Twenty something year old doing twenty something year old things

 Continuing in the tradition of my namesake Phoebe Buffay--I am actually named after the wise sister in The Catcher in the Rye but being neither wise nor a younger sister I generally nod in agreement to "oh, like Phoebe in friends?!"--I have found a cat friend that, I do believe is sending me feline messages of telepathy. She (or he, I have not inspected) has taken to sitting on our garden wall and, as I step out to the cool night air preparing to disappear below to my 'underchambers' (similar, in effect, to undergarment but in this case a bedroom that lies below the house) it sits and looks at me. The look, dear reader, is quite unnerving chiefly due to its unwavering intensity. I have, many times, ignored this wilful cat, disappeared into my bedroom, closed my door and taken to the bed. This method is not effective.  A tinkling of a baleful bell will interrupt my earnest preparations for sleep and I am forced, once more, to face this spectre of the night. Without f...

 The day of mothering is upon us and thus this great stupendous morn' I set forth to collate all my memories, thoughts and words on my own dear mother into a blog post: a virtual hug if ever there was one and a tall order, for she is taller and more virtuous than could ever be put into words.  Today, like many of us, I am not able to be with her; restricted by an invisible force, I make do by calling, Whatsapp-ing, blogging and (because it's not all about the tinternet) card-ing. I spoke to her last night on the phone and, because of the selfless being that she is, she was preparing items that could be 'sent up to me'. Surely this is the wrong way around? In this list there were seedlings, pots, clothes and vegetables ("I'll put some manure in too").  She is a nurturer of every plant and human that is lucky enough to come within her radius with an after-glow felt far beyond the 5km. The mind-blowing fact of course is that my mother is not where it all beg...

 Kids sense of time is unique. Minding child A and child B yesterday I was surrounded by their rogue estimations of how long it would take to reach various desirable locations (namely 'the green', 'the park' and--most importantly--'the shop') each they assured me were, at most,  "two minutes away" (Fifteen minutes and counting). I was satiated however by a brownie which Child A easily convinced me into buying once we reached one of these locations. It was to be a secret, I warned her, and best if she did not tell her mother or her brother about the pre-dinner death by chocolate. I am in cahoots with a 9 year old: the adult who can resist everything except temptation.  Temptation seems the operative word of this lockdown 3. One worrying temptation is that of looking at my own face during zoom meetings. Despite the colourful checkerboard of interesting faces to lock eyes on, I am consistently drawn to my own. Never before has my own face been so familiar...

 How do you approach your deadlines? An easy breezy week or two in advance with plenty of time for editing, procrastination and intelligent gathering of brain waves? Or up to the wire, dotted i's, crossed T's the day of?  I always liked to think I was in the first camp, however last weeks experience has shown me that in my old age, I have slipped up. Panic writing for two job applications on two separate days occurred with caffeine and a thesaurus being the necessary survival kit. Cover letters require a degree of cunning, artifice as well as gumption. I generally have these by the bucket load and live to tell the tale. I am hopeful that my future bank account as well as adulthood will thank me. This is also my excuse for not giving you, dear readers, a blog last week. I know that you missed me.  I write this now feeling distinctly cosy--or, to satisfy the Norwegians--Hygge. I returned from child minding 90% wet and 10% human and have recently returned to a semi-normal st...

 Do you wanna build a snowman? I do.  I sang this line to child A and B this afternoon, whilst playing Rounders in the snow globe. It was met with scornful faces. I think there is clearly a child 'C' in the mix.  The snow we have at the moment is called 'graupel'--this I learnt from the trustee RTE radio 1. It is pellet snow which, to me, looks like ash, lending a post-apocalyptic vibe to the already, admittedly, rather apocalyptic situation. It's all good though, I have a flatmate now, ah you heard?  and we keep each others spirits up by speaking to each other in clipped South African accents. I think we're excellent. Until we go off into the Rrrrussian and then we're in trouble. There's no getting out alive, until someone opens the vodka or, preferably, switches on Killing Eve. I must tell you about Killing Eve, I must tell everyone about Killing Eve. A murderous, murderess psycho-path who waltzes around in flouncy pink tulle dresses, flitting effortle...

 This evening marks my last as a solo agent/lady of the manor/ isolation queen; tomorrow the age of 'Rathgor Roomies' shall commence. Above me still hangs a handmade and helpful A4 poster, 'Phoebe's lockdown guide to solo living'. Rule #1"The lockdown blog--a study in dramatic writing. Make a 'fridge trip' exciting". Whether or not this blog was a study in 'dramatic writing' I cannot comment. Certainly, I do not recall resorting to writing about fridge trips. This, I feel must be rectified:  Shaking like a small needy jack Russell she made her way over to the chrome grey box and opened its curved door. The glaring white light bathed her reddened eyes as they roved desperately over its assorted contents. Her nose twitched. It was not detecting the much needed scent despite being well trained in this mission. There was a smell alright, but flared nostrils failed to pick out the rose amongst a multitude of thorns. Jalapenos, dips, cheese, mil...

 A wet and grey day to begin the first of a new month. Grim, unsolicitous skies not withstanding, it is a lucky day. Why is it a lucky day? Because despite waking up late on my day off and remembering at ten thirty AM "crap, the BINS!!" they were somehow still collected. Silver linings. Or should I say, bin linings?  My wet laundry was finally hung up to 'dry', it now hangs sodden like wet rags on the line--mocking me.   I spent the day scrubbing, glad tidings for the arrival of my new flatmate. My hair was in curlers, the vacuum was on and a cigarette dangled from the corner of my lips. Hint, only one of those statements is true. Conclusion: domestic goddess virtues are not all lost. A day of spring cleaning for the arrival of the first day of spring. It was also a day of staring blankly at a power point presentation due to be used during a lesson on Saturday. I productively added pretty pictures in between taking compulsive sips of coffee. It is a fact that drinkin...

 I have a lockdown outfit and it is in this outfit that I have spent the last three days. Vogue would, I like to think, call it the perfect 'transition' piece from night to day and vice versa. The versatile garment I refer to is a red all in one piece, consisting of red harem style pants and a scoop neck top half. It has big pockets and makes me feel like an empowered genie emerged from a bottle. Underneath this fabulous number I wear a green and white pinstriped top with a triangular bib. I have been told, I think rudely, that this top is very 'POW' but I believe it is time for the stripe to be reclaimed.  I have daily walks in my romper, I call friends in this romper, I zoom in the romper and today I recorded a self tape in the romper--if I get the role I will be at risk of never changing out of it again for it will be my 'lucky' romper.  Last night, lounging in my romper, I spoke to a friend who lives on the other side of the world, she is from Oz and althoug...

 "Somewhat hungover and somewhat sentimental, this month being the first anniversary Saigon's fall, or liberation or both, I wrote my aunt a letter to commemorate a year's worth of tribulation. " Once again I have returned to my hobby of picking a sentence I could never write and musing on it. The above is taken from The Sympathizer , written by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It is a book written by a Vietnamese author set just after the Vietnam/ American war--it flits between these two nations, and 'the fall' it documents is Saigon's takeover by the northern Viet Cong. I love this book like I love Vietnam and, particularly *sigh gon. Perhaps I chose this sentence as I am feeling particularly nostalgic from last night's late night/early morning phone call from a friend still living in the bustling heat of the city. He called me from a café which had the familiar blaring-music-played-too-loudly and the sounds of motorbikes' honking horns punctuating every pause...

 Descartes was an interesting sorta fella wasn't he? 'Cogito ergo Sum'. I think therefore I am.  We exist because we are thinking things and therefore we are distinct from our bodies, non-thinking things. The mind can exist independently of the body and possibly go on ad nauseam. The mind pulls the levers of the body but not the other way around.  Writing as someone that currently feels dazed and brain dead I am pretty convinced that this cannot be true and that, in fact, my typing fingers have thoughts of their own. Electrical currents independent of my brain causing squiggly black characters to appear somewhat coherently onto a blank page. This 'coherence' is something for you, dear reader, to judge.  Another reason I stand in opposition to Descartes--clears throat importantly--is owing to my identity as a thespian. I am convinced that moving your body in strange and exciting new ways can cause strange and exciting new thoughts, ergo the body can influence the mi...

Nostalgic memory of youth: My mother telling me not to watch too much TV in case I got "square eyes".  I spent a long time trying to find someone suffering from this affliction but strangely never did.  But ah,  the days when 'screen time' was seen as an unnecessary pleasure and square eyes the risk associated with it, akin to the 'monster under the bed'. Now it is a necessary evil. We buy special 'anti-blue light' glasses to allow us to continue to stare, squarely, into the screen in an intense 'who blinks first' match. I'm currently in one and will continue until four pm when I log off my duties of monitoring  psychology classes.                                                                        ***** The above section was written, as you can guess, well before the present --when I ir...

 In reverse order from yesterday, let us start with a sentence:  "I learned about being thankful a couple of years ago, from some experts--a conversation on facebook--and now I do it everyday; like in the way you're supposed to do yoga everyday but I don't, because the idea of yoga, perversely, makes me tense." I am drawn to this sentence mainly for the camaraderie I feel to the author, Caitlin Moran's, aversion to yoga. I have never been a yogi and possibly never will. I put this down to the same reason that I'm not into soup: food in my opinion should be solids and an activity should be active. If I want a meditative state, I'd probably go for a swim. I get bored easily or perhaps I'm just put off by the heavy breathing. I also like that she puts her find of 'being thankful' down to Facebook. Such beautiful irreverence--it makes me very thankful.  Another thing I am thankful for, is my child minding job. I spent a long couple of hours happily...

 THIS IS NOW....A not so bold observation perhaps, but also the theme of an art competition which I have successfully enticed child A into entering. At first she was reluctant, "I'll never win"-- as she sulkily fished around for my praise (which I lavished). I am proud to say that she conceded and we have begun work on our entry. Soon after starting she made a 360 degree recovery in attitude. She now looks at me conspiratorially while whispering  confidently into t he  Papier-mâché,  "w e're gonna win this". I should probably say to her something along the lines of "it's not about winning but taking part", but really, I've got my eye on the prize too and heartily encourage this enthusiasm. It's also a project which will see me into two days of minding without having to resort to her favourite 'X-factor' whereby, on bad days I am made to sing and, on good days, must judge and comment on her various performances in my best Essex a...

 I sit now, cheese toastie lying temptingly beside me and a fermentation vessel, loaded with a treacly sweet smelling liquid, sitting conspicuously in the corner of the room. I have begun to brew my first ever batch of beer: moved on from sourdough (SO lockdown one) to the harder stuff. Still involving yeast but this time a lot less infantile--my sourdough pet starter was very needy and ultimately ineffective, resulting in a distinctly flat loaf. I was, for a few wonderful hours, transported back to chemistry class of 12' as I dunked my hydrometer into the wort and, carefully avoiding the tricksy meniscus attempting to lead me down a false path, read its gravity .This will be important for future groggy mornings, serving as a sort of post-mortem, also known as the alcohol percentage.   The reality of this chemistry kitchen is a lot more slap dash than it may sound--jargon hides a multitude of brewing sins. The proof, as they say, will be in the pint. It may be ready in ti...

 Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things....I also like brown cardboard packages that arrive in post boxes. One of this kind arrived today, sent by a generous friend and containing Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age which, I am told by same friend, is about a girl who is twenty six and so sarcastically explores the premise that this is "such a fun age". Something that, we both agree, is not always true and entirely not true at present thanks to a certain Ms. Rona. Yes, I am naming and shaming.  Blame game aside, today I met a delightful being in a beautiful pea green coat and clod in black leather boots with transparent heels. This mirage was my sister though she was very much in the flesh. We had planned to have a snow date though the snow had up and gone, apart from swirling back briefly to kiss us goodbye (as we said goodbye). She bought me a hot chocolate, "for takeaway"--important to let them know, remember--and we discusse...

 My new friend and bike, Juliette, was looking particularly foxy this morning. She has been suited and booted with a new pannier rack to hold her side bag. The equivalent, I like to think, of a sassy handbag on the elbow. Her bag is red which perfectly off sets her glossy green coat. What's perhaps more worrying about my bike-doting is the fact that it was not isolation which tipped me over the edge. I humanized my bikes long before the lockdown crazies. That's right, back in BC. Reading Dervla Murphy's Full Tilt however confirms that I am not alone in this, she also names her bike and, rather inspiringly, cycles to India on her. Though she would probably go one step further and use the preposition 'with'. They, like Juliette and I, are a team. We've heard of man and dog--what about woman and bike?  The reason for the use of side bags on this sunny Saturday was to collect my organic vegetable order. This is not something I do often enough, mainly because I...

 What is your technique for bringing your space shuttles into land? I personally like to make sure that gear flaps are engaged and that my partner has established a safe landing zone. Whenever I visit those on planet B I also like to make sure that they're happy for us to potentially land in on them-- when things go tits up over here.  No, I'm not planning for the apocalypse. I am preparing for an audition. First things first.  Via the high tech 'zoom' space station, I will be guided back to planet earth and hopefully a role on the mission, IF I successfully and convincingly land the space shuttle 'Kitchen chair' into orbit. It sounds like a tough gig for this first time astronaut, but someone's got to do it. The launch window is fifteen minutes but I'm an eager recruit, keen to do right by my team. I also have that killer Capricorn energy --and if the stars align then the planets probably will too. Cross your fingers for me?  I watched a film last night...

 Smashing is a smashing word isn't it? It seems to encompass excitement and brilliance but in a kick-ass, plate breaking kind of way. My obsession for this word today is inspired by an earlier workshop I took part in run by a theatre company called, drum roll,  Smashing Times--they are pretty kick ass. They use theatre and film as a tool for social change, underpinned by a "rights based approach" and with a commitment to promoting "social justice, peace, gender equality, human rights, positive mental health and anti racism". Phooo. Is that all?  Their workshop today, via the good aul' zoom, made me feel all fuzzy inside, with a sprinkling of empowerment. Before I go full blown 'american wellness blogger' on you, hear me out. I loved it because this is what you get from the darkened auditorium of a Theatre. I loved it because once again it was about going on a journey with total strangers. In a Theatre, all you see is the heads and shoulders of peopl...

 And thus this great stupendous day: the dog is kicked out of its kennel.  Yes, it's Biden Harris! Despite Child A's mutterings of "jeeez, he is old", I for one think that this 'old' dog, might have some new tricks. It is time for a new era: shinier, happier and...heftier? It's gonna be a big one boys. It feels like NYE again but this time with a lot more flags and a lot less pop (think I might put hamburger on the menu). It is, as the man himself said, "a day of history and of hope". Most of us are probably hoping for the same thing...damn, you took the words right out of my mouth. That's right...for Lady Gaga's gold Mockingjay brooch a la The Hunger Games (am I wrong?) to be given the attention it deserves.  A quick googlay tells me that the brooch worn by Katniss Everdeen in the film signified "rebellion to the capitol". Maybe I've taken too many classes on intertextuality, but I'm interested in this textuality. Readi...

Monopoly is amazing at its ability to turn, even the most unwilling, participants into fat cat capitalists. It's almost like it's inspired by real life socioeconomic systems or something?   Child A did not want to play. She grumbled, she groaned, she feigned ignorance. She used all the tricks. Myself and Child B hustled and convinced her--by her third dice throw she was exclaiming enthusiastically "I LOVE this game" and laughing uproariously at my pitiful rent take-ins.  Much to my chagrin, I was losing. Badly.  The game shall be continued when I return tomorrow. Waiting for me is a note, beside my reducing pile of money, reminding me that 'I owe' child B two pounds. No, he will not let me off. He's a tough landlord. Perhaps Herbert Simms or the Dublin corp. might step in to help me out?  We play this game whilst using over the top British accents--funny that--and sitting cross legged on the floor. The wolves of Grafton St.  Before becoming capitalists, my...