Water water

12.00AM SMS to Twangy's mobile from JB:
drink some water
13.00PM A little more water
14.00PM Have a little sup
15.00PM A little boiled water
And so on. I don't know why, it must be one of those blessed mysteries that make marriage work, but I find this very sweet. You see, last night I had a bout of cystitis (horrors! dreads!) but it seems that with all these helpful hourly reminders to imbue enough H2O to sink a Mediterranean cruiser, I may yet have dodged that burning bullet.
That is the JB. The problem, but also the solution. My heart nearly failed me last week - he'd gone away for a few days for St Patrick's Day to see his father at the Edge of the World (aka remotest Kerry) - and I was left to brood over our situation. While others pirouetted and cavorted their way down O'Connell St, painted green, I was weeping quietly into my keyboard. I don't know why it hit me so. (I mean, obviously, I'd like to blame St Patrick, but I'm finding it tricky to find the thread of responsibility that joins a shamrock-loving medieval saint to my marital problems). I feel as if I am grieving for the happy calm early years of marriage I had so arrogantly envisaged. I feel I am making an adjustment to the reality of what and where we are, and it's hard, sometimes. But it's so strange too, it's like a wave breaking over me and then it's over, and I am - not fine exactly - but peaceful enough and able to look forward to things.
I went to have water torture this week a la pelvic ultrasound. It seems that I have some little fibroids and a little cyst. Nothing to worry about, really, but as the doctor explained, there could be some "polycystic element" going on there, which could be an explanation for our non-up-the-spout-ness, if the JB's test turns out to be normal. Indeed, I did have some cysts in the past. And though my tests were all fine, and dandy, when I looked at the list of symptoms, I thought I recognised the moodiness and acne. (Blooming Nora, what a syndrome. Talk about insult and injury. Infertility, weight gain AND depression. And if that wasn't enough, have some painful volcano-like spots too). He is going for that on Wednesday, poor feller.
In the meantime, I am working away on my shows, and I had precisely 3 weeks to turn out a ton of animated scenes. Yikes. The clocks are driving me flipping crazy. (Another witty clock joke! I slay myself).
It seems that somehow there is however time to go to Eindhoven to see my college friend Joa.nie in Str.p. She is in a show with A.phex Twin and Laurie Ander.son! Oh the reflected glory! and the reflected reflected glory! for yes, I helped her make her performance machine, wherein she will lurk for the 10 days of the festival ("err" I said, "are you sure you really want it to be that small?") albeit in that slightly nay-saying way. I am so looking forward to it. OH WOW! Give me a change of scene and I am all excited.
In the meantime, hand me down a glass of water. I'll need to be in good shape for all this.

universes collide

Oh my. I just ate a half bar of chocolate.
(No regrets).

An extraordinary thing happened to today.
Some back story first.
At one point in my illustrious career I worked in a localization dept with a crowd of rather glamorous multinational translators. (FIGS and Brazilian we used to call them). Amongst these were a scattering of Irish people, and among these few, was International Man of Intrigue, KD. KD was a not-the-marrying-kind, fairly outrageous character, with the ability to at will pass under the radar - at times charming, at times cutting, but clever as a cat, and as cute as a fox. Everyone knew him in the company. I remember he lived in D9 the first year or so we worked in the company. He'd pedal off in the evening to the little room in a terraced house that he rented for a modest sum. Later, I went to parties in his new house on the rather cool Capel St, with a big roof top terrace where you could drink your beer under the stars.

We all left the company, one by one, after a couple of years, in search of something new to do. KD, whose default attitude was one of discontent, but whose brain was brilliantly Machiavellian in its manouevres, stayed on to the bitter end, and, calculating his every move to the second, he picked up both his redundancy and achieved the maximum profit possible with his share options.
(*Share options! Ah! How very 1998*)

Years pass. I end up in the USA working at making cartoons for a mad millionaire, and he ended up in Barcelona, the better to live in the style he so dearly wished to become accustomed to.

We stay in touch, if sporadically. He and various Spanish friends came to stay in my apartment. LC sees him when she is in Spain for a conference, and is shown around all the gay bars, to her amusement. Whenever I see him, it's like we have never been apart. We are friends, after a fashion, but with limits. I am too suspicious and have too long a memory to disregard his less kind commentaries, and the way we women are interchangeable to him. (I am offended that he is immune to my charms, to be honest. I could be anyone! Does he not realize how fantastic I really am? ;0)
But he is sweet, funny and self-deprecating too and we rub along quite well for the short times we spend together.

Cut to the present day: I come home from the weekly visit to the Homestead to squeak open our front door on a pile of post. I pick one up and it is addressed to KD, at our address.
Yes. To the aforementioned KD, sent from a government department who still has his address here, after all these years. Here, at our house. So this house, our house, with the characterful floorboards and bumpy walls, was his house in D9 in 1995, where he rented a room (this room I am in now) from a man, and from where cycled into work everyday to work with me.