I broke my finger
And it was a not uncomplicated injury so I couldn’t type properly for a month. I saved my energy for work and a local history article I promised someone. And to be honest I didn’t have much to say. I was too distracted wondering if the whole world could smell my cast (I was a mummy because of the not uncomplicated aspect). Most of my days were consumed with the task of putting clothes on my body. It took me over an hour to make salsa verde one afternoon. But it was very good salsa verde.
I am completely fine! Pain-wise it was and is nothing. I’d take ten broken fingers over various other diagnoses. To issue me any sympathy is a waste of your energy. I’ll throw it back at you.
While everything has been a little bit inconvenient, I did get to live in some lovely moments. I took part in a writing summer school. Finished a lil story I was working on. Met with a writing mentor in a small hotel bar to talk about a bigger story. Got good feedback and bad critical feedback. I don’t mind the latter kind, I obviously preen under the former. I’ve booked some autumn courses to keep the sharpening going.
There’s a nice flow going for me on all the writing stuff, but I’ve no news on the publishing front. The older I get the less thirsty I am for all that anyway. I look at most previous rejections as blessings. The work was uncooked. Like when a friend reminds you of close shaves with idiots when you were younger. Although, there is something to be said for being idiot inclusive. No harm in the long run, really. I do worry about ever being the mother of a teenager. I’ll be sending them out into the world totally flammable.
Some items I liked/thought about lately:
Season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It’s just very pleasant television. Excellent haircuts.
Flying through Taylor Jenkins Reid’s recent novel Carrie Soto is Back. She writes readable books, I inhale them. Though wasn’t wild on the recent Daisy Jones show. Riley was good. But there was something off in the colour of the whole show. And it just wasn’t as fast as the book! Jenkins Reid writes fast books even when they take place over decades.
The Rock Hudson documentary, All That Heaven Allowed. The Reagans better be in hell. Elizabeth Taylor better be running heaven. Here’s a quote from her about her AIDS activism: “I became so incensed and personally frustrated at the rejection I was receiving by just trying to get people’s attention. I was made so aware of the silence, this huge, loud silence regarding AIDS, how no one wanted to talk about it and no one wanted to become involved. Certainly no one wanted to give money or support, and it so angered me that I finally thought to myself, Bitch, do something yourself. Instead of sitting there getting angry. Do something.”
The divorced characters episode of the romance novel podcast Fated Mates.
Thought Barbie and Oppenheimer both grand. Think people who go to the cinema and are checking their social media during movie screenings are terrible! Go to the bathroom! Being in the company of pigs at the trough during the bomb movie, I sorta understood why the scientists didn’t really engage with the moral consequences of a violent act. He kept turning to her to tell her what the actor on screen was in before - the movie has 564 actors with mile-long resumés - and she seemed to actually be interested in having this discussion during the movie. Laptop in bed behaviour! Chilling experience.
Got myself this nice scarf. If in Dublin try to catch the Lavinia Fontana exhibition before it closes.
If I think about the way library staff and customers are being harassed and hounded by far-right scum, I get so angry I need to turn my brain off. I can’t imagine what the people in the libraries who have to deal with the sad and dangerous bastards are going through. I emailed two of my TDs about it but no one has gotten back to me.
I loved this short story: Finger by Aidan O’Donoghue. Any Irish writing which doesn’t mention Dublin or the sea is Midlands Gothic to me.
I reread the short story The Third Day by Kevin Donnellan after watching the movie Lakelands (Danielle Galligan is great in it) in the Irish Film Institute a few months ago. They echo each other and didn’t the lead actor Éanna Hardwicke only read the story for RTÉ radio?
Bono and The Edge wrote the Goldeneye song. I was listening to it on the way to a scan the other day. Belated RIP Tina.
This was my favourite Sinéad.