chick lass babe broad dame doll lady WOMAN

Teragram is doing some thinking over here based on a conversation we had a while back in my livingroom about how the women in my life are often so reluctant to refer to themselves as women, preferring “girl” or similar.

Feminist Naomi Wolf in her book Promiscuities suggests that it’s our lack of ritual that is to blame for our poor identity as women. It’s a long time since I’ve read that book but I recall an account she made of a culture where young women who began menstruating for the first time swam out to sea in the presence of their communities – leaving as girls and returning as women. I like that.

I remember also as a young teenager reading the superb post-war novel Back Home by Michelle Magorian and being enchanted by the traditions of Rusty’s avant-garde American foster-family, who marked the beginning of puberty in their children (be it hairs on the upper lip or the first signs of blood) with celebration dinners. Growing up in a household devoid of traditions and rituals I was immediately attracted to these ideas. I’m trying to create traditions and rituals in my own life and hope that should I ever become a mother I can develop these with the young men and women I help rear.

I think I have a clear view of myself as a woman. This was a decision I made; I couldn’t say when. I’ve always done things a little sooner or been a touch more advanced than my peers – I say that without vanity, and credit most of it to my parents’ rearing or genetics. I was walking at nine months and reading aged 3…I spent my early school-days bored to tears. I had my first job aged 11. When I was 13 I was 5′ 11″ and looked 20, so certain behavioural expectations came with that. At 14 I made a reasoned decision to follow Jesus Christ, much to the chagrin of my poor bewildered atheistic parents! This decision was to shape my life in a way I could never have predicted. By 15 I was in a serious relationship (with a young man I then married six years later). By 17, I was living on my own, supporting myself financially. By 21 I was married. You get the idea. All that sounds very grand, but the realities were often hard. Somewhere along the line, however, I decided consciously to begin referring to myself as a woman, and my identity seemed almost to merge with that vocalisation. That says something about the power of the language that we choose – both in our minds and verbally. I did some thinking, too, with an older friend about what it means to be a “woman of God” and this, more than anything else, was genuinely exciting. We are reluctant to embrace our adulthood, but why? I love the freedoms of being an adult – a grown woman.

There are many troubles associated with thinking of yourself as a girl. I have seen it time and again as single women friends of mine in their mid-twenties are hesitant to make decisions about relationships or where they will live or what their lives will look like, because they have not yet acknowledged themselves as whole persons. They don’t trust themselves. They are still overly-anxious about the responses of housemates, friends and family. Married women rarely consider such issues – the world leaves couples alone to do what they will, but still it likes to interfere in the lives of single women. Maybe single men suffer the same problem, but I doubt it. The extended adolescence applies to them too, of course, but they are much freer to go about their peurile business than women.

A friend of mine had a (surprise) baby a few years ago and decided to call him Arthur. I commented that this was a very grown-up, old-fashioned name. She replied that Arthur wouldn’t be a baby forever. Amen to that. I was struck by her comment, and have never forgotten it. Darn right he won’t be a baby forever! She is rearing him to be a man – good aim there! There’s a time for babying, sure: that time is when we are babies. Then there’s a time for the babying to end. And that’s many years ago now, for most of us.

Being an adult I think begins with acknowledging ourselves as adults. Women: you are women. Embrace it. It’s nice.

and hoping for a break, I punched above my weight

Double zoomie/clairebo plug:

I discovered the genuinely awesome Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, I think, in 2004 (I am not good with dates), and he has been speaking to me ever since. See how smart and articulate he is in a recent interview here and then do us all a favour and buy his albums for absolute peanuts here.

If you like poetry and folk music, you’ll like Ro a lot. His music is magic.

got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye

Well now that I have all this free time, it’s only fair and appropriate that I would make a stop into the old blog on my way home, and say hello to everyone. For those of you who are neither one of my hundreds of friends on Facebook, nor present in my Real Life ™, the most exciting personal update bit is that I finally took the donkey by the horns and quit my terrible job, and now I am free.

Well, not free exactly. I’m hideously bound by a never-ending philosophy thesis which promises to swallow me up and digest me in its juices. The only consolation of my new schedule of 9-5 study are my two study-partners, Cliona and Karen, who are too illiterate of the internet to even read my blog. Thus I have the freedom to say whatever I wish about that pair of theology bitches.

I have also made the decision to never ever be a secretary again, and boy, does that feel good. My liberation from my daily administrative drudge has come at a price though: a cost of about €1500 a month, actually. Writing that down just now gave me an “oops!” moment. That is rather a lot of money to be giving up, for a part-time job. We were already on a low income and now it’s been almost halved. Ah well. It’s only money, and we’re sensible types. That last assertion, if examined alongside our spending habits for the last ten years, probably wouldn’t hold much water, but then it’s a non-plastic assertion. The shorthand is that even giving up my paycheque has been liberating, as I had become a slave to money. Not that I was obsessed with hoarding it for myself (I think everyone would agree that I am generous to a fault, having been known to donate body parts to the needy in times of trouble), but rather that I was constantly worried about it. Not so now. The budget is tight, and I am obedient to the budget. Miraculously the budget responds by not having money disappear unaccounted for from the account. Altogether my relationship with money has improved significantly simply by the means of the wilful act of having less of it.

May I recommend.

where’s karol wojtyla when you need ‘im?

This blog is a response sparked by my dear friend Sam, and his recent article – “Jade Goody – are we taking celebrity culture too far?” A warning for anyone who might be grieving – this is a candid discussion of, amongst other things, death, and you may want to skip it. Another acknowledgment before I begin is the reminder both to myself and those reading, that despite the mask of celebrity, Jade Goody is in fact not a fictional product of the media but a real woman of flesh and blood, in real time and space, dealing with real and frightening issues as we sit and ponder. I want to try to be sensitive to that as I write.

It’s a good musing, Sam, and I think that your questioning has helped me put a shape on what I’ve been thinking (or perhaps only simply feeling) since the news about Goody’s illness first hit the headlines. Working as I do in a hospice, we talk daily of dying and death as a result of cancer. I chat to dying patients and their families on the phone and sometimes see them in their very last stages in the In-Patient Unit, and of course am privy to the everyday stresses, strains and occasional tears of the team of nurses that I serve. It’s about as interesting and worthy as a part-time job to pay for college can be. But it does make you ponder the nature of dying with dignity.

In relation to this discussion what I have learned might be that perhaps when you have a measure of control over the process of your own dying and death (which is in fact a privilege), that your death is ultimately only a reflection of how you have lived.  You see this in the hospice: those who have lived chaotic and aggressive lives die in chaotic and aggressive settings. I’m not talking about karma, people, I’m talking about the circumstances, chances and perhaps least importantly, the choices of those who die of diagnosed terminal illnesses.

As such, it would seem that Jade Goody’s life is coming to an end in the very same fashion that it did when she was well. And that, I think, is the real tragedy. Her life was a search for meaning which was unfortunately exposed to the ravenous public eye through the lens of a frenzied media who exist only to respond to the demands of our voyeurism. We complain – but we buy the newspapers and magazines, we watch the evening news, we read those online articles.

As someone who believes in the hope that exists after death for all who search for it, I maintain that the pity with Jade is not how she dies in the public eye, but how she has lived in the public eye, and we are as culpable for this as she. If any of us were to live how we were created to, then we would be ready for death at any moment.

Celebrity, to a degree, is unavoidable. We seem to be determined as human beings to find something, anything to worship and adore. We are attracted to immense talent and high glamour. But we are too fixated on this question of whether or not Jade, an immensely valuable human being, is dying with dignity, and rather should look at  whether or not we are living with it. If the answer is no in whatever sense (whether that is in our view of others or our view of ourselves), then we need to set about addressing it, because then we too are destined for the same fate.

<Jade may you find peace.>

disappointment

CS Lewis has become my newest enemy. Shame really, I’ve always had him in my top-five-most-personally-inlfuential-authors-of-all-time list. How could this about-turn – come – about? you scream hysterically. Well calm down my friends, and open up the wonder of short stories published post-mortem entitled The Dark Tower.

Some of them, it’s got to be said, are inoffensive. It’s been suggested too by Kathryn Lindskoog (Lewis scholar) that they might be forgeries, and I hope to God that they are, because two of these stories have tarnished my memory of Lewis forever. Now, while he had always betrayed mild misogynistic tendencies (that’s woman-hating to you and me), he had never demonstrated such profound disgust for women as in “The Shoddy Lands” and “Ministering Angels”. If I am kind, I might theorise that perhaps he wrote them during a week when he was feeling the grief that comes with being sent to Dumpsville – Population: Him. It is possible that there are further similar tales, and worse, but I’m not sure I can bring myself to read on. Well, “read on” is not quite accurate, as I have a habit not of reading collections of short stories from start to finish, but rather based on the most interesting title down to the least.

Short summary:

“The Shoddy Lands” is an inexplicable and poorly constructed science fiction fantasy tale where a woman-hating dolt finds himself inside the mind of the woman opposite him (his friend Durward’s fiancée), and discovers that there, she is a fifty-foot tall poster girl in a bikini, and where all things surrounding her are vague and insubstantial except, of course, for the clothes shops, bath crystals and cut flowers which signify her true passions. The story attempts a vague stab at self-justification in the closing paragraph:

…I am sorry for poor Durward. Suppose this sort of thing were to become common? And how if, some other time, I were not the explorer but the explored?

Wow, imagine.

“Ministering Angels” is a pathetic attempt at a critical narrative satirising the “logical conclusion” of the moral decline of our culture. This is manifested in the sending of two women – one a thin, ugly (her gender at first impossible to decipher), educated, dull, narrow-minded psychologist, and a seventy-something obese prostitute – to a crew who are on a mission to Mars for three years, to provide sexual relief for them. This was a plan devised naturally by women back on earth, wot with the New Ethics an’ all, but the men on board were too repulsed to engage in any shenanigans with them. Presumably because it offended their sense of decency and not because they were mingers.

In more cheerful news, I am beginning to develop callouses on the fingers of my left hand, thus making my very body an impenetrable fortress against the attacks of my guitar strings.

the most common owl in ireland is the teat

Jurgen and Debo came over for dinner and they stirred the beer, too. Note the beer-blanket. Cosy.

probably illegal somewhere

I myself tasted the beer just the other day, after stirring. It tasted like beer.

In other news, yesterday was the kind of day where you absent-mindedly rinse your mobile phone under the tap. Other things happened, but none of them were as good as that.

At work this week, loads of people died.

can anybody beer me?

So we’ve got five gallons of beer sitting in a big vat on the dining room floor. We call it the dining room, although we have never dined in it, only danced. More appropriately then, it is the dancing room floor. The beer is sitting there, not yet beer, but becoming beer. It is wrapped in a blanket in an attempt to moderate its temperature. All 26 litres of it are snugly and pleasantly-smellingly awaiting its own fermentation and our consumption. That’s right. 26 litres for two people. Them’s good odds. Unless it tastes like muck, in which case it will be our Christmas gifts for next year sorted. Only 323 shopping days left you know!

The beer has taken pride of place in our lives. We think about it, worry about it, talk to each other about it. We enquire daily of one another, did you stir the beer today? Invariably the answer is no, and then we stir it together.

The first stir was the worst, as the old song goes. We didn’t know that fermenting beer gets over-excited when stimulated with a wooden spoon, and explodes all over the blanket keeping it warm. However now that we know this, we only stir the beer with the gentlest of caresses, like good parents do. But it’s trial and error with these things. You mustn’t judge us too harshly. The beer did not come with a manual. You think you’ll know how to respond to badly behaved beer, but you don’t. And it’s important to remember that every household is different. What works with my beer may not work with yours. And when it comes to preparing and drinking 26 litres of beer, you’ve got to do what’s best for you.

well let me ask you this: shut up

I am married to a man who has a compulsion with text. He cannot pass a piece of paper with words on it of any kind, without reading. He cannot pass computer screens, book covers, crisp packets, signposts or advertisements without stopping to absorb. As a result it can be quite difficult to ever get a blog entry completed. He is sitting beside me “watching” an episode of House (where that idiot savant Dave Matthews is busy resisting treatment for his crazies), and checking over my shoulder every 5-10 seconds to see what I have typed. Very irritating, Kevin. As such, you can send all complaints about the lack of blog entries to him, as my only opportunities to write in this ridiculously hectic life of mine seem to arise while sitting next to him.

In other news, the bank holiday weekend in the Clairebo/Zoomtard household has kicked off to an awesome start, only hindered by the erroneous purchase of Frijj (two for one in Tesco). We were lured by the Simpsons!

What promised so much delivered so little. Frijj is a foul tasting muck reminiscent of butt-fudge. Don’t buy it, no matter what Chief Wiggum says to you.

Good things that have happened since I left work yesterday:

1. Work became over in the best sense;
2. The train took me homeward;
3. Whence I met my husband, who took me out on a date;
4. That involved seeing Burn After Reading;
5. And eating nice food;
6. And going to bed.
7. The morning brought a lie-in;
8. Followed by a great worship practise with three great friends;
9. Followed by a comforting wintry lunch and several episodes of Roseanne.
10. As if this weren’t enough fun for one day, we set off to see Ghost Town;
11. And then spent the latter part of the evening at home trying to rid ourselves of Frijj, while watching House;
12. Whilst BASKING in the glory that is NATIONAL CLOCK MADNESS which gives us a present of an extra hour in bed tonight for NO GOOD REASON!

Good times, my friends, good times indeed.

there’s mud on the grapes (of wrath)

As lots of you know, I’m doing the “Core Plan” with Weight Watchers – which means you can eat as much as you want of “core” foods, like lean meats, dairy, fruit, veg and grains – in an attempt to overhaul my terrible eating habits. The only major sacrifice with Core is it doesn’t allow for bread.

So I’m trying to make food a bit more interesting instead of the old cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, spag bol for dinner routine, with some junk food thrown in for good measure. I’m going to try and record some of the meals here for my own amusement and the ever-important posterity.

This is the lazy lunch we had today.

saturday nosebag

The photo is a bit wobbly as the batteries in my camera were gone, and I had to use the husband’s phone. As you can see, it’s a grilled pork chop with cracked black pepper and apple sauce, corn on the cob and a baby leaf salad with baby plum tomatoes, dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and wholegrain mustard. It was nothing to get excited about, but quite nice, and it only took ten minutes to make.

<insert joke here to make this entry worth reading> ha! ha!

harm’s way

As Kevin and I were walking down Wicklow Street tonight, I saw a young man crouched in a doorway, holding a big handkerchief up to his eyebrow. We walked on past, but something seemed really wrong to me, and I expressed this to Kevin. We decided to go back to him. When we returned, he was in the same position, and up close, I saw that his twenty-odd year old face had a lot of blood on it – the source being a large wound in his left eyebrow. His left eyebrow and lid had swollen so that his eye had involuntarily shut. He had bruises on his face and, judging by his body language, under his clothes. Kevin asked him if he needed help, and at first he insisted profusely that he was fine. We asked if we could take him to a hospital, or to the gardaí, and he eventually, with tears pouring down his face, admitted that five men had attacked him without provocation while he was sitting in a doorway. His name was Aaron. He wasn’t drunk, or high, or aggressive (not that these attributes would provide an excuse for assault); in fact he was an obviously vulnerable character.

The men had approached him looking for a cigarette, and as he had a packet of tobacco for roll-ups and a bit of sense, he just handed them over. The natural result of this was for the group to begin kicking and punching him en masse. He managed to hang onto his bag which is just as well – it contains everything he owns.

There’s a lot more to this man, as we found out over the only thing he did ask for – some company. There are days like today when I can hardly breathe for my rage at the casual depravity with which we live. Sure, we can denounce the thugs who beat him up for fun as scum, but what about each and every person who walked past as they did it? It was around 8pm, on a very busy thoroughfare – early enough for everyone to be sober and late enough that nobody was rushing home from work. As we talked to him, people slowed down to see what was happening, and some of them even laughed. Laughed? What the fuck are you laughing at?

When you’re a Christian, scripture encourages you to pray for your enemies. I talked to Kevin about this on the way home. Everything in me screams in protest at the thought of praying for the five men who attacked Aaron. “Fuck them; they can burn in hell,” -  that about sums up my position. But this position of mine only serves to continue the spiral of hatred further and exposes my own depravity and desire, not for justice, but for revenge. The reality is that if you assault for recreation you are deeply, deeply damaged. I’m not going to pretend I have sympathy for these people; I’m not some kind of pinko-liberal. But if I am going to acknowledge the humanity of Aaron, and my humanity, I’ve also got to acknowledge the humanity of the men who did this. If they were not human beings but, say, dogs, there would be nothing to be angry about. How can they learn to behave as men ought if we view them only as the animals like which they behave?

Something is very, very wrong with the world. And it isn’t about education: we are as savage now as we ever were. I recall a night this summer having coffee with Lydia, at Kaffe Moka (now gone, LAMENT), across from the nightclub, Break For The Border. We saw a group of businessmen in suits blunder drunkenly up towards the club. Outside, there’s a small concrete bench with flowerbeds behind it, and a homeless man, obviously a heroin-addict, was sitting slumped there. A large man from the group of businessmen ran up to the homeless man and punched him squarely in the face, and his friends cheered, before heading into the nightclub to continue their good times. Lydia and I spent the rest of the evening talking to gardaí who could do nothing, because the heroin addict had left, for fear of being taken in by the police for possession.

Why am I angry about this stuff, particularly if, at base, I am no better than these bullies? It’s not because my parents denounced violence as I grew up: they didn’t. The motto in our house was “Look out for number one”. I was advised, when punched, to punch back twice as hard. I did, and nobody ever picked on me again, so I have a certain sympathy towards this position. And all that school taught me was how to coast and do as little as possible to gain maximum benefit.

So, again, why so angry? I think it’s because we’ve got a natural compass inside us that, while not fine-tuned, works so as it can point, clumsily at least, to gross injustices. And while differing societies hold differing moral practices, they rarely hold differing moral values. Also, what is it that makes us lament as kids, “It’s not fair!” when our brother snatches the ball away from us?

I think it because there is something deep inside of us that wants things to be better and righter and fairer than they are, and we did not place that desire there through education or upbringing or whatever other nonsense one can imagine. Many of us lament homelessness, hunger etc. when we are children, and faced with a sense of helplessness, give up on the issue. Forget about it, what can I do? It reminds me of the Simpsons scene where Ned Flanders’ parents are visitng with a psychiatrist for his advice on young Ned’s out-of-control behaviour: “We’ve tried nothing, Doc, and we’re all out of ideas.” What I’m trying to say is, perhaps our moral compass gets rustier and rustier the more we ignore it.

Yes, the world has a problem. The problem is sin. And believe me, no amount of education, good breeding, civilized living or fun, happiness or pleasure can remove this stain from a person: I’m speaking from experience here. What is the solution? Repentance. But I guess you’ve got to have some evidence that there is a One to repent to – better yet, a loving one, with a sense of justice.

Perhaps some evidence to consider for this One might be in fact that rusty compass inside each of us?