Due to unforeseen circumstances, involving the limited amount of space afforded to me on blogspot, I will have to close down this page, and my Tegan and Sara page, very shorty...in order to free up space for my art blog.

If you are interested, all further posts will be found on http://shelkybean.tumblr.com/

It pains me to have to convert, as I don't really understand tumblr, and I know it will take me ages to get my head around it, but I cant afford to lose shelkybean.blogspot.com

So, sin e

Evelyn Cusack, one of the weather presenters on RTE won me over with her sea area forecasts ( i know how sad that must sound, but there is something very poetic about them.) The sound of them...the rhythm and timing, and just the general sound...

" Buoy M5	East-Northeast, 11 Knots, The visibility at Tuskar Lighthouse is 0.6 Miles, 1025, Falling slowly"

 

I have no clue what any of it means, but when I catch it on the radio, my heart skips a beat. 

When me and mum were driving up to monaghan for nana's funeral a couple of weeks ago, we took the 'short cut' ... short cuts in Ireland mean...the OLD roads. The ones that no one uses anymore. The ones that used to be used before all the bypasses. If Ireland was a person, it would be a severely overweight, middle aged man, who lived on fast food...needing as a result, multiple operations on his over worked and under appreciated heart...

Anyway. We were on such a road, no street lights, only space on the road for a car and a half, going around these hair pin bends like a bat out of hell. It was about half 11 at night when we left the house. Mum was working that day, so needed to pack and get organized before we left.

I was in and out of sleep I guess. Being in cars makes me sleepy, unless Im driving. Then Im wired.

The news came on and I perked up. I cant remember what the news items were...God knows...but we were listening to RTE1 for some reason, and after the midnight news on RTE1 you get the marine forecast.

I said, when the intro music played "Don't change it over, I love this"

To which I expected mum to think quite strange, as I would understand anyone thinking it quite strange, me, that knows nothing about boats, or knots, or anything of that world, loving the sea area forecast.

But much to my surprise, after a little pause she said, "Oh I know, I love it too"

So we listened to it, and after she said that she liked it because she imagines all the fishermen out in their boats, when she listened to it...and that in turn, transported her to that world...mum has an amazing imagination.

I suppose I think that too, in a way. Romanticize that way of life, imagine bobbing up and down in a little fishing vessel...But mostly I love the sound of the rising slowly...falling slowly...bit

Id love to know what that is in relation to, but something is preventing me from finding out. In a way, I don't want to know, it would take the mystery out of it.

Is it the tide coming in...I imagine the belly of a sleeping mermaid rising and falling slowly with each watery breath...

I think of the moon slowing rising and falling in the sky (i know that thats not it) but all these images spring to mind with those 4 words.

And the visibility bit...The light house keepers measuring how far out to sea they can see, and writing down that data to pass on to the Evelyn...or how ever it works...It makes me like it more thinking that people are involved with the process, and its not a bunch of data collecting computers...

I love light houses...It would be a dream come true to live in one...I think my life would be complete if I lived in a lighthouse. I couldn't imagine any other material thing making me that happy.

Anyway..Ive run totally off topic...

The dear Evelyn told us tonight that tomorrow we are to expect temperatures to rise to between 16-20 degrees celcius...which is summer weather for any readers not from this area of the world...

She also said that we may be getting some light showers tomorrow, and in those showers, there may be some sahara desert sand...apparently its being blown up here...apparently its also totally safe, and she assured us not to worry...

Never a dull moment, not even in the weather report :)

The moon was just a slip of a thing tonight.
The colour had drained out, clung to the very edge.
The stars poked through the dense black of the still night sky.
And there was no sound.
Like everything had been sucked out.
And it's night's like these that I miss the warm air that used to make sleep nearly impossible.
Those summer days, on the hammock
With Shadow running beneath me.
Its nights like this, I wish for the whirr of a fan to circulate the dense night air
The crickets song
The cold sheets, to cool sunburn.
And the heat of the day trapped beneath my skin.
I long for those moments of comfort and security,
That don't reside in this cold landscape.
These borrowed days know nothing of the magic of suburban summer.
Just the shape of fairy winds, gusts and gales, stormy seas crashing on my windows.
Perpetual winter lives on in the hearts of these people
They are cooled by the chance of hail, the threat of ice.
Rain is such an after though, such a regular occurrence
That it doesn't even warrant a mention most of the time
Even with the streetlights,
I could see the stars.
And on the edge of the city that never sleeps,
We found peaceful slumber on the foothills of the Appalachians.
Their secret safe with us, our dreams rising with them.

wow...
apparently there is a limit to the amount of pictures you can put up on this.
and Ive just reached my limit...

just WOW
How upsetting

add that to the list.

Sitting here, listening to the sudden downpour of rain outside...

Sounds like the ocean is crashing up against my window.

If I was swaying a little, I could convince myself that I am at sea.

Maybe I did a little.

Sometimes, I can be quite spontaneous.

It doesn't happen often, and a lot of people don't see that side of me.

Some never do.

And when it does rear its head, I suppose it could be confused with madness, in the most conventional sense of the word.

Before I knew really what I was at, I had left the warm cocoon of my room, and grabbed a towel out of the bathroom, making my way for the back door...letting my cardigan drop off me along the way, and hopping, one footed to remove my shoes.

Then, the lock turned, and I was standing outside, underwater but not drowning. 

The sound of the water lured me out. The crashing of waves against the double paned glass. 

The constant beating and the wind.

And I stood for about 5 minutes...its 1:40 am and very cold out there...Im spontaneous, but I don't want to come down with the flu tomorrow either...I may be mad, but Im practical...

And I let the rain roll down my face, and dampen my lovely spring dress, and wet all the layers through so that the cold water chilled me to my bones, and my hair was wet. The wind sent shivers up and down me.

But it was very cleansing.

Sometimes you need to do something out of the ordinary in order to snap you back into reality.

Sometimes its very difficult to see the wood from the trees

And letting the rain wash all that away, to be you, the rain, the wind, the dark, the night.

The force of nature, so much bigger and stronger then me...then everything else...well, it puts you back into place again doesn't it?

Sort of makes you get a hold of yourself.

Its like when someone is hysterical, crying on the silver screen, and then another actor slaps them across the face. They always take it. Its just that quick, short, slightly painful !snap! that puts them back into their bodies, and makes them human again.

I haven't stood out in the cold rain, in a long time...Im always running away from it, like a little field mouse, running to the next bit of dry shelter.

Im going to start taking things back. I think it's time.

I know it is.

Excited

Tomorro Im giving a talk to the women's group in town. My aunt asked me to do if, they've been trying to get this other crowd in for ages, and they keep canceling. So...Shelly to the rescue!
I'm pretty excited. Not nervous at all. I don't really get nervous about things anymore, I just get excited, and look forward to them instead. There's really no point in getting nervous, I just turn in to a wreck when Im nervous, so screw that. Waste of energy.
They want to know how to make a quilt. I did a bit of research, the history of quilting and all that jazz. Don't get me wrong...I love quilts, in the practical sort of way. Hell, when I get around to measuring out squares that are all the same size, but all different patterns, Ill make my own one and curl up with in with a cup of coco and a book...But, it doesn't get my creative juices flowing, if you get me.
And as useless as I am doing any sort of 'practical' research online in general, Im ten times worse when Im not overly enthusiastic about what Im researching.
But its ok. Ive got the bones of it, and it should all come together. I think its a fairly informal sort of meeting anyway. Its not like they are expecting some sort of powerpoint presentation, with hand outs and the like...although that would be pretty impressive, if I was talking to them about 1930s traveling circuses in the American south west...but Im not, Im talking about quilts.

All that aside...its good to do things that take you out of your comfort zone, that get you to think in a different way, and get you in circles of people that you would not normally mix with. And of course, its another thing to add to the aul cv, which needs a good dusting off at this stage.

Yea, looking forward to tomorrow :)
And that will be one more thing scratched off the list :)

Stumble.com is a last stop for my internet surfing done on a nearly daily basis. When I have checked everything going, and don't yet feel Im full up, I travel there. Sometimes I find things that have no relevance to me, other times I'm lead in circles round sites that I have stumbled on before, but tonight, well this just made my day...

Now if only there were pictures accompanying each bullet point...that really would be something :)

DESHODA

To the end of the internet and back

Famous World Ideologies, as explained by references to Cows

  

• Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
• Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.
• Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.
• Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
• Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
• Real World Communism: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
• Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
• Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the “free” market.
• Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
• Militarianism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
• Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
• Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
• Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
• British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheeps’ brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
• Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
• Pure Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
• Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
• Capitalism: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.
• Enviromentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
• Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently – aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
• Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.