Right. You lot get ten minutes of my skilled and unique view of life. And that is by the clock people, I’m timing this.

To start with, I have been sick. As in, med cert for two weeks sick. My sinuses got infected, and then my inner ear, so I’ve been fatigued and exhausted in ways that moved from casual to formal. Bed rest, soup, weary eyes looking up at the ceiling once and then going back to sleep, the whole nine yards.

All recovered, I returned to work. My will for life was not quite there yet, but that was out of my hands. Barring lotto wins, life had to happen anyways. Then, on Friday, giving little man a bath, I noticed the most delightful blotches. All over him. Chicken pox, alright, right on time. He was the last person in his room at creche to get it, but he saved the best for last. And the creche obviously would not accept him until he was no longer contagious.

The interweb said that it would take ten days to get over it. Shooooot. Calamine lotion and Calpol. No Nurofen, as that can make the blotches much worse for some children. I recall enduring the worst possible experience with them; red pepper nights of burning skin while the rest of the family slept, lanolin cream doing nothing to ease it. But the kid seemed in rude good health; the major problem was keeping an energetic kid entertained without leaving the house for a week. By Saturday he was fine, all good. Which was just as well, because…

[Dramatic pause] The other half now has a bacterial infection in his chest and lungs. He is on seventy-five pills a day to keep him going, and even though he rarely gets sick, it is still a surprise for him how ill he feels. So that is all three of us, in the same period, getting sick. Perfect.

We are a sit-com, and the writers are getting desperate. Will keep you posted.

So, hope. That thing at the end of the box (yeah, thanks for that, Pandora). The International Literary Festival Dublin is kicking off in May, and way back in March they announced details of their Meet An Agent Day, on the 20th of May. That sounds good, said the voice in mah brain. That event would be an ideal way to get our Ladies up and running.

They needed 1500 words, a synopsis, author bio and ten quid as submission fee. I got all of them ready, and to be honest edited the start to focus on Janet; she’s my strongest character with the clearest arc, I wanted her front and centre. So my first scene became the domestic scene, with all the subtext I had inputted. I sent it off, with an actual kiss on the envelope. Please oh please. Please.

The Universe loves suspense. The organisers were kind enough to push back the entry date due to the postal problems. As a result, the date of announcement was pushed back slightly, from last Friday, to this Tuesday (today). I know this, because I asked them in as breezy a fashion as I could.

@ILFDublin May I confirm that all those invited to Date With An Agent would be informed by now? 🙂 https://t.co/eqN5XxaM6y

— Claire Nolan (@ClaireNolan) April 7, 2017

See? All good.  They said it would be Monday, nothing to worry about.

Then, there was a brief email sent out saying that the announcement would be sent out by Tuesday 11th April. Grand.

Hang on, ‘by’? As in, by midnight Monday? On Tuesday, but at some undefined time? Should I give hope the concrete shoes and chuck them in the water by Monday midnight, or should I keep going until Wednesday’s dawn chorus? Should I ask them again online, or would that mean I was on a list?

I hit on the unhealthy plan of checking out the hashtag #ilfdublin agent on Twitter; if someone got a place, they most certainly would be annoucing it on their own social media. Okay. So off I go to the refresh button, checking for any sign. Nothing so far. Then, lunch with a dear friend who I have not seen for a very long time, and had missed a lot. I will admit to having my personal account open on my desk when I got back to my desk. There was nothing in my inbox. But wait, there! In my Promotions folder, (thanks Google) was an email. I didn’t get to breathe before I clicked it open.

No. No invite or novel fair for me. I thought about sending out an email in response; “Dear Literary Festival, many thanks for your rejection. However, we have received many other fine rejections and unfortunately yours was not successful. So I expect to show up and be made a fuss of on the 20th. See you there,” etc.  You will be proud to learn I did not.

Instead, I am adulting like a pro; I will be going along on the day anyway, as should you, it is an amazing day. You know how many were invited? Approximately five people. I am not sure if it is five per agent, or five in total, but that is still a tiny amount to pick out from hundreds. As egotistical as I am, even I can see the odds were against it, and that there is no shame in this, just in over-reacting to this. It is still a good day, and my ladies deserve to be championed. Hugs to you all.

So, I’m well again. Yes, I am. Upright, getting stuff done, life is good. However, the doctor gave me a med cert that ran right up to the end of this week. So, should I go in, and do what I should? Or should I stay home, and do what I’m told?

Back to bed….

I know several people with anxiety, had it myself several times in my life. It is so horrible it is boring; convinced of one’s own awfulness, the past and the future combine to create a huge horrible vista where every past mistake is evidence of my terrible nature, and the future is a huge horrible mistake waiting to happen. Run! Hide! Your disgusting face and your pathetic nature is going to make you create the same mistakes over and over! The future is a nightmare! Run! See illustration;

“I must change everything because I am horrible; I am horrible, see my past; my past is horrible, so my future will be too; I must change everything.”

So what does a person do when they think so lowly about themselves? Some are obliged for various reasons to have to live with themselves. They must go on, and just learn to ignore or manage those terrible feelings that say they are so awful, they must not go on. The road can seem rather dreadful when cursed with these feelings, so much so that a radical shake up in how you think can be necessary.

Firstly, and this may seem perverse, remember that life is finite. If it is to be horrible, remember that no matter what, in a hundred years the burden will be lifted. No plea to your nature, no higher power can remove that fact from reality; one day, it will be all over. Rejoice!

Secondly, you can be fairly certain that you are going to bed tonight alive, and getting up the next morning alive. It is fairly likely that you will not be losing your life today. Sure, there can be big surprises in life that come without warning, but nevertheless, bar comets, car crashes, or medical diagnosis, today you will have. So yes, for the next twenty -four hours you are going to have to have a set of facts that won’t change. This life, and this body and brain are what you are going to have to work with over the next twenty four hours. So this is what we have to deal with. And it leads us to some questions;

This is as smart, as pretty, and as clever as you are going to get today. This is you, as good as you are and as bad as you are. This, today, is your reality. What are you going to do, today? Are you going to add to the sum of the world’s problems? Fill the air with negativity and sorrow? Make others feel bad, sad and upset? Think of yourself, and only of yourself? Or are you going to do something else? Put it another way;

what goodness can I create, even if I myself am not good? What kindness can I do, even if I am not kind to myself? What wisdom can I follow, even if I know I am not wise?* How do I make others feel, even when I cannot control how I feel about myself? What beauty can I seek out, even if I do not find any beauty in myself?

At the very least, I can go to bed making the world better, even if I think I myself am not. And when a person sets themselves the concrete task of making the world better, it is rather remarkable how many possibilities can be seen.

*Socrates had something to say on this point, but that’s another blog.

Right. Woke up this morning and feel better. The important thing to do now is to not over do it!

So, no swim at 6am, go easy on the diet, and maybe just try to get back to work gently. It is as always a busy week coming up, but the whole point with this thing is to take it slowly. Rushing back in will just exhaust me. So steady, steady…

So, illness. Doesn’t happen often to me, I have the constitution and the subtle nature of a plank of wood. However, every so often I’m reminded that I am a biological entity like everyone else and I get sick. By ‘so often’, I mean every ten years or so. This is the week in question; my sinuses are all infected and it’s in my lungs, and the reduced lung capacity has made me weak. So I have been off work all this week. The last time I had so much time to myself I was on maternity leave, and that was at such a high pitch of fear there was no chance of rest; merely sitting there squawking my arms like the fat hen I was.

Being ill is strange to me. Most of the time a night’s sleep or a big meal means the energy is back again and off we go. But this time, no immediate efforts made things  better. I’ve been asleep for the better part of a week and I am only getting back to myself. Strange, to have to listen to what my metabolism is saying to me. The eyes in the mirror look weird.

Tired? Me??

So that’s been my week. No work done at home or at … work, no writing and no editing. But there was no choice, I’m forced to admit. There was nothing I could do, I had to do nothing. C’est la vie.

Yeah. So it is Sunday night, and I am ill. Have been ill for most of the week, with the most delightful ailment you can imagine. I have been experiencing a huge toothache in one of my teeth. This, is not good.

Now, for those of you not new to my company, you will be aware that I hate dentists. The last time I went to a dentist, no-one had heard of Monica Lewinsky. Yes, I’m serious. I went to get my wisdom teeth out at eighteen years of age, and, it turns out, proved the stereotype about red-heads. No, not that one. The other one. Seems I bled excessively on the table and they had to close up in a rush. I woke up from general anaesthetic with a bruised and punched face, and had blood everywhere; in my throat, nose, ears, hair… I was supposed to go back to fix a bracket to a poorly drawn down incisor. Funnily enough, I could not be persuaded back into the dentist’s chair again.

For nearly two decades.

Yes, this is my life now. 

But back I went. The pain in my tooth became the pain in my face became the pain in my ear, as the other half simply insisted I go to the dentist. So, WITH NO NERVES AT ALL, I got myself an appointment. They were great, even helpfully had the sounds of a drill going as I went to the reception, that was nice of them to do that.  I ended up talking to someone very young about the teeth. She was utterly rushed, and was very much about trying to things over and done as possible. Like a kid sent to the teacher, I kept as much details of my long absence from them as possible. And how were the teeth?

They were grand. No, seriously, really. One of them might need a filling, but the rest were grand. Even the one that caused me to come there was fine; turns out I had sinusitis. This is a delightful bacterial infection centred in, you guessed it, the sinuses (don’t look it up). But it had managed to get back enough that I had a great stonking great temperature and goo and discharge and all of it, so lots of pills and rest were required.

Anyway, so here we are. Sunday. I’m still not great. Life has given me, without exaggeration, a pain in the face. The mood is stellar. What you looking at?

So, I was thinking about writing a blog. But the fact is that I have nothing to report. I haven’t gotten the book deal, or lost the weight. I haven’t bought the big house, had the face lift, or managed to have the child confirmed as a genius. So what is there to report? No success is no news, right?

Don’t get me wrong. This blog is not intended to be one of those common Facebook posts of sunset on a beach, where a size zero stares into the distance and we remind ourselves it’s all about the “Inner Beauty”.

Yes. Yes it is. Also, Unicorns.

What it is about, is realising that my brain never shuts the hell up with the complaints. I never enjoy a meal without worrying about the next one. I never have a good weekend without planning the next one. I NEVER say well done, I always say Could be better. Because it could be. If you keep hitting your mark you’re setting your target too low. But losing all sense of joy about life is not good. I lost it recently, and it is nice to return more and more to myself and a sense of happiness about my life.

And happiness as I get older is more about recognising what makes me happy, without shame, and seeking that out. A clean house. A good meal. Sleep. Oh god do I miss sleep. Reading what I want to read, nah bother to anyone else.

So the instinct of not opening up the blog pages because of not having anything to say has a follow-up thought. Do it. It being free of success is nothing. It feels better to write, than to not write. Or, as a better person once said;

Evening all. Remember me? Back in the long long ago, I used to write on this blog quite regularly. These ticktap words, as powerful as a bird on a feeder, were once upon a time quite common. But life and life’s obstacles get in the way, and it is with an effort I open up the blog writing side of me again.

Resistance; there’s a lot of it about at the moment. We’re marching, and campaigning, and getting angry in the face of danger that is real. Good. Galvanised populations encourage me and give me hope, whereas cynical resignation most certainly does not. The future is uncertain, and amazingly enough it is not unintentional. The British move towards Brexit is going to be disastrous for several different reasons, but mostly because they don’t know how they are viewed by other countries. The UK is not important by itself, and that is going to be news to a lot of its population. And Trump is a collapse, not an advancement. He is not a strongman or a skilled businessman, he is a failure in 140 characters. However, the people around him are not failures, but are competently malevolent to any progressive agenda. Watching his moral compass become the new normal is awful. Social Media is the new depressant, or at least, it’s influence is more pronounced. I miss the days of kittens, and I don’t even like cats.

My wonderful ladies are written, and are being edited. I made a synopsis of each chapter that is one page long, noting how many pages were in each chapter. First job was to make each chapter the same length, as much as possible. Then look at each new chapter, and figure out what the purpose of it was. Then to clean up each sentence, word by word, to as minimal as possible, and if it can go out it should go out.  I’m up to page 24. One hundred pages plus to go.

This has been a difficult week. I’m older, had another birthday. Getting older is a privilege, I am not denying that. But oldness I now know leads towards that ultimate sadness, and so this birthday is just a day, now. Oh look, another year. Onwards. It is also the week that contains the anniversary of the loss of my mother, and the subsequent schism of my family, so the divisions get writ large this week. It is quite something to remember the day that led to the loss of one of the most fundamental people in your life, then get out of the car and try to start the day. I remember the grief being utterly stilling, there was no defence against it. Now, there is merely a terribleness to it, that does not drown me the way it used to. Oh, but how I miss her, though.

And now, to bed. I wish you all peaceful slumbers and a kindess of dreams. Night night.