bore-dozer*

She takes my hand and pulls me towards the counter “you don’t want to go home, that lollipops excuse isn’t very believable”. I give a weak smile from beneath lead-heavy eye-lids, it’s not believable because it was supposed to be funny. I just wasn’t arsed with the delivery, maybe you’re too drunk to see that. Or maybe I’m not that witty. But I do want to go home, that much is for certain. Any other day I’d feel different, tomorrow I’ll feel different, but tonight, tonight I need to sleep.

I don’t say this, mind, just proffer up a hug. Too tired to say it, and all too aware that I have to repeat this exact conversation a dozen times more before I leave. The icy rain drops outside, when it gets cold enough they fall alone, with maybe a second or two between each one. Miserable threatening bastards. That’s the smoking area done.

Upstairs, with it’s misshapen togas sewn using safety pins on the verge of surrender, looks like the scene of a failed orgy; or magdellan-themed porno. It’s all half-naked and lounging, but without a single pointed lunge. Still, I do my rounds. Taking time to slag the generically angsty emotions, pouring out of some seventeen year old in the far room. It’s shit, though it will get you laid, so the market for such tripe will never be exhausted. The cynics in the hall agree, give their blessing even, before I hugged and left them aswell. A strange kiss just below my jawline, where neck becomes face, that I think was meant for my cheek. Silly, drunk and covered in gold paint, I leave them to it.

Down through the kitchen again, I aim for the door. M’s there, we debate the mundane while I wait for Diamond. Then I wait outside. Because I want to hear the wind, and hope the raindrops might wake me up.

*new word I just made up, noun, a boring object that ploughs through parties crushing all life, light and happiness. Eventually the bore-dozer either collapses in a corner, goes home or traps some self-destructively polite soul in some insufferably boring  and utterly inescapable conversation. The company of a bore-dozer can thus be described as akin to watching grey paint dry, alone and in a room with neither furniture nor windows. We’ve all been a bore-dozer at least once in our lifetime. If you find yourself afflicted with such a condition it is simply best that extract yourself immediately, having alienated as few people as possible.

Poxy pontificating poncing about

We have net emmigration for the first time since 1995. Lucky diggers, I want off of this fucking island too! I realised this morning that I haven’t advanced as a person since the age of seventeen. In fact, I’d say that I’ve regressed. Gotten a bit better at writing maybe, certainly gotten hungrier*, but that’s about it.

Now that I’m within touching distance of a degree though, Japan has once more become an option. It’s so gloriously far away, quite possibly the only place left which is far enough away to still be considered exotic. I don’t particularly care about their culture, history or people-I just see air miles. I’m straining at the leash here, desperate, to get away.

Dublins depressing me, it’s the same old shit all the time. I feel like I’m stuck, and starting to get resentful. Got angry enough to give up the sup, seriously, bar two shit pints on Arthurs Day and a can yesterday I haven’t had a drop in a fortnight. Since this hangover to be precise. And I haven’t looked back. I may have the odd glass of Black Bush but, for now at least, I’m done with the stuff.

This circular lifestyle and the associated depression also carries with it a certain sense of doom. I’m too young to be this bored, I’m 22 for fucks sake! I’m too young to feel like I’m wasting my life, which is how I feel. Get so angry with myself sometimes. I’m supposed to be better than this.

There’s a form of depression that sets in among people who grow up during an economic boom. It was first documented in Canada, where an entire generation were brought up to believe in endless possibilities only to graduate at the end of a doll queue. The force of collective disappointment brought on, often crushing, cynicism and disillusion.

Now, I’m not moping on about suffering from this. What I am saying however, is that if things don’t change radically in the next two years I’ll be a very unhappy person. I say two years only because I’ve resigned myself to the next six or seven months of hard graft being shit, and there being absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Which maybe speaks of a broader problem, I can’t do anything about anything. I feel helpless and it’s getting me down. Cunts all, enough moping for one day. Sorry about this terrible post, and the last few terrible posts.

*I haven’t actually eaten since December 2002

Not that I don’t want to learn but…

I have serious problems studying. I find it very frustrating, knowing that I can plough through 50-60 pages of a novel in an hour, to drag myself over a mere 4 and half pages of textbook in just under 3 hours. And that’s just the first reading, to establish I understand everything, I haven’t even taken notes.

Its not even that the stuff is boring or objectionable. In principal at least. I like both thinking and learning, so it shouldn’t be boring. And I actually agree with most of the concepts, to the point where I consider many so obvious as to negate the need for a textbook in the first place. And the writing, though completely without rhythm, isn’t the worst. In fact, you occasionally find a wee gem of a sentence. A rare jewell, even, which may be elevated to the lofty status of ‘wit’.

But GOOD GOD is it hard going. It’s a bit like that first sentence on that first date with that first someone you really like, and you know she really likes you too, but the words simply won’t come. You have to drag them out, it becomes a chore. All enthusiasm in your voice is drained out by the shear effort of cognitively forming a sentence, sending a runner from your brain to your tongue and begging your mouth to make up with the lips and everyone please just work together……until the flem in the back of your throat (which, in the confusion of neurological industrial relations, you’d completely forgotten about) chokes the whole operation before it even begins.

So you cough, and start again, without so much as a laugh or some light banter. Just grim determination to finish a sentence on a subject which is possibly no longer relevant. It’s grown stale and boring, conceptually, without ever having been fresh. Like that pack of mince at the back of the fridge you’ve been looking at for a week, it goes off just when you want to cook it.

So here I am, writing a short alt of nonsense whilst waiting for the kettle to boil and chewing the lid off my highlighter. CLICK sssshhhhhhhhaaaawwwwwww, bollox, back to the grind…

I want a bagel, somebody get me a bagel, I can stall it for at least another twenty minutes by eating a bagel. If only there was football on, I could check the score. Gaaaaaaaah, I don’t want to leave the computer. I’m checking failblog.

The Iliad

It’s maybe a quarter to eight in the morning, Growler’s going to sleep and trying to kick me off the couch. I’ve a mouthful of whiskey left and the road home stretches out in front. “Shee ye lads, I’m off” “it’s a Saturday, you won’t get a bus, not out here”. Pfff, cowards and fools, don’t you realize? “I always find a way”

I step out the front door and two revelations hit me like a pair of swinging cinder blocks. The first, it’s freezing, I’m shaking like a leaf. Secondly, as I scan my surroundings; mountains, sheep, inbreeding, bollox-we must be in Wicklow again. Rationing Mr. Jamesons’ cold fire I stagger and grumble as far as the bus stop. Wow, a slingshot! Now that is a funny thing to find. I put it in my bag and finish the whiskey. The empty bottle spins high and majestic over my shoulder, but lands softly in the flower bed behind me. Happy now, this adventure has already been a success. 

Hoping against hope, spurned to move by the cold and boredom, I go for a jog round the back of the bus stop. Maybe the deli’s open, I’d love a breakfast roll. All nights of excess should end with a meal of dead pig, preferably warm. With red sauce acting as the ceremonial symbol of blood, life and the re-birth. A baptism of bacon, the re-birth of the drunk or groggy. Me, first thing in the morning, as helpless and defenseless as a newborn child. But she’s not awake yet so I’ll have to make it home alone, without a crutch of precious sugar, salt and soakage.

There’s my bus. The 84. In ten minutes I’ll be in Bray, waiting for the DART, and in thirty I’ll be home. Sitting on the top deck I analyse my newfound slingshot, it’s shit. I rest my eyes for a second, we’ve ages till Bray. I open them, Busaras. Maybe not Busaras, I can’t remember, town anyway. Fuck ye, shower of bastards. I can still get the DART though, which is a relief.

Wether it was Connolly or Tara I couldn’t tell you, but I made it onto a Southbound DART somewhere. I blink, a long slow blink, and find myself in Bray again. FOR FUCKS SAKE!! A CURSE UPON ALL OF YOU, YOU BASTARDING BASTARDS!! Meekly, “I just want to go home”.

On the train again, Northbound this time, Blackrock this time. FUCK YOU, YOU CUNTING FUCKING LEPERS, YOU WHORES, YOU FOOLS, YOU BLIND BROKEN BASTARDS! I INVOKE THE SPIRITS OF ALL THE DEAD GENERATIONS AND CURSE YOU, YOU AND YOUR FUCKING PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM, I’M THE PUBLIC DAMMIT, TRANSPORT ME TO MY HOUSE!! Meekly, “I just want to go home”.

Finally get it right, God how I wish I hadn’t, now I have to walk. My legs refuse to stop complaining, my hips don’t lie, they have a tremendous lack of grace. Polite? They’ve never heard of the word. They scream and throw tantrums like bold children. Unfortuneately, they seem to be the only remaining form of transport available to me. So I just have to put up with it. At least I won’t miss my stop this time, I don’t, and collapse dramatically into bed.

At 10:27am Odysseus returned, mumbled something about rashers and fell asleep.

More detail than is frankly necessary

Pearse Station, 6 minutes, Behan can wait while I go for a piss. I hate these jacks, the bluest lit in all of Dublin, a lasting tribute to the resident junkies of the surrounding area.

 

There’s an aul fella, raincoat and all, at the urinal. Bastard’s standing right in the middle, ignorant. I glance at the floor of the bog, she’s burst her banks. I’ll have to eek out some space by the end of that stainless steel trough after all.

 

Out pops junior, while my co-habitants stream stutters to my left. Part of me wants to make some quip about his age, bad piping or even feel some sort of sympathy. Maybe I could write a lament for the loss, the thievery, of ageing. But I can’t, because the truth is I won’t be able to get going until he stops stammering, gives up and moves on, or forms a decent flow. The nerves of youth. We’re a pathetic sight, the two of us.

 

So there I am, rooted a little further to the right than I’d like, jiggling my empty rattle in the vain hope of making some noise.

 

He looks over. A strange thing to do. Even stranger not to try and hide it. Downright bizarre to just stare like that. He knows I haven’t started, is he trying to psyche me out? Knacker, I’m not backing down. I feel my eyes harden, shoulders spread, I’m gonna piss and I’m not the type to be intimidated.

 

Then what I didn’t expect. His right hand, following his eyeline, reaches down. For a second I was stunned.

 

I bat it away, button up and turn to him. So shocked, my voice has hit a tone untouched since before puberty, and the pace of a gunshot. “Whaddafuckyoua’?”

 

I’m towering over him now, face screwed up, eyes blazing and fists clenched. He lets out a whimper, a scared old man’s whimper. Not the false sniveling apology of a sex pest. But the frightened yelp of a feeble old man, who’s made a genuine mistake, in the filthiest public toilet in Dublin. All malice in me fades to naught.

 

I walk out, I don’t wash my hands, I just want out of there, fast.

 

I go down to the furthest end of the platform, which to be fair, is where I normally go anyway. And with Behan, I’ve already forgotten the old man by the time they fine me for fare evasion. 

 

Which, incidentally, I felt was a much greater intrusion on my rights.

Worst DART ride ever

First some dirty aul cunt grabs my knob in the Jaxx at Pierce and then I lose my ticket and get done for fair evasion. That’d be 50 yo’s and another story for the doctor please-thanks but fuck off.

 

I’m not paying it. I’m gonna file myself a grievance.

 

Sorry, did I mention some aul lad grabbed my knob? Dirty cunt. Any other day that’d be a major cause of grievence, however, it’s been completely over-ridden by my outright hatred of having to pay Iaranroad Eireann anything. Shower of dirt buckets

Before I lay me down to sleep…

I take off my socks and shoes first. Then I take off three bandages. One for the blister on my right foot, one for the matching blister on my left foot and a third. A third on my shoulder, where they injected two chemicals into the joint this morning. All I know is that one was an anaesthetic and the other has kept me awake till now. A throbbing, bulging third shoulder. The swelling makes everything stiff, like the fingers of a corpse.

(shudder)

So I’m sitting in work doing nothing of much worth or interest, nothing new there. Anyways, the boss man notices and says “Rua, come here, I need ye to do something”. Apparently the company camera* is on the blink and I have to fix it. The reason I have to fix it is because I’m the furthest one from retirement and, therefore, good at “that electronic stuff”.

So I pull out the camera, can’t get it working and turn hopefully towards the manual. As per usual the manual comes with supplements, extra sheets explaining the vital information that whoever wrote the first draft of the manual clearly forgot. I look at them first, they’re less likely to be translated by the same dyslexic who wrote the manual itself.

I’m not too fussed reading through them, it’s the same ol’shite as usual; remove part A, part A not actually included, batteries must be charged, Replens Longer Lasting Vaginal Cream, do not use underwater….wait….vaginal cream? Ewwww, who put this in here? WHY ARE THERE INSTRUCTIONS FOR MUFF SAUCE IN THE CAMERA CASE? WHY?

I now have to spend the rest of my working day trying to guess who’s “using”. I don’t want to, mind, but its gonna happen. “alright missus, thats a funny way of walking, been to the chemist lately?” Ew ew ew this is disgusting, I disgust myself, they disgust me…. the worst part is the knowledge that I’m going to put it back into the case….

 

 

*why do we have a company camera? We’re just a glorified filing cabinet, makes no sense.

acute concern

Tripped out twice today, I’m a little worried about it. Only voices, granted, but stronger than they’ve been in months. Actually, fuck months, stronger than since the worst days. They’re deafening and disorientating, the second one today nearly made me throw up. I’m so confused, it was only a minute ago, if only I could work out what they were saying.

It’s not fair, I haven’t taken anything in ages. I barely even drink now. But still, I get voices in my head that drown out everything else. My bedrooms started filling up with ghosts again too, every other night. Cunts, they don’t scare me. I know its just in my head.

The Doctor warned me, I need lots of sleep. Sugar helps too, in fact, its probably a lack of sugar over the past few days. I’ve eaten nothing but bread and meat and veg. Healthy for most people but health comes at a price for me. And I’ve been working too hard aswell. Picked up a cold just from exhaustion, just a warning. 

I get stoned for free, only problem is that I can’t choose when. Still, I wouldn’t trade this shite for innocence. I wanted to know my limit, and I found it.

Now I need a holiday before I lose it altogether.

Long time coming

Things have been quiet here of late. I’m not sorry, I just thought I should explain myself. I’ve been desperately seeking approval in a grown up debate over the past few days. Not to flog a dead horse but this sex abuse scandal has left me reeling. We’ve known there was abuse for years but the shear scale of it is frightening. What’s more shocking still is the callous treatment of the victims, by church and state together.

It’s at the stage where I don’t feel sorry for the ‘good priests’ anymore. They must’ve known, but still, they did nothing.