March 29, 2005

New Favourite

I spent this evening after college baking pizza bases from scratch. I did this so that I could know the exact nutritional content of the food I eat. (Yes.) Then I loaded the pizzas with toppings, wrapped them in clingfilm, labelled them and put them in the freezer.

So.

It would appear that I am my mother.

March 23, 2005

The Future Is No Place to Place Your Better Days

Well it would appear that I have returned from the dead. Death wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but I am sure that this is something that you will see for yourself as time goes by, unless you are some kind of ethereal spirit that simply floats about the place as a glowing orb of light and hangs round retro nightclubs. In that case, I'm not sure if death will ever darken your door.

Well, the housemates have been away, holidaying around the coast in one of their fathers' boats. I feel so darned poor. We never even had a caravan. Hell, we didn't even have a car. We would just sit in large cardboard boxes obtained from skips nearby, paint wheels on them, and drive away with our imaginations.

Those were the days.

K was also away, doing some sort of scavenger hunt or something for work. He was gone four days, leaving me rattling around the vast expanse of our three bed semi in the isolated housing estates of Kilcock. No housemates, no husband.

So what would any self-respecting Irish woman do in such lonely circumstances? You got it: have a Lancôme makeover party! No I'm lying. (None of you thought for a moment that that might be true though anyway, right?) No, instead, I had a killer tinny party with more Dutch Gold and rowdy neighbours than you could shake a stick at. No...that's also untrue. I watched a few movies with some friends, caught up with my brother, ate some Japanese food, soaked up some Dublin sun.

I also found my spiritual home: the mosque. No, not the mosque. I don't love Allah: I love Jesus. ROLL ON EASTER. No, my new spiritual home is Café en Seine on Dawson Street. I spent Sunday afternoon lounging there with some of my lady friends and a rather friendly fellow from Leuven, the town in Belgium where Stella Artois is brewed (thanks Leuven for your tasty and expensive beer!). There was a jazz band but no cover fee, my Chardonnay was five euros a glass but the most expensive meal on the menu was €11, and almost everything was made of marble. MARBLE, BABY. It was French. It was pretentious. It was artsy. It was laid-back, but real laid back - not posey laid-back. There was no pressure to keep buying drink after drink as the waiting staff were too busy preening themselves and swapping phone numbers and black clothing to give a fiddler's fart about what we were up to (which just happened to be stealing the compost from the vases of the forty-foot indoor tree by our table, frantically shoving it into our handbags). Dreamy.

So I didn't get anywhere with my thesis in the last ten days but to discuss that would mean I have to take some of my "relaxation pills".

(Oh how I wish I had "relaxation pills".)

I saw The Machinist tonight. I won't review it; blog movie reviews are the pits. THE PITS. That's something my mother always says. My mother often gets a mention round these parts actually, doesn't she? Well I suppose it is reasonable seeing as I grew inside her nutritious womb for nine months.

Here she is, then, in fine form.

Back to the movie. Maybe watch it, but go in a good mood. It has left me feeling about as cheerful as a chubby ovarian cyst. Go read the reviews for yourself that I linked to it, and take care to wear your meat helmet (or whatever it is that you use for comfort) before viewing.

Speaking of ovarian cysts, due to some menstrual irregularities (am I allowed to discuss this without people dropping dead of shame?) I began to fear that I had some. Cysts, that is. Several hours with the doctor and lots of stolen blood and urine samples later, I was set free today with a large prescription for hormones of some kind, and it would appear that all is not well with neuro-praxis. She shall deal with this henceforth by referring to herself in the third person. But fear not: neuro-praxis will probably mention the outcome of the tests at some point in the future if she is in a divulge-atory mood. For now, she will be nursing her bruised veins and empty wallet. (Heroin? Heroine?)

The first rule of period club is -- you do not talk about period club.

So what else has been happening? We've been preparing at church (site under construction, by the way) for the biggest gala (GA-LA-LA-LA!) of the year. May I invite each of you to our Sunday evening Easter celebration - March 27th at 7pm in Maynooth Post Primary School. It should be good. You'll made welcome.

And Bono is coming. YES.

Well, that's the cookies out on the plate. I'm off to listen to some delightfully chilled Silje Nergaard now and to drink some tea; strong with a little milk (are you taking notes?). And maybe talk to that guy I accidentally married six months ago (half year anniversary tomorrow, folks).

It's been great, thanks very much. I'll be here all week.

neuro-praxis -- Showcasing For The Profligate

March 15, 2005

The Ethics Of Pornography

NO BABIES

Just kidding. Or am I?

March 14, 2005

HAPPY WORLD pi DAY

Yes. It is March 14th again, that special day of the year...14/3...the day when nerdy mathematicians shit their cacks in excitement about numbers "doing" certain things (as though a number were an active thing and not a suicide inducing mind-bender of a concept).

All would be well in Neuroland^TM if I hadn't just heard Damien Rice's weedy old lungs belching out the backing vocals to a song on the new Tori Amos album. I can only hope upon hope that he forgets she's touring here and doesn't make it to the gig (what with the buses from Celbridge being so infrequent and all that). The fact that he is now dating Renée Zellweger is scary; he used to sit next to me occasionally on the bus into town, his hair frighteningly askew in that asymmetrical way that only just got cool recently. It makes all men look gay. Renée was spotted a while back, racing through Celbridge after a dog.

What the hell is going on with the world?

I am too tired to keep writing: I spent the day as an assistant at a science camp in NUI Maynooth and boy, are school kids noiser than college students. I had to have several of them put down.

neuro-praxis -- Generally Your Friend But Not The Love Of Your Life

March 12, 2005

More

March 09, 2005

Announcement

Tori Amos is playing Vicar Street on May 30th.

AND I HAVE TICKETS

So should you. Quicksmart.

Theology Buffs!

This is my new cartoon series. It's about the WACKY misadventures of our two favourite ZANY Christians, neuro-praxis and Zoomtard; the married couple from hell. You'll find their KRAY-ZEE KAPERS on both my site and Zoomy's.

Hurrah.

P.S. Don't expect much. The series is entitled "Theology Buffs!" after all, and I've never tried cartoons before...or anything creative for that matter. The overload of Super-Square Nerdiness^TM is almost more than I can bear, and I was born to be a saddo. You normies may be bewildered or worse still, stoney faced.

Still, I am sure there's still a way that we can continue to get along without unnecessary bloodshed**.

1

2

SO WHAT ELSE THEN

Well I have been drumming away to my heart's content. That's not a euphemism for anything: the drumkit is now in the kitchen. Inconveniently for me, we have been exploring issues of civic justice and civic duty in my political philosophy class. I believe there may be a pricking of something in the back of my noggin elsewhere referred to as a conscience making its presence felt.

Really though, I am being quite considerate; brushes only, thick sound-muffling pads, arms taped to body so only limited use of head is what's possible.

AND

A young man in my class hanged himself with his belt this week, and a friend of mine has been diagnosed (for the second time) with cancer. This time though, it has spread to her bones. Also, a person close to me is rationalising the domestic abuse that they've recently suffered.

I am shocked by these developments.

I never know whether these are things I should be sharing in this blog. They're not private facts, but I don't particularly want to discuss them here. I feel however that at least some of the crap I talk (considering it is mostly friends who read this) should at least have a nugget of authenticity in it. I am not a robot but neither am I a sentimental fool who wants people to offer their sympathy and best wishes during difficult times.

This is the fine line. Or perhaps the line is two metres wide.

I know a young man who lost his father and wrote no account of the incident in his regular journal. I completely understand why. I went through several months of dark depression which I failed to mention in my ever-cheerful journal, thus proving that on the internet you can be anyone you like, even when people know your actual identity.

It's difficult to think about several occurrences or "issues" (that word must be removed from the english language please) constantly but only discuss in your journal contrived nonsense. I fear it makes me look like a moron. The reality is that I am far more interested in the kinds of things that Zoomtard writes and researches than I am in light-hearted wit, although there is room for that.

Somebody smart said that we really only write for the four or five people that we respect most in the world. That's true but it's not the last word. Some of the people I respect most read my rubbishy personal site, but some of the people to whom I go directly in a tough dilemma do not read it, because I have not offered them the url, and they have not yet encountered it online. I am happy with this arrangement, because the shallowness of my dribble is frankly for a limited audience who don't mind reading me mentally barf out my half-musings and third-rate jokes.

Still, I don't want to switch and make this a hive of intellectual activity or somewhere I post the articles and essays I research and write for my literature classes.

Where the hell did all this come from? I had better click publish before it all gets erased or before my laptop uses its extensive AI to build a flux capacitor, go back in time and take over the world, forcing us to be formed in a lab rather than born, a la Huxley's Brave New World (crazy sci-fi tome).

Edited to Add: Oh, and I have been offered a pretty good job pending the end of my exams. Which I am considering.

neuro-praxis -- I Thought It Was A Bird But It Was Just A Paper Bag

**Please note that I said unnecessary bloodshed. I have never claimed to a pacifist.

March 03, 2005

Please Stop Me Before I Kill Again

NEURO'S WEDNESDAY LIST

Things you can't do when you're dead.

1. Fart
2. Catch pens
3. Pick up hailstones that came down the chimney
4. Be Jewish
5. Push a banana into a letterbox
6. Greet magpies

As such, I shall be doing my damndest to maintain the status quo of non-dead. No more lead pellets for me then.

Man, I need to wash these jeans I'm wearing or they're gonna go AWOL pretty soon. Either that or my husband will, disgusted by their rancid fragrance.

But oh, denim crises aside with the coleslaw and the garlic bread, oh I worked hard today. Yes I did. Welcome to the inside of my Milky Bar wrapper. It was hard, but with the help of a close friend, I made it through those tricksy puzzles.

profound

NEURO GETS POLITICAL

My very ill friend is not in hospital, even though she needs to be, because she is from Venezuela and as a result of this, there is no public health for her. So she is at home guzzling steroids and not able to walk, hoping for the best. I am so outraged by this that I am almost inspired to write a long Twenty Major-esque rant about the sub-par health care in this country, with prodigious and shocking use of the words "fuck" and, since I am feeling vicious, "cunt". To do this would be to offend my very own sensibilities, so I probably won't. I'll just quietly seethe. And perhaps write some letters to unconcerned politicians who will ignore them.

There's my new beef for all the canvassers sorted, anyway.

OTHER NEURO NEWS

I have realised that there has been a phenomenal power-shift in my parental relationships in the last few years. So. My parents are in France (the land of snails, frogs and "pacifists"), sent on a trip that K and I paid for (to celebrate their wedding anniversary), and this is the first time they have left the country in about 30 years (not counting visits on the ferry to see my brother in Birmingham). And I have tried calling their mobile to see that they arrived safely etc., and have had no luck. And I am utterly unreasonably worried about them, like the big fat loser that I truly truly am. Thankfully they are internet illiterate and will never read of this worry, and I will never, ever tell them. The witty mockery that would inevitably follow would be more than I could bear. (My parents are both stand-up comedians.)

LEAVING VIA THE RED CARPET

The pleasures of sleeping can never be over-rated, except in the case of the sleeping disease which threatens the non-dead status-quo whilst driving, and with this in mind, I will retire to my hammock below deck to catch seven hundred and sixty thousand winks, coated in the delightfully addictive Vicks Vaporub and snorting Sudafed.

Amen.

neuro-praxis -- Wearing Costume Jewellery Day In Day Out

March 01, 2005

Culture Up The Yin Yang

Well, that poached egg experiment was a royal disaster. I did my homework: I read up on this supposed "vortex" that you've got to create in the pot of simmering water, and I added lots of vinegar which apparently aids egg stabilisation. Well, that egg died a sad and sorry death. Goodbye, my eggy friend. It looked sort of like a white bat with a yellow body in that pot. A flying egg, with wide papery wings. Disgusting. I threw it in the bin but the stench of boiled vinegar remains throughout the house, thank God.

Then commenced speedy egg experiment number two. (Well, I guess it could be considered egg experiment number three, actually, because M and I froze an egg that time to see what would happen. It burst, in case you were wondering.) My mother, a staunch WeightWatcher^TM, cooks her egg for breakfast in the microwave. Always wanting to be like Mummy (who is in Paris at the moment, might I add) I popped mine in a little plastic bowl, added a dot of butter and some salt, and hit two minutes on high. What resulted was a very dead and very burnt microwaved chestnut. I did not eat it. I couldn't get it out of the bowl, so I left it soaking and went to my tutorial hoping for the best.

So breakfast was a muesli bar today. As usual.

I got through my tutorial well enough though, so I did. I knew more than I thought I did about professional snob and culture industry critic Adorno, thank goodness. I now have all of my exam results back and they are a mish mash of 1sts and 2.1s. I am content enough. The 2.1s will hinder an overall 1st though. Damn 2.1s, tainting my genius. DIE DIE DIE.

So I have been a busy little jelly baby. In fact I have ne'er an evening free in the approaching week. I won't bore you with the details of my sordid little social life. I donned my pearls last night, however, to attend a Beethoven piano concert in the National Concert Hall with my dear friend Claero. This little shin-dig was filled with long-haired avant-garde chicks and their catwalk beaus, aging music teachers, crusty classical-loving hippies and pretentious music students. And of course not forgetting blind people, who are three times as cultured as your average burberry-yielding yobbo, on account of having malfunctioning eyes. It was a good evening, and an imaginative birthday gift from Claero, but during piano concerts my BRANE drifts off to an inward pantomime where mice dance and little plastic soliders come to life. I like classical music, but it's either got to be a full orchestra, or a full soprano/alto/tenor/bass choir. I rate things on the Goosepimple Scale^TM. Gives me goosepimples? LET'S 'AVE MORE OF THAT, MATE. No goosepimples? YOU'VE GOT TO BE HAVING A LARF, MATE. Also another black mark on the evening was that there was a monkey sitting in front of me. A rude, flea-bitten monkey. This was both surprising and uncomfortable for Claero and I but we are tolerant types.

Halfway through the second piece (something number something by Beethoven) I stood up and began conducting. This upset everyone, especially the monkey, because these events are so stuffy that one is required to hold one's breath and/or refrain from your coughing/nose-blowing until the pauses between movements, which are a veritable symphony in themselves of noisy bodily functions. My conducting was completely silent: it was the reactions that were noisy, so I take no responsibility for the disruption.

More later. I have no more time left for such frivolities. <languid sigh>

neuro-praxis -- Hey Heys With The Monkees

HELLO CRUNCHY CHILDREN

<moan> I am SOOOO busy. </moan>

Soon, my pretties, there will be a new entry for your perusal. First, though, I must endure an embarassing tutorial on the subject of something that I have failed to read. Unfortunately the tutor knows my name so I will be forced to bluff and blag my way through some manner of a critical analysis on something about which I have not the faintest idea.

And now; now, I learn how to poach an egg. An adventure twill be! I have to do it because my friend who lives on a farm brought me four fresh eggs straight from the hen's arse! She brought them in a Rolo ice-cream carton. Imagine my disappointment when I opened it to discover four hen-shitty eggs wrapped in old newspaper! THAT WAS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE.

I will be back in a few hours, you complaining bastards.

neuro-praxis -- Not Tipping Her Nose With Her Tongue