So, this one time, at band camp a couple of years ago, I was given a really cool birthday present. Frankly, it terrified the bejesus out of me at first. I’d no idea how to put the thing together, let alone get it to make a noise, and finding an English-speaking teacher in Amsterdam proved tricky. So it languished on my bookshelves, then in a FedEx moving box, and latterly took up a cosy corner of the storage cupboard in our flat.
Until last month.
Himself, being the generous and thoughtful sort that he is (not to mention a sly dog), not only found me a teacher, but also coughed up for ten lessons with him as my Christmas present. I’m four lessons in now, and, well, Benny Goodman I ain’t, but I can hold a tune with the thing. The teacher reckons I should go for my grade two exams in June, which, aside from making me feel about eight, has me both excited and nervous at the same time.
I figure there are worse ways to be spending one’s otherwise unoccupied afternoons. And there are probably worse instruments I could be inflicting on the neighbours.
It’s just over eight years since my first visit to the social welfare office. I wasn’t long out of college back then, but the temp work had dried up (Celtic Tiger me hoop) and things were starting to get desperate. I’d say it was as plain on my face as the giant wet patch on my arse from where I’d snotted myself walking through Ballymun Town Centre. The lady behind the desk told me to go away and come back when I had more paperwork to show her. I whimpered all the way home to Santry, registered with another temp agency and never went back.
This time round was pretty quick and dirty by comparison. I suppose the busyness of the place these days has made it somewhat half-efficient, and bringing the entire contents of my filing cabinet helped. There’s no real arguing with a redundancy note, either. And so, it’s official: I’m signed up to the care of Mess(e)rs Cowen and Lenihan and that Hanafin wan. For now, I’m determined to keep the “fun” in “funemployment” for as long as I can.
1. Stop yanking out the white hairs. Accept defeat as a natural redhead and start hunting for alternatives.
2. That huge pile of laundry at the end of the bed isn’t going anywhere by itself and having to rummage through it for a matching pair of socks every single morning is an awful waste of ten minutes.
3. Remember to hold your breath before cycling past Subway on Amiens Street. It stinks.
My dad only ever worked at one company. He started out as a fifteen-year-old apprentice and worked his way up and round the place over the course of the next forty years. At 28, I’ve already clocked up twelve employers, not counting too-short-to-mention temping stints. Most have been decent, save perhaps for that one place where I sold accidental death insurance over the phone to English people at 8am on Saturdays (“HELLO? DID YOU KNOW THERE’S AN EIGHT PER CENT CHANCE YOU COULD GET HIT BY A BUS TOMORROW?”), and that one day in the card shop where I lost someone’s credit card down the side of the checkout desk and fucked if anyone could find it afterwards and no, I didn’t steal it.
My time with employer number twelve is running out, though – four weeks to go (and counting). Barring a major miracle there’s likely to be a wee break before I make it to lucky thirteen, which is good in a way, I suppose, as I get to consider what I’d like thirteen to be. Suggestions on a postcard, please…?
Well, that was mean of me. Kindof like buying a boyfriend a new shirt and parading him around for a minute before shoving him into a dark cupboard for a few weeks.*
And so, yet another edition of The Things I Have Been Doing Instead Of Blogging:
- getting back behind the wheel. I’ve found a new driving instructor who is superextrabonusdeadly and I should hopefully have my shiny pink licence soon. Third time lucky, as they say.
- planning a holiday! The fellah and I are off to Canada next month where we will cruise waterfalls, drink Caesars, eat poutine and club baby seals. (Kidding on the last part.)
- listening to some really great music. 2009 is a banner year for me so far – Fanfarlo, Florence & The Machine, Mayer Hawthorne, Noah & The Whale, Camera Obscura, Ellie Goulding, Dodos, Animal Collective, Phoenix, Passion Pit, Local Natives, Kings Of Convenience, Marina & The Diamonds and Grizzly Bear have all thrilled, delighted and amazed thus far. I’m sure there’s tons I’m forgetting, too.
- rewatching Green Wing, which is just as hilarious as ever.
- shopping. A lot. Way more than normal. Wardrobe clearout imminent.
(*not that I would EVER DO THIS. Obvy.)
I repaired my first bike puncture last week but I still couldn’t tell a spoke nipple from a derailleur. (But I can spell derailleur without needing to resort to Google, how weird does that make me?)
I’ve become rather addicted to watching late night poker games on TV, even though most of the players are misogynistic tossers.
I’ve discovered that banana bread and peanut butter is a dynamite combination, although I now get why Elvis ended up so fat.
I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday but spent the evening drinking rioja and redesigning my blog instead.
Well, I’ve regained the ability to chew, and speak properly, and I’m down to two Nurofen a day. I do still have stitches in my gob, but apparently they’ll fizz away all by their own selves in a couple of days. The chipmunk cheeks are – thankfully – long gone.
Be ye warned, though, the pain was cat, especially after the hi-grade drugs wore off. I’d initially thought I was feeling better and made the mistake of venturing outdoors for the first time – to Tesco of all places – and sure enough, within five minutes my jaws were throbbing and I was threatening to take someone out with the trolley.
By day six I was feeling much less murderous, and after a day spent baking (!) I figured I was probably fit to return to work. And so here I am a week later, still a bit knackered, but pretty much fixed up.
My sickweek in numbers:
Anaesthetists resembling Guy from Green Wing: 1 (bingo!)
Fingers held up when I came round and the nurse asked me how sore I was on a scale of 1 to 10: 7
Types of medication I went through: 5
Plates of scrambled eggs eaten before the sight of them made me want to vom: 3
Litres of ice cream consumed: 1
Episodes of Gilmore Girls watched: 40 (yeah, I know)
Magazines read: 8
Times my surgeon said “they don’t grow back, you know!”: 3. Well, thank goodness for that.
At last, eviction day is almost upon me. The job is to be done tomorrow at sparrowfart, and I am currently packing a bag with trashy magazines and my most decent pyjamas. I’m supposed to be fasting from midnight, so even though I’m stuffed after a delicious Last Supper I am of course dying to run over the road to Spar and stuff my face with an entire yellow Ritter Sport (the cornflakey one) in front of the meek assistant and then ask for another.
Having never had a tooth pulled nor a general anaesthetic applied, I’m picturing all kinds of ridiculous scenarios. For example, I’ve pretty much convinced myself that something like this will be going on while I’m knocked out, and that I’ll resemble a ginger watermelon once the bruises come up.
I’m also wondering if I’ll go a bit like this guy after the event. Needless to say, I’ll be giving the internets a very wide berth until the drugs wear off as I suspect my version would be neither as funny nor as cute. Sayonara, sthuckerth.
Being a gingre, I’m a naturally pale and freckled sort. I have had a natural tan precisely once, after a six-week heatwave in Amsterdam, during which most of my time was spent outdoors drinking rosé. The odds of this recurring back here on home turf are somewhat more remote, although the less clement weather keeps me covered up most of the time anyway.
But then come the rare and glorious days like today, where it’s twenty degrees at nine o’clock in the morning and jeans just won’t do. So, on goes a skirt and out come the milkbottles and the stopwatch, for, invariably, it won’t be long before someone mentions how pale I am, and would I not think about slapping on a little bit of fake tan to “take the edge off”*.
The short, non-rude answer to that is no, not any more.
See, I’ve tried the fake bake. I’ve even paid someone to spray the stuff on me so I can’t blame my own clumsiness when it turns out badly, as it always does. It looks great on some people, sure – my little sister always manages to look like she’s just spent a week in Lanzarote, not an hour standing like John Wayne. Me, I always end up with streaks, no matter what I do, and the colour is always too dark for my natural pallor, which in turn makes my hair look like straw. And don’t get me started on days two and three, when it starts to wear off, and I begin to resemble a washed-out Tony the Tiger.
So, pale and freckled it is, with added factor 30 lest I burn, which looks way worse than any shade of fake tan.
*yes, I have been asked this question
