I dunno… what?
I shouldn’t really be here. I have nothing interesting to say, I packed my brain into a moving box at some stage and I can’t seem to find it, and I’ve looked everywhere.
The whole family seems to have gotten scurvy from my lack of intelligent culinary variations of cheap microwaveable food, for they are all very irritable and vocal and demanding. I’ve been hiding in Facebook poker on my laptop in the kitchen, hoping I grow so still they can’t see me anymore.
I woke to hear the Christmas tree tumbling to the hard wood floor. If a tree falls in a sitting room and nobody is there to hear it, let me tell you yes it does make a noise. A very impressive noise. Our giant Bob Marley poster had been pushed off the windowsill by the cat, and had thrown the tree off balance without smashing its giant glass face. Rastafari.
I had a pretty angel on that tree, but she broke her wee porcelain arm in the fall, and her pretty white dove ended up skittering across the floor and under the fridge. I superglued her back together, then superglued my thumb and index finger together for the craic. It’ll be a while before that fingerprint grows back.
Just as I was recovering with a strong cup of tea, I heard a knock on my door. My sitting-room door.
A man… some random neighbour dude walked in, told me he was a friend of Grandad’s which was good enough for me. We watched The Pink Panther for two hours, then he left without saying anything else.
I like this neighbourhood.
A Blogmas Carol
…At least I’m not one of them.
I don’t know her name, the lady that created me, but a part of her is still caught up in my stitching, like a fingerprint, and I liked her a lot. She bought my bare bones in a woollen mill in Wicklow and brought me home to an old house devoid of heat and life, but when she stepped through the front door she instantly warmed it with her comforting humming… when she sat down with me, I kept her fingers toasty while she stitched me slowly together. We kept each other warm for many weeks until the day my button eyes were fixed to my bear-shaped head and I was finally complete. From a forgotten ball of brown wool in a bargain bin, to a teddy-bear with plush stuffing and a bright blue bow tie. My smile is wonky like that of my creator, and I have paws made of black embroidery thread. I noticed straight away that my thumb is coming loose, a detail too fine for bi-focals to catch, I think it shall be my quirk.
It’s dark now.
It has been for several days. She plopped a wet kiss on my nose and wished me Godspeed before pulling the golden bow taut around my crinkly wrapping, and now here I lie, quiet.
I heard voices multiply this morning. Different cadences crossed the threshold and I felt the magical suspense as my hour of glory approached. Smells of cookery and candle-wax wafted through my festive coverings and the clear bell chiming of wine glasses being toasted muffled in my cloth stuffed ears.
“Is it time yet? Can we open them?” a small voice wheedled. I hear a subtle grunt of approval and my heart soared. I’m about to be unwrapped, about to meet my new owner, the person my creator cared so much about.
Gravity shifts suddenly as I’m picked up and squeezed. I growl a pleased sounding teddy-bear growl which only I can hear. Daylight.
I see a room lit with flashing lights which hits strands of tinsel and explodes brightly against the walls and the floors and in the eyes of the child that holds me.
“Awww, I have a brown teddy already!” the child’s shoulders slump for a second until he realises there are more gifts to unwrap. He lets me fall. I tumble into the pile of discarded wrapping paper below, and come to rest gazing into the eyes of the old lady who made me, I watch as she folds her arthritic hands in her lap and I want to be with her again. She looks sad.
“Simon! Don’t be so rude!” the mother chastises the child, but does it on a full stomach which weighs her conviction down. The child ignores her. I sit where I am for hours, until nightfall.
I’m scooped up and darkness falls again as I land in a moist place that smells like tea-bags and poultry bones. They can’t see me! They don’t know I’m here. I am carried away… I hear a door slam, and I’m cold.
I’m a forgotten bear. I try to get used to this fact as I sit for a long time in the dustbin outside the front door to the apartment – my black button eyes begin to accumulate frost and people march by, desperate to return to warmth.
Rummaging sounds.
Dirty hands. A boy in a filthy tweed cap fishes me out and peels greasy tin-foil pieces from my fibres. I am placed in a satchel, patted with fingerless mittens, and carried away.
Arms. I am held in two small arms, warm and cosy, periodically extended to be admired by the little sister of my rescuer, as the pair sit beneath an A.T.M. on Christmas Day with their paper cup. I am loved, I feel the love for the best brother in the world from the happiest girl in the universe. I’m a happy teddy-bear.
The little girl sings carols as she sits on her plastic bags and cuddles me. I watch as passers-by throw coins into her cup and I sing along with my teddy bear growl that only I can hear.
Don't bogart that post
Joint posting. You may have seen the fruit of Maxi’s imagination before… a subject is chosen which a number of bloggers take to with gusto, each writing from their point of view at exactly the same time. Beautifully orchestrated, free for all, all you need to do is ask to be on the mailing list!
It started with this:
Then of course Hallowe’en had to happen:
But it’s Christmas time now. So much magic. So much sparkly potential. So much of a temptation to make a mockery of the whole thing! Of course it has to be done:
The artistes in question flow as follows in order…
Why isn't ice cream covered on the Medical Card?
The doctor’s surgery was impressively festive this afternoon, I noted that it’s a shame that Poinsettias don’t own their own smell, there were so many of them dotted around as I manoeuvred Laughingboy into the waiting room.
“So how are we today?” the doctor smiled.
“Ahh not too bad…” I began unbuttoning the child’s many layers. “…I’m concerned about his oxygen saturation levels, since last night I’m guessing they’re hovering somewhere around the 82 mark. Would you have a pulse oxymeter gizmo lying around by any chance?” The doctor began to root, and emerged with a wee box attached to a clothes-peg which he clipped to Laughingboy’s index finger. The digital numbers began to count.
“81.9!” he exclaimed, sticking his lower lip out and making an impressed noise. “Any other symptoms?”
“Difficulty breathing, excessive mucous excretions from pretty much every orifice, restlessness and nausea. I administered a dose of 10ml purified water through his nebuliser last night which seemed to do the job. I reckon the kid has an upper chest infection going on, which seems to be creeping into the lower quadrants. I want to whack it on the head before pleural effusion takes hold. Maybe a dose of Augmentin Duo and a few vials of Combivent would do it?” The doctor mucked about with his stethoscope for a bit and stood back.
“Umm… yes that’s pretty much on the ball, let’s do that then.” He began typing. “Ever thought of entering the nursing career?”
“Yeah, I dunno… I’m just waiting for the right sign I s’pose. And money would help.”
“Here’s your sign right here,” he ruffled Laughingboy’s hair while Laughingboy frowned indignantly. “there’s your prescription, I’m sure you’re well accustomed to the doses and things? I might as well give you some signed prescription pads, sure!”
“Sweet, yeah I’m smashed broke at the moment, that’d be great!” A moment passed as he considered that fact that I might be serious, then he broke into a grin.
“So take care, now.”
“And a Merry Whatever!”
“And a Merry Whatever indeed.” the doctor grinned and went to lunch.
Meanwhile Laughingboy wondered when his ice cream treat was coming to him just as I considered the very same thing. Ice cream always comes first.
Santa is not fat, my daughter is.
All waded out of the crud I am, and life is suddenly worth living again. I find it much better to spew all the depressed crap out of the way instead of slowly dribbling it onto these pages… you may thank me for it though you don’t know it, for this last week was hell, best kept for the bottom of a whiskey bottle, if you ask me. But, sadness is a season and it passes.
In the last week I have done the following:
-Watched Puppychild sled downstairs on flat-packed boxes as I sat smoking a fag in the attic doorway.
-Been interviewed on East Coast FM about Laughingboy’s school without getting nervous because I knew everyone was listening to 2fm or Today FM at the time.
-Stolen the (old) next-door neighbour’s kitten
-Watched the home I was once proud of slowly turn into a shit-hole
-Been offered a job in Puppychild’s playschool
-Fallen down a mountain escaping with a dirty knee and a fellow dog walker’s raised eyebrow
-Argued with the Health Service Executive and won
-Argued with tinsel and blu-tack and lost
-Watched Santa Claus sacrifice my child over his ass as his chair collapsed
-Driven 725km
-Packed 28 boxes and 52 bags
-Watched 84 episodes of Family Guy (that’s 21 episodes 4 times)
-Hated this blog and everything it represents
-Made a cozy fire from nothing but a heated toaster element and an eighth of a bag of wet coal
-Become accustomed to whiskey
-Made 139 mountains out of 14 molehills
-Done absolutely no Christmas shopping apart from blackmailing my new local shop into giving me its last Christmas tree for 10 euros
-Moved into a completely free house which seems to me as big as the Taj Mahal. This brings me to the following point:
I can’t believe I’m here! 6 years of waiting for some sort of suitable house for Laughingboy and I get this! A house on the end of a quiet row surrounded by fields full of men in horses and endless tennisball fetching potential. An electronic device that picks my kid up and carries him into the shower. Neighbours that don’t pound my windows with footballs and don’t curse like sailors. Wide doorways. Wilderness. My home.
To all you solid taxpayers of Ireland:
THANK YOU
Your money is going to wonderful, amazing places. If you should ever find yourselves in a position like mine, where you are humbled and find that the housing ladder is but a far-off dream, know that it is grand to live in a country where fellow sufferers will give you a dig-out, as long as you’re prepared to bear the cross of time and red tape. I owe you so much, I only hope I can return the favour to you one by one, in every walk of life I will repay you. I will drop tenners outside pubs. I will pick up your bill in the coffee shop. I will pack your groceries for you if you’re ahead of me in the queue at the tills at Tescos, I will even pick up my own dog’s shite. One by one I hope to repay you. This house rocks.
xxx
me
The key with the rusty tip
I’m not so sure I should be posting this, it’s not very entertaining and is cryptic of yawnworthy proportions, but it’s an attempt to give form to this vast confusion, the formation of written word sometimes helps. Whether it should be published for the world to see or not, that’s another matter, but the void must be filled no matter how ridiculous the content.
I got news today. It’s not bad news, bad is the wrong word, even tragic is a laughable word in this instance. I got good news too – we finally got the key to our new house. What should be a new and exciting time is really a joke, a big joke in the grand scheme of things. The emptiness of the new house is really the emptiness of the world. A world that should stop today; it should just stop turning, Christmas should be cancelled for life is too cruel for such nice things to happen.
I can’t say what’s happened, partially for the family that it’s happened to, partially because I just can’t write it down. I talked to God last night and for the first time in my life he answered. He really answered and I’m now grouped with the rest of the loonies the cynical world has refused to accept. God told me to stop praying. I didn’t hear a voice, instead I felt it. An unmistakeable block that told me my prayers were pointless, that the answer was already carved out. I could pray for anything else with the feeling I was being heard, but my true heartfelt request was denied. You don’t want to know how many tears I shed during that prayer. Today I understood why. In the midst of shifting boxes and keeping appointments and talking earnestly to strangers, there was a strange void and soon enough I learned that the inevitable had happened. Such grief.
It didn’t even happen to me. It’s a story that you’d hear on the radio or see in a film that would render you senseless with wretched melancholy, the sort you never could be ready for. It’s anybody’s story, they just don’t know it yet and that’s what hurts.
Things might be quiet around here for a while. I have said this before, and yet have found the blog addiction too strong to resist despite priorities and have posted anyway. I don’t feel that pull these days though, things really do need to be taken care of. This is the best and the worst time of my life and it’ll appear here, when the sweet smell of broadband finally comes into play. Until then there will be a void, filled with this boring and depressive drivel that nobody will be arsed to read.
-Knock Knock
-Who’s there?
-Life.
-Fuck off and leave me alone.
-Ok.
The Power of One
Give a thought to the environment this Christmas.
Instead of slagging the cheesy light displays that scourge the national grid every year, it only takes one minute to do the right thing.
Sneak up the driveway and unscrew ONE bulb in each light sequence. Don’t remove it completely, the source of the problem would be too easy to spot.
One person, one minute, one bulb. Save the planet and satisfy your inner evil child all at once!
You know you want to.
The universal voucher syndrome
I have a tacky little porcelain teddybear at home. It was given to me on my eighth birthday by my friend Paula, bought with carefully saved pocket money and presented with glee. It has no function, no purpose, other than the fact that even though I haven’t seen Paula since 1992 I still think of her every single time that little tacky bear catches my eye. I wonder what’s she’s doing now..?
I have a Christmas book, given to me by my late Granny. It is full of Hans Christian Anderson stories and Henry David Thoreau poetry, and is decorated with hand-drawn snowflakes, printed in ornate calligraphy. It’s beautiful, but didn’t cost the earth, and the best thing about it is that even though it’s been in my home for over twenty years, it still smells of Granny’s house.
My point is, that people are shamefully spoiled these days. I keep hearing the same old gripe about Christmas presents – ‘sure you always end up getting something you don’t want!’ – sounds like what you want is a good kick up the Jacksie, mate.
My point is that no matter what you get as a gift, a part of that person is in it. They thought about you while they were buying it and when the giver shuffles off this mortal coil, you can be damn sure you’ll be grateful of the memorandum, no matter how cheap and tacky it is.
-o0o-
I painfully witnessed a sad scene yesterday between my friend and her mother;
Friend – Howye Ma, happy birthday! Here’s a 100 quid for you to spend on yourself.
Ma – Ah no, that’s too much to give, sure you need that money yourself!
Friend – Ok then, let’s call it a combined birthday and Christmas present. How’s that?
(Ma takes the two fifty-bob notes into her left hand and thanks her daughter, then begins to shuffle around in her handbag. She produces three twenty-bob notes and passes it over.)
Ma – Here y’are now. There’s sixty euros for you to buy something nice for the kids for Christmas.
Friend – Ahh thanks Mammy, I’ll put it towards the Xbox! That’s great.
Ma – Oh and here… I’ve that forty euros you loaned me last month. (She hands over two more twenty bob notes.)
-o0o-
I couldn’t help but notice that it would’ve been easier to just hand back over the two fifty euro notes in her left hand that she’d just been given, but maybe it was the juju preventing her from doing that. I had a fierce row with my buddy afterwards about the fact that money is just money… just because somebody handed it to you, doesn’t make it special. She disagreed vehemently and told me that this money is special, to be put aside to spend on something nice.
I’m sorry, but isn’t that bullshit? She hands over 100 euros, she gets 100 euros back. She spends 100 euros on something for herself, therefore she’s 100 euros worse off than she was before.
It was her own money she spent!!! How is that a present from Mammy?
The way I see it, is that the above conversation roughly translates as: “Sorry I can’t afford the time it takes to think of a genuinely nice present for you but I know I have to give you something. Here. Take 100 euros and fuck off. (It’s like a voucher, only a uninversal voucher that you can spend in any shop in Europe. Aren’t I thoughtful?)”
My friend assures me that everybody is doing this these days, but hers is the only family I’ve ever seen doing it with such style! Is she right?
Am I just being an anal freak? Where’s the Christmas spirit? I could do with a shot about now.
Amor Vincit Omnia
Puppychild is going through a phase of trying to understand love.
Last month she loved everything. I love bath, I love spider, I love squishy… now she’s growing cynical and is realising that not everything is deserving of her love, so she questions me about it. A lot.
“Mommy, do you love Daddy?” she’d ask.
“Yes I love Daddy. Do you love Daddy?”
“Yeah I love Daddy. Do you love Wouldye?”
“Yes I love Wouldye. Do you love Wouldye?”… and so on. We go through everybody in the family, but the same thing always happens when we come to Laughingboy; flat denial of any feelings whatsoever.
“But he’s your brother!” I’d implore. “Don’t you love your brother?”
“No.”
I don’t push it or ask why, because I don’t want to cause a nasty complex, and besides – I kind of understand how she feels. Puppychild has no maternal bond. She has a brother who doesn’t play with her, who doesn’t talk to her or push her around. He’s boring, and more often than not, insists on shouting or crying loudly over her favourite films. He takes up valuable Mommy time that could be spent painting pictures or horsing around, and for all this sacrifice, there’s little or no return.
I went through a strange phase like that.
Children return love. They give you sticky kisses and violent hugs. Dogs return love by licking and tail-wagging. Even cats can return affection if they’re grateful enough, but Laughingboy was always quite the opposite. For all the time I spent caring for him, there was no reward… no ‘thank you’, no kisses, no ‘I love you Mommy’. This in itself is a very difficult thing to get used to.
Thing is, I’m grown up now and I understand that enough love – visible or not – can conquer anything, but I don’t have to face schoolkids. I don’t have to defend myself when they find out my brother is broken, and either tease me unmercifully or tell me I’m the sister of a retard. I never had to face something that tough as a kid.
How can I teach my little girl how to love her brother? What will be her reward when she loyally defends her family against an onslaught of verbal abuse and teasing? Laughingboy will never deserve an ounce of resentment but I can feel it growing already, helpless to do anything but lead by example, and perhaps introduce her to Nirvana a little earlier than planned.
The future scares me sometimes.
