To: May
Re: ass-fucking

Dear May,
As you draw to an end this bank holiday weeekend, I would like to be the first to bid you a very good riddance. May has been long and filled with bullshit.

There was the house-hunting first of all. The futility was the most tiring part I think. Evening after evening of trecking out to some central but weirdly unaccessible locations where some zombie would show me around the toilet in the kitchen and the bedroom in the garden and the 50 places to keep your bike and the no places to keep your dignity. I have no bike. Then there was the house- moving that was long and exhausting and draining and happened only two weeks ago but seems like about a month, and from which I have not yet gotten my deposit for reasons I'm too angry to even write down. This was then followed by my getting the most heinous sinus infection known to man. Followed by bronchitis. Bronchitis was followed by my interview in London.

Due to reasons too boring to go into here, I got a stupidly early flight to London on Wednesday, and a stupidly late one back, meaning that I arrived in London early in the morning, and spent most of the day in the following pattern: Train. Coffee(preparing notes for interview). Tube.Getting rained on. Internet cafe. Tube. Rain. Internet. Coffee(more notes). Interview. Tube. Train.

The best part was the coffee. The second worst part was realising shortly before the interview that one of my boots had absorbed a bunch of rain water from the bottom up (damn you cohesive water molecules and your capillary action), and had completely changed colour, while the other had retained its original colour, causing my boots to be two completely different fucking colours. I looked like I'd stepped in a puddle up to my knee. People were staring and smiling! Eugh.
But this wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the interview. It was hideous. One of those interviews where you just want to get up and walk out just after it starts. The course director showed me into her office (btw bitch, a one-on-one was not what I was told was going to go down here. I'm sorry your colleagues don't have time to meet me. If they want to talk to me they can get my phone number from your MAM), and then proceeded to tell me that she didn't think I should do this course. Within three minutes of the beginning of the interview I felt like slapping her. Do you know how busy I am? Do you know how sick I am? You couldn't have told me this shit in a fucking email?
She kept saying things like "I don't know what it's like/ how it works/what passes for a dissertation in Ireland, but in the UK..."
But I didn't slap her. Instead I just stopped producing saliva. It was extraordinary. I could not even move my mouth enough to speak, it was so dry. She actually had to interrupt her tirade-of-uselessness to physically go and get me a glass of water.
Shortly after that I left, possibly running, i don't remember.
Funnily enough I wasn't outraged until much later. Mostly I was just tired. I didn't dilly dally in getting the frick outa there though straight afterwards and back on the reject train to goin home town.
(By the time I got to the airport I had an email telling me I had been accepted into the course. I still haven't replied to that email).

Anyway, I was so fricking relieved to be back in Dublin the following day, I practically skipped to stupid work, licking strangers' faces on the way. And normally I hate all human beings, as you know. But there's something about people at home.
Today I was in a shop trying to figure out if the dress I am wearing in Italy next week would match the earrings I had in my hand, and if those earrings would match my shoes. I was so deeply involved in conjuring the exact colour of the dress that I must have looked like a junkie zoning out in the middle of the shop, and two different sales people came to ask me if I was OK, one while I was standing at the till ready to pay.
"Oh Sorry," I said, "I'm just totally stressed. I'm going to Italy tomorrow and I'm meeting my boyfriend's parents and we're going to a wedding and I've no time to do anything."
I was kind of taken aback at my own outpouring of personal facts, but she seemed delighted and proceeded to tell me all about when she met her boyfriend's parents and blah blah blah, I wasn't really listening but still. How nice. This is what it must be like to be friendly. Or happy. Normal. One of those, I don't know.

Anyway May out, June in. June in next week for more Tales from the Impenetrable Solitude of my Shopping.

Where does it hurt when I do this?

Ah, I'm sick again.
I went to the doctor this morning (a doctor poor on eye-contact, I'd like to mention) and told him I had a sinus infection, so he flicked me in the head with his index finger and said "Does that hurt?". I said yes, but I was trying to imagine through my sinusy oxygen-deprived haze, under what circumstances would I need to do that, and when would it not hurt. I mean if I went in with a pain in the stomach would he punch me in the crotch and ask me if it hurts? And look me in the eye, ye weirdo.

Then I went into the chemist and asked for my sinus medication and my antibiotics, and the chemist laughed at me because I was the most sinus-suffering person he ever saw in his life. My face was swollen like a dead pig, my lips were cracked from not having closed my mouth since Friday, and I sprayed half a dozen lavish sneezes all over the condom display.
And because I pulled ten completely destroyed tissues out of my handbag when I took out my wallet.

Speaking of which, I really have to clean out my handbag. I went to pay for a pack of chewing gum the other day and accidentally pulled out a skin-coloured stocking. Like some kind of lame 1970s slapper who wears knee-highs and lets them float around the bottom of her grotty bag.

Anyway, I have to go gather more supplies to my bedside. I'm running low on crackers and difene.
I promise more exciting updates in the coming fortnight, following my interview for an M.A. I don't fully understand, a mafia wedding and my introduction to the Ragazzo's Dolmio puppet family. I am assured that all of his family are Dolmio puppets and that my role as their guest is to eat them out of house and meatball. I am unclear as to the rest of the stereotypes that will be involved but I will keep my eyes open. And as for the language, how hard can it be? Did you ever see the episode of Family Guy where Peter grows a moustache and thinks he can speak Italian by saying "Abapadabooby; bapadi bippiedy boopedy." That's gonna be me.

Bo Jingles

Heya.
I moved gaff and now I'm in the new gaff and I got one of those wee internet thingies and that's ok too.
Moving house was both long and horrible, and resulted in the complete fuckification of my shoulder. Possibly from the repetitive scrubbing action sustained during a marathon clean-fest, and possibly when I dislocated my arm trying to get behind a sink with a screwdriver in order to dislodge a toothpaste lid, and possibly even while I carried my last 50 kilos of material wealth down to the car park.
Indeed it was harduous and strainuous, but it is over now and I have a brand new home to sleep in two nights a week and do the occassional wash. I have now had four meals in my new house, and I'm feeling pretty positive about the whole thing. Also, I have eliminated all but one bin liner from my bedroom floor*, and I've hung out some washing and I've used three cups and I've done one and a half poos. And while typing this I let out a cheeky, and boisterous little fart that seemed to say I'm Here. I'm Home. I'm Happy.
Other things I like about my new place include it's being quite close to my stupid job, which means I can walk to stupid work in the morning. Which I did this morning with glee, and without music because I couldn't find the USB cable for the cry-pod in my masses of bin-liners*. So I listened to the folks on the street and do you know how many people were mumbling to themselves? At least four that I saw. Four people. Four unrelated incidents of autolocutory mumbling in the space of twenty minutes. That's got to be some kind of record. I would say it probably is. I would say it in a low voice to myself in a public place.

*Bin liners are the only way to move house. Believe me. I once moved house for two people using 40 Lidl bags. That was a bad day.

The internet thingy just made a commercial jingle; I don't know whether I'm more upset that it is advertising itself while I am currently using it, or because it is advertising itself a mere 5 minutes after I finished installing it. Or does it just do this every few minutes? I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime I have to get to sleep. I am scratchy of throat and itchy of eyeball after spending about four hours running around and trying on dresses in town this evening. I think I've tried on all of them now so at least I can cross Dublin off my list in my search for Something That Won't Make Me Look Like a Fat White Tart at an Italian Wedding.

Next week: Fat White Tart tries on dresses in London.

Goodnightxx

Sexcrement

Re: previous post I wasn't 100% sure about the spelling of faeces so I looked it up on dictionary.com and (because the ads on the top of the page are always linked to your search), was presented with three ads for bowel health and one for "Singles looking for fun".
I think if your ad is about poo-related sex play, then it should be more explicit. "Singles looking for fun with poo" would be better, or perhaps "Anus U Lonely?". Suggestions are welcome.
Because imagine your disappointment. Imagine!

Head to Toe in Faeces

My neighbours have a baby that cries constantly. I think. Either that or they have a really noisy cat. Either way, the lunatic in the apartment downstairs does not like it. To the extent that he has been seen standing hallucegenating in his underwear outside their apartment at 4 in the morning, asking them to stop bleeding in his canal. Stop bleeding in my canal! he says. Stop drowning in my river! What a legend. I wish I was psychotic and alone.

Imagine the amazingness of believing that someone is bleeding into your river. Or the life that you must have had, to build a connection between a baby crying and someone emitting into your water channel. It must be awul to be nuts.

I mean, in some ways I am, obviously, both psychotic and alone, such as when I am in work and I go to the toilet 50 times to make sure my anus isn't leaking, because I am 100% sure that I am covered head to toe in faeces, and that people are just too polite to tell me; or when I accidentally wink at strangers in the street and then try to cover it up with a cough and a squint. But I'm definitely not banging on the neighbours door in my knickers crazy.

Speaking of squinting, today I must find a pair of sunglasses. Usually I go for the biggest pair I can find, in an attempt to look like a battered girlfriend. Cos those girls are always mad skinny. And skinniness is going to be very big this Summer; I can feel it in my water retention.

Email Me

An inbox. A box of ins. How delightful. Things that are delightful? Delightful. Now say something random. Banana bruises? Hilarious. Get out of my office.
Back to work? Let’s, shall we? Wonderful. Now. Email. Open. New. To? Rob. To? Why Rob, of course. Subject? Come back to it.
Dear Rob. Hi Rob. Dear Robert. It has come to my I have noticed that it has come it seems to be seems that you have been it seems that your. Rob, Thanks for your email. Unfortunately (Unforch), we will not be going ahead with this contract this month as it seems the demand was much smaller than originally anticipated less than anticipated. Kind regards . Lots of love, kind kindest regards B.
Dearest Robert. You look like a hobbert. Hilarious. Get out of my office.
Get out of my email. Get out of my… CPU? Who knows. I am hungry. Very hungry. Stomach is devouring self. Dear B. Right ok, got it. So hungry. Going on standby. This computer has been locked and can only be fed by me. Press ctrl+alt+delete to feed. The meal you have entered is incorrect. Perhaps you have entered dinner? Please enter LUNCH. The meal you have entered is incorrect.
This is lasagne. This is lasagne ok? There is no other word for this. This is , this is. And under the pasta the blanket of mmm, there’s a layer of mincemeat. Forks in pasta. Fork the pasta. Fork it all to hell. Fork you lasagne. Stupid carb-rich dinner. Bit of salad? Soaks up the balances out the meal. Saladsalad! Saladsalad! Hello? Yes, it’s me, I was wondering if maybe possibly you’d like some horseradish? Why, I’d love some, thank you kindly. Horsetastic. Horse what now? Crunchy crunchy. Hello?

Spirit of the Houses

Moving house sucks so hard it should be employed as an alternative energy source. However, the viewing of houses should, for its wonderfulness, be employed as some sort of boyfriend. I love looking around other peoples' houses, and the fact that I'm going to be homeless in two weeks gives me the perfect excuse. Take that, ye house! I'm gonna get all IN your crannies.
No, it's not nosiness that attracts me to other people's houses; it's the crannies. The crannies and the sense of possibility that accompanies the discovery of new spaces. Perhaps it speaks volumes of unsavouriness about me, but for me a new cranny is one of life's greatest pleasures.
When I was a kid my parents spent about 30 years looking for a new house and nothing made me happier on a Saturday afternoon than wandering around something huge and unaffordable, looking into every corner, and under the stairs, and following every tiny pointless stairway to nowhere, looking for the perfect me-sized hollow. There was something magical about a new old house.
Now, although I still have some of the old excitement when opening doors and peering into wardrobes for some evidence of a false back, or looking for a goddam wishing well in the garden, some of that old magic is gone. I still love the houses, and really look forward to discovering new places, but the fact is, when it's a flatshare, the cranny possibilities are slightly limited. There's only so many corners and exciting shelfy things you can have in a double rm w/ window. Magic doesn't like freestanding pine wardrobes.
And there are a lot more practical things to take into consideration in these visits than just the oooh, it's cosy. Not least the having to make friends with the people you're meeting there. Taking 5 minutes to size people up and decide if they are the sort of person who leaves the butter out, or cuts their toenails infront of the TV. Because this is what it comes down to in the end. A flatshare is a lot like a relationship; if things are going well, then the annoying habits of the other person don't bother you. But, in times of strife, you better hope the other person doesn't leave their wet towels draped over the back of a chair, or bite their nails, or cut their pubes in the kitchen sink.
Moreover, even if you decide a place isn't for you, you still have to deal with the interview rejection during the visit. You can't just say you don't like it straight out, just because it's tiny and mouldy and there's a hole in the wall, and sperms on the curtains. You have to pretend you're going to think about it. Which means you have to spend a thinking about it amount of time in the place before you can escape; all the while nodding appreciatively at the kitchen door because it seems to be attached to the wall quite securely, or the bathroom tiles because you can barely see the blood stains. It's hard work not insulting someone's charmless dump.
Indeed, if I wasn't so in love with rooms, I don't know if I'd even bother living in a house. Hopefully, though a new cranny is on the horizon, and I won't have to be polite to anyone every again. In case you hear of anything, ideally I'm looking for somewhere with a magic portal wardrobe and a talking spider, and a mezzanine. And steps somewhere. Probably to the mezzanine.