We like to party

We like to party (Differentially that being the majestic plural and not the vengaboys) and as a pretty big group of friends it had been a while since all of us had last got together, so Jack threw himself a Britday party for his birthday, uniting us once more. Union Jack, ha ha.

Is that real fur? Is that a fake sheepskin rug?
No way?! Way!!
I love it, darling!

Hurrah for fancy dress for we love our Barbours, Burberry, Hunters, twee tweeds and what have you... I dare say he served up a simply spiffing old chap dinner party which proceeded to turn into a drunken hooligan snow party.

With real snow. From the sky.

Good times.....

The Coast Zone

I'm no librarian

Love is... books. Wait that's not fair, Love is... friends. No, I change my mind, Love is friends who give you books. Aha.

Do you ever get that feeling sometimes where you really want to read a certain something? Like you go and take down a Harry Potter book because, although you've read it four or five times already, you're just in the mood for it? Well I had that itching for Hemingway a few weeks ago and was paying frequent visits to the second hand book shop in town in the hope that they would get something in, but there wasn't even a sniff of anything around. Then one morning, after finishing a book I decided I was fed up waiting and asked my sister for her student card so I could go to the library. Ten minutes later the post came and what had arrived in a big white Amazonian envelope? A late birthday present ordered for me by a friend! Yes! Fiesta!

Love is... Nuala.

Still on the topic of books- when I was small I had one about Santa and his little helper. This helper had my name as my Godmother got the book printed for me for Christmas, oh but it was the most exciting thing to be in a story! I have recently received another book with my name in it, but this time I'm a horse. And the plot is a little bit um, different shall we say?

The opening page goes like this:
The mare was gleaming gold and dynamic movement and sliding, shining muscles. She was flowing mane and flying tail, racing against the wind. She was vividly aware of warm sun above, and cool grass beneath her hooves; of the background murmur of running water; of birdcall, an angry shouting at a questioning dogstoat, sleeking through the shivering stems. She was conscious of an intense joy in living, of power, and of pride that arched her slender neck. Her wide wise eyes observed the world around her, saw the sky above her, and her constantly flickering sensitive ears moved as a sudden gust groaned among the branches.
The man watching her wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in the world. He was driven by a physical need, a wild desire for possession. He wanted the feel of her warm hide against his hands, the thrill of watching her endlessly, galloping over springy turf. He wanted to caress her slim neck, to speak to her and have her conscious of him, turning her head so that her dark eyes could look at him with affection.
His mouth was dry with excitement. There never had been such a mare. She was bred from the desert wind and the moonlit night and the shimmering stars, bred from the raging need of man to find perfection. And she was perfect. Nothing flawed her. He craved her as a woman coveted a brilliant gem, as a child hungered for the glowing moon.

Yes... well... either way, Love is... Elspeth.

With thanks

Yesterday the radio said today is the national 'say thank you' day and asked people to call in with their messages. I pooh poohed the idea as another of those Hallmark money making rackets like mothers, fathers, grandparents, or whatever day; buy an expensive card to show someone that you want them to think you care. But today, silly me, I realised is actually Thanksgiving Day, a real official holiday for some people in some places. So what did I do? Went and hung out with my all-American friend Colin and baked a big sweet potato pie.
Then I came home and tried to do some work on my portfolio. I've taken an old pair of ballet shoes as my starting point and although I'm supposed to concentrate on observational studies and improving my technical drawing skills, I'm feeling a bit giddy and have got distracted by silly ideas like hand puppets

Left vs Right Hemisphere

I just read my last post and I sound like such a twat! So even though you haven't asked to hear my life story I'll explain things a little and try and put things on a sort of track...

Last year when I finished my final year exams I began a summer job with a property management company. During this time I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Namely I tried to get a Visa to go and work/live in New York but it seemed the only way this would happen is if I got a company to sponsor me to go over and work with them in my area of study. And as I didn't want to be a psychologist and didn't have a hope of getting anything through English, this idea never materialised. My next idea was to give it a go doing something I'd always been interested in and I started looking at fashion design courses where you prepare portfolios for real fashion college. Through this I found a Fashion Industry course and decided this would be a far more sensible route to take. I liked fashion, I liked writing, and I always jokingly said I'd work for Vogue when I grew up, so this course looked promising in helping make this happen. Plus I wasn't throwing away my degree, I was just putting a more creative spin on it. September came and away I went to Dublin, where I spent a lot of the year on the 7 and the 46A going in and out of Dun Laoghaire! and outside of course work I found work experience with freelance stylists, as a dressers backstage at fashion shows, doing visual merchandising in shops, I did a stint as a retail sales assistant which has to be the most boring job ever, I assisted at vintage fairs, worked with photographers, learned important skills such as how to network, met with editors and designers and set up a blog. This blog I then tried to orientate toward fashion so in applying for jobs and whatnot I could reference it in truth.

Then that year was over and I was back in Galway and back with the property management company and back to square one: what next?
I didn't tell many people what I was doing but I applied to lots of magazines and then applied for lots of regular jobs and then just wanted to run away. Fuck the lot of it. I went to Spain to Keith's house in the mountains in Spain where I got really high by the pool every day, reflecting on life and the usual existential crisis stuff. By the time I came home I had it in my head that I wanted to go to art college. Because it's what I've always wanted to do. That or be a librarian. In school they talked me out of putting Art down on the CAO so I compromised, put down Arts with an 's', deferred my place and went to GTI for a year to do the portfolio course with all intentions of re-applying to the CAO and going on to do fine art. But one thing or another led me to NUIG and I'm honestly so glad I studied there and had the opportunity of a liberal arts education. But the 'what if...?' has come nagging at me - what if I had done art? What if I were to do it now? And so after an extended period of extreme mental turmoil I'm preparing a portfolio.

It's closing a door on one sort of happiness because I could be in London with Chris right now. But hopefully it's opening a window on a future of lifelong happiness as this is the only chance I'll have to do it and get any sort of financial help from my parents (that being the living at home and not paying rent scenario) and it means I'll get to do what I want and what I like all day every day with the super extra bonus of getting paid for it. Who said you can't have your cake and eat it? Ha ha well maybe instead I'll have bread and butter and eat it because a GIANT loan is coming my way if I get accepted anywhere. Just don't ask how I feel about not following through on what I've done thus far. Lets just say two things: I'm not made for the fashion world because I'm too much in my own world to keep up: I'll always love books.

Well that's where it's at. Artistic endeavours and a self-imposed social isolation; I'm keeping myself hidden away whilst I try and be productive because there's so much to do and so little time.
Although, that said, I did take a break and venture out to party at the weekend because Chris was home for two days and we couldn't possibly not rendezvous.

What's the use between death and glory?

Dear Blog,

How are you? It has been quite some time since we last met, but rest assured I've been out of touch with essentially everyone for the greater while.
I'm just dropping a quick line for it has gradually come to my attention that we seem to have strayed somewhat from our original beginnings and our humble intentions. We started together on a self- focused route with Sylvia Plath behind us driving us toward artistic output and from this we digressed. Deviating in a direction that may have been perceived as prodigiously ambitious we persevered for such a time. We weren't the best but God bless us we tried. Now for the long and the short of it the failure has been officially confirmed.
So until tomorrow when we might know whether wisdom has reared it's head on our ever less youthful selves and blessed us with renewed hopes, lets hold our breath, because happy endings they never bored me, happy endings they still don't bore me.

If you don't mind, I don't mind.

I want to take a ride...

Ashley Smith for Jalouse

the mightiest pen

I've always been much more of a "lets go for coffee" sort of person rather than one who goes for pints, and having never got what the hype was it seemed a much more expensive and much less pleasant way to spend a few hours. Perhaps it's because I didn't used to like beer and it was difficult to know what to drink when you had to sip it so slowly without reaching into your handbag to top it up (so classy, I know). But now I like German white beer so that part's okay. And I love pubs during the day for reading and doing a spot of people watching, sitting by myself with a cup of coffee, a book and a sketchpad, especially somewhere cosy and old-manny with lots of nooks and crannys like Neachtains. But now I like sitting there with other people too and just as much as in a cafe somewhere. So when the girls asked did I want to come for a drink I decided why the hell not.
However, instead of pints we all had hot whiskeys as the cold and the rain turned us that way inclined, but the barman didn't seem to appreciate the magnitude of work involved in filling our order. Sipping on our warming goodness (before moving on to the inevitable pints) we composed a circular poem - write a line and pass it on.
Entitled either "Pulsating Loins" or alternatively "What have we got to get up for", you can read and decide:

A steely stare, eyes of steel,
Shot me with a gun (it wasn't real)
I wish it was, I would have laughed,
But instead my will was halved.

But then I began to know him more,
His finest cheap beer he did for me pour.
He gave us each a discount card,
As he could tell our lives were hard.

He mistook Ruth for a student young,
She accepted the lie and swallowed her tongue.
Falling to the floor she hit her head,
'Alas!' he cried, 'I fear she's dead!'

Ruth awoke saying 'Why do you speak like Albus Dumbledore?'
He replied 'Oh this is awkward, I'll talk like this no more'
Can't write no more, my thoughts are sparse,
This has descended into farce.

Farce or no, we must go on,
Or Ruth will swallow a baby (my rhyming is gone)...
Gone with the wind like the day to the night,
Like our youth and our looks, we've lost the fight.

Well I'm not giving up you bunch of quitters,
I am the hurl I will beat you like sliotars.
We've forgotten the bar man, it got so wild,
Screw you Zara I still look like a child.

We've lost track of the point from which we did start,
So like the children we are... I'll end with a FART

granny gone gaga

Guess what, I'm in training! Oooh you had better believe it I'm prepping myself in the long run for retirement. Open fires and Hugh Fearnley Whittingdale are my new best friends and we've been spending lots of lovely time together the past few days. With the wind and the rain and the nothing to do I can stay snuggly indoors stitching alone and bitching at nobody in particular about the state of affairs in the world today and the shocking amount of Christmas adverts already on the television. Now where's my hot whiskey?

Perfect Ten

I have a self-imposed internet rule: No Shopping. Except for Amazon. I can look and I can like but I cannot have.

But sometimes, like the times when I'm suffering from cabin fever from hiding from three days and three nights of constant miserable rain, I see too much of the internet and too little of reality which makes me question whether it might be okay to make an exception to my exception.

Today I came across Dimepiece Designs who say their recurring theme each season is the interconnection of women and power. I just need to take that power and use it for positive thinking - I'mhappywithmyclothesIdon'tneedtobuyanymoreI'mhappywithmyclothesIdon'tneedtobuyanymoreI'mhappywithmyclothesIdon'ttobuyanymoreI'm happywithmyclothesIdon'tneedtobuyanymoreI'mhappywithmyclothesIdon'tneedtobuyanymore

Let them eat cake

In the beginning there were scarves. Mile upon mile of silk scarves and silk and cashmere scarves oh the luxury! The fashionable giraffes were in their element! Long necked zoo creatures and some certain folk have all the luck. Like designer Julien David- Paris-born, New York-trained, and Tokyo-based he was there in the beginning with the scarves. And he's here now with more.
His collections are themed along some of his strongest personal interests, including freestyle skateboarding, computer hacking and artificial growth. His concept for fall 2010 was graphically based around pills and the designs range from prints of hundreds of minuscule pills lined up beside each other to create a plaid pattern or just a giant two metre long pill....cool...

Expanding into other garment designs he is currently working on the connection he feels with the energy of big cities, their streetwear and urban mix of cultural arts and music. He wants to communicate the attitude of the street to those who hold a narrow perception of what is acceptable as high-end clothing by using precious materials but common references in his designs and so trying to challenge the current perception of what a luxury product is.
This time he has girls and their bicycles his focal point; BMX bike tracks shape the collection with dirt track imprints and bike graphics, ostrich skin shinpads and helmets constructed from lacquered human hair, and reflections of these hexagonal shapes in the shoulders of the jackets.
The pieces are more posh than they are practical but they're challenging and far from contrived, so a little bit of something for everyone (except the giraffes). Myself I like the 'shapeless' tent-shaped tops - one for the hippopotamus' I dare say.