How to build a bomb-shelter in 364 days
It’s December 21st! Finally, the shortest day. It marks the end of death, of withering, of dark mornings which don’t be the best friend of alarm clocks at all - at all. It also marks the start of our final year together as a human race, in all possiblity.
Yes, K8 the Gr8 is a sucker for sensationalism but she wasn’t caught up with the doomsayers before who warned us that Armageddon was upon us and that we should brush up on our Bible passages…
Nope, I’m used to laughing at those who say the end is upon us. ‘Up your end’, I’d be declaring in gay abandon.
This is different though. The end of days is this time prophesee’d by the Mayans, a people who died out more than a thousand years ago but whose calendar is still accurate give or take 30 seconds or so. They foretold the rise of Hitler, the Stephen’s Day tsunami, their intricately calculated calendar foretold many things besides and ends mysteriously next year, on the 21st December 2012. Ooooo.
Of course, this too is complete bollox and completely mis-representative of Mayan systems and beliefs. But it got me thinking, how nature is an increadibly intelligent thing, how clever it is in maintaining order. Now that humans are breeding at a tremendous rate almost like a virus, wouldn’t it be feasible that nature might try to over compensate with natural disasters? We have had an awful lot of late, and I’m pretty damn sure it has nothing to do with global warming and most likely, absolutely nothing to do with God.
So what could be the end for us as an entire race? A meteorite? An inter-stellar conjunction leading to the interruption of our gravitational pull to the sun? Maybe mysterious methane emmisions from the North Pole will accelerate our passing into the next Ice Age and do us all in. Or! Maybe we’ll all accidentally turn into zombies.
I’m rooting for zombies. I think I stand a chance against those fuckers.
Either way, it makes me wonder. Why worry? We’ll all be dust this time next year. Bwah hah hah hah… etc.
The therapeutic post
Why is it so hard to ask for help?
Is it just an Irish thing, where you feel you owe someone a good deed just because they did something nice for you? The mafia would have theories about this and as yet, I’m not sure that I’m with that idea, or against it. Some people like doing nice things for other people. I get that. Do they secretly keep a mental note of how many times I’ve repaid them? That’s the thinker.
This wrecks my head. As a mammy of a ten year old kid trapped in the body of a baby, a hypersensitive yet outgoing seven year old and a toddler with a head-banging/electric socket fixation, how can I not accept help? This is probably that karma thing that people harp on about, helpful neighbours repaying me for the good things I’ve done, but still it leaves me guilty. I didn’t have kids so that I could be weak, I had them because I knew I could handle everything on my own! It just seems so stupid that I should need anyone else. Selfish, even.
But then, life is more complicated than that.
She and I, we went to a Rattle and Hum gig last weekend. I had a ball. I danced the Streets have no Name till the Elevation came home, but that’s whiskey for you. I dragged her back to my place for a Bailey’s Coffee because I knew she was a complicated lady that needed to talk. And talk she did! But amongst it all, she told me that there was something between us that she couldn’t see, that made her uncomfortable. She knew we could never be friends, but she didn’t know why. I had no idea what she was talking about but the fact that she’d minded wee Fartsalot A LOT in the last few weeks was playing on my mind so now I’m confused.
Like Christmas cards for instance. You’ve just received one from Uncle Mohammed and there’s plenty of time to return the postal festivities, do you rush off a quickie for tomorrow’s post, or do you send a half-assed poke on Facebook? It’s up to whatever you can do in the moment. Or what you can push extra hard to do, maybe.
Do your actions really define you though? People tell me that ‘as long as I don’t take the piss, I’ll be okay’, but I don’t believe them. I don’t believe that a million thanks are enough.
What is a girl to do?
Craven
I’m at a turning point in my life, I think. Not in a Robert Frost sort of way, but imagine his yellow wood had been bulldozed one morning and replaced with a four-lane motorway full of spaghetti junctions… that sort of way.
I was getting so good at hiding from things on my comfy couch surrounded by my lovely little K8lings and thoroughly enjoyed my last three years of shitehawkism beneath the radar, but it seems I’ve been found out by some Greater Power who is suddenly gunning for my blood.
They saw me coming. I’m a big fan of Puppychild’s school you see, it’s an ancient old thing in the middle of nowhere filled with nobles and countryfolk and eccentrics so I used to attend the parent meetings out of curiosity. Then I began to attend them purely because nobody else seemed to want to go so it was sort of obvious when I didn’t. Now I have to go because I got spuriously voted into the position of Chairperson of the Parents Association.
“Sorry? I’m a what now?” I says. They just smiled and handed me their coffee bill.
We have the menial task of raising between ten and twelve thousand quid to cover the money flop this year it seems. One does not just pull a handy grand out of one’s bum, you know. This requires work! A LOT of work. We threw a film night at the school and raked in €400 straight away, it was a great buzz. The flyer for this Friday’s gig looks like this:
Aww, Chwismassy!
My family, however, also demands that I get up off my arse and try some hard graft but I’ve no clue as to how to work that one into an already jammers schedule. Need creativity. And a time machine.
And! Worst of all! Potty training has begun.
Save me.
