should be listed as items in their own right. For an antidote to what you are about to see, please read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", by a pedant after my own heart (or Lynne Truss as I think she might prefer to be known).

Item Two (added 15 October 2004)
Justin's is a vegetable shop on Main Street, Blanchardstown. At the moment, they have a big sign outside advertising that you'll get a 6kg bag of potatoes (or something, I can't remember off-hand) free when you spend over €10 on "VEGITABLES". I swear! I will get photographic evidence of this to prove that I am not lying

Item One (added 15 October 2004)
I tell you no word of a lie that I actually saw this sign every time I set foot out of my apartment for two and a half years before I realised why the hallway made me so uncomfortable. Now that I've figured it out, I can't step outside without wincing. Brace yourselves for this. It's a good one to start with:

Insomniac ShitList: Other People's Driving

Item Two (added 14 October 2004)
People who don't indicate which way they're going on roundabouts

Item One (added 12 October 2004)
People who suddenly pull out really fast and dangerously in front of you, and then drive really slowly

Insomniac ShitList: Welcome to the Insomniac ShitList

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the Insomniac's Shit List, a tiny little off-shoot of the Insomniac Tirade empire.

I intend to keep my mealy-mouthed bitching on Tirade to a minimum from now on, using instead the dedicated resource of Shit List to mouth off about the little things that really piss me off.

I think I will organise it on a categorised basis but I'm not entirely certain how this will work in practice. I'm sure it'll evolve over the next couple of days and weeks.

I expect lots of comments to add some colour, depth and perhaps even some perspective to the Shit List. Who knows? I might even open this up and let other people post their pet-hates too. As the most gifted musical duo ever to get a record deal outside of Holland once said, "There's no limits" [sic].

Happy grouching!

Introducing the Shit List

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the Insomniac's Shit List, a tiny little off-shoot of the Insomniac Tirade empire.

I intend to keep my mealy-mouthed bitching on Tirade to a minimum from now on, using instead the dedicated resource of Shit List to mouth off about the little things that really piss me off.

I think I'll organise it on a categorised basis but I'm not entirely sure how this will work in practice. I'm sure it'll evolve over the next couple of days and weeks.

I expect lots of comments to add some colour, depth and perhaps even some perspective to the Shit List. Who knows? I might even open this up and let other people post their pet-hates too. As the most gifted musical duo ever to get a record deal outside of Holland once said, "There's no limits" [sic].

Happy grouching!

There's an eight o'clock in the morning now?

Last night I was in a very bad mood indeed when I blogged. I'm not using that as an excuse for saying some harsh things and I'm not going to apologise for having said them. Mostly, I'm sure it's nothing you haven't found yourself thinking but have been brow-beaten by political-correctness gone awry and Niall Crowley of the Equality Authority into feeling ashamed of it.

Well fear no more. Thanks to some fairly strong views on "certain things", a probable lack of deep knowledge on the topic of "certain things", raging hormones and the relative anonymity of web self-publishing, I am more than willing to be the subversive voice of your stifled consciousness!

This morning I was listening to the traffic news on the radio and apparently another protest had been planned by the "Travellers" to begin at 8am. I held a short debate in my head and decided that I would still go to work, because I would normally be well past the proposed protest zone by that time.

All morning, the traffic updates were full of the doom and gloom of this impending protest that was "due to start around now", but on the 8.10 bulletin, it transpired that no-one had shown up. There were Garda on stand-by (to try and "protect" the "protesters" from angry commuters, I presume) and there were a number of press photographers hanging around (to catch some of the hoped for "Limerick wedding"-type goings-on, I imagine). The traffic had been heavier than normal for that time of morning as people tried to get past the protest site. Traffic on alternative routes was also much heavier, according to the news. But no sign of the "Travellers".

One can only imagine that they had tired themselves out altogether yesterday and had to have a little lie-in. Either that, or none of them had actually ever heard of a time of 8 in the morning.

I should have stayed in bed this morning

I had a feeling this morning that my day would be much better all round if I just got back into bed, pulled the duvet over my head and pretended that the world had ended during the night and there was no need for me to leave my house for 24 hours.

Foolishly, I ignored my intuition. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again in a hurry.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t work that nearly drove me over the edge today. Sure, I was incredibly busy and flat out from the time I got in until I downed tools. (I knew I’d have to pay for my idle day!) But there’s some really interesting stuff going on at the moment and it is fun to watch while the catapult full of excreta is pulled back and aimed at the large rotary ventilator… Anyway, I digress.

My big problem today is with public transport, Dublin Bus in particular and the 39X, 39 and 10A routes specifically. This might be a little unfair but unless I focus my vitriol, I’ll just be generally angry with the world and that won’t make for an interesting or soul cleansing rant, which let’s face it, is mainly why I blog. If I release the tension on-line, I’m less likely to climb a water tower wearing a long anorak and carrying a shotgun… Still, I digress.

This morning, I left my house at 7am. Normally, I get to work at around 8.15. Not today. My usual bus (a 39X) arrived 15 minutes late, jammed full. It refused to stop and let anyone on. I got the next bus into town (a 39), which proceeded to drive at about 2 miles per hour. At 7.50, I would usually expect to be on O’Connell Street in the city centre. This morning, we were still sitting on the Main Street in Blanchardstown.

Finally, at 8.45, I got into town. I hopped off the stinky 39 and within 2 minutes, I was sitting on a 10A heading out to Belfield. To be honest, I really can’t complain about this leg of the journey because I got to where I was going on that bus at 9am. I’m going to moan anyway because the 10A is a stupid new route that doesn’t stop as close to work as its parent route (the 10) or my usual 39X and I had to walk for 15 minutes to get to my office. Grrrr! At least I was on time for my first meeting of the day.

Fast-forward through the working day. I left at 4.45pm and caught the early bus home. This is another 39X that runs from Belfield back to Blanchardstown. I was on the bus at 4.50 and usually would expect this bus to deposit me at home by 6pm. Christ, was I in for a disappointment!

First of all, the idiot bus driver took a wrong turn at St Stephen’s Green and ended up in a one-way system that brought us down Georges Street and Dame Street. The traffic was awful. At least four of the busiest bus stops on the route were bypassed. We got back on track at College Green and pootled along merrily as far as Phibsboro. At this stage, we were only running 10 minutes behind schedule.

We got onto the New Cabra Road and all hell broke loose. Forty minutes later, we were still trying to get onto the Navan Road but weren’t even at the top of the Cabra Road. The traffic didn’t actually move at all for a full 20 minutes. The next three-quarters of an hour were spent creeping along at the rate of approximately one bus-length every five minutes.

Why?
Because the N3 (i.e. the main road that the Navan Road turns into) had been closed from the Ashtown roundabout to the M50 roundabout.

Why?
Because the knackers, I mean the Travelling Community, were holding a protest march and had blocked the road, so for their “safety”, traffic was being prevented from going up a national route.

Why?
The filthy knackers were protesting because the county council had placed a barrier on a road that links the N2 and N3 (Dunsink Lane) in an effort to reduce the amount of dumping on the road. Dunsink Lane is the filthiest stretch of road in the entire country, as far as I know and is populated entirely by knackers in halting sites, who incidentally are the main cause of the aforementioned dumping problem. The whole road is like a movie set from some post-Apocalyptic tale set in Beirut. It’s an obstacle course of burning rubble, rubbish heaps, knacker dogs, knacker children and halting sites on all sides. Personally, I reckon the council would have been better served had they walled in both ends of the Lane and napalmed the whole lot.

Harsh? Socially insensitive? Gratuitously politically incorrect? Hell, yes! But it’s now 7.30pm and I’m still on the bus trying to get home. Which all brings me full circle bck to the original focus of this particular tirade.

Maybe I really should take that mental health day for myself tomorrow…

Ego-Surfing

I probably shouldn't be doing this. It really isn't my story to blog. But what the hey. I'm going to tell it anyway...

I'm sure everyone's done this at times - Googled their own name... Sadly for me, the only references that come up are related to work and another person with the same name as me. At one stage it was also possible to find a wedding notice in Conor's old school newsletter. What a shame that's gone now! (Not.)

Anyhoo, because he was really busy but also really bored yesterday, Con decided to Ego-Surf-by-Proxy, i.e. he knows what references show up for him and for me, so he went surfing for our friends' names.

The first one he found was for Gerry. It was an old entry in DCU's website about his final year project. Boooooring.
The next one was for Suzanne (sorry, she's not a blogger). It was a notice in a local newspaper about our international jetsetting pal's achievements abroad. Not wishing to demean Suz's accomplishments, but this was neither a long nor a particularly interesting piece, so I'm not even going to put a link to it. Oh, OK then. Link
The last was the most impressive. Deirdre was a girl that used to live with us when we were in college, but she didn't stay in touch with us, nor us with her really. Occasionally, we'd catch up with her - usually when the extended group were out for drinks, we'd had a few, and someone would suggest ringing her Mom to get her current contact details and/or whereabouts and then getting in touch to see if she was up for an impromptu night out. This was a surprisingly ineffectual way to contact anyone - for example, her mother has a life of her own and so was not a reliable source of information. Many's the time (well, twice) we tried to track Deirdre down, only to get stumped at the first hurdle, because her mom was not sitting by the phone, eagerly awaiting our phone call.

Anyway - Deirdre is kind of famous now. Well, she's got a certain kind of nerdy recognition and as far as I'm concerned, it's well-deserved. How many people do you know (even tenuously) that have won an international award for writing a Science Fiction short story??? Well, I do. Check it out. Congratulations D. I'm only a little bit jealous.

Making it up as I go along

D'ya ever have one of those days in work, where you're so on top of everything that you spend the entire day twiddling your thumbs and/or desperately trying to appear busy and industrious?

I'm having one of those today...

• I've been incredibly efficient
  
• I've been responding to people's queries on the spot
  
• I've been making up things for me to do
  
• I've done the things that I made up to do
  
• I've followed up on things that I've put on the long finger for the past two months
  
• I've cleared my entire In-Tray
  
• I've hovered around the Reception desk for 40 minutes
  
• I've checked my post and email inbox every 5 minutes on the off-chance that someone else has sent me something to do
  
• I've walked around the corridors of my building, carrying files so that I look busy
  
• I've started trying to create my own crossword
  
• I've written a needlessly long blog about a rather short-lived episode in my life
  
• I'm desperately dragging together a list of rubbish to create another blog and also to try and allieviate the boredom
  

God! It's not looking so good for me today, is it? I've still got another 2 hours to fill in aswell. Days like today are even more exhausting than days when you're flat out from the moment you sit at your desk, till the second you run away...

Don't sit beside the crazy lady

I have a story to tell about a crazy woman, who is not me. This makes a pleasant change, because normally I am the nutter that I'm talking about. But not this time! This time I'm the sane one in the narrative.

I was getting the bus to work this morning, as I always do. The bus was jam-packed and I was listening to my mp3 player* (not too loud) to drown out the sounds of other people's music and their snuffling and coughing. (I hate travelling by bus from October to April - it's like Russian Roulette with the bugs, viruses and diseases that everyone spews around them.)

After a while I became aware that the girl with long blonde plaited pig-tails sitting in front of me was, in fact, a sixty-year old woman, with dyed hair. "Odd," I thought. "She's obviously desperately clinging to her youth. Or maybe she's like the woman with the big purple hat in the poem." She was wearing a walkman and a song she liked must have started playing because she started to dance in her seat. At first I thought that she had some sort of bladder control issues; she was bouncing up and down in her seat, bobbing her head and shoulder shimmying from left to right and back again. Then the humming began.

At this point I took my own earphones out and I watched and listened in utter amazement. My mouth hung open in soundless shock. The poor unfortunate, whom she had chosen to sit beside, was trying to cram his well-built frame into the corner of the seat and occupy as little space as possible. She only took advantage of the wider dance-floor and actually started to gyrate a little. I made eye-contact with the guy and then it was nearly all over. He looked so terrified and pathetic that I nearly started to laugh out loud. I had to look away. To be honest, it really wasn't funny at all.

Two minutes later, he'd obviously had enough and made good his escape. There were no other free seats on the bus but he got up anyway and went downstairs. (He only got off the bus about twenty minutes later.) Some other poor sucker that had been standing downstairs leapt at the chance of a seat and came upstairs to take the vacant seat. He didn't stop to wonder. He should have.

In the meantime, crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady had spread herself and her belongings along the two seats. There was an incredibly bad smell emanating from her; like when you light a cigarette, smoke half of it, put it out and place it back in the pack - that old, stale and dying stink of half-smoked cigarettes and full ashtrays.

Sucker-man came upstairs and approached the "vacant" seat. Crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady ignored him. Sucker-man said "Sorry..." (which is Irish for "Would you move your stuff, you mad old bat?"). Crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady ignored him. Sucker-man made to sit down anyway. Crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady smelled. Sucker-man smelt the crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady smell. He went back downstairs.

I spent the rest of the journey with my earphones firmly in, breathing through my mouth, every breath filtered through my double wrapped woollen scarf. Crazy-plait-dancing-humming-lady finally got off the bus in town. There was another twenty minutes left till my stop. I could smell her for every second. Uggghhhhh!



* A special thank-you to Conor, who fixed my mp3 player for me the other night, after I'd broken it by shutting a door on it - I'm sooooo clever, you know

Random Strangers, Beware!

I've gone a bit mental.

I'm blaming my hormonal state but honestly, I think I'm just using that as an excuse to say and do the things that I've always wanted to say and do to the people who irritate me. And I'm very easily irritated.

This is making life very uneasy for my long-suffering husband. I've given him permission to pretend not to know me when we're in public, in case the random stranger I've just verbally abused wants to hit him. I'm making the assumption that no-one would actually hit a pregnant woman wearing glasses.

I mentioned that I'm very easily irritated and that's not a lie. People who stop for a chat at the top of the stairs or in a doorway are high on my shit-list. As are people who get on the bus on the wrong side (left for coin fares, right for pre-paid tickets); people who talk in the cinema; people who listen to their walkman with the music turned up really loud, so that even though I'm sitting 3 rows behind and on the other side of the bus, I can still hear the lyrics of what they're listening to...

I'll stop there because this could just turn into a list of stuff that annoys me, rather than the intended warning to random strangers so that they don't get an only partially deserved ear-bashing from a orange-headed bespectacled pregnant harridan with a bad attitude (i.e. me).

Behave yourselves.
You have been warned.

The Announcement

Whoooo-hooo!

Before you ask:
Yes, we're really pleased. Both of us.
No, I haven't been sick. At all.

Now, say hello.




As you can tell, I had a scan a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, what we're looking at here is a mini-me, but I can't really make head nor tail of what I'm seeing. All the various bits had to be pointed out to me. I just nodded at the obstetrician and smiled. For those of you who, like me, really can't see anything other than a mass of grey in varying shades, here's the map:

Love is...

This is so soppy. I can't believe I'm about to share this level of soppiness with the internet...

Anyway, I left my apartment this morning at the usual time of 7a.m. It was still a bit dusky out and there was a light drizzle falling. It takes 10 minutes for me to walk to my bus stop and in that time, I'd got fairly wet and had come up with this incredibly gooey thought that I'm about to share with you.

Yesterday, Con & I had stayed at my parent's place. It's close to where we live, but is about a 20-minute walk to the nearest bus stop. We left at 10 to 7 in the morning. It was barely beginning to get bright and it was raining heavily with a strong wind blowing.

And here's the unbelievably sappy thing:
I thought this morning was more miserable than yesterday.
Why?
Because I was walking on my own.

Awwwww.

Writer's Block

Well, I'm finally doing it. If you happen to have read some of my very early posts, you'll be aware that I'm just about finished an MBS degree and all I've got left to do is get my thesis written.

If you don't believe me, you can look in the archives. It's all there. If you couldn't be arsed reading back, you can just take my word for it and read on, MacDuff...

Anyhoo, I have finally stopped procrastinating and I am writing the blessed thesis. I'm up to 10,479 words (10,556 if you include footnotes and endnotes). I took this week off work to do it. I've been spending hours every day in front of my laptop, at my desk, with mountains of reference material around me.

The thing is, that I had about 7,500 words already written before I started working on it this week, which means that in real terms, I've only produced 3,000 words. That's an average of 1,000 words per diem. (I'm being generous and assuming that I'll manage to hack out at least another 1,000 words today - though that might be a little over-ambitious, seeing as it's already taken me the guts of four hours to string 500 words together so far today.)

I think that I've officially got writer's block and it's very discouraging. The submission deadline is the end of this month. I've got to have another 10 to 15,000 words (good ones too, not just some sort of crappy filler) written in the next fortnight. I'm meeting with my supervisor tomorrow afternoon and I had hoped to give him a 20,ooo word draft. Now I'll be lucky if I can squeeze 12,000 words out... I've even stopped kidding myself that I'll get a "good" 15 or 17,000...

But here's the killer. Last Friday evening, in the half-hour before I left work for the weekend, I whipped 808 words out of thin air to write my last blog. Not so much as a crinkled forehead to cause me trouble in producing it. I've just spent fifteen minutes here and produced 349 words and counting...

How come then, it's taken me four blasted hours to drag 500 stinking words out of my brain and onto the pages of my thesis? It's not like it's a completely uninteresting subject, and I've read enough papers and talked to enough people to have plenty of views on the topic. But can I marshall my thoughts and write them in a coherent argument? No.

Bugger.

Can you see my bum, Fernando?

(This might seem a little bit out of left-field if you don't know the origins of this blog. See "Steppin' Out (for Sinéad)" on Gerry's Blog for a bit of background...)

Once upon a time, there was a green and cabbagy Irishman called, oh, let's call him Gerry. Gerry was a bit of a cheeky up-start, a wanna-be fella-me-lad, one of those guys who is so aggressively heterosexual and yet so lacking in romantic female companionship that you start to consider that maybe he's playing for the other team. He didn't set your gay-dar pinging, but you wouldn't be surprised either. Gerry went to San Fransisco for the summer after he finished his second year at University. No-one was surprised.

Now at around the same time, there lived a beautiful princess... oh sorry, wrong story. So there was also a greener and cabbagier Irishwoman, who will be known by the pseudonym Pen. She was a fairly gullible character; a bit innocent about the ways of the world - but she's not me. Really.

Pen had just finished her degree and was working in the airport for the summer, when she got a phone call from Gerry. The conversation was short.
G - "Hi, what is everyone doing tonight? I just got back to Dublin."
P - "No plans. Where are you?"
G - "Just coming into Dublin Airport"
P - "No way! I'll meet you in 10 minutes..."

The interesting conversation took place in the arrivals lounge.
P - "Welcome back! Good summer? You look great!"
G - "Great summer. You?" (You'll note that there weren't any compliments to a member of the opposite sex... I'm just saying, it could be evidence!)
P - "Any scandal? Any women on the scene?"
G - (Blushing a little) "That'd be telling..."
P - (Noticing a plain band on the wedding ring finger) "Did you get laid and then tricked into marrying the harlot?"
G - "Weeeelllllll....."

So the yarn that Gerry spun went along the lines of having met this guy Fernando - a hot Latino beastie - in SanFran. Gerry and Fernando eloped to Las Vegas and got married in the Chapel of Love. Gerry now has "Fernando" tattooed on his ass and Fernando has "Gerard" on his. This was a marriage of convenience though, of course, because Gerry wanted a Green Card and for some reason, Fernando wanted to live and work in Ireland. Fernando would be coming (if you'll excuse the expression) to Dublin in about 2 weeks.

So yes, I am getting a little embarrassed on Pen's behalf at her gullibility in swallowing (again, I apologise for the unfortunate turn of phrase) a stinker this big.

Anyway, Pen had to go back to work. Gerry was heading home (to his parents, not to the house that he shared in town with Pen and a bunch of other friends). Pen got back to her office and phoned everyone that they lived with in turn, and told them the story. She had been convinced and was therefore quite convincing herself.

That night Pen met up with three of the others and over any number of pints, retold (and only embellished a little bit) Gerry's tale of the love that had unfortunately dared to speak its name. There was little else to talk about all night, really. They got a taxi home and were still talking about it. The taxi-driver was drawn into the conversation despite himself. He wasn't sure what to believe. Could it be true? It couldn't be! But what if it was? He had to know.

As Pen and her posse climbed drunkenly out of the cab and paid up, the taxi-driver scribbled his mobile phone number on a card and passed it to one of the gang. "Lemme know how all dis works ou', yeah bud?". They promised they would.

Three days later, Gerry came (fnarr fnarr, I'm sorry, I can't help myself) back up to town and was practically attacked at the front door. He was still wearing the plain band on his wedding finger. So, the guys pinned him down while the girls ripped off his trousers to check for the tattoo on his ass. I was there for that bit. I wish I wasn't. It was horrible. The hairiest arse I have ever seen.

There was no tattoo!
There was no wedding!
There was no Chapel of Love!
There was no Fernando!

There was Las Vegas, but Gerry had only lost $300 there, not his ass-cherry!

Poor Pen was mortified at her naivete. And to make matters worse, the others all voted that seeing as how it was her fault, she'd have to be the one to ring the taxi-driver and tell him that it was all a hoax. She was so green that she did.

More Triangular Bees

Further to the glut of comments that were added to the last post, may I present the wonderful triangular bee that my wonderful husband made to go with it...



To be honest, before I posted that Toblerone rant, I went looking for any pictures I could find of the animation that went with the ad, because it was really excellent. Unfortunately, seeing as how I'm a bit rubbish, and even that nice guy at JFGI couldn't help me, we'll have to make do with Con's effort above.

Triangular Honey from Triangular Bees

It's made with triangular chocolate from triangular trees,
Triangular honey from triangular bees
Hello! Mr Confectioner please,
Give me Toblerooooooone......

I have had this song rolling around in my head since the weekend (thanks a heap, Conor!), which some of you may recall from an advertising campaign run by Toblerone a few years ago. FYI, it was originally aired in the late 1960's, around the time of the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Yellow Submarine.

I had managed to get the song out of my head until 20 minutes ago, when I sat at a colleague's desk to fix something for them and spotted a mini Toblerone bar on her desk. Completely oblivious to what I was doing, I started crooning along as I worked, much to the amusement of everyone in earshot. I wasn't even deterred as I got odd looks while I walked back to my own office, humming merrily to myself.

I'm about to go and run a training session with some folks from upstairs - I hope I can control my melodic (and melodramatic) tendancies for another hour or so. Otherwise, I fear I may loose my job as a result of perceived diminished sanity...

Multi-tasking

Apparently, feminists (of the butch, hairy legged, javelin throwing type) seem to think that a woman's ability to multi-task is proof that Woman is better than Man.

I'm not sure I agree. I think it's an ability or trait (and only one of many) that makes us different. But better? What about jam-jars? Do men suggest that just because they can open the really tightly screwed on and vacuum-packed ones that they're better than women? Ok, I guess some of them do...

What this appears to come down to is an argument over which is better: Brains or Brawn; Mental Dexterity or Manual Dexterity; Intellectual Power or Physical Strength... and let's face it, there's no easy answer to that conundrum.

As I sit here and write this, I am yet again astounded by the way I can so easily be distracted from my original idea... This was going to be a mini-piece trumpeting to the world about how great I am for being able to add a "mail this to a friend" link to my blog, at the same time as creating a test scenario for work, while simultaneously writing an Operations Manual (also for work), concurrent with writing this blog!

To be honest, all I've really got to show for it right now are sore fingers from Alt+Tabbing every couple of seconds and a bit of a headache coming on...

Where's that jam-jar, so I can relax?

My theory about winning

I have a theory about how I win things. This is a personal theory, developed through the observation of my own environment and circumstances. As I haven't conducted any tests on its applicability to the wider community, i.e. anyone other than me, I cannot comment on its generalisability.

Anyway, enough preamble. Here's my theory on how I win things:
"If I genuinely don't, not even for a glimmering brief moment, have the slightest thought of winning cross my mind, then I might win."

This is the tricky bit - it means that winning is a completely unpredictable and unexpected outcome for me. I can't even anticipate, imagine, hope or speculate on what it might be like to win something that I have entered because if I do, I won't. I can't even consciously prevent, suppress or negate a thought of winning or think about not winning.

This might sound like a fairly pessimistic world view, but in fact it's not. Let me give you an example. Every Friday, my department in work runs a mini-lottery. You put your €2 into the pot and your name goes into the hat. If I think to myself "Ooh! it'd be lovely to win this week", or "Hmmm! last Friday before payday and I'm broke... I hope I win the lotto", or "Will I win?", or "I'll never win this week", or "I could do with the cash, so that means I won't win" at any point during the day, I won't. In fact, if I have any thought whatsoever about the outcome of the draw, there is no hope that I will win it.

But (and I think this is the great bit) anytime I do win, I haven't had the slightest inkling of a win, loose, or otherwise on the cards for me while I was handing over my cash. A completely genuine lack of consideration for the outcome of the event results in success!

Now, this theory has led me to speculate just how far I can extend the logic. Does it apply to anything good that I might like to happen to me, e.g. applying for a new job that I'd really like? If I really don't think about what it might be like to work in the new place, does that mean my chances of getting the job have been improved by my karmic resonance?

What about life in general? If I completely ignore and refuse to consider the possible outcome(s) of any situation I am in, will this mean that I will (proverbially, of course) always land on my feet? (I'm almost ready to give this strategy a go!)

Or by consciously deciding to never consider possible consequences for my actions, have I just cursed myself to a lifetime of mediocrity and nothing really good that I would have quite liked ever coming true for me?

Ooooh. Sometimes the metaphysical conundrums that I construct to pass the time on a Friday afternoon just end up freaking me out. That's why I normally don't post them, because then you'll start to see the inner workings of my brain, and even I get scared in there on occassion.

All good things must come to an end

Like my holidays.

They're over.

I'm back in work.

(Deep sigh)

A change is as good as a rest

As you can see, I've just changed my template - and a change for the better it is too. Thank you very much, Mr Dan Rubin.

The Comment bits are built into this new template, so they look much neater than they did on my old blog, but sadly, it appears that I've lost all the comments that have been put in since I started.

I am too lazy to go through and re-enter them. I know that I'm killing time between now and home-time (and haven't I been doing a fine job of it?!), but there's a line that I won't cross. I'm not that bored. Yet.

Anyhoo - I just wanted y'all to know that I didn't purposely remove your input from my blog. Though bear in mind, it's my blog and I'll delete if I want to!

(6 hours to being officially on holidays!)

Holidays are coming...

For the past fortnight, I've been anticipating today, and now that it's here, I hardly know how I'm going to manage to retain a professional veneer for another 7 hours because at this stage I just do not care. I have lost the will to work.

At 4.45 this afternoon, I will down tools and go home a little early. (I say a little early, but I go home at that time nearly every day. I haven't got it that easy though, because I usually start work at around 8.30, so it's all swings and roundabouts.) Strictly speaking from 4.45, I will be on my holidays. In reality, I am on my holidays already.

Both of my bosses happen to have taken today off work and I don't share my office with anyone else, so who will know if I lock the door and curl up under my desk for a little nap before I go for coffee later this morning? Who will catch me if I spend the entire day with my feet up on the desk, reading the newspaper? Who will be concerned that I spent my last few hours in the office blogging and emailing friends that I haven't been in touch with for a while? Who?

Oh, that's right, NO-ONE!!!!!!!!!

A-ha ha ha! A-ha ha ha ha ha!! Ahhh!

So, what am I doing for my holidays? Well, nothing too exciting. Tomorrow, my husband and I will head down to Cork for a party and then on Sunday or Monday, we'll tootle across the south, through Waterford, to Wexford. We'll spend a fortnight in Kilrane (a little village just outside of Rosslare, but nicer) pootling about, following brown sign-posts, walking, swimming, fishing, reading and writing my thesis. (He doesn't know it yet, but it will be a joint effort - oh yes!)

After that, I might decide that I like the life of leisure so much that I'll hand in my notice and quit my job. Though that's not terribly likely. I need my salary more than that particular moment of gratification... Dammit!

The Results Are In...

I know that your breath is bated (or maybe you're just holding it out of politeness, because you forgot to brush your teeth this morning and your breath is a bit stinky).

Last night saw the jury vote on the Nicest Beard Competition. There were three contestants in the final (the guy who shaved his off decided to let it grow back for the competition), five judges in situ, four postal votes and two independent referees to verify the result. There was even a tie-break round of questions in case the judges were unable to reach a majority verdict.

The three candidates lined up and the judges who were present had to stand beside their favourite beard. A secret ballot had been suggested and one of the guys had tried to organise a ballot box and a member of the Garda Siochána to stand beside it for security, but in the end that sounded like too much trouble and we weren't trying to oust a corrupt regime from government or anything so open voting was agreed by all.

Beard A: was not a bad showing from a first-timer. A little short still and not quite full enough around the chin for my taste, but there was a lot of potential for further beard development.

Beard B: was a healthy offering from the beardie-perennial. Not as much growth as I'm used to, but nicely rounded and full around the mouth and chin. As always, a bit thin on the cheeks - either make 'em grow out more or (preferably) tidy them off altogether.

Beard C: was a brave attempt from another beard-virgin. Striking contrast between dark brown/black hair and a completely ginger facial growth. Had disadvantaged himself by shaving earlier in the competition; growth was not nearly thick enough to compete with Beard A or Beard B - still at the bristly stage.

My vote had to go to Beard B. Of course. The four other live judges all voted for Beard A. One of the independent referees suggested that Beard A could enter a Jeremy Beadle look-alike competition. The other reckoned Brendan Grace. The postal votes were distributed: two to Beard B and two to Beard C.

There were accusations of Eurovision-like voting with cubicle-members voting for their local candidate, something akin to the Eastern bloc countries voting for each other or the Scandanavians banding together. The independent referees were called in. They found no evidence of jury-tampering or undue influence being applied to the judges.

The final scores were Beard A: 4; Beard B: 3; Beard C: 2. It was a landslide. The A's had it.

There really wasn't a need for the tie-breaker round, but we had it anyway. We were on a roll. Just as well we didn't need it to finalise the decision because the five beard questions were really tough and no-one knew any of the answers.

Finally, the prize giving ceremony: a Playmobil Bearded Viking (with a beard colour that most closely matched the contestant's beard) to each of the participants and the big play set that they came from to the overall winner.

We ought to have had some interval entertainment and closed with the National Anthem, but instead we drank and ate spicy chicken wings at the bar. I think that was the better option.

Nicest Beard Competition

To those of you who have been following the trials and tribulations of my life, or just reading my blog and the comments on it, I am pleased to announce that I will be sitting in judgement at the "Nicest Beard Competition" tonight.

This event will be held in the Life Bar, Irish Life Mall, Dublin 1 (Ireland, not Texas, for any of my geographically-challenged readers) from 5.30 this evening.

My sources tell me that there are just two combatants remaining in the contest. One went off to Thailand, where presumably, beard-growing is an optional occupation; the other gave up and shaved a fortnight ago on the grounds that he wasn't meeting enough women who were willing to kiss his hirsute visage. Apparently, the kissing (or lack thereof) was a greater danger to his self-esteem than being beaten by his peers, jeered at for being pussy-whipped and generally being humiliated in public. His testosterone-levels will also be called into question at the judging ceremony.

I will report back to my loyal readers tomorrow and let them know who won the coveted moniker of "Nicest Beard" - and no, we don't mean the "nicest lesbian companion of a gay man", though the talk of testosterone could have been misleading...

Riverpants

To any of you considering forking out your hard-earned cash to actually pay for a ticket to see the "cultural" extravaganza that is Riverdance, my advice is DON'T.

Oh my God. I sat through 2 hours of the most excrutiating torture I have ever endured last night. It was shockingly bad. The only good things about the whole experience were (a) the tickets were free and (b) we had really good seats, right in front of the stage. This last was a mixed blessing though. Not only could I see them, they could see me.

Christ - I was bored out of my gourd for most of it and then started to get really uncomfortable whenever the performers got too close to the edge of the stage (which was often), because they could see how unimpressed I was. I tried to smile encouragingly whenever my eyes met with theirs, but all I could muster was some sort of deranged rictus.

To be honest, I'm not sure which I liked least: the leading man with all the charisma of a turnip (say what you like about Michael Flately, at least he could inflame the passions, even if it was just the passion of hatred!)

Could it have been the thick-ankled girls, who danced about with their haon-dó-trís, and far more hip waggling than any of my Irish dancing teachers would ever have permitted. That sort of carry on would have been enough to have you sent home from the feis in disgrace! And if they're going to sex-up Irish dancing with a bit of pelvic gyration, why couldn't they allow the hatchet-faced wimmin to smile a bit. The make-up woman could have gone a little easier on the blusher too...

Or maybe it was the "cultural diversity", represented by a flamenco dancer, some Russian dancer combo thingie and some not-white folks - who were there to illustrate the hardship faced by Irish immigrants in America around the time of the Famine and how, despite their different dancing styles and the innate racism displayed by the Irish, they all became good friends.

Or could it have been the whooping and hollering audience of yokels and tourists, who actually believe that Riverdance is the greatest thing to come out of Ireland since Johnny Logan - and let's face it, they're on something of a par...

Not wanting to be a complete nay-sayer, I would like to mention that the "dance-off" was fantastic good fun and the woman who played the violin was excellent. Almost, though not entirely, worth sitting through the rest of the dross. Get it on DVD and do a scene selection - better yet, borrow the DVD from one of your friends. Though if my friends had bought the DVD, I would have to re-evaluate the friendship. People with that level of poor taste, in my house?

Riverdance? RiverPANTS, I say.

Nerd Alert

When I met my (now) husband for the very first time, I should have known better and probably run a mile. He had longish hair that was very thick, quite curly and slightly sun-bleached. He was wearing an extremely old-fashioned pair of glasses (which, it transpires, once belonged to his grandfather, so good spot!) He had on a very sloppy woolly cardigan. And he was wearing a pair (not just one) of long dangly cat earrings. He was easily the most interesting looking person in the room.

I didn't run. I was intrigued. I can remember thinking, "Cripes! [I didn't swear much back then, and indeed thought it was cute to talk - even to myself - like an English cartoon from the early 1980s] If only my mother could see the freaks I am hanging out with now!"

Fast-forward to ten years later and you can see me get less intimidated by the male species, more out-going, start swearing, try to stop swearing, grow up a bit, still watch English cartoons from the early 1980s, and marry the freak with the long hair and earrings!

In these last eleven years, I have got to know Con really well. He is as dippy as a brush, mad as a badger, and about as nerdy as they come. I found him at a party once, sitting on the stairs discussing the merits of Linux versus Unix with a fellow geek. In my innocence and naivete, I foolishly assumed that some sex with a real girl would help him function like a normal human being.

Wrong!

Don't misunderstand me. There's not a hope in hell that I'd swap or change him for all the tea in China. In all fairness, what are the alternatives? Illiterate, ignorant, self-important, pompous, callous, mysogynistic assholes? No thanks, I'm more than happy with my man. But God in heaven, what is it with the constant nerdiness?

I don't think that they're organised or even conscious, but he has competitions with his mates to try and out-geek each other. No, seriously, they do. The current enterprise is a "facial hair growing contest". The one before that was a "who writes the most on our blog" competition [see link to Lunchtime above] and before that "who can learn to play the guitar quickest". Nobody won the last one. There's still a guitar leaning against the wall in our bedroom gathering dust. The only time there's so much as a twang out of it is when the cat knocks it over.

So where is all this going? Nowhere, really. For some reason, over the past couple of days, I've been repeatedly struck (figuratively, not literally) by the unimaginable scope of nerdiness displayed by my husband. What can break this cycle? Do I really want the cycle broken?

After all, he may be a nerd, but he's my nerd.

House Guest Etiquette

1. Do not outstay your welcome
Example: Your sister invites you and your boyfriend over for supper on Thursday evening. You don't leave until they drop you home on Sunday.
This is known as outstaying your welcome, or in the vernacular of our times, taking the complete piss. Don't do it. Ever.

2. Do not stay in bed all day
Example: You stay up late, talking and drinking with your hosts. The next day they're up and about before noon but you don't surface until some time after 4p.m. The spare room where you're sleeping is also the study where one of your hosts has her desk, laptop and all the reference papers that she needs to work on her thesis but she can't do any of it, because you've spread all your stuff all over it and mixed up current documents with old stuff.
Doing this two nights/days in a row is liable to end up with your host speaking ill of you for the next fortnight. At least.

3. Offer to cook a meal
Example: Your sister and her husband invite some friends over for dinner on Saturday night. You and your boyfriend invite yourselves along, seeing as you're there anyway. Your boyfriend offers to cook dinner for everyone. This will get you brownie points and probably means that you'll be able to blag another overnighter.
Great! Just for God's sake clean the kitchen after you. Your sister will not appreciate having to spend two hours on Sunday morning cleaning up her kitchen that was clean before your boyfriend started cooking.

4. Don't ask stupid questions
Example: You've just woken up. It's 4p.m. Your sister and her husband are watching a programme on TV. You come into the sitting room and start asking inane questions about the programme that is half way through.
Just sit quietly and watch. You might pick it up. If you don't, it doesn't matter because it's nearly over anyway. Whoever said that there are no stupid questions, just stupid answers was wrong. There are plenty of stupid questions.

If I think of any more guidelines, I'll publish them again. There may be a book in this!

House Hunting

Anyone who's been through the process of looking for a place to live knows how much of a pain in the ass it is. Whether you're renting or buying, it's a shocker. Looking for somewhere that you could see yourself staying in and liking - a place that looks nice, somewhere you wouldn't be embarrassed to have your friends or your parents come visit you at - makes it into the second circle of Hell.

(I think that there may be a seperate blog in this - I should really put down what I think falls into those seven circles of Hell... a job for another day though. I should probably populate my Room 101 while I'm about it too.)

It's even harder when you're part of a couple because then you've got to take two peoples' tastes into consideration. There will be compromise and one (or both) will end up putting up with stuff (not necessarily the same stuff, assuming there are no major communication difficulties. Given the stress levels involved in moving, however, this cannot be guaranteed) they hate (or just don't like very much) because the other person likes it. Maybe overall, women win on this score, so I shouldn't grouse too much about it. The point is still valid though.

To be perfectly honest, while the looking is in itself a bit boring, it's not until you bring in the Affordability Factor that things really reach the point of abject demoralisation. You find the place you love but it's beyond the scope of your pocket. You know this. You try to put it out of your mind. Put it behind you. But all the time it's lurking in your subconscious mind. Silently comparing all other houses you look at against itself and finding them lacking. You think "Maybe..." but you know that you're just fooling yourself. Your subconscious picks up on the hesitation - feeds it, nurtures it, encourages it...

You start to resent your job. You work so hard and you're (a) undervalued, (b) underpaid and - this is the real clincher - (c) don't earn enough to buy your dream house. Damn their eyes! You start to resent your partner for not earning enough to be able to buy the house of your dreams for you. Damn them all!

The whole damn world is out to piss you off. You know it. They know it. And those bastards are having a good giggle when they think you're not looking, and don't bother to try and hide it when they know you are.

This is Day 2 of "We're only looking to see what's around and don't have any plans to move or buy or do anything for at least another 3 months". My marriage and mental health are doomed.

Does anyone know a good estate agent?

Sometimes, ya gotta back down a little...

Before I start, let me just say that I *still* hate watching sport on TV. And I still resent perfectly good programming time being wasted to air (inter alia) rubbish football matches.

That said, I did watch a bit of the Euro 2004 final last night. And I was cheering (though you wouldn't have known it to look at me, seeing as I wasn't actually cheering out loud, or anything undignified and hypocritical like that) for Greece.

I wanted the Greeks to win the tournament for the following reasons:
1. They were the underdogs

OK, there was only one reason. They'd been written off by all the soccer pundits and in classic Greek style, they raised their hands in the sign of the evil eye and put the kybosh on all the other teams, and against all the odds, got to the final. Shock-horror! They even won it!

Fan-bloody-tastic! So this is where I back down a little on my rant about sport on TV... but this is also where the point that I tried so inelegantly to make about the useless and far more irritating post-match commentary really comes into it's own.

There now follows a loose re-enactment of the exchange between that soccer genius, Eamonn "Grumpy" Dunphy and Some Other Famous (on RTE) Sporting Commentator:

E"G"D: (in a tone of disgust) In every village and town where this game is played, all over the country and all over Europe, coaches and managers will be pointing at Greece and holding them up as role-models.

SOFSC: But they won

E"G"D: They're a rubbish team

SOFSC: But they won

E"G"D: Who the hell do they think they are? Coming to Portugal and playing like a bunch of amateurs?

SOFSC: Who? The winners?

E"G"D: Whine, whine, whine. I'm a whiney bitch

SOFSC: At last! Something everyone can agree on

And so say all of us!

Who says the Gods don't have a sense of humour?

Just because I don't think they're very funny doesn't mean that they're not laughing... those twisted beggars!

After my rant about Tommy the Bus Driver yesterday, I decided to cheer myself up by leaving work early and having a nice long evening of doing stuff that I wanted to do. Imagine my shock, if you will, when the early bus came round the corner being driven by none other than... (probably no need for a drumroll, because you've already guessed)... Tommy!

Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. I could hear the Fates and the Furies all sitting around, sharing an eye and cackling. Blind Io even snorted milk out his nose (but that might have been caused by something else, because he couldn't actually see what was going on. Perhaps one of the others told him. I don't know).

I was willing yesterday to allow the Gods their triumph over the petty affairs of humans. I even laughed a bit myself. Well, grimaced. But in a mostly good-humoured way.

This morning was a different story though. I was on time. I caught my usual bus. Why then, was bloody Tommy driving it again??? Gods, it's not funny anymore. The joke is over. Please?

Tommy the Bus Driver

Tommy is a bus driver
I'm sure he's very nice
He's middle aged and fraying
But at least he don't have lice

Tommy is a bus driver
He drives his bus real slow
And when I see him at the wheel
My spirits plummet low

This morning I was running late
By ten minutes and no more
I caught a slightly later bus
Oh no! Tommy opened the door

I live about an hour away from work
On the other side of the city
But when Tommy drives me there or back
In the end, my mood is shitty

Two hours it took this morning
For Tommy to get me there
By the time I reached my workplace
I was tearing out my hair

Tommy is a bus driver
I'm sure he's very nice
One day I'm gonna go postal
And Tommy'll pay the price

Tommy is a bus driver
He drives just too damn slow
Though I know that I am too tense
And should just go with the flow

When two people love each other very, very much...

I got some major news last night. Two of my best friends (let's call them James and Gerard because those are their names) are splitting up!

James and Gerard have lived together for about eight years and it is probably worth mentioning that they are not actually a couple. To be honest, we all thought that they were heterosexual life partners and nothing would (or could) come between them. They even shared a girlfriend for a while a few years ago (though again, I should clarify that Gerard liked the girl and invited her to a party at our house and then she and James hooked up, so there wasn't any actual sharing).

But now a woman, yes! a woman, has broken up the match made in heaven. James is leaving Gerard to live with his lady-love.

I'm a little confused by my feelings at the moment. I feel sad that two people, who are obviously made for one another, are splitting up; but I'm also really pleased for James and Ms Anonymous (I don't know her well enough to be comfortable publishing her identity on the Internet). Plus I'm delighted that Brown Thomas are having a sale at the moment, so I can go and buy a really nice outfit and a hat for their wedding...

Confusion - dissipating...
Let the spending commence!

Intrusive Sports

I hate sport. At least, I hate watching sport on TV. It's so unbearably dull.

Now, I don't want you to think that I'm some sort of Jabba-the-Hut couch-potato. I'm moderately athletic, though I'm not about to win any medals, but I do exercise - mostly by running - and I enjoy that plenty. Not boring at all. I still find my brain numbed to exhaustion watching other people doing it. I love swimming and I used to do it a lot (in my *much* younger days). In fact, I trained competitively. But to spend an hour in front of a TV, watching other people splash up and down a 50m pool is reminiscent of the first circle of Hell as far as I'm concerned.

Where is this going? The summer schedule for TV is rubbish. All the regular programmes have been mooched around to make room for - you guessed it - sport! Gah! Endless and mindless hours of men running around a big field chasing a ball, while old fogies who used to run around a big field chasing a ball tell us about how the young guys aren't running around a big field and chasing a ball the way they did in their day.

I'm probably in a slightly worse situation than many people as far as this goes, because I only have four (that's right American viewers, four) channels. Two of them seem to devote their entire evening's programming to football, so this is cutting my viewing options in half. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, there's nothing but sport, ads for sport, support for sport, references to sport... it's endless.

It is so intrusive - I can't get away from it. What's worse is, when this Euro 2004 madness is over, I've got the bloody Olympic games to look forward to. There's also the Grand Prix (thankfully, that's only every other weekend, rather than every night), horse racing and GAA football and hurling.

While ranting about this to some like-minded (mostly female, I must admit to the stereotype) friends yesterday, I had an epiphany. It's only partly related to the main rant, but it did help me to clarify some ideas in my head. Would you like me to share my blinding insight with you all? Of course you would...

Teams are for losers who can't win on their own!

Decisions, decisions...

I have been invited to join another blog.
It's quite a good one too - it's even got people who read it.
Some of the people who read it don't even know the people who write it!
I'm a big fan of this other blog (see link to Lunchtime, Poetry & Pain; it'll be worth your while), though anyone who knows me will be aware of my bias and the reasons for it.
(For those of you who don't know, my husband and some of his friends write it, hence the favourable bias.)

Anyhoo - here's my quandary (it comes in two installments):

Quandary part (a)
If I were to start blogging on Lunchtime, then chances are Tirade would fall by the wayside. Is this a good thing?

In the first place, I suppose it depends on how you feel about Tirade. If this is a load of rubbish, then who's gonna miss it?

Secondly though, I always feel that a woman needs some sort of independence, even if she's perfectly happy with her current co-dependent status. So even if I do join the other blog, I could always have this to come back to. Nor is there anything stopping me from posting to both.

Quandary part (b)
Lunchtime is really good. It's funny and topical (or at least I think so). Would I be too far out of my league if I were to start posting there? Would I be lowering the standard that regular Lunchtime readers have come to expect?

I refer you back to the first part of my answer to quandary part (a). If this is a load of rubbish, then I should just stay the hell away!

Finally, the Lunchtime writers all work (and occasionally even have lunch) together, so I don't really fit the rhyming scheme!

What to do? What to do?

I'm not very good at this...

I know that I'm not very good at this regular posting lark. I've promised myself that I'll do better - but I do have a couple of valid excuses, which I will share with you here:

1. Exams
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, I've been doing a Masters degree for the past two years and my final exams were held at the start of this month. My priorities were perhaps a little skewed for wanting to study, rather than post on my blog. Now, that excuse is gone. The exams are done. Whoo-hoo! I should have more free time to do things that I can blog about...

2. Thesis
My thesis for aforementioned degree is due in by the end of July. I haven't really started it yet. I should. Once that's done, I'll have more free time to do things that I can blog about...

3. Lack of Interest
Don't get me wrong - I'm very interested in this blogging stuff. I feel like I could be very good at it. I know that I don't post enough to attract anyone else's interest, but perhaps I need to get the hang of it a little more before I engage in any serious self-publicising - I'd be embarrassed at this stage if I thought anyone was actually reading this rubbish... but if anyone is, a little bit of encouragement wouldn't go astray. Just a comment to let me know that someone - anyone - is reading this. (Anyone that isn't me, that is!)

The end of an era

Ladies and Gentlemen...

It's been a long hard slog and there were times I wondered what the hell I was doing... Worse, why the hell I was doing what I was doing... but the end is at last in sight!

Last night was my final lecture of a two-year part-time Masters degree. I have had my life filled with this nonsense for two whole years, and now that I've got my nights back to myself, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself!!!

OK, so I'm not finished yet. I do have two exams left and a thesis to write, but none of this is insurmountable. I can do that. I've already done six exams for this course and countless other exams in my life, so two more can't be that hard. (Also, in a bizarre twist of bizarreness, I've got better and doing them as I've got older... who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

As for my thesis... Well, I may not have actually started writing the bugger, but I've been thinking about it. A lot. And doing a lot of reading around the subject. I'll probably be one of the most well-read ignoramuses (should that be ignoramii?) in the world, ever!

I'll keep y'all posted with progress reports on this thesis bunkum. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll keep myself posted!

The herd needs to be culled

or: Why some people should not be allowed to breed

Grrrr.... Arrrghhhh!
Last night, at a quarter to eleven, I was watching the end of Fraiser, just before I went to bed, when I heard screaming coming from outside my apartment. Now, there are often teenagers running amok up and down the road outside, screaming and roaring, but if you ignore it long enough it goes away. Not so last night.

I went out onto my balcony to see if I could see any action, but no... The screaming seemed to be coming from one of the townhouses along the block where I live, so I grabbed my keys and wandered out for a look.

Imagine my horror, when I found a seven-year old girl sitting on an outer windowsill, 3 storeys up, wailing for her parents. It turns out that the child was spending the weekend with her father, who had gone to the pub for the last night of legal indoor smoking (thanks for that, Minister Martin - more rantage on that later). She had been left in the care of her "uncle", who one can only guess got bored with the company of a seven-year-old, and left her locked in the house alone so that he too could go to the pub.

I'm not sure what to be angriest about...
The fact that some muppets without enough sense to use a condom would leave a young child alone, or in the "care" of someone who patently doesn't... Some people do not deserve to have children.

Or the fact that out of an apartment/townhouse complex of 400 units, I was the only person to take any heed of the terrified screams of that child. One other couple who happened to be passing on their way home came by to try help out and I think a neighbour from across the road called the police - either way, out of a possible (approximately) 800 people in the immediate vicinity, only four made any sort of effort to help. What is wrong with our society?

Laptop Paradise Found

Following on from my stress-induced paranoia earlier, I am now rejoicing!
(Many people who know me are also concerned about my manic-depressive tendancies)

Anyhoo, I digress... I have wonderful news, people...
My super-duper genius of a husband has managed to recover all of the data from my harddrive.
All is not lost - I might get my first class honours yet.

Laptop Paradise Lost

There are many different types of sadness and upset. I have experienced plenty of them in my years.
I have been so upset that I have cried until my head was sore
I have been so upset that I could feel the moment my heart broke
I have been so upset that I was only able to scream silently

Most people who know me think I tend to over-react to situations. I am the sort of person who normally has a good rant, or yell, or cry and then I'm over whatever incident has upset me.

This is a different kind of upset. I have been upset for two days. I have not had a reaction yet. I am deathly calm. I think this is happening to someone else.

I have been studying for a Masters Degree for two years. My last two exams are in six weeks. My thesis is due for submission in four months. I have been working very hard. My personal life and my health have suffered.

Two days ago, I fried my laptop. Every article I have read, every class note I have taken, every assignment I have submitted was on that laptop. I have lost all the work I've done over the past two years. Gone. All of it. Everything.

I have been telling this story. I have been laughing about it. I think it's hysterically funny. Like I said, I think this is happening to someone else.