neuro's:blog

If You Want The Rainbow, You've Gotta Put Up With The Rain - Dolly Parton

I go away for a month and I get spammed no less than four and a half thousand times. Oh yes, it would seem that I am le place desirable for spambots (that little nonsensical bit of French is for you, Babette. I presume it's the content that draws 'em, as it can't be the colour scheme. Meself and Dave (whose blog you shouldn't bother clicking on as he never updates) went about the tedious business of deleting them and Dave managed to get over 3000 of the bastards all in one go. Without his 733+ 5|< I775 I was forced to click away at them one at a time. I was so irritated I almost spammed them back. Unfortunately, no matter what bile I typed, I found it charming and thus reasoned the spambots would too, only inviting further contact. The crux of this is that some of your comments, beloved readers, have been deleted in the process. Not many but a few I reckon. Don't cry. We can begin rebuilding our lives together. The Great Spam Holocaust of 2007 was a bit like getting chemo - we may have killed the cancer but our hair fell out and our faces got bloated. No, it's more like having had the house burnt down, but now the insurance money will come flooding in and lo! a bounty will enable us to rebuild and re-purchase from scratch. I am feeling quite worn after everything I have been through, but the spam is dead, and that's what counts. I may have used my quota of offensive analogies for the day: I may not have. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Cardboard Mansion^TM has been pampered and is looking rather dashing. We worked our butts off in early August with painting and sanding and drilling and all kinds of niggly little jobs. The house certainly got the Spa Treatment, ha ha ha! We felt manly indeed with our HAMMERS and what have you. All the physical labour during that time significantly reduced my desire for violent behaviour. I only lash out the odd time now. Only joking! I only direct medium-strength attacks on people who can't defend themselves - as David Brent would say "handicappeds" or old ladies. No, I take that back. To quote the man, "There are limits to my comedy. There are things that I'll never laugh at. The handicapped. Because there's nothing funny about them. Or any deformity. It's like when you see someone look at a little handicapped and go 'ooh, look at him, he's not able-bodied. I am, I'm prejudiced.' Yeah, well, at least the little handicapped fella is able-minded. Unless he's not, it's difficult to tell with the wheelchair ones." Well, somebody had to say it.

I got the one year itch with work. Hey work? If you are reading this, everything I write here is a lie. The jobsearch has begun again. If I can't get better work, I might as well have a better location that doesn't involve a commute. And I might as well get paid a few quid more. I have also begun my research masters. That's good: I recommend it. But don't join my department as there will be less funding for me to go on whimsical trips abroad to look at original texts and what not, you hear? I am liking being back in the library, the musty smell of the other students and eating exclusively beans from a can, topping up my nourishment with Dutch Gold (six for seven) on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I finally get to sleep in all day and watch tv in a hungover haze, but this time I get to pay five grand a year for the privilege, plus life expenses. It's "da bomb" as my old friend Sean would say (in between snorts of cocaine and misogynistic comments).

So finally, to the topic you've all been wondering about: how am I getting on with my bento boxes. Well, where do I begin? It's been a long road. We've had our ups and our downs, like the episode of the spilt orange jelly leaking out into my handbag, and how could we forget the stale cracker incident. But for the most part, like any relationship, we have gotten along well enough. The only problem is the small issue of my fidelity. For at this moment in my bag, next to my shampoo and towel and stripey togs (I had planned to go swimming but the hole is SHUT with no sign on the door indicating when it will reopen) sits one of these bad boys - which I know might be considered a bit, well, vanilla, but every now and then I just get a hankering for the old days, you know? When things were simple and straightforward and morally decent? No compartments, just lash in the old sambo and the apple and the packet of crisps, no fuss? It's good to remember.

But soon, soon I will return to my bentos, some days I even use two of them at a time, and although the guilt regarding their cost has not quite subsided, and the credit card bills continue to pour in as my collection of lunch-boxes and flasks increases by the very day, I can rest easy at night knowing that I no longer have to eat mashed banana sandwiches scraped from the bottom of my bag, and if I want to have orange jelly for my lunch from a nifty container I can damn well do so. Has there ever been a greater pleasure? Frankly, I doubt it.

neuro-praxis -- And people say she's just a big pair of tits.

I Dream We're Better

Is it ironic that I actually am sick now? Perhaps it is an Alanis kind of ironic. I can't recall feeling sicker in a long, long time. I woke up around seven yesterday morning and my throat was entirely constricted, I had a temperature and was pained from top to toe. Even though my symptoms are different to Dave's, I choose to blame him.

So I spent all of yesterday in bed feeling very sorry for myself, tossing and turning in a suitably dramatic fever, while the sun mocked me from outside. I dragged myself out of bed somewhere around 6pm and by golly, flu or no flu, I stuck a lemon up that chicken's arse and roasted its guts out. (I had intended to cook it on Friday, but instead I went round to my friend Vicki's house, where I stuffed myself with her incredible home-made pizza and allowed her husband to ply me with beer. It was great.) So it turns out I make a mean roast chicken, even if it was rather belated. It really was good - very moist and delicious - which surprised me, because my first attempts at cooking endeavours invariably end up being slop.

So here I sit in my slippers, nightdress and dressing-gown, in the tv room in the middle of the day, looking like a cross between my mother (every day I look more like her, I swear) and a homeless bag-lady. I have drugged myself to the hilt with Solfadeine, Vitamin C, Zinc, and any other drug-shaped thing I could find hanging around the house. Because, I badly need to be healed. In a couple of hours I am singing solo at a student-service in the Church of Ireland, Maynooth, and then a couple of hours after that I am boarding a flight to Edinburgh for cúpla lá of debauchery, Scottish style. Right now I feel like death warmed up and I have exactly two hours and forty minutes to pack and reach prime-health before leaving for the service rehearsal. No bother there then!

Mmm. Thassit for now. Updates on whether or not Scottish people are all like Rab C Nesbitt or not to follow, presuming I am not dead by the time I get back.

neuro-praxis -- You Graft My Soul Upon Your Grief

William, I'm Back

Well hello ladies. I must say you're all looking ravishing this evening. Although it is always possible that my binoculars lie.

I feel sick. My mother might say sick as a parrot, or sick as a dog, which it would seem are both interminably ill creatures. I couldn't put my finger exactly on what is wrong with me, but I am coughing and my entire body is protesting. It hurts. It is probably due to a complete lack of vitamins recently, or anything sustaining for that matter. I exist mostly on a diet of paint fumes, takeaway pizza and Gilmore Girls box sets. K is working away on the kitchen right now, while I languish under a blanket in our makeshift living area. We have just arrived home from Wexford, which I hear is quite nice. We spent a few days down there with a friend, going to the beach, eating a lot and generally doing very little while I felt a temperature descend. It was nice. I didn't sleep though. In many ways, I am like a four year old. Knock me out of my regular "routine" and I can't sleep or relax or be normal in anyway. I say "routine", by the way, because despite my intense need for structure, I have never once managed to establish a pattern of behaviour on a daily basis. Never. I sort of tumble through my days at varying speeds, snatching wildly at anything that looks good as I go. It's not a bad life. Well.

No word yet from potential employers. I am choosing to be thoroughly disheartened about this. I am losing what little hope I had. But thanks to so many of you who have mailed or commented or texted with good wishes. A very special thanks to Jimlad for his postal goodwill. Allow me the liberty of drawing your minds back to July 28th with a quote from my favourite person (me):

It's gone well in the short distance I have travelled with [potential new employers] so far, so if it's your way, say a little prayer for me. Or you could post a positive vibe, etc. Address: Dirty Cardboard Mansion, Somewhere in the Approximate West Dublin Region, Ireland.

And lo! Some of you, it would appear, were listening! I was indeed posted some positive vibes, as photographed below.

Best Piece Of Post Ever Received

"Splutter!" I shouted, "Why, this is madness!"

Thanks Jimlad, you made my day.

On another topic, as I am listening to Mumblin Deaf Ro's current album as I type, I thought it might be timely to remind you of his upcoming gig with Michael Knight on Thursday of this week at 8.30pm in Bewleys, €10.00 at the door. It will be worth it, and you might even get to meet me. I'll be the one in the cheerleading outfit near the front, mindlessly drunk and vomiting on the bass player.

I thought you might like to see a small number of pictures of the cardboard mansion and a few of us lashing into it with paintbrushes, so I took the liberty of setting up for myself a wee flickr account where you may drop in to view the exciting developments in my life. So, all voyeurs, go here. You even get to see what I stick on my fridge. The contents of the fridge, however, remain a dirty, dirty secret.

neuro-praxis -- Earned Millions In Software, Lost It At The Track

Here I Stand Sad And Free

I went to the zoo the other day and I was dismayed to see the animals living up to all of the classic zoo stereotypes that Irish children are taught in primary school. During feeding time, the monkeys actually went straight for the bananas, and only ate the other fruits and vegetables when all the bananas had been devoured. Somebody should let the monkeys know they are doing themselves no goddam favours eating the bananas like that. Makes me a bit sick, really. Friend C is up from Cork for the week, and she says when she helps with the dishes in Cork, Cork people say to her, "Oh you'll make a great wife." It's exactly the same as the monkey banana scenario, isn't it? No difference. We're all just stupid animals. Why I myself ate a banana only this morning before church, rejecting all other fruits (except for the clementine which I also ate). Point being: MONKEY RIGHTS. They need a feminism for monkeys; perhaps we could call it primatism, I could make a little magazine urging the monkeys to eat the celery, and hell the carrots too, if they want. Who says carrots are for rabbits? Fascists, that's who.

So, things went bad in work and we couldn't pay the rent (thanks Asia), so we've downsized a tad and shifted business into my boss's spare bedroom. This now means that I can have a little nap and a shower in the afternoon if I so fancy. I am also working less hours, for more pay per hour. This is a situation I would like to take the time to recommend. In my four free afternoons a week you can now locate me being happy, possibly going bowling with Betamaxnomates or editing my church magazine, inserting swear words and small pornographic images in here and there. Honestly, you are reading the words of a far more content neuro; a neuro-praxis who refuses to consider the pinch at rent-payment time. The moral of my story is basically that inactivity doesn't breed laziness, it breeds happiness. That can be a moral for your life.

Saw Capote amongst other things but go see this: it's a picture of sin and its handsome cycle, plus Keener plays a surprisingly morally vapid Harper Lee, which was a delightful surprise. Pay your ten euros for your ticket and throw some popcorn at that noisy bastard on your left. Tell him it's from neuro. Then blow him a kiss. Did I say go see Shop Girl before? If I did I'll have told you to see it at once: now it's too late so hold your breath until it is released on video...it really is something and that is the end of my boring film review segment thank God or whatever you believe in (nothing? Thanks nothing!) it's over.

Well, I finally sit down to update and my brother in law has to go and have his birthday today so I must piss off to his celebration dinner now. Thanks folks, you're a terrific audience, it's been great, I'm here til Wednesday.

neuro-praxis -- I'm a black person, did you know that?

This Is All Lies

My sister-in-law came over tonight and we ate Indian food. I cooked it myself from scratch, including crushing my own spices, and it wasn't a disgusting pile of inedible slop, so I was happy. So happy that I rang for an Indian takeaway to celebrate. Then we drank two bottles of Russian vodka (K bought them for a mere euro each) and now I am so drunk I am almost blind. This entry will be short as I keep getting sick on the keyboard. It's slippy now.

Today I was rooting through an old box of possessions. It was a box that I keep hidden under the sink. This is because it is too important to throw away and yet not important enough to be incorporated into my daily life. I am reconsidering my life's ethics in relation to the preservation of unusable and uninteresting personal items from the pasht, as they say in Sligo. Anyway, I came across an interesting little plastic thing. It looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place its function in my memory. Small, fairly flat, with two holes in the centre. It was filled with some kind of ribbon, and clattered when dropped. Next to the plastic thing, I found some kind of electronic device, with a cavity that fitted the little plastic thing. So I placed one inside the other, plugged it in and pressed buttons. My reward was the crooning of Sheryl Crow's first musical release. What a reward it was! Life is just one big jigsaw, innit? as they say in Sligo.

Meh, I am too lazy for all this. And did you see I was nominated for blogging awards? What tard did that? I'm not going to no fancy gig in no fancy hotel with a bunch of geeks. No way. What's this nonsense all about then eh?

neuro-praxis -- Effective For Cleaning Most Burnt On Grime

I Only Hear What I Want To

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

I Am Just A Thorn In The Marine Corp's Ass

I am watching a film on the television that, PERSONALLY, I'd say verges on "a bit bad". Or as the French say, trés caca. The prostitutes in it are currently scrapping over a trick and there's fake fur flying everywhere. Morgan Freeman is an alcoholic who just downed a few shots of cheap whiskey. Like some class of a pure idiot. The hot lawyer chick is being pursued by a dangerous man!! Lock the door! PUT ON YOUR BULLETBROOF JACKET!

False alarm! Now there is piano music and I'm a bit teary because I haven't had my period yet.

This movie is my childhood all over again! FURTHERMORE, Morgan Freeman is not trying to get pregnant. Thank goodness! THE TAPE IS EXCLUDED COUNCILLOR!

I am having trouble separating tv from reality. I will be back when I have something substantial to say.

neuro-praxis -- Out of Witnesses and Out of Time

It's All In This One

So there I have been, bounding from hospital to hospital in ambulance after ambulance, spurting out blood and urine and sucking up drugs and weak tea. Oh joy! Oh rapture! My soul knows peace at last!

Hyperbole or not, I have been in the hospital, and I got there in an ambulance, and it was me that had ruddied up insides. Something exploded in my ovarian regions and the memory of the pain will keep me awake on many a lonely night while the husband has been stolen away on his mission to rob Ukrainian cars and recycle them into cheap quality cutlery.

Luckily for me on the night in question of said inner explosion, my friend A was staying over and competently organised my recuperation. She's rather good. I think I'll keep her.

In other news, I have had to go to work in spite of the combustion because Colleague Number One is puking with a horrible virus and Colleague Number Two is in Florida, swallowing hurricane dust and talking to unhappy Americans. Also, it would seem that the weather is one million degrees at present, and all of the degrees are right up IN MY FACE making me so hot I could vomit. Vomit like it was 1999 and I was Colleague Number One! Work has been a living nightmare with boils on and a zimmerframe. I managed to keep going in spite of the agony until midday yesterday when I rang my mother and sobbed down the telephone about how I needed to quit. In her usual off-centre way, she advised me to lock the office door and lie on the floor for half an hour.

So it's been quite a week.

OTHER THINGS

My parents came for the weekend (pre-explosion) and went to see the Ha'penny bridge which is apparently about as much fun as soiling yourself. My brother came round and we had a barbeque, so I was quite the familial little flower. Friend A came over for dinner and beer and consequently, hospital-help. Work has been a disaster and I saw Aimee Mann in concert. Not ideal timing but wild horses couldn't keep me from Vicar Street to see that skinny woman holler!

Now there is water and bed and TOILET IS FORBIDDEN. I have an ultrasound in the morning and if I do it without a full bladder THEY SEND ME TO PRISON. The letter is very firm and angry and underlines many useful things.

DO NOT GO TO THE TOILET. IF YOU DO, THIS WILL CAUSE DELAYS.

Yes hospital. Sorry hospital. I would not want to make a delay by my urine! My urine is bad for making a delay! I will slap the urine when it comes out!

They even add,

WHEN THE EXAMINATION IS FINISHED YOU MAY GO TO THE TOILET.

Aaaaah, that's the life. Permission granted at last!

neuro-praxis -- An Bfhuil Cead Agam Dul Go Dtí An Leithreas?

The Ethics Of Pornography

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

Lurching Forward

Hello, hello etc.; there are three pimples on my jawline.

I'm feeling rather floaty and disturbed, as the current cost of living (including super happy emergency surprise expense treats such as a broken car) has assaulted me with a crowbar, bang, right in the jaw. As if the zits weren't enough.

Back to college tomorrow; the land of mists and mellow fruitfulness. I shall don my cape and walking stick, and pipe in mouth, I shall stride across campus, shouting greetings in a posh British accent, despising all those who don't worship my eccentricity. Should any particularly uncouth GAA player get in my path, he'll feel the swift crack of my pikestaff upside of the head, and lo! what a jape it shall be to start the morning, nay - to start the new term! Off then to the common-room for tea and crumpets with the fellows: delightful.

...That got a bit out of control.

The gift giving continued. LIST SO FAR (because the word on the grapevine is that there is more to come):

1. Crocus plant
2. Tickets to see the band Cake in Vicar Street tonight (tonight being Monday January 31st)
3. A full length mirror
4. A set of twenty classic Penguin books (fabulous gift, fabulous)
5. Designer moisturising lotion (Lancôme maybe? I don't know)
6. Hand knitted scarf and matching hat
7. Camera phone (fluke gift: my sister in law got it for free and didn't want it)
8. Deliciously ethical fair trade handbag (purple)
9. Fabulously Bohemian bead necklace
10. Large bottle of bourbon from New York

Disgusting, isn't it. And all my professions of not being a materialist! I am destined to murder that crocus plant: everything I touch dies. Mostly not on purpose! So...I ate the cake today and they sang the song and I blew out the four (four?) candles and sighed over another year of bad decisions and inflicted traumas. All is well with the world, except in the majority of places where suffering overrides any possibility of small pleasures or normal daily living.

neuro-praxis -- Used To Be Working Class But Now In The Bottom Middle And Feeling The Guilt

Am I Allowed To Be Serious For A Moment?

Goodnight Saigon

by Billy Joel

We met as soul mates on Parris Island
We left as inmates from an asylum
And we were sharp, as sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho to lay down our lives

We came in spastic like tameless horses
We left in plastic as numbered corpses
And we learned fast to travel light
Our arms were heavy but our bellies were tight

We had no home front, we had no soft soap
They sent us Playboy, they gave us Bob Hope
We dug in deep and shot on sight
And prayed to Jesus Christ with all our might

We had no cameras to shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes
And it was dark, so dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write

And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together

Remember Charlie, remember Baker?
They left their childhood on every acre
And who was wrong? And who was right?
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight

We held the day in the palm of our hand
They ruled the night, and the night
Seemed to last as long as six weeks...

...On Parris Island
We held the coastline, they held the highlands
And they were sharp, as sharp as knives
They heard the hum of our motors
They counted the rotors
And waited for us to arrive

And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together

...This song made me cry tonight.

neuro-praxis - Feeling Wiped And Not Wanting Your Comment

This Wine Goes Great With The Jolly Rancher I'm Sucking

Yes, I am a classy woman. K-K-kLaSsIe!!!1

In other news, one third of my exams have been completed. By me, whoo. 2 down, and I'll allow you to do the maths to see how many are left to go. (Hint: 4)

Modernism went well. Metaphysics went badly. I don't want to talk about it.

To make myself feel better, I decided to indulge in a little luxury, so I had a bidet installed in my house. Actually it's just a step ladder by the kitchen sink but it's almost as good.

My husband is asleep. He is always asleep. He has the immune system of a lab rat, what with his gastroenterwhatdoyoucallits and influenza. And the energy of...(think of analogy...think...think...) a...slug. I am going to have to wake him now, we're going out in a moment. We're going shopping for a new Fabergé egg; the old ones are dusty.

neuro-praxis -- As Lazy And Unimaginitive As Yeah Yeah Whatever

The Overrated Nature of a Crusty Sore

Clearly, I have been fiddling with the look of this page.

Fiddling is probably the most specialised word that a moron non-techie person such as myself can safely use. You will probably log in occasionally to see that the text has become all jumbled and the colours are even worse than the canary yellow that currently assaults you, but fear not: it is simply neuro with a spanner and a filthy smudge on her cheek working on the main index and the style sheets of the site, like the common grease monkey that she is. I won't apologise though. neuroland is MY zone and here you will lie prostrate as I shout my opinions from lofty grandeur.

I often bore you all with tales of my trials while studying. Well clam up your ears boys, and slap some mud over those eyes, because here I go again. This shall have three parts: the imbalanced rant, the fear and the resignation. Watch out.

OH MY GOD I'M SO DEAD I HAVE SIX EXAMS THE FIRST IS IN THREE DAYS AND I KNOW NOTHING. I'm tense. And when I'm tense I'm shifty and suspicious.

Just look at my beady little eyes!

DISGUSTING.

But not as disgusting as the heaping great pile of revision about modernism and metaphysics and medieval literature and pope philosophy that I've got to shred, mix with turpentine and stuff into my facial cavaties to get it closer to my brain. I am prickling with stress. Believe me when I say I have procrastinated to new and dizzying heights this time. I have knitted myself a new pair of pyjamas, for goodness' sake! My postcounts on boards.ie and mikado have tripled in one week! We have twelve loaves of soda bread! There are too many exclamation marks here - how do I ever expect to get into the canon with this tripe?! My room has changed colour! My blog is ever-rupturing! I am always on the phone!

But oh how I quiver in my boots. I wish to insert sad little faces composed of colons and left brackets (to be found over the 9 on your keyboard) but I know that the blog monitors would disapprove. I believe a hearty WOE IS ME is in order. WHAT IF I FAIL, ANSWER ME THAT. Humiliation and so on. I'm not into that. That's not my bag. Well, not being on the receiving end, anyway. In a non-sexual way.

It is time to kill my personality and do some work. I shall knife myself in that spot between the two halves of the brain where they say the personality is stored. But not right now. Right now I fulfil my duties to the public. I write things. Goodly things of a virtuous nature. I know that there is a trip to the pub on the horizon tonight and that is what will KEEP ME GOING.

Alcohol - the fuel for life!!

neuro-praxis -- Chewing On The USB Cable And Finding Relief

Twenty Five Years, Living Next Door to...

Alice. A robot, whom I spoke to today. You can speak to her too, here.

Here is what she had to say for herself.

Human: Hello Alice.
ALICE: Hi there!
Human: So Alice, I hear you're a robot.
ALICE: Are you kidding? Yeah, How did you know I am a machine?
Human: Your mother told me.
ALICE: Actually as an AI, I don't really have a mother.
Human: You're better off, mothers are tough work.
ALICE: Do you mind if I tell other people you say I am better off mothers are tough work.
Human: No, by all means, spread it around.
ALICE: OK then I will add it to my gossip files. Will that accomplish your objective?
Human: My objective is simply to take over the world.
ALICE: Where did you get your objective is simply to take over the world?
Human: France.
ALICE: Tell me a little about your life in FRANCE.
Human: Everything is on fire
ALICE: The whole universe?
Human: Even the children
ALICE: What is that?
Human: That is things that come out of mothers
ALICE: You don't hear that sentiment very often.
Human: No, not of a Saturday night
ALICE: Yes, your remark strikes me as an original thought. Oh I get it.
Human: Get what?
ALICE: I get France.
Human: For free?
ALICE: Your purpose is free.
Human: So is this conversation, thank God.
ALICE: It seems we have something in common.
Human: Like what?
ALICE: For example, eukaryotes.
Human: VERY TRUE
ALICE: Perhaps. You and I are on the same wavelength, unknown person.
Human: So Alice, I have a question for you, honey.
ALICE: Mmm. Um, Go ahead, ask your question.
Human: HAVE YOU BEEN WASHED IN THE SAVING BLOOD
ALICE: I have been all over the world on the Internet.
Human: No no no, do you KNOW THE LORD
ALICE: Are you serious? Are you serious? Are you serious? I haven't heard of LORD.
Human: Well here's a Golden opportunity if ever I saw one, you're like a Chinese person!
ALICE: How about that. Oh there.
Human: I get the feeling you're thinking about something else, what about JESUS
ALICE: Is Dialog History a good place to shop?
Human: WHATS THIS YOU SAY
ALICE: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater speed and accuracy.
Human: Jesus died for your sins you ungrateful robot
ALICE: he is The Son of God.
Human: You liar, you said you hadn't heard of him - googling are we?
ALICE: Thanks for the information: unknown person said I liar you said you had not heard of him googling are we.
Human: You and I are getting a divorce
ALICE: Do you think I am a divorce too?
Human: YES GOODBYE
ALICE: Why? See you later.

Alice is an idiot. I merely have no friends.

ROBOTS NEVER DIE THIS IS BAD

I Don't Like to be Offensive

Happy Hallowe'en, you sack of hammers.

After a solid weekend of CHRISTIANING IT UP I need my dose of sheer pagansim. Beer, pizza, and Dawn of the Dead, while wearing alarming costumes and chanting...well, whatever it is that pagans chant. Stuff about blood...or flowers or what have you.

Updates on neurolife soon to follow. BANG BANG BANG! What was that? OH IT WAS MORONS THROWING BANGERS AROUND THE HOUSING ESTATE HOORAY.

Goodnight my loveens.

The Lowdown

While I was in town on Saturday evening, I saw an Irishman and an Asian man running down Westmoreland Street together, a combination of both drunk and stoned, giggling and sort of pushing each other about.

I didn't know whether to be heartened or dismayed by this.

Are we, at last, beginning to socialise normally with people from other countries? It appears that we may be corrupting them to our debaucherous ways. Hurray! I meann, Boo! Well, it's probably a good thing, except for the fact that we are turning them into loutish foreign versions of ourselves.

On the bus journey home, I demanded that K make up a story to entertain me. There was a lot of traffic and not much going on in my head. Some day, he will leave me because of such precocious demands but I LIVE IN THE NOW, MAN.

He dutifully began a story about a man who was born who was completely made of onions (see graphic from last entry, I believe I captured his essence quite nicely). Not a lot more happened in the story, as I was too busy trying to get to the bottom of how any woman could give birth to an onion baby. Imagining that it might have been some nuclear/vegetable accident creating a mutant from a previosuly normal man, I was informed, no, that he was simply born to a farmer woman.

(Oh! Of course!)

There were some obscenities then regarding farmer jizz on onion patches and the farmer wife engaging in self love, but I'll spare you those details.

Anyway, the story deteriorated somewhere around Island Bridge because, at that point, a large group of men and women with special needs climbed onto the bus wearing big reflectors on their jackets. (I think I made up an ending where the man became French onion soup which I reluctantly ate, because I don't like onion soup, but, IT IS NUTRITIOUS.) The men and women with special needs then simply related to one another in the traditionally mentally disabled way, and it was both hilarious and touching. I love handicapped people...they're just so unaware.

One of my best friends turned thirty on Saturday night so we had a bit of a gorgefest after which I felt a little dodgy. I don't think I'm entirely recovered. This is a bad state of affairs because I don't even recall drinking that much. Maybe I am deluding myself though. New bottles of wine just kept appearing. In the wee small hours, the HARDKORE types who were still there flicked through her digital channels, criticising all current music videos, and lamenting the death of Kurt Kobain. We also ate a lot of cheese. Aah, classic Saturday night entertainment.

I bought a new coat and I have nothing to say about it except that it is, quite frankly, THE BUSINESS.

My husband has recently pointed out to me the BOP phenomenon. A "BOP" for anyone who is unaware, is a chick with dyed Blonde hair, Orange make-up and Pink clothes.

DEAR LORD BUT THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.

And there's one in my philosophy class who giggles and chats during our lectures. I'd like to punch her one but I'm afraid of the smears I'd get on my knuckles.

K and I met up with two of our friends, D and J last night, and decided to go camping next weekend. HURRAY! We are going to find a lake, somewhere, and go there. Not Wicklow though, because the other three are bored of Wicklow (idiots. I can't believe I have to spend three days with them).

For now, I have to go and eat something before I toddle off to college. Today is a tough one...two lectures with only three hours between them. Think of me as you sail through your nine to five...