For quite some time I have been charmed on a daily basis by the 'Irish flirty something' blog. In fact, she is witty, amusing and, if I didn't know better, sounds a lot like a mate of mine.
Last week, in a new and exciting development, she said that she had a lovely lad up at her apartment and promised more details at a later date - presumably when there had been more dates and she could reveal more about him. Then she suspended the blog. So, the mystery not only deepens, it thickens too.
Being fond of the occassional mini-adventure myself (stretching from mild but persistant flirtation to regular - or irregular - whatever else you can imagine)(not that, you dirty swine)(or that either - not sure that's even legal in Ireland)(stop it, now you are just making a pig of yourself) there are a few simple rules:
1. Don't tell anyone. At best you look like a free spirit who is perhaps a shade mature for these shinnegans. At worst, you look like a desperate slapper.
2. Don't tell anyone. As these things are rarely planned, you really don't have all the data on this guy so you have no idea who you'll be offending/hurting/embarrassing. Including yourself.
3. Don't tell anyone. Your friends and family, keen to see you happy and settled, will just jump on each one with wild enthusiasm and clapping of hands. Watch sisters immediately start to plan matching hats/shoes/bags and where the reception will be.
4. Don't tell anyone. Or, to be more accurate, be careful enough that there is nothing to tell afterwards. On a variety of levels.
There ends my sermon. I have no idea what happened to the other blog, I trust that she is OK and that whoever she was romancing is worth the loss of her tremendous on-line persona.
But I doubt it.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Newest obsession
This is not a great development. Ziplock bags.
I am clearing out my sister's house while she is on honeymoon as the happy couple are moving to the new house almost the second they come back to the country - and she said that she would pay for my ticket to New York if I did.
Moo lives in a great house - three bed terrace, turn of the last century, red brick. Lovely. But while she is relatively tidy she doesn't separate or file things. Ordinarily, this wouldn't bother me one whit. However, as I get more and more into this, I find that I am beginning to develop OCD-like symptoms.
An example of this is that as I have cleared out each room, the small change and make-up lying around in each one has been gathered into bags in the front room. The make-up/skincare bag ended up as a very full big black sack. I couldn't leave it alone. Armed with ziplock bags, I have separated the paraphernalia into lipsticks, eye make-up, skin care, sun care, etc., etc. She has over 30 lipsticks, for instance. I have 2 (day and evening). No wonder she is married and I am still single. She clearly understands that make-up wields magic and its properties are not to be underestimated.
Looking at my handiwork with the make-up, and having plenty of bags left, I tackled her jewellery - now every item or set has its own handy bag.
Then I sorted the change into one and five euro bags.
The really worrying issue is that I am now trying to think of something else that needs similar sorting.
Is this the onset of single middle age? Are cats and 'handy bits of twine' next? Am I about to find myself smelling of damp wool if not worse?
I was watching a programme last night where this old bloke was pontificating about the kind of women he likes when he dropped the phrase 'touched by Autumn' applying to 40+ ladies. I almost spat the dummy. Not being so far off that myself I take great umbrage at this description. Autumn indeed. I'm barely halfway through my bloody Summer.
Humph.
I am clearing out my sister's house while she is on honeymoon as the happy couple are moving to the new house almost the second they come back to the country - and she said that she would pay for my ticket to New York if I did.
Moo lives in a great house - three bed terrace, turn of the last century, red brick. Lovely. But while she is relatively tidy she doesn't separate or file things. Ordinarily, this wouldn't bother me one whit. However, as I get more and more into this, I find that I am beginning to develop OCD-like symptoms.
An example of this is that as I have cleared out each room, the small change and make-up lying around in each one has been gathered into bags in the front room. The make-up/skincare bag ended up as a very full big black sack. I couldn't leave it alone. Armed with ziplock bags, I have separated the paraphernalia into lipsticks, eye make-up, skin care, sun care, etc., etc. She has over 30 lipsticks, for instance. I have 2 (day and evening). No wonder she is married and I am still single. She clearly understands that make-up wields magic and its properties are not to be underestimated.
Looking at my handiwork with the make-up, and having plenty of bags left, I tackled her jewellery - now every item or set has its own handy bag.
Then I sorted the change into one and five euro bags.
The really worrying issue is that I am now trying to think of something else that needs similar sorting.
Is this the onset of single middle age? Are cats and 'handy bits of twine' next? Am I about to find myself smelling of damp wool if not worse?
I was watching a programme last night where this old bloke was pontificating about the kind of women he likes when he dropped the phrase 'touched by Autumn' applying to 40+ ladies. I almost spat the dummy. Not being so far off that myself I take great umbrage at this description. Autumn indeed. I'm barely halfway through my bloody Summer.
Humph.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Random One
I find this whole modern movement towards insipid morality unquestionably dull. And generally, promoted by phenomenally plain people. I mean to say, it isn't even good conversation.
(I can call them plain with impunity, being somewhat plain myself. Distressingly, however, as my age advances, I am moving glacially from 'plain' to 'unsightly'. Like a wart.)
I suppose without it, they are doomed. Doomed. Genetically speaking: cul de sacs.
Unless they are witty to make up for their unsightliness, in which case, their attitude is as perplexing as their ankles are unappetising. They should get anyone they want and would be treasured above the proverbial rubies and diamonds.
(I can call them plain with impunity, being somewhat plain myself. Distressingly, however, as my age advances, I am moving glacially from 'plain' to 'unsightly'. Like a wart.)
I suppose without it, they are doomed. Doomed. Genetically speaking: cul de sacs.
Unless they are witty to make up for their unsightliness, in which case, their attitude is as perplexing as their ankles are unappetising. They should get anyone they want and would be treasured above the proverbial rubies and diamonds.
Going mad
I know that this is hardly original, but I think I may be going completely off my rocker due to the weather. It isn't just the driving and relentless nature of the downpours - we are Irish and are almost permanently damp afterall - it is the total and utter lack of sunshine which has chased away any semblence of a collection of marbles I had left. Wits are now scrambled to the point that if I had any more of them, I could just about qualify as a half-wit. My next posting may well be from Shady Pines Home for the Bewildered, Lilac Wing, Peony Ward.
We had a few hours of brightness yesterday and I was giddy as a schoolgirl with delight. Genuinely. There was a fiesta in my heart.
Then this morning, this. This bloody awful, torrential, dark god awful weather. Scurrying across St. Stephen's Green it thickened so badly that there was no point in taking shelter, I was already as wet as it was physically possible to be. This guy was walking towards me - also looking like he had been attacked by a bucket of water, in fact a toddlers' paddling pool full - who just started to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it. Kind of contagious. There were a few of us sodden idiots grinning and standing around for a moment. Not a long moment. It was in the middle of a downpour afterall.
My slow-boat-to-china friend Sinead left for a long weekend in Roundstone this morning with her honey Malachy. She has thoughtfully sent me a picture of her first glass of white wine from outside the pub where she is only waiting for a small cauldron of the best seafood chowder in the world (O'Dowds) to be served - steamy and lovely and creamy - to complete the bliss.
You can imagine mine. I am now psychotically annoyed. Genuinely, sending a text like that is akin to bombing an orphanage in wartime. Too easy a target. Randomly but effectively irritating and/or devestating. When they are next reviewing the charter of human rights, they should stick this clause in after the one about access to clean water.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Am grumpy (No. Moi? C'est pas vrai). So will take my mood off line.
We had a few hours of brightness yesterday and I was giddy as a schoolgirl with delight. Genuinely. There was a fiesta in my heart.
Then this morning, this. This bloody awful, torrential, dark god awful weather. Scurrying across St. Stephen's Green it thickened so badly that there was no point in taking shelter, I was already as wet as it was physically possible to be. This guy was walking towards me - also looking like he had been attacked by a bucket of water, in fact a toddlers' paddling pool full - who just started to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it. Kind of contagious. There were a few of us sodden idiots grinning and standing around for a moment. Not a long moment. It was in the middle of a downpour afterall.
My slow-boat-to-china friend Sinead left for a long weekend in Roundstone this morning with her honey Malachy. She has thoughtfully sent me a picture of her first glass of white wine from outside the pub where she is only waiting for a small cauldron of the best seafood chowder in the world (O'Dowds) to be served - steamy and lovely and creamy - to complete the bliss.
You can imagine mine. I am now psychotically annoyed. Genuinely, sending a text like that is akin to bombing an orphanage in wartime. Too easy a target. Randomly but effectively irritating and/or devestating. When they are next reviewing the charter of human rights, they should stick this clause in after the one about access to clean water.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Am grumpy (No. Moi? C'est pas vrai). So will take my mood off line.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Oumph. Free floating sense of shame hangover
The other night, my mate Andrew offered to cook a quiet meal for us as I was having a bit of a quiet weekend.
He's a good cook in fact (TV chef), and I like my nosh, so I was delighted. I bobbled along with a nice bottle of Rose - thinking, foolishly but optimistically, that the weather would hold and we could have a civilised glass in the garden before tucking in.
Then I started to drink. A lot. So much in fact, that the sight of his flatmate coming into the kitchen with his guitar - a spectacle guaranteed on all other occasions to fill my heart with glumness and a distinct lack of glee - had me in transports, convulsions even, of delight. Roaring out the (at the time) extremely moving lyrics to 'Rainy night in SoHo'. It takes a rare talent indeed to make Shane McGowan sound like an angel, but using me as a basis for comparison, his tones are mellifluous and one would think that Heaven's choir was missing their soloist.
Tears of emotion coursed down my cheeks throughout the third and, I am reliably informed, the sixth rendition.
Wobbled home. Flung myself into the leaba and woke the next day velcro'ed to the bed by the hangover. You know if it has been a particularly good evening when you feel mildly suicidal half way through the hangover. That free floating sense of shame, a clue that something didn't quite go to plan with the whole 'sophisticated woman of the world, mystery is her name' persona last night. We all know it. Denial is futile.
Indeed.
I am all class. No doubt about it.
He's a good cook in fact (TV chef), and I like my nosh, so I was delighted. I bobbled along with a nice bottle of Rose - thinking, foolishly but optimistically, that the weather would hold and we could have a civilised glass in the garden before tucking in.
Then I started to drink. A lot. So much in fact, that the sight of his flatmate coming into the kitchen with his guitar - a spectacle guaranteed on all other occasions to fill my heart with glumness and a distinct lack of glee - had me in transports, convulsions even, of delight. Roaring out the (at the time) extremely moving lyrics to 'Rainy night in SoHo'. It takes a rare talent indeed to make Shane McGowan sound like an angel, but using me as a basis for comparison, his tones are mellifluous and one would think that Heaven's choir was missing their soloist.
Tears of emotion coursed down my cheeks throughout the third and, I am reliably informed, the sixth rendition.
Wobbled home. Flung myself into the leaba and woke the next day velcro'ed to the bed by the hangover. You know if it has been a particularly good evening when you feel mildly suicidal half way through the hangover. That free floating sense of shame, a clue that something didn't quite go to plan with the whole 'sophisticated woman of the world, mystery is her name' persona last night. We all know it. Denial is futile.
Indeed.
I am all class. No doubt about it.
My first blog
Well, to be more accurate, the first blog I am telling anyone about.
The other was a very poor, navel gazing, pain in the arse whinge about Poor Me which was dreadfully self-indulgent and, for that very reason, secret.
Like an on-line vomitorium into which I could discretely puke out my angst upon occasion.
I had one reader (random - God Knows how he/she stumbled across it) who was loyal but weird, and not in the 'funky shoes, have a good time, let's see what tequila and absinthe do to your head/liver/police record when combined late on a Friday night' kind of way. More of the 'you are not alone' kind of way.
I was living in New York at the time, so being alone would have been a luxury frankly. Was sharing a small (teeny tiny) apartment with a mate and his girlfriend and their two, revolting, cats. Who never left the apartment. Ever. One was psychotic and the other virtually blind. They stunk, literally and figuratively. The cats that is. The people were delightful. Obviously.
Although my reader was entertaining in a train wreck sort of way, eventually her/his comments were far better than the blog, and I wasn't into the competition, so I've left them to it.
On an entirely separate subject, it was my little sister's wedding recently. Fantastic day, full of love, joie de vie, etc. However, I am now, officially, the single spinster sister. Fuck.
Inevitably, throughout the course of the day, (mainly elderly) relatives with nothing else to say, but desperately filling the conversational gap, would gleefully comment 'It'll be you next', despite, may I add, that I had gone stag to the day?
I've taken names. The next family funeral, I'll be returning the compliment.
Here's the thing, in the run up to the wedding, I was being treated for a throat thing so had no voice.
None.
Not even a whisper.
For a whole week.
Now, me without a voice is clearly a crime against nature - although some would say also a blessing.
I was supposed to be doing a reading at said sister's wedding. Being possessed of a dark sense of humour and an over developed sense of the ridiculous, she wasn't letting me off the hook, regardless of the fact that we have a perfectly good brother who had no role whatsoever and who I am sure would have been thrilled to step into the breach.
At one point, it looked very much as if I would have to do a reading from the book of Ruth through freeform interpretive dance. With no music. Because I know how much people love that.
My own family would appreciate the irony, but John's family would have been stunned to a fearful silence. There'd be a stampede to the bar as soon as we'd leave the church. Mind you there would have been anyway. Any wedding I've been to has been akin to a 'last man standing' drinking competition punctuated by speeches.
Anyway, all was well on the day. I whispered my reading into the mic. Some, who clearly don't know me, thought I was choked with emotion. The rest were just baffled.
Better to be baffling to the masses than single, sane and sad I say.
The other was a very poor, navel gazing, pain in the arse whinge about Poor Me which was dreadfully self-indulgent and, for that very reason, secret.
Like an on-line vomitorium into which I could discretely puke out my angst upon occasion.
I had one reader (random - God Knows how he/she stumbled across it) who was loyal but weird, and not in the 'funky shoes, have a good time, let's see what tequila and absinthe do to your head/liver/police record when combined late on a Friday night' kind of way. More of the 'you are not alone' kind of way.
I was living in New York at the time, so being alone would have been a luxury frankly. Was sharing a small (teeny tiny) apartment with a mate and his girlfriend and their two, revolting, cats. Who never left the apartment. Ever. One was psychotic and the other virtually blind. They stunk, literally and figuratively. The cats that is. The people were delightful. Obviously.
Although my reader was entertaining in a train wreck sort of way, eventually her/his comments were far better than the blog, and I wasn't into the competition, so I've left them to it.
On an entirely separate subject, it was my little sister's wedding recently. Fantastic day, full of love, joie de vie, etc. However, I am now, officially, the single spinster sister. Fuck.
Inevitably, throughout the course of the day, (mainly elderly) relatives with nothing else to say, but desperately filling the conversational gap, would gleefully comment 'It'll be you next', despite, may I add, that I had gone stag to the day?
I've taken names. The next family funeral, I'll be returning the compliment.
Here's the thing, in the run up to the wedding, I was being treated for a throat thing so had no voice.
None.
Not even a whisper.
For a whole week.
Now, me without a voice is clearly a crime against nature - although some would say also a blessing.
I was supposed to be doing a reading at said sister's wedding. Being possessed of a dark sense of humour and an over developed sense of the ridiculous, she wasn't letting me off the hook, regardless of the fact that we have a perfectly good brother who had no role whatsoever and who I am sure would have been thrilled to step into the breach.
At one point, it looked very much as if I would have to do a reading from the book of Ruth through freeform interpretive dance. With no music. Because I know how much people love that.
My own family would appreciate the irony, but John's family would have been stunned to a fearful silence. There'd be a stampede to the bar as soon as we'd leave the church. Mind you there would have been anyway. Any wedding I've been to has been akin to a 'last man standing' drinking competition punctuated by speeches.
Anyway, all was well on the day. I whispered my reading into the mic. Some, who clearly don't know me, thought I was choked with emotion. The rest were just baffled.
Better to be baffling to the masses than single, sane and sad I say.
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