My New Movement *Femin(ine)ism* Is Miley just too Robin Thicke?

Once upon a time, there was a tiger

My yummy mummy neighbours are back from the south west Hamptons, aka Glandore and Ballybunion, they are tanned and rested as they say in OK! It’s time for our annual glass of wine in someone’s garden; I’ve the quietest garden, allegedly, no under-tens. Kerry arrives with a bottle, a dip and nachos, sorted, except it defeats our sworn diet campaign, the one that always ‘starts tomorrow’. She’s sporting a whole new eye look from a trip to the make-up counter in House of Fraser and for the next half hour we debate the merit of Bobbi Brown concealer v corrector, or do you wear both with dusting powder on top? I rush to find my Bobbi 3-tier box of tricks, all past their sell buy date of at least five years and discover there was definitely a Celtic tiger, I have palettes of lip gloss, night and day shimmer palettes, bronzer, blushers, oils, serums and brushes for everything, never used.

Neighbour Ciara arrives as I’m about to demonstrate a new discovery, purchased recently at the RDS horse show; having found my student membership of the library gives me access for the whole week. What a bargain. Well, it’s only a bargain if you don’t buy anything in the big sale tent, where I and literary friend, Mariella, were accosted by a norn-iron female (that's Northern Ireland to the uninitiated) and had no choice but to stop and pay attention. And so it was that Mariella had the natural eye lift and I followed suit. The norn iron lady dabbed a crystalline compôte beneath the eye, fanned it and told us to wait a few minutes, it was like super glue on your finger tips, that tightening feeling. But the effect was shrinking skin beneath the eyes, bags and lines were gone, gone, gone. We snapped one up each.

Talk of make-up so rarely happens in this 4X male household that I had to share that Eyesential news, and it’s only available by post from norn-iron. 

Though the cost centres have no qualms about experiments in the looks department, back in their pre-teens it was gel, or gunk, hair was the all-important statement, still is, they get their hair cut, high-lighted, styled more than I do. Then one of them sneakily got a tattoo and pretended it was a wash off kind. I’d say he was less impressed when my erudite friend told him the latin spelling was wrong. He’s the same one who told me recently he was going to Dundrum for half an hour,* for what?* I asked, *sunbed* I heard as the front door closed. Yes, in this weather, he blames his anti-social work hours. I still find it hard to believe.

Cost centre #2 asked me recently how much does it cost to get my eyebrows dyed, I told him I did it myself, as it’s about thirty euro. Next time I was dying them I offered to try it on him. Startling difference, as he’s very blonde, we didn’t think anyone would notice, but sunbed brother hasn’t stopped slagging him since. They use moisturiser, body lotion and keep their nails trim. I don’t know if that’s personal grooming or just because I buy stuff they can use. Hydrated skin is important whether you’re a man or woman, clean, trim nails too, especially toes, the amount of yellow, crusty toenails out sailing this summer, yikes guys!. 

So, no sooner had we put away the make-up and tabled the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, wondering should we be in discussion with all our Muslim neighbours in the cul-de-sac, when brand new Gentleman Lodger No. 2 arrives. We offer him a glass of wine, Kerry tells him I’m a writer and I’ve a blog, I’m giving her the eye, the lodgers aren’t supposed to know about it! He tells me his daughter has a blog that makes £1,000 a month in advertising. Hang on a minute!!

G.L.#2 is working in Dublin and flies home to his wife every weekend, she has her business and friends back in the UK, he juggles home and work. Neighbour Ciara lives here while her husband works in Sydney, she juggles study, children and living apart. That all brings me to something I’ve been thinking about a lot, for many years in fact. What *feminism* has done for today’s woman and man, girl and boy. The movement that campaigned for equality, rights, dignity, respect, that gave us so much, is biting us back. There is no such thing as *having it all*. Career, marriage, babies, beautiful home, holidays, adoring husband/wife (fun would be good), actually, there probably is such a thing, it's  .0001 per cent. 

What has brought this to a head for me is the twitterfeed of Miley Cyrus at the Video Music Awards two nights ago. Billy Ray Cyrus wasn’t short of money, could have educated his daughter well, but she was a child star who has been brought up in the limelight, making millions of dollars so it’s not money that has her gyrating simulated sex scenes for a few bob with a teddy bear dance troupe. Her performance wasn’t the raunchy one I expect she planned, it was cringing, nothing short of craven need for attention, with the blessing of the producers and we can assume her parents. And why did an older man like Robin Thicke go along with it?? 

My generation had Madonna in the ‘eighties and nineties. She made brilliant, original dance music and breakthrough videos, always ahead of the curve. Her look has culminated in hooker chic, pudic gestures, simulated sex for a teen audience, so, she's made that routine, like, so over. Britney and Charlotte tried it and saw sense, Lindsay hasn't come out the other end yet. Before there's a slew of copy-cat twerky tweenies in nude spandex bikinis, somebody please take Miley away and show her how to be a philanthropist or something useful, before she burns out. Message to Miley: You are a powerful young woman, use it wisely, you've had more online hits than the children in Syria, you've had your moment, spend it well.

Men at Work

Sometimes I hear too much and don’t know where to start with a blog post. Like, I didn’t expect to be sitting beside a ‘Children at Risk’ social worker in a yacht race last Tuesday. He was the bow man and I was the ballast, we’ve been on nodding terms for many years and this was the first time we got talking about his work. There are things happening to children and adolescents in Dublin that would make your hair stand on end, there are teenagers and early twenties afraid of absolutely nothing and without any regard for law or life. I had to bury some of the stuff he told me until I’m ready to resurrect it, it was so upsetting.

It certainly distracted me from full-on landlady house. As I sat typing in silence on Wednesday, I counted my front door opening at least eight times with comings and goings, and wondered how it had come to this, my breath caught for a moment and I remembered, this is life, all of us here are dealing with change.

The passing traffic  now comprises two fifty-something men, two twenty-something boys, the ladydog and me. Gentleman Lodger #1 stays at weekends, GL #2 goes home to his wife at weekends, they may never meet, indeed I could rotate the one room and have a third full-time lad. GL#2 has promised he is handy around the house, I wonder does that include painting? Boiler fixing? In fact, all I really want is a man who vacuums, cleans bathrooms (properly) and does the ironing, I'd give a discount for that because it would make my life total heaven as opposed to approximate hell. I've just offered Cost Centre #1 who works in a bar and is languishing in bed, to get up and iron, 'this is my Saturday' he says (it's Monday morning to the rest of us). I think I'll lock all the doors and windows so he can't escape until it's done. 


When Tristan Davenport stayed here in the early summer he used to check the blog to see where he was the night before, now he has gone back to city living and enterprising foodie events, he still knows more about landlady house than I do, I forget what I write and he reminds me. He’s the only gentleman lodger to know there was a blog, the cost centre sons claim they never read it, but lest there be any libel actions taken, I don’t write anything mean. Well, I wouldn’t have anyone mean staying here, but it takes time to figure people out, I find.

I interviewed an ‘aviation professional’ for Tristan's vacant room, he turned out to be a helicopter pilot who worked two weeks on and off from a base in Denmark, ferrying the employees to the gas terminal, he told me the business was booming, they were employing more and more. He spent an hour in the kitchen explaining the concept of ‘out of hours’ Over and Over, don't think we could have shared a house. He also explained that the small town where the gas men were based was short of hotel rooms so they had special beds that alternated with the night and day shifts, when one guy got up to go to work, another came in and turned the bed over to sleep in it. It’s all in the name of fuelling our world.

It turns out I knew some of this pilot’s customers during the Boom, the movers and shakers that got shaken and moved. He shifted uncomfortably, I never heard from him again, or thought about him until the helicopter crash yesterday off the Shetlands. At first you might think they were passengers on a trip, a freak accident. But they were men doing a job, supporting families, they would stay on the rig for two weeks at a time and they were coming home from work. And now at least four of those will never get home.

Trolls, Trials and Tomes

I was so exhausted after two weeks with a student who, in fairness, was no trouble, it was me, talking 200% more than average and mentially being on home-duty every morning and evening... that I couldn't even blog.
Now there's a pile up of landlady lore before the next fella moves in. 

Morning holds such promise with freshly brewed coffee, an allegedly low-cal cereal and opening hopeful emails, any day now a publisher will write back. With good news this time.

Europe might be out of the recession but I for one know that it won’t be over in this house until I unsubscribe to emails from jobs.ie, eTenders and GrabOne.  I don’t even know why I bother scanning the list of jobs for IT/foreign language programmers on Google, because any of the ones I could do, like PA with English, they don’t even reply to. Last year was the upskill, interview, CV, recruitment drive. I can either say it was a complete waste of time or it gave me a perspective on a niche sphere. Well, it is a sphere that is a complete waste of time if you’re not in IT/Finance/Marketing/PR/HR, masters level liberal arts and twenty years of business practice counts for nothing these days. Yet I was told my CV was intimidating, my references were outstanding and could overpower a boss, so I should remove my achievements and big-up my typing speed (70wpm in case you’re interested). I even did on-line tests in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and was impressed by what my laptop could achieve as I dithered; now I know what Macros are for.  

As for eTenders, I might as well unsubscribe now. The last time I tendered was at the invitation of a semi-state to be on their conservation panel. I had to take out Professional Indemnity insurance just to submit, at a minimum of 1,000 euro that turned out to be a complete waste of time and money.

That leaves my email inbox with the odd Twitter message, Facebook telling me to say happy birthday to loads of people, sales of sex toys and invitations to galleries and book launches.

It’s a shame our two major galleries are all but closed and there are no blockbuster exhibitions to excite tourists and denizens alike. But emails from the private galleries still show commitment to artists, they're putting on regular shows, there's still money to buy art, just not new money. Green on Red, Kevin Kavanagh, Oliver Sears, Cross Gallery and the Kerlin are all still doing business.

Without email I wouldn’t have got my invite to Roddy Doyle’s The Guts launch or Joe Joyce’s Echoland.  Three Booker winners at one of them, veteran investigative journalists at the other, talent and good will everywhere. I’m glad I went, bought the books, had the chat with friends I haven’t seen in ages and resolved to persevere even more on editing my own novel. 10,000 of my 125,000 words cut in the last two weeks, ouch.

Now that I’m contributing opinion pieces to the Irish Independent, how could I give up Google? They mightn’t want to interview me but they save me all those years I used to spend in libraries. And as for email, I wrote an article in 3 hours last week and was able to verify all my facts by contacting expert friends in high places, without getting out of my pyjamas.

There’s a lot to mistrust about the internet, there’s scary Ask.FM, scary Eric Eoin Marquez, loathsome trolls on Twitter, it’s up to the rest of us to uphold good standards and cut out the crap.

I met a man recently who would have nothing to do with any of it, a much respected literary agent. He doesn’t have a mobile, a web-site, email or use the internet. I contacted him by landline, left a message on his answering machine, he phoned back, we talked, I posted a hard copy of 3 chapters, in an envelope with a stamp.

We got along very well, but he sent me away to ‘do more work’ and I don’t think he meant writing blogs to distract myself from the task in hand, back to the book…

He represents 160 authors. Sure, who knows….

How to beat the Gas price hikes

I went to get my ink cartridge re-filled last week in a shop which happens to be beside a garden centre, I wandered in next door while waiting for my new budget solution to printing (why is a new cartridge of black powder €25?). I admired all the chic plant pots you could buy if you had 250 euro handy. Then I came across the gleaming barbecues. We’ve had the summer of all summers, I smell charcoal steaks on the breeze most evenings and wish I hadn’t given away the crock of a bbq years ago, but then it rained every summer up til now. And I had to do all the cooking because the cost centres were too small.

The gas barbecues were on special offer, which is the only time to buy anything as far as I’m concerned. The German lady with the raspberry red hair wouldn’t leave my side as I pondered and dithered, acutely aware I’d come out to spend 15 euro on ink and no more, but she had a Teutonic will and a fool-proof sales pitch ‘zere is no more of dis model in all of Ireland’. I feared I might not enjoy burnt animal before the end of the Indian summer, as our new Mediterranean brown nation snapped up every last bbq. So I slapped down a deposit and went away to dither some more.

The cost centres and I pored over the catalogue back home and decided it was too small for the price; the next one up made more sense, what with it being an outdoor cooker when Bord Gais decide to cut me off, and the fact that boys like big toys. So we agreed we’d pool our cash and take joint ownership, there was only the small matter of them assembling it. 

Cost centre no. 2 came with me next morning, to ensure we were making the right decision; neither he nor I had ever taken so long to evaluate a purchase. We are truly in the zone of every cent counts.

I had to get a gas cylinder too and prevailed on my extended family to find an empty one in their sheds so I could save 35 euro.

Was it worth it? No more kitchen smells or scrubbing the grill, boys who actually make their own burgers with herbs and onions, an acceptance of herby sausages as an actual dinner. And the discovery of Lawlor’s Lamb Burgers as a top favourite (thanks to Racquel for that tip). Yes, but then all Dec Decklanders knew that already.

A dear friend who often offers to barbecue for me had a birthday recently, a man who has everything, so what to buy this time? Only so many paintings and books you can give.

So, happy birthday MGMT, I look forward to charcoal rib eye one of these days.