Brain diversion
In my heightened state of snottiness, my attention span wanes. I become a chronic remote control flicker, fed by the sheer monotany that is television. Last night I watched 15 minutes of film after film after film, but nothing was satisfying enough… then I found the perfect flick.
Vampire in Brooklyn… cheap laughs, Eddie Murphy and a prophetic painter. Visual bubble-gum. What more could a body ask for?
No plot breakdowns from me, though… couldn’t be arsed. Instead, here’s a rather inspirational speech that Eddie made while dressed as a vampire pretending to be a Pastor.
We come here time after time and we talk about the same old same old.
- We talk about Jesus. – That’s right.
Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don’t wanna talk about Jesus.Cos as the big man teaches us, there’s two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There’s two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase “necessary evil”.I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
“That don’t even make no sense to me.
“Can’t be no such thing as necessary – how’s evil necessary?
“That don’t match. That’s plaids and stripes, evil and necessary.”
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I’m saying?If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what’s a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I’m trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil…eeeevil… is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it’s necessary, evil…
- Evil… – …must be good.
Evil is good.
That’s what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
- Let me hear y’all say it… – Evil is good.Don’t be ashamed of yourself, boy.
Don’t be ashamed cos you went out and got you a little ass!
- Ass is good! – That’s right!
I know many of y’all may be saying, “How can he say ass is good?”
How y’all think y’all got here?
Ass is good! Evil’s good and ass is good.
And if you get you a piece of evil ass…
You have absolutely no idea how entertaining that speech is to a girl hepped up on cough-medicine.
Temping fate
I’m sick but nobody believes me.
I shot myself in the foot, see, when I was 12 years old. I was hospitalized with a rather nasty kidney infection (the build up for which involved my school friends saying stuff like… ‘is there a cat in here somewhere?’ I was smelly and I was sore) and had nasty symptoms, one of which was a very high fever with febrile convulsions which my mother will never let me forget.
They fixed me up and sent me home, but given that I was in second year at school – which has to be one of the most unpleasant years of all – I decided to play it just a little while longer.
My mother would stick a mercury thermometer in my mouth and would leave the room, at which point it would come out again and be touched against the nearest light bulb for a few moments. I wasn’t too clever about it though.
“You’ve a fever of 107!!! Jesus Christ, come on, jump into the shower and I’ll cool you down!!”
I could hardly argue, for that would involve telling the truth which I wasn’t ready for yet. All those nasty freezing cold showers were worth the quality time in bed in front of the tv with random gifts of ice-cream and Kinder Surprises to cheer me up.
Gradually though, the guilt took over. Every little Kinder toy I got, reminded me of what a sham I was, so after a month of this act (my parents were quite gullible, in hindsight) I ‘fessed up.
They understood, for they’d played the same trick themselves, and revelled in the fact that my attempt to catch up with all the school work I’d missed would be punishment enough, but apparently it wasn’t. Apparently fate decided that it would deal its own just-desserts, and as a result, I’ve never had a raised temperature since. Not even by half a degree, in seventeen years.
“Uhhh… I feel strange, my head’s all fuzzy and my ears have popped, I think I’m coming down with a cold! I’ll have to skip work today, I think.”
“Oh no, you poor thing – come here and let me feel your forehead?”
“No”
“Why, you’re probably burning up!”
“No”
“Come here and let me see!”
“No”
*much wrestling later*
“You’re fine, you big faker… there’s nothing wrong with you at all, go on out to work with you and stop being a big hypochondriac.”
“But I really am sick….” I manage to get in as the door is slammed on my sorry ass.
This morning I got lucky. I woke to find that the sore throat I’d been complaining about to deaf ears had finally upgraded itself to the noisy snotty sniffly stage so my sickness is finally obvious and I’m finally credible. No work for me today!!!!
Bick aass Klogger
Ok so I kind of monged out there for a while. A whole load of lovely people linked me and I’m only getting round to saying spank you now, so I’m sorry about that! I’m all buzzed out on broadband for three weeks so maybe will hopefully make up for it. I absolutely adore downloading useless crap.
Might even waste a whole day on Roy’s games, because that is what life is for, occassionally.
Hey look what I got!!! Waxi Maxi gave me this a few days back:
I’m… like… well chuffed, me. Such a pretty design, it reminds me of the wallpaper my strange friend had once in her bedroom. Many a strange night was spent in there, so it feels right. Thank you soundly Quarefella Cane you daft minx you.
So in the proper spirit and stuff, here’s a link to the ultimate creator, Mamma Dawg. Here’s her idea:
Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?
Maybe they’ve got incredible, original content. Or they’re overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person… or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.
Whatever the reason may be, I’m sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well… why not tell ‘em so?
OK!!!
First there is Le Craic, who is responsible for this:
… as well as much other kick-ass stuff, like getting a mention in the rags! About time, I reckon.
Then there’s Well Done Fillet. A guaranteed crack-me-up. This blog helps me release a lot of resentfulness for the general public.
Wait ’till you get your specs around Magneto Bold Too, though. Girl is definately on my wave length and most definately kicks ass.
On a different note, I’d like to note an observation. I’m sitting in my dad’s throne while he’s away, and I think I may have absorbed some of his ways already. I just caught myself screaming at SKYtv’s music listings because there’s no classical stuff on there. Not even in Music Choice. What bollocks. I’ve resorted to classic rock and I’m very fucking worried indeed. This chair isn’t letting me enjoy anything else, not even the alternative stuff. I’m hearing myself yelling all my dad’s slogans which is pretty disturbing.
I wonder does he have cameras in here? I’m so paranoid it’s not even funny.
Limbo
Our new house is finished.
It’s beautiful… they’ve put hoists and a power shower and a huge walk-in wardrobe into Laughingboy’s room, and they’ve planted troughs full of rosemary and lavender outside our front door. They even made us a wee patio right outside the french doors in the back garden.
We did a bit of breaking and entering lately and spent a while wandering around the bare shell of our house dreaming and planning – revelling in the excitement and feeling that this huge frustrated wait has finally come to an end.
Except that it hasn’t. We’ve been bugging the council for months, trying to annoy them into giving us a key date and finally, we got a definitive answer this morning. It’s very accurate.
“Uhhh… don’t hold your breath” they said. How scientific.
Apparently the builders and the architects are having a fight about who’s daddy is bigger and meanwhile our new life has officially started elsewhere, leaving us in limbo.
Laughingboy’s school bus service has officially started, miles away from where we presently live. Puppychild will start playschool soon, in a school many miles away from here. I’ll have to quit my hours of taxi driving just so that I can bring my kids to school and hang around on a doorstep somewhere until they get out so that I can bring them back to our place of limbo. I’m a latchkey mom.
It feels like we’ve been wandering in a desert for the last three years and we’ve finally found an oasis, but there’s a big fence around it protected by sleeping guards. We’ve been so thirsty for so long that the idea of kidnapping some architect’s child until the snag-lists are complete doesn’t sound like such a far fetched idea after all.
I’m a woman on the edge.
Hiatus
I’m going away to a very exotic location for the weekend.
It involves the Mersey. Ok so it’s not that exotic but it’s different. Ok so it’s not all that different but at least the accent changes.
*sigh*
Here’s a riddle or three to occupy you while I’m gone:
1. You are lost and alone in the woods. You stumble across an old cabin, and decide to stay there for the night. You want some heat and light, but the only things you find in the cabin are a candle, an oil lamp and a wood burning stove. You look in your pocket but you only have one match left. What do you light first?
2. What is the situation?
“I am afraid to go home because the man in the mask is there…”
3. What is so delicate that when you say its name it is broken?
Have a most excellent weekend whatever planet you’re on.
Vagabondage – a blog is born
I meet an abundance of very interesting people in this job.
I met one particular person in the first few days of taxi-driving, someone with whom conversation came easily and made the job a lot easier. We soon became friends… I give her lifts to work, and she supplies me with the most potent and delicious damn coffee I’ve ever tasted.
We swapped numbers, and enquired about each other’s online status, only to find that I’d found myself a bonafide bebo chick. I explained what a shallow and anonymous gig this Bebo lark is, and explained the theories of blogging. I reluctantly handed over my blog address which is something I hate doing – I like to keep the virtual and the real totally seperate for embarrassment purposes, but something in me sensed that this girl had something to say. A genuinely sound person with a dark and twisty edge needed a blog of her own, don’t you think?
So, I turned her. I bit and infected a civilian and now her thoughts are immortal. (Bwah hah hah hah)
Without further anything else, I introduce you to:
Vagab0ndage
Welcome to the blogosphere, Vicky!
Old my arse
For some reason, other taxi drivers on the rank at the Dart station find me very amusing. They like to stand in groups and watch me parallel park which fucks up my concentration and gives me the shakes and ultimately leads to embarrassment. They give me occasional lectures about smoking in my car (technically the cigarette is outside!) and tell me my brake lights need work with much nudging. It’s definitely not a place for a lady.
That’s why today I was extremely excited to find the rank deserted. I pulled up first in the queue and seconds later my rear door opened, but when I turned around, there was nobody there. My rear view mirror told me that there were two little old dears hobbling towards my car however, one supporting the other like best friends.
They were very happy to see me, being that they’d just been told by another cab company that they’d have to wait for 25 minutes in the pissing rain for another taxi.
“Ooooh!! A lady driver!!! How nice.” the lady in the backseat exclaimed as she fought her stubborn legs into the car. I get this a lot, it’s a nice buzz. The other lady plopped herself in to the seat beside me with no effort at all.
“Right.” says she. “We want to go to Monkstown, and then on into Dublin.”
“Certainly, ladies.” *WOO-HOO!!!* I thought inside my little head. Having just come back from the airport, I felt rich. Sundays are good days for me.
I stuck on some music from the ‘Classycal’ folder on my SatNav and took off. The lady beside me was quite attractive with her hair-mac off… she wore a bronze bob and posh sunglasses with sparkly flowery stuff on the sides and had on her Sunday best. She prompted me for personal information which I always give out far too freely and we complained about the weather, all the way into Monkstown.
We pulled up outside an old Georgian house, and I helped the back-seat lady to her feet. I offered to help her across the road and up the steps (heavily prompted by front-seat lady) but to no avail… she got quite annoyed and said “don’t mind her, I’m fine! She’s always babying me!” then waved at me and headed off.
Then there were two.
There was some silence, then…
“Ahh lookit, I’m nearly falling asleep here, have you any dacent music?”
“Sure!!!” I racked my brains, and waited for a stop-light. I then began to scroll down the music folder and play snippets of songs for her approval. Paul Simon? No. The Waifs? No. Blind Melon? No. I cycled through until she stopped me, at Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun.
“I love his voice! Yes I like this, keep this on.”
I was confused. Time passed. To make conversation, I mumbled something like;
“It’s lovely of you to have such concern for a friend, you’re a credit to her.”
“She’s my little sister, sure I worry about her… there were eleven of us to start with, but there aren’t many of us left.”
Now I’m really confused. I begin to wonder if the lady in my car isn’t extracting the urine. The lady we’d just dropped off had to be at least 85 years of age, but I couldn’t ask the question. I knew she was itching to tell me anyway, which she was.
“I’m in my ninety-second year” she said with a grin.
Now, there aren’t many statements that will warrant my taking my eyes off the road for more than two seconds, but this one was an exception.
“Fu… I mean… You can’t be serious?!?!” I normally hate the ‘guess how old I am!!!’ statement from a fellow female. It’s a deliberate fish, but this one warranted true amazement.
“What’s your secret?”
She giggled, and said “I have a good life. I’m well travelled, and I smoke 20 a day.”
“Fair play!!!” I stated. “Where have you been?”
“Everywhere… Germany, France, America, Mexico, Brazil, last year I went to Amsterdam and it was really very excellent indeed!”
“I’m sure it was!”
“The only places I haven’t been yet are Australia and China. Sure there’s plenty of time for that yet, I suppose.”
Ninety one years old!!!
I was unable to say another word for the rest of the journey, the woman had me speechless. I dropped her off at her batchelor-ette pad and thanked her for her generous tip as she walked away. She has made me re-think old age completely, blown my pre-conceived ideas right out. Maybe I won’t bugger off to Africa where I’ll no longer be a pain in the ass to anybody! Maybe I’ll follow the advice in a poem my mum told me last week:
When I am old I will wear purple.
Yeah!!! I’m gonna live it up!!! I’m gonna have impressive stories to tell taxi drivers when I’m 91 years old coming home from the pub too, and demand that they play The Beastie Boys while we talk.
I officially, from this moment on, do not want to hear anybody complain about being old, because you’re not. When you’re 93, come back and talk to me, then I’ll listen. Right now, I’m well impressed.
Little brown bag
So I was sitting at a taxi rank today reading my paper, and I looked up to see a very common sight. Bodalorna wrote about it yesterday, it’s a sore subject with many obviously enough, and normally the sight of a grown woman putting a bag of dogshit in her pocket would make me point and laugh, but today I was inspired. Today I had to write a song about it.
Here’s the first draught:
Little Brown Bag
Six legs walkin’ down the street
Four small paws, two runnered feet
I got my choons, he got his scents
Together we got confidence.
The time is nigh, I know his game
I look away to spare him shame
Sure enough he squares the squat
And gives it everything he’s got
Here it comes, his face is pensive
Squeezing out his best offensive…
(CHORUS)
You, my doggie dude, I’d do anything for you
I sure as hell will hold your poo
I’ve a wee bag here just for you
Just for you and your special poo
People look and laugh at me
Pickin’ up so dutif’lly
I wonder if they’d be so smug
With dog shit smeared on their new rug?
(CH)
I got a smelly pocket but it’s alright,
Me, my dog and my bag o’ shite.
It’s really gross but you know it’s right,
Me, my dog and my bag o’ shite.
Me, my dog and my bag o’ shite.
Sirprising
I believe that if you give respect, most of the time you’ll get it back, hopefully with tips! I’m trying to teach this to my kids but there’s no way to explain this in pre-schoolspeak, so I lead by example.
The thing is, I’m having problems. I came home after a work shift recently, exclaiming that men don’t like to be called ‘Sir’ anymore.
“You call them Sir?!” Xboxboy seemed more than surprised.
“Yes, if I don’t know their name, I’ll call them Sir. Not all the time, just sometimes.”
“But you’re not below them!!! Never call anybody Sir… it’s demeaning to everybody!”
“Eh?”
I don’t understand this, but it’s true. Also, instead of calling my mechanic ‘Bert’, a few weeks ago I called him ‘Mr. Byrne’, and he was horrified. He instantly exclaimed “Jeeeeesus stop! Mr. Byrne is my father’s name!”. This is a strangely common occurance among men of all ages… they evade chivalry as though it were an insult. Did I miss something?
Can somebody please explain to me why ‘Chivalry is dead’, or ‘So-and-so is the last true gentleman’, or ‘Kids have no respect for their elders these days’ are all such common gripes of adults today when all they need to do is accept a bit of respect?
My kid is watching me and learning that the word ‘Sir’ evokes a similar reaction to the word ‘Shit’. Such surprise and chastisement her mother gets! Better not do that so.
So what do I do now?
The Secret Fire
J.R.R. Tolkien was a very religious man, though this isn’t a well known fact. I read a biography of his lately entitled ‘The Secret Fire’ which describes Tolkien’s inspiration for his many amazing stories, and how he believed that God speaks to us not through prayer and sacrifice, but through music and nature… secret zephyrs and sun rays for your eyes only. When we feel inspired by these things, or feel raised goosebumps on our skin as a result of something beautiful, this is God speaking to us. I would love to go into more detail because it really is an excellent read, but I won’t, instead I urge you to add it to your reading lists.
~o0o~
A very strange and wonderful thing happened last night.
The Cologne New Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra performed in Wicklow Town’s Parish Church. The Chinese would tell you that anything set at 8:00pm on 08/08/08 would be a very auspicious event indeed so it felt right. It felt right, in fact, from the very first moment I laid eyes on the advertisement several weeks ago, but I don’t know why. I just knew that I had to go, and that I had to bring Laughingboy with me.
We sat on an empty pew right at the back of the church beside an open side-door. Cool air flowed past us, smelling of wood and stone and Wicklow harbour, and the crowded temple shuffled in anticipation. It all began with ‘Summer’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. (Listen to it here)
I was so delighted they started with this… it’s one of my favourites. As you might know, the first movement is very quiet, with awe-inspiring violinny bits intertwinkling with the theme. Laughingboy’s ears pricked up and his eyes brightened the instant it started… the high pitches of the violins spread huge grins across his face and he began to move his arms about conductor-style, his heels tapping against the footrest of his wheelchair as he kicked and jigged.
The second movement ended and deafening silence ensued, broken by a sudden long and loud giggle from the happiest child in the world. This sound blasted its way up to the rafters and then bounced around the stone walls for a bit. A sea of heads turned, and I gave them the thumbs up and a big grin. I was happy too, just watching the impact of this beautiful classical music on my son.
The third movement began suddenly with an excited torrent of harmony, and Laughingboy jumped. His arms and legs froze and his eyes grew wide, I thought he was going to cry from the shock but he didn’t, he just stayed frozen. I lifted him out of his chair and cuddled him on my lap so that I could tap the beat on his knees, and then it happened.
He leaned backwards and locked his gaze with mine, his eyes dark and intense (his pupils alarmingly dilated), but his face wore an expression of pure love. He then began to pour God into me undiluted. I felt my soul fill up faster and faster and I thought I was going to explode – tears brimmed in my eyes and my heart raced, every tiny hair on my body danced as I accepted this pure love… no, it was more than love, I can’t explain what it was, but when I looked up from Laughingboy’s gaze, I saw colours shine through the stained glass window that I’ve never seen before. The music became so clear, like it was as natural as a breeze rustling through long grass in the summertime – I could sense the pain and the happiness in the people around us and I loved them all just for being alive.
Instead of exploding however, I felt as it all began to slowly soak through me and radiate from us both as we sat, bathing in the energy, cuddling and bopping for two hours, floating out of the church when it was all finished. I pushed Laughingboy really fast… running all the way up the hill back to the car like a madwoman. We laughed belly-laughs as on-lookers stared and smiled.
~o0o~
When I got home, I found that I was interrupting a Wii night in with the Lads, but the Wiimotes were suddenly forgotten as they flocked to Laughingboy like moths to a flame. One of the lads – a regular visitor of Medjugoria and follower of all things God – stood beside Laughingboy for a long time, watching as he flapped his arms and legs and contorted his face into all sorts of grins and smiles. We spoke about autistic children having extra sensory abilities and put a heavy bet that Laughingboy was a definate contender for the theory, and agreed that there was something new about the kid, a fresh energy, knowledge… who knows what. It was certainly something amazing and I felt it, it’s still there, topping me up every now and then… it’s so hard to explain.
I finally found a way to communicate with my son and I’m the happiest mother alive. That’s all I know.
