New York, New York

It's a beautiful sunny morning in New York City and its hard to believe that in Ireland its currently raining and economically imploding.

I've been in New York for almost 3 weeks now and am truly in love. I totally understand what that T-shirt is trying to say.

New York is beautiful and weird and there's a million different worlds depending on where you get off the subway, you can be whoever you want whenever you want , you can have have breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast, you can find your dream job or make a job of dreaming. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street, looking around me, this sense of happiness washer over me in a way I've never felt anywhere else. The sun shines almost every day, even when its cold, and I can spend whole days in cafe's reading and people watching to my hearts content. I eat breakfast on the fire escape watching the autumn leaves blow around the street and it feels like I'm in a film but in a great way. I wear whatever I want without being judged or put in a box, and even if I am its ok because the rest of the people in here are really cool and I don't mind being like them. I accesorize pretentiously with a hot chocolate and a book and take the subway in a nonchalant fashion. And in amongst all these people and buildings, I feel more alive than I ever have before.




Obviously, its not all cinematic moments of perfection. I find myself more alone than I have ever been before and though I'm enjoying the freedom it brings, New York can be a lonely place. When I'm feeling really lonely I go across the street to the animal shelter and take a dog for a long walk around the area.

I've got to know some lovely dogs and had some great chats with random people on the street. I fell a bit hopelessly in love with a pit bull puppy and even looked into how hard it would be to get her home but it would have been way too complicated and expensive. It all came about because I went in one day and there were no dogs to walk but the guy asked me to play with the puppy because it was sad about being away from its mother so I happily obliged and sat there for an hour happily cuddling and petting her. She's gone now (heartbreak) but he said there's were more puppies coming in today, so hopefully some of them will need cuddling too.

There's always something to do in this city, so when I'm not staying in to watch Mad Men or read I have been to some interesting stuff, including a back-room reading and the preview of Tiny Furniture in the Museum of Modern Art. Tiny Furniture is a film by a new up and coming writer/director/actress called Lena Durham.

She stars in the film, alongside her mum and her sister, and does a really good job of portraying whats its like to be released into the world after finishing a B.A. in Nothing Useful For a Job and feel lost. It's rare that I see something I find genuinely funny, and this was also clever and depressing in equal enjoyable measures.

Another interesting thing I went to was, you know *nonchalant*...Florence and The Machine!! Flo played up an absolute storm; it was the best show of hers that I've seen yet. Her voice sounded amazing soaring through the rafters of Terminal 5 and she twirled and danced around the stage like a leaf caught in a whirlwind of excitement. I always think seeing her play is like taking a Florence drug; you experience highs and lows and you get goosebumps and dance like crazy and afterwards you're exhausted but incredibly happy. She also looked like the High Priestess of Awesome.



As far as reading is concerned, I am lucky enough to be living close to The Strand which is only the best bookshop In The World.

I've just finished reading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (which was great if even just for the fact that the whole book takes place within a 2 block radius of my apartment) and The Graduate, which was good at first but kind of degenerated into a farcical screen play meets Catcher In The Rye vibe in the end. I also read Clockwork Angel on the plane over, the prequel to the Mortal Instruments series I wrote about before. As someone who has never read Sci-Fi before and is slightly sceptical (I try not to lean towards scornful like most) about it, I really enjoy the whole vampires/demons/angelic descendant fighter world created in them.

Ok, I have been sitting here nursing a hot chocolate for about 3 hours now and the sound of the rustling leaves blowing along the pavement outisde in the sun is distracting me and making me want to go out for a wander. I'm always secretly hoping to bump into Garance Dore and Scott 'The Sartorialist' Schuman and become BFF's...but for now I'll have to make do with my ipod and some adventures.

The real life horse whisperer! (and some other real life stuff)

Yesterday I went to the RDS for the Dublin Horse Show! I go every year just to soak up all the lovely ponyness and enjoy the excruciatingly nerve-wracking experience that is the Aga Khan FEI Nations Cup (kinda like the world cup for showjumping). This year there was another super exciting event to look forward to though; a demonstration by Monty Roberts, a real life horse whisperer. I got his book The Man Who Listens to Horses when I was about 11 or 12 and used to totally idolize him. We got a seat on the grandstand to watch the 4 year olds showjumping class, and stayed put through the rain storm whilst Monty's students set up a round pen in the arena. Monty ran into the ring waving and wearing a stetson and cowboy boots. They brought in a 16hh grey mare called Heather who pranced and reared around as her owner explained over a mic that she was agressive to handle, spooky and wouldn't take a rider. Monty did his famous 'join up' routine that resulted in the horse eventually coming in to him and following him around wherever he went. It was lovely. It makes sense that he works with kids in juvenile detention because when you see this small-ish old man calm a wild-ish horse in 10 minutes and have it walking around behind him across giant tarps of plastic when it couldn't handle a single bag at the start, without him laying a single hand on her or raising his voice, you realise that he's right: 'violence only helps the violator, and never the victim'. Even as Heather was lashing out at him with her hooves, he was explaining how often the most violent horses turn out to be the most gentle once they are taught to trust people. Lovely lovely lovely.


In other news, we currently have a house guest in the form of Lisa Faith Phillips, who is in Dublin to do her show How To Be a Bad Girl in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on the 8th of August. I haven't seen this one yet but if you're around I recommend catching it because her shows are a lot of fun.


Lisa also introduced my parents waay back in the day, which is an irrelevant but interesting fact :) she ALSO got me an awesome present in the form of a ticket to see Florence and The Machine play in Terminal 5, New York on November 1st. I'm so excited about seeing Florence play again! Her live shows are so spine-tingling good, I can't wait. I was doing some Florence watching on YouTube in preperation and came across this awesome cover of En Vogues 'Don't Let Go'



Lisa's present got me thinking about my top 5 presents list. I have received many presents in my 22 years but here are some of my favourites (in nor particular order of favouriteness)
1. My Little Pony on a chain that Martini made me for my 21st.
2. Chamele No. 5 from Moore St.
3. Two old volumes of William Blakes completed works my dad got me for my 21st birthday.
4. A headcollar and leadrope a friend of my parents got me when I was 12 because she 'knew I'd have my own pony some day to use them on'.
5. Ticket to Florence and The Machine in New York.
There's a whole other blog post in the making about my Twilight related gifts, of which I have received an unsettling for others but awesome for me amount.

The other day when I woke up in a room full of smoke and I thought the house was on fire, it raced trough my mind that I would have to choose certain things to rescue (apart from my kitties obviously). This was a slight cause of panic because I lean slightly towards the hoarder side of the hoarder/non hoarder scale and have many treasured possessions. When I was a kid I used to insist on travelling with all these cigar boxes I filled with stuff I deemed incredibly important and I think it never really wore off. Thankfully there was no fire and I still have all my lovely paintings and books and boxes of random crap. I'm working on a top 5 list of treasured items (always think about this on a Saturday because of the question in the Guardian Weekend magazine interview 'what is your most treasured possession?') but I think its gonna take a while...so many pretty shiny things to choose from.

Here's a video I made of my furry alive treasured possessions documenting their unhealthy attachment to catnip. I would just like to note that I am not a crazy cat lady who spends all her time making videos of her cats. I sometimes go to work/sleep/do non cat related things. But not often.

'Take a deep breath, suck the water in my chest...'

Being huddled under a duvet with a cold/flu is a good chance to catch up on everything thats been going on...

The filming of 'Play It Cool', my friends masterpiece based on some Xtravision fun times, resulted in us taking over Laser in Ranelagh for a few hours one day last week, disturbing customers with our professionalism/comic genius and generally creating some box office gem moments. Playing myself was hard, but someone had to do it. 

I finally got my Rogue stripe. All I need is a southern accent an' some super powers please.

I finished reading Margaret Atwood's 'Cats Eye' and I'm still letting it sink in. The writing was amazing, the switching between past and present flawless, and the cruelty of girls terrifying. But we all knew that. And if you didn't, lucky you. Next on the list are Douglas Coupland 'Hey Nostradamus' and Rebecca Miller 'The Private Lives of Pippa Lee'. I've had my eye on it for a while (and had it hidden in my 'possibly buy ' pile whilst working in Reads) so when I saw it in my Favourite Charity Shop of All Time (which deserves a post all of its own some day) for a euro I decided now was the time. It has a cover which vaguely suggests chick lit but the daughter of Arthur Miller must have something slightly more to offer. 

It must be hard to live up to that kind of legacy. Also, weird to know your father went out with Marylin Monroe before your mother.

I'll leave you with the song thats been playing in my head almost all the time lately (also where the title quote comes from), and an amazing video; Flo crackling and roaring at her fiery best :)

I think I'm developing an unhealthy addiction to Fishermans Friends.

Snow White's stitching up the circuit board.

Felt it in my fists, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids

Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my wrists

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself is undone

No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden

No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love

No more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world.

Its a bit surprising that I have had this blog for a while now, and still haven't talked about Florence and The Machine. I first got into her music about 2 years ago when her first single 'Kiss With A Fist' came out. Then her album 'Lungs' dropped in June 2009 and BOOM she was mega mega famous. She was the reason I really wanted to go to Oxegen, and though she was playing a tiny stage there was thousands of people spilling out of it everywhere. We were lucky enough to be able to watch from the side of the stage and I think it was, if I'm going to be honest, the best gig of all time. Here are some pictures from the fateful day (trying to act cool whilst being ridiculously intimidated and also discretely operating a camera is HARD)

I got a tip off that she was going to be reading poetry at Electric Picnic so I donned my best rain gear and got a front row seat.

Awesome, no? Plus my dad was impressed when I quoted John Berryman a few days later.

The most important thing I can say about Florence is that if you get a chance, go see her live. She's got this voice that fills the room/tent/world. If you don't get goosebumps, you're probably dead.