"So here lad, will I get a number off him or what's the craic?"
"Jays, ye needn't be asking them boys for a mobile number, sure they were lookin' into the microwave for years thinkin' it was a television..."
This is what drifts across the forecourt of a petrol station close to home and is indeed typical of exchanges in petrol stations the length and breadth of Northern Ireland. For the more we have our differences the more we stay the same.
I thought we'd do a little montage of home as I'm soon to be leaving it behind, not forever and ever amen like the emigrants of old, but it has just about sunk in that life, barring accidents and emergencies, will now be across the water. I'm sure someone relatively famous once had the right of it when they said "Ireland's greatest export is its people."
The land in question has been drenched in glorious sunshine for the past couple of weeks which is most unseasonal. People are now becoming suspicious and long for the good old days of not having a clue what the weather was going to do next. There's talk of droughts. In Ireland. Madness.
To grab the bull by the horns we begin with acknowledging that home is a place with a troubled history and it's only now, with experience of England, Spain, France and a weekend in Germany that I'm able to see just how much damage that past has done, and not just in the cost of queuing up police Landrovers to hold back the seething mass of rioters that is the Ardoyne interface come marching season or scrubbing paint and worse from Orange halls and churches. There's a huge political, social and financial gap that will take time to close. Rends in communities that only time and fading of memory will heal.
I don't mean forget, for if we forgot how could we learn? But talking to my mother about the times that there were and the fear and the tit-for-tat and bloodshed that was part of life and living back in those days makes you realise that though we moan about "the stop-and-start of the peace process" NI has never had it so good. It's getting better. But what happened was so terrible that we need to dull the memory, because if we remembered every atrocity in glorious Technicolor I'm not sure anyone could ever forget nor forgive.
But enough of that, NI is full of lovely things and lovely people and lovely idiosyncrasies. And I shall share a few that I shall sorely miss.
Did you know that we technically have three official languages. They're all in the post title; English, Gaelic and Ulster Scots. English is fine, we all speak English. Not identifiably mind you, and a few of us should come with subtitle options, but it's definitely the unifier.
But Ulster Scots and Gaelic? Well, each to his own, and I mean that because every sodding things that's in the public domain has to be translated into each to appease each side. We'll start with Ulster Scots I went to an online translator to be sure I had the "Norlin Airlan" part right. It was called "Scots Online; Pittin the Mither Tongue on the Wab."
Now, far be it from me to offend anyone and may I just make clear that I love linguistic diversity, I love "Kist o' Words" on BBC Radio Ulster, I love the accents giving life to the "mither tongue" from mellifluous DerryLondonDerry to the Antrim coast's glottal-stop-fest. It's a lovely dialect.
It is not a f**king language.
Did anyone have any great difficulty reading Trainspotting? Aye (or in English, yes) it was Irvine Welsh's first novel before Danny Boyle got his hands on the film rights. But the point is it is all written in phonetically accurate Edinburghian. Or Ulster Scots. I would joke here that a more accurate name would be Ulster Sots because it does sound like an eighty-five year old called Jackie is halfway through his fifth shandy sitting down by the fire in a pub in the glens of Antrim lamenting "them there daysh when ye coulda lit yer smokes wi'out thon EEEE YOU pokin' their noses where their not a wantin'." I shall translate. He wants a cigarette indoors.
Don't get me wrong, the freak out about having everything from Stormont info leaflets to public urinals double signposted in English and Irish is just as sinful. Where in the name of God is that one eejit from the Gaeltacht complaining, "An bhfuil Gaeilge cad agat?" He doesn't exist. Let us stop wasting Executive time and money on the language one-upmanship. Please.
What that whole ramble meant was that I'll miss how we speak and how we phrase what we say. There's a reason for the saying "gift of the gab." Eskimos have a thousand words for snow. Irish have a thousand for hello and how are you? How's the form? How's she cutting? S'craic? Bout ye? Are you well? Favourite chat up line is to follow this with a "cos you're looking well." Classy.
I will miss driving through country roads. The type that you actually can't meet another car on without one of you having to back up three miles to someone's tarmacked front gate. And the type you take at sixty mile an hour. Paradox? Never.
I shall miss Graham's ice cream. God, the only reason I want to become an acclaimed and famous blogger of wit and wisdom is that so one day someone in that wee shop in Rathfriland will see this shout out and make it so that I have free baby cones (vanilla, Graham's own, secret recipe) with chocolate dip for life. You think I'm joking. I am emphatically not.
I shall miss nights out at home. Drinking wine at a friend's house (she knows who she is...) where the tunes be blasting and the night is going so well you never actually make it out. But when you do you go somewhere where Usher and Sean Paul be blasting but every soul in there knows the words to "Rock me Mama like a Wagon Wheel" when it is requested. And the whole country's looking "the court (pronounced "curt") or "the shift." Go and find someone from the province (preferably a good culchie lad, jesus I'll have to explain that too, a good lad from the country) to explain it to you if you're not from round 'ere. It's perfectly innocent, no Sex and the City antics here. But the last time I tried to explain "the court" it was to a middle aged barrister while quite drunk. Me not him. I think he got it in the end...
I'll miss my dog. He's a cutie. Words cannot sufficiently convey the feeling of having a bad day and this wee scruffy collie dog wandering up to you at the end of the day with a sock in his mouth only looking to play. I heard that's how one five year old described love. "When you leave your doggie alone all day but he still wants to play with you when you get home." Cute.
I will miss Tayto. Jesus, but I'll miss Tayto. Maybe there'll be an expat shop for the Irish, hidden in among the "Polanski" and "Taste of African" there'll be an O'Hagan's with Tayto and southern Dairy Milk. A girl can dream.
I will miss the family. Very much so. We're a close bunch of bananas.
But here I am yapping on like I've spent the last five years saving for a one way ticket to Darwin, Australia and don't know when I'll be back. In the words of the Dubliners "those big airplanes go both ways" and I am a Ryanair flight from home at all times. An hour. There and back. Sure it's not like I'm moving to John O'Groats!
There are bigger, brighter things ahead and I'm flying out of the nest with Aer Lingus. Luxury! By gods, what if they can smell the budget airline on me, I'll have to get the Febreeze on the old suitcases...
So next time I'll be typing from London. From a new life. I could be a real writer and socialite! I don't have the legs for it, but the wit I got in spades! I might start narrating everything in my head Carrie Bradshaw style. Become neurotic and hopelessly romantic.
Except no, because you know in that one episode where she puts on her "fuck-me" dress and heads to Big's unannounced, but he's loving watching the big fight alone with popcorn and he's still all like "Come in, come in" and gets her a drink and then she starts pulling the moves (like a baby gazelle learning how to walk but all concentrated in his lap) and he's like "Woah, darling, just a minute, this is the end of the fight" and she throws this huge hissy fit and storms out in her dinky Manolos (which how does she afford?). I never understood that. LET THE MAN WATCH HIS SPORT! Phone rings when I'm halfway through a Mad Men season finale, you better be sick or dead, I shit you not...
Whoops. Carried away. I italicised to be sure you'd get the joke. Maybe a bit like Bradshaw. But more like me. Young professional excited me. I can't wait to get started.
Great expectations, here we come.
xo
Monday, 29 July 2013
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Hello, this is London calling...
3 am in the vast, humming silence of Stansted is a grim time and place in which to be. The fluorescent light are switched off and for that we are grateful and the great expanse is dimly lit by the light of the signs of various food stands, most closed and shuttered except inexplicably the hot do counter.
In the dark corner where the Bureau De Change meets check-in desks 110-120 there is a figure curled up on the floor, a little wheely suitcase trying its best to act as a pillow. Gareth shrugs his high viz jacket on, straightens his lanyard and approaches the figure. The check-in for Prague is opening on desks 115 through 120. It is his unhappy task at this hour of the morning to makes sure everything is ship-shape. There is a grubby and much handled piece of paper lying off to one side and Gareth stoops to retrieve it.
The still figure shoots out one hand, opens one eye and squints up at him,
"Leave that!"
Gareth leaves that well enough alone.
The figure sits up, unfolds the grubby scrap and digs a pen from the recesses of a pocket. Gareth can just about make out a few bullet points. The figure, more wearily than gleefully but the glee will come later, puts a line through two of them:
2. SECURE GRADUATE JOB
3. MOVE TO LONDON
and squints up at Gareth again.
"I am here for the 6.50am, yes you heard right, 6.50am flight to Belfast because I wouldn't pay the £125 to have it at a civilised hour. I was supposed to be home three days ago. I haven't really slept since then because of this unseasonal heat in which I had to trek around London flat hunting in kitten heels because I didn't think I'd need sensible shoes. Can I snooze here?"
"To be honest love, yer can do what yer like..."
What a whirlwind of a week. In seven days I have managed to cross off two off the, what, five life goals on my list? That was comparatively easy. Don't get me wrong, there were three days of condensed stress as I tried valiantly to find lodgings in London, the shock at actually finding a job, the guilt at imposing on friends who went to the ends of the earth to make things so comparatively easy for me. The girl in me is chuffed to pieces. But the writer, she suffers...
Writer: <click clack of keys, a slosh of Sauvignon, purse of lips á la Anna Wintour> "The sun scorched down upon the streets of London and upon one lone room hunter as she fends tourists of with one hand and swigs from a bottle of water with another...GOD DAMN IT!"
Actual Human Being: What in the name of God is wrong?
Writer: How am I supposed to work with this dross! Interview, offer, job hunt, lols with friends! Subtract the stress and it's disgustingly easy! You remember Madrid?
Girl: We still wake up screaming at night, yes...
Writer: Juan Carlos and his dodgy building sites he promised would be done by August? The uncertainty of the Spanish? The putas and mala suerte and the vino? And the job hunt! The months we spent since November this year opening our inbox to a rejection every day? By God it wasn't perfect but it was drama!!
Girl: Despair and distress make for funnier stories, I agree. But I think it'll be good to let people know that things generally turn out right in the end and there are happy endings. I'm sure we'll have all the time in the world for things to go horrifically wrong. We'll let everyone have a glimpse at them going stupendously right...
And stupendously right they did go, but I wouldn't be me and there wouldn't be a blog if we hadn't accrued some anecdotal urges. A few vignettes then from the week end the world actually said yes yo our ever present prayer: "Giz a job and giz London..."
The interview! I wanted this job, a job where I would I could write and publish content, where I could have the best experience ever that would provide the key to the locked halls of true authorship. My job title is WRITER. It's going to be in Italicised letters on my very own business card soon. And I couldn't be happier. But first, the interview!
The company is beautiful, a cream brick building in Covent Garden and I already know the receptionists. We had all the chats on the day of my first interview...
"Hi Claire! Like Terminator II, I'm back!"
Oh that's wonderful, I'll just let Jamie know, best of best of luck, I'm sure you'll be fabulous!"
And everyone who passed me when I was waiting asked if I was there for interview, told me to just be myself and wished me luck. Fate was dangling working for this place in front of me, tantalisingly. And the interview started,
"So where did you grow up?"
"Well, do you know the song Mountains of Mourne?" (in the certain knowledge that every resident of the British Isles over 50 knows this song)
"I don't actually, will you sing it for me?"
"<the carefully cultivated professional cool and polished accent falls away at this request> What, d'ye really want me to sing to ye in a job interview?"
"Yes please, if you'd like to,"
I considered how much I wanted this job. And I came to a decision. And I opened my mouth and sang the (oddly appropriate) song of my people..."
"Oh Mary this London's a wonderful sight,
With the people here working by day and by night
They don't sow potatoes, nor barley nor wheat,
But there's gangs of them digging for gold in the street,
At least when I asked them that's what I was told
So I just took a hand in the digging for gold,
But for all this dear Mary I might as well be,
In the place where the dark Mournes sweep down to the sea..."
He applauded. And then we spoke of many things. And then we two parted. And the next morning he gave me a job. Rang me while we were on the train. And I whooped and cheered. And I rang everyone I could think of. And when some ill-bred wanker who had probably just been made redundant had the nerve to tut I looked him full in the eye and raised an eyebrow. That's as far as you're able to go on a train/the Tube without being arrested...
And we were on our way to the Tower of London! And of course when our guide asked if anyone was from Ireland we stuck up our hands and when he asked why we were in London I replied,
"I just got a job! They rang half an hour ago!"
And Dicky, elated and exuberant raised his arms and cried in the accent of every cheeky butler since the original Jeeves, "Ladies and gentlemen, this young lady has just become gainfully employed in the greatest city in the world. A hip hip hooray for the young lady! Now that'll be a nice interval before the husband hunt..."
And all was well with the world. We saw the Crown Jewels (Dicky: "The two foremost questions posed to me in the enactment of my office as tour guide. "WHERE are the Crown Jewels! And WHERE...are the toilets?") and we had chips and we had wine and good food and this was all wonderful until my mother, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, know of all things, Her Magnificent Omnipotnce and the origin of the phrase "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" rang and proposed a question:
"Would it not be better to stay and get some accommodation sorted for the autumn?"
Of course it would! I mean it eventually involved eight hours straight glued to Spareroom.co.uk, a full day trekking around London on one of the hottest days of the year and that ever residual panic you will all know. It's an awful lot of money and trust to spend in one go, finding somewhere to live, especially on your own. You don't know the area, don't know who you're dealing with and by the time you give over a deposit you feel every single mile between yourself and home. I imagine like a relationship. The first one I got into was a flat in Madrid and no sooner were we back in the UK after spending money, time and tears that the landlady rang up, changed her mind, was giving back the deposit and wished us the best.
And then people will say, "Why didn't you lawyer the shit out of her??" But that isn't how it works in real life. Drag her to court, demand she put us up, spend what could easily be six months and a lot of money embroiled in legal proceedings when we needed somewhere to live? No. In real life we took back the money and had to arrange to do it all again.
So, as life as in love, I was once bitten, forever shy. And that might explain my reaction when my mother filled me in on everything that could go horribly wrong (flaky landlord to internet scams) that I had to do all these complicated things to avoid (sign everything...EVERYTHING) Forgetting my friends were enjoying Angel Delight in the next room, I snapped and quasi-sobbed in an almost Italo-American accent in my panic:
"MA!! GAWD!! PLEASE!! I'M NOT GOING TO END UP SQUATTING IN SOME HOVEL COVERED IN MY OWN SHIT!!
Now she did find it funny, but at that stage she and shocked friends were the only ones in good humour. I was uncharacteristically worried sick...
We shall fast forward past the two days of intense hunting, because that's how fast things come and go in London. And eventually I found a room in Islington, ten minutes from The Angel, which filled me with delight because my knowledge of London is squarely based on the Monopoly board. And my landlady Angela is the salt of the earth. So that's were I am for the first two months of life in London and I couldn't be happier.
Of course the city itself gave me signs. Now I may not be the "spiritual sort interested in the healing arts and power of the earth" that some 42 year old Malaysian man wanted to share his flat with but every time I worried if I was doing the right thing I would see a penny on the street, turn a corner and find a Benet's of Cambridge (an ice cream shop that I know well in Cambridge itself), see an ad for Dame Edna at the Palladium or run into a Starbucks to surf Spareroom and hear my song playing. Frank Sinatra "That's Life" for those of you curious. And seeing all of these familiar things I loved, well, I'd have a heart of stone if I didn't take them as a sign...
But there you have it! That is the story of how one week saw me from crawling up the walls at home, wracked with existential uncertainty to excitement at the prospect of moving the London to start a proper job. But there'll be some homesickness as well.
I found a postcard in Spitalfields Market. A one hundred year old postcard sent from that place I sang of, where the dark Mournes sweep down to the sea to a place called Downpatrick which nowadays is fifteen minutes up the road by car. My daddy, (and believe me if you all met him you would love him, one of the sweetest men in the world, think of him as Dahl's character Grandpa Joe and my Mummy as a 1st class degree holding Hyacinth Bouquet, not Bucket darling and you're there), Anywho my daddy adores history and read this postcard in delight, glasses perched on the end of his nose. And in the car on the way back from the airport we pulled in at a Spar and I asked jokingly, "Daddy, daddy, can you get me a Porky Pig (a 60p ice lolly we devoured as children) please?" And he replied solemnly, "Of course I will! Be you five or fifty, unemployed or the editor of the Times you'll always be my child and I shall always get you ice lollies."
Oh Dad...
But enough, C S Lewis said that if we are brave and patient the things to come are infinitely better than the things we leave behind, though you can be your bum (can't say "ass" so close to a mention of my Daddy...) I'll be home as often as possible for the family.
And in the spirit of that advice from the man who wrote my childhood though he didn't know it, I take you back to where I am sitting in light of the approaching dawn (symbolism see, new day imagery, I really am a well good writer) looking speculatively at the list Gareth of Stansted almost did away with and tap the next two items thoughtfully...
4. FALL IN LOVE
5. BE READ
And they may be the last things on my list but I have a feeling they'll be the hardest.
The search of a twenty-something for love and literature in the city of London then! But surely there will be the occasional obstacles and impositions that every twenty-something will know only too well. We can but hope that from now on the blog does not descend into whiny mediocrity, spouting rubbish about real life and romance like a two-bit Bridget Jones wannabe. It shall not be so!
Thus next week, the gearing up to leave; the loose ends tied, the friends good byed, last Ulster fried, and all implied in the move from the Dark Mournes to London Town.
All that remains is to thank so many who were rooting for me and didn't hesitate to make congratulations known. I must remember that short as a week was, this dream has been alive since 2009 and the job hunt was in full swing since November. And now I shall pour some white wine, drag a chair out the back under unseasonal blue sky, surrounded by leafy trees, green fields and the purple haze of the mountains in the not-so-distance. I shall turn up Olly Murs "Right place, right time," let the apt lyrics wash over me and lie back to contemplate my happy beginning...
xo
In the dark corner where the Bureau De Change meets check-in desks 110-120 there is a figure curled up on the floor, a little wheely suitcase trying its best to act as a pillow. Gareth shrugs his high viz jacket on, straightens his lanyard and approaches the figure. The check-in for Prague is opening on desks 115 through 120. It is his unhappy task at this hour of the morning to makes sure everything is ship-shape. There is a grubby and much handled piece of paper lying off to one side and Gareth stoops to retrieve it.
The still figure shoots out one hand, opens one eye and squints up at him,
"Leave that!"
Gareth leaves that well enough alone.
The figure sits up, unfolds the grubby scrap and digs a pen from the recesses of a pocket. Gareth can just about make out a few bullet points. The figure, more wearily than gleefully but the glee will come later, puts a line through two of them:
2. SECURE GRADUATE JOB
3. MOVE TO LONDON
and squints up at Gareth again.
"I am here for the 6.50am, yes you heard right, 6.50am flight to Belfast because I wouldn't pay the £125 to have it at a civilised hour. I was supposed to be home three days ago. I haven't really slept since then because of this unseasonal heat in which I had to trek around London flat hunting in kitten heels because I didn't think I'd need sensible shoes. Can I snooze here?"
"To be honest love, yer can do what yer like..."
What a whirlwind of a week. In seven days I have managed to cross off two off the, what, five life goals on my list? That was comparatively easy. Don't get me wrong, there were three days of condensed stress as I tried valiantly to find lodgings in London, the shock at actually finding a job, the guilt at imposing on friends who went to the ends of the earth to make things so comparatively easy for me. The girl in me is chuffed to pieces. But the writer, she suffers...
Writer: <click clack of keys, a slosh of Sauvignon, purse of lips á la Anna Wintour> "The sun scorched down upon the streets of London and upon one lone room hunter as she fends tourists of with one hand and swigs from a bottle of water with another...GOD DAMN IT!"
Actual Human Being: What in the name of God is wrong?
Writer: How am I supposed to work with this dross! Interview, offer, job hunt, lols with friends! Subtract the stress and it's disgustingly easy! You remember Madrid?
Girl: We still wake up screaming at night, yes...
Writer: Juan Carlos and his dodgy building sites he promised would be done by August? The uncertainty of the Spanish? The putas and mala suerte and the vino? And the job hunt! The months we spent since November this year opening our inbox to a rejection every day? By God it wasn't perfect but it was drama!!
Girl: Despair and distress make for funnier stories, I agree. But I think it'll be good to let people know that things generally turn out right in the end and there are happy endings. I'm sure we'll have all the time in the world for things to go horrifically wrong. We'll let everyone have a glimpse at them going stupendously right...
And stupendously right they did go, but I wouldn't be me and there wouldn't be a blog if we hadn't accrued some anecdotal urges. A few vignettes then from the week end the world actually said yes yo our ever present prayer: "Giz a job and giz London..."
The interview! I wanted this job, a job where I would I could write and publish content, where I could have the best experience ever that would provide the key to the locked halls of true authorship. My job title is WRITER. It's going to be in Italicised letters on my very own business card soon. And I couldn't be happier. But first, the interview!
The company is beautiful, a cream brick building in Covent Garden and I already know the receptionists. We had all the chats on the day of my first interview...
"Hi Claire! Like Terminator II, I'm back!"
Oh that's wonderful, I'll just let Jamie know, best of best of luck, I'm sure you'll be fabulous!"
And everyone who passed me when I was waiting asked if I was there for interview, told me to just be myself and wished me luck. Fate was dangling working for this place in front of me, tantalisingly. And the interview started,
"So where did you grow up?"
"Well, do you know the song Mountains of Mourne?" (in the certain knowledge that every resident of the British Isles over 50 knows this song)
"I don't actually, will you sing it for me?"
"<the carefully cultivated professional cool and polished accent falls away at this request> What, d'ye really want me to sing to ye in a job interview?"
"Yes please, if you'd like to,"
I considered how much I wanted this job. And I came to a decision. And I opened my mouth and sang the (oddly appropriate) song of my people..."
"Oh Mary this London's a wonderful sight,
With the people here working by day and by night
They don't sow potatoes, nor barley nor wheat,
But there's gangs of them digging for gold in the street,
At least when I asked them that's what I was told
So I just took a hand in the digging for gold,
But for all this dear Mary I might as well be,
In the place where the dark Mournes sweep down to the sea..."
He applauded. And then we spoke of many things. And then we two parted. And the next morning he gave me a job. Rang me while we were on the train. And I whooped and cheered. And I rang everyone I could think of. And when some ill-bred wanker who had probably just been made redundant had the nerve to tut I looked him full in the eye and raised an eyebrow. That's as far as you're able to go on a train/the Tube without being arrested...
And we were on our way to the Tower of London! And of course when our guide asked if anyone was from Ireland we stuck up our hands and when he asked why we were in London I replied,
"I just got a job! They rang half an hour ago!"
And Dicky, elated and exuberant raised his arms and cried in the accent of every cheeky butler since the original Jeeves, "Ladies and gentlemen, this young lady has just become gainfully employed in the greatest city in the world. A hip hip hooray for the young lady! Now that'll be a nice interval before the husband hunt..."
And all was well with the world. We saw the Crown Jewels (Dicky: "The two foremost questions posed to me in the enactment of my office as tour guide. "WHERE are the Crown Jewels! And WHERE...are the toilets?") and we had chips and we had wine and good food and this was all wonderful until my mother, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, know of all things, Her Magnificent Omnipotnce and the origin of the phrase "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" rang and proposed a question:
"Would it not be better to stay and get some accommodation sorted for the autumn?"
Of course it would! I mean it eventually involved eight hours straight glued to Spareroom.co.uk, a full day trekking around London on one of the hottest days of the year and that ever residual panic you will all know. It's an awful lot of money and trust to spend in one go, finding somewhere to live, especially on your own. You don't know the area, don't know who you're dealing with and by the time you give over a deposit you feel every single mile between yourself and home. I imagine like a relationship. The first one I got into was a flat in Madrid and no sooner were we back in the UK after spending money, time and tears that the landlady rang up, changed her mind, was giving back the deposit and wished us the best.
And then people will say, "Why didn't you lawyer the shit out of her??" But that isn't how it works in real life. Drag her to court, demand she put us up, spend what could easily be six months and a lot of money embroiled in legal proceedings when we needed somewhere to live? No. In real life we took back the money and had to arrange to do it all again.
So, as life as in love, I was once bitten, forever shy. And that might explain my reaction when my mother filled me in on everything that could go horribly wrong (flaky landlord to internet scams) that I had to do all these complicated things to avoid (sign everything...EVERYTHING) Forgetting my friends were enjoying Angel Delight in the next room, I snapped and quasi-sobbed in an almost Italo-American accent in my panic:
"MA!! GAWD!! PLEASE!! I'M NOT GOING TO END UP SQUATTING IN SOME HOVEL COVERED IN MY OWN SHIT!!
Now she did find it funny, but at that stage she and shocked friends were the only ones in good humour. I was uncharacteristically worried sick...
We shall fast forward past the two days of intense hunting, because that's how fast things come and go in London. And eventually I found a room in Islington, ten minutes from The Angel, which filled me with delight because my knowledge of London is squarely based on the Monopoly board. And my landlady Angela is the salt of the earth. So that's were I am for the first two months of life in London and I couldn't be happier.
Of course the city itself gave me signs. Now I may not be the "spiritual sort interested in the healing arts and power of the earth" that some 42 year old Malaysian man wanted to share his flat with but every time I worried if I was doing the right thing I would see a penny on the street, turn a corner and find a Benet's of Cambridge (an ice cream shop that I know well in Cambridge itself), see an ad for Dame Edna at the Palladium or run into a Starbucks to surf Spareroom and hear my song playing. Frank Sinatra "That's Life" for those of you curious. And seeing all of these familiar things I loved, well, I'd have a heart of stone if I didn't take them as a sign...
But there you have it! That is the story of how one week saw me from crawling up the walls at home, wracked with existential uncertainty to excitement at the prospect of moving the London to start a proper job. But there'll be some homesickness as well.
I found a postcard in Spitalfields Market. A one hundred year old postcard sent from that place I sang of, where the dark Mournes sweep down to the sea to a place called Downpatrick which nowadays is fifteen minutes up the road by car. My daddy, (and believe me if you all met him you would love him, one of the sweetest men in the world, think of him as Dahl's character Grandpa Joe and my Mummy as a 1st class degree holding Hyacinth Bouquet, not Bucket darling and you're there), Anywho my daddy adores history and read this postcard in delight, glasses perched on the end of his nose. And in the car on the way back from the airport we pulled in at a Spar and I asked jokingly, "Daddy, daddy, can you get me a Porky Pig (a 60p ice lolly we devoured as children) please?" And he replied solemnly, "Of course I will! Be you five or fifty, unemployed or the editor of the Times you'll always be my child and I shall always get you ice lollies."
Oh Dad...
But enough, C S Lewis said that if we are brave and patient the things to come are infinitely better than the things we leave behind, though you can be your bum (can't say "ass" so close to a mention of my Daddy...) I'll be home as often as possible for the family.
And in the spirit of that advice from the man who wrote my childhood though he didn't know it, I take you back to where I am sitting in light of the approaching dawn (symbolism see, new day imagery, I really am a well good writer) looking speculatively at the list Gareth of Stansted almost did away with and tap the next two items thoughtfully...
4. FALL IN LOVE
5. BE READ
And they may be the last things on my list but I have a feeling they'll be the hardest.
The search of a twenty-something for love and literature in the city of London then! But surely there will be the occasional obstacles and impositions that every twenty-something will know only too well. We can but hope that from now on the blog does not descend into whiny mediocrity, spouting rubbish about real life and romance like a two-bit Bridget Jones wannabe. It shall not be so!
Thus next week, the gearing up to leave; the loose ends tied, the friends good byed, last Ulster fried, and all implied in the move from the Dark Mournes to London Town.
All that remains is to thank so many who were rooting for me and didn't hesitate to make congratulations known. I must remember that short as a week was, this dream has been alive since 2009 and the job hunt was in full swing since November. And now I shall pour some white wine, drag a chair out the back under unseasonal blue sky, surrounded by leafy trees, green fields and the purple haze of the mountains in the not-so-distance. I shall turn up Olly Murs "Right place, right time," let the apt lyrics wash over me and lie back to contemplate my happy beginning...
xo
Monday, 8 July 2013
Those small, sweet, serendipitous days
"You're over thirty, speed limit's there for a reason"
"What are you, my mother?"
"Nope, but if Mammy was here she'd say exactly the same thing."
<sudden burst of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" as yours truly's mobile sounds>
"Buggery, buggery, buggery. Get that, it's probably the job centre about my National Insurance number <continues to ramble as sister answers phone> but if they try and spell aloud one more word that a primary school child could make out of alphabetty spaghetti tell them to stick their jobseekers JSA 1 forms up their...
..."It's London company, I told them to call again in fifteen minutes so we'll just about have time to get ho...THIRTY MILE AN HOUR, IT'S THIRTY MILES AN HOUR, STICK TO THE F**KING SPEED LIMIT!!"
As I write this I am remembering the events of Tuesday last. I have used a free narrative construction of time. Because I am a well good writer. At the moment Ireland is drenched in 25 degree heat and everyone is naked. I approve. Of everyone. Nothing wrong with any of that. I am slathered in factor fifty, iced Shloer (drink of Christmas and champions) in hand and reclining out the back, a view of lush rolling farmland and the green, green hills of home. La vita é bella. Murray got his groove on and I have a final stage interview with lovely London company on Thursday. Aplausos.
Mind you, trouble and strife make for better writing but we shall endure.
That Tuesday we were driving home from making my initial claim for Job Seeker's Allowance. I am officially on the dole. There's about the same level of Jeremy Kyle, Sixteen and Pregnant repeats and Keeping up with the Kardashians but I have yet to succumb to any urges to drink Buckfast in Superdry gear while betting on the horses. Who knew stereotypes were a load of old rubbish?
Some hold true though. Closest home town's social security office must be Dante's fifth circle of hell, dedicated to the wrathful and the sullen. Populated by irate, keening women who were wrathful because "my Shane's EMA was taken off him and sure he only didn't go for a week because he had a wee job on a site there, do you not want people to support themselves?" and dull eyed, weary civil servants.
Mind you within five seconds of filling out forms I was keen to send Marty (all names changed for reasons of anonymity and fear of legal challenges) to the eighth part of the eighth circle of fraudulent advisors and evil counsellors. Well, not so much evil. More robotic and vague, as if all joy had been stolen from long ago. Observe;
"Now you're for Job Seeker's Allowance, that's with two e's in Seeker and then ah-el-el-eau-double.ye-ah-en-see-eeee. And you're an initial claim, that's eye-en..."
"Stahp. Just stahp. Stop this nonsense. Your embarrassing me and yourself. Now usually I don't do this because I don't think a person's university or lack of one tells you what they are like, just what they themselves like, but THIS. This is a degree from prestigious university. I can spell res ipsa loquitur and volenti non fit inuruia. I once got through twenty cards in a minute during a game of Articulate. I think I can just about manage to spell allowance..."
Then there was a bit of a debacle because I didn't have my national insurance number card/letter on me. I know it. I know it off by heart, like my PIN and my passwords and all the words to Remix to Ignition. But they just wouldn't let me give it to them!
(That sounded a bit rude, apologies, been watching a bit too much Carry On and when I read my last sentence over, Kenneth Williams just popped into my head to say "Don't be disgusting!" Funny, same reaction when auntie was wondering where she'd parked her car and innocently stated "I should be up against a wall somewhere...")
Anyway, thus spake the jobcentre lady, "Now it has to be a hundred per cent so I'd really like you to go home and get it right. You can always come back another day."
And this jobsworth-ness was the reason for snarling and gnashing of teeth and blatant disregard for the speed limit when lovely London company called me on the way home. And with that one sweet, small, serendipitous phone call (open beside computer, "How to Write like Twain, Chapter One, repetition of title in main body of work...) I was set for London this coming Wednesday and a final stage interview with a company I dearly want to be a part of. Dangling preposition there, Twain is spinning in his grave. Or simply doesn't care, he did go hard at the bourbon...
And with that suddenly all questions from aunties and uncles at our family shindig this Sunday were fielded well. I must just add for the Catholics that this was in fact Cemetery Sunday. For the non-believers among you (which will include some Norn Irish Catholics, we're really more of a culture than a religious affiliation) this is where you say Mass in the graveyard as we all stand around our dearly departed, sprinkle on the Holy Water and ask intercession for forgiveness of sins and the glory of the life everlasting, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Then we all go back to our house for wee triangular sandwiches and a lot of cake. And there was even some Ferrero Rocher this year. Classy.
But I understand this trying time for graduates when they go home. Or those made redundant and recently out of a job. Or those who have decided to take a career break. There will always be the question "what now?" There was a marvellous quote from The Iron Lady, I don't know if it was from She Who Must Be Obeyed, Thatcher herself, but it was "It used to be about doing something, now it's about being someone."
I think we can go one step further, that now and maybe as in the past, what we do is who we are. I once read an obituary of a young solicitor who had died at the age of thirty-six and the entirety of that piece, as long as this post, could be summed up as so. “She was a solicitor, a very good solicitor, she worked here, she could have gone on working here, her colleagues will miss her.” It made me so sad for her for reasons that had nothing to do with her death and everything to do with her life. She shouldn’t have ended her days a lawyer and nothing more. And I know that isn't the whole story but it's what was newsworthy. And 'tis sad.
But not knowing what we want to do or where we want to go is not sad. This is a great and wonderful world of choice. Let me tell something to you in the voice of that Latino penguin from Happy Feet. Chou are taking the time to think, ho'kay? Es nothing wrong with this. Es good. You work, you work for forty, maybe fifty years. You maybe marry, make babies, have homes, have the worries. Now, today, you have only decisions. And now today no worries about what you have become. The worries tomorrow or never at all. And I like the fifty-fifty odds...
That got very Dr Phil very quickly! Elsewhere, beyond the advice giving, I need only tell you life goes on at home. That reminds me, we rescued a little baby bird. It can't fly yet, but it will. I have taken to him á la Brookes and Jake in Shawshank Redemption. Our little sheep dog is unable to understand why he has been usurped in the cuteness arena and has taken to whining and pawing at my feet in a blatant attempt to curry favour. It worked.
"Oh yers, oh yers, oh yers my little puppy! Who's a good doggie? Oh yes it is you, it is you!! Rolly over, rolly over...Good boy! Gawd, you have us all eating out of the palm of your...paw. Dinner handed to you, pets galore, snoozing in the sun. Talk about welfare and benefits. Dog's life. But here, how can you have a dog's life but the dog days at the same time?"
And there I think we must leave me, sprawling out on our front porch talking to a tongue-panting, tail-wagging cutie who looks like he is nodding sagely to every word I say. Later on I may take a spin down to the seaside and get me a baby cone with chocolate sprinkles and a flake in. I'll eat it in the car, looking out at the place where the dark mountains sweep down to the sea. And I'll have the windows down and Macklemore's Thrift Shop thrumming from the speakers. And I'll sing along as so; "Walk into the club like what's up, I got a big hello community support officer." And she will ask me to keep it down and think of the older residents. Rebel without a cause innit.
This has all already happened, I am using another narrative device. But it is a lovely ending.
And so next time I can hear London Calling just as surely as it called The Clash and I hear the streets are paved with gold. I shall set off, like Dick Whittington before me, and with the god's good graces I shall have a tale or two to tell when I get back.
xo
"What are you, my mother?"
"Nope, but if Mammy was here she'd say exactly the same thing."
<sudden burst of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" as yours truly's mobile sounds>
"Buggery, buggery, buggery. Get that, it's probably the job centre about my National Insurance number <continues to ramble as sister answers phone> but if they try and spell aloud one more word that a primary school child could make out of alphabetty spaghetti tell them to stick their jobseekers JSA 1 forms up their...
..."It's London company, I told them to call again in fifteen minutes so we'll just about have time to get ho...THIRTY MILE AN HOUR, IT'S THIRTY MILES AN HOUR, STICK TO THE F**KING SPEED LIMIT!!"
As I write this I am remembering the events of Tuesday last. I have used a free narrative construction of time. Because I am a well good writer. At the moment Ireland is drenched in 25 degree heat and everyone is naked. I approve. Of everyone. Nothing wrong with any of that. I am slathered in factor fifty, iced Shloer (drink of Christmas and champions) in hand and reclining out the back, a view of lush rolling farmland and the green, green hills of home. La vita é bella. Murray got his groove on and I have a final stage interview with lovely London company on Thursday. Aplausos.
Mind you, trouble and strife make for better writing but we shall endure.
That Tuesday we were driving home from making my initial claim for Job Seeker's Allowance. I am officially on the dole. There's about the same level of Jeremy Kyle, Sixteen and Pregnant repeats and Keeping up with the Kardashians but I have yet to succumb to any urges to drink Buckfast in Superdry gear while betting on the horses. Who knew stereotypes were a load of old rubbish?
Some hold true though. Closest home town's social security office must be Dante's fifth circle of hell, dedicated to the wrathful and the sullen. Populated by irate, keening women who were wrathful because "my Shane's EMA was taken off him and sure he only didn't go for a week because he had a wee job on a site there, do you not want people to support themselves?" and dull eyed, weary civil servants.
Mind you within five seconds of filling out forms I was keen to send Marty (all names changed for reasons of anonymity and fear of legal challenges) to the eighth part of the eighth circle of fraudulent advisors and evil counsellors. Well, not so much evil. More robotic and vague, as if all joy had been stolen from long ago. Observe;
"Now you're for Job Seeker's Allowance, that's with two e's in Seeker and then ah-el-el-eau-double.ye-ah-en-see-eeee. And you're an initial claim, that's eye-en..."
"Stahp. Just stahp. Stop this nonsense. Your embarrassing me and yourself. Now usually I don't do this because I don't think a person's university or lack of one tells you what they are like, just what they themselves like, but THIS. This is a degree from prestigious university. I can spell res ipsa loquitur and volenti non fit inuruia. I once got through twenty cards in a minute during a game of Articulate. I think I can just about manage to spell allowance..."
Then there was a bit of a debacle because I didn't have my national insurance number card/letter on me. I know it. I know it off by heart, like my PIN and my passwords and all the words to Remix to Ignition. But they just wouldn't let me give it to them!
(That sounded a bit rude, apologies, been watching a bit too much Carry On and when I read my last sentence over, Kenneth Williams just popped into my head to say "Don't be disgusting!" Funny, same reaction when auntie was wondering where she'd parked her car and innocently stated "I should be up against a wall somewhere...")
Anyway, thus spake the jobcentre lady, "Now it has to be a hundred per cent so I'd really like you to go home and get it right. You can always come back another day."
And this jobsworth-ness was the reason for snarling and gnashing of teeth and blatant disregard for the speed limit when lovely London company called me on the way home. And with that one sweet, small, serendipitous phone call (open beside computer, "How to Write like Twain, Chapter One, repetition of title in main body of work...) I was set for London this coming Wednesday and a final stage interview with a company I dearly want to be a part of. Dangling preposition there, Twain is spinning in his grave. Or simply doesn't care, he did go hard at the bourbon...
And with that suddenly all questions from aunties and uncles at our family shindig this Sunday were fielded well. I must just add for the Catholics that this was in fact Cemetery Sunday. For the non-believers among you (which will include some Norn Irish Catholics, we're really more of a culture than a religious affiliation) this is where you say Mass in the graveyard as we all stand around our dearly departed, sprinkle on the Holy Water and ask intercession for forgiveness of sins and the glory of the life everlasting, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Then we all go back to our house for wee triangular sandwiches and a lot of cake. And there was even some Ferrero Rocher this year. Classy.
But I understand this trying time for graduates when they go home. Or those made redundant and recently out of a job. Or those who have decided to take a career break. There will always be the question "what now?" There was a marvellous quote from The Iron Lady, I don't know if it was from She Who Must Be Obeyed, Thatcher herself, but it was "It used to be about doing something, now it's about being someone."
I think we can go one step further, that now and maybe as in the past, what we do is who we are. I once read an obituary of a young solicitor who had died at the age of thirty-six and the entirety of that piece, as long as this post, could be summed up as so. “She was a solicitor, a very good solicitor, she worked here, she could have gone on working here, her colleagues will miss her.” It made me so sad for her for reasons that had nothing to do with her death and everything to do with her life. She shouldn’t have ended her days a lawyer and nothing more. And I know that isn't the whole story but it's what was newsworthy. And 'tis sad.
But not knowing what we want to do or where we want to go is not sad. This is a great and wonderful world of choice. Let me tell something to you in the voice of that Latino penguin from Happy Feet. Chou are taking the time to think, ho'kay? Es nothing wrong with this. Es good. You work, you work for forty, maybe fifty years. You maybe marry, make babies, have homes, have the worries. Now, today, you have only decisions. And now today no worries about what you have become. The worries tomorrow or never at all. And I like the fifty-fifty odds...
That got very Dr Phil very quickly! Elsewhere, beyond the advice giving, I need only tell you life goes on at home. That reminds me, we rescued a little baby bird. It can't fly yet, but it will. I have taken to him á la Brookes and Jake in Shawshank Redemption. Our little sheep dog is unable to understand why he has been usurped in the cuteness arena and has taken to whining and pawing at my feet in a blatant attempt to curry favour. It worked.
"Oh yers, oh yers, oh yers my little puppy! Who's a good doggie? Oh yes it is you, it is you!! Rolly over, rolly over...Good boy! Gawd, you have us all eating out of the palm of your...paw. Dinner handed to you, pets galore, snoozing in the sun. Talk about welfare and benefits. Dog's life. But here, how can you have a dog's life but the dog days at the same time?"
And there I think we must leave me, sprawling out on our front porch talking to a tongue-panting, tail-wagging cutie who looks like he is nodding sagely to every word I say. Later on I may take a spin down to the seaside and get me a baby cone with chocolate sprinkles and a flake in. I'll eat it in the car, looking out at the place where the dark mountains sweep down to the sea. And I'll have the windows down and Macklemore's Thrift Shop thrumming from the speakers. And I'll sing along as so; "Walk into the club like what's up, I got a big hello community support officer." And she will ask me to keep it down and think of the older residents. Rebel without a cause innit.
This has all already happened, I am using another narrative device. But it is a lovely ending.
And so next time I can hear London Calling just as surely as it called The Clash and I hear the streets are paved with gold. I shall set off, like Dick Whittington before me, and with the god's good graces I shall have a tale or two to tell when I get back.
xo
Monday, 1 July 2013
In Jobs We Trust
This is a blog about great expectations.
On this 27th June past I knelt to receive a BA Hons degree from prestigious university swathed in the black cotton of my gown, the (synthetic) white fur of my hood and the sure and certain knowledge the whole wide world and all its adventures awaited.
This is also a blog about change.
This 1st July past I pulled up to draughty parish hall in my darling father's Renault and climbed out to Zumba an hour away among a dozen forty-somethings. We danced to Pitbull and club remixes of Las Ketchup and Rocky. There was a lot of thrusting and unfortunate gyrations. Emmanuel, our tiny lithe instructor, camper than a row of pink tents with a thick, coarse, sandpapery Belfast accent, is the cause of this provocative display. We are the back-up dancers Jay Z ordered from SAGA. Except me. In the words of Macklemore, "I rocked that muthaf**ker."
And it is a blog about uncertainty.
Let me take you to the inbetween times. The times where I watched England slip away from beneath the wheels of my Easyjet flight to Belfast International and when a small, perhaps naïve voice said, "We were supposed to be in London..."
Too right we were. Me and small, naïve voice were supposed to have been gainfully employed by some, maybe small, London company. We were supposed to be finding a serviceable flat. We were supposed to be independent and cosmopolitan. We were not supposed to be flying back to our ancestral home.
This is also a blog about the times in which we live, staggering unemployment and all.
And I know this is what a vast and uncounted number of you are thinking in your heart of hearts. What do I do now? Where do I go? Will I get stuck? Where will I live? Who will I love? What is my life??? And I am here to tell you that it is perfectly alright to be thinking these thoughts and be a little bit depressed, yea verily, even unto wandering into the night at prestigious university town, finding a pub, ordering a cider, staring moodily into it and then exclaiming, "I could have been somebody Frank! I coulda been a contender. Instead of being a bum. Which is what I am." Patrons believed me to be an impromptu movie quote pub quiz... In a minute I will tell you to snap out of it and think positive, but so will so many and they won't understand the need, for at least a little while, to be melancholy.
But, this is also a blog about hope.
Enough! We have dreams! And I say unto you, I'm getting mine, better go and get yours. Keep up your hard work and don't lose your happy thoughts. I know many twenty-somethings are all in the same boat so I took it upon myself to write a bit of a ship's log.
There are very few words more depressing that "this year we received applications from a vast number of highly qualified and very able candidates. Unfortunately..." And it is there that the vast majority of us stop reading, maybe for good, maybe long enough to bang our heads against the keyboard before we have to pull ourselves together and reply with optimistic words and thanks.
I myself have read these words 72 times at the last count. I've been applying for jobs since November. So far, so poorly. But if you tickle us, do we not laugh? And if you try and try and try again, do not good things follow?
A very dear friend once said to me, "Darlin', if people read what you write you're a professional, but even if you write in obscurity forever, you'll still be a writer." I think he stole it from Wilde but I won't comment, it was a lovely thought, even second hand...
And at its heart this is a blog about not giving up.
So write I shall. I am the writer of Madrid: A Cautionary Tale which was a rip roaring success about my trials and triumphs in the capital city of Spain. And I am now the writer of "The Twenty-Somethings." And through this blog we'll go through that grubby and much handled piece of paper I hoked from my pocket as the trolley dollies of Easyjet unfastened the dining cart. The first few points read:
3. MOVE TO LONDON
4. FALL IN LOVE
5. BE READ
A line is drawn through number one. And I very much hope that the rest will follow in time. As I hope you will all follow me on my weekly perusals of life after university. It might be narcissistic prattle. It might be insanely useful. Who can say...
And so! Next week! Is the light at the end of the tunnel a train? How intimate can one get with Her Majesty's Department of Work and Pensions? And a beginners guide to fielding the "What now, young lady?" Q&A from extended family!
xo
On this 27th June past I knelt to receive a BA Hons degree from prestigious university swathed in the black cotton of my gown, the (synthetic) white fur of my hood and the sure and certain knowledge the whole wide world and all its adventures awaited.
This is also a blog about change.
This 1st July past I pulled up to draughty parish hall in my darling father's Renault and climbed out to Zumba an hour away among a dozen forty-somethings. We danced to Pitbull and club remixes of Las Ketchup and Rocky. There was a lot of thrusting and unfortunate gyrations. Emmanuel, our tiny lithe instructor, camper than a row of pink tents with a thick, coarse, sandpapery Belfast accent, is the cause of this provocative display. We are the back-up dancers Jay Z ordered from SAGA. Except me. In the words of Macklemore, "I rocked that muthaf**ker."
And it is a blog about uncertainty.
Let me take you to the inbetween times. The times where I watched England slip away from beneath the wheels of my Easyjet flight to Belfast International and when a small, perhaps naïve voice said, "We were supposed to be in London..."
Too right we were. Me and small, naïve voice were supposed to have been gainfully employed by some, maybe small, London company. We were supposed to be finding a serviceable flat. We were supposed to be independent and cosmopolitan. We were not supposed to be flying back to our ancestral home.
This is also a blog about the times in which we live, staggering unemployment and all.
And I know this is what a vast and uncounted number of you are thinking in your heart of hearts. What do I do now? Where do I go? Will I get stuck? Where will I live? Who will I love? What is my life??? And I am here to tell you that it is perfectly alright to be thinking these thoughts and be a little bit depressed, yea verily, even unto wandering into the night at prestigious university town, finding a pub, ordering a cider, staring moodily into it and then exclaiming, "I could have been somebody Frank! I coulda been a contender. Instead of being a bum. Which is what I am." Patrons believed me to be an impromptu movie quote pub quiz... In a minute I will tell you to snap out of it and think positive, but so will so many and they won't understand the need, for at least a little while, to be melancholy.
But, this is also a blog about hope.
Enough! We have dreams! And I say unto you, I'm getting mine, better go and get yours. Keep up your hard work and don't lose your happy thoughts. I know many twenty-somethings are all in the same boat so I took it upon myself to write a bit of a ship's log.
There are very few words more depressing that "this year we received applications from a vast number of highly qualified and very able candidates. Unfortunately..." And it is there that the vast majority of us stop reading, maybe for good, maybe long enough to bang our heads against the keyboard before we have to pull ourselves together and reply with optimistic words and thanks.
I myself have read these words 72 times at the last count. I've been applying for jobs since November. So far, so poorly. But if you tickle us, do we not laugh? And if you try and try and try again, do not good things follow?
A very dear friend once said to me, "Darlin', if people read what you write you're a professional, but even if you write in obscurity forever, you'll still be a writer." I think he stole it from Wilde but I won't comment, it was a lovely thought, even second hand...
And at its heart this is a blog about not giving up.
So write I shall. I am the writer of Madrid: A Cautionary Tale which was a rip roaring success about my trials and triumphs in the capital city of Spain. And I am now the writer of "The Twenty-Somethings." And through this blog we'll go through that grubby and much handled piece of paper I hoked from my pocket as the trolley dollies of Easyjet unfastened the dining cart. The first few points read:
- GRADUATE FROM PRESTIGIOUS UNIVERSITY
3. MOVE TO LONDON
4. FALL IN LOVE
5. BE READ
A line is drawn through number one. And I very much hope that the rest will follow in time. As I hope you will all follow me on my weekly perusals of life after university. It might be narcissistic prattle. It might be insanely useful. Who can say...
And so! Next week! Is the light at the end of the tunnel a train? How intimate can one get with Her Majesty's Department of Work and Pensions? And a beginners guide to fielding the "What now, young lady?" Q&A from extended family!
xo
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