Goodnight #1

Tom Waits. It's late. It's cold outside. Almost December.

You're not here. I'm not there. A disappointment made a joy of by impermanence. I miss you gently when it's only for a night.

You're awake on the other side of town. Thinkin of me a little in-between whatever you're watchin.

I will never know the exquisite melancholy or the screaming regret of loving you from far away. This is just far enough.

See you tomorrow night, baby. Goodnight.

Dole Office Q & A

Queasy southside journalist: I see you're queuing up to sign on then.

A guy: You do.

Q: And tell me, how does that make you feel?

A: How does it make me feel? Em ... it makes me feel like I have to sign on, you know.

Q: Is it not a very depressing process for a man like yourself?

A: It's just queuing up to sign a thing.

Q: But don't you feel let down by property developers and investment managers, the robber barons of the Celtic Tiger?

A: Not really no.

Q: What about the process of actually queuing up and signing on, how do you find that?

A: I guess it's a bit like going to the bank at lunchtime.

Q: But isn't it sort of chastening to be here, surrounded by the em, by the full range of modern Irish society.

A: No.

Q: Don't you feel it's symptomatic of a deeper spiritual malaise afflicting the country.

A: Nah.

Q: This great cross-section of multinational post-boom credit crunch Ireland.

A: It's just a bunch of people who don't have jobs.

Q: It think it's more than that. I think it's a metaphor for the way the mendacious proclivities of the investment class leave the ordinary Joe waiting for economic self-actualisation.

A: I see.

Q: Or maybe it's a metaphor for the way society as a whole has failed a new generation of young people ... who do you think Obama is for us? As a symbol, I mean? Do you find him symbolic?

A: Here, what do you want?

Q: Em, can I cut in?

A: No.

Stephanie Meyer's Teenage Vampire The Office

The girl - whose name wasn't Stephanie or anything - was a completely fictional person but very likeable like me and I hope you like her.

Edward was a dark and brooding presence, like a character in a book.

The atmosphere was darkly magical, like in a really great music video by a really dark band like Muse or Coldplay. Those are my favourite bands because I'm alternative. But back to the book.

Edward said something that was meant be enigmatic but also meant to drive her away but not really. Every time he did that, she felt more attracted to him which is hardly surprising really when you think about it. I remember when I was seventeen.

Their doomed love might not work out because of the obstacles!

1001 Stupid Books for December

1. Why Don't We Eat Potatoes Raw? and 100 other questions that seemed interesting one time in the pub
2. Gamblers Don't Always Win! and 100 other things everybody forgot for a while there, by Someone who now insists they saw it coming
3. 27-year-old celebrity of no consequence's second autobiography, entitled "My Redemption and Me"
4. 1 of 3 things your aunty presumes you're into because you're a boy/girl/facebook
5. 99c copy of Cecelia Ahern's A Place Called Here (2006)
6. I'm bored but you get the idea

Weekend Away

These are the lost weekends of my youth

You give them to me

I arrived late

The show is over

You ushered me backstage and did it all again

These are the lost weekends of our love

We have them

None can take them from us as we age

No hassled months of grind, no thankless turning

There is no future time in which we never had today

These are the lost weekends of my life

These are the weekends

And these I will recall when I am old

We stayed in bed and finished all the orange juice

And God I used to love the way she'd yawn and call me mister

These are the lost weekends of you and me

You wake up and look at me sideways

All eyes

And smile before you know what you're doing

It must be four o'clock

But neither of us really gives a damn about the world