Bla to Botox

God I hate botox and fillers.  I've never gotten the treatments, although I imagine it's painful.  I just hate how it's frozen the faces of so many women.  Who wants to be 50 with a face that doesn't move.  OK, you may look 30, but like a 30 year old wax figure.  I've had forehead furrows since my late teens.  Now in my mid 40's they're deeper but they're a part of me.  Yes, I want to look beautiful, but why do I need to look like a child to do so?  I'm taking as my role models elegant powerful women past and present such as Vivienne Westwood, Georgia O'Keefe, Lauren Hutton, Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, etc.  Let me see wisdom and life in a face, and personality.  Let me see lines of sadness and lines of laughter.  Not just some some sandblasted, blank canvas.

And what's with older women going for younger men.  Not for companionship.  Why would you really want to spend time with a man under 40?  Of course there's exceptions, but I'd much rather spend time with an interesting man my age or older.  If nothing else, they tend to be calmer, more self-sufficient and need less entertaining.  

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Tribune in specific

I've been ragging on the papers of late, but I do want to mention two Tribune columnists I enjoy.  The first is Chris Binchy, especially when he used to do the restaurant reviews.  He introduced me to some inexpensive places I still go to.  I don't know if he wrote the review of Madina on Little Mary St., but it remains my favorite Indian in the city.  And it's by far the most authentic, if not the fanciest.  I don't know of anywhere else you can get a dosa or idlis, or come out paying less than 30 euro for a dinner for 2.  Granted they don't serve alcohol, but they do serve a great mango lahsi.

I also love the Tribune's TV reviewer Patrick Freyne.  He is very, very funny.  Wonderful, insightful reviews done with wit and kindness.  Worth the price of the paper.

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Times in specific

The Times is considered the ne plus ultra of Irish papers, although some people consider it to be a bit too proddy, and prefer the Independent.  Or so my husband tells me.  Take it up with him if you don't agree.  Anyway, he reads the Times, and especially enjoys it on Saturday, which is their Sunday paper, as they don't print on Sunday.  For the most part the paper is not too bad.  Good arts coverage.  Their political coverage seems more considered than others.  Their featured lifestyle columnist, Roisin Ingle, doesn't set my hair on end.  Usually.  

The same can't be said for their restaurant reviewer, Tom Doorley.  How do I hate him? Let me count the ways.  I think we have Ruth Reichl to blame for Tom Doorley's unbearable smug, perpetually self regarding voice.  I believe she was the first, or one of the first, to include a view of her personal life within her reviews.  She's an enticing, honest writer with a rich life and a real appreciation and knowledge of food.  She says "You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one you need to know about life."  A little piece of advice Mr. Doorley could benefit from.

While I always balked at his superior tone, the first review of Doorley's that drove me around the bend was when he reviewed a restaurant that had opened a few days prior, and was working out the kinks.  First of all, what critic would pounce on a restaurant so soon?  He's just asking for a bad experience.  It's a new crew.  There will be mistakes.  That's a given.  Why go in and critique it with the same standards you would a restaurant that's been in business for at least a month.  It was a horrid review.  This man seems to have some power and I am certain his review hurt this new restaurant.  Just mean.

A while after that, he writes that he was going to a restaurant on one side of the Liffey and yet couldn't get in.  This was either because it was booked, or one of the restaurants he was (understandably) banned from.  Now I just want to note here that his photo is published with his column and he advertises wine for local SPAR convenience stores, which have large cut outs of him toasting the unsuspecting customer (probably just in for a breakfast roll) with a glass of white.  Cringe.  Basically, everyone knows what he looks like.  But I digress.  So, he can't get into this restaurant so he goes across the river to a restaurant in a hotel.  One of those restaurants that are decent enough, and are there to serve the hotel clientele.  And of course he reams it in his review.  The restaurant is not putting itself out there as the next big thing.  It's been around for a while, so there's not buzz at all attached to it.  Why review it?  The only thing I can thing about is because of a looming deadline.  Lazy.

In Doorley's reviews, he makes mention of his wonderful (not) life.  He makes mention of his great friends.  He talks, above all, about himself.  Great if you're a good writer with an interesting life.  Not so great if you are a mediocre writer, with what seems like a rather ordinary life.  Of course a good writer can make an ordinary life seem interesting, but likely not in the course of a restaurant review, so perhaps it would be best not to try.  Also, Doorley's interest in food seems to come second to his interest in himself.  He has a lot invested in his readership considering him an expert on food, and life too I guess.  And wine.  Seemingly he's opened a wine shop, or somethings, and is often plugging it.  Or was a while ago.  I can't read him anymore.  It's more than I can take on a Saturday morning.

The Irish weekend papers in general, the Tribune in specific

What has happened to the Sunday Tribune.  There has been some horrid sort of makeover, making it look a bit more like the Independent, yet still trying to retain some intellectual cache.  It neither reaches the Indo's depth of trashiness (which I like and my husband abhors) nor really informs on any level -- rather just rehashes what's been said earlier in the week.  

They have this young, featured lifestyle columnist named Una Mullally.  I don't get her.  She has a weekly column in the insubstantial magazine, and it's usually a re-hash of what she'd read on Jezebel and other such blogs during the week.  Just a reordering of what's being discussed on line with no further insight.  No, forgive me, her take on things is more smug, snarkier than most.  I guess that's her original slant on the news.

Now the Sunday Tribune has also taken to publishing photos of their columnists next to their articles.  A woman named Clair Byrne, who is the most babe-like of the group, gets a massive photo, a full 1/3 of the length of a page of the paper.  Conor McMorrow, the political correspondent, has a tiny picture, and doesn't look too happy in it.  The aforementioned Ms. Mullally's photo is the most concerning.  In it, she is dressed like a clown, sans white face and red circles on cheeks.  She has on a purple shirt and black and white striped jumper and the effect is genuinely clown-like.  She was saddled with a bad stylist, was my first thought, and perhaps they'll change the photo down the line.  However this week I saw how wrong I was.

Ms. Mullally wrote a 2 page article on her experience wearing black lipstick.  Yes.  Two pages.  In the weekend magazine.  Seemingly black lipstick in in vogue, so she thought she would wear it and see how people reacted to her in the streets.  Yes, this really took up two pages.  In short, people laughed and otherwise acted shocked or at least did double takes.  Ms. Mullally concludes that the lipstick was making people react to her like this.  However she did not take into consideration what she was wearing.  Yes, clown clothes again.  Underneath a tiny leather bomber jacket she is wearing what looks like an oversized warm-up jacket with primary colored stars.  Just something a clown might wear out jogging.  It's accessorized with a blindingly shiny gold bag -- oversized, with more than enough room for a wig, a fake nose, perhaps a pair of shoes with really big toe boxes.  Of course the photos don't show her feet, so I can just imagine what sort of treats lurk at the end of her legs.  Glittery purple Doc Martens?  Maybe red, high heeled boots decorated with white straps and diamante buckles.  A girl can dream, can't she?

I Just say no to running

As mentioned before, I often go off on a tear, reading people's weight loss blogs for inspiration.  In general, it's not the most interesting topic.  Most of them list what they ate, and what exercise they did.  Others are a bit better.  Some are utterly bizarre.  One thing many of them have in common is tracking their running progress.  About a year ago I got it in my head I would start running.  I looked up a couch to 5 k plan and began it.  Never having been a runner, even as a child I found it tiresome, I was delighted when I progressed to running 30 or 40 seconds at a time.  Even a minute.  A minute and a half.  And then, that was it.  I struggled and never went past it; lost all interest.  It never made me feel especially good and, quite honestly, I'm not in love with runner's bodies.  Too knotty and rangy.  OK, professional runners.  Ordinary runners look not too bad.

So, now I'm back to doing yoga, which I was quite expert at back in the day.  It keeps me supple, and helps energetically.  I've also started dancing again, which I was decent at back in the day, and which I love.  60 minutes of a dance class flies by.  60 minutes on a treadmill is torture.  And I like the way my body feels after a class, toned, upright, springy.

Letting Go

Besides the phenomenon of becoming invisible, which is strange and just starting to happen to me as I age, there's a great freedom of letting things go.  I've always had a set of things that I wanted to do in the future, like gardening and taking up running.  I enjoy planting tomatoes and herbs for cooking, and seem to do quite well with roses, dahlias and peonies, but any other gardening holds no interest for me.  Weeding and pruning.  No thank you.  When we make our move in a couple of years and get our own house, I can envision a small veg patch, a few flowers, perhaps a cherry and apple tree, and then lawn.  No little shrub arrangement that need constant vigilance or else they'll look overly bushy (like our present lawn), no fancy perennial borders, nothing that would require diligent weeding.

I have also dropped any desire to become a runner.  I don't run.  I never really have.  I might jog a across the street to escape being run over, and I might run for my life, but that's it.  I did try this 0 to 5k plan about a year ago and got about 1/3 of the way through, didn't really enjoy the process, and then let it go.  I will not be a runner in this lifetime.  Instead I've started taking dance classes again, and yoga.  My body loves it, my mind loves it and my heart is tickled too.

Returning to yoga has been a delight also, although last night's class heightened that feeling of becoming invisible.  I've always been a quiet person, but generally have made contact with others in the course of going about my business.  These days it feels like people look through me more often.  Now, I'm 46 and usually look younger, especially when my greys are covered with dye and I have a bit of makeup on.  Of late I've been talking to people and they respond to me differently, not really connecting.  There's a sensation of being looked through.  I discussed this with my husband last night, and he said that the TV series, Grumpy Old Woman, shown on British TV a few years ago, discussed this phenomenon.

I am aging.  I'm letting things go, not taking them on.  Grief, a stranger to me before turning 40, is now a companion, having lost friends, family members.  Even though I am a more efficient worker, and much smarter and confident now, I believe I'm experiencing some age discrimination in looking to re-enter the work force.  Of course dropping out in the first place to study buddhism isn't helping there either, but that's a another story.  

On the plus side, I enjoy being older.  I don't have to rush around so much grabbing for things.  Stuff matters so little.  What matters is confidence, kindness, laughter.

Susie and Coco

We've begun fostering dogs.  I live near a pound and it just got to me one day.  I love dogs, but until recently one has been enough for this family.  But now there are three, including the fosters Susie, a terrier mix, and her baby Coco.  They both are adorable and cheeky and loving and fairly well behaved.  And I can't fathom why their previous owner left them in a cardboard box at the pound.  If Susie hadn't clawed her way from the box they would have suffocated.  In any case they have a family who wants them, and someday soon the rescue people will take them from us and bring them to their new home, where I hope they settle in well.  While I won't miss the chaos of chewed shoes and the innards of stuffed animals strewn about, I'll miss them.  Very much.

Jobs

So, I'm a writer who doesn't really write much these days, but I've written enough in the past so I don't fall into that "well if you're not writing how can you call yourself a writer?" crap.  God knows I can drink and wallow in depression with the best of them.  A while back I'm thinking, I have to get back to writing, get back to a daily discipline.  Then I'm thinking, so what will I write about; what do I care enough about to write about.  Nothing came to the fore, which is sad, really.  I stopped writing because I became intensely involved in the study of buddhism, going to far as to move to a retreat centre for a while and traveling though Europe and India practicing and studying and, eventually, teaching.  I still do this, and it would be all I do except for the fact that it brings in no money.  Well, some, when you teach, but not enough to buy a meal out in Dublin.  

Back to me having to look for a job and/or getting off my ass and writing more.  To that end I'm applying for technical writing jobs with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.  Which is not much.  I think that may be coming across in the interviews.  Having my portfolio of work trapped in the broken hull of an old laptop isn't helping either.  But damn it's expensive to retrieve information from a dead drive.  One company quoted me 1500 euro.  As if.  I can arrange to send the drive to Belfast and have it retrieved for 500 euro or so, but that still stings.  How much do I want a tech writing job?  I don't know, I have to say.  Sitting around in a too cold or hot office staring at a computer screen and interviewing subject matter experts versus sleeping late and taking long walks in Phoenix Park with the dogs.  Hmmm.

On the writing front, I decided I should start writing something, even if it isn't my magnum opus.  Perhaps erotica.  I can write a titillating sex scene.  I looked at this one site, literotica, and others to see if there is a market out there for sex stories.  Well, there is indeed a market, and if the literotica site is anything to go by, then there are a lot of shockingly untalented writers out there filling it.  I have to admit that I purchased a sexed up Mills and Boone novel to get some idea of what was being sold.  While the sex scenes were laughable and not sexy at all, there was a thriller-like plot that wasn't horrible.  Perhaps a better genre for that writer.  Whatever.  I'm still not writing.

On happier news, for me at least, is that I'm at least getting back to regular exercise that I enjoy – yoga and dance.  I'm attending a regular Tuesday night yoga class and am taking belly dance lessons.  Next monday I start a salsa class with a bunch of middle aged ladies in a Dublin suburb.  I'm quite looking forward to it.

Oy, Ireland

So I live in Ireland, in Dublin to be specific.  I'm not Irish, I'm American, but my husband's Irish and he was the one with a job when we married.  "So, how do you like Ireland?" is a question I get a lot.  "Oh, its lovely." or, "Oh, it's grand." is the usual answer, sort of showing that I'm slightly acclimating to the culture.  My old answer used to be "Well, Ireland seems lovely, but Dublin is a hell-hole."  You see the Irish really don't tell you how they feel, exactly, especially if it's negative.  

It's been an interesting lesson to learn.  Generally Americans express their ideas and opinions freely, happily arguing their case for hours and leave on friendly terms, even if the person they have been arguing with has completely different ideas.  It can be fun.  Not so here.  If you even question (in a curious, non-aggressive manner) what someone says you are considered a threat.  Sure, there are great conversations at dinner or at a pub, but always about something else.  Politics, sure, let me tell you exactly how Fianna Fail has ruined this country.  Speak out on a national level and actually try to do something about it?  Ah, what good would that do now?

Of course actually try to plan something and discuss ideas for something that could actually happen and you're in for a spot of trouble.  Chances are there will be one person who already has a strong agenda, and he's spent time lobbying others in the group to his side: making phone calls, meeting for a pint, taking in a game; that sort of this.  And all before any discussion has taken place.  So, you in the first meeting and Mr. Agenda's plan is rolled out, possibly not even by him.  Hmm, you wonder, sounds good, but what about this point?  How about considering this?  But what you don't realize is that this isn't up for discussion.  In fact your move to begin a discussion is considered a threat.  From that moment on you are a threat and moves are made to either discredit you, and this can get nasty.  Fun, no?  

I held the idea that transparency, open discussion and working together – as peers, as engaged people – would create something great, an excellent outcome.  I held this as fact, that this was the best way to work together, but I've found out that there's a few out there that really don't agree.  

OK, so clearly this isn't about the Irish, this is about one group of people that I've had to work with that have made my life hell.  You can kick me in the ass for my prejudicial statements.  I need to get out more and meet people besides those in this little dysfunctional group.

Sad

The news of David Foster-Wallace's suicide really threw me today.  It's deeply sad for his family and friends, I'm sure, but it illuminates the delicacy of one's own existence, the frailty of one's mental health.  I have to wonder what led him to take his life.  To me, he seemed to have an ideal existence:  a published and lauded writer, married, teaching in a small, exclusive school.  Where was his gap, his despair?  Was it depression or a confluence of things?  Did his brilliant mind burn him out with its relentlessness?  My thoughts are with his family.  Death penetrates so deeply, and while things seem the same outwardly, inwardly we are changed forever; becoming gentler, wiser, sadder.

The hippie co-op

This morning I went to the organic co-op to get tomatoes (which are just now coming ripe in Ireland).  I go about once a month because it's a bit a way from our house and any longer excursion onto Dublin roads can be an interesting, and life threatening, venture.  The co-op is wonderful with it's pudgy organic food, wonderfully seasonal, and it's warm vendors.  The issue is some of the members.  Many of the people you see shopping are dressed in hemp, rosy cheeked if younger, pleasantly weathered faces if older.  Now I imagine many of these people have serious spiritual and environmental ideals, ideals that promote being mindful of how we treat and interact with others and the environment, and yet they wander about the hall like automatons.  

Silly, naive me, to expect people to be mindful and polite just because their proclaiming health and indulging in alternative lifestyles.  Shove me in the back with a shopping cart and continue to blather on your cell phone without an acknowledgement or an apology.  Check.  Wander about aimlessly not caring who you knock into.  Check.  Stand there staring blankly while your teenager shoves in front of the line.  Check.  Have a 15 minute debate with the wine man while other people are waiting to pay.  Check.  Let you children run up and down the wooden ramp, the thuds of which, and the shrieking of whom reverberate though the hall.  Check.  Have impassioned conversation about who's screwing up the peat bogs or how Lidl and Aldi are the devils henchmen.  Yup.  I could blame it on the hippies, but the upscale food hall in the city centre is the same rude mess.

Again

So yesterday was OK.  I got a few things done, was feeling content, had a great yoga class, was pleased that the dog we're fostering is settling in.  So what happened.  Well we went out to a pub to hear music and I managed to drink three massive glasses of wine in an hour and a half, and then come home and have some Vodka while watching crap television until 3am.  So, of course today I feel wretched and I've put a spanner in my small progress and in my dieting, which has been sucking this week anyway.  Should I just stop drinking?  Yes.  Do I want to?  Nooooo.  So therein lies a big problem.  What do I want more, a life or some gleeful numbing?  Stay tuned.

Anyway, I've been obsessed with weight loss blogs of late, trying to find one that inspires me.  Most of them are people's food journals:  I ate this and this and then I did some exercise.  Others seem like they're priming themselves for a book deal.  They might be interesting to a point, but don't quite seem honest.  My guilty pleasures are the ones that have taken the Onion creation Jean Teasdale as a life model.  I was considering making this a weight loss blog, and have other blogs for other areas of my life, but why compartmentalize?  Even if no one reads this, let me be honest with myself about the facets of my personality.

Here we go

I'm a writer who doesn't write much any more, and who is rather secretive, so a blogs a great idea, right?  I also have a load of other shit going on.  I have my focus on loosing weight, as I've been fat most of my life and am just damn tired of it (and of a few other addictive tendencies).  I am trying to surf the waves of my wild, groundless spiritual path and I'm trying to make some kind of life in a country that's not my own -- a country with rocky soil that it's proving difficult to put down roots in.  Oh, and I'm trying to find a real job.  One that pays.   So, fun.  The idea is I'll write of my progress, write down my thoughts, my successes and struggles.  I'll commit to this odd format my musings, myself.  Anonymously I'm afraid.  Secrecy doesn't dissolve so easily.  But most importantly of all, I'll write.

Wish me luck.