Junebug
Pass the Occupied Territories Bill
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I’m moving country in a week (ish). I think I am getting more ruthless about my belongings. Not as ruthless as I should be, but ruthless for me. I got rid of an old pair of boots that I brought to a music festival a few weekends ago. Thought they should see the sea once more before death. Like an old person in a certain type of National Lottery-funded British film (ya know the type of art that says as long as we have each other we’ll be fine, but there is a like a metaphorical or real nuclear mushroom cloud out of frame?). The boots were very uncomfortable after months of indifference, and exhausted my skin. Pinched. An easy, satisfying heave-ho.
I also said farewell to a very old, very beloved pair of Uggs (they’re cosy, I’m not apologising) which I had bought with a voucher I got for attending a fashion show (one of my past lives). Then I caught myself in an elevator mirror the other weekend and decided the blue dress I was wearing, a dress I’d found much comfort in these past three years, must go. The shape, the neckline, it wasn’t the me I feel I am right now. It’s a nice dress but this is a time of sacrifice/luggage weight restrictions.
I’m doing some digital housekeeping. Transferring files from one device to my cloud. Deleting inexplicable photos. Feeling like a creep when certain screenshots flash across my screen. I’ve boxed up some books for storage. I’m making up another box of books that I’ll send over to me (they’re for research for two historical fiction things I’m working on). Rates aren’t bad, suspiciously good actually.
I’m into the final stretch. The looming date means the emotions attached to certain objects have thinned into a ‘fuck it’ or a ‘hide it in that box’. Highly recommend fleeing as an antidote to mild hoarding.
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It feels obscene to write anything lately. A terrible kind of drunk, that carnival house of mirrors. Every day the news gets worse. The West facilitates the genocide of the Palestinian people by refusing to withdraw support of Israel. The Irish government keeps posting ‘strong’ statements on Instagram squares or rectangles or whatever fucking shape modern communications is being held hostage to, but FF/FG won’t commit to including services in whatever version of an Occupied Territories Bill they will consider. Cowards while children die. Cowards while adults die. Cowards while a country is wiped from the map. But don’t worry, someone in government buildings is copying and pasting approved words into Canva. Cheap.
I woke up the other morning to the news about Israel bombing Iran. Sat in a daze, tea going cold, wondering what it would take for this to end, terrified about what it will take. Moved an appointment so I could attend the Neutrality march the next day in Dublin city centre. The rain was relentless. The music was good.
Shame on every politician in Leinster House who is chasing the death cult. Shame on Micheál Martin for flying to Israel in Autumn 2023 to pose in photos with IDF soldiers. Those photos should haunt him. They haunt me.
As Europe tries to goad us into war, remember there is nothing shameful about standing for peace. It is the one good thing you can do in this lifetime.
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I got a train to Cork the other weekend for a night away (I’m glam). At Heuston station I was clutching a hot chocolate and had an uh-oh moment when I saw a woman walk past me with an Irish flag. She was beaming. At Kent Station the far right protesters alighted, roaring, looking giddy with hate. Kids and teenagers with their parents. So scary. Walking parallel to me on the way to the city centre was a teenage girl with her father and I assume brother. She wore a sort of rugby jersey top. She carried a dark green flag with old-timey Irish font on it, some sort of 1916 merch throwback. I’ve been thinking about her since, what sort of dark and sad life she’s been leading and is walking further into. What a waste of potential.
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A lot of people online are sharing clips from the Howard Hawks-directed 1941 screwball comedy Ball of Fire (link to full movie on YouTube below). I watched it last night and while Gary Cooper is generally hot because he’s Gary Cooper, what makes him even more hot in this film is how once he sees Barbara Stanwyck singing and dancing and chatting he’s like ‘I want to listen to her until I die’. By the way, if (there is no if) you need more Gary Cooper, there’s a 1927 silent movie called Children of Divorce that is dark and interesting, Gary is illegally good-looking in it (eyeliner), tis on YouTube.
Postscript
“I mean, hopefully no one is the same person as they were a decade ago.” Ryn Weaver is back.
“The French writer Henry de Montherlant famously wrote that “happiness writes in white ink on a white page” and so it’s not surprising that most of my diary entries were full of angst.” - Anna Carey on reading her college-era diaries and using them to inform her writing of her latest novel, Our Song.
This family’s commitment to loudly loving and honouring their daughter inspires me. What they went through is so unspeakably awful. If the world was just, there would be consequences for everyone who failed Nóra and her family. I hope I never forget her name.
“That world was so much more conservative and had such a narrower idea of what men and women could be and, and what a family looks like and, and what kind of cruelty is permitted within a family.” An interview with Catherine Lacey in The New Yorker.