M.G.

Joined July 2021

13 stories

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Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge

Stories (13)

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We Should Just Be Friends
I've never thought myself to be creative enough to write music. Hell, I can't even improvise a solo playing fiddle with my Irish band. Why on earth would I be able to write lyrics? A friend of mine from the band has written and recorded a handful of original songs, and said that "it'll happen when you have something to say". Obviously I have things to say, I talk incessantly. But it has to sound good. There has to be a noticeable rhythm to it, there has to be flow. "When you feel something and need to get it out, just write", he said. "It doesn't matter if it's good. Just write. It helps."
By M.G.12 months ago in Beat
Old Enough To Get There But Too Young To Get Inside
It all started with Dolly. In 2016, my family took a trip to Gatlinburg. My whole family...mom, dad, sisters, aunt, uncles, cousins, grandparents, everyone. We stayed in one of the mansion-size cabins associated with Dollywood and spent several days in the park (in addition to getting lost trying to find our white water rafting dock and arguing with my mother about buying a pair of real boots because my feet had finally stopped growing). It was a great trip. It was also then that my youngest sister, Erin, began her obsession with Dolly Parton.
By M.G.about a year ago in Photography
I’m Having a Record Year. Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge.
January Two weeks. Everything fell apart in two weeks. Really it had been longer than that. But from “I think we’d be better as friends” to “I guess we’re done then” took two weeks. And the year had just started. So I killed a box of tissues as I packed (and stole one or two to take with me) and cozied up on the couch where dragons and fae and shadow singers consoled me. My ring broke on Nee Years Night and someone told me it was a bad omen. I don’t normally believe in that sort of thing, but it was a little too coincidental for my taste. Now here we are…you asked for it.
By M.G.about a year ago in Beat
The Mermaid and the Irish Rover
Friday, July4th, 1806 Co. Cork, Ireland My father was a sailor. His father was a sailor, and his father before that. My father always told me growing up that a sailor's life was a hard one (especially because of the terrible food on ships). He wanted me to do absolutely anything but follow in his footsteps...but here I was, toting my belongings up the gang plank to board the Irish Rover for the next few years.
By M.G.4 years ago in Fiction
Finnegan's Wake
Mr. Timothy Finnegan was a Kilkenny man through and through. He had lived on Walkin Street all his life, inheriting the house when his parents had passed. Tim had the bushiest red beard and softest green eyes; for as much as he was a mountain of a man, he really was a big teddy bear. Bricklayers were part of the Building and Allied Trades’ Union in Ireland, and Tim was one of the hardest working members despite his strong love of whiskey. He was practically born with the bottle in his mouth, and had to have a glass every morning before work. But, with the stress of work and paying the bills, one glass before work had quickly turned into two, which then became four, and sometimes even seven.
By M.G.4 years ago in Fiction
Dear Future
Dear Future, Hello, my name is Present And I have a couple questions. Will I become the president when I grow old? I know it’s quite irrelevant
By M.G.4 years ago in Poets
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Taylor Swift's Speak Now and 1989, Death Cab for Cutie’s Kintsugi and Plans, and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness are my favorite albums. But it has nothing to do with the lyrics to the songs or the stories they tell or their image in the tabloids or anything that people normally cite as reasons why their favorites are their favorites.
By M.G.4 years ago in Confessions
Then I Saw Her Face
Part 1: Maggie I shouldn't be out tonight. It's finals week, I still have an online exam to finish, but I want no parts of any of it. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to take my test and write my papers at a friend's house (who also wanted no parts of any of it); I don't typically do this, but it seemed like a good idea. To add to my likely poor judgment, the friend I chose to take finals with has a brother who's in a band...a band who was playing a show during the weekend leading into finals week. But this is not just any band; my friend's brother is in an Irish band. Color me obsessed. So in my state of wanting no parts of finals and looking for any excuse to get out of doing my work, my friend and I slammed our laptops shut, splashed on some hastily-done makeup, and drove to the divey-est little corner bar in all of South Philly. I mustered up my most Mayfair Girl air and marched my way in, weaving my way through the crowd to get a beer and a seat at a table by the door, hoping that the greasy old biker-looking guys would leave me alone if I pulled off enough of a resting bitch face. The oversized flannel should help with that look, I would think...probably not the fitted tank top and leggings painted on underneath, though. Meanwhile my friend hemmed and hawed about still being a week away from turning 21 and getting "caught" sitting at a table in a bar, not drinking, as a relative of the entertainers.
By M.G.4 years ago in Humans
One Fandom to Rule Them All
I remember being a very young child looking through relics in my grandparents’ basement and finding a box of old records and another box of old books. In the box of books, there was a paperback picture book detailing Bilbo Baggins’ journey through Middle Earth, told as a written version of the 1977 TV movie; the box of records had the accompanying “book on vinyl” recording. The toddler that I was at the time looked through the pictures and thought how strange these hobbit creatures looked and that it must be a very dangerous journey to be on because Gandalf looked serious and foreboding. I put the book back in the box and forgot about its existence for many years.
By M.G.4 years ago in Geeks
A Day in the Life
As a sophomore in high school, I wanted to be a physical therapist when I grew up. I had experienced being a patient because of sports injuries and wanted to be on the opposite side of the exam table someday, assigning exercises that no one would do and icing perpetually sore muscles. I spent six years on this plan, convinced that this was what I was going to do with my life...until I actually got to physical therapy school and spent more time enjoying the fact that I was living away from my family within walking distance of so many cool downtown places than I did studying gross human anatomy. So when the end of the first semester rolled around, it wasn’t much of a surprise that I was asked to leave the program and reapply for the following year. It was definitely a wakeup call.
By M.G.4 years ago in Education
The Green Lights
She had the most captivating green eyes. Everyone complimented them constantly; girls, guys, people of all ages. They were practically an emerald color, and combined with her fiery red curls they were even more gorgeous. She was gorgeous, in both a conventional and unconventional sense. Not only was she the most lovely being I had ever set eyes on, but she was kind and caring to boot. And I was beyond madly in love with her.
By M.G.4 years ago in Fiction
Strong Like Bull
My grandmother came from the “old country”, as they call it. Her mother’s mother’s grandmother was a victim of the Great Famine in 1848, dying of hunger herself so her nine children could eat. Many Irish fled the blight, but none of her family could afford the escape to America. Her great grandmother saw the global violence of World War I and the bloodshed right at home with the Easter Rising of 1916; the combined death and destruction was horrifying. Her grandmother witnessed the Treaty that established the Irish Republic, and fell in love with a dashing young Limerick lad named Sean who joined the IRA. My grandmother’s mother died as the Troubles began, and my grandmother finally managed to save up enough to move to Philadelphia just as Dublin and Monaghan were bombed by the Northern Irish loyalists.
By M.G.4 years ago in Fiction