Why celebrity crushes are INCREDIBLE.

Ah, the old celebrity crush...the refuge of those who realise that their partners have feet of clay/that there are no eligible men within a fifty-mile radius/who are bored out of their minds.  As a confirmed singleton of the last three years, let me state for the record that celebrity crushes have kept me sane in an otherwise insane world.  "Pah!" I hear you cry, "you are pathetic!" I put it to you that I am not, and that you're probably nursing a big ol' celeb crush yourself, if you're going to be entirely honest. Go on, let yourself think about him/her. It's only the two of us, and once I tell you what I'm about to tell you, you'll understand why I will never, ever judge you. Even if you end up in a bush outside their house, in the rain, with an oversize mac on and a ghetto blaster, a la John Cusack in Say Anything.

Caitlin Moran said in "How To Be A Woman" that she had a crush so profound, so exquisite, and so tangible, on a comedian that she genuinely felt like he was an ex, and that her friends had to pull her away from approaching him when she finally saw him in the flesh, because he actually did not know her from Adam, and they had never gone out, which confused her. Ahaha. Ha. Ha haaa ha. That is chickenfeed, people. I see her confusion, and I raise her. I can beat that hands down. Because I know, for a fact, that Gary Oldman is actually my ex-husband and by rights, should be paying me alimony.

I've always had crushes. When I was a tiny tot in England, I had a crush on Noel Edmonds from "Saturday Swap Shop", which meant that I wanted him to hold my hand and give me sweeties (and roast beef flavoured Monster Munch, so good you'd be licking the MSG off your fingers for hours afterwards) and just look after me, in general. There was...oh, let me see...Philip Schofield from The Broom Closet, on BBC, when we moved back to Ireland...mostly because he showed Ulysses 31 and I still love that damn cartoon. Setting Homer's The Odyssey in space? With a rather hot Ulysses to boot? How could I not have loved Philip Schofield? Then there was Midge Ure, when I first saw the video to "Vienna", then when I was twelve, it was Bruce Willis because of "Moonlighting", and from 13 to 17, it's a blur. A blur, because when I was 17, Bram Stoker's Dracula was released and from the moment I saw the first ad for it, BOOM. Time stopped. Everything stopped. From the first moment I saw Gary Oldman in that beautiful blue suit, with the top hat and the weirdy sunglasses, I knew what a pure and untouchable, white-hot furnace lust really was.

1992 was a far more technologically innocent time.  It was over 20 years ago. No mobiles, no youtube, no easy access to the object of your desire via the internet; oh no, we were old school. If you fancied an actor, you went to the cinema to see his films. If you fancied a singer, you watched Top of the Pops or watched MTV if you could get it. You were on a starvation diet, where you scanned every single film magazine or gossip magazine or newspaper to glean even the teeniest scrap of information on him to consume hungrily, ravenously, ingesting it until it became part of you. It was wonderful. The anticipation, the frisson of longing and need, all in the days before I had actually had sex (and even then, it was a while before the good stuff really started to happen) and I could project all of my yearning onto poor old Gary Oldman. I arranged a group of us to go to the cinema from school, I had stuck pictures of the film all over my school notebook, I was already a complete nerd about it, and all way before it came to my provincial Irish town. I already knew that gothic horror "did it" for me, the Victorian stuff especially. No great surprises there. But oh my...the night I finally saw the film, I could not breathe. I fell so ridiculously, so hopelessly in love with that man I could have pulled the head off that vanilla milksop of a Mina, Winona Ryder. I blazed in fury during that scene where they both pet the white wolf, at the cinematograph, when Dracula nearly seduces her. NEARLY!!! What the fuck was wrong with the frigid beach?? I totally supported Lucy and her descent into the unholy, I cried when Dracula got killed, tried to ignore Keanu Reeves'...well, Keanu Reeves, to be honest. Jesus, that film could have been so much better without that tree in a lead role. Or Winona Ryder. Or a bit less self-indulgence...but I digress.

Long after the credits had rolled, my crush stayed in place. To call it a crush is to liken an Aston Martin DB5 to a Toyota Yaris, in that they are both four-wheeled vehicles. Everything, everything was about him. Everything. I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, State of Grace, Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears, anything with him in it that I could get my hands on. It is still the longest and most pernicious crush I've ever had on someone I didn't know and will never meet. He was a demon - I can still remember the trajectory of our relationship like it was yesterday.  Our eyes locked across a crowded bar in London, and that's all she wrote. We were together all the time, and the night we met, we ran up rain-soaked streets in London with The Bangles' cover of Hazy Shade of Winter playing in the background. Oh, we were that epic - he pushed me into a doorway and kissed my face off. He almost stripped me right then and there, and of course, in the montage of our first meeting, cut to scene of a huge bed, no sheets, and a massive plate glass window behind us, full on night sky, very much like the scene in Highlander when they finally get it on. (How come no one ever notices the seriously unintenional comedy scene-splicing to the lion roaring during that lovemaking scene? Still cracks me up.) Gary Oldman was mad about me. He punched a guy at a party for daring to talk to me. He got angry with other women for chatting him up.  You know, all the stuff in an imaginary relationship that means that he is nuts about you, and the stuff that, if it happened in real life, there would be a you-shaped hole in the door as you ran screaming into the night away from the controlling freak you ended up with.

Of course, we broke up. Pretty much around the time when I met my first real boyfriend and Gary got forgotten about. I still supported him, that man I married in my head and had to leave for earnest, heart-felt reasons - not least being that he was a figment of my imagination. I went to see Leon and had the strength of character to admit that he was good. I could look over the fact that we were only recently divorced. But time moves on, and years fly by, and before I knew it, last year I went to Red Riding Hood (terrible) and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (brilliant) and I'm glad to say that Gary Oldman was the best thing in both. The former I would expect, but the latter is quite a feat; John Hurt, to my mind, is our greatest living actor and Gary Oldman stole the show. So much so, that as I watched him, I heard Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were in my head, and I felt ridiculously proud of him, as if he was actually, in real life, my ex-husband and all the hurt was finally over. I felt like he watched me grow from a girl into a woman and all that crazy ass crap, until I realised something very important - if I ever meet him, it will be the first time we've ever met, and there will be no silent, wistful gazes. We actually do not know each other. And that feels wrong. I'm serious. It feels wrong to me.

Gary passed the baton to Benedict Cumberbatch in Tinker Tailor. The first husband gave the green light to the potential second; within the first five minutes of the BBC series Sherlock, I could not believe the thoughts I was having about the paedophilic horror from Atonement. So we embarked on a relationship full of cultural pursuits and piss-ups, in which I repeatedly made him do his infamous impersonation of Alan Rickman. This is actually real, you can google it. Benedict Cumberbatch can do Alan Rickman singing Candle in the Wind. Brilliant. He took me to Paris, we lived in the British Museum, the best hotels, the best sex, the best conversation...the most smug, became quite boring, realised over time that he really is an odd-looking bloke and that maybe it's Sherlock Holmes who's really sexy, not him...then over Christmas I finally discovered The Mighty Boosh. Goodbye, Benedict Cumberbatch, hello, Noel Fielding.

Ah, my cheeky otter, of absurdist humour and startlingly erotic Kate Bush performances (google, it's so worth it), so ridiculously handsome and so right up my street...70s glam, perky goth, vivid blue eyes, looks incredible in girl's clothes, his voice is like sexualised melted white chocolate with a curly-wurly thrown in...we rolled out of every bar in Camden while I wore Victorian gothic clothes and he looked like Marc Bolan. Whereas Cumberbatch and I went to the opera, the ballet, dinner, all the stuff I love, Fielding and I snogged for hours by Cleopatra's Needle. Rolled around Camden and Shoreditch at all hours, hooting and laughing, crashed parties, danced like lunatics, stayed in bed for days - we were rock and roll, all the way. It lasted until my friend Neil told me to shut the fuck up about him. Pop! Bang goes the imaginary relationship. I don't mind; in the last year, I've gone out with Benedict Cumberbatch and Noel Fielding, and truth be told, I need a break. Need to refuel the batteries and take a breather.

The thing is, crushes serve to keep our flirting muscles flexed for when we meet someone really cute. If, in your head, you pulled a rake of famous men, it can make you a little less wary of chatting up real people, and can make you more amenable to being chatted up by them. As long as you remember that it's just a laugh, that you are not actually saving yourself for the object of your affection and truth be told, you wouldn't choose to be in their company for five minutes in the real world, you're grand. Crushes make you feel sexy and attractive when real attention or suitable distractions are thin on the ground, so indulge when the urge arises and enjoy it. Unless your a serious masochist, nobody ever gets hurt in the world of your sexual imagination - or needs precautions - so go for it!

Now where's my copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula?

Oh, Baby

When I'm not complaining about the PhD and part-time work, I also sometimes manage to see my friends. "Yay!" I hear you cry. "Quit whining, woman, and tell us the other stuff!" Well, this month, I got to see my two very best friends. The ones that live in different continents - one in America, and one in Australia. These are the friends that changed my life; the women that made me who I am. They inspire, challenge, support and love me.  They've seen me through my very lowest points and celebrate with me during the best of times. They're also intelligent, hilarious, witty, generous and kind, and they're all mine. No, you can't have them. They are all mine. All...for....me.

We're at the stage now where we don't always get to stay in contact with each other as much as we would like, but we always pick up from exactly where we left off. Thank the gods for facebook and skype, but nothing beats being in the same room with them. When I knew that they were coming home, nothing but death was going to keep me at home. I would have shot the laptop and set fire to my place of work if I'd had to. Not only were my two favourite women coming home, but one of them was bringing her twin baby girls with her for their christening. I say "christening", but it was more like a gathering, and it was the reason for a mini-exodus to my friend's family house. She's from a big family, and after a shared friendship with her siblings (and more recently, her parents) for many years, they feel like my family, too. I also jumped at the chance to visit them all at home for the first time, and get a picture of me on the tractor before I left. Mission accomplished.

Meeting the twins was like meeting celebrities. I've known about them since...let's call her Fransisca....first became pregnant and discovered it was twins. I watched her get bigger on skype and facebook and sympathised with her as her pregnancy was not easy in the least. But the excitement...oh, the excitement of knowing that Fransisca and her husband had actually made human beings, and they were going to be born, was electric. For the first time, I regretted my choice of taking on the PhD because I really, really wanted to go and help. She lives in Oz, after all, and while she lives with her lovely husband...erm....Lazarou, there's only two of them. I wished I could help the adults outnumber the babies. Six hands is better than four, and all that. Moving to Oz not being an option, I had to wait for the christening to meet them and help them and hug them and kiss them.

I'm not articulate enough to communicate effectively the tidal wave of emotion that I experienced when I first saw them. It was in the early hours of a Friday morning when they were brought out from their room, in the arms of their parents, and the second I clapped eyes on Beautiful One, and then Beautiful Two, I was hooked. They were instantly the most interesting people I had ever met, and the most fun, and the most endearing. Your best friend's babies are more addictive than crack - fact. I would have foregone a week of passion with Benedict Cumberbatch for them. A week in Rome, with an Aston Martin DB9, in a five-star hotel, on sheets made from gold and silk and money in a room filled with the British Museum, while the Prima Porta statue of Augustus looked on. No thanks, Cumberbatch, I've twins to meet. Everything the babies did fascinated me. They have so much personality already; no surprises there, really. I spent the next few days watching them, trying to make them laugh, playing with them, being completely enamoured by them. I loved it. And it was during this time that I came to realise something; this is probably never going to happen for me.

There was no wailing or gnashing of teeth with this realisation; I'm vocal about not wanting to have children, and now, I feel like the places I had on reserve for children have been taken up by Beautiful One and Beautiful Two. And when my other friend who lives in America....I'm going to call her Barbara Bel Geddes...has babies, it will be the same. I'm not in a relationship. I'm not looking for one. I'm 37, and the window of time for viable fertility is getting smaller and smaller - and I can feel it. My body is changing, and it really doesn't cost me any thought (apart from being damn annoying and inconvenient) or make me despair for The Life Not Lived. It's not my style. I'm just glad to be here. Everything else is a bonus. I don't have a plan for procreation, and it's not something I ever wanted to pursue for its own sake. Now, I imagine that this blog entry could be quite different if I, like Fransisca, were married to a long-term boyfriend, but I'm not. And even then, to be honest, it would be a difficult decision to make, and there's a heavy chance that the answer would still be no.

But my word, do I love being Cool Aunt Fall Girl. I love it so much, it's been hard to think about other stuff since I came back home. It's a strange sensation, to have your primal drive for reproduction totally taken care of by your friend's babies, but that's the closest I can come to describing the experience. I am so grateful to Fransisca and Lazarou (bloody hell) for making the mammoth trip to come home and let me have time with those two little incredi-babies, and to Barbara Bel Geddes for being here too. Even if I did cry all over her. Oh wait - I cried all over a few people. Sorry guys. I will pray for more time with you, if you guys pray for me to get some decent cash together so I can come and see you. Just when I thought I couldn't love either of you more, this happens. Who's the luckiest Fall Girl in the world? I am.

In Which I Discover That My Part-Time Job Is Ruining My PhD

Ok so, if you've been reading my last few posts, you'll know that it's been tricky to balance working part-time and try to move on with my studies. Well, I've been doing some thinking, and I've realised that part-time retail work and the PhD are not compatible. I'm going to have to put some time into looking around for something more suitable, and I'm really going to have to get going on looking for funding elsewhere.

Part-time retail work sounds ideal as a part-time job, doesn't it? I certainly thought that it was a workable option. After more than a year of trying to balance both, it turns out that nothing is further from the truth. Retail is not a nice little money earner on the side. I'm sure you, dear reader, have your own experiences of what the service industry is like to work in. The petty politics, implicit bullying, power struggles, flagrant flouting of employment rights, the crap wage.....yada yada yada. You all know the drill, I'm sure. I'm blue in the face trying to explain that I am not free to cover days off at work because So-and-So needs that day to go somewhere/doss/feels like staying at home.  And "It's just for a few hours" doesn't matter. A four-hour shift might seem like nothing to anyone who isn't studying, but it is the guts of the day to a researcher. And equally, I can't say no to everything. I have to be somewhat flexible and help when I can, most especially at our busiest times. I don't mind this. I'm a conscientious person. But work is getting my best work, so to speak. Dealing with criminally rude/ignorant customers, trying to lift more than my body weight every week and dealing with all the other total nonsense that comes with retail work is starting to seriously affect everything else in my life. And no, I'm not being dramatic.

Yeah yeah, Fall Girl, I hear you say. You're repeating yourself; what's the answer? Well, the answer may lie in actually starting to make the jump between Student Who Desperately Needs A Part-Time Wage to Graduate Student Who Can Actually Cobble Together A Module To Teach At The Local College. The money would be better, the work would be directly related to my studies and there would be more flexibility. I wouldn't have to keep saying no to the really important events that happen at the university on the days I work. I'm going to have a go at applying for the most hard-won award for arts grads, the IRCHSS.  (HA! Goodbye, sanity.) The thing is, I don't feel like a PhD student. I feel like someone who works part time and sometimes gets the chance to research, and that is not a tenable situation at all. It's shit, in fact. As much as it kills me to admit this even to myself, something has to give and dear God, I do not want it to be my PhD.

I need money. I need to bring in a wage every month, end of story. The grant is not enough to live off; believe me, I've tried.  When my grant cheque does come in, it's much needed for bills. Rent, direct debits, winter clothes, all the stuff that builds up that my minimum wage can't take care of. And of course, here comes Christmas. Wonderful, fun, insanely expensive, busiest- time- at- work Christmas. I love it, but as I host Christmas for my family, I'm already getting slightly stressed out about working full time for a few weeks and trying to get Christmas dinner made. It nearly killed me last year - but that dinner was totally worth it, even if I do say so myself. It was fricking delicious. It would also be nice to see some of my friends, but I'm not hopeful. Work is way too crazy during that time, and lack of sleep or having a few drinks is not an option when I'll be in work almost every day. Ten years ago, sure, but not now. Stress does not make me the most sociable of people, either. Best to wait for the New Year.

So, I write this entry under a bit of a cloud. My plan is not working, but I'm glad to be able to recognise it. I will keep you posted of course....and could I ask for a favour? Wish me luck. I'll totally return the favour when you need it.☺

Why Julia Gillard Rules; How to Own the Opposition

Have a look at this. It is a master class on how to own the boy's club.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-09/julia-gillard-attacks-abbott-of-hypocrisy/4303634

There's a new woman in town.

MALE???

I just noticed that my profile said I was male.....



..............news to me.


Sheesh.

I can't get started

So, as I've mentioned before, I'm a PhD student. Cut to montage of me, walking around generic university campus, in the Autumn, with fabulous Autumn outfit, carrying books to and fro the lecture hall.  The reality isn't quite the same.

Cut to montage of me, in my flat, wearing years-old jeans and worn t-shirt, staring at the screen blankly and beginning to panic. Cut to me, wondering what the hell is going on and who's in charge here? Surely someone must know what I'm doing? Surely this -this - isn't the process? Panicking about sounding like an idiot, worrying about my horrific lack of writing skills, being terrified by bibliography and the mountain of research that I just can't link up? I thought my everyday life would magically change. I thought that there would be some great secret I would learn; some wonderful and elegant serenity that would enter my life on acceptance to the doctoral programme. Nope.

I really, really love the premise of my PhD. I love it. I'll give a tiny hint; it involves me capitalising on my life-long love, scary stuff. That's all you're getting, by the way. But when you've spent the first year going one century previous to the one you really wanted to study, things start to get confusing. When you don't actually get to do what you thought you would, you get a bit disenchanted. When you have to deliver your work in a departmental review and you get torn to shreds, you begin to lose hope. You realise that you don't really have a bloody clue what you're doing or how you ended up at this point. You wonder when the email or letter will come that tells you that your efforts were appreciated, but this PhD business is obviously not for you - because it is hard, rigourous, arduous and quite often, boring.

I'm not anything like near enough to where I thought I'd be at this point. I've had to change the direction of my thesis and it still feels like I'm running uphill with my legs bound. There are a few reasons for this, of course.

I have to work part time or starve. I don't have unlimited funding, and time is running out for that. I work three days a week, leaving four for PhD work. Wonderful, right? And it is...it is in no way ideal, but it's not as bad as it could be. The problem is, I am usually wrecked after three days of heavy lifting, sticking a false smile on my face for 8 hours at a time and all the other tiny factors that add up to make work so tiring. Trying to get motivated to do some PhD work on those days is almost impossible. And those days are immovable from week to week. So every single week, I know exactly where I will be. It's hard to get time off and I can't afford it anyway, which leads to another problem.

Doing the same thing, day in, day out, whether for the PhD or work, can be wearing and soul destroying. There is very little variation. Both are demanding and knackering.  I don't have the funds to go anywhere or do anything special. No holidays. Big deal, really; holidays don't bother me so much. It's the gradual grinding down of my motivation and energy, which most people in Ireland are going through as well.

I am one of the luckiest  people living in Ireland today. I don't owe the bank anything more than my credit card balance, which is the smallest I could get. I don't have children that I can't afford to send to school, or college, or feed or clothe. I have not been made redundant and I don't have to work harder for less money and cope with cuts made by the government. My bills, and my needs, are small. It will be a struggle to get funding, that's a given. As I get older, it's harder and harder to keep going and balance about 20 balls in the air. All the frustrating and time-consuming stuff like house work, food shopping, bill paying and everything else, gets done by me.  But there's a kind of freedom in that I don't rely on anyone else to do what I have to do.  I like the feeling of independence and capability I get when I pay my rent, or pay off a bill, or take care of business. So what's the problem?

I'm worn out. I can't fake it till I make it, this week. There have been a few too many upheavals to my routine lately that I can't seem to get over. I had absolutely no money left after paying my rent and my bills this week. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I don't care too much, once there's food in the fridge and the library is open.  But this time, it feels like failure on my part. Like  this is how it will always be; struggle and knock - back and struggle and knock-back, and I'm not sure any more if it's worth it.

I usually feel like this just before a renewed burst of energy. What goes up, must come down, and all that. But I'm sharing this because - well hey, that's what a blog is for, right? - I'm going to paraphrase a well-known saying. Be careful what you wish for. If you get it, you will get all the problems and difficulties that go with it too.  And you better get used to sucking up how tired you feel, or how bored, or how much you really might just want to run away as fast as your legs can carry you.

If you manage to do that, please tell me how.

"So how come a nice girl like you is single?"

"Because fuck you, that's why."


As I rapidly approach my fortieth year, I realise that there is much to celebrate.  I have a nice apartment, I'm studying for my PhD - hellish as it can be, it's pretty interesting - I have great friends, a part-time job and I've achieved quite a lot of the things I wanted to achieve. I'm looking forward to finishing my doctorate and doing a bit more travel, I might actually get around to writing that novel I've been threatening to write since age 12, and hopefully, the economic climate and a nice academic job will mean that I can finally start driving and build my own place. So, all in all, I'm a relatively happy camper. Independent, enjoying my life, still crazy after all these years.

Still, the question I am most frequently asked is "So are you doing a line with anyone? No? Would you not get yourself a nice fella?" People who ask me this question are blissfully unaware of how insulting it is. They don't mean to be insulting, of course; they're asking without thinking so they can mentally slot me into a category they're familiar with. I'm and adult woman, therefore I must have one of these three things going on:

A) Have a boyfriend

B) Be married

C) Have children


I have realised that the polite way to answer this question is not the reply I have written above - no matter how much I want to say it. I'm usually frustrated enough to say that, because the truth is that the last three years of being single have been my happiest. Ever. When I realised that my long-term relationship was not going to work, I ended it, moved back home, found a new place to live and started applying for the PhD and the grant.  I reconnected with old friends and my family and danced with joy when my application to university was accepted. (PAH!! What a naive, trusting fool I was!) As difficult, financially, as that first year of living by myself was, I loved it. I woke up every day with Aretha Franklin in my bedroom doing jazz hands and singing "Freedoooom.....Freedoooooom, woah FREEEDOOOOOOMM" from Think. Candi Staton was in the kitchen singing "Young Hearts Run Free" and winking at me while I made toast and tea in my pyjamas.

There's a very strange assumption, usually made by people in couples (in my experience) that if you are single, there is something missing. If you're single and 37, you obviously must be tearing your hair out. I've been asked all manner of very personal questions by people, innocently trying to understand or ascertain why I'm single. I'm not alone; I have a few friends who are also single, and we constantly grumble about getting the worst seating at weddings. We get the Weird Table. You know the one, it was Table 13 in The Wedding Singer. We can't sit with all our friends who are in couples - and who are all laughing uproariously - while we get stuck talking to the weird uncle who's obviously still very much a virgin at 50, who keeps looking at our cleavage and being seriously inappropriate. The worst assumption is that if you're single, you must be desperate. If you go out with your friends and some kid who just learned to shave hits on you, and you completely ignore that, as any sane woman would, you're too picky. (This recently happened. I kid you not.) And if you spurn these advances enough - advances from guys that you'd think twice about saying "hello" to, never mind sleep with) then the "problem" of being single is yours, and you're being your own worst enemy.

Trying to explain that it is your choice to be single is rarely believed, either. I choose to be single until I meet someone whom I genuinely like. Who seems like good fun. Someone who's enjoying their life, has nice manners, likes Hammer Horror films and thinks that the British Museum is a really cool place to go. That's really it. I'm not waiting for some Mr. Darcy/James Bond/Prince Charming type of fictional character. That said, I'm also not going to waste any time on guys who I know from the get-go are not going to work out for me. I'm not going to ignore all I've learned for the sake of saying that I'm going out with somebody. Not even for a really kick-ass seat at a wedding.


Not everyone is suited to being single. It can be tough, having to fend for yourself. At times, I would certainly appreciate having another pair of hands around the house, to do the cooking/housework/washing/ while I tear my hair out over PhD rewrites. It would be great to have someone else take the time to pay the bills and do the food shopping. Especially when I'm sick. But even when I was in relationships, I never had all my needs met at the exact time that I had needs. It was hard work and compromise, if memory serves, not hearts and flowers and nurture all day.


 And I know this to be an inalienable truth - I was far more lonely in the wrong relationship than I have ever been, for any amount of time, in the single years.