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 January 2007 Alarmingly quiet month! AnneMarie had baby! That's all the news! An alarmingly quiet month, mes amies, so quiet that I'm afraid I'll have nothing to write about. I mean, I could make stuff up but what would be the point of that? I might as well just put it inside a gaily-coloured piece of cardboard and call it a book. And sure, I do that anyway. This is meant to be the truth, is it not? So yes, January: a scourge. But oddly, I haven't found this one so bad, at all, at all. I haven't been depressed, and I'm normally suicidal. And - miracle of fecking miracles! - I haven't been sick! For the last god knows how many years I've spent January with swollen glands, aching limbs, wobbly legs, sky-high temperatures and a terrible random stabbing pain in my right ear as if an invisible person is following me around and jabbing a hatpin into my ear canal from time to time. This year - apart from a mild bout of excruciatingly painful TMJ (jaw hinge inflammation thingy) - I've been as fit as a flea. I've been working v. v. hard. Morning, noon and night. Admittedly some of my work has involved reading which some might say isn't work at all, you might as well call shopping for shoes work, or watching 'Lost' work, or eating Mars Bars work. For those who may not know (and Christ knows there can't be that many of you, considering all the boasting I've been doing) I'm a judge on this year's Orange Prize and am up to my oxters in worthy books. The front room has become the War-room with 140 books in various piles. I cannot go into detail on any of the books I've read - I'm forbidden, yes FORBIDDEN to discuss them - but it's been great. Also I'm writing around the clock. This Charming Man will be a very long book. Every time I think the end is in sight, I discover I'm mistaken. But hopefully it will be worth it in the end. One piece of big news - Will you join me in congratulating AnneMarie! She had her baby on January 19th, nearly 2 weeks late. She's living in Henley with her mother; and me, Suzanne and Eileen went to see her the Saturday before and I swear to God I've never seen a more pregnant person. It was odd, because her frame was exactly the same as it always was, but it was like someone came along and sellotaped a Volkswagon Beetle to her front, then covered it with a black and silver stripey jumper. She was ENORMOUS. And while we were having our dinner in Café Rouge, she began to get pains in her lower back and Suzanne deduced that she was going into labour, then my life began to flash before my eyes and Eileen's eyes rolled into the back of her head, then Suzanne clapped a hand to her mouth, realising that she hadn't paid and displayed when she parked the car and in all likelihood the car was now clamped. This meant of course that AnneMarie would DEFINITELY go into labour and we'd have no car to drive her to the hospital and our mobiles would be suddenly out of juice so we couldn't ring an ambulance and she'd have to give birth beside the bottle bank in the carpark and some bloke would come along to help us and one of us would eventually get off with him and the whole thing would be funny and feelgood like a Richard Curtis fillum. Christ! I couldn't get out of there fast enough! Mercifully the car wasn't clamped but I was still so afraid that A-M was going to go into labour that when we dropped her back at her mother's I begged Suzanne not to stop, just to slow down enough to throw A-M from the car like a body being dumped by the mafia and to get the hell back to London. However, because A-M is the one person who is possibly more prone to ill-health than me, it was a long labour. 48 hours if you don't mind, and eventually a caesarian (is that how you spell it?) Suzanne and I had had a discussion in advance where we predicted that A-M would need not only a caesarian but actually THREE caesarians, a kidney transplant, a new eye, a ruptured spleen and that she would never walk straight again in her life. Also that she would need a colostomy bag, a dialysis machine and daily insulin injections. So all in all, a 48 hour labour didn't seem so bad.  I've a couple of things to tell you about. My lovely friend
Kate Thompson has written a lovely book (well, she's written lots of
lovely books) but this one, called Love Lies Bleeding is
being published in a different way. If you email her, she'll send
you the first 29 chapters of the book, which ends on a cliffhanger,
then she'll post you the remaining 7 chapters (I mean, landpost, not
cyber post) on beautiful paper and beautifully bound and beautiful
in every way. It's a gorgeous book, in my humbled opinion, her best
yet. See http://www.loveliesbleedingthebook.com/ for
details.The other thing I wanted to tell you was, you know the charity To Russia With Love? Well, maybe you don't, but it's an Irish charity which helps Russian orphans and I'm the patron and they do such amazing work. So, for February they're having a fund-raiser and it's such a nice idea because it's very sociable, where you have a dinner party and it can be for 2 people or 500 people (if you're insane) and everyone makes a contribution, which goes to the charity. The website is http://www.torussiawithlove.ie./ Take a look and see the incredible - I mean, INCREDIBLE - work they do and there's a party kit if you decide you might do the dinner. I'm going to do it because I feel it'll be the one worthwhile thing I do in the month, the one genuinely altruistic thing that will make a difference to another human being. I would tell you more about the orphans and their individual stories but every time I try, I start crying convulsively (and it's really really weird because I never cry, not even when people shout at me and say, "Get off the road, you Merc driving toad.") All I can say is that I've been to Russia, to the orphanage and they need the help so badly and what they do get makes such a phenomenal difference to them. Now I'll leave it at that because I feel the convulsions rising in my chest and I can't risk a bout because I'm going to Doctor Murphy shortly and he thinks I'm neurotic enough as it is without adding fuel to the fire.  Oh yes, I nearly forgot! I made an ad! Yes!
Penguin (my publishers) are sponsoring a comedy weekend on Paramount
Comedy and E! to coincide with Valentine's Day. It's on over the
weekend of 17/18 Feb, it's called The Funny Side of Love and it'll
be episodes of Sex and the City and Ally McBeal and suchlike and in the week
beforehand they'll be showing an ad with me in it, thrun on a bed,
with me book and I swear to God, it was the hardest day's work I've
ever done. I know! You wouldn't think it, would you? Just lying on a
bed, pretending to read a book! Saying a couple of lines now and
then to camera! Getting my shiny nose repowdered! But it was
EXHAUSTING!! When the day finished - and it took from 9 in the am to
6 in the pm to record a 30 second ad - I stumbled down the steps on
the way out and nearly puked from shaggedness. Not that I am
complaining! Oh christ no! It's such an honour that Penguin are
putting so much innovation and energy into publicising my book
(Paperback of Anybody Out There?) and it was great
fun!Now look, about next month's newsletter, it's all going to be different, because I'll be away at the end of the month and won't be back until March 8th, so the newsletter won't be written until at least then. I'm terribly sorry but I'm hoping not to have to bring my laptop because I'll be doing a lot of travelling around and I'd be bound to break it or lose it or have it impounded or let it fall into the Amazon to be eaten by piranhas, so would you mind waiting? I'm going to Brazil and Argentina, partly work and partly the other thing - leisure? Fun? Whatever the word is. I'm going with Himself and Eileen and maybe Eileen's sister Deirdre and I tried very hard to persuade Caitríona (my sister) to come from New York with Sean (her fella) seeing as they live on the same continent. Caitríona listened calmly to my pitch, then commented coolly on the itinerary. "Us? Rio? During Carnival? We'd be robbed. No, scrap that. Robbed and murdered. Us? By which I mean you and me - up the Amazon in a dug-out canoe? We'd be eaten by crocodiles. Argentina? Us? We'd arrive just in time for a military coup. They're due a coup, aren't they, they haven't had one for a while. Tanks would meet us at the airport and escort us to a detention centre." "Quite right," I said, undeterred. "Tell Sean [a musician] to bring his mandolin, so that he can provide musical accompaniment for when we're all rounded up in the football stadium singing The Internationale and other uprising toons." "Lookit," she said. "I don't think we'll come, if it's all the same to you." Since then the list of terrible things that can and will happen to us has increased and multiplied. We'll be carjacked as soon as we arrive in Rio and hustled off to some favela to be held as hostages but nobody will give a flying fuck because it'll be carnival and they'll be too busy waggling their arses in yellow thongs and wearing eight-foot high feathered head-dresses to open the bank to get our ransom money. If we ever escape from that and go up the Amazon, we'll be eaten by piranhas, our bladders will be infested with those nasty little fish who swim upwards in your wees if you do them in the river (mind you, I'll be going nowhere NEAR that river, I'll stand and admire it from a safe distance), then we'll get malaria, poisonous spiders in our boots and (my favourite) trench foot from the humidity. Sure, it'll be a LAUGH. Now, changing directions entirely, can I ask about Rondellhunds (rough translation: roundabout dogs.) Who knows about them? I got a great letter from a lovely woman in Sweden (Monica) who told me that people are secretly erecting wooden dogs on Swedish traffic roundabouts. The dogs, or 'hunds' if you will, are illegal because they block drivers' views of traffic, but they're still going up all over the place. Is it just Sweden that this is happening in or other countries? I'd love to get it going here in Ireland. Himself and myself have discussed it but are unsure how to proceed. We have no power tools, or wood, or skill with our hands for that matter. But we have a willing heart. Also, I feel there would be no point doing it, until it is banned. But how can it be banned, until it starts? I would appreciate advice. Also, how detailed are the dogs? How big? Painted or plain? Always wooden or has one ever been done in papier mache? Or ceramic? I'm going to Sweden in May - do you think they'll still be going on then? Right, lookit, I have to go now, I've an appointment with Dr Murphy for Malarone tablets for the malaria. Himself also has to come and he HATES going to the doctor and he said to me, "Just tell him you're going for twice as long and get a double dose." But I wouldn't. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because I hate doing the turn out of Dr Murphy's surgery, you've to go across 2 lanes of fast-moving traffic and because my car is now a Merc instead of my beloved Beetle, the other drivers think, "Look at that…that… rich fecking…. toad, she can feck off if she thinks I'm letting her out," while I fix each of them with a beseeching look, saying, "I'm not really a Merc driver, I'm really a cute Beetle driver, it's not my fault. I inherited this shagging Merc!" But Himself is not afeerd of other drivers and if he comes to the doctor with me, I don't have to worry about being judged. Or having the front of me car sliced off by another driver with a grudge. As well as the malaria tablets, I am also going to ask Dr Murphy for ointment for trench foot, just for the laugh. Also if he can prescribe anything I could take in the event of a military coup. So listen, I'll write after March 8th, is that okay? I really will try not to make a habit of this. And let's be of good cheer. It's February now, we've survived January and the days are getting longer, they really are, you can see it in the evenings now. As Himself says, "There's a grand stretch to the evenings these days," then he doubles up, snorting with laughter. When pressed he admitted that (as an Englishman) he had never heard anything so funny in his life as Irish people going around saying, "There's a grand stretch to the evenings these days." I hope you had a lovely month and thank you for reading this. Lots of love Marian |
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Photograph Marian Keyes © Mark McCall