You are wrong, I am right: My stock response to other people

The twins come from a eleven-person household, and grew up in a house equipped with two bathrooms, and unfortunately situated in what even rural Waterfordians call 'Injun country': The outer limits of Fenor. It stands to reason that they fear catastrophic events more than the cushty townie that they now share a home with. 'What the fuck are you doing?' I asked from my Sunday evening nest of newspapers, toast rinds and blankets.

'DUH. Filling the bath with water in case of a blackout from the hurricane, stupid.' They chorused back. It took my thirty whole seconds to juggle around possible uses for a bathful of water during a hurricane. Sudden personal filth that required immediate washing? Re-homing of ducks from the boating lake?

'Well, what for, though?'
'DUH! To flush the toilet when the power goes! Are you naturally this dense or do you work at it?'
'It's as automatic to me as breathing,' I mumbled, my stock response whenever I am paid a compliment. Actually, I was concentrating very hard on figuring out a) why this could possibly be an issue at 11pm at night b) why I had never thought to wonder what powered toilets flushing and c) how to prove both twins wrong without having to leave my couch.
'You are wrong, you are terribly, terribly wrong. Firstly, I cannot recall ever losing power in my home for longer than three hours and sec- actually, lastly- I cannot ever remember a toilet not flushing. In conclusion, you are both wrong, good night.'

This perplexed them both, as instead of retiring to my bedroom upon saying goodnight, I put a newspaper over my face and feigned loud whistling snores. This is my stock response to any bewildering confrontation. They finished filling the bath, filled some 2l bottles of drinking water and went to bed. They'd have been exemplary during the Blitz, I don't doubt.

This morning, after the twins had gone to work, I stood in the bathroom and chuckled at the placid sunlight winking calmly off the water in the bathtub. 'Oh, foolish, cautious twins. How you delight! How much I must teach you of living in modern civilisation! I shall enjoy remarking on your premature bathtub filling with condescension and wit!'

Then I walked into the kitchen and realised that I had left the fridge door open for a hour, had left the empty coffee pot scalding on a hot plate and forgotten to put detergent in the washing machine.

There is no limit to the petty and unamusing ironies of my days.

Things I discussed with people at Library Council Conference

1. Books (obvs)

2. Wine (double obvs)

3. Irish Book Awards. Vote now!

4. Melanie's dress

5. How savage Claire Kilroy is

6. How savage Claire Keegan is

7. How hard it is to differentiate between the two, if you're a dope

8. What a knob (apparrently) Jonathan Franzen is, though great press

9. How savage Sinead O'Connor is

10. No, you pronounce it 'Gillian Welch'

11. How cool is this?

12. Oh really, what's your hotel room like?21

13. No seriously, my bed is massive: I'm considering soliciting for a threesome later on just to exploit the capacities of the bed

14. What? Well, no, I was only joking

15. It is a big bed though

16. Hey, you know what else is savage? Literacy initiatives!

17. How savage my friend, The Casanova Wave is.

18. Oh wait, you have a hot tub? LETS GO SEE! Everyone, LETS GO SEE!

19. ...

20. That was weird, yeah?

21. Hey, Melanie's got champagne- HEY MELANIE!!!

22. - 74. Zzzzzzzz

75. WHAT? Someone streaked through the bar at 5am??? Damn; missed it :(

Now that's unusual

I watched A League of Their Own last night and cried five times. I know it was five times because I noted each time I felt tears welling up, right before punching myself in the head for being such a fairy. In other news, I called up to my mother's house to borrow an alarm clock yesterday evening and something stupid she said made me laugh for two minutes solid. I laughed so hard that I had to lay on the floor to balast my shaking shoulders and my sister ran upstairs to find out what in God's name was so funny. I told her, chokingly, and she looked at me in annoyance and disgust: that isn't even funny, Lucy.

Alls I'm saying is that maybe my usually hypercritical filtering system is off it's game. Maybe A League of Their Own is not the superb paean to feminism, female solidarty, self-belief and personal redemption I took it for.

BOOM!

Instant net celebrity! Thanks to Mairead and the Irish Red Cross for their generosity and all-round excellence!

I am in awe

Who are these people? I want them as my friends.

Wunning straight into your heart

On this Bank Holiday Monday, June 7th, I am taking part in the Women's Mini Marathon in Dublin. Thanks to a rigorous exercise schedule over the past three months I am now able to run for a period of 3 & 1/2 minutes before having to collapse and die, so I am hoping to complete the mini-marathon with a combo of running/walking, in an ambitious time of 'under six hours'. I call what I do, 'wunning', reasons that would become clear to you if you ever happened to pass me when I embark on my evening's exercise, stumbling like an insanely uncoordinated seal, if seals could run and owned sassy-looking running pants.

What I need from you, oh people of inaction and atrophy, is dough. I am 'wunning' my Mini Marathon in aid of the Irish Red Cross and so far have a grand total of €30 sponsorship to my name, which is a bit shit.

My original plan was thus: I have been held hostage in the pub SO MANY TIMES by tipsy do-gooders who have waved sponsorship cards in my face and I have shelled out fivers just to make them go away. What is fair but to claim restitution for this? So, what I intended was that I should bring my sponsorship card to the pub and take advantage of the generosity of the drunk. Unfortunately I kept forgetting my goddamned card, and hardly NO ONE will give you money without any proof.

So here, I am five days before kick off with €30 crumby quid on my card. At this point I will be forced to carry it with me to Dee's wedding on Saturday and badger those wealthy newly-weds and their inebriated guests into donating. Which I think might be a bit of a bad show. Should you like to give me money, I am more than happy to accept it. Please contact me through the normal avenues of communication (except drunkenly serenading me outside my window at four in the morning. I'm so over that) and I will slap your name down on your card, and glory in the envying looks I receive from all other mini-marathon participants.

Thank you.

Another Goddamned Sporting Event Ruining Lucy's Summer

The FIFA World Cup 2010 is fast approachin', fella. Did you know? I did not, not until my good pal and work colleague Tommy rang hitting me up for cash. "So Lucy, you wanna get in on this pool? €20 and you get to back TWO teams. And there's sixteen going in the pool so you could win BIG. I mean, REAL BIG."

I sighed and rolled my eyes at the phone. "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. Tommy! Lemme tell ya something about this "World Cup Pool" you're trying to get going," I said. Tommy sighed and rolled his eyes at the receiver down his end.

"Tomcat, Tomster, Tommy-Tommy-uh, something; this pool malarkey will not fly with me. First of all, €20 is waaay too much money for me to expend on something that doesn't come in a glass with ice-cubes. I mean, what do I get for my €20 bucks? Nothing! One chance in 32 is not my idea of safe odds, my friend."

"Well, it's not 'safe' of course, it's just fun and-"

"Tommy! Let me finish, Goddamn you! The other thing is the unfairness of it all. The last time I was in a World Cup pool I got shitting Togo. Togo my friend! I mean, Togo is probably a great little place and God knows but its a fun word to say, but when you're up against the Argentinas and the Brazils of this world, it makes you vomit a little inside."

"But that's the beauty of this system, Lucy! You won't know who you get it, it's a closed draw, we won't find out who got the winners until after the last match! We'll seal it in an envelope and open it after the final! It's FLAWLESS!"

"Oh, Tommy. You are only a young man[!], but you have so much to learn. What is the point of having a World Cup pool if I cannot paint my adopted nation's flag on my cheek and walk around pretending to be Togolese, adopting a faux Togolese and very possibly offensive accent? Like, get a grip, Tommy!"

"Maybe some people actually like to watch football...?"

"Oh puh-lease! Don't make me LAUGH! I am laughing though, at what I imagine your sad little face looks like all now, with me raining all over your parade, ha. No, Tommy, I am out of this one. You will just have to play on without me."

"Well, alright Lucy, but don't get all pissy when you're not involved."

"Unlikely, Tommy. I'm hanging up on you now."


Then this afternoon, into my inbox pings this group missive:

"Hello All,
Almost all of the library staff have signed up to take part in the draw for the forthcoming World Cup, I should have 24 names to be getting on with..."

Yeah, yeah whatever, get on with it, you emotionally blackmailing fink...

"...I had originally planned on keeping the envelopes here and distributing them at the end of the tournament, but the feedback I've got would suggest that this idea is not to everybody's liking. Accordingly, as soon as you get your envelopes it's entirely up to yourselves whether you open them or not."

And that, my friends, is how you shame someone into your way of thinking. As they say in TV land, boo-ya!

My two most prized possessions

Celebrity mates, man

I invented blogging, didn't I?

As far as I'm aware, before I entered the blogosphere, the internet was a vapid wasteland of porn and adverts. My arrival to the "internet superhighway" heralded a new age of eloquence, civility and sophistication, an era of intelligent discussion and debate, fairness, equality and mutual respect. ONE WOULD THINK.

I had a substantial bone to pick with my good pal Dave last night when I ran quite accidentally into him: 'DAVID' I growled across the bar when I saw his head. He didn't hear but those close to me shivered with fear. I strode across: "David," I whispered in his ear, "a word".

"David! I thought we were pals!" I said smilingly. "We are pals, Lucy" Dave replied, staring blankly into his pint. "That's what I thought too, Dave, until somebody went about starting his own blog without telling me about it...!" "Right, what happened there was, I wanted to start one, as a New Year's type thing and-"

"Shhh, Dave, shhh." I said, placing a forefinger to his lips. "I forgive you. Just do me one favour, right?"

"Just link to me, alright? Good man. And remember: I'm Tramore's number one blogger. Me. This town ain't big enough for any more, ya dig?"

I Heart Facebook

I love Facebook. I'm not ashamed to say it. For example, I also love CJ Cregg, Jason Derulo, The Notebook and other lame things that you can't really tell people about. That's just me, I have no shame. I love that I get to read vacuous comments, group-joining, drunken declarations, pointless, almost-immediately outdated popculture references from piles of people who I hardly ever get to see or speak to, and that I like these very people all the more because they evidently have a deeper, more whimsical sense of humour than I ever thought they possessed.

Is this sounding very misanthropic of me? It's not, it's the opposite. I ADORE people; people, with all their mistakes and flaws and jokes and loves and hates. Facebook, I think, celebrates that. At least my Facebook does. I use Facebook and Twitter accounts for work and lord, the self-importance of the people who use these platforms for work, for networking. I mean, ugh. Talk about making a fun thing dull. It's like when Shane Hegarty starts talking about features of "modern culture" in his typical po-faced way and you just go 'Aw, crap, I know you're going to turn me off something".*

Facebook is fabulous and obviously you're going to sigh when I say this but I can't imagine my life without it. If someone does something funny I want to screech about it; if we're at a party and someone takes a picture of me I'm all up in the camera-owner's grill: "Can you tag me in that?". I have, literally, no problem with meeting a friend I haven't seen for a while and saying "I hear you're engaged/working someplace new/a fan of the Golden Girls! When I say 'hear it' I mean I saw it on Facebook." If I say anything amusing, anything at all, I'm glancing around the room, waiting for a thumbs-up: "I LIKE THIS". This is a bad place to be in, obviously, and we'll talk about how much of a knob I am at a later date (I'm sure), but right now I wanna talk about the other side: the Facebook deniers.

There are people in the world, hell, in my life, who don't accept that Facebook as their lord and master. These people, some of them sane and apparently perfectly functioning adults, only check in on their Facebook accounts once a month or even less (shiver). When I say "hells yeah, I heard about that billions of years ago, it was on Facebook" they will wave a hand dismissively and say "oh, well, I never look at that thing" and gently move the conversation away as if I have made a terrible faux pas bringing such a thing into conversation. Even more unsightly, there are people that simply do not have a Facebook account.

Who are these people, you say? Do others exist who are not visible on the web? I know, it's shocking that we live in such a world, but live in it we do. I had the joy/misfortune of travelling to Clonakilty last weekend for Dee's lovely Hen Party** with two and a half of these diaphanous craters, and semi-naturally, as many of my conversations tend to do, our chat drifted round to Facebook, it's evils and sins. Facebook is evil and insidious, did you know that? Of those present, Gráinne and Donna have deleted their accounts, set up in the early haze of Facebook's zeitgeist, due on Gra's part to pure laziness and extreme distaste for anything involving the Internet and because Donna thinks it is stupid and dumb.

Standing currently as a half measure on the Facebook user scale, Aoife remains a part of the Facebook family but she is trying to break her connections with it: "Dude, you can totally do it, there is life beyond Facebook, you should totally do it. I did it, you can too" said Donna from the front seat, blissfully straight-faced. I was driving and all but I found it ridiculously hard not to drive into a ditch, what with all the internal laughing I was doing at these three people's hatred of my favourite plaything. I mean, if you hate Facebook and you think it's stupid and dumb, that's great because essentially it is those things, but honestly, so much stuff is. Most of the things I like are constantly derided by almost everyone I know as am I for enjoying them, but I get by. You can too! You can enjoy stupid and dumb things and stand up in the street and not get hated on for it. YES. YOU. CAN.

*Yeah, I know he's Arts Editor now. I'm playing with fire, okay?
** OMG, so, so amazingly fun and lovely. For more see Facebook. Yow!

A Terrible Way to Spend an Evening

Mags has bought a terrible new invention, a video gaming console called the "PlayStation" and let me tell you something, it shatters dreams and destroys new musical talent.

We spent hours, literally HOURS, figuring out how the joystick-doohickey works, only to find that idiots are rewarded and musical genii like myself go unrecognised. What happens is, and I will try and cut down on the technical jargon to reduce discomfort for everyone reading, you turn on your telly and this floating stream of record covers appears, from which you choose a vaguely familiar song (Kate Nash's smash hit "Mouthwash" mar shampla, or the unforgettable "10,000 Nights Of Thunder" by edgy popsters, Alphabeat), scream "SELECT. SELECT!" into one of the microphones for fifteen minutes, then your song of choice is dashed onscreen, amongst a literal pukefest of red and blue spots and dashes. These, friends, are your singing instructions.

Lyrics flash by, terrible lyrics it must be said which make you wonder for the future of the pop genre. Did you know that the lyrics to "Here Come The Girls" by the Sugababes is ninety percent repetition of the word "girls" and no where do they mention amazing three for two offers at my local branch of my favourite chemist chain? Huh. If you try to interpret your tune creatively, as I like to do in all my musical performances, the telly shrieks "TERRIBLE!" or "BAD!" at you and your friends roar. If you are a tone deaf moron with the ability to complete the song at the tempo and pitch pre-proscribed by those Nazis of music, Sing Star, then you will win the game, gaining nothing but the hollow-sounding victory of brain-dead cretins over True Art. Then you will go to your local public house and claim glory, because, as I may have mentioned, you have the remarkable ability of singing dots and dashes.

I hope you're proud of yourself, Donna freaking Purcell.

Pteronophobia is what Wikipedia calls it: Who-gives-a-shit-giving-it-a-name is what I call it

Since we moved into our house earlier this year, with alarming frequency, I have been the fall guy, the butt of jokes, the much-maligned fool for all the household japes. This seems to happen in every sphere of my life so at some point I may have to accept it as my own doing. NOT TODAY. Although otherwise hardy and without flaw, I do have an unspeakable terror of tickling anywhere on the body but particularly on my feet.

Some time ago whilst discussing tattoos, I idly commented that I'd always fancied something small and vague on an ankle, a spot easily cloaked if needed. "Oh really?" Everyone said, with equal antipathy as I am always making such querulous pronouncements and ignoring them is almost essential for an easy life.

"I think I would get a small, trailing flower," I said. "Or is that too gay-looking? Maybe a word, in Latin, to increase it's enigmatic power! No, no, my first born's name! In Latin! With a flower!"

"Oh dear God." Said Kate. "Right, will we draw one on, just to see what it's like?" Dubiously I poked a pen nib into my delicate arch.
"Oooh, no, that's not nice. No thank you."
"Go on, give us a go." Kate said, grabbing the pen. Clodagh looked up; she loves a plan.

"No, I don't think so, I have extremely sensitive feet." I said apologetically.
"Look, how can you stick a tattoo artist if you can't cope with me and a pen? Cop the fuck on."

A short time later, Clodagh was sitting on my left arm and Kate on my right. As Kate began to draw on my right foot, the screams started. I don't know where they came from; as people involved in great trauma often say, it took me a moment to realise the screams came from my own mouth. All I knew was a terrifying, overwhelming panic and fear of I know not what of. Of course, my pain was everyone else's amusement. Laura jumped up to hold my flailing ankles and all three roared with unimagined joy.

"Kate!" I panted, "Please! I beg you! I'll give you everything I own! Please Kate! Friends down do this to friends, Kate!" She bore down with added glee. My mind sank beneath waves of terror and panic as the interminable prodding and scratching of my poor white foot went on, involving hundreds of pounds of females sitting on me and telling me to shut up between their laughter.

"Quieten down, Luce," Clo said, turning to me in a rare second she managed to stop laughing at my yelps of panic. "You're just making it harder on yourself you know."

Painful seconds later, it was over. I was released, and scuttled into a dark corner of the living room to hold my foot and mope. My heart was pounding, my breath was short, I'd walloped my head off something in my struggles. On my foot, extending from toe to the inside of my heel, was a mawkish flower, primitively drawn with rough, tremulous petals. Also the caption: "LUCY IS GAY HA HA HA".

My captors sat round and watched, grinning nervously, for fear I'd start crying I suppose. Hell no. I cry three times a year, tops, unless I get caught watching Trocaire ads. I wasn't wasting my water on these fools.

I steadied myself; looked up and squared my chin. "I hope you're fucking happy with yereselves. I'll have you know that that constitutes foot rape."

"HA!" They three roared.

Solitary runner; Pterodactyl-spotter

Just seen strange bird-like creature fishing in the channel by the Back Strand! From my own admittedly rudimentary investigations this creature appears to be either a pterodactyl or harpie-type monster from Philip Pullman books. Unfortunately I had neither independent witnesses nor recording devices at hand so I am attempting an artist's reproduction to illustrate what I saw. Since the artist is me, I drew a stick man, added wings and a beak and then screamed 'fuck you, ART!' at the page and walked away.

If you were interested, I completed my round of the Back Strand in 66 minutes flat today. Nothing seems to be able to top my unprecedented 64 minutes of last week. I can only settle on last Thursday being a particularly cold day with few other pedestrians, so I was able to run for a longer portion of it. I am physically unable to run in the presence of others due in part to my ignorance of any official running technique and my non-possession of an exercise bra. According to my lovely and complementary sister, when I run I look like, ahem: "a spa". To save the mortification of others, I run alone. That's fine with me. I'd rather not have anyone present when I asphyxiate myself on my hoodie (again) or scream and fall over when a seagull startles me (for the fourth time in an hour). Those occasions are best saved for alone-time, thank you very much.

Bangerhead Fest '09

Banner by Roisin, accompanying laundry by KC

Cake by Superquinn, accompanying mirth by Lucy screaming obscenities

Housewifery

On Sunday morning I texted my good friend Donna, the obsessive clean freak, the following: 'Can I put any of the following in the dishwasher: Toilet brush, plastic dustpan, non-slip rubbery shower thingy. If not, how does one wash these things?'



Donna promptly rang me back, mainly because she was too hungover to text, and told me that no, noooo, I could not put any of these things in the dishwasher. They would melt, and cause grievous damage to the dishwasher, she said. "Things have to be dishwasher safe to go in the dishwasher," she pointed out, "hence the existence of the phrase 'dishwasher safe'."



"But the scrubbing brushes never melt when I put them in!" I complained. "Similarly, squeegee things are grand, as are flip-flops!"

"... Lucy, don't put any of those things in the dishwasher again" she told me. "Toilet brushes in the dishwasher? With dishes? That is seriously gross."

"Where should one wash one's shoes then, huh? You tell me that, Mrs smart arse!"
"Why do you need to wash your shoes? Shouldn't they, uh, just wipe clean?"
"Well, you tell me how I should get cow shit out of three-year old sandals then!"
With that zinger I hung up on the negative bitch. I don't need nobody telling me how to run my house.



I weighed things up for a little bit, realised I was running late, and fucked the dustpan in the dishwasher along with my scrubbing brushes and portable washing basin, which is handy for a range of things such as cleaning floors, washing me feets, sticking under the chins of inebriated house guests when they look a bit green, and sluicing away dog mess from the front lawn. I fucked the nasty, non-slip, rubbery shower mat in the wheelie bin and put the toilet brush where I couldn't see it, behind the toilet. Then I put three pairs of shoes in the washing machine and got the hell outta the house. If anyone asks, you know nothing about how those things got there, right? JOB DONE.

Something you won't care about

I'm writing something at the moment. Who knows what it is. Us artists don't concern ourselves with labels like you little people do. Currently it's held up in a mire of plotting difficulties. Bearing close attention to a quote I read from Joseph O'Neill, I am taking care to 'lie as little as possible, tell as close to the truth as you can'. Why? Because I liked the sentiment. Didn't like Netherland though, unlike Obama. Needless to say, consciously not lying is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Lying, or 'revisionism' as I like to call it, is as necessary to my daily life as breathing. Even recounting anecdotes to friends I find myself, almost unconsciously, sexing things up: flat-sounding dialogue is brought to fruity succinctness, dull circumstances glossed over. It's my hunger for narrative, I tell myself and don't get too concerned.

So I don't lie. Or I try not to. Apparently I don't plot anything I write either as everything frequently takes wild swings away from their starting point without my permission. I like to sketch things out in my head while driving 'round town in the evenings but instead I flash past familiar places and people and they remind me of past events and a new insight occurs to me: I'll use that, I think: that's genuine therefore good. Consequentially my cast change personalities almost daily, my hero's motives alter with my own capriciousness. One day I am forgiving towards all men: relationships prosper, goodness is rewarded, and my heroine gets invited to a party. The next I want them to suffer. Stupidity abounds; all humankind is selfish and cruel; unkind wives leave their pathetic husbands. My comic relief gets more and more violent as my mood gets worse, and I'm finding laughs in pushing people over, having them bump their shins, stub toes, lose wallets. I am honest, burningly honest, letting my temper and occasional torments play with my storyboard, rearrange my written world.

This can't continue. This is how children write, it's immature and inconsistent and pointless. Eventually you're not writing fiction, you're just keeping a diary and changing the names.

Hey hang on there a second now

Did you know that Pluto = not a planet anymore? Seems that theres only eight official planets doing the rounds nowadays, not the nine we all heard about back in the day. Oh, I know, I was flabbergasted to hear the news also. Apparently, this was decided back in 2006. Yeah, I didn't get that memo from NASA either. SOMEBODY is trying to keep me outta the loop. Keep trying, spacemen, I got my methods. Yeah, it takes three years for my methods to come to fruition but still: I'm watchin' you. Be very afraid.

Or just kinda afraid. I got a lot on these days.

Mick Flannery really blew. Luckily, I fell in love

"Good Lord, Loretta: don't look now but the most beautiful man in Tramore just smiled at me."

"Who?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I meant 'The Most Beautiful Man in Tramore'. He's over there, black top, jeans, cheekbones like cliffs you want to tumble off, shoulders like rocks you want to smack into. Eyes full of sex, lips full of sin!"

"Ohhh. Well, he is very nice alright."

"'Nice', she says! What are you drinkin', lady, 'cos you need to give it up! He's the most fabulous man I've ever seen in the flesh. He looks like Clark Gable only better and less facial hair. Brando, before the weight. The body of a cowboy and the face of an angel. He's like-"

"Yeah, I get it, I get it: you've got the sexual fantasies of a seventy-five year old."

"Well! I like that! I-"

"Shhhh!"

"What? WHO JUST SHUSHED ME?? IS THIS A GIG OR AM I AT FUCKING MASS!"

"..."

"Loretta, I think I've gotta blow this joint, these joykills are really wrecking my buzz."

"Yeah, you probably should. We're getting looks. Also maybe stop talking like a gangster from the thirties."

"HA! You really make me laugh, dollface! Laters!"

ICEBERG, RIIIIGHT AHEAD!

I'm having a housewarming/birthday party next weekend. Didn't I invite you yet? Shucks. I've invited everybody. Looks like you're nobody. It's going to be MAJOR. I'm making a mix CD for it right now(Oh I know, right? Mix CD? I'm so with it and down with the kids!), featuring all my favourite jammin' party tunes. So far there's four songs on there and only one of them does not feature the musical stylings of Bruce Springsteen. Like, the Nebraska years. That was not a party-time for Brucie. I need to broaden my musical tastes.

Seriously though, it's shaping up to be the most horribly mismatched evening of all our young lives. When your social circle features anyone whose name you know or whose face looks familiar as you scream 'PARTY, MY GAFF!' from your car window, you've gotta be ready for some fireworks. On Sunday I listed off all the people I had spent Saturday evening inviting and Clo and Laura just frowned at me.

'Aw, hells no' Laura said, barely looking up from the evening of card-cutting and laminating that seems to be the yoke of the school teacher's evening. 'Not him. He's a fucking mess.'

'Yeah, he went to Blathnaid's housewarming and vommed in the bathtub and blocked it and Ciara had to scoop out the sick with her hands.' Clo added vigorously.

'Nuh-huh, it was Blathnaid herself did the scooping, as I recall.' Laura pointed out.

'Dude, it was totally fucking Ciara. She made me smell her hands after. I think I would remember that.'

'Well then it must have been Blathnaid's hands and you were obviously going around smelling so many hands that you can't remember whose hands scooped what.'

'As if! I think I can remember my best friend's hands, excuse you.'

'I highly doubt it. Hand-whore'.

I left them to it and sat down on the floor of my shiny new hallway. This socialising thing has me beat.

Je me fous du passé!

Did you know that I saw La Vie en Rose three times? The first time I was drunk, the second inattentive and the third despairing of ever following the ridiculous structure of the damned thing. What I eventually got from it, after some frantic Wikipedia-ing, was that Edith Piaf was fucking awesome. Also a lush and possibly insane. In surprising news, Piaf means 'little sparrow'. Now put that in your pipe and have a chew.

Oh Noes! Poop update

Our favourite Vic barwench, Kate C, just rang to tell me that there is a nasty rumour circulating in the Vic that says I made the foul poo and was trying to hide the fact by telling everyone about it! Which is a funny way to go about covering something up.
'Fuck off, no way!' I said, naturally distressed.
'Yeah, Liam had to clean it up, he's gonna start calling you 'Shitgirl' now.'
'That's so unfair! And such a crappy nickname! Anyway, why would I do such a thing? HOW would I do such a thing, that thing was massive!'

This thing has got to stop. I'm making another sign. 'Lucy did not make the poo. Lucy doesn't even poo. The end.'

A Nasty Surprise

Last night I found the most disgusting thing in the Vic toilets. It was so disgusting I can't actually tell you about it. It would make you want to die, let me tell you. There it was, ON THE TOILET SEAT, when I lifted the lid. Scandalised, I staggered out of the cubicle and grabbed an innocent girl washing her hands. 'MY GOD,' I panted, 'YOU MUST SEE THIS.' Warily, she allowed me to drag her into the cubicle then she fell about choking when she saw it. 'Oh fuck, that is horrendous!' she shrieked. 'I know!' I shrieked back as another girl came in the door. We, the first girl and I, both grabbed her and said 'You totally gotta see this!' and dragged her into the cubicle. 'Holy sh-' said our new victim. 'I know, right?' exclaimed the first girl, 'and I thought she had just done something she was really proud of and wanted to show it off!' With this she gestured at me and laughed. Ahem.

As they stood around retching and saying 'fucking hell!', I latched onto what little initiative I have not yet managed to drink away and pulled from my bag my trusty notepad and one of the seventeen pens I lug about with me for just such an occasion as this. My two new best buds, girl A and girl B, remarked on my quick thinking. Popping the piece of gum I had been chewing from my mouth, I leaned over and affixed my sign: 'DO NOT USE - TOTALLY GROSS' to the cubicle door. 'Ew', said girl A, 'did you just take gum out of your mouth and stick it to the door?' 'That is fucking disgusting' agreed girl B and the two of them hightailed it from the bathrooms, leaving me standing there sticking a sign over a bathroom full of shit.

I'm having an okay week. Thus far...

This afternoon I stood in the centre of the canteen and enacted an amusing anecdote to my coworkers, using all my bodily grace and expressive talents. Actually I was imitating a guy with a funny walk I had seen that morning. It was HILARIOUS. MOVING. Then I noticed Carmel was staring at my chest. No biggie. Happens, let me tell you, all the time.
'Carmel, why are you staring at my chest?' She feigned ignorance. 'Is it the black stuff on my top? Yeah, I dunno where that came from. Hilarious how filthy I look really, isn't it?'

'Actually I was wondering how you got coffee all over yourself so fast,' she said, 'I mean, you've only just made a cup of coffee and you've got, what, four coffee smears on your clothes. Like, what?'

It's difficult to understand, if you know me only through my graceful prose, but I am an extremely clumsy person. Some might call me 'awkward'. I hope you can find it in your heart to think it merely adorable. I can pick up a box of perfectly clean, new books, direct from the suppliers, and by the time I put it down again I will have black smut all over me and my cardigan is missing two buttons. Also, my shoe has fallen into the box. And there's a feather in my hair. How? WHO KNOWS.

I am a slapstick's dream. I have, on more than one occassion, walked into signposts and streetlights. I have closed car doors on my foot, fingers and head. I can, and have, pick up a tray or a plate of something and there it is two seconds later, upside down on the ground. There is not a smooth, unfissured path in existence that I cannot fall down on. Don't even think about putting me in high heels. I could kill somebody! If I am dining out somewhere and I am eating something dry, like crackers, and my dining partner is eating something not dry, say tomato soup, it is entirely IMPOSSIBLE that I will get up from the table without tomato smears all over my clothing. It just won't happen.

Once, I helped a friend who ran an art gallery to clean up after an opening and I broke six wine glasses. SIX. From a box of 30. That, quite frankly, is amazing. Governments should employ me to work for their enemies. I could lean over enemy war crafts or WMDs, or whatever it is the bad guys are working on nowadays, mumbling 'Woah, what does that yoke do...' and WHAM. My watch has fallen deep into the workings and the baddies are running around shrieking. Yeah! Take that, justice!

If ya like it then ya shoulda put a ring on it

What do I want for Christmas? Little ol' me? Why, nothing! World peace and harmony maybe, or universal suffrage. And a surprise. Naw, seriously. I'm easy to buy for, I like everything. Ya wanna know what all the kids are getting this year? Engagement rings. Srsly. And alarmingly longsighted wedding plans. 2010? Ya know what happens in 2010? I'll be 27 first of all, so that'll be a huge downer. Also, trillions of my acquaintances are getting hitched. 2010 my friends? I actually have trouble getting excited about anything that is not happening RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT so I feel literally nothing regarding your wedding. As my ever-graceful mother said: 'Crikey. 2010? Why, to fuck? I swear to God, I've never had a wedding, nor has your father, and it's looking like neither of ye girls will ever either, but I promise you, if you do, and the way I find out about your engagement IS NOT you ringing me and announcing that your wedding has just taken place in a foreign city somewhere, I SWEAR TO GOD: I'll murder you.'

WTF?

"Older meanings of FTW

Years ago, "FTW" used to have a very negative meaning: "f**k the world". This was a term commonly used by social rebels, anarchists and anti-authoritarian types to express frustration with modern society."

This is exactly what I thought it did stand for. Oh.

Wordle.net: Some find it diverting

This took me FOREVER to find my favourite one. I find it kinda amusing that the words 'shit', 'Lucy' 'like' and 'seriously' pop up most frequently. Haw-haw, I have no vocabulary! Kinda amusing, not hugely so. I'm not completely dense, despite repeated evidence to the contrary.

A startling new hurdle

INTERIOR. Late afternoon. A COMELY MAIDEN dozes on a sofa under a duvet. It is LUCY, heroine of our piece.

PHONE RINGS: Rrrrring! Blip-whirr-click!

LUCY: Bleurg. Hello?
MARIE: Hellllloooo!
LUCY: Ugh.
MARIE: Are you asleep?
LUCY: I was trying to...

M: Well, it's five o'clock, you really shouldn't be.
L: Sigh. I'm terribly tired. I was dreaming...of facebook.
M: Good grief.
L: Yeah. Don't tell anyone.
M: Good night?
L: Very much so. Possibly still drunk.
M: Where is Mags? She's not answering any of her phones.
L: She's probably asleep too, if she knows whats good for her. Also her house has ridiculously bad coverage.
M: Ah-ha.
L: Why did you ring me looking for Mags? I'm not her minder.
M: You were my next choice.
L: I'm flattered.

[LUCY coughs loudly and at length]

M: That's attractive.
L: Thank you. I was saving it for ya. Where are you, standing in the rain? I can hear water noises.
M: The bath.
L: Ah, dude! The bath! Stop fecking ringing me from the bathroom, it's starting to make me uncomfortable.
M: I am very comfortable.
L: I don't doubt it.
M: So...tell me stuff.
L: I couldn't be bothered.

M: I'll tell you stuff so. We did the guest list.
L: For...?
M: My wedding? Like, hello?
L: Seriously? It's in two years dude, you surely won't like the same people in two years as you like now.
M: Yes I will! Anyway, mine comes to 150, and Aled's got 60.
L: Am I invited?
M: Like, duh.
L: On which list? Can I be on both?
M: ...
L: And get two dinners and two chairs? That would be deadly.
M: You'll get no dinner and no chair if you're not careful.
L: Well! That's a lot of people! You don't have 150 friends!
M: Yes I do, and anyway, that's people's 'plus one's aswell.

L: Fuuuuck. Do I get a plus one?
M: Of course!
L: Fuck you. Where am I going to find a plus one? The Internet?
M: Londis Corner?
L: Shit shit shit. Will Sally do? Shit shit shit.
M: Ah now. Dial it down, it's in two years.
L: You're saying there's a possibility I might meet and speak to a member of the opposite sex in the next two years?
M: Of course!
L: You're hopeful.

I verily believe...

I verily believe all that is desirable on earth- wealth, reputation, love- will forever to you be the ripe grapes on the high trellis: you'll look up at them; they will tantalize in you the lust of the eye; but they are out of reach: you have not the address to fetch a ladder, and you'll go away calling them sour.



Charlotte Bronte, The Professor (Ch. 22)

Absolute rubbish, but you understand?

Once, my car broke down on the road from Kilmeaden at something like eight-thirty at night. One minute I was driving through the night: smoking furiously and singing along to the Kings of Leon, probably- the next moment everything was pitch black and the dank country swirled bleakly in my ears. Apparently, something moved on the battery and the car just died, cutting out instantly and trickling to a stop in a ditch. That's all very well and good, and I'm glad we all know the mechanics of the situation, but at the time, as my breath froze and darkness slammed into my eyes, I quite calmly responded by putting my fingers to my throat to check for my pulse. Yes; when faced with sudden unanswerable quandaries and shifts in my surroundings, I just assume: why yes, I am dead. That is the only logical answer.

Today, powered only by the shameful thrust of my hangover and litres of toothpaste, I half slumped, half drifted through the day, surrounded by goons and fools, badgering me about the various hundred things wrong with their library experience. For a solid hour, I walked around twenty-five PCs and typed the same password in to them all repeatedly. Futile you may say, and I'd have to agree with you. The public saw it differently though and insisted I keep trying to establish a relationship with the non-responsive Internet. 'But why is it broken?' they sputtered annoyingly, as if I knew the answer. To anything. Ever.

Let me tell you straight off: on a recce of personal days of excellence, today was a write-off. I rocked and I rolled, pointing out the fabulous signage (created by yours truly) explaining the fuck-up in the whole Internet exchange, and finding bizarre, non-existent books without laughing('Pictures of houses of Georgian style, but not actual Georgian houses that were built in a Georgian era nor actual pictures, per say, just an idea because I want to draw my daughter a picture. No no, that will not do: do you not have a book on 'So you want to draw your daughter a picture...?' No??') while still pretending to care about the needs of others. I know. Sometimes I exhaust myself with my selflessness. But the stress! I can't tell you. It was horrendous. I was LITERALLY counting the hours until I could have a vodka. So there I was, serving the public and then... Then- all outta nowhere- a plaintive violin starts up from beneath me and suddenly FLASH FLASH FLASH

Did you feel death over your pale shoulder near the end of the last paragraph? Because, by God, I did. 'Woah', I said to Yvonne, who chose that time to wander the room: I placed my hands palm down on the desk and looked about wildly. 'Did you see that too or did the world just end?'

Yvonne stopped dead and stared at me. She looked at the ceiling, quite seriously. Then she considered the walls, the floor, the windows. 'No' she said, vehemently. 'No, I don't think so.' I checked my pulse, quite seriously. 'Nah,' I said, 'I think we're okay for now.'

Holy cow, but. Turns out it was an exhibition launch two floors down. The plaintive sawing of death was actually the sound of a pretentious pre-exhibition strum; the flashing lights merely the lights of our esteemed local press taking rabid photos.

All the same, I think you can understand why I was perturbed.

Leading you whores to culture

Do you like art? I know I do. Other things I like: websites, boats, sunsets, redheads. Uh-oh, excuse me: strawberry-blonde heads. I can feel your vehement nods over the information super-highway: I like those things too, you say! Well, what if I told you there was a place you could go to meet all your needs? Now there is!

It's called kensmith.ie, a veritable paradise for all you eclectic boat & art lovers out there. There you can paddle about in all your art-loving glory, doing your arty...things. In addition to painting pictures, our pal Ken enjoys building fabulous websites like this in his spare time. I know what you're going to say: too much spare time. I don't want to be a bitch or anything, but Ken is clearly missing some of the essential criteria for website creation, ie. funny video clips, drunken photography, blatant self-love and interactive quizzes. Bebo isn't a hit for nothing, Ken.

All the same, did Van Gogh have a website? No. Did Rembrandt, Monet, Rolf Harris? NO! Did any of these people have friends as famous as me to leach internet fame off? I THINK NOT.

Magical Evenings in Waterford City

The other evening, after another day's hard slog serving the public, I was sat waiting for my bus. It was 8.15 at night and darkish and chilly. In an effort to warm up I took to chain smoking. It was a poor idea, born of pure laziness. Slugging from my bottle of Fanta, I raised my eyes from the dull stream of passing cars and they were arrested by the twitching of a net curtain in a first-floor flat across the road. Idly I watched as the curtains were parted by hands and a man came into view, slight in build and wearing a red hoodie. His head, coronaed by the lamp behind it, bent towards the glass of the pane as he peered into the street below. Was he waiting for someone? I wondered, idly. 'Wouldn't it be nice if my bus turned up early' and 'I wonder if that is dried vomit on the bin' were some of the other thoughts that flitted through my head at the time. As I said, idle wonderings.

It came on me, all a-sudden, like a snail attack: his face wasn't scanning the path or the street. His gaze was fixed directly across the road. At me. Does he know he's staring straight at someone? I wondered, a little less idly this time. Really I was getting a bit peeved by now. It is extremely blatant, when doing some idle people-watching, to spy continuously on one lone soul by the bus stop outside your house. Frankly, I'd call that staring. Huff. I pointedly gazed down the road, indicating my absolute disinterest in his actions.

The curtains closed. Well good, I thought; about time. Now where was my bus? A black couple walked up to the bustop and sat down fifteen feet away, inside the shelter, and began speaking French so I had a crack at eavesdropping. Was that 'Je pense'? I know what that means! God, I'm so good at French, I can practically-

The curtains were drawn wide open now and I saw, with virtually no response that the red hoodied man had opened his belt. My mind still crackled with French as I saw the buckle hanging low down his trouser leg: Oh, he's taking his belt off, I realised. I was slowly losing my place in the conversation as I noticed his hands move to the button of his fly and slowly start to peel open buttons, flattening the flap of jeans against the waistband, his hands moving towards each other. Oh, I was wrong, he's taking his cock out, I corrected myself.

Abruptly, not knowing why I did it, I stood up and walked briskly towards the couple in the shelter. They looked up when I sat down right beside them: Do we know her? These Irish, they are friendly! they thought as I shivered melodramatically and grinned: Trop froid, non?

Troubles and Trials

I've lost my white plastic bangle! What do you mean 'what white plastic bangle?'? My white plastic bangle that is somewhat related to the excellent plastic bangles for charity that everybody likes to wear. What do you mean, 'nobody has worn plastic bangles for charity since oh, 2000'? I have no idea what you're talking about. I wear a plastic bangle, therefore they are hip and groovy once more. You know what else is hip nowadays? Saying 'groovy'. So says I.

Buzzcocks without Bill

Do not underestimate the resourcefulness of the Augh

Yes, that is a log.

I broke my bed

Not through frenzied pillow fights or anything remotely fun. No. I broke it by getting in it one night. 'Why doesn't she lay off those tuna melts and chocolate n' cheese based edibles' I hear you moan. Oh, grow up, I didn't break it with my arse. I am a sturdy and well-built young lady, 'tis true, but I am not remotely near to bed-breaking capacity yet. I blame faulty bed engineering. See that white plastic thing? That was the only support for the middle part of the bed for all these years. Bizarrely, it has stayed put but all the surrounding timbers have given up the ghost. I've been sleeping on what is essentially a precarious hammock for the past three nights because I am too lazy to do anything about it. But what can I do? Can a carpenter fix it? Do carpenters even exist in these fearsome recessive times? Can I stack things under it to act as a support? But what? Will stacks of books and old magazines do as they are the only things I have to hand? Shall I abandon the frame and turn Japanese, inviting visitors to lounge on my futon with me?

Should I (horrors!) buy a new bed?!

Ce n'est pas gravé

I am home from France. It is cold here in Ireland. I am covered in mosquito bites including one on my eyelid prompting swelling that threatened the sight in my right eye there for a while. Also threatened: my startling good looks. Do you think anyone gave a shit? Not on your life. 'Oh, look at my eye, I am like that Hey you guys dude from the Goonies! Or maybe Paris Hilton, I don't know how bad it's gonna get.' Blank stares is all I got. Not an iota of sympathy, despite the fact that I now could not attempt to seduce the pool man, generally agreed to be the most handsome man in all France and evidently the richest if he can charge that much for 15 minutes work.

I was mislead about my holiday; I thought it was your typical French getaway, occasional swims and forays into local villages the only things to punctuate long spells of sunbathing, reading and lazing in hammocks. In fact it was a working holiday, and I was regularly spun from my book-reading, hammock-snoozing daze to sweep, dust, weed the garden and skim the pool.

I need hardly tell you that I would have thought twice on going on this free holiday if I'd known there would be any work involved. My excessive sleeping habits were commented on at least twice in the last six days, my ability to eat everything around me mocked at least once. And that's not the half of it: suspicious rumblings went round like warm cake when I was found to be hiding in the pool whenever something heavy wanted lifting down stairs.

'Good God, I cannot take these constant attacks!' I screamed but no one was around to hear me because I was in a seven bedroom villa in the South-West of France. 'How am I supposed to live in these conditions?' I asked of my only true friend, but he couldn't reply as he was only an empty champagne bottle, so I tossed him into a shrub and opened another. 'What is there left to enjoy of a persecuted life?' I wept miserably to the fields of sunflowers that rolled over the horizon.

The dashboard melted but we still had the radio

My sister asks so many questions. She staggers through life in a fug, startled frequently by unfamiliar words and concepts that leap on her like beggars in the dark. A typical half hour spent in her vicinity can yield such eccentric requests for information as: 'What's 'velocity'?'; 'Who's this McCain guy?'; 'What's a 'Republican'? Do they make everyone get a gun or what?' ; 'What's this 'vulva' thing I hear so much about on the telly? Is it catching?'; 'How do you spell 'hymen'?'

On most occasions I launch into a lengthy explanation: 'Well, it's not that simple to explain. You see the vulva is...' and ten minutes later she goes 'Oh. Right. Well why didn't you just say so. You do go on a bit, don't you.' I am a futile professor with an inattentive class.

Most recently these questions have veered off into 'If you are travelling at night with a wind speed of 30 knots and air temperature is clearing 260 degrees, Kelvin, and a horse-drawn vehicle signals that you insulted a member of their family, into what lane should you change and how many millimeters should you be from the moon? And oh, wait you're in Florida. And it's a Tuesday. Answer all applicable'. The Driver Theory Test, it's gotten ridiculous. Back in my day, it was tricky enough for me to fail it first time round but that was when the hardest question was 'If a pedestrian crosses in front of your vehicle (when it is in motion) should you a) run him down or b) not.' Nowadays you have to answer loads of maths-y junk and know the correct type of lantern you should carry if escorting a party of boy scouts from the scene of an accident and how you should alert a vehicle travelling to your rear that you are a gemini. While juggling.

'Driving is not complicated', I have to point out to her as I manoeuvre gracefully round a traffic island, one hand manipulating the radio, the other hand lighting a cigarette, the other hand painting my toenails. 'It's about feeling at one with your car, knowing it's limitations, it's hopes and dreams.'
'Are you still drunk?'
'No! Well...'

'Whup! Didn't you see that speed bump?'
'It was a secret one. Those buggers will creep up on ya. First lesson: look out for pot holes.'
'Watch-! And pedestrians?!'
'Well, only at crossings. The rest of the time they're on their own. Second lesson: Keep your eyes on the footpath.'
'Don't you mean the road?'
'No! Who am I gonna see to honk at on the road? Watch out for the footpath and see if there's anyone I know walking along it and we can stop and talk to them.'
'Right. Never mind, I'll just use the book.'
'Lesson three: You don't need to go down a gear if you're going around a corner, you just to need to speed up so you don't conk the engine.'
'Shut up. Even I know that's wrong.'
'Lesson Four: When driving in high heels, one should- oh fuck, cops!'

Oh, Woe!

Mary in work told me today that there is a wheat crisis afoot. 'So what, no Weetabix' I said in an offhand, I'm-not-really-interested-in-this-shit-you're-telling-me, but-i'll-listen-cos-we're-work-colleagues kind of way.

'No, no bread. Did you not see the wheat crops this year? Black!'

Why she would assume I knew the condition of wheat crops, I don't know, but there you have it. What a strange after-work life she must imagine I have, popping my head over silos and trailers to check on the condition of crops. Maybe that's what she does, cycling round the countryside and observing tillage. I have better things to do, thank you very much.

No matter. What Mary does on her own time is up to her. What counts here is that wheat is involved in the production of bread (I know! Who knew?!) and I live almost entirely on bread. Seriously. My diet is made up of about 75% bread-based products (ie. 'Les Sandwiches'), a fearsome chunk in these breadless times. The other 25% is derived from tobacco and caffeinated goods, which are rumoured not to have the best dietary heft. What will I eat?!

BIG NEWS!

Mags has coldsore. Is gross. Also: internet cafe PC in Berkeley did NOT auto-complete blogger.com when I typed it in. What? I thought everyone in California had a blog. Is MINDBLOWING. In other news:

• Am alcoholic now (Now?, you say)
  
• Planes suck
• Cork must be empty as entire population over here
  
• Timezones suck
• My sister is a selfish dork
• 'Frisco ROCKS!

Why doesn't everyone in the world live in San Francisco? Is most amazing place on earth. Let's just give up on rest of it and move all people here.

PS: Only on blogger because am killing time while Mags is beboing EVERYONE SHE KNOWS saying 'SFran is deadly! Not married yet! Fingers crossed!'

I never met a Toby that I didn't like

What is this junk, anti-folk?

Wikipedia doesn't know: 'It is still highly debated what exactly the defining characteristics of this sub genre are'. How utterly shaming, to be defined as something unknowable and only distinguishable as opposite to something else.

I'll admit right now I like to use the anti- tag for anyone who offends my delicate sensibilities by opposing any of my principles as being 'the anti-Lucy'. What are these principles? So far it seems they are 1) anything can be made better by having a drink, 2) Reading on buses is OK with me and 3) Amanda Brunker is an idiot. I'm only a wee one though, I'm sure to have a few more in time. Anti-folk now, they're in trouble.

I read in a magazine that record companies made up 'World Music' to push non-English language bands they wanted to promote, and to give music shops a name to house this new section. 'Ethnic Music', 'Earth Music' and 'Racial Beats' were all dismissed as being too offensive. I shit you not. I think I will rename Anti-Folk: 'Hipster jazz' is okay; 'Young Dudes playing Old' is better. I infinitely prefer 'Underused-Arts-Educations-and-a-tambourine Music' though. What feel you on this important topic?

What am I doing here? I should be packing my swimsuits and sparkly dresses: guess where I'm going next week!

Angry Lucy

Somebody is annoying me very much. I have spoken to him for precisely two and half minutes today and he has already pointed out three things I am doing wrong, laughed at me, and taken something heavy out of my hands because 'you looked like you were struggling'. I am oh, so, very, very angry. You would not like to see me angry, I feel. Fun, pleasant Lucy is gone and is replaced by someone who slams around the place and barks out commands in a humourless tone. I've been cracking jobs off in mad haste here this morning. So angry, I couldnt wait for glue to dry, for machines to heat up, to check if printers were switched on before I checked every wire coming out of the back of them. Goddamnit, I'm ANGRY, I can't sit around. Fuming in my futile rage, I sat down to eat a big bag of skittles and check my emails, but instead found myself activating my internet banking, checking my standing orders and ordering a credit card. Angry Lucy gets shit DONE. But no one likes her.

Loan-city. Next stop: full-blown maturity

Do you know what is actually dead easy and nobody knew? Finances. I mean, I never have any, nor do I spend much time thinking about them, but I walked into a financial institution this afternoon and walked out again in ten minutes fifteen hundred euro richer. What's the catch you may well ask. Well-GET THIS- I have to give it back. IN A YEAR! Like, are they thick or what? Is this the way our economy does business? No wonder there's a recession on!

He got me pegged

Do you know George, our resident Auld Fella? Ah, ya do. He who spends all his days on a sofa in the library reading Chekhov and an 800-page Nureyev biography, and occasionally delights us all with his opinions on such varied topics as the stupidity of the government, the stupidity of the young, and the stupidity of the Irish. He who we all refer to as 'fecking George' as he sends us off to find a T S Eliot authored account of Oscar Wilde's time in the Far East which, patently, does not exist. Today, prompted by my unasked retrieval of his cane from where he left it in the loo, he chuckled and threw his head back in a gesture that really made me fear for his stability: 'My deaaaaarr!' He croaked. 'For someone who works at such a mundane job, you really do seem to have a glow of innocence about you!'

Two weeks, six days

I missed my bus this evening. Missed TWO of my buses. The first because I was late, the second because I was reading an article in Cosmo about a girl who got twenty years in a Thai prison for smuggling marijuana and whose sister has moved to Thailand so she can visit her every day and bring her mascara and new clothes to keep her spirits up. I was reading the article and I started crying and I dropped my magazine and all my books and when I looked up I saw my bus drive away.

I think I miss my sister. Either that or I have smugglers remorse.

PS: I didn't buy Cosmo, I stole it! From the library, which you may not count as stealing but I DO.

Tragic events

ucy is getting the bus with all the other car-less saps for the forseeable future.

Tea Lady

I've been doing some investigatin' and apparently circulation figures for the Waterford People did not spike when I issued my internet directive last week. Is okay, am sure you all shared the one copy, pouring over page 16 until it disintegrated limply in your greasy paws. Before you email me to tell me, YES I know I look pregnant. And busty! And YES I know my name is Carmel Hughes now. Things change, guys, move with the times.

Your mission for today

I think everybody who has a spare €1.60 in their pockets should go out and buy today's Waterford People and turn swiftly to page 16.

Tramps Like Us

Raaar! He's coming to git ya!

In other news, Lorretta needs a class in correct photo-framing techniques, and the RDS concert staff are very prone to letting a little bit of power go to their heads. You need to tone down the attitude, people! What is this, like, a Big Brother, Orwellian concert? Are we attending a over-protective nanny-concert, where simple folk like you and I (more I than you, I'll admit) are prohibited from smoking cigarettes in the stands and dancing in the aisles? I ask you, what next?? No singing in the stands? No-shockhorror!- drinking in the stands?? THIS MADNESS MUST STOP!

Ongoing Learning

I am a master in few fields, but I think I can safely say, without fear of angry accusations, that I know those few fields and master them masterfully. These fields are, in no particular order: the Dewey Decimal system, making the under-fives laugh, having an encyclopedic knowledge of every Sinead O'Connor song ever recorded and achieving alcoholic intoxication. They don't let your friends rank you in this shit on facebook but if they did, I'd be #1. After intensive investigation from my R & D team, I can now announce a new sub-genre of my last and I think we can all agree, most fabulous talent: Dinner Drunk.

I guess I'm dealing with laymen here so I won't dress it up in fancy terms that us scientists like to use. You guys know about normal drunkeness, right? You have a few drinks and start feeling loads happier than you did before you had a few drinks and suddenly you're hugging your best friend from junior infants and telling everyone how beautiful they are. Yeah, you guys get it.

Now, Dinner Drunk is a cousin of regular-style drunk where you pretend to be all fancy and put on your nice dress and eat fancy food that some other people cooked for you. Because you're eating your fancy food and pretending to be all middle-class and shit, you disregard the numerous bottles of wine you toss down, 'cos wine is all fancy and doesn't count as real booze. You have fancy conversations with your dinner companions about increasingly abstract topics and generally believe that the problems of the world are being polished off along with your rhubarb crumble.

You pay the bill, over-generously tip your waitress and stumble outside to procure yourself a 'real' drink. HALT, soldier! This is where the problems start. Dinner Drunk is a curious phenomenon whereby the participant feels alright because of all the shiny cutlery-ed trappings of dinner when in fact he or she is in the same state as your average wino at 9am on a Saturday morning: nicely juiced up and thirsty for more.

Woe! you shriek, I knows it! I have known the lure of clean crystal and fabric napkins also! Woe begone, say I: there is hope. Friends, am I #1 in fictional facebook leagues for nothing? Nay! Here comes your solace: Dinner Drunk, because of it's close ties with the dining-out bourgeoisie, is one of the most respectable kinds of drunk there is! It totally out ranks Cider Drunk and Niteclub Drunk, and is only pipped to the title of The Best Drunk, Ever by Wedding Drunk which, if I can make a sporting comparison for the common man here, is the Chelsea of Drunk: exquisitely put-together and fearfully unbeatable. Wait, what?

Dinner Drunk is how middle-aged depression can be assuaged and a non-existent social life overcome. Dinner Drunk, like Rich Drunk, totally doesn't count and you can't be held responsible for anything that occurs. In fact, since Dinner Drunk actively supports our catering staff during this critical financial clench and eating in snazzy restaurants makes a dining drunk feel super-posh and intellectual, you might say that he or she is in fact behaving as any fine, upstanding citizen should.

So there you have it: information, explanation, debate. Next week: Dewey numbers!

Infamy, infamy!

Ins. Hunt said Mr O’Brien claimed that he had gone for a drive on Sunday October 1 after arguing with his wife the previous night when he caught her kissing a mutual friend.He said he drove his own car to Tramore and sat in it reading the Sunday papers and listening to the radio.

Yes, Tramore is the prime alibi for murder suspects. Yes, we are proud of this fact. We promote newspaper-reading and radio listening amongst our best-loved tourist attractions, that and conviction-dodging. Why yes, you can come visit! No, we can't promise you won't be spotted on CCTV near the spot your wife's body was found at the exact time you claim to have spent a pleasurable afternoon reading newspapers in your car in lovely Tramore. We're not that good.

What's a good April Fool's joke to play on someone who works at the library?

A fine question. To play the best joke, you really need to work at a library or know someone who does. One excellent gag is to find someone who works at the library and has a teenage daughter, pull up the daughter's record, and reserve a half-dozen books on subjects like teen pregnancy, what to expect when you're expecting, and a book of what to name your newborn child. When the books arrive, show them to co-workers and spread nasty rumors. At the end of the day, tell the person that their daughter's books have arrived. Wait a day before you tell them it was a joke.

If that's too mean, here's another good one: Most databases allow you to insert a note field in the patron's record where you can write messages to alert other workers if a patron was rude to you, lied to you, smelled like urine, etc. The purpose of this field is to keep track of a patron who isn't paying fines or has some sort of other repeating offense, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun with it. So, find a loyal friend who has a library card and put a note in his account that says something like, "If patron is wearing a red T-shirt and a Disney hat, he may try to kill you. If he asks you how many books he can check out, he is about to go crazy. Alert police immediately." Give your friend a red shirt and a Disney hat, tell him to go into the library, check out a book, and ask how many books he can check out. When the police arrive, tell him it was just a joke.

McSweeneys.net

Other fun jokes I just made up include sticking a security strip inside someone's coat, and telling someone the Dewey Decimal system is being by shelving according to height. Heh. Me so funny. If only I had friends to appreciate my funny...

Not pictured: Sacrilege!

Also:

You wanna buy some stuff?

Do you often find yourself in need of somewhere to put your daffodils? Or somewhere to play Monopoly? Or carry out your elaborate art projects? Fret no more, ease your trouble, that's what I do! Here is a genuine wooden table with genuine wooden chairs thrown in! As you can see, this table has all four legs intact and is literally made from wooden trees! The trees have, of course, been cut down and de-squirrelled for your convenience, because no one wants to eat their breakfast with squirrels.

And that's not all! This table also comes with two excellent drawers that slide in and out of the drawer-shaped holes on either side! Fitted with no expense spared, these drawers come with handily-shaped knobs, all the better to facilitate your drawer-opening needs! You can put literally anything in these drawers, from napkins and candles to more candles and bits of broken crockery you don't want anyone to see you broke!

But wait! There's more! What about when you have people over for some tasty pasta meal you just invented with the help of your head-chef, Mr. Dolmio? How do you make them feel at home AND ensure they stick around long enough to help you clean up? Why, with chairs of course*! This table comes with six genuine wooden chairs absolutely free!

Is that all I hear you say? Are you trying to flog us some meaningless albeit fabulous wooden table with exquisite accompanying seat parts? Is that it? I am a deep and profound person, I need something more than mere surface beauty to feed my deep and profound soul.

Fear not, precious customer. I can now reveal that this admirable piece of furniture comes from the estate of none other than the Great Lucy Aughney. It dates from that historically significant year, 2004 and has featured such luminaries as Lucy herself at trough over it's rich pine. Gaze in wonder at the wise old gleam that was witness to countless wise aphorisms and sparkling witticisms over the years.

Would you deny for your family the opportunity to own a genuine antique? Would you? Bid immediately on this priceless relic of greatness and you too can share in the glory!

L'histoire de la table

This one time, we had a party with the table.


Another time, Sinead and the table drank all the vodka.

Then this other time, Lucy was cross with the table. Both parties have tried to forget the incident but local folklore claims it was something to do with how the table got Lucy so drunk and fat-looking.

They got over it, and to this day Lucy enjoys hanging out with the table and having a beer.

*Research has proven that it is significantly harder to escape from somewhere if you are sitting in a chair than if you are standing up.

I think this guy is stealing my schtick

Damnit! I was gonna cover misogyny and date rape this week! Back on with the ideas hat I think.

Situation: Managed

Good news!

The crippling guilt and empathetic mortification that kept me from gracing my favourite off license with my presence for nigh-on six weeks is all over! It's made like a tree and fucked off! Vamoosed! Hopped a train for the west! What does that mean? I don't fucking know, I just write this stuff, it's up to my biographer to figure it all out!* You see, I encountered my favourite off-license employee, we'll call her Amy, out in a popular local nightspot over the Christmas holidays and, all buoyed up on the joy and festive guff that trickles from other people being around and hugging one indiscriminately, I insisted that she join me in a wee dram. Of tequila. The aforementioned fave off-license employee claimed excessive inebriation but I waved this off as feminine coquetry. Why I thought this is anyone's guess. We ordered shots, received shots; ladies and gents, we shot.

And then she vommed all over me. Exuberantly. One might say, explosively. Then she started to cry and scarpered swiftly. So, because I am a lady of class and discretion, I have avoided her ever since. Until tonight, when my newfound fondness for making smoothies at all hours sped me to her place of work to purchase tinned pineapple. I crossed my fingers, toes and legs (I'd had two cans of Fanta before setting out) and hoped against hope that she had been fired. For her sake, you understand. I was horrified for her. Nobody minds a bit of vomit on them, especially if one deserves and probably induced it but, my God! The humiliation that girl must have suffered, night after night, concerned for my take on the situation.

So. Short story long, I mustered my troops and plopped my pineapple and six pack of Fanta down on the counter. 'Ooh, Amy, you got your hair did!' I exclaimed. Yes, my lips uttered trite inanities but my eyes beseeched: I forgive you, little sparrow. Now, forgive yourself. It was enough. We are firm friends once more. Relieved? Dude, I nearly puked!

*Yeah, by the way, you need to get cracking on that, Mr Biographer. I have six shoeboxes of juvenelia sitting around here, just waiting for you to unearth my precocious intellect!

She got tha moves

My new craze is Salsa. The dancing, not the dip. Though the dip is pretty funky too. Oh, didn't I tell you? I kicked guitar to the curb. My teacher just wasn't down with my personal sound. Also, he had a strange obsession with girls having good posture whilst playing guitar. Yeah. So, instead, Mags and I are going to become fantastic Latin-type movers. It's going well so far. And when I say 'going well', I mean that we turned up, paid an obscene amount of money for what seems to be a slightly more energetic form of line-dancing, got scolded by a stone-cold Spanish bitch of an instructor and looked like full-on tools. Without dancing a step!

I'm a PAYE drone! Like, for real!

I don't know about this 'new job' malarky. Yeah, I get these important-looking keys that swing off my belt and make me look really cool, and I get money for going in there every day, but otherwise, what is it really doing for me? I mean, my sleep pattern is totally thrown off with these early mornings. And my gratutitous internet browsing is really down. There are literally thousands of gossip blogs and web cartoons going unread by me on a daily basis. Until half an hour ago, I hadn't checked my emails in two days! Yeah, I only had seven new mails and four of these were from myself on my work email saying 'hi! Isn't is so so so so so cool having a work email?! Kisses, mwah!', but, my God, it's the principal of the thing. This is the question I find myself asking on an hourly basis, especially in those wearisome hours when I have to fill out accident reports for knocking a coat stand on myself, or when I have to talk to yet another customer about how much they just loved PS: I Love You: Is work worth working for?

That doesn't make sense? Well, screw you, I've got a pension now. And maternity benefit should the unexpected happen. Oh, if only the unexpected would happen...