Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Score: Wine 2, Food 1, Sleep 0
The last two days were a completely unexpected whirlwind. While it’s been a peculiar flavour of fun, it’s also been exhausting and more than a little weird. Not to mention more than a little drunk.
The exhausting part was entirely my fault. I sent out a press release on Wednesday at around 10 PM, figuring it would be a good thing to have in journalists’ Inboxes first thing in the morning. They started calling 5 minutes later. When Newstalk then rang and asked if I could go on air the next morning, I started to get half a clue that Two Tits and a Vote might catch more attention than I had anticipated. So as soon as I got off the last call at midnight, I hastily convened an emergency IM meeting with the fabulous Suzy, who helped me develop my talking points and message list for radio shows. We pow-wowed until 3 AM, though I have to say the time invested was completely worth it.
What Thursday brought was, first of all, a damn early wake-up call when a regional paper rang at 7 AM. From there the phone pretty much rang straight through until noon. It was so full on that when the Independent rang at 12 to ask if they could send a photographer down now, I told them I needed an hour because I had not yet had a chance to pee, shower or brush my teeth and was still in my pajamas.
I also wanted to *cry* because I’d had 4 hours of sleep, and as you may have seen in your paper du jour, looked like the back end of a bus that had been run over by another bus.
After an hour of having various hideous photos of me taken by a very nice man, I jumped in a cab to Cork Station, grabbed a cold noodle salad from the newsagent’s, and with sixty seconds to spare made the 2:30 Dublin train. Where my master plan of grabbing some sleep was promptly thwarted by a hen party from Mallow. A very large, very loud hen party that in a Patton-esque triumph of tactical resource planning, managed to distribute itself across every available carriage.
In Dublin, I was graciously rescued by Ellybabes, which may be cosmological proof that there is a God because at this point I was so exhausted I couldn’t move under my own steam without walking into a lamp post. We arrived at the Odessa Club just in time for me to do a radio interview at 6 PM, after which… I made a huge, moronic, critical error.
I had a glass of wine.
It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later that I noticed I could no longer properly form words. I pulled my empty lunch container out of my bag, read the back, and realised that my complete food intake for the day had consisted of a grand total of 180 calories. And I was now absolutely, irretrievably BOMBED OUT OF MY TREE.
There is a reason I never, ever, ever drink. The reason is that I am spectacularly bad at it, even under the most auspicious circumstances. And I think we can all agree that four hours of sleep, five cups of coffee, and 180 calories worth of food do not make for auspicious circumstances.
At this point we migrated upstairs to join the throngs at the the tremendously successful TechLudd event (Anton Mannering: Tech Crowd Hero!), where I had another glass of wine because whatever shards of judgment with which I am normally endowed were now firmly locked in a cask labeled Sauvignon Blanc. I then proceeded to play nicely with some people whilst being borderline abusive to a number of others – people to whom I would sincerely apologise if only I could remember who they were.
The only blessing was that I had to leave at 8:30 PM to catch the last train back to Cork, limiting both my alcohol intake and my exposure to other humans. When the train left the station and the announcement was made that there would be no food service, I think I actually wept before keeling over and finally, finally falling asleep. Or possibly just passing out.
Friday morning I was suitably punished for my sins by an incredibly early call from a radio station ringing to slot me into their morning show in a few hours. After that, my hangover (yes, from two glasses of wine) and I went out to get the morning papers from the newsagent over the road and with 9 hours of sleep in two days, started all over again.
The media attention for Two Tits and a Vote was of course completely worth it and utterly delightful. I was so, so glad for the press bump; the interest level was just amazing and very gratifying.
Almost as gratifying, though, was waking up this morning at 7 am not because the phone had rung at an ungodly hour for the third straight day, but because the dog had stepped on my face. Press coverage is great, but I’m no kind of media maven. And after the last 48 hours, being able to pee without three calls stacking up on my mobile is its own kind of thrill.
26 Jan 2008
| In: Activism + Ireland + Social Networks |
Good Jeebus! You poor thing. Go back to bed!
26.01.2008, 9:25 amI would happily crawl back under the duvet except I am in the very odd position of desperately needing to catch up on *food* far more than sleep. Friday didn’t leave a lot of time for eating *or* sleeping, and today it feels like there is just not enough food in all of Ireland for my ravenous tummy. Weird.
And no, before you ask, I am not up the duff. Mind yer own knickers! :P
So what are you cooking??? (Other than a bun in the …groan…)
26.01.2008, 11:21 amDo you have any food allergies that a care package would need to know about?
26.01.2008, 1:12 pmWill, me?
None, except my obvious allergy to wine and other Beverages of Satan…
Suzy, anything with carbs glorious carbs, apparently.
Glad to hear the campaign is going well, (I’ve visited here a few times). It’s definitely worthy of the attention!
01.02.2008, 1:10 pm[...] the merest whiff sends me running for the nearest wastepaper basket. And after my recent episode of accidental drunkness, I have had to stop wearing the perfume I wore that night, because the smell just induces instant, [...]
13.02.2008, 1:19 pm