On a positive note

I have two pieces of important dog news!

The first is that we have decided to keep Lulu (because it's always good to make Important Life Decisions when you're depressed, right?). Some lovely people came to see her on Friday, but decided that she wasn't quite the right dog for them, even though they did think she was fabulous. In all of that, though, we realised that the upset we go through every time a dog leaves this house into someone else's care is just too much for our fragile spirits to bear. So we decided to keep her. The rescue was unsurprised to learn of our decision, especially since we had already rejected two perfectly good homes for her on the grounds that they would want her to sleep (gasp!) outdoors. No dog of mine sleeps outdoors. Unless it is a malamute or some similar breed that would bake if left in a kitchen overnight.

In other good news, the labrador we rescued off the beach last Sunday, with no collar and no microchip, was reclaimed from Meath pound on Monday. The dog went missing early last Sunday morning, so the next day the owners rang around the pounds and the warden said "yes, I've had a call about a dog like that, I'm collecting him this morning, you can pick him up this afternoon." Hilariously, however, the dog turns out to live in this very estate. Hopefully the owners have had enough of a fright that they will put a fecking collar on the thing. But see, sometimes it's okay if you have to send a dog to the pound, even if it goes against everything you believe in.

I have entered a period of depression

Not the personal, unable-to-get-out-of-bed depression (which is a relief), but the more broad what-is-the-fucking-point-of-people depression. This tends to be easier to live around, but worse overall, because I can't magic it away with tablets.

It is brought on by reading things like The Economist, or watching things like Darwin's Dangerous Idea on the telly, in which Andrew Marr gives a potted history of humans fucking up the earth in the name of profit, left right and centre, from the Industrial Revolution right up to the present day. You just look at it and wonder what the point is? What is the point of me recycling anything, or not driving my car, or cutting back on air travel? It's too little and it's too late and me and all the people who work even harder than me to actually live some kind of green existence are up against too many forces that just don't give a shit about anything at all other than making money for anything we do to ever make the blindest bit of difference at all.

People say that important movements are built from the grassroots up. Anti-slavery movements, feminism, children's rights, and so forth. But these movements took hundreds of years to develop and very few of them have actually achieved their final ends yet. And environmentalism doesn't have the luxury of time. The world in this picture is not womankind as a whole, or children as a whole, or black people as a whole, but an individual person who is going to die unless someone does something really drastic really right now. But nothing's being done. Or rather, not enough is being done.

On a more focused level, there's all this business about Jade and Dunblane and so on. Normally I get to ignore this kind of thing by not reading the papers, ever, but now here it is, and it's all part of the same cycle, and it makes me, well, very depressed.

I have watched this three times

And it is still funny.

I am so mature!

Yes, 39 years old yesterday, and still happy to laugh at this line from The Economist:

President Obama spent much of his first week trying to push his gargantuan stimulus package through Congress.

Why I may not be watching Watchmen

First off, I never read the book.

Having got that out of the way, let's proceed.

Well, you don't get to see Billy Crudup much.
And ever since I saw Little Children and its incredibly disturbing masturbation scene, I can't ever look at this guy again.
Also, one of the lady Watchmen highlighted one of my problems with superhero comics and movies when she pointed out that high heels, corsets, and latex are very uncomfortable, and that if she was an actual superhero she would wear running shoes and sweat pants.
Oh, and I hated 300.

(Also, while I'm watching Film 2009, why can't Sarah Ferguson open her mouth when she talks? It would make her ever so much easier to understand.)

Last night, I dreamed...

... oh yes. Just as every newspaper columnist eventually gets round to writing a column about how difficult they found it to write their column this week, so every blogger eventually gets around to telling you about their dream they had last night.

Well, last night I dreamed I was having an affair with David Attenborough. Proper David Attenborough, as he is now, like, not some dream version of him where he is labeled "David Attenborough" but actually looks like Jon Hamm. I can think of several reasons why this is appealing.

First, who doesn't love David Attenborough? Would his voice not bring you out of a coma, if you were in one? And he's taken on a new, battling persona since the news emerged of the hate mail he receives from creationists. He's also the guardian of all animals in the world, as we know, and is on personal chatting terms with many endangered species, many of whom I'm very worried about at the moment.

David Attenborough is also the king (inasmuch as we believe in kings) of the non-speciesist humanists. He is always at pains to point out that although we appear, to ourselves, to be the pinnacle of evolution, we're nothing like it. It's this kind of talk that makes me more convinced than ever that people like Giles Coren are wronger than someone who answers "fourteen" to "what's ten plus two?" when they express the belief that pets are unnecessary and should be discarded.

I can get behind the point of activists like Peter Singer that it's wrong for their sakes to keep animals, but I am sentimental about animals (which I realise is a stupid trait, but hey, some people believe in God or football teams. We all have our coping mechanisms). I also believe that it's good for people, and indeed, other animals, to live with different types of animals. I believe it teaches you something. Even if all it teaches you is that you don't like people very much sometimes. Particularly when they send threatening mail to David Attenborough.

Word to your larium

Some of you may remember that I spent the summer of 1991 in Berkeley, California, living in a shared house with a bunch of Berkeley students, getting stoned, and watching a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is a summer that retains a very special place in my heart, even though, obviously, I can't really remember a lot of the actual details. Indeed, three or four years later, when myself and Older Brother Monkey went to Berkeley for the weekend, I couldn't find my way around at all.

In the last couple of weeks, I re-engaged with a couple of people from those days through the magic of Facebook. Even more excitingly, it turned out that one of these lovely people was going to be in Dublin for the first time ever for a brief visit this week, so he asked me if we could go out for a pint. Of course I agreed, but then, also of course, spent the time leading up to seeing him worrying that I had remembered everything all wrong and he was going to ask me for money, or even that I wouldn't be able to recognise him when I saw him.

Neither of these things turned out to be the case. He remembered that summer much as I did, and we told Mister Monkey some stories. Then we spent the rest of the night talking about Middle Eastern politics, American foreign policy, and behavioral science. Plus we had some good food.

All in all, it was a top night. Now I know how people who actually liked the people they went to school with must feel when they go to their reunions.

Glinner's right, you know.

Why is this story not enormous? A 12-year-old is accused of prostitution and assault, having been beaten to shit by some police officers? WTF?

Lulu update

I know that many of my younger readers only tune into this blog to find out how my dogs are doing. So, for those younger readers, here's the update:

Lulu is still completely adorable. She does still occasionally pee on the floor in the living room, and she will still shred cushions or whatever else you've got lying around if she's bored. But since we came back from Glasgow and took them out of the kennels, she insists on sleeping in the same bed as Milo, so we've had to take his small bed out of the kitchen and replace it with a larger bed so she doesn't crush him. She wrestles with Marvin, she's the sweetest girl to Mrmonkey, and she still comes back whenever you call her. We do NOT want someone to adopt her. EVER.

She particularly likes kids. Just in case any of you younger readers would like to make friends with a dog.

Economy's crap, isn't it?

Some friends of mine, who are married to each other, were recently laid off by a company they have worked for pretty much since they left college. This company is not in any financial difficulty whatsoever, it's just a slave to its shareholders, and it's gotten greedy. Bunch of tossers. That's the last one of their phones I'll be buying, that's for fucking sure.

Here in Monkey Mansions, however, things look a little bit more solid. Mrmonkey was informed that it is highly unlikely that his company will close its engineering office in Dublin, and I've actually got overtime on! I know!

We are celebrating this fact by getting some work done on the house before we do get made redundant, because I know if I do get laid off, I'd rather spend my period of unemployment sitting in a nicely landscaped back yard than in some scrubby back garden. Mrmonkey was slightly concerned that our neighbours would think we were flaunting our employed status (our next-door neighbour got laid off from his construction job some months ago and is now working a shitty night-time delivery job, which he hates). But if nobody hires anybody to do any work, then the economy will never get going again.

(I am right, right? How would you feel if you lost your job and the people next door to you were having their garden landscaped? I think I would only care if I was a garden landscaper and they hadn't asked me.)

No snow over Edward's house

It has been a cold winter here on the flat shores of Laytown. We had a lovely spell there where it was crispy cold, like I imagine it to be in more impressive countries that are something more than the plaything of the North Atlantic and its zephyrs. Now it is snowing everywhere, it seems, except over our house. While Dublin airport closed down and the radio predicted "heavy snowfalls and severe weather warnings over the north and east of the country" I would stare out my window and see only trees bent double in the ever strengthening wind. Because you can be sure, if you're having snow, we're having a knifing wind here in the 'town.

Secretly, of course, I'm glad. The only thing to recommend snow is that it makes for good photos, particularly if you're the kind of person who has turned to making her own cards because she doesn't knit and is therefore always looking for a good photo to put on a Christmas card. Actually, there's one more thing to recommend a heavy fall of snow, but it's slightly lame. And it is that it would keep mrmonkey at home from work and we could spend the day together, because I like that.

Also, the dogs bloody love snow.

Okay, so there are a lot of things to recommend it. But we haven't got any, so there's no point in delighting in the fact that there are no snowballs for the local kids to throw at us, and there's no chance of me wiping out on the path while walking down to the beach.

Sadly, however, our lovely crispy cold has been replaced by a horrible, typical damp cold that chilled me so much today that I had to stand under a hot shower for longer than is probably good for the environment.

I would take snow over this.

More crime books

I believe I may have pointed out before that I don't read many crime books. I had another go a couple of weeks ago with Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace. Eoghan gave me this book for Christmas 07, and I just got around to it now. That gives you an idea of the rate at which I'm ploughing through books.

Anyway, I didn't like Tokyo Year Zero. His writing style irritated me. It was too sing-song and repetitive; too much poetry and not enough prose. I know that's the point. I know it was probably supposed to signify something about feeling trapped and the claustrophobia of the destroyed city and the endless grind of being a police investigator, but it was too much style and not enough content for me. It also had that feature of crime novels that I hate, when there's some really important and pertinent piece of evidence that will tie the whole case together, and it's hinted a lot, and everyone knows what it is except the reader. That always seems kind of lazy to me, like using pure coincidence to drive a story forwards all the time.

So I gave it up after about 100 pages, and I decided that I would give the George P. Pelecanos book that I bought months ago a shot at the title. If I don't like this, I thought, that is officially it, I will officially give up on crime books.

And now I'm wondering why I'm sitting here blogging about this, when I could be READING GEORGE PELECANOS.

It seems we have bought a bank

This is great news, given that we are currently €50 overdrawn after Christmas, and will have to buy this week's shopping on the credit card.

Oh, hang on a minute...

I've just been informed that this is not how it works.

Still, what could possibly go wrong, eh?

Ukulele update

Last night I learned a new chord, and acquainted myself with three others. That's four chords I have full knowledge of now, and can play and everything, even though moving between them still takes a little longer than is decent in polite society.

I can now play "Happy Birthday" and "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" and can slowly finger-pick my way through part of "Wipeout". This is the most proficient I've been on a musical instrument since I learned the tin whistle in second class (aged seven, for those of you who don't know what second class is).

Now I want to learn grown-up songs, but I don't understand this tablature thing, and I still can't read music, so I can only learn to play songs I already know. I'm thinking that "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" would be a good candidate, because it's actually got a pretty simple beat, even though the melody is quite complicated. If anyone knows where I can get the ukulele chords for this song, please let me know. If you also know any songs that just have C, C7, G7, F, and Dm, please tell me, because these are the chords I know best.

Wishful Drinking

ComedyB and BuntyB bought me this for Christmas. I wanted to like it very much, for two reasons. a) I really love Carrie Fisher and think she's a good writer; b) it's a long time since someone bought me a book that I'd never even heard of, but that would be so much up my street.

Sadly the book's not great.

It grew out of her one-woman show of the same name, and as such is very conversational and breezy. She talks about her family life, her addictions, her bipolarism, her marriages, and, of course, being Princess Leia. Many of the stories are very funny, and her confused style of writing (which she attributes to the fact that she's had electric shock treatment, which has messed with her memory) is enjoyable. However, none of the Star Wars stories she tells are new, and there's too much gushing and recapping for a book; this might be fine on stage, but in a 115-page book (maybe she wrote it as her nanowrimo book?) it takes up too much space.

In other words, it's a book that makes me wish I'd seen the show. But I'm glad to have it. I'm glad to have Carrie Fisher.

Resolution update

I got last week's work all done in the allotted time. It was great. I spent the whole weekend ARSING ABOUT with Mister Monkey instead of scrambling to get work done.

And I got all today's work done in the allotted time also.

I reckon if I keep this up I will deserve a holiday somewhere nice. Perhaps in June sometime. Perhaps.

Crime books I read

I don't usually read crime books. There has to be some special reason or gimmick, like they're set in Galway or they're written by someone I know. This year I read two crime books with gimmicks or hooks attached. The first was Michael Chabon's fine The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which is set in a fictional Alaskan present. In this fictional present, President Roosevelt's idea to have the displaced Jews of Europe come and live in Alaska was fulfilled, but they are all about to be displaced again because Sitka, which they were given as a homeland, is about to revert to being a U.S. state, and residency is not guaranteed for all. Into this complex situation comes a tired police detective, a dead heroin addict, and the world's greatest pie. It's a fine book, as you'd expect from Chabon. Heaps of atmosphere, fun, the usual American hangups with fathers, and detective work.

The second book, which I got so bogged down in that it actually took me months to read, was Andrew Taylor's DULL AS FUCK The American Boy (of course, it didn't help that every time I picked it up, the Estelle song ran around my head).

This book is set in London in 18-bippety something, not long after the Napoleonic wars and the war with America. It concerns a young school teacher who is assigned to accompany two of his young charges to London, but OH NOES! one of them is Edgar Allan Poe. DO YOU SEE?? Creepiness can only ensue. Except it doesn't really. There are a couple of murders, I don't care. There is a bit of flirting with young women, I don't care about that either. And there is rather a lot of language that, I'm sorry to tell you, I'm fairly sure is lifted from Patrick O'Brian. I know they're both old-timey and everything, but there's just something about a few of the exact phrases that seemed awfully familiar. "I tried to move, but my legs wouldn't answer," and the good old "I should like it of all things". It suffered a lot from tell-don't-show, and also from the fact that the protagonist basically does nothing, things merely happen around him that he witnesses or falls over. It's really dull. However, I understand they're planning on filming it, and it probably would look good on screen.

(By the way, Edgar Allan has absolutely no bearing on the plot at all. The whole thing is a mess.)

Ways in which dogs are like children, No. 1 in an occasional series

If they find a noisy toy in the kitchen in the morning, then you don't get to hear the radio.

The new year is coming. Look busy, everyone!

This time last year I posted my list of resolutions for 2008. Naturally, I kept very few of them.

Did I read 50 books? I'm not sure I even read ten this year, and blogged even fewer than that (what is with the not reading thing? I don't understand it, I truly don't).

Did I get my week's work done in five days? No. And frankly, I'm shocked at how long my crappy work habits have been going on for. Over a year now! That's bad, and it needs to be addressed or, even more frankly, I could lose my job if jobs are around to be lost.

I also failed to write a new novel, although I did get about 30,000 words of a Nanowrimo novel written, and although it might not have been very good, it was sufficient to scare the bejesus out of me. So, possibly there's scope for another crack at it this year.

I did, however, manage to start volunteering again. I've been working in the bookshop on Thursday afternoons this year. It has been difficult, though, and maybe it's contributing to the not getting my week's work done in five days business. I also (well, we also) started dog fostering again, as astute readers will have noticed. And I love doing that. Somewhere in there I also tried to help this unfortunate crazy lady in the community, but it didn't work out. She is too far into whatever her particular thing is for me to help her, and she asked me for the key back because (I suspect) she was afraid I was going to take her cats away and give them to the rescue, something she's very afraid of. So I gave it back, and that's the end of that.

I have also been donating stuff to Oxfam, and will continue to do so.

So, do I have new resolutions for next year? They're more like revised ones. Here they are, look!

Two books a month
Get my work done in five days
Learn to play a song on the ukulele (did I mention I got a ukulele for Christmas?)
Finish the zombie novel
Get a zine into every Franks mailing

That's it. Simple. Let's see if they're doable.

By the way, does anyone else notice just how hard it is to italicize and then normalize fonts on Blogger?

Happy Christmas everyone