Sheepish
I love sheep. There, I said it.
A slight complex may have formed as an impressionable five-year-old as I gazed out the window of our family Datsun Cherry while passing a lush field, and my father replied to my innocent cry of ‘Oh! Look at the baby lambs!’ with; ‘You ate one of those for dinner last night you know. One of their legs, to be more accurate.’
Since then, pictures of sheep have populated my bathroom and kitchen, a fridge-magnet or two hang around, despite having been dropped and rendered legless, they still cling and hold onto coupons for dear life. I even had a handcuffed sheep hanging from my rear-view mirror as a trainee driver. His name was Randy Lamb, and he failed me my first driving test, right from the offset. Driving testers don’t have a sense of humour apparently.
I’m not a vegetarian though, don’t get me wrong. When I can afford it, lamb is one of my favourite things to eat. I’m not a hypocrite either… if a farmer gave me a knife and told me to kill a lamb for my family’s consumption, I would do it, albeit through a wall of tears. It’s lower in the food chain, no matter what way you look at it, and it goes too well with mint sauce. Sorry Randy Lamb.
This is a point I worried about, regarding Puppychild. She likes to talk about her food. Pizza is Pizza. Sausages and rashers have obscure names and don’t prompt questions. Chicken, however, gets a raised eyebrow. Puppychild has heard all about chickens on Old Mc Donald’s farm and is dubious, and to this end, she won’t eat meat unless I lie through my teeth (or chewed food as it were) about what her dinner actually contains.
(robbed from Magneto Bold Too)
Last spring, I saw how the other half lives.
A fellow pre-schooler’s mommy brought Puppychild and me to a farm during lambing season, much gushing and cuddling of leggy awkward fluffiness followed, not to mention congratulations to tired and bedraggled looking ewes… the children were in their element. Upon cramming said kids into the car afterwards, fellow mommy rolled down her window and, in full ear-shot of the children, asked a few questions.
“When will they be weaned do you think?”
(assumed answer from farmer)
“And how much would it cost to buy a lamb?”
(random figure from top of farmer’s head)
“And how much would it cost to have it chopped up into pieces?”
(head-scratch from farmer)
“And if I was to buy two lambs, chopped into really small pieces so that I can squish them into my 40 Litre freezer leaving out things like their little heads and feet and tails and things… could you do me a deal?”
… The conversation continued along this way, with this kind motherly lady mentally butchering small fluffy animals in a pensive but very vocal sort of way. I turned around to view the children’s expressions, to find them gazing nonchalantly staring either out the window, or at their colouring books. They were hardened children, used to the life-cycle of farmyard happenings. Puppychild, however, had turned a whiter shade of pale. Her eyebrows were no longer visible, now buried high in her fringe. I watched as she clamped her hands over her ears and went to her happy place.
At least she can’t blame me for that. I had it easy, in retrospect.
(robbed from Early Recovery Blog)
Wartime
Oh, sometimes skies are cloudy
And sometimes skies are blue
And sometimes they say that you eat the bear
But sometimes the bear eats you
And sometimes I feel like I should go
Far far away and hide
‘Cause I keep a waitin’ for my ship to come in
And all that ever comes is the tide-Hard Time Losin’ Man, Jim Croce
I spent most of today with my hand clamped firmly over Laughingboy’s mouth. He’s been suffering from… something… for a few weeks now. Could be teething problems, could be growing pains, could be gas, could be that the planet under the control of his amazing brain power somewhere is suffering from the turmoils of wartime. Everybody offers opinions, but it’s anybody’s guess. Either way, he spends most of his time red faced and screaming, his limbs clenched tight like rusty vice-grips, his eyes wild with anxiety. There’s only so much pain killer a kid can take before he either becomes immune, or suffers from liver malfunction so it’s a case of trying one thing after another until he eventually falls asleep.
Problem is, most of the day must be spent quietly while TAT sleeps off his night-shift, so I must stay glued to Laughingboy’s bedside, gagging his yells with the cupped palm of my hand, stopping briefly every now and then to scream profanities into a soft cottony Spongebob pillow. I caught myself yelling at Puppychild for singing ‘ring a ring o’ roses’ in her sweet little voice over the calamity caused by Cryingboy in the same room. Hers was the voice of peace, but I only saw that once I had shattered it and she looked at me with big eyes brimming with tears, confused at what she had done wrong. It killed me.
When silence briefly reigns, I must spend it washing or cooking or sweeping, or simply staring into an open fridge for two hours. I miss the good parts, the quiet smiles, the interludes.
It grinds a girl down, it makes her want to sleep, to find her reflection in the bottom of a bottle, to forget about sending wedding thank-you-cards and emptying spare-rooms and sunbathing in rare Irish tarmac softening heat. I wonder when things will start to perk up again.
Then something silly happens… in this case, while I was setting up Laughingboy’s feeding bag tonight, and I stood on an up-turned plug. My reaction sounded something like a birthing hyena and it sent both children into hysterics. All three of us, collapsed on a bed, ripped into shreds of giggles and forgetting the bad times. It was right then that I figured it isn’t Laughingboy who has special needs, but me. It’s a need to know that giggles are no good without tears, quiet smiles are accentuated by loud frowns, stress breeds peace.
Whatever it is that Laughingboy is suffering from, it will be but a distant memory someday. I should take this opportunity to teach Puppychild how to deal with stress by example, and to remind Laughingboy what my heartbeat sounds like, instead of having him taste the salty bitterness of my sweaty hand. Nothing comes from nothing, everything comes from understanding.
Like Grannymar once said on her blog; “Be thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means you have a home.”
How not to have an affair
Whoever said that the Leaving Cert is the most difficult exam of your life – they’re lying. I did alright(ish) in that test, but have had no need for it since, in fact its details were soon forgotten. The biggest test of your life is monogamy. It is, by far, too cruel a rule. I speak in terms of Darwinism and biology, the fact that a person’s hormones are destined to rage when in some people’s presence, and remain flaccid in other’s. This of course fluctuates from month to month, all in the name of stupid pro-creation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your husband, wife, or otherwise intended. Isn’t that cruel? It’s a simple mathematic equation… two random people equals one healthy baby. Who wants a baby? Nature, that’s who.
I hold my hand up. I’m guilty of the roving eye, and use the elastic band wrist trick. A vicious snap is often good enough to keep me grounded, but I can’t help wondering about my betrothed. Although he’s the most loyal man there ever was, he can only be human… a fact that stays with me whenever he leaves me for a night of taxi driving. You should see some of the slappers in Bray. They have no shame, they have no morals, they will wear nothing, they will screw anything, and will make this fact known. For a man to deny this takes serious armour.
I found a receipt once in his pocket for flowers and chocolates but I had none to show for it. That fuelled my curiosity for weeks.
I find long blonde hairs on my husband’s coat and I analyse his behaviour quietly because of them.
But why? Why the constant suspicion? Am I looking for clues? Why do we as fully comprehensible humans spring traps and accusations from thin air? If we browse the menus of our opposite sex, why shouldn’t our beloveds do so to?
A drunken moment on honeymoon soon found out. We had sweated out a Black Moon party and were back at the ranch in high spirits, so I asked. Hell, why not? That’s what being married is all about… asking dangerous questions. After all, there’s no point in hiding stuff now, is there?
‘Surely there’s been somebody you’ve been tempted by?’
He was surprised by the question, and evaded it. He changed the subject many times until I oozed it out. His reply left me reeling. He admitted that yes, there had been one or two times when temptation was more than torture itself, but that he had a fail-safe way to deal with it. What works for him, may not work for me, but that’s for me to deal with, however difficult that may be.
So what’s the moral?
I suppose that’s the secret to marriage. Even if I’m glibly stating this after a week or so of the dirty deed, eight full years of partnership have taught me that admittance is most definitely a way through. Stating your inner thoughts and worries opens doors. Marriage is about being faulty, about being impure, about being human.
People ask me what it’s like to be married. I tell them that I can feel nothing different, but that’s not true. Now I know that it’s more than a piece of paper. It’s about suffering the same things together, about holding hands through crowded concerts… it’s like holding a rope. We’re holding our partners over the edge of a cliff and it’s up to them to trust us. With marriage though, it’s like everybody can see us… everybody can see us dangling from that cliff and they’re waiting for us to fall. All we have to do is talk it through.
‘Are you still holding on?’
‘Yes. You’re heavy, but yes I’m holding on.’
The real torture is that we’re always dangling, never to be pulled up to safety. The only thing denying us all from safety is temptation, a frayed rope. The temptation of an affair is to plummet into the unknown, and that, dude, is too far to reckon with.
I desperately want to ask others about the state of their ropes, but it’s too personal a question, they need to be fully inebriated before a satisfactory answer is given. Here though, here is different. Here people have time to think.
How do you not have an affair?
Long time no see
Irish weather is a gift. It has rare qualities that are hard to see, but for all the complaining we do about it, I really don’t think we fully appreciate its element of surprise.
Take yesterday for example. I had a million and one things to do, each task seemed longer and longer and was slowed by my increasing tiredness and lethargy. It felt like a bad day that would never end. I drove for miles with cloud overhead, shopped in cold supermarkets, carried heavy boxes and appeased complaints from cranky children who didn’t seem to want to make room for my foul mood. Even dog-walking, a usually exciting task for both parties, didn’t provide its usual buzz, this time even the passing foliage looked bored.
Then, driving back from the forest, it happened. As overhead branches became fewer and the sky crept into view, the blueness leapt out and suddenly the sun in her rarity beamed in full volume. Its power permeated everything inside the car… the Goo Goo Doll’s ‘Iris’ was playing through the stereo at the time and suddenly the notes became truer, the song became as beautiful as the first time I’d heard it. The heat hit my face and made me gasp and rose the tiny hairs on my arms and made my heart beat faster and suddenly it was no longer a bad day. The moment etched itself on my memory, leaving the rest behind, drudgery dissolved.
See, people in Spain or Florida or Thailand… places we so keenly wish to visit… they can’t appreciate that because the sun is constant and there are no surprises. We covet UV light so desperately, yet on holiday most of us complain that it’s too hot. Irish weather is perfect, it has the ability to shock the most miserable person into pure awe… they suddenly see that if it weren’t for all the Goddamn rain, the pure lush crisp green that now surrounds them would not be made possible.
I know you’ve felt it.
Us Irish are a bunch of racist scumbags
My neighbour passed by the window so fast she may as well have been a Banshee. The doorbell rang and I hoped the sleeping taxi-dude didn’t notice but he probably did… he surfaced soon after (which is nice because there was drilling to do and I hate drilling through council-house walls, they put metal girders where they really can’t be predicted. Nevertheless, I’ve got to do something about that doorbell!).
What followed was a rant of epic proportions. I like rants. I like being the rantee, for while I’m useless and lazy about finding solutions to the strange problems of other people, I love the fact that I can be used as a buffer to cushion the emotions of the sufferer. It’s all good by me, especially when there’s vodka involved, which in this case there was.
The rant in this case involved racism, at least I think it did. I can say with at least three months experience behind me that my neighbour is a pretty decent woman, that I’ve gleaned a lot of spiritual and agricultural information out of her, that she’s one of those salt-of-the-earth types, but she has one problem…
…she has a very strong American accent, and in Ireland, that don’t go down too well because for the most part, we’re a bunch of shallow, narrow-minded, racist amnesiac scumbags.
The neighbour in question was hired to be a chef’s apprentice. Being a woman of flushing age, she wanted a new challenge, something to add to her C.V., something she had a passion for. This job was perfect. The job in reality involved her cleaning toilets, taking on the responsibility of five people (four of which were Irish and decided to go home early) in the cleaning up of a dinner mess of sixty-five people… and the endurance of back-stabbing rumours made about her, whispering pointings and accusatory allegations, but she stuck with it for the sake of her daughter and her credit ratings until today, when she snapped.
She’s a single mother born in Ireland, returned after a long spell to find her feet, still burdened with an American accent so she’s screwed. How’s that fair!??
A mass exodus of Irishmen to the U.S. decades ago led to a struggle for identification and pride. That was years ago – past history… we got over it. Just as the Polish are now, they struggled through. Now the Irish are revered in the United States. Got an Irish accent? You get laid over there straight away!!! But…
If you want to come back home? You’re bunched.
American voices are met with scorn in Ireland. Loud, brash, opinionated… these are the buzzwords I hear. Therein lies my dichotomy. I loaned my Dad’s book to this neighbour a while back and warned her of its content. I’m the daughter of a USaphobe and while I admire my father’s gumption, I feel the need to stress that apples often roll far from the tree and that this fiction is merely ironic… a piss-take of Irish opinion.
The book still hasn’t been returned. I’m wondering if she hasn’t burned it in an empowerment ritual to be honest.
Shame.
Why am I defending my people to my people? She’s Irish, she’s American, she’s just like my friend from Idaho that married an Irish bloke and tried to settle here with the same response… complete and total isolation.
That’s not fair.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say apart from…
“Dude, we should so join the revolution. Another shot??”
How to love thy neighbour's stretchmarks
If there’s one thing lately that irritates me more than an army of wasps at a picnic, it’s the loss of sisterhood in today’s society. Not that I’m a feminist but… (uh-oh…)
What women tend to do nowadays is wrap a compliment in an insult and get away with it scott-free. Much like these examples;
“Walk behind me, you’re a skinny bitch and you’re showing me up.”
“God your hair is gorgeous, I fucking hate you!”
“Your boobs are so perky today Mary, I hope you die in a horrible car accident.”
What would make for a really refreshing change, would be to overhear the following conversation;
“Howye Mary, I prayed for your sebaceous glands last night, I see it paid off!”…”Yeah I thought my hair was extra glossy today, thanks Aine!”
We’ve lost the knack of sisterly caring and support in this heavily patriarchal world, the ying and the yang are totally off kilter and instead of rallying our femininity together again, we wish cancers upon each other and that really, really sucks. Menses are hidden, menopausal women are left on their shelves, caesarean sections rule the day for a quick and easy birth instead of securing a happy and calm environment for mother and baby. We’ve been converted into cows… jealous, backbiting cows.
In the spirit of this, I would like to remind women who we used to be… Goddesses. (WITCH!! WITCH!! I hear you say? Yeah I wouldn’t blame you, for you’ve been conditioned that way.) I shudder to think of the 9 million women who were burned, drowned or commited suicide in defense of their sisterhood. This post is for them, and for you ladies out there who hate your bodies and hate your friends because of theirs.
Let me introduce you to the Goddesses who used to inhabit our souls before they were bet out of us:
Gaia; Knows that stretchmark creams are truly pointless.
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Hecate: Never could be arsed with the likes of Oil of Olay.
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Rhiannon: Knows that ‘pale and interesting’ far outweights St Tropez fakeness.
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Sappho: Born on the island of Lesbos and will kick seven shades out of you for slagging her about it.
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Yemaja: Wants you to tell her to her face that motherhood isn’t a real job.
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Baba Yaga; Wise beyond Botox
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Isis; Beyond asking if her bum looks big in this.
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Mary; Loves you with or without your Wonderbra.
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Of course there are some other Goddesses that should be included here, but maybe best celebrated in the privacy of one’s own home;
So go on out there and love your women. Wish blessings upon their belts and tell them you think their acne is cute. Sisterhood is dead. Long live sisterhood.
The Ejector Seat – you never know when you might need one.
Have you ever been on one of these?
It’s the sort of fairground attraction that you glance at once, and state firmly to yourself something to the effect of; “Fuck. That.” That was me last year. This year however, I gave it some more rational thought while queuing for the kiddie-coaster. I decided to myself that it was just something I would have to do, the curiosity so pure I just had to know… am I a wimp? Is the Xtreme still within me?
So, when Best Bud and I discussed the idea, we found that we would both rather not, but would do it anyway just for the sisterhood.
“The reverse bungee (or catapult bungee, or Ejector Seat) is a modern type of fairground ride introduced by S & D Leisure in 1999 as a slightly more controlled, inverted version of the bungee jump.
The ride consists of two telescopic gantry towers mounted on a semi trailer, feeding two elastic ropes down to a two person passenger car constructed from an open sphere of tubular steel. The passenger car is secured to the trailer with an electro-magnetic latch as the elastic ropes are stretched. When the electromagnet is turned off, the passenger car is catapulted vertically with an acceleration of 4.8 g, reaching a maximum altitude of 55 metres (180 ft).
The passenger sphere is free to rotate between the two ropes, giving the riders a thoroughly chaotic and disorienting ride. After several bounces, the ropes are relaxed and the passengers are lowered back to the launch position.”
Apparently your body goes from 0-60mph in 0.8 seconds. Much like being spat out of a Fighter Jet’s ejection seat, hence the name. Coooool. We watched as others before us in the queue took off and laughed at the screams before each one. All we could hear was a snippet, the voices disappearing within a fraction of a second; “Shi-”!
A Thelma and Louise moment.
The suspense at the start was the worst. Watching those elastic bands stretching and gathering that much potential energy and knowing you’re only stayed by a magnet under your arse… waiting for the magnet to be switched off… it’s horrifying. Then without a countdown or so much as a 3…2…1…, POOM, you’re 180 feet in the air and your body is weightless. At this point I became painfully aware of the safety belt as gravity kicked back in and we both were spun face-down as we began to plummet. I was trying to say to Best Bud while we were being bounced that I thought the view was beautiful, but all my mouth could produce was; ‘OOOO FUCK FUCK OOOOOOOOOO FUCK FUUUUCK’, completely involuntarily. It’s scary.
This is what the camcorder fixed to the inside of the cage might tell you it feels like, but it doesn’t give you the same sense of whiplash or gravitational chaos the real thing provides.
I feel like I’ve been in a car-crash, but it was worth it. The Xtreme still abides within K8 the Gr8 and that’s good to know.
How to screw with the space/time continuum without even trying.
Of course we’re all aware of the time acceleration phenomenon that happens roughly between 5am and 9am… whether you’re trying to sleep, or willing the traffic into oblivion or brushing unruly knots out of four year old hair, time travels at twice if not three times its normal speed.
If you want this to happen on a greater scale – it’s pimpsy. All you have to do is set a date for something huge, like a wedding, or a lesson in naked base-jumping, and zoom! Time accelerates (proportional to the end-date of course) out of your control. The 9th of May. Time for me has a half-life of two fortnights.
My poor blog. It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve even so much as looked at it. Missed it’s second birthday and all, poor thing. It just held no interest for me all of a sudden, nor did Facebook or Twitter (which I have henceforth washed my hands of) which both seem like a phenomenal waste of this ever-dissapearing time. Ironically, this is where the SUA (Status Update Addiction) should kick in. I’ve so much material to broadcast, but when I stop to think how I should phrase it (in as witty a fashion as possible), twenty minutes have passed. Then it hit me that the cause for delay was simply my conscience saying; ‘Who the hell cares what you’re doing anyway?!?!? What ever happened to the air of mystery?!?! Go back to work!!!’… so I stopped.
As beautifully amazing Broadband is compared to Dial-up internet connection, it has its downside. It’s far too easy to let it absorb you, there’s that much stimulation to be found on it… from blogs to Youtube to online poker… it can totally reverse the window. Instead of you using it, it starts to use you and that’s when it’s time to take a step backwudz.
I killed the internet. I will dissect it and break it apart and abuse it at my leisure, the honeymoon phase is over. Now is the phase of {HTML and CSS and div and border-color: #FFBD32; border-style: ridge; and maybe a car battery on standby in case things get ugly} is here and it’s doing my fucking head in, but it’s better than pointess updates on Facebook, that’s for sure.
If anybody is interested, this is what my SUA might have looked like;
Today I be mostly making babies.
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K8 is trying to think out of the box.
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@Calligraphy I am conquered.
I would highly recommend booking a naked base jumping lesson or a wedding. You could always cancel it at the last minute… not that I ever would. Or would I?
Revolution – now or never.
Revolution.
I mentioned it before, and the concept is on everyone’s minds. Bloggers alone have had a field day writing about government grievances, if I linked to them all it would take up the whole page. This one is just a taster: Living in a Banana Republic. The general consensus seems to be that we are heavily depressed about the fact that we’re being kept in the dark about most decisions, that the leaders of this country don’t give two flying f*cks about the public. They are the exceptions to their own rules, and Robert is dead right, it is depressing, this lack of control that our so-called democracy has.
Herein lies the problem. The facebook group which started this idea is barren. With 116 members, you can practically hear a pin drop on the message boards. Nobody has any ideas, no suggestions, there is no way of finding out how we can all collectively make a change because everyone’s being to damn quiet. Are they scared, or just lazy? Are people waiting for someone else to do the work, or are they waiting for a written constitution that they can get their heads around?
Here is a very eloquent post that I robbed from Maxi Cane, below. You can see it at his site, or at the Blog pound, or at 1 Blank Page.
He’s looking for your help. I am looking for your help. Soon, there will be something concrete on the web that everyone can contribute to, but we desperately need your thoughts. Serious thoughts and suggestions. Links. Ideas for public protests… anything. If you’ve had enough, channel it. Now’s your chance.
Imagine.
Imagine that Cowen and his whole party of a backslapping, brown envelope stuffing, self righteous clique were thrown out tomorrow.
Imagine that before he could even try it, we stopped Kenny and his bunch of not much betters from rubbing their hands and taking control.
Imagine we had control.
Imagine YOU had control.
The reality would be that you’d have no money and the people who do have it are increasingly worried about giving you any.
- The country is angry. Not because we’re an angry people, but because we’re scared. We’re scared that this time last year only the people in charge new what was coming.
We’re scared about what they’re keeping from us now.
We’re scared that we’re losing jobs, homes and things that we worked hard for and assumed would have been safe, because the people in charge would do their jobs.
They haven’t.
- The country is angry. Not because we’re an angry people, but because we’re unsure. We’re unsure about what to plan for this time next week, never mind next month or year.
We’re unsure about what they’re keeping from us now.
We’re unsure about the future of our education, health and welfare systems that we worked hard to pay for and assumed would be managed and governed properly because the people in charge would do their jobs.
They haven’t.
- The country is angry. Not because we’re an angry people, but because we’re tired. We’re tired of hearing the same excuses and blame games. We’re tired of being told to tighten our belts when we have no choice as dole queues grow and incomes drop.
We’re tired of information being kept from us now.
We’re tired of mini budgets and incompetance. We’re tired of worrying about where our next euro is coming from. We’re tired of having to beg for social welfare payments and benefits. We’re tired of the people in charge defending the elite and blaming us. We’re tired of electing people into power who promise to do their jobs when they never do. We want to be lead by people who instil confidence.
They haven’t.
We have to act. We, not them. We need to rise above this anger, uncertainty and worry.
Now, this will seem like asking a 6 year old what they’d do if they were King for a day kind of an idea, but hear me out.
If you were standing in front of the Dáil and its members who were prepared to legislate and stand behing one point of action that you demanded, what would that be?
Let’s roll up our sleeves and get this done, because the people who have the power don’t use it for the better. Regardless of your political backgrounds or beliefs you can’t deny that action is needed.
It’s our time.
What do you feel we need to get sorted first, and how?
Schmalentines
-o0o-
“So we’re not arsed with buying cards are we?” The Accidental Terrorist glared at me through the eye-slit in his balaclava.
“Naaah, screw Hallmark. Say… how ’bout we go shopping for wedding rings instead? Cool mark for an occasion as any, innit?”
“Yeah! Tell you what… wake me up with a rasher sandwich and a cup of coffee at 4pm and we’ll sort that out” sez he. The train of conversation got blitzed in a sudden ‘Shite!’ from me as my little Yoshi character hit a banana skin and slid his wee Mariokart into a gorge. First place lost, dammit.
-0o0-
I woke this morning in the bed of TAT’s sister. Having spent the night on a haze of red wine and conversations floating around our prostitute names (mine’s Misty Bushpark) and the trials and tribulations of fellatio, we woke spooning against the cold of the broken central heating system. Puppychild bounced on us and sored our heads.
TAT’s sister would not be seeing her husband on Valentine’s day either, but we are each others next best thing I suppose. As we properly reasoned, every day is Valentines day if you’re lucky to own that frame of relationship. I brought her flowers, to keep her husband on his toes.
I spent the morning on her couch in a duvet-roll with Puppychild and allowed random flickers of Nickelodeon to invade my semi-consciousness until the urge for coffee kicked in, at which point the day should really start, maybe 1.30pm is pushing it a bit. We spent the morning fawning over my trappings of wedding concerns, then she turfed me up into the attic to remedy a problem with a dodgy stop-cock. (*giggle*)
I arrived home at about 4pm, and nudged the sleeping terrorist. He looked and smelled too comfortable, and was only in the sixth hour of his sleep so I didn’t push it. Instead, I chose to climb rope bridges in Shankill playground instead. I highly reccomend swinging where at all possible, in the non-biblical way I mean. There’s nothing more powerful to knock the senses than flying through the air lying back with your head brushing the ground on a swing… a proper timber swing with six foot ropes and excellent potential for momentum. You should try it if you don’t already.
I spent an hour afterward over dinner chatting with TAT and enjoying his accounts of the back-stabbing dog eating world that seems to be taxi-driving nowadays, and now I am alone again with my whiskey and my computer and LastFM.
I got no flowers, but the flowers he brought me last week still occupy the vase, even if the rest are fading, the lilys are at their climax now. I got no card, but I always feel horrible when I have to throw out cards, or burn them or recycle them… it’s the embodiment of a love that really doesn’t have to be. Tokens are all over the place, there’s really no need for more, besides… I never know what to write in the damn things. I love TAT today as much as I do every day, and all the days after that. Valentines Schmalentines.
Apparently this day in 278, Valentine was beheaded in Rome just as today, somewhere in Hallmark, someone probably got fired because sales are down. It’s a parallel, it gets my cogs grinding, such is life.
