New Zealand

New Zealand, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

Look how far away New Zealand is! This is ridiculous. Long-distance relationships never work. I think I will have to cut her off without a bean. Unless she brings me back an elf from Lothlorien.

Tra-la-la!

Theory Test, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

This blog is Worth...

My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?

Can't talk, terribly busy

Have driver theory test in three hours and unwisely decided not to revise any questions which contained numbers or calculations. Must go learn them now. Also am stressed over Joanne leaving me for New Zealand and over my persistant ulcer/encroaching death. I would stop and tell you all about the semi-molestation and assault on my person on Friday night but I just dropped tuna on the keyboard and my lunch will never get eaten if I don't give it all my attention.

PS: If my ulcer proves life-threatening I expect I will be moved to some institute in Switzerland for observation. If this happens I will reveal the password to my blogger account in a series of cryptic crossword clues, published daily, so that one of you can log in and post news of my illness for my fans. Watch the skies! And, obviously, the puzzle pages.

Ladies Slip

Ladies Slip, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

Ah, the Ladies' Slip.

Scene of many a Tramore courtship, if you know what I mean. Where Tramore youngsters go to get better acquainted with the object of their affection. Are you following me?

SEX IS HAD. THERE. ON THE BEACH.

Not that I'd know, obviously. I was told about it. By, eh, Marie. Can't IMAGINE how she found out.

Jenny got a puppy!

Jenny's bitch, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

I want a puppy! I said to my mum, 'Mummy, I want a puppy!' and she just looked at me and pointed out that I HAD gotten a puppy nine years ago and looked across at the dog asleep on the couch with his tongue out, and I said I didn't want that big smelly thing, I wanted a clean little puppy!

Then she locked me in my room because I was annoying her. BOLD MUMMY!

Lucy Fucks Up

I have spent the past hour stapling together copies of the two Harry Potter quizzes I was supposed to do over the weekend but ended up doing during my dinner hour today.

BECAUSE I AM A BOLD GIRL AND LAZED ABOUT ALL WEEKEND. I AM GOING TO LIBRARIAN HELL. WHERE ALL THE BOOKS LIE ABOUT WITH THEIR SPINES BROKEN AND EVERYONE YELLS.

Anyway. I have only just noticed now, after stapling 60 copies of the thing, that the test for the older children which is made up of harder questions to satisfy even the most compulsive of Harry Potter readers, subtitled the genius quiz, has a typo. A rather amusing one.

I misspelled genius.

I've decided to claim it's post-modern irony. They might just buy it.

Good grief

I am having palpitations just reading about this film. Right now I want to take it home and cook it dinner. I'll make do with queueing outside the cinema until it opens.

UPDATE: Fucking November? And the Arctic Monkeys aren't out till next year?! How dumb do I look right now?

So I look in your direction but you pay me no attention

What is wrong with Google talk? I accidentally installed it on one of the library PCs about 2 months ago and forgot about it and this morning, when I clicked idly on the icon to remove it (Mother: Get rid of that stupid google thing off my computer, would you? I don't want to read all your emails, thank you very much.), I discovered I had loads of little messages from people, wondering where I was and why I wasn't replying. It's been claiming I've been constantly online since August!

Muchos de apologies, friends. Apparently, failing to log out will do that to you. Who would have thought it!

Something deep inside

I have a pain in my stomach. I told my mother last night: 'Mummy! My tummy hurts!'
She eyed me warily and skulled a glass of wine before answering: 'I think- hic!- you are not getting enough exercise.'

My mother eschews all conventional medicine, by the way. Her answer to most ailments is a long walk or going to bed early. THIS IS ALL. Maybe a lemsip, if you're lucky. A body part would have to be hanging off before she would allow you to go to the doctors. I am only telling you this in case I die of gastro-fatal stuff during the night and you need to build a case for child-neglect against the woman. This morning she actually tried to get me to walk the back strand with her. THAT IS EIGHT FUCKING MILES, MAN. And she told me to go study for my theory test. Pah, I say.

*Blushing nervously*

I'm linked by Outer Life!

I'm all aflutter. Attention from people of this calibre unnerves me. What can one talk about to people who don't blog about how their hair is lying crooked today or why they think they're going to have soup for the tea or how they fell over while drunk? I'm embarrassed just being linked there. I can't even comment on smart people's blogs 'cos I never know what to say. So I'm sorry if I never return comments. I'm too fucking thick.

Funny looking hair or falling over I CAN DO. Anything less trivial I will undoubtedly fuck up.

Anyway, I'm touched. But not in the good places.

In the Interim

Right. My week:

Monday: Woke up. Worked. Cooked 2 litres of pasta sauce, a roast chicken and meatballs. Froze former. Put books away on bookshelves. Considered putting some kind of order on them. Decided against it. Jenny and Mairead came over. Discussed horse-racing. Stared dumbly into mid-air. Went to bed.

Tuesday: Woke up. Worked. Walked dog. Considered putting clothes away in wardrobe. Decided against it. Drank half bottle of wine. Watched 'I love 1980'. Realised I wasn't born then. Felt depressed. Rang Aoife. Slept.

Wednesday: Woke up. Worked. Visited Liz. Walked in dog sh*t. Went driving in car park with mother. Learnt how to indicate. Very difficult. Was supposed to watch video in Mairead's house. Didn't. Cooked coq au vin. Forgot vin. So it was Coq au vin sans vin.

Thursday: Woke up. Felt sick. Mother advised exercise. I disagreed. Old lady told me I was ugly. Went driving with mother. Stalled four hundred billion times. Cooked dinner. Had fag in deck chair out back with overcoat on. Felt blue. Jenny came over. Watched Eastenders. Sally came home. Tried to impress her by showing how I could recite all the lyrics to Golddigga. Forgot whole verse. Looked for M.I.A. CD to show Sally. Couldn't find it. Decided Aoife must have stolen it cos she loves M.I.A. so much.

Friday: Woke up. Walked to work. Felt better. Read complementary comment on blog. Felt MILES better. Read nice email off Aoife. Felt terrific. Decided must get M.I.A. CD back off the b*tch though. Liz called in. Finished making out Harry Potter quiz for childrens book week. Realised I had neglected to make note of the answers. Cursed silently to self so hoardes of crayon-weilding brats wouldn't hear and logged into blogger. Thought about vodka. A LOT.

Roll on the weekend.

Another step towards gender equality

The most adorable little four-year old thing with shiny red ringlets bobbing around her ears just tripped over to the desk with an Angelina Ballerina book and lisped: "Can I read it in bed?"
"Which, the book?"
"Yeah."
"Of course you can! In the bath, in the kitchen, in bed, anywhere you want!"

Then she stared at me for five minutes. Yeah, I am obnoxious around children. So fucking what?

"My bed is pink."
"Lovely."
"What colour is your bed?"
"Blue."

She wrinkled up her tiny little nose and raised her palms skyward. "Blue is a boys colour."
"No it's not, it's just a colour. It's for boys and girls. You can have a blue bed if you're a girl or a pink bed if you're a boy."

She looked at me pityingly and flipped her curls over her shoulder . "Pink is for girls. You're stupid." she sighed.

Nothing but abuse I get here.

Long lost Lucy: No, the librarians haven't killed me

This morning an old woman whispered to Becky: 'who's she, she's new isn't she?'
'She's Kate's daughter' said Becky.
'Ohhhh' said the old bag, and then, raising her voice and eyebrows at me, 'You're not as good looking as your mother, you know.'

Right. Thanks a lot.

'Or as nice' she threw over her shoulder as she waddled out the front door.

Brilliant. My week is going swimmingly. More importantly, how are you?

Re-direction

Bad news.

All those of you who came here for important links to hair-regrowth, road re-construction and scented candle related sites will have to go somewhere else in future. Thems the breaks, folks.

Leaving card

Leaving Dublins never easy, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

Thank you Paul, Caroline and Paula, the only decent people left in Dublin. Foul, insensitive bunch of friends I have.

Yes, it is a beermat. What of it, peasant?

Don't want it Baudelaire just glitter lust

Just noticed I've lost all my links. Dead wood, says I. New, improved, rural Lucy from here on in. Please leave your URL in my comments along with the words 'Lucy Aughney has given me some of the best nights of my life': I really want to improve my googled reputation.

Feigning Interest: Substantially made over for the seismic change approaching

I don't know how this happened.

I woke up this morning, feeling slightly restless and disatisfied (hungover also, since we're being frank), and came over here and opened blogger...and, well, just look. I'm not sure why. And I'm not sure what that red thing on the left is. But I expect it'll grow in, like a new haircut. After a time it'll be as scraggly and awful as it was before.

The future hangs over our heads

So I'm up at dawn, putting on my shoes,
I just want to make a clean escape-
I'm leaving but I don't know where to.
Yeah, I know I'm leaving but I don't know where to.


Look at me, all melancholic! And nonsensical as it happens. Last day of work...

Thrilling events upcoming

I am very excited. Soon I will be driving a car. A CAR. Not in the next month, but soon. Of course, it will be my mothers car which stinks of dog and is filled with broken umbrellas and torn maps but this is not a problem. I plan to pimp it up big style. I've got my eye on a bobbing dog for the dashboard. Also, as my mother unceremoniously reminded me on the phone yesterday I am designated driver for the REST OF HER LIFE.

Of course, I cannot drive yet. If you remember, I failed my theory test about a year ago. Yes, failed. The notoriously simple Driver Theory Test. Let's not harp on about it, shall we? THIS is my time. I WILL pass that mother this time round. Unfortunately, as I discovered to my chagrin on consulting my diary on the bus with Aoife this morning, it is the day after Joanne's 'I'm-fucking-off-to-New-Zealand-for-a-year, come-and-mourn-my-passing-in-advance' party.

'How will I EVER manage to study?' I despaired.

Aoife roused from her early morning langour, sighed pitingly. 'You could just NOT leave all your studying till the day before the test...?'

Oh. THAT old chestnut. Yeah, right.

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

By the way, Nealons was packed on Saturday night. Thank you all for turning up. 'I never knew my blog readership were so good looking and trendy' I remarked, looking round approvingly at the crowd.
'Yeaaaah...' said Joanne, doubtfully.
'I mean, I had always imagined them as horrible, nerdy things, my fans, but it seems they brush up well.'

Funny how none of you pestered me for autographs or urged drinks on me. Funny-I-find-this-very-upsetting, not funny-haha. Something else I found very upsetting was Paula's blatantly rude attitude towards my part in the success of the evening. I think she may even refuse to share her DJ fee with me, even though it is only through my brilliant marketing skills on this site that the place got filled. Bi-atch.

Speaking of upsetting things, where can I go for my "Dublin Bids a Fond Farewell to it's Adopted Daughter, Lucy" night? Obviously space is important, as is proximity to my house so I can easily drop home all the presents my fans will urge on me. I am thinking of renting out the Point, to accomodate all my grieving supporters. Not that I am DYING remember; just moving to Waterford. Take heart in this, friends. Death would mean I couldn't blog! But I plan to send blog entries up the country to Aoife on donkey. So Feigning Interest shall live on, even when I go into that dark, dark place... Tramore.

Bitter post: avoid at all costs

Recently my sister asked me why I never wrote about our father on here. 'You slag everyone else off, including me;' she said, 'why not him?'
Slagging everyone else off is meant in jest, I pointed out... See where I'm going with this?

Recently I asked my father for a favour. This is typically a complicated procedure involving bribery, false flattery and platitudes. Yes, I'll buy you a drink if you do this; yes, I'll pay you back next week; yes, I know how fantastic a father you are for doing this for me; yes, I am amazingly lucky to have a selfless man such as yourself for a parent. My sister is better than me at it because she has the power of a younger, prettier child who can still stamp her foot and demand and he will give in. My approach is to rarely ask him for anything if I can at all help it, since his granting of a favour requires about 3-5 years of effusive gratitude and grovelling.

Occasionally circumstance overrules principle, such as yesterday. My father's response to every request for his time, for lifts places, for a lend of money, for his help is to sigh heavily and ask, after a long pause: 'Why can't your mother do it?'. Repeated requests do nothing but strengthen his resolve and further his powers of invention thinking up alternative solutions that let him off the hook. Eventually, my pride will kick in and I will say 'fine. It doesn't matter. I'll manage' and he hangs up, sated. He just waits for me to fold.

I realise of course that fatherhood should not be dependent entirely on what your father does for you, but when your father's entire concept of fatherhood is to stay as friendly as possible with his children while listening to them for the least time and doing the least amount of stuff for them he possibly can, it throws a bit of a spanner in the works. Occasionally having to do stuff for other people: the prickly part in having children.

October 2nd

picture_0139, originally uploaded by Harriet Vane.

Bloody hell.