I'm back in Dublin. After over three months spent in complete isolation in Cork, where the only people I have spoken to outside my family are siblings' other halves, two family friends and the lovely cashiers in my three trips to Ireland's best, prize-winning Supervaloo, I am back once more in the cacophonic breach, floating… Continue reading Day 39: Keeping an anti-social distance from “normality”
I will keep this short because, if you have been following these, you will know I've been up-the-walls busy simply by the fact you haven't heard from me. I just want to apologise. My last piece was ambiguous and therefore truly hurtful to some family members. I wrote what I thought was a dry caricature… Continue reading Day 32: Mea Culpa
It's the question that's been on everyone's mind since diary entry #3 when a mysterious stranger decided to light up my phone one brisk and impossibly early Saturday morning. Now, after weeks of suspense and as you all mourn the death of Normal People and find yourselves endlessly trawling the Internet for another impossible love… Continue reading Day 26: Am I still being bootycalled?
Pros of lockdown: No longer having that feeling, as you fall asleep celibate and alone, that every other twenty-something is out there having passionate sex with all and sundry. Cons of lockdown: Falling asleep, celibate and alone. Pros of lockdown: Sisters being legally prevented from seeing their boyfriends and love interests, making them seem every… Continue reading Day 18: She sleeps alone.
Here's the deal. My sister and I have nominated Friday as fag* night or, more alliteratively, Fag Friday because imagination and any soupçon of political correctedness and/or fear of ridicule went out the window with coronavirus. By doing this just once last week, we've now created a whole tradition that feels as old and inherent… Continue reading Day 12: My level of fear does not correlate to the amount of alcohol I drank
The truth is I've been trying to write this for five minutes but a piece of toenail got stuck in my keyboard. I tried to get it out but in so doing instead aided it in its escape from my newly-manicured fingers so that now its rump is lodged under the '@' key - which,… Continue reading Day 7: Self-Care is not a euphemism for hair removal.
I have spent the past few weeks searching for hope in a global sadness occasioned by Nora Quoirin’s death. Unable to stop thinking of the siblings left behind without a sister, it occurred to me that, too often, it takes tragedy to loosen our lips and become verbose on the subject of love. Too often,… Continue reading Honouring Nora Quoirin with an Ode to Sisterhood
How heartbreak, in all of its mascara-smudged, hyperventilating, caterwauling glory, can actually be the greatest gift the Love of Your Life Except Not Really can ever give you. Here’s my dignity and here’s what I learned.
I carved out a coffin of confinement for myself - of being an ex-girlfriend, of being heartbroken, of being the scorned but righteous lover - anything that protects me from being just a woman.
The heartbreak train has been doing the rounds and I've just about had it up to me bleedin' gills with the sadness. Too many lovely people being unceremoniously discarded by significantly less lovely people. Bereft and left to wonder what they did wrong, which of their crippling insecurities over non-existent inadequacies was the straw that… Continue reading Messages from the Bed
Earnest & Ethereal 