This Makes me Wish I had Power

Mostly so's I could abuse it :)

The Death of Jeremy Brown

When Londoner Jeremy Brown died, he had a tombstone erected, with the epitaph 'Here lies Jeremy Brown, born a man and died a grocer'.

Now either Jeremy was fierce disappointed with what he ended up being, or his wife was.

But this epitaph got me thinking. Of course I won't have a tombstone or the like. I'll have a brass plaque pinned somewhere above me in a forest of oak trees as I rot happily in my organic wicker coffin. I know all that.

But what will my epitaph be? Yeats had his sussed: 'Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horsemen pass by!' Hmmm. Yeats didn't see the coming of the motorcar. And the use of an exclamation mark on a tombstone just feels odd to me. Like a corpse farting.

Nope. My epitaph won't make unfortunate references to soon-to-be obsolete technologies or customs. But having thought long and hard about it (...well...cast my mind to it during a couple of tea breaks in the last few days...) the epitaph that strikes me as most honest, the most fitting, is the one that grips my heart with cold.

'Here lies Michelle Gallen. Born a writer and died an instructional designer.'

Of course the epitaph I want is:

'Here rot the mortal remains of Michelle Fabulous Gallen. Born a culchie, died an esteemed novelist, wit and bendy old lady.'

The wit freeflows after a few whiskies (well...I find me hilarious. HILL-AIR-EEE-US.) The bendiness should result from the yoga I will take seriously next year (ahem). But the novelist bit? Three years ago, I wrote 70,000 words of my novel in Nanowrimo month. 70,000 words in 30 days.

And I've written 20,000 words in the three years since.

This year I figured I'd written about 50,000 words of instructional content. I've no idea how much I've written in web content, blogs and emails. A lot more, I'd say. And yet I can't find the discipline to write the last 5000 words or so of my ageing novel.

I don't know. Maybe pinning my unwanted epitaph to the inside of my macbook might just remind me every morning of what fate awaits...born writer...dead instructional designer...

French Fridge

I live with a French man. This means I have a French Fridge.

This is not a particular chic brand of fridge. I only have the teeny tiny silver thing I bought from Argos when I thought 'sure I don't eat very much anyway'. Now that I eat A Whole Lot More and live with the bottomless pit of hunger (French Man) the fridge is under strain.

I've lived for years with Irish fridges. Irish fridges I know and understand, if not love. Irish fridges either contain

- a pint of milk, ketchup, three eggs, 6 rashers and enough beer to get an elephant drunk
- a horrible stench from the rotting carcasses of animals, out of date dairy products and silage (that was once the vegetables bought during the optimistic five a day promotion in Dunnes) and enough beer to get an elephant drunk

In either case I always knew what to do. Fridge type one, you got drunk, then made a fry to get over the hangover.

In fridge type two, you avoided the fridge until something crawled out and vomited on your feet, then you went and Dealt With It with a wheelbarrow and feckload of bleach.

A French Fridge is different. For starters, a French Fridge always stinks. Open a French Fridge and welcome to the Land of Ming. And inside will be a cornucopia of interesting, delicious, expensive but most of all Stinking food products.

Now, in an Irish fridge, you pretty much know what's 'off'. If it's been there for more than a week, it shouldn't be there. So then you leave it a month or nine, and eventually deal with it.

But in a French fridge you never know where you're at. Been there for 6 months and covered in blue mould? It's 'maturing'. Green streaked, dripping onto the peaches and stinking worse than Satan's maw? It might be 'ripe'. Big and hairy and almost able to crawl out of the meat drawer? That's probably some kind of fifty year old French sausage. And you better smile with pleasure when he's popped a bit of that in your mouth.

Sigh. I am an Irish woman. I live with a French man. And although he speaks English, drinks Bushmills and eats potato bread, our Fridge is most definitely French.

Cake and Bowl

Sometimes you get to eat the cake. Sometimes you just get to lick the bowl.

V Cool t-shirt designs by Fuzzy Logic

Loving these v cool t-shirt designs - by Fuzzy Logic aka Robbie Graham, a 24.48 year old boy (brother of fashionista Julie-Anne Graham - www.curioustales.com). Go rate his tees on threadless!

Women. Know Your Limits.

Girl and Boy Go on a Journey

Girl and Boy are walking home at dusk.

Girl: Where are we going?

Boy: Home.

Girl: I didn't mean that.

Boy: What?

Girl: I meant, where are we going?

Boy: Back to the flat?

Girl: Nooooo. I meant, where are we going?

Boy: Oh right.

Silence.

Boy: Where are we going?

Girl: On a passionate journey together through life.

Boy: Oh. Ok.

Girl and Boy continue walking together on their passionate journey through life.