For those of you who don't already know of the feelings I feel for February 21st, allow me to enlighten you through song:
Fuck you, February 21st. I will continue to hate you until my dying day.
Trust me, I sang that. Use your imagination.
For the unaware, permit me to educate you on why one particular 21st of February is responsible for shaping the man you know and secretly love (ssshhh don't fight, let it happen). This one particular date explains The Curse of the Gold Shirt, the ongoing presence of my wrist accoutrements and my present career path (the reason why I know more or less all of you that I do). Oh, and also the reason I loathe pancakes.
Flashback, bitches!
The year was 2006. It was a simpler time. One in which Facebook was still in its infancy, Pope Benedict XVI (:Adrian's Revenge) was still enjoying the "honeymoon period" (so to speak) of his papacy, the world knew only of three Die Hards, three Indiana Joneses and nobody yet knew what the fuck a Twilight was. More relevant to this story however, it was also a time at which I was a 21 year old journalism student working my way through Dublin's banking sector in order to buy pretty things for my then girlfriend. And, as this was at a time in which alcohol had not yet been invented (*citation needed*), I was all young and hopeful and....stuff. Most pressingly, I was sweating the results of the previous semester's college exams.
Pretty sure that covers the background and brings us to the date in question....
....well there was a gold shirt, but that'll come into play later.
So, it was 21/02/06 and I was on my way to rendezvous with said girlfriend, get our exam results, and do whatever it is I used to do to celebrate/commiserate before I took up drinking. Oh, and hey, also, I looked like this:
Moving on....
I probably should take this opportunity to warn you that this story is not so full of the usual whimsy and self-deprecation that seem to have become my trademark. Shit's gonna get dark, kids. Still, I'll kick off the day's events on a relative high- we both passed our exams. Good times. We hopped a bus and headed back to hang out at her place for a few hours. At some point after we got there, I decided that this was the time to break out my gold disco shirt (recently bought in a second hand shop) solely because I knew how much she hated it, and all of my ironically terrible shirts. It really offered very little warmth, but it was worth it to....to....er....I'm sure I had some end-game with that, but I cannot now, all these years later, fathom what the fuck it could have been. In a heavy book on her kitchen table, she was pressing one of the roses I had given her the week before for Valentine's Day. I remember that part with particular clarity for some reason. I remember having a particularly in depth conversation with her dog, Solo, as she disappeared off into some dark corner of her kitchen. And I remember the massive smile that crept across her face when she re-emerged. It may have been Pancake Tuesday. Neither of us were sure, and in these pre-social networking addiction days, we had not been bombarded with a news feed full of reminders. The only thing that was clear, even just from that smile that stretched wordlessly from ear to ear, was that her mum had left some pancake batter sitting in the fridge. Pancake Tuesday or not, things were about to get tasty.
So, a while later, a pancake had been created, birthed from the ether like a sugar coated Frankenstein's Monster, and waiting to make our day. I was reluctant to partake in pancake, partly to make a point that I did not trust her skills in the kitchen, partly because I was already full on the joys of a trip to Beshoff's on O'Connell Street. Regardless of rhyme or reason, I fought like a startled mouse in a sock (purely speculative) to not sample that first pancake. I take my hat off to the level of fight she displayed to get me to sample some, but eventually she had to accept defeat and abandon the pancake battle when she was bested by a coughing fit.
OK, so this was a girl who had suffered severely at the hands of asthma for a number of years. From what she'd told me, it could get pretty bad and she had been hospitalised on a few occasions after bad asthma attacks. I'd never seen it first hand, and hoped I'd never have to. I'd seen people afflicted by asthma and I could only imagine how much of a kick in the bones it must have been for them to lose the ability to breathe for a spell. Breathing is, hands down, one of my favourite things to do. So, every time she so much as coughed, I winced in pain on her behalf. I was all kinds of crazy about this girl, so seeing her in even the slightest hint of discomfort bothered me. Seriously, I cannot adequately describe in words how I felt about this girl in those days....and attempts to do so through gesticulating have proved equally fruitless to this point. Anyway, with her coughing her dodgy lungs up by the sink, I likely went off on some bizarre, inconsequential tangent in an effort to take her mind off these organs that were trying to escape through her mouth at that very moment. She apologised and asked me to take good care of her pancake for the time-being. It was at this moment that I felt a deep stirring within my soul for the first time. I had known this girl for a year or two as a friend before we started going out, and had fallen very hard, very fast when we got together. I knew I loved her, a fact which I'd shared with her many months previously by this stage. Thankfully for me, she reciprocated those feelings, so clearly she was without taste or sound judgement. But, I digress: it was at this time- sitting in her kitchen, all long haired youth and golden shirted- that I realised the love I felt for her at that precise moment was nothing compared to the love I was then feeling for that pancake. Left momentarily unattended in my company, its owner coughing herself into a position of limited sight to my right, this pancake was now my whole world. Screw empathy for her plight. I needed that pancake. I felt it only right to inform the girl of this development, so she could plan accordingly for her future bereft of pancake and my love. I turned to do so....
"Call an ambulance."
That brief sentence spluttered forth took with it all hope for my eloping with her snack, on this most fraudulent of Pancake Tuesdays. I abandoned such jovial thoughts and instead set to keeping her calm while I contacted the emergency services. Next up came time to place a call to her dad in work, whilst we awaited medical assistance. She may have faced these situations before, but it was all new and terrifying to me. She went outside to the front garden for some space and fresh air (in a manner of speaking) whilst clutching her inhaler. I was beginning to panic a little at this point, to be fair.
"Asthma attack is it? Alright. Well, I guess that means they'll take her to the local hospital again. Is it a bad one? Do you think they'll want to keep her in overnight this time? I'll swing by after work in a few hours."
The total nonchalance with which he greeted the news threw me right back into a sort of limbo between calm and terror. I knew they'd all been through this a bunch of times, and I'd been made well aware throughout the relationship that this was likely an eventuality I'd come to face at some point, but it was all a bit jarring to me still. After all, I'd been plotting an escape to Mexico with her pancake mere moments earlier. I almost felt a bit guilty about that now. Still, it would be grand when the ambulance showed. I'd give her some space until then, and let her get her breath as best she....
*THWACK*
I hadn't realised how silent things had been for the 10 seconds or so since the end of the call to her dad until I heard her inhaler cracking against the front step. I only knew what it was when I saw it float across my eyes in slow motion, like Challenger breaking apart in the sky.
"Fuck it. I'm dying."
She hadn't said much in the last minute, fighting for breath being her main concern. She said it with such defeated conviction. Such hurt that this was going to be what got her. I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to calm her down so she could concentrate on fighting to breathe, and not over-think anything. No need to fear the worst here, it was just a regular asthma attack, the like of which she'd dealt with so many times before. I told her this and made sure to stare deep into her eyes as I did. I'll never forget that look in those eyes.This wasn't a regular asthma attack, and now we both knew it.
I jumped her garden wall and ran next door. The neighbours were out but I knew there were a group of builders working out the back all day. All I could think was that one of them must have known first aid or CPR or whatever. I pounded on that door for seconds that felt like days. When someone finally did open the door, I made sure to state as simply, as clearly and as relaxed as I could that my girlfriend was having an asthma attack next door. Did anyone have any experience or know-how to help?
"Get her a brown paper bag to breathe into!"
Hyperventilation- the new asthma. Still, it wasn't their fault. They didn't know much better than I did what to do in this situation. Why would they?
An interminable amount of time having passed, the ambulance rounded the corner, bringing with it such a feeling of relief that I almost broke down in hysterical laughter on the spot.
"Look. They're here. You'll be fine. They've got you now."
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Aaaaaaaaaand relax.
Shit, I warned you that would get pretty dark, didn't I? I'm sorry about that. Really, I am, but it's a very necessary part of the story. Now, let's take a moment here, collect our thoughts and regain composure. I don't know what you like to do to get yourself together and chill out, but I'm going to go and grab a Coke. I'll be back.
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Now, where was I? Oh yeah, all the dread and fear and stuff. Again, for the purpose of full disclosure, it may help to know that, while all of this was going down, I looked like this:
Except ditch the Clash t-shirt. And the apron. Replace them with a gold shirt. Better? Lighter thoughts? Well hold onto them....
By the time we reached the hospital, and they'd wheeled her away into the shadows, I was left alone with my thoughts for the first time in an age, an epoch, an era, or any suitably lengthy duration you care to call to mind. It was then that I, in all my long haired, disco shirted "glory", began to hear sounds outside of my own head for the first time in a similar duration. And there they were, those unmistakable notes drifting through the crisp spring air in that hospital waiting room....
Tragedy, by
The fucking
Bee fucking
Gees.
And I smirked at the aptness of the moment. Had it been
Staying Alive, I might not have been able to hold it together.
I went outside to call her mother. Much as with her dad, I was met with casual comfort at the turn of this day's events. They had nothing to fear, after all. I was just overly alarmed because of the alien nature of the environment into which I'd been thrust that afternoon. I stole myself to prepare for the wait before I could see her, sure to be shaken at the spoiling of her pancake. As I allowed myself to unclench my teeth, one of the paramedics wandered back in to find me. A few simple questions for me.
Oh and a blanket of tin foil, usually reserved for marathon runners whose race is run. Can't forget the tin foil blanket.
"Listen, you're in shock. It's OK."
"I'm not. I'm fine really."
"You're shaking, and you're
very pale."
"I'm wearing a very gold, very thin shirt. And I'm always this pale!"
Cut to some while later (I had no track of time by this point), and a doctor asking my relationship to her patient. Next of kin? I wasn't, but seeing as her parents weren't going to be around for a couple of hours yet, I wondered if there were any way I could get an update of when I could be let in to see her.
It was a weird feeling, for however long I was alone in that hospital after that point, being somewhere in my own world, but not really present even there. The next thing I remember is hugging her mum. I think I hugged her mum. She knew by that point, so I guess she must have been there for at least a while before I saw her. I'd been absent mindedly scratching my arm for a while. Quite a long while I suppose. Must have been- it was raw, bleeding ever so slightly. I hadn't noticed before. I kept scratching, wondering when the day's anaesthetic would cease to numb it.
I tried, for as long as I could sustain, to keep up the spirits of her mum and her mum's friend, herself more or less a member of the family. Then I just kind of drifted off again. Her parents offered to give me a lift into town. I accepted, probably by monosyllabic means. Can't remember much of the journey, save for having my head bowed the whole time. I didn't look up from my feet at any point of that car journey into town, nor while standing in the darkness of the evening as I waited for my bus to arrive. I'm amazed I made it upstairs on that bus, because my gaze never shifted then either, but I vaguely recall sitting up top. I remember calling a mate, just needing to talk to someone on the half hour final leg of my journey home. Still, to this day, I've never noticed such a paradigm shift in a conversation as then. Next thing I knew I was turning the key in my front door.
That's when it hit me all at once. My lip quivered, my knees buckled and my hand ceased to function. I couldn't get in the door, but I was frantic. I had to. I couldn't lose it til I crossed that threshold. The key turned, and I slumped in and to the floor. I bawled.
She was on a life support machine. Chances were she wasn't going to wake up.
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Seriously, I warned you. I did. Go back to that first picture of me looking a little bit feminine in monochrome. Right there, I fucking warned you.
Honestly, stay with me on this one. I'll break the soul-crushing horror with another picture to show you how ridiculous I looked while all of this was going down. That has to ease it, right? Here:
And that shirt isn't even gold! I still have that shirt. I still wear that shirt. I can't say the same about the hat....or the hair.
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My mum, being a nurse, showed that typical mix of caring bedside manner and maternal instinct to soothe her broken son. I'm sure she knew how hopeless it was. Didn't stop her trying though:
"She'll be OK. She's young, and she's a tough girl. She's a fighter."
My dad, on the other hand, is less skilled in the subtle nuances of dealing with such circumstances. He tried for optimistic reassurance, but let's see if we can spot where he went wrong here. His youngest child has just come through the door, uncharacteristically sobbing, as his girlfriend is likely to die soon, if she hasn't died already as this son was in transit. This happened:
"Well....er....you passed your exams though. That's good news."
Honest to fuck, in hindsight, that is the single most incredible moment of my life, for all the best reasons. I can only hope to do it justice by saying that it is the second most treasured moment of my life to this point. At that time, I was not as enamoured.
"Would you have a little pray, maybe?"
"No, mum. I haven't believed in God since I was 6 years old or something."
"Oh....maybe say a prayer anyway. It can't hurt."
Never could I imagine Irish parenting being summed up more succinctly than by those two instances from my parents. And I love them for each.
Regardless, all sundry possessions were hurled about my room in fits of unbridled fury at the universe that night. No sleep was had. More importantly, no updates were forthcoming. I was to wait for word, and I knew that with every passing minute the likelihood of a positive outcome diminished. Eventually, I was persuaded to make a call of my own in the early morning, to her mum.
"Oh, I thought I'd let you sleep. She woke up a while ago. She's fine."
So, see that bit above where I cited my dad's exam related comment as the second most treasured moment of my life? Well, the top is easily walking into the hospital that morning and seeing that girl looking back at me. I couldn't speak. I had to remind myself just to draw breath- which, let's face it, is in pretty poor taste on such an occasion as that. She was alive, and nothing else mattered worth a damn.
Now, here's the thing: Right from the outset, I didn't sit down here and say "you're going to now read a blog about that one time my ex-girlfriend kinda died (twice)". No, I told you that I was going to give you one serious insight into why some things is as some things is. So, here we fucking go.
1) The Curse of the Gold Shirt:
One of the first things that girl said to me from her hospital bed on the morning of February 22nd was that I was forbidden from wearing that monstrosity of a shirt, whether in her presence or not, from that moment on. That shirt was to be held accountable and sentenced appropriately for having, in essence, killed her. And, while I did break it out a couple of times more in the next few months, just to get under her skin, I eventually did do as promised and binned the fucker. It wasn't worth the risk. Or the nickname "Disco", which it spawned. In fact, below sits a picture taken right after it was binned:
Now, you may notice a few things about that image, and may have questions as such. So allow me to clarify them straight away:
i) Thankfully, I did eventually see reason and get the haircut I so richly needed.
ii) The handsome man shaking my hand in celebration at the death of the shirt is my now not so handsome friend, Paudie.
iii) Absent in previous pictures within this post, you may notice the leather wrist strap I now wear on my right, more or less every minute of every day.
2) The ongoing presence of my wrist accoutrements:
A brief time after all the death and madness had died down, I happened across a stall on Wicklow Street, and noticed a leather strap that took my fancy. I, being the sentimental fool that I am, felt it important to buy something to commemorate and memorialise the event in my life. So there's that. I've bought many such gauntlet type things since for special occasions and the like, but that's the one I am always seen to sport, and that is why I have so often done so.
My relationship with the girl went on for four further years after that point, through highs and ultimately lows. Sure, eventually things went south on that, but you live, you love, you learn, and you live some more. To be honest, she ended up being an arsehole of colossal proportions. Speaking of learning, those builders were apparently so shaken by everything that they went out and did first aid courses afterwards. But ours was not the only relationship that came to hold her death as a milestone.
3) JDIFF:
After spending a few hours in the hospital on the 22nd (as many as I was permitted to spend), the 23rd, the 24th and the 25th, I eventually worked my way back into town to meet a friend on that latter evening, in the midst of Dublin's infamous Charlie Bird abusing riots. And it was then, in Cassidy's/The Westmoreland (I think) that I first heard of JDIFF, having met my mate, Action Man, and his new, film festival acquired compadre, the above immortalised Paudie. And so began my relationship with JDIFF, festivals and event related work as a whole. Were it not for that fateful meeting, I may never have become involved in JDIFF, and instead stuck it out as a bank employee. Chances are I wouldn't be living in Edinburgh now, working in box offices wherever people see fit to pay me, and sharing this with the vast majority I met through this line of work.
Thanks Paudie, and Action Man, you fucks.
4) Pancakes:
Alright, so here's where things end, amigos and amigas. Things end with pancakes. Fucking pancakes. The silent killers. Killer crepes. You see, just as it was beauty rather than the planes that killed Kong. It was not asthma that killed the girl. It was the pancake. Still, seven years on, the exact cocktail of ingredients that induced such calamity through anaphylaxis remains a mystery. All that is known for sure is that the pancake was the cause.
Death by fucking flapjack. The indignity of it all.
And for that reason, to this day, I have consumed no pancakes. And for that same reason, Pancake Tuesday can go fuck February 21st.
February 22nd, you're welcome in my calendar anytime.
