I am sitting in a café and a man was up at the counter paying the bill for him and a woman and said, “I’d like to pay for this girl’s breakfast”. The word reflex - of which I am also often guilty - has made my soft food breakfast of bananas and porridge taste suddenly burnt.
I am on the near masticated diet because there is a wasp nest building in my throat. I have a cold. When you tell people you have a cold, when you are guilty of being the ultimate bore, you get parroted back, “there’s something going around”. And it takes all the will power in the world to tell your mother in Tipperary that you hardly caught the same strain as the residents of Templemore when you’ve spent the last few days in a southside Dublin borough, where a woman in a fur coat tried negotiating free stamps in the post office yesterday. At this stage, I could tell you what Armani eyeshadow quads fly off the shelves. I’ve seen things. I heard about a successful community campaign to remove a small phone mast thingy, which explains why every time I enter Super Valu the internet disappears and meal planning chats goes to shit.
But anyway, there is something going around. I have a cold. It is probably the same cold many people up and down this small country have. It is a thoroughly dissatisfying turn of events which means cancelling other events - not that the diary is bursting, mind. I’m in the mood where I’d take the free breakfast and let you call me ‘girl’. But nothing beyond that. This isn’t OnlyFans, and tbh I’m not too sure what OnlyFans is. I’m sure someone in an Aran sweater and black bicycle shorts will tell me about it at party in the coming months.
Today I want to direct you towards a piece of writing that I loved. Grief Bacon by Helena Fitzgerald has been my favourite newsletter for years, and she’s wrapping the outlet up in a few weeks. Yesterday she wrote about the song Maps and what it means.