Unfunny

I can be fun. Seriously, I can. I have a good sense of humour, I'm capable of making people laugh, and I laugh often. However this aspect of my personality seems to constantly evade my FG persona. Reading my blog, I imagine one might picture a dark, gloomy figure. The Eeyore of her generation. "Oh, bother" I think to myself when I re-read some of my essays, "what a terrible bore am I."

Oh, but it is such a chore to talk about funny things. Funny things are for doing, for living and experiencing. I put all of my happy and funny energy into those activities, whereas my sad and angry energy is best ventilated through a keyboard and sent off into the great unknown so I can rid myself of it once and for all. When I'm funny, it is usually a spontaneous and often unintentional thing - I think I am laughed at rather than laughed with. Either that or I'm sarcastic. Neither of those kinds of funny translate well in writing. Some people are gifted with a lightness of being which permeates their every action, can convey that lightness through all manner of media. I, however, am just better at the serious stuff. Recently I was reading this post and I was endlessly entertained. I wish I had such a gift, to be able to make someone who doesn't know you just laugh out loud and continue to giggle about it throughout the day.

But, alas, I am who I am. I have far too much self-knowledge to think I could write hilariously funny posts or that I would suddenly stop needing this space to be a place to air my frustrations with the world. So you're stuck with me, all of my ranting and raving and crying and whimpering.

That said, there will be no whining and whimpering today. I had a great weekend. Max whisked me off for a well-timed trip to Donegal. We stayed in a caravan and ate far too much BBQ'd food (what is it about a BBQ that makes you feel like one portion of everything is just not enough?), we watched more Mighty Boosh and took long strolls on this beach
which we essentially had all to ourselves. We played boules, built a sandcastle, hunted for crabs and played fetch with the dog. I put my feet in the Atlantic Ocean and imagined I was touching home somehow. Max got a sunburn in spite of my constant nagging for him to use sunblock, and I remained that special translucent shade of white reserved for those people born to Scandinavian ancestors. At night we drank pear flavoured cider and curled up with the dog in between us for warmth. Max did his usual "hey, I'm cool and down with the kids" routine to try and hush the teenagers in the caravan park after midnight, and we laughed at how un-punk a nearly thirty year-old man in his pyjama bottoms and slippers using phrases such as "lady friends" must seem to a pack of 15 year-olds.

One of the nicest parts of the weekend was talking about having a family again. We've been almost afraid to talk about kids since the Dark Day - at least I have anyway. But we were surrounded by it there on that beach. I caught Max watching a father dipping a toddler's toes in the water while the baby laughed wildly. The entire beach was full of such scenes, couples pushing a pram and calling for other little ones to catch up as the splashed through the water dragging a child's fishing net full of seashells. "That's us next," he said, hopefully. I just squeezed his hand. I think I am starting to believe him again, though, and the last month has done nothing if not show me how ready I am for a family. For the first time since the miscarriage we talked about what we would be like as parents, how I would inevitably end up the practical mom while Max played the cool dad, how I would read to them every night and how it would seriously detract from the amount of time I spent reading to Max (much to his chagrin), how beautiful a baby would be with his curls and my eyes and his long cow-lashes.

Then we went back to such shenanigans as putting these sunglasses on the dog and seeing who could bring the other one down the hardest in a wrestling match, because we're not parents yet and therefore completely entitled to act like children. Even the drive home was wonderful, listening to the summer-y sounds of The Divine Comedy and watching the seemingly hundreds of shades of green fly by the window. Occasionally Max would reach over and squeeze my hand, or I would catch him humming along to songs he pretends to dislike, and I felt truly happy with the life we have started to make with each other.

In spite of having sand in places sand should never be, it was the perfect way to spend a weekend.