Well I awoke, freezing but happy, and reached for my nose lotion for a good old scab-rubbing and lymph-clearing, the morning activity that lends my day, by itself, a great sense of personal satisfaction. But - treachery was afoot!
My delightfully jewelled nose had lost its ring and had begun to seal up. NOOOO! I scrabbled around the sheets until I spotted it and tried to get it back in. No joy! It was with disproportionate disappointment that I threw on my office clothes and drove out into the morning fog, my nose now as plain as the nose on my face.
After work I returned to my piercer, Elaine (my piercer, aren't I so hip? aren't I so terribly haute couture? No? Ok.), who kindly butchered it back in. She had to check first if it could squeeze in, which I painfully learned it most certainly could not. It would seem that the ring itself was not sharp enough to pierce the flesh. So she took her giant needle and repierced the cartilage, and I can honestly say that it was the most painful 12 - 15 seconds of my entire life. When I opened my eyes, a sea of involuntary tears poured down my face, and with them numerous boats of hungry immigrants. Elaine refused to charge me, saying that she could not take money from someone to whom she had just caused so much pain. What a woman.
However, now the jewel is back in its home, as am I, STILL freezing my nips off, having only just managed to get home through the frighteningly thick fog. K drove, and Stig and I shivered and trusted in his superior navigating-as-though-blind ways. Truly: the fog was so thick that we drove at 20 miles per hour and could see no further than 1-2 feet in front of the car. It was the scene of a horror movie. We prepared ourselves for all inevitable catastrophies: knocking down a pedestrian, being seen by a witness, and then getting hacked to death by the witness a few months later...getting eaten by werewolves...ending up in a carcrash that gets used in an ad for safe driving. "It was the one without the seatbelt that did it," the sensitive and psychic policeman said sadly.
So the moral of the story is: wear a plaster on your nose at night or face being eaten by monsters...or at least enjoy a similarly gruesome fate.
neuro-praxis -- Got Bored Near The End And Gave Up
I had my nose pierced on Saturday and absolutely nobody has noticed. This makes me feel quite pleased, like I'm wearing a secret or a private fact on my face, and I'm getting away with it. It makes me wonder what else I could get away with. What if I killed a pitiful creature (say, a really mean old person) and stapled it to my jacket? Would I be charged with murder in the first degree? Perhaps I shall dig up the corpse and find out. Or perhaps I shall sit here, freezing my nips off and drinking icy cold Cola Cao. It is the drink of kings! Having it hot, on such a chilly night, would be nicer, but if I put it in the microwave I will have to *stand* by the microwave for up to three minutes and I really haven't got the time or the inclination for that kind of carry-on.
I had a moment of sheer terror today - finance related terror. I got a letter from my credit card company informing me that I had not met my monthly minimum payment and they would be adding a little punitary interest to my account as a result. NOTHING TOO SHOCKING THERE OLD NEURO! you say jovially, giving me a slap on the back. Well. Would you be so jovial if you knew that not only had I faithfully paid my minimum payment of €26.00 over 10 days ago, I had paid an additional €874.00. AND THERE WAS NO RECORD OF IT! AND I LOST MY RECEIPT! AND THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AND I NEARLY CRIED OVER MORE THAN HALF MY MEAGRE WAGES DISAPPEARING INTO THE WHIRLING FINANCIAL VORTEX OF ULSTER BANK INCOMPETENCY!
I won't keep you in suspense. The payment had indeed been registered. They were simply too stupid to notice. Everything worked out okay in the end and there was redemption for all, even the rapists and murderers.
The best thing about the Ulster Bank is their long list of hilarious misdemeanours. After several years as a faithful customer I was delighted to receive a letter recently informing me that I would be in receipt of a loyalty gift on my card of €40. Wahoo! says I, there shall be bread in our bellies tonight!
Not so.
Twas an error, committed by the feeble minded employees of Bankworld, and they sent me another letter, informing me that it had been a present by mistake, and they would be removing it from my credit card again. (On the bill it showed as "Reward Reversal". I always wondered what it would be like to have one of my rewards reversed.) And so all of the praxis-tard children starved and died and lay on the living room carpet, getting soggy and smelling up the parlour something awful.
I wrote them an angry letter, listing their moronic mistakes and thanking them profusely for all their flaccid council over the years, particularly in emergencies, like when you're standing at a payphone in Barcelona pleading with the bank to activate your cashcard (as they had assured you they would) so that you can get a few euros to pay for a hostel and eat something. That was brilliant.
ENOUGH BITTERNESS AND RAGE
Onto happier subjects. My health is not horrific! I have had 2 months of pain and bleeding and moaning and horror and on Saturday a peace came over my wretched body and I feel ok again. Hurray! This may or may not be connected to the earnest prayers of several friends in the days preceding recovery. Cheers darlings! Let's hope it lasts until my next consultancy in the Mater. The Mater! Where Nobody Matters!
Also: France-travelling buddies A and G are arriving over on Friday from the UK for the weekend, with G's mother in tow. That should be interesting! Also a man in Navan is having a spiffing party which I will be attending on Saturday night. It will be my first official holiday season event. I am quite excited about Christmas this year. I am convinced that I am festooned with holiday cheer because of the drudgery of my job. Any chance to party looks so appealing when getting out of bed for work is hard. WOE IS ME, WITH MY COMFORTABLE MANAGEMENT POSITION AND MY WONDERFUL BOSS, WHO IS GIVING ME THE DAY OFF FOR MY HUSBAND'S BIRTHDAY, BUT WHO WILL PAY ME FOR IT ANYWAY. Shit, I really need to get a grip.
Lisa Loeb is leaving on a jet plane and I am on my way to bed, where much sleeping and similarly pleasant things may occur. Now I disinfect my new nose wound and admire the sparkly jewellyness of it all.
neuro-praxis -- Cut Up
France was French, and I continue to struggle in an angst ridden way about the desperately unsure nature of my future. We ate cheese and I fretted a bit: the others ate shark but I just rubbed its skin to get that sandpaper-feel - I didn't eat it (although I admit it is the ultimate revenge). I did help cook it: I am sure I achieved karma points (karma! ha!) in my roasting of the evil one's flesh.
The little village we stayed in had gone to sleep. I wanted to inject it with stimulants so they'd open a goddamn restaurant or a cinema or something. Not that we were bored. We talked, a lot, and played cards, and got a bit drunk on cheap wine. I didn't sleep well - the mornings were so dark and so hot, and my bed was funny, with two mattresses, but it was good and I would go back. The locals were sweet and let me bumble along in pigeon French, and while waiting for takeaway pizzas one night, me and friend Gavin were given complimentary wine while the other (French) customers looked on, mildly disgruntled. Presuming their thoughts were in English, I can only assume they were thinking "Hey! How come that foreign muck gets wine and we get nothing?"
I am sure that under their handsome leader they desired to kick my brains in, but they resisted, thank goodness. I arrived home safe and sound with K to a house filled with normal beds and a complete lack of garlic sausage.
Work is...work. It gives me a cheque.
I wrote a long letter to ex-housemate teragram but have not yet posted it. This is one of the stupid things I do. Teragram, it will come. I promise.
SAD THING
All my life, I have had a similar route to get home. I have moved further and further west in my different houses, but always have had to pass a particular bridge from the city centre. Since I was a young girl, there has been a plaque on this bridge where a young man fell (?) off and died. Every day, and I mean every single day, that I have passed it, there have been fresh flowers there.
Tonight, on the way home from the cinema, I saw that there were no flowers, and now I am worried that the person who has faithfully been placing flowers there every day for years and years has died. K says maybe they're on holiday...but I just don't think so. There were no traces of flowers whatever, not even two week-old remnants of a pre-vacation visit.
This makes me sad.
I am cold, and I am also tired. I know this is not much of a journal entry and I apologise, especially to faithful reader OG. I promise I will buck up and get some comedy gold out here just as soon as time and inspiration permits. I am still recovering from a weekend in Kilkenny with K and Stig. We drank so much tequila I went blind! No, that's a lie: it was a Christian conference but I was too ashamed to say.
I will return.
neuro-praxis -- Watering the Sockets
