Know the one thats one too many

Coppers has a strict door policy.

Who knew?

I thought the only prerequisites for entry were blood shot eyes and a raging boner.

Bikram yoga

 I should have guessed from the reviews: "you'll feel like you want to leave... but don't. Within a few classes you wont feel like that anymore." Really? Do you mean that?

 The concept is simple-yoga in a heated room. How bad can it be? How hot can it actually get? It sounded exciting and exhilarating, and if I were to be honest with myself my existing sports of glass lifting and power eating weren't exactly getting me very far fitness wise. Beginners welcome... all levels catered for...

 Let me be clear on one thing: 105 Fahrenheit written on  a computer screen is a lot different to 105 Fahrenheit in reality. I'd imagine it to be the closest you'll ever get to feeling like you're sitting on the sun, wrapped in blankets and hot water bottles while someone is throwing boiling water over your face, legs and arms.

I woke this morning and could move my arms and legs freely-which is not something I'm used to feeling after I participate in exercise. I felt a little cocky about my flexibility, but then bolted back to reality when I remembered that I actually couldn't complete the second part of the class because I instead had to focus all of my energy on staying conscious. "Beginners, don't worry if you need to sit out a posture, just don't leave, the first class is about staying in the room" I stayed in the room alright. I also stayed mostly on the floor, in the crawl position, a posture I remember thinking would be perfectly adept for escaping from a burning building. As I fought back tears I started to repent. All the years of excess had led me to this moment-potentially being taken out of a yoga class in an ambulance. At one point I vowed never to go again. 

But as I floated home drenched to the skin with sweat I couldn't help but feel excited about the next class. Endorphins are a terrible thing.

We're not there yet, but we're getting there

I took the train for the first time in a long time the other day. While I was busy slumming it with Bus Eireann for the past year it turns out the Calcutta Express was getting a makeover. I landed on track 7 in Heuston to be greeted with a train that wouldn't look out of place in a French film.
I stepped aboard and waited for my nostrils to be filled with the familiar hum of cigarettes and Supermacs, but instead I was met with a new car smell and clean upholstery. There were bins-bins- every few seats. Even the toilets had been raised to an acceptable European standard-gone was the steel bucket filled to the brim with piss and jack's roll, and in its place was a futuristic toilet capsule-complete with working flusher and a proper lock to keep the perverts at bay. I didn't even have to pick any used tampons off my shoes. Even the passengers seem to have been upgraded. Not a sunburn or can of Bulmers in sight. I disembarked in a polite fashion, in keeping with the company, and weaved my way through the designer luggage and out onto the Luas stop.
The bang of shit Dublin hash stung my airway and I snapped back to reality. As I boarded the Luas we were treated to an off the cuff rendition of "Crazy" by a lover to a lover, sung in the key of Vat 69.

We're not there yet, but we're getting there.

No ties to bind me, no reasons to remain

There are moments in your life where you make realisations. Moments of clarity that can only occur when you've worn yourself out. When your brain feels like it might fall out. The feeling you get when you think you can't go on, when you remember you haven't drank water for two days straight and have stopped washing yourself. Everybody should have one of these moments. Mine happened this weekend.

It occured in the end scene of the week. About half twelve on Sunday night/monday morning. We'd just dropped off what had to have been the 4hundredth car load of stuff to the new house and were in the middle of some creative waste managment problem solving. I looked into the boot of the car and it hit me. I own a ridiculous amount of complete and utter shit. Not just one or two bags of junk, but boxes and boxes and boxes of total and utter garbage.

The migration in question being the move from my first ever house of rented accomodation to the second of such houses. The latter being closer to town and less residential. From here on in it will be known as "The Move" to all who witnessed it. And I hope to fuck its the last.

As I began to unpack things from boxes I hadn't bothered even looking in since last November, I stumbled across a treasure trove of memories...that I could no longer remember. Stacks of bus tickets from journeys I have no recollection of being on, beer mats of drinks I don't drink, empty cigarette boxes and nagan bottle tops from nights that have all blurred into one. Somewhere at some point, in the 'Are you there God, its me Margaret' portion of my brain, I felt I should hold onto these. Mementos of a day well spent is what I was probably thinking. What I'm thinking now what the fuck was I thinking then?

But, amongst the coal there were diamonds, and between the cinema stubs, the 10 year old Ms. Selfridge receipts and the sea of clothes I found something I'm glad I kept. The newspaper that my mother kept for me, from the day I was born.

Pot throws bucket of black paint over kettle

"Everybody reaches a point in their life when they have to say to themselves 'ok... Time to reign myself in'."

-My Bank manager to me.

My kids need wine

Have you ever started to drink a bottle of wine and cringed at the first sip? You battle through the first glass cursing yourself for not spending two euro more for something that was at least drinkable. A sour feeling coats your teeth and tongue, your stomach lurches, your oesophagus heaves. You persist. Halfway through the bottle you feel warm and reassured. That money you saved will go towards an extra drink at the bar, you think smugly. By the end of the bottle your friend asks for a sip, takes it into her mouth and promptly spits it out.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. That wine is corked."




No? Me neither.

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen

A: What are you dressing up as?
B: A nun.
A: Hmmm
B: No, its cool, I have fishnets and heels and suspenders and...

Even the most mundane of uniforms suddenly becomes transformed with a simple pre-fix; sexy builder, sexy nurse, sexy silage maker, sexy butcher, sexy mortician... The only time of year when girls can openly clap their flaps without being branded a slut. I say wear hot pants and a leather bra to work whenever you fancy and actually come up with something creative on Halloween.

They set a new record up in Crumlin this year. There were 4 different bonfires happening on the same green at the same time. OUr neighbours threw such a spectacular fireworks show I felt like I was at the Olympics.

You wouldn't get that kind of recession beating spirit in Malahide.