K8 the GR8

It occurred to me tonight how very similar blogging is to brushing my toddler’s hair.

I keep meaning to approach it but end up having to put it off until such a time as I know I’ve left it too long, by which stage it’s time to either launch into the knarliness until it’s done, or just cut the whole lot off altogether.

So, I get all my bits together and begin the job.  Roughly fifteen minutes in I then realise that it’s a bigger job than I thought and that it’ll be a long session, usually with much objection from the hardware in question which complicates matters even further.

Then I realise that my problems are probably due to length, at which point the scissors come out and the subject matter is shortened but not quite in the fashion I’d imagined… to avoid further damage I quit while the going’s good, knowing that I’m probably going to get some very strange comments indeed, but hey, maybe it’ll work out better the next time.

Most of the time I just sit and stare at it, wondering how other people manage to incorporate plaits and twists and pretty pink bows not just occassionally, but every single bloody day!

I drove into work yesterday empowered by The Prodigy, old skool style.  It took my brain to another dimension… pay close attention. 

I’m empowered.  I rule the bus lanes of Dublin City.  I read strange books and lurk in taxi-ranks and I am at your service.  I am not a sour taxi-driver, I’m quiet.  If you talk to me, I’ll talk back and agree with you, sympathise with you and be interested in what you have to say, as long as you keep popping those coins in the meter. 

I picked up a carpet-layer from Bargaintown yesterday, and forgot to turn on the meter until we were halfway there.  His tip made up for it because he was refreshed.  I let an old guy off two euros… he had the notes but I took his spare change instead even though it fell short.  He smiled and said it would come back around, and it did. 

—–

To all taxi drivers out there who might chance upon this post-

Be nice.  Provide a service that people want and the rewards will return.  Fuck the belligerence.  Write it down instead.  Blog, don’t bitch.

Read all those newspaper articles, listen to Joe Duffy or read countless blogs and you’ll know that we taxi-drivers are a hated breed.  They think we all guard our meters like we’re heroin-addicts and use every available opportunity to stiff the poor unsuspecting public.  They think we all talk too much about our miserable lives and darken their souls with our sordid opinions, but we don’t.  Not all of us.

So you’ve been burnt before eh?  Bitterness is a sink-hole whirlpool that sucks all the crud into oblivion.  Be careful, for you are the contact lens that’s fallen on the side of that sink bowl, and if you let the greed and the bitterness and the divil himself into your soul, you’re washed away. 

You have to cling.  You have to cling to the hope that you’ll be scooped up, washed clean and be appreciated for the vision you’ve created.

—–

‘Course it’s easy for me, I’ve just won the lottery.  All €18 million of it, but ssshh, don’t say anything.  I’m giving it all to an investor who’s just e-mailed me promising me he’ll double it within 24 hours.  Woohoo!  I just love money!  No I don’t.  It’s fake and I hate it.  I’m hoping that if I hate it enough, it’ll come to me easily and I hate that too.  It always has control, always has to be more. 

These days we forget the alternatives, the ‘I’ll scratch your back’s, the discounts, the open doors, the free eggs.  Bring the barter system back, I say!  Fuck the Department of Finance, the credit ratings and the drooping shares, it’s all just imaginary cash and it has us ruined.

It’s about time this country had a recession.  It takes a jolt to bring people back around to the right way of thinking again.  

My tit:

This boob ashtray was given to TAT by his sister many years ago.  There is no argument or conversation serious enough not to be grounded by the words “Pass me your tit there…”

My bush:

I’ve had this miniature rose bush since I was 17.  It grew to over 50cm tall and was starting to behave oddly, so I pruned it to half it’s size.  It’s been flowering like crazy ever since, but last Spring it got attacked un-mercifully by a little gross army of greenfly.  They say you shouldn’t spray a plant with bug-killer while it’s flowering, but I sprayed it anyway because the little beasties were everywhere and as a result, the plant almost met it’s maker.  I give it warm showers every other day to wash the straggler beasties away and then keep it in the sunniest spot there is.  This TLC seems to have worked - there are a few tiny fresh green leaves now.

Here’s the thing; Even in it’s darkest hours, it persisted with that flower.  The bud was being eaten alive but it carried on, and flowered the prettiest darn flower it’s ever made against all odds.

That is some inspirational shit right there.  Was that God’s work or mine?

Once again, K8’s faith in humanity is given a massive whack across the face with an iron crowbar. 

I have defended the travelling community before (being that I live amongst them and kind of feel I should give it a shot)… I think I said something about them deserving the right to fight for respect within an unforgiving settled community?

What complete bollocks this is.

Here’s the scene:

-0-

I’m parked up at a garage in Bray, looking for a lady who wants to go to Arklow as per instructions from the taxi base.  I’m scanning the area which is deserted apart from a young lad aged eleven or twelve who sits by himself on a window-sill with his head resting on his knees.  Being that I am a girl who tends to think outside her box, I approach the kid.

“Hey kid… you looking for a taxi?”

The kid looks up and seems somewhat relieved.  “Yeah, I want to go home to Arklow” he says.

I convey my successful pick up over the CB and am informed that the fare would be €65.  I turn around to the kid.  “Do you think you can handle €65?”

The kid looks panicky and says; “Oh no I have no money with me, my mammy said she’d pay for me when I get home.  She’ll give you the money then.”

Fishy, but still highly likely. 

“What’s the address?” I ask.

“I dunno” the kid says apologetically; “we only just moved in.  It’s near the main street”.

Something smelled funny, and I don’t mean metaphorically.  The child was scruffy, and smelled very faintly of urine (as many children do) but also had an unmistakeable accent.  He looked nervous, and was hugging a bottle of orange soda.  He had intelligent eyes, and looked me directly in the pupils when he spoke to me.

My instinct roared.  It warned me that I was about to be swindled, but I wondered if I had the right to refuse a child safe passage to his parent?  What if he was speaking the truth?  I’m a mother, I can’t do that to a kid!  Besides (more truthfully), €65 is a lot to turn down.

I take off.  The kid asks me how far it was to Arklow, but apart from that one question he is silent for the entire journey.  When we arrive at the town, he directs me into a small housing estate on the outskirts. 

“It’s that house on the corner, I’ll be back in a second”

I let him out, scolding my instinct for being such a cynical bitch.  Then I watch as the kid passes the house in question at high speed, and dissappears around the corner on to the main road.  I fire the ignition and fly after him in first gear.  The main road is deserted.  I crawl up and down for a few minutes knowing well that the little fucker is hiding somewhere.

I drive back to the housing estate and call the taxi base to see if there is any protocol for this type of thing.  Apparently the union doesn’t have an insurance policy against runners, because there is no union.  I ring the accidental terrorist who tells me to come home (seeing as I happily live near Arklow anyway) and informs me that he regrettably has no secret ninja techniques for dealing with this situation.  The Police are dreadfully under-funded and would probably appreciate my not informing them of this misdemeanour. 

I couldn’t go home.  I wanted to find him and run him over.

I drive very quietly until I get back to the road the kid would be walking.  I shift into neutral and slink along with my eyes peeled.

About 200m ahead of me, I spot an old man.  There’s someone else too, who briefly flashes a face, then hops over the 6ft wall beside him.  I toy with the idea of scaling the wall to chase the kid, but thought better being that my trousers cost a few bob.  Anyway, what use would there be in catching him?  Sure, I could beat him up a bit to calm the anger, but I’d still be broke.

I stop to speak to the old man who does indeed identify a young boy holding a bottle of orange soda.  He also tells me that the field over the wall beside us could be used as a shortcut to get to the traveller’s quarters ‘over the way’ as he puts it.

End of pathetic sodding scene.

-0-

I knew that kid was a knacker.  I still drove him ‘home’ because it was the end of my shift and I was heading that way anyway.  I was aware of the kid’s movements the whole time, but he gave me no cause for concern whatsoever.  He just sat back with his arms crossed and gazed out the window silently which is refreshing for someone with my job. 

I’m not angry about the money, I’m angry that I was so fucking naive to think that it’s possible that there is such a thing as an honest traveller. 

They are a crafty race who have plenty of scruples and plenty of cash, so do not take your eyes off a traveller for one fucking second if you find yourself near one, for they would have the eyes sold out of your head soon as look at you, no matter what age they are.  Kudos to them, they had me fooled… but not anymore. 

They’re in a great position… they don’t pay taxes, and it’s well known that they enjoy the fruits of ill-gotten gains, yet the gardaí won’t go anywhere near them.  They demand respect from the community and free land from the council, then fleece them as soon as their backs are turned!

Where’s the honour in that, though?!  Why is it that the only events warranting shop and pub shut-down around here are Christmas day, and a knacker’s funeral?  They live by skimming money off tax paying citizens… so why are we respecting that again?

If they’re so great, then why aren’t we all travellers?  I’m already halfway there, sure.  We’re scrounging a house off the council, but at least we’re trying to get back on this bastard of a housing ladder… we were almost on it too, once, but slipped off again when Laughingboy was born.  Circumstance kicked us in the nuts and now here we are, still trying to crawl out of the dependancy pit seven years later.  It sucks!  Yet, there the knackers smugly sit in their dingy halting sites, knowing that their head-men and women of the family are worth literally millions of euros.

Here’s an insane question: If you had millions of euros would you squat in a dingy piss-stinking commune in the clogged pores of the Irish countryside, or would you bugger off to Thailand? 

Answers on a postcard to:

One pissed off taxi driver
28 Shithole View
Dunfoundusaplacetohousethescumbags
Co. Wicklow
Ireland

(What?!  What do you mean this post is too long?  It’s not!  My blog is too narrow!)

Here is something I Stumbled upon that pleased the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.  I hope it pleases yours too.

This is what you shall do:  Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants… have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

-Walt Whitman

(source: http://www.rfincher.com/)

I seriously love it when blokes go all taboo.  Nickhereandnow in his infinite excellent wisdom, wrote his view on hairiness (and prevention of) today.  I leaped with joy to read his post, as it’s a great excuse to have a go, especially seeing as I may just be the hairiest girl in the world.

You might have seen this face before:

This smug mug belongs to my father, who bestowed his wisdom, height, and Wookie genes upon me.  Now you perhaps will appreciate my point.

Freud would have it that I would prefer the bearded bloke when seeking a mate, but this for some reason went out the window when I chose a man with exactly two hairs on his chest.  Freud also said that a woman is either constantly running towards her father, or away from him.  If you saw my dad standing on top of his pile of tourist carcasses, you’d probably choose the latter, too.  With the exception of Gimme perhaps, bearded men are generally too ‘nice’ for me, being that I like just a pinch of bad-boy in my men.

Anyway, being that I am with a minimally hairy bloke, a lot of discussion has led me to understand that excess hair on my own self is not appreciated.  I have been asked to visit the beautician’s quarters for a ‘bald eagle’ of late  (TAT’s knowledge of the hairstyles in that region astounded me).  I refused point blank, as I have already experience pube waxing and found it not to my taste, especially when you’re being done by a vindictive cow who insists on ripping away at the same raw and bleeding patch 17 times.

Then, in my infinite female wisdom, I challenged TAT.  I told him I’d go the va-general whole hog on the day he went through with a back, crack, and sack wax.  We agreed to leave it at that, for that was good enough for this particular gander (’Bollox to that!’ he said.  ‘Exactly!’  I said).

The thing is though, you might be here expecting me to fully support this sort of image:

Not a chance, matey.  The gals at school were the first to point out what a freak I was.  Then when my best friend’s little brother began to call me ‘Dr. Zaius’, I knew it was time, and deforestation began against my mother’s wishes.

-x-

My de-fuzzing attempts are as follows:

-I tried Immac first (now Veet) which is a type of acid which, when applied to the skin, produces a very weird smell to let you know your skin is being poisoned.  Then after a while, one washes said acid off, along with scorched dead hairs.  Not so with us very hairy chicks!  We just end up with alien legs that still need to be shaved despite chemically raw conditions.  Binned.

-I tried those electric shavers twice.  The first time it was useless.  The second time came years later when I had forgotten how useless they were but they are still useless.  Binned.

-I tried waxing once when I decided for some unknown reason that the midwife in the hospital in which I was due to explode shortly at the time, might be offended by my… umm… genetic condition.  Bikini waxes hurt.  They really sodding hurt.  And, to make matters prettier, there were many craters, and much ingrown nastiness to follow.  I tried home kits a few times on my arms, but with crap results.  The pain was overtaken by the frustration of being totally unable to uproot the final 15% of the really stubborn hairs.  It was almost the death of me, so it was binned.

-I even tried one of those electrolysis machines, bought on Ebay for fifty quid.  The principle is that you hold this pen (which is wired to the mains) in your left hand.  Instead of a nib, the pen has a micro-thin wire which you insert into the root of your offending hair.  You then touch the silver part of the pen with your wet hand, and ‘BZZZZZZZT’ - you complete the circuit and get root electrocution.  It smells rotten, it feels rotten, and you’d have to do it a rotten further 15,000,000 times to kill all the hair on your body.  Binned.

My only man is your average disposable razor blade (especially the ‘new’ and ‘improved’ ones!), and a large bottle of Fruit of the Earth Crystal Clear Aloe Gel.

-x-

It takes me half an hour to shave everything (trying to shave one’s toe-knuckles with severe myopia is a serious challenge), much longer if I’m expecting a trip to the swimming pool or beach.  It sucks, but I don’t mind, because there is not a chance in hell you’d find me letting it grow.  It doesn’t feel natural, ironically, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the media talking.  If a bloke were to walk up to me and tell me that hairy women are his greatest turn on, I’d run away. 

Anthropologically, it doesn’t make sense for women to be hairy.  Sure… didn’t they get to stay in caves and nurture young?  Men of course needed hair to keep the warm and display their virility and that’s lovely… I’m a magnet to a scruffy stubble, as long as it’s only a few days old.  Men needhair, but I don’t really understand how evolution hasn’t phased it out yet for women… Mother Nature must have gotten the hint by now that it’s out-dated and un-wanted?!  In fact, this guy claims women are generally getting hairier, and yes, there is indeed a blog dedicated to the subject out there! Hairy Women Blog.

Is this one of natures oldest jokes?  I sure as hell ain’t laughing.

I don’t understand politics, mainly because I’ve never tried to.  It’s not something that upsets me much, at least it didn’t until I started reading blogs and found I had to skip over the political ones - my brain just can’t process the sattire or the original point.  No offence to political sattirists, it’s just the way I am.

I do, however, understand children very well, and it wasn’t until this morning when little Sally next door came in to play with Puppychild that the truth suddenly hit me.  The parallells between the infant world and the political world were right in front of me all the time!

To demonstrate this theory, for this next part I will assume the position of both a child between the ages of two and five, and a political bigwig.

~*~

- If you are doing something interesting, I will butt in and do it with you until I am better at it than you are, unless you get bored with it and go on to do something else.  At this point I will change too and continue proving I am better than you are, until such a time that I fall asleep or a body of greater power comes along and stops me.

- Hello, I see you’re new to this neighbourhood!  See this kid/country here?  This is my friend.  You can’t play with us until you provide evidence that you have a stash of Smarties/Weapons of Mass Destruction.  That’s just how it works.  Ok?

- If you push me, I will not ask you why you pushed me, I will just go ahead and push you back.  I will continue fighting with you for no underlying reason until such a point where a body of greater power intervenes or one of us starts crying.  If there is no body of greater power around, then I guess we are both fucked.

- Hey!  Where did you get that ball/space exploration equipment?  That is MINE.  Not going to give it up?  Fine, I’ll just ask my mum to go and buy me one, and if that doesn’t work, maybe I’ll just draw a picture of it and put it against my bedroom window so you’ll think I have one, then you won’t want yours any more!  HA!  No wait… easier yet… I’ll get the other kid down the road to steal it for me.  Yeah.

- Where did you get that money?  What?!  You found it on the ground?  Well, then it’s my money, because I dropped it yesterday, and no, I won’t tell you where because I don’t have to prove myself to you.  Not going to give it up?  FINE!  I’ll tell my mom/the media!

- So you want to play our game?  I don’t know whether or not you’re allowed - you’ll have to ask the leader.  What do you mean he already told you to ask me?  I’m not the leader so it’s not my problem… go ask… somebody else, OK? ‘Bye!!!

- If you see a tree full of apples and think it’s pretty, you’re wierd/left wing.  Me?  I see a tree full of apples, I get my dad to chop it down and bring it home.  I’ll then pick all the apples, shout; ‘I’m going to turn you into poo!’ and eat every last one without sharing with you, just because I can.  And you know what else?  If I feel sick afterwards I will come and throw up all over you because it’s your fault for not stopping me.  So there.

~*~

There you have it.  My stab at politics.  I know now, that when I read a headline in the papers like:

“Ahern insists he will stay on until 2012″

I’ll know to translate it roughly as…

“Bertie needs a nap.”

Beat that, Marx-y baby!  I finally understand…

I had a bloody interesting conversation with a litter warden a few days ago.  It was the sort of conversation that left me thinking, the sort of conversation that could even be excellent thesis material.  It went something like this:

-Why is it that we Irish insist on emptying our ashtrays out of our car windows, even though we’re proud of our country?

-Why is it that we keep smoking even through the drastic price hikes and the knowledge that it’s killing us?

-Why do we keep speeding on our roads when we know we’re putting ourselves and others in grave danger?

-Why do we have appalling statistics for underage drinking?

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because we Irish are born rebels.  Rebellion still flows through our veins; we have, after all, only been independant for just over two generations.  It’s a latent feeling that we don’t deserve to be spoken down to, to be ruled by anyone other than ourselves.  We want to be our own boss and have ample intelligence to know what is or is not good for us.

Moreover, I bet if somebody was to analyse statistics, they might find similar trends in other historically supressed countries.

The people holding the purse are worried and embarrased.  They want to stop us from killing ourselves and prepetuating our bad reputation, but they are unfortunately going about it the wrong way entirely.

We are sick and tired of people in authority wagging their chubby fingers at us and shouting ‘NO, NO, NO!’  Price hikes aren’t working.  Restrictions aren’t working either.  Fines are possibly the worst way to solve this problem… they just fatten the hate and disrespect.

You know what the government should be doing?  They should be re-inforcing the original Irish pride, yes, the stuff they named the sliced pan after!  For example, the litter warden I was talking to doesn’t hand out fines to litter offenders.  She goes to the source.  She encourages school kids to take part in recycling programmes, gets them to pick up the rubbish on the streets left there by their ignorant elders.  They see the fruits of their hard work and they are proud kids.  She is respectfully teaching them instead of punishing them.  It’s so simple.

Wouldn’t it be radical for bill board posters to say something like…

‘Go ahead and speed if you want to, but you’re killing your own people.  Your ancestors fought for their freedom, so why undo their hard work?’

Or

‘Congratulations, thanks to you and your fellow Irish people, Ireland could have the lowest rate of alcohol related deaths in the world!’

Instead of supressing our kids, we should be encouraging them!  Don’t tell them they’re stupid for drinking, tell them that they are the much-needed brains of our future.  Ask them with respect to preserve those brains, and listen to their needs for alternative entertainment during their wilderness years.  Respect goes a lot further than bullying, but I’m afraid bullying is the only tactic being used these days.  Our government seems to have lost faith in us, in our ability to take care of ourselves.

We Irish need to learn how to respect ourselves, to re-kindle the pride.  We should stop whingeing about the government and infecting our young’uns with hatred, and take matters into our own hands for we are indeed big and ugly enough. 

Coincidentally, I’m listening to ‘Warning’ by Incubus at the moment.  Brandon Boyd just sang these words to me:

“I suggest we learn to love ourselves before it’s made illegal”

No, not underwear models… this is much more interesting.

There is a well kept secret here in Wicklow, it’s buried in the countryside, halfway between Roundwood and the Sally Gap.  It’s a very wierd peace-haven called Victoria’s Way.

If you want something different, whether it be a picnic with the family, a quiet stroll or just some good old fashioned food for thought, you’ll want to visit this place.

It isn’t very well marked, but you’ll recognise it by the painted sign on the road.  Its carpark is usually bare apart from a wooden shed with a coin slot on the side, for any donations you feel like throwing in.  From the carpark, the entrance is through the gates of hell, into a huge field full of these fellows:

Each has their own musical instrument, their music is only bound by your imagination.  From this field you have several options - there are extensive walks dotted with random sculptures to freak you out unexpectedly, or there’s an open maze, which is not so much a maze really as a set of random paths intertwining around small signposts.  Each signpost is obscurely worded and will confuse you utterly, but still manages to provoke alternate levels of thinking, which is pretty much the overall effect of this sculpture park… absolutely everything smacks of ‘WTF?!’

When you’re finished meandering, you’ll eventually find yourself back at Victor’s house, which is a tiny cottage attached to a mighty garage.  Inside this garage, are statues the likes of which you would never forget… like this starving chap:

Or this mildly upsetting but vastly intriguing couple:

Once you’ve signed the far wall, you then advance to the shop where you’ll find a wallful of totally unique hand-made jewellery.  This is surrounded by Buddha and Ganesh statues, incense burners, books and ornaments.  Everything is extremely well priced, unless you count a conversation with Victoria himself the extra cost, for it’s a conversation full of arguments like; is 1 + 1 = 1? Are you really a ’self’ or an expression of ’self’? 

Absolutely everything is confusing in an unexplainable way.  To give you an idea, here is the story behind Victoria from his book ‘Making your dream come true’;

Victoria was born Victor Langheld on April 29th 1940 in Berlin, Germany.  On Ash Wednesday, 1945, he emerged from the firestorm of Dresden a dead man walking and began a second life.  He came to Ireland in 1946.

At the age of 12 he decided that enlightenment would be a goal worth sacrificing his second life for.   So he took to heart the advice of so many spiritual masters to go east.  He arrived in India in 1964 and there studied and practiced relentlessly to make his dream of enlightenment come true.  He eventually became a Buddhist monk and, on December 1st, 1980, much to his surprise, he achieved the peak experience of awakening and release.  To his astonishment he realized that reaching the peak is easy, but that the return home is difficult.  Indeed, it would take another 18 years of toil and an encounter with a fully realized spiritual mistress before he began to glimpse the way home.

It was in honor of this extraordinary woman and in submission to her unsurpassed knowledge and power that he changed his name to Victoria.

Mr. Cool - The Nirvana Man

I had one of those ‘almost’ conversations the other night.  It was an ‘almost’ conversation because it didn’t actually happen, but I imagined it taking place for a full 20 minutes before I decided against broaching it.  This was unfortunate because I was watching one of the Sopranos final series at the time, and  I’m always too embarrassed to ask the Accidental Terrorist to rewind after I’ve had a zone-out session.  It’s a very flaky thing to do, and saying something like; “Sorry, love, could you press pause for a while, I have some serious thinking to do…”  sounds so pretentious.

~o0o~

The conversation would have started with this question:

“Hey babe, after all those long talks about religion and belief and all that, I’m feeling a little hypocritical.  How bad would it really be if we decided not to celebrate our family stuff through the church at all?”

The conversation would have lasted a good three hours, and I think I already know where it would end - this is why it was an ‘almost’ conversation.  See?

~o0o~

Our kids still haven’t been Christened.  Well that’s not entirely true… Laughing Boy was very sick as a baby and we were faced with a numbing ‘just in case’ situation.  A nun called into his hospital room one morning with an old brown suitcase.  Inside was a bible, holy water, some lace to represent a Christening gown, and other various religious accoutrements.  We had asked her only to give him a blessing, but instead she went the whole hog.  It was quite sad at the time seeing as his daddy wasn’t even there.

As for puppychild, well… I’ve just been putting it off.  She’s three now, and my dear mum keeps offering to help me arrange a local Christening, saying it’s as easy as dropping a hot spud.  She even offered up her garden for a small party.  I just can’t pick up the damn phone to start the ball rolling.

Then there’s the wedding.  Being the Queen of my family, it’s up to me to arrange such a gig.  I’ve never been one for the white wedding and the flowers and the horses and the horses d’ouvres and all that.  A massive cash injection for something that’s supposed to be intimate?  I don’t get it.  I’d rather go abroad or do something different… a scuba wedding maybe.

I blamed myself, this laziness bug that lives with me.  Time speeds by and before you know it, you’re three years behind yourself.  This is partially true, but I’ve been listening to this other voice that’s telling me to be true to myself and to my family lately.  You’d be lying!  it tells me.    You can’t renounce something you don’t believe in!  Your sins are your own, there for learning, not for shame!  You’re feeding that poor priest a whole lot of crap, but what did he ever do to you?  Be honest!!!  Strap on a pair!!!

I played guitar for a local choir recently.  I lasted two weeks.  I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of what the priest was saying… something about the passover, about Israelites having to slaughter livestock to save their first-born from the wrath of God.  Everyone was chanting and mumbling like a gang of Templars, leaving me wondering whether it was I who was blind, or all the others?  I remember mass as a child, how awesome it all was… people dressed up in finery, pictures of torture on the walls, wine, candles, and a man who was murdered horribly on his 33rd birthday.  How could a kid not want to know more?

Now though, I think I know enough. 

Why is it so hard to find a way to celebrate family affairs in a way that feels right?  The God I believe in, the God of two halves that set this whole comedic opera in play for whatever reason, hasn’t given me any signs yet.  An even bigger problem yet is the breakaway.  To claim that the Church and God are two different things altogether, is like disrespecting your elders, but on a massive scale to me.  I think this is why so many people have Santa syndrome.  They continue holding masses for family occasions, they leave their auntie’s present of a Sacred Heart on the wall, and carry on blessing themselves as they pass cemeteries.  If they stop and listen to logic it all might go away and their family structure would dissolve.  They would be frowned upon, and would fear that the gates of heaven would close, even though they probably have the key in their pockets anyway.

Ireland needs more options.  It feels like we’re sitting in the front row of class here… we’re being watched like a hawk with no chance of passing any notes to the Buddhists in the back row.  The Muslims are outside sunning themselves on their prayer mats, the Taoists have already graduated, and the Extremists have jumped out the window.  It feels like there’s no-one else to talk to except the Protestants - even they seem to be seeing things a whole lot clearer than us Catholics.

Would anyone object to my starting my own ’Church of the Open Mind’?  Do you think it would catch on? 

‘Careful now!’