This is one personal blog which has gotten just that little bit too personal.

Consider me on internet hiatus until further notice.

For the last two months, I’ve been trudging into and out of Maynooth practically every day, at least five times a week, to go to work or to see Seamus, or to do various other things, occasionally to go shopping, although Manor Mills isn’t a particularly thrilling shopping centre.

Anyways, over the course of these two months, I have seen precisely, eh, no-one.
Well, that’s a lie. I see Karl every now and then, and I see Skerritt sometimes. But for the most part, I really don’t see people I know while I’m in Maynooth, because they’ve all gone home and whatnot.

But then! Last week! In the course of only two days! I saw LOADS of people!
Yup!
Seriously! I wandered off the train and saw Seamus outside, as one would expect, since I went into Maynooth to see him.
Well, in actuality, I went to Maynooth to go to work, but I did go in early so I could see him first.
Anyways, as I got off the train, who did I see on the platform but Peter and Charlie!
Count with me people, that’s two! We’re two ahead of most visits to Maynooth!
(For the purposes of this post, we’re not counting Seamus, because firstly he’s not a real person, I only made him up, and secondly, I expected to see him there.)

Then, since Peter and Charlie were getting on the same train I was getting off, I left them, and walked out to Seamus. He pointed out what he thought was Alan crossing the bridge. I took a closer look, was doubtful for a second because of his new hair, but then surmised that it was, indeed Alan. That’s three, people!

After accompanying Alan to Eason’s to buy 3V vouchers, we continued on our path towards the interweb on campus.
Having settled ourselves at the pod, who should wander up but Barry, another classmate of mine. Now we’re on four.
And mere minutes after that, Natascha arrived, although I’m not sure whether to count her or not, since she does live in Maynooth, and we do seem to see her everywhere. I say we here because I only ever see Natascha at work if I’m on my own. Yet if I’m out with Seamus, she just appears out of nowhere. Perhaps she’s terribly jealous of me and wants him for her own.
Well gerroutofit, he’s mine!

Uh-huh, so we may as well count here, now we’re on FIVE, see? FIVE! In only one day! That’s quite substantial! Amazing, one might even say!

Fast forward to the next day, Seamus and I are heading towards campus again, in search of le interweb. In order to mix things up a bit, keep them from becoming monotonous, this time we head to the *Callan* building. Ooooooh, different.
There, who do we run into but Ciarán and Andrew.
That makes seven! You’ve been counting with me, right? You agree that we’re on seven people!

So! It was anomalous! In general, I saw only one or two people a week that I knew, excluding Seamus, ’cause he’s really only a figment of my imagination, and yet in the course of two days, and probably less than 24 hours, we ran into seven people I knew.
How strange.

Anyways, all those encounters only served to reinforce the idea in my mind that I cannot wait for college to start up again!
I MISS PEOPLE!

Did you ever get something stuck in your head? Like a song gets stuck in your head, and you spend the next two or three days humming it, until it’s annoying you and everyone else around you?
I get that a lot. Most of the time the best way to get rid of it is to listen to the song the whole way through, although that can be difficult when it’s an orchestral or a band piece, ’cause they’re often hard to find on le interweb.

Or sometimes you get a phrase stuck in your head, and you can’t stop using it? When I was about 15, I couldn’t stop asking “How so, Joe?” if someone made a statement. It used to annoy the crap out of my friends, so I deliberately set it as my gaia username, then various other forums, and it’s also my Twitter handle now. It’s just kind of stuck with me. =)

Ever get an idea stuck in your head? Like a train stuck on one track, you can’t stop thinking about it, turning it over and over, until you feel like you’re going to explode, even if there’s nothing you can do about it.
I get like that with exam results, especially when it came to my Leaving. What’s done is done, I know, and I knew then, but at the time it was impossible to concentrate on anything else but the impending results and what they would mean and whether I would get my course and if I could go to Maynooth, and failing that, what would happen. What if…?

What if is a terrible question. What if doesn’t really tell you anything.
And I know that my Leaving results were over a year ago and I’m on the course I wanted and I’m doing okay at it, really. That’s not what’s stuck in my head at the moment, it’s just a good example.

Anyways, the point is, there’s nothing you can do about it, nothing is going to come of it at the time, the cards have been dealt, the dice have been rolled, you’re just waiting to see how things’ll land, and there’s nothing you can do but sit and wait.
Even then, what happens depends as much on what other people do as what you do, like when you’re trying to get your course, what matters as much as your points is the points of everyone else applying.

No man is an island, no reaction occurs without the involvement of more than one person, lots of times what happens to you depends on other people more than it does on you.
But this WAITING!

It’s killing me.

Yet I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s stuck in my mind, I can’t get it out, there’s nothing I can do but wait and see how it pans out, nothing will happen for the next few weeks, nothing, nothing, nothing.

So why can’t I stop thinking about it?

As you might have noticed, I’ve password protected a couple of posts in the last while.
Well, I was thinking about it, and even though this is a personal blog, there are a couple of things I say on it which I kinda don’t want to put in the public domain, because to do so would be cruel, or too personal.
So if you do come across a password protected post, drop me a line looking for the password. Chances are I’ll give it to you, if you’re nice to me! =)

So you’re writing a text message to your boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other/husband/wife/lover/life partner/whatever you feel like calling them. You say goodnight, tell them you love them and finish up with an x.

Yeah, okay, a lot of people do that. I’m not particularly fond of it myself, but I will admit to throwing Seamus the occasional x every now and then, just to keep him from feeling completely starved of affection. He does the same, although there’s no real frequency in it.

Some people finish every message to an SO with an x, that’s fine too, I understand that, you love them, or like them, you want to kiss them, you signify that in a message.
Bit odd, like, but sure whatever floats your boat.

But then you get the people who adorn everything they do with a platoon of virtual kisses. Last week I got a message from a girl, let’s call her J, asking for some school books.
Actually, I think she was looking for music set works, but whatever. Not having them, I pointed her in the direction of Alan, who was more likely than me to be of use to her.
The reply I got was a thanks, with three little x marks at the end.
Now, is it just me, or does that seem a bit superfluous? I mean, I only know her ’cause we’re in the same band, we’re not good friends or anything, if anything she’d be closer to Sinéad than me. That aside, she’d never kiss me in reality, so why is it okay to tack three kisses onto the end of a text message?
Actually, now that I think of it, the original message, which looked like it had been sent to a couple of people, had kisses on the end as well.
Is she some sort of kiss slut, throwing kisses (and, *gasp*, COOTIES!) around like so much confetti?

I have another friend, well, more a girl who’s friends with a lot of my friends, an acquaintance of mine. I know her well enough to have her number, anyways, but way back at Easter, I texted her to say happy Easter and she responded in kind. We exchanged a few messages, discussing Zombie Jesus Chocolate, and every message was finished with an x or two.
Now, okay, with J she’s a sixteen year old girl, they’re prone to affection and enthusiasm, but to still throw kisses around when you’re older? Is it just me who thinks this is kinda weird? You don’t go around kissing people in life (unless you’re Spanish, then you just *do*), so why in texts, bebo comments, MSN etc.?
Don’t even get me started on those flashing, blinking, all-singing, all-dancing x emotes that you get bombarded with when you sign into MSN, I’ll never shut up.

So, yeah, the whole x thing, I don’t get it. Does it hold meaning as a kiss, or is it like another smile?
I wonder, I really don’t get it. Do you?
xxxxxxxxx

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At work today, Niamh handed me a list of things which needed to be taken off the shelves, as they weren’t scanning, so off I trotted to take pasta, cat food, lemsip capsules, gaviscon, eye drops and painkillers into the EPOS office.
Now that was a weird-looking basket of shopping.

Anyways, as I was taking them off the shelves, I was also checking the price labels of some other items in the same aisle.

There are no condoms in Dunnes at the moment, I’m not sure why, they’re probably out of stock. So, in the space where the condoms usually are, guess what we’re stocking?

Pregnancy tests.
Well, if you don’t have the first, you’ll need the second, right? That’s what you call good marketing. =)

Having overindulged a little today, leading to me not feeling the best right now (Oww, my poor torso), I was led, by my not-so-complicated thought process, to the phrase too much of a good thing…

Okay, so a lot of people know the phrase, right, but where did it come from?

Why is it that people always spout that phrase?

More importantly, what’s the second half of the sentence????
Too much of a good thing… will what??

Is there even an end to it? Google has failed to provide me with an answer, for the first time in God knows how long, and I’m seriously bewildered!

I don’t think this is the first time I’ve been in this quandary.
So!
Too much of a good thing… will what??

So today Seamus is coming to my house for dinner. He hasn’t met my parents before, although he has met Aoife, and he’s, eh, let’s say “interacted” with Sinéad, although mostly in an online capacity. So today should be an interesting experience anyways.

Aoife’s thrilled about it, she can’t wait to cause as much trouble as she possibly can.
Earlier today my mum was asking her what her plans for tonight were, and she said she was probably going to Carlow. Then my mum decided to point out that Seamus was coming over tonight and plans were immediately changed, Aoife was staying here and Shane was coming over for dinner, too. Now that should be delightful.

Now, it’s not like I’m ashamed of Seamus, or my family, or I think they won’t get on, or I think it’ll be particularly awkward or anything like that, especially since he’s lovely and all, besides which Aoife likes him already (’cause, you know, she told me that before we were going out, although you wouldn’t know to trust what she says) and he’s not a closet murderer or anything, I don’t think, so it should be grand.

But I can’t shake that niggling feeling in the back of my mind that something’s gonna go terribly wrong and my parents’ll take against him, or he’ll say something appalling, or I’ll do something terrible, or I dunno, he will turn out to be a mass murderer.
And that’s stupid, and neurotic, and he’s lovely, and I know they’ll like him.

But what if they don’t…?

There being an entire family at home this weekend, my mother decreed that there should be a dinner outing tonight, so as she could have great fun with all her children around her and a grand atmosphere etc. etc…

So, as one does, not arguing with the Irish mammy, we all trooped off to dinner.
When we were small, going out to dinner involved six of us piling into one car and normally heading to the Harvester in Boston Manor for whichever food followed by yellow ice cream. (mmmmmmm, harvester ice cream, childhood memories, *nostalgia*.)

Um, now it’s a little more complicated than that. Today we took three cars to Maynooth.
First there were my parents and my parents’ friends in car no. 1, Aoife’s car Norris (my dad was driving.)
Then there were me, Sinéad, Shane and Priti in my mother’s car, which is nameless, Shane driving.
And finally Shane and Aoife traipsed along in his car, the Caddy, with Shane driving.

Dinner was quite tasty, pasta, nomnom, and then profiteroles.

On the way home, then, things changed a little, since my parents had both had some wine, so it ended up with Shane still driving the Caddy, and Sinéad keeping him company, Shane driving my mum’s car, with myself, Priti and Martin accompanying and Aoife driving Norris with Kathleen and my parents.

Shane, having arrived last, had parked his caddy in the college, whereas Shane and my dad had parked in the school slightly down the road. So when he and Sinéad wandered off to the caddy, they ended up being the first back to Leixlip. They hopped out of the car, wandered down the driveway and then Sinéad realised she had no keys.
Gosh, she’s a smart one. =)