Screaming Female Whines

Glory

2011-03-23T16:52:00.008Z

It's such a glorious day in London, I'm actually giddy. Then again, it's been a good day all around, so that might be part of it, but I'm going to focus on the fact that I am swanning around the city with a light jacket and shoes instead of a my parka and knee high boots. (with two pairs of tights and wool socks)

It would seem spring has finally arrived in the UK, but I'm a cynic and I'm prepared for this to be a flash in the pan. But one thing I have learned about living here, is that days like this, with warm sun, pale blue skies, and only the gentlest of breezes, are to be celebrated. Sure, I had this every day in LA, but that's just the problem; they happened so often, one never notices. Its simply business as usual. Which is why I like seasons. I have something to look forward to; something to pine for, as if I were a Bronte sister. Days like today make winter worth it. Days like today give grand hope. And what would life be without hope?

So here I sit, in the garden in west London, sipping a bit of pinot grigio, congratulating myself on having done such good work the past couple of days that I have earned this treat for myself. The neighbors cat is keeping me company and I am due to meet my friend Clara at what will become my favorite wine bar in all of London, as soon as they let me in the damn place. Its very crowded and I've been on 3 separate occasions without any luck in securing a table. Today, I feel, will be my day.

I was in Dublin a few weeks ago, celebrating Rob's 40th. He's the baby of our group, in spite of me not being a day over 29. It was glorious then to be back in the city. I have missed Dublin in a way I cannot express. I actually leapt off the plane and did a happy dance, so excited to be back on Irish soil again. To be back in the city I love, in my favorite of all places in Dublin, Susan's kitchen, and surrounded by friends... it was a bit overwhelming and exceedingly difficult to get back on the plane. But stomping around the city, as I have so many times before, I was struck by the realization that I felt like myself, that I felt at home, for the first time since I left Dublin. But I do wonder, on days like today, if I would feel that tenacity, that loyalty if I were still in Dublin. I'm not immune to the 'grass is always greener' virus, and I do recall that things weren't exactly working as well as I'd hoped at the end there. I was, after all, trying to relocate to London. But that feeling, that lock down of 'this is where you belong'... that's hard to shake. And I don't feel that here in London yet. I wonder that I ever will.

That said, I've had numerous discussion with Suzie and Clara and Eithne about the difficulties of relocating to London. And they all say the same thing: London is the hardest city any of us have ever moved to. 3 of us have lived in New York and let me tell you, Manhattan was a piece of cake compared to London. LA was easier! And those are some tough damn cities! It's a battle, which I've never had to do before. Every day, I gear up to conquer a city, to bend it to my will. It has yet to submit. I'm convinced it will, but damn... This is the hardest I've had to work for something since architecture school. And then all I had to do was show up and not cry. London's made me cry, I won't pretend otherwise, but on days like today, I forgive it. And I realize that Thomas Jefferson was right: anything worth having is worth working for

But today, I revel in the goodness of it all.

No Cinderella

2010-12-31T15:58:00.003Z

It is precisely at times like this one wishes one had married, in any way at all. Hastily. Clandestinely. Scandalously. Richly. Badly. It matters not at the moment.

I've just returned from Crouch End where, once again, I had to stock up on groceries for the next 5 days, as nothing in the whole of Britain will be open until Jan 5th. I am exhausted and I need a nap to recover. A husband to do my bidding would come in handy right about now. So would a Butler, come to think of it. At any rate, the simple act of riding the bus 3 minutes to Crouch End, gathering a few groceries, and then returning on the bus has left me spent. I'm still sick. Which is quite unfair as I actually have a New Year's Eve party to go to this evening and I was really looking forward to it.

The fact that I am sick bothers me, but being sick in a foreign country is particularly wretched. Since the middle of last week, everyone I know in this city has been out of town or country, not to return until tonight. Had I needed help, there would have been no one to call. It's a very vulnerable position to be in but as my sister rightly pointed out, at least I speak the language. Being sick in Sweden wasn't easy. Being sick in France was quite difficult as well. The ability to read gone, I couldn't pick out any medicines for myself and while the pharmacy across the street from the hotel was a godsend, it was another world away as the only French I speak relates to eating and drinking. At least this time, I can speak the language, as long as I can drag my poor ravaged body to the pharmacy. That I managed to do. I am a hero among women.

And here we are, on the eve of the New Year. Most people are buying champagne and vodka and fancy foods they so rarely eat, wishing each other well, asking if there are any resolutions being made. I filled my basket with sinus/cold/flu medicines and foods that take less than 5 minutes to cook with zero effort.When my neighbor asked if I had big plans for the evening, I smiled and wished her well. I didn't have the heart to tell her my highlight was going to be a steam filled bath and then bed before the clock strikes 10. I'm no Cinderella tonight.

So while all you are out celebrating and laughing and starting the year by kissing someone pretty, I plan to celebrate the New Year in my bath tub with a yellow rubber duckie and a cup of Lemsip. It's not your traditional glass of bubbly but that's just fine by me.

Happy New Year all!

Random Observations of London Life

2010-10-18T14:06:00.008+01:00

There are fireworks in the grocery stores here. Large firework displays, heavily advertised, next to the Halloween candy displays. I find it disturbing to select my produce and my gunpowder in the same section of the store. Perhaps if they moved it to the hardware aisle I'd feel better. Or at least to the seasonal aisle; although that seems to be packed with left over school uniforms and the beginnings of Christmas gear. Still though, gunpowder next to oranges smacks of "dangerous projectile" to me.

Every day on the bus, I pass a sign warning people that Flytipping is illegal and carries a £20,000 fine. It took me a month to work out what fly tipping is and why it is worth a £20,000 fine. Littering only brings a fine of £50-75 (unless I throw a cigarette butt, that seems to be something other than littering). I'm unsure what amount of volume is needed to bring about the £20k fine and I don't plan on finding out.

Cricket is a big sport here. It's a very upper class sport and is most often associated with Yorkshire, a staunchly and proudly blue collar region. No one is posh in Yorkshire. No one. But they play cricket. And the best cricketers come from Yorkshire apparently. Yet no one actually from Yorkshire can tell me why that is. They simply laugh and say: I've no idea. I've never played it. I'm not posh enough.

If I take a friend to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, I will have to stop to pick up a bottle of wine, since most veggie places don't have liquor licenses. I'm fine with that, what bothers me is non-standardized corkage fees charged for bring a bottle in. One place tells me it's £2 per bottle, one says it's £2 per person, one says £20 per table. This is God's best argument to eat more meat.

They have actual milkmen in London. Little carts come round to the house and deliver milk. And bottled water. And eggs, I think. Those are some talented cows.

Yesterday I passed a sign that said this: New Zebra Crossing Ahead. I wondered what part of the world I was in very briefly. In Wyoming, we have cattle crossings. I've seen signs posted for ducks, horses, deer, and in one place, moose. But those signs are about the animal crossing the road. In London, however, a zebra crossing is a pedestrian crossing. It's called a zebra crossing because they stripe the pavement with white and it ends up looking like a very large, very flat, geometric zebra was run over.

Guy Fawkes night is upon us. This is a holiday celebrated in Ireland and I just find it a bit odd. Guy Fawkes, back in the 1700s, tried to blow up the British Parliment. He placed barrels of gunpowder under the actual chamber where the law makers met. Unfortunately for Mr Fawkes, the fuses failed to ignite and he was arrested and most likely killed. It's called the Gun Powder Plot, I believe. Today, the British commemorate the day by lighting fireworks. It's a celebration of his failure. In Ireland, however, they light fireworks and celebrate that someone tried to blow up Parliment.

Flatmate Suzie v3

2010-10-09T10:05:00.005+01:00

One evening, shortly after I moved to London, I was on my way home from a fine solo dinner. Nichole + I had been talking about her wanting to come to London and I was thinking how amazing London would be if I had Nichole here with me. I'm no stranger to moving and starting in a new place by myself, but London is a very lonely place without friends, I've realized. Dublin was never like that. In Dublin, in Ireland in general, I could take myself to the pub, order whatever and be chatting away to someone in no time. Even if I were to be lonely in Dublin, company was only half a pint away. London is not like that. Mostly because there are few pubs with stools at the bar. It's all tables all the time here and chatting outside your group doesn't seem the British Way of Doing. Which is fine, it's their country, but as I said, London is a bit lonely without friends. So when Nichole announced her intentions to come to London, I was over the moon. And as I walked home, I was thinking how amazing it would be to have her Oh! Oh! Oh! and Flatmate Suzie in London with me.

Providence is a funny thing. Suzie arrived on Tuesday and will be staying in London for 3 or 4 months. London is about to get a whole lot better.

Living the Dream. Not Mine, But Someone's Surely

2010-08-31T21:31:00.003+01:00

It is a beautiful night in west London and I am happily sitting in the garden, with a plate of pasta in front of me, a glass of Spanish red wine, and the neighbor’s cats staring patiently, hoping against hope I will drop/share/simply fork over some food. Never gonna happen.

I arrived in London on Easter weekend, to stay in that holy grail of homelessness: a free place to stay for as long as I needed it. A dear friend of a dear friend set it up for me, warning that it was a bit of a construction site at the moment. That, I can handle. That, I grew up in. That was not what I found. Instead, I found the house in the midst of a 20+ year renovation, complete with missing floor boards and broken windows, but without heat or hot water. Or a shower. I was finally living my childhood dream: living in London in the 19th century. I just never imagined it would include polar fleece and a lap top for warmth. I did what any modern heroine would do; I took the first suitable short term lease I could find that didn’t include sharing a room “platonically” with a “gay” man. Instead, I moved into a flat, very conveniently located to the city, sharing with a girl who, as it turns out, dislikes the concepts of sobriety, chastity, and truthfulness. It’s not that she lies out-right, she well and truly believes she has the ability and obsessive need to clean like Monica Gellar. In reality, she’s a 19 year old frat boy who longs to star on Big Brother. Or Glee. Hard to tell. No, her problem with the truth stems from the fact that she thinking something does not make it real and experiencing something once does not make it part of your personality. Alice Cooper’s drummer asked me out one very long summer ago. Doesn’t mean I’m a rock star girlfriend. Well, I am, but that’s another story.

So now, I am subleasing a room in West London from a lovely lesbian couple. It is a nice house. It has a lovely garden. They seem nice. Should it keep going this way, I’d be mighty tempted to stay full time instead of taking up residence in my own flat, which will be ready for my occupancy mid-September. I do love a garden though. On clear nights such as this one. The downside, of course, is that I work in deepest North London and my commute from here is 1 hour 20 minutes. Once I am settled, that will become a 30 minute bus ride. But for now, I take the Piccadilly tube each morning to Camden, and then switch to the Northern Line. 40 minutes later, I arrive at work in North Finchley.

Were it not for the job, it wouldn’t be worth going. Were it not for the co-workers, that is. My job is good, don’t get me wrong. I am part of an amazing interiors studio. Small but very hands-on and I am learning a lot. I like work we’re doing. It’s high, High, HIGH end residential. Our clients are the Donald Trumps and Jackie O’s of London. We clad walls in silk, doors in leather, and think nothing of lining walls with mother of pearl. Open Architectural Digest, Its that sort of work. But the best part of it all is my co-workers. We use a 3-d visualizer, who makes computer models of everything I draw. The senior designer is amazing in many ways, but her memory for detail astounds me. My boss’s PA does a lot of the ordering for us, so she’s well versed in what we’re doing and the best place to source from. And then there is my boss. He’s a former child actor who retired, and smartly used the money to invest in businesses. He runs several, developed much of the East End of London, and has a client list I had to sign a confidentiality waiver to protect. It’s a world I cannot fathom but he, to his credit, is all about family. We work in North Finchley so he is only 15 minutes from home. His father runs the finances. His wife consults on the graphics. And he’d much rather we left at 6 to be with our families than working until 8pm every night. Unless he’s left a deadline too long, that is. He’s a bit chaotic. We’ll see how well we’re getting on in another 6 months.

So for my first 4 months in London, I’d say it’s going well enough. One crazy roommate, two houses from hell, but a decision on where I want to live (Highgate!), a job I enjoy, and a smattering of friends.
Not bad work for me.

New Country, New Look

2010-08-04T23:04:00.002+01:00

Thoughts? And yes, this means I'm writing again. Just not tonight.

It Is Time

2010-02-05T01:16:00.001Z

It's as close to A Sign as I get in my life.

Pint News

I'll be London bound in mid-March.

Never thought I'd See the Day

2010-01-12T17:28:00.002Z

Pardon the pun, but an interesting story found in the LA Times for your consideration.

Other than that, not much happening here in Sunny California. I'm working a contract job for a small residential firm and really enjoying it. I'd forgotten how much I liked the detailing and that very blurry line between interiors and architecture. My boss is a very likable fellow. The co-workers are a good group. It is only the commute that bothers me but what can you do? One Person Per Car is the unofficial state motto. So I drive and I work and I drive some more. Getting my butt back in shape for an office job!

Recession Cessation

2009-10-29T21:09:00.003Z

Now that the recession is officially over, I want to know where my damn job is. If the tough times are indeed behind us, as touted on every major newspaper/website in this country and many others, I should be overjoyed. Let's look a the numbers, shall we?

19: months I've been laid off +/or marginally employed
6: times I've moved in those 19 months, including twice over the Atlantic, looking for work
7: number of local addresses I have on current resumes
300+: architecture, interiors, CAD operator, design assistant jobs I've applied for
150: number of 'other' jobs I've applied for including cashier, receptionist, and waitress
4: current hours per week I'm being offered employment, at minimum wage
8: dollars per hour which represents minimum wage in the US
80: thousand dollars, my last salary offer before the world crashed
13: months I've spent living with (read: being supported by) my family members
1 Billion: tears I've shed as I watched my savings dwindle, my debt increase, my dignity evaporate, and my future crumble all while knowing there is nothing I can do about it.

So now that "surprising gains have been made" by the US economy and this nasty little downturn has swung back upward, why am I still begging for minimum wages jobs? I don't even feel like an architect any more. I feel like I've been posing as one, like I just got caught and I'm being punished. Except I do have the credentials and the experience. I just don't have a job. Which is humiliating. All that time and effort to get my education so I'd never have to be dependant, so I'd always be able to take care of myself, have a secure future... pooofffff! gone in a New York Minute. Recovery, however, takes years.

The First US Paddy's Day

2009-03-17T13:52:00.008Z

comic courtesy of comics.com/frazz

It just won't be the same without being in Ireland. Without friends coming to visit. Without a pub crawl to put together. I might not miss being hungover tomorrow however, but I will miss the vacation. Not that I've much to vacation from at the moment, but you know... it's the idea I miss. March is an amazing time in Ireland. The winter is over and you can actually see the days are getting longer. Leaving work every day is just a bit lighter than the previous day. The tulips and daffodils are pushing up thru the soil. People are starting to come out of their winter grumbling phase and beginning conversations not with "Ah, it's bleak today" but with positive statements. True, it is still cold and the sun still sets around 5pm but there is something inherently optimistic in the air this time of year in Dublin. I'll miss that. Here in Florida, it is far more difficult to see. The landscape is always green, the light is always strong. Were it not for the blooming of the trees, with yellow and pink flowers, nothing would appear different than when I first arrived 6 weeks ago. There is no discernible shift in attitude, no group looking on the sunny side of things. Here in Florida, it is business as usual: green beer and college kids on spring break. I think there will be many things I'll miss about Ireland.

The Lamentations of Space

2009-02-02T11:40:00.005Z

The movers have come and gone and taken my Irish Life's collected works to the shipyard. The manager called me late on Friday afternoon to tell me she had a ship leaving Monday morning, if I could get all packed by Saturday evening, I could be on it. It would shave 4 weeks off my transit time.

Hell yes I can get packed in a day.

In fact, after I loaded the 3 suitcases I will take on the plane, it took me 6 hours. 6 hours, 1 roll of packing tape, and 9 medium sized boxes. It was a stressful day but I got it done. After Sam the mover loaded the last of it, shook my hand, and wished me luck (very Irish thing to do) I looked around the debris field and felt empty. Gloriously empty.

Yesterday I cleaned it all up, finished the give away boxes, and put my room back into a semblance of normality. It is quite bare and I have to say, I like it. I've been living in this room for 3 years and everything I own in Europe, save the paltry kitchen equipment I have, has been stored in this very small room. It is probably 120 sq ft with just enough room for a queen sized bed, a small wardrobe, my dresser and a shoe rack. But I managed to cram all my clothes, my books and movies, my toiletries, my shoes and coats, my iron and board, a laundry basket, a waste basket, and a night stand into the room. I have never felt comfortable with it, because it was all too much STUFF stuffed into the room and now that it has all gone, I have the luxury of looking around and feeling space in my room. I had forgotten how much I enjoy sparseness.

Which is not to say I'm a minimalist. I like my personal effects but I find it very soothing to see the surfaces. I like to see a bit of space around my things. But for three years, I've not had that luxury. My room is rather typical of second bedrooms in Dublin. It is neither small nor large but for an adult, it is difficult not to spill out of it. Throw last night's clothes on the floor and it is wrecked. A newspaper left behind will make it appear to be the fire trap is really is. But a room needs things in it to comfort the tenant, no? Photos of my family and friends, books and movies to entertain myself on long dark nights, the candle sticks my brother gave me, the Vespa calendar, the bowl my father made for me... these are the things I surround myself with to give me home when I have no Home.

But now my home is on a ship across the Atlantic. And I will make a new home for myself, however long this post will be, in Florida. I will learn to be a beach person now, leaving my pub self behind here in Dublin. I will eat Cuban food and learn to Salsa. I will wear shorts and flip flops. And I will surround myself with things that remind me of the years I lived in Ireland. The photos of friends, the souvenirs from trips, the DVDs that won't play, the stuff from my room in Irishtown.

Blogging Obamer

2009-01-20T16:46:00.004Z

I'm sitting on the sofa here in Dublin, watching the swearing in of the American president, live on Sky News. It is odd watching such a truly American event with British accents. Whoever the commentator is, he has a very proper British accent and all his words ending with A come out pronounced -er. Obamer. Pennsylvan-yer Avenue. His daughters

Mylee-r and Sasher.

They are doing an amazing job of filling the time between celeb sightings with actual content. There is a lot of history attached to this event, which they are explaining. That he will be sworn in on Lincoln's bible but had the option to use his family's bible instead. That the oath of office is written in the US constitution but the words 'so help me god' were added around the time of FDR. They are pointing out the different monuments and calling attention to the geography of the area, letting people know it is 1.5 miles from the Lincoln Memorial to the steps of the White House. That the area between the two, filled with millions of people, is known as the Mall. Special details of the president's armoured car were recalled.

Why is Yo Yo Ma the only one who looks like he's having a good time?

It's an interesting ceremony. I can't remember if last time, or any time, there was this much music. I know it always opens with a prayer and that someone sings My Country Tis of Thee, which people confuse for the national anthem judging by the number of people with hands over hearts, and that the ceremony closes with a poem. I don't remember cannon fire, which is actually quite cool, and I know there weren't so many of those basketball balloon type noise makers. There should be more flags.

And now 44 speaks.

It's a good speech, not a great one, but then again, he doesn't really have time for hyperbole, this president. I can't say any other president has had so many pressing issues upon entering. So many things that absolutely must be sorted, fixed, straightened out immediately, as a matter of life, death, and liberty. How can he spare time for metaphors and pretty phrases? This is a back-to-business presidency, not a ceremonial one. It's a tough place to speak from. Inspire while setting out just how difficult things are going to be.

At least his speech was better than that poem. I'm no fan of poetry, let's get that out there, but when no one is actually sure the poem has ended, it's a bad sign. And I'm amazed at the number of people leaving before and during the benediction. The ceremony isn't over and yet people are streaming from the cold of the mall. It was a great benediction, gotta give him that.

And now they're interviewing the Man on the Street. I hate this part of it. A 50+ year old man just confessed this is the first time he's ever felt like he's an American, that he truly belongs in this country. It's also the first time he's ever voted.. That makes me sick. And I hope that among the many things Obama accomplishes in office, he can inspire Americans to get interested in government and politics again. And keep them voting. Nothing changes if apathy makes the decisions.

I also don't remember so much time being devoted to the former president leaving. I guess Sky News wants to make sure the Bush days are truly over. The helicopter has just lifted off, farewell waves are made and it is absolutely official: It is Obama's White House now.

Happy Obama Day everyone.

Recap, Catch Up, Move On

2009-01-20T15:17:00.005Z

Last I wrote, I was in Wyoming, hanging out with Mom and Dad, taking photos, being a teenager again and waiting out the interminable process of getting approved for my UK work permit. Yea, fun. I'm not good at waiting and I'm less good at waiting with nothing to do, so I looked for a job. Turns out, none of the architecture firms in town wanted me. From my interview with the largest firm, it would seem the reason was I was from Dublin. Why would I want to come live back in Wyoming when I'd been out on the international stage? Could I even be happy living in Wyoming again after all these years?

Clearly, my little attempt at a "truthful lie" failed. I didn't get the job.

So then I decided to fulfill one of my long held dreams: I applied at both of Casper's wine bars. Casper has changed since I got my first degree there. Spas all over the place, coffee bars, indy bookstores. It's all so very gentrified. So I figured I'd try to get myself hired at a wine spot and brush up on my American wine education.

No takers.

I realize I'm over-qualified but Casper has 2% unemployment and people are desperate for help. Clearly not my help. So I went to the restaurant with Dad in the mornings. I washed dishes, which is the only thing I've never done in a restaurant. It is a grimy job and the one thing that can bring a place to its knees in a rush if things go badly. Being the boss's daughter and all, well, it was a bit of pressure. I'm happy to report I kept up just fine but it was a pretty slow morning. I only filled that role once. The rest of the time I chopped veggies, filled the buffet, stocked the line for them, whatever needed done. Mostly, I sat at the counter, chatting with the girls and the regulars, letting Lisa over-caffeinate me. Those were good mornings in truth. There is nothing like Dad's chicken friend steak and eggs for breakfast.

I met my friend Kate one evening and was complaining about the lack of enthusiasm for my resume and willingness to do honest work and she, being a sort of informal Welcome Wagon Hostess, called a bunch of friends and got me a job; 1 shift a week at FYE, a music store in the mall. I know nothing about music, release dates, what the new albums are vs. the old ones... I still call them albums, for pete's sake, which should give you an idea of how ill suited I was for this job. In truth, my whole reason for being was to give the staff coffee and cigarette breaks. But it got me out of the house and a 30% discount. I spent my entire paycheck in the store. Honestly, I don't know why they even wrote me one. My shifts were spent shopping; browsing the cds and dvds, pulling things back to purchase later. But they were happy with me and I enjoyed it.

Bolstered by my success, and perhaps high from finding Muse on sale for $8, I then did something devious. I lied on my resume to get another job. Yep, I broke the first cardinal rule of employment. I told Macys I was an interior designer with only a bit of college behind me. They bought it and hired me on the spot.

I don't think, when the cardinal rule of employment was written, they meant underselling your qualifications to get a job. I'm pretty sure most people over-inflate their experience to get, well, a better job than they had. But not me, boy. Nope. I dumbed it down to work retail. I cut my salary in order to get a job that paid minimum wage. I got my first check and when Dad asked how much it was, we both laughed. $232.58.

But I lost 5 pounds my first week. And gained about 700 bruises. When they say retail is a tough industry, I didn't realize it would be so physical. I was in the housewares department, shifting boxes, picking up blenders and coffee makers for old ladies. One afternoon I spent building a display out of cast iron casserole dishes. No one can tell me that isn't hard work. My back was sore, I was sweating and short of breath. I had no need for a gym and that made me quite happy.

That was my life for awhile. I was truly a teenager again. Working at the mall. Sleeping in a twin bed in the spare room. No phone calls after 10pm. Posting my schedule on the fridge so I could get a ride to work. Sneaking food in the grocery cart and hoping they would neither notice nor object. At least I got to hit the liquor store this time around, teaching my mother about wines since her doctor said it was good for her. At night, I'd lie on the floor in the living room, watching TV with them, asking permission to go on the Internet... Then I had a date. That was interesting.

Well, humiliating in truth to utter this: I'm not pathetic I swear, but I'm a middle age woman who lives with her parents and you'll have to come in the house and meet them before we go to dinner.

Had the tables been turned, I'd have run like hell. Luckily men aren't as daunted. Plus, he was home with his parents too. His dad had surgery on his knees and needed the help, so Pool Boy came to the rescue. (Yep, Pool Boy. He works for a company in Florida that sells commercial pool equipment. How can you mess with a built in nickname like that?) So there we were, in our late 30s, watching movies in the basement, trying not to get caught making out.

Once Christmas arrived, my visa finally arrived and I was free to go. And go, did I, with all due spped. The day after Christmas, I was on the plane back to New York. I'd had enough of snow and ice and -18 degrees. I stayed a couple of nights in the city with Christine, who is a godsend. We had a great time really, drinking wine and watching design shows on HGTV. Very girly. And then, it was time to finally return to Dublin. 8 months after I left. No job in sight but visa in hand.

I landed here on a clear and sunny morning. Suzie picked me up and we had a great chat over breakfast. I've been meeting the friends, slowly. It's a quiet time of year normally, but all the more so since the construction recession. You wouldn't know the rest of the country is hurting from the scenes around town. Pubs are full, shops are busy, walking down Grafton Street is just as crowded as before. Yet 40% of the architects in the country are unemployed. England is in worse shape, with many stalwarts of the retail game folding. It's bleak news for a girl who spent 8 months gaining permission to work there. No jobs here, no jobs there. The Middle East has even slowed to a halt.

With nowhere obvious to go, I've been sitting here in Dublin, trying to decide what best to do, looking for a clear way forward. In truth, I was sort of waiting for something to fall in my lap like Ireland did 4 years ago.

Instead, it was subtler than that though no less crazy. My way forward is really a way back. In early February, I'll be joining Pool Boy in sunny south Florida, working on my tan (ha!), getting a job, and seeing if what we started is really real or just a Christmas Romance EP. I always find Christmas the most romantic time of the year, so I could be blinded here. I'll be the first to admit this might not be a good idea. I've never been a boyfriend follower, far too independent for that. I could be moving back in 6 months, you never know. Then again, it might be a great idea. Everyone needs to take a leap of faith now and then. This might be a brilliant move for me. Only one way to find out.

So I'm spending my final days in Dublin packing and sorting, calling moving companies and visiting my favorite spots around town. I'm sad to be going but I'm quite looking forward to my next step.

And yes, I'm taking the chair.

Yes, Wyoming!

2008-10-22T00:29:00.004+01:00

click on image for more photos

If you've ever wondered what it looks like, this is your chance... Photos of Casper, Dad's restaurant, and little else. I'll probably add to the album from time to time, so you may want to check back in a couple of weeks. It's snowed since taking these photos. In fact, it's snowing now. So very glad I decided to lighten my luggage for the Arkansas portion of my exile. I left all my winter clothes in New York. I'm SMART.

Get the Facts

2008-10-16T18:44:00.002+01:00

I don't care who you vote for, I care that you vote. And that you know why you are voting for that person. Which is why I place links here so you can arm yourself with information before you cast your ballot.

In this spirit, may I introduce you to this site: http://www.factcheck.org/

It is a non-partisan website that does only one thing: it checks the facts.

Anytime a politician makes a claim, for themselves or against their opponent, FactCheck looks into the truth of the claim and posts the results.

All politicians lie and stretch the truth, regardless of their political affiliation. The news media is just a culpable. Fox, CNN, MSNBC... they are all For Profit outfits. And where there is money on the line, there is an agenda to be achieved.

So investigate the candidates before you vote for them. Know what issues are important to you and find out which candidate actually supports that view. Don't assume your issues are important to the party you support. Know what the Democratic party stands for. Know what the Republican party stands for. And then know how close to that platform your candidate stands.

Uninformed voters are worse than non-voters.

http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/
http://www.johnmccain.com/splash32615.htm
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53270

https://www.democrats.org/
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/content/splashsignup_welcome
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490

This message has been brought to you by Me, a concerned citizen.

Morning on the Square

2008-09-05T15:02:00.007+01:00

click above for more photos of Arkansas

I am sitting on a rock wall on the square in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is Tuesday Farmers market and I've just purchased a bunch of baby radishes for $1.

A couple of handfuls of people are still mulling about, catching up with friends, shopping, walking the dog. Then there are we curious on-lookers, wondering what it would be like to be greeted with 'Morning there girls!' instead of a polite hello. One man is photographing, as I will be shortly, one is shelling peas and I am enjoying blueberry coffee and the cool morning shade. The coffee isn't as bad as it sounds but the shade is ever bit as good.

It is such a charming farmers market, so very Americana, surrounding the old courthouse, with the stalwarts of downtown retailers forming a protective ring. Behind me is a now defunct Bank of America, currently being renovated in to luxury condos. I'm unsure what they are going to do with the ground floor but the top 2 floors have balconies that overlook this square and, I'd imagine, the hills beyond. This is the high point in the city so quite a view is up for grabs.

It is actually quite peaceful here. The whir of the electric pea sheller mixes well with the splash of the water fountain, the murmur of voices and the occasional car. The church bells tolling the hour only adds to the old-worldliness of it all.

This is the best thing about being unemployed. I get to visit people and experience such a different life from my own.

This past weekend we took the kids and the canoes and went for a long paddle on the lake. It is so overflowing, we were ankle deep in water on the ledge they usually dive from. The trees submerged to the canopies made the whole scene resemble a bayou instead of a great valley lake. The white, gray and oil black bluffs are impressive as ever, but being so near, near enough to touch the striations of time, was simply an otherworldly experience.

The previous weekend, we went out to the cabin at Outlaw Hollow and did absolutely nothing. Napped. Read. Soaked in the hot tub surrounded by acres of nothing but forest, stars, and bright silvery moonlight. Oh and the tree frogs. A deafening cacophony of tree frogs croaking unceasingly. I'd no idea the peace and quiet of the countryside could be so loud. And yet, drifting off to sleep was far easier than its been in months.

Would I be doing this in Dublin? We have a farmers market and it is certainly charming, but there would have been no canoe trip or tree frogs. It's just different here. Less anxiety. Better weather. Fresh okra.

Ah, it is a beautiful day to be unemployed in Arkansas.

A Rainy Day in Fayetteville

2008-09-03T20:16:00.003+01:00

It's a rainy day in Fayetteville. Last night, the effects of hurricane Gustav made it to the area. I fell asleep listening to the constant downpour outside and woke to much the same. Sweetie, the dog, and I have been inside all day, watching it come down, wondering if we'll get a break for our walk. It would appear we are waiting in vain.

At least the weather has cooled down.

After my last post, I've heard from several people regarding my options. I thank you all for writing, since it has both made my decision easier, and given me peace of mind. I have heard from many sources that there simply isn't any work to be had at the moment, and one source predicted that it won't pick up until after the new year. Which means I'll be coming back to Ireland to pack and move. I sincerely doubt my Irish visa will be renewed in January.

So I wait and pray for the UK visa to come thru. And wonder what to do with my things in Flatmate Suzie's until I can come collect them. In total retrospect, I should have packed up and found a storage space while I was still there. Then again, in total retrospect, I should have had a decision in mid-July. Should is a very dangerous game to play. In fact, I assert that Should should be outlawed as a concept. It only leads to recrimination and guilt. I have family for that.

My mood has improved since last week, which is helping to wrap my mind around not living in Ireland any more. It sort of sucks to be a guest. I've made a home there in the 4 years I've been in Dublin. No one likes to be evicted from their home, but it is especially difficult after such a long time and being so close to my ultimate goal. Another year in Dublin and I could have applied for my Irish passport. I wonder if I have to start from zero if I move back to Dublin when it recovers?

Why It Sucks To Be Me

2008-08-27T23:14:00.004+01:00

Alternatively titled: Is That Lady Crying Over Spilt Milk? Clean Up On Aisle 4!

I am, as I may have mentioned, visiting my sister and her wonderful family here in Arkansas after my 4 month stint in New York. I like to think it is a well earned break, playing housewife. Thankfully, we are having unseasonably cool weather, and that is where my luck sort of dries up.

I spent the morning on the phone with the immigration people in England, foolishly attempting to coerce a date out of them (not that kind) so I can make plans to return to Dublin. Oh-so-sympathetic Neil took my call. It seems there was not only a backlog on applications in February, but also in March and, now that they are in to the middle of the April backlog, they should be ready to plow thru the May backlog shortly.

I submitted my application in June.

When asked about the possibility of my application not being processed within their 14 week period, Oh-so-sympathetic Neil told me that deadline shouldn't have been posted on the Internet and they were trying to get it taken down.

Got that? Apparently, no one was ever supposed to be told how long the process might take. Just send us your money and your diplomas and we'll get back to you. Eventually. Another charming feature of this process? No one is allowed to comment on an application specifically until the 14 week timeline has expired. Provided that still holds true, that date is Sept 11 for me. By that time, they should be just cracking the May 1st applications. At the rate they are progressing, they will start on my application in mid-October.

Let me tell you exactly why this sucks.

Provided they do indeed get to my application in mid-October, they will have had it for 20 weeks. Not 5-14 weeks, 20 weeks. And that's if they get to mine right away! No telling how long the processing actually takes. 5 months just to move it to the In Box. 5 months of waiting for them to look it over and make a decision. 5 months I could have been in Dublin, looking for a job. 5 months I could have never planned for but am subjected to because, you know, there are a lot of applications. I could have made half a baby in those 5 months.

Now, as it happens, my Irish work permit is due for renewal January 2009. I have to have a job in order to renew it. I don't have a job because I'm here, waiting on a decision, and the Irish job market, like many others in the world, has slowed considerably. In fact, the jobs listed on the usual job posting boards are all for position in Dubai and Australia, not Ireland. The former booming, the latter busting apparently. I can't even get people to respond to my queries for jobs they've advertised for. It appears bleak in Dublin.

All of which leads me to this: Do I stay or do I go?

If I stay here and wait out the visa, I'm effectively agreeing to fly back to Dublin in October/November and move. Either to the UK or to the US, most companies all but freeze hiring in November + December, but move I will have to.

If I head back to Dublin now and wait it out, I can only look for a job for 2 or 3 months before I bankrupt myself and have to move to the US or the UK. With the weak Dollar, my little money pile is worth half in Euros, so while I could float here for 5 or 6 months easily, I can only do so for half that time there.

There is no obvious choice in my list of choices. No right, no wrong. No one stronger than the other because they all suck in the end. Best case scenario, there isn't one. That's when I started to cry. At the grocery store. I have to choose between my home and my savings.

And did I mention that I am only 1 year from being able to apply for my Irish passport? Obtaining that would allow me to work anywhere in the EU, which was the whole point of moving to Ireland in the first damn place.

So here I sit, in Arkansas with my belongings in New York and Dublin, wondering what the hell I should do. I was wrong earlier, this is the bottom of the demoralization barrel.

Self-imposed Exile isn't For Everyone

2008-08-22T06:48:00.004+01:00

I thought I'd be gone by now. When I left Ireland for the US, I figured I'd conservatively be here until the end of July. And that was really my worst case scenario. It was rather naive of me clearly.

I boarded the plane on a very hungover afternoon in mid-April. I was wearing my winter coat, since it was still winter in Dublin. Winter greeted me in New York as well but the calendar turned, as it does, and soon enough it was spring and my coat was relegated to the back of my rented closet. I unpacked the few spring type outfits I'd remembered to bring with me, thinking they'd get a bit of wear.

Now I look at my wardrobe choices and laugh. Bitterly.

Visions of Sex and the City were all too apparent as I packed. I had this idea that I'd be inhabiting their world, wearing fabulous outfits with sexy stilettos and chic handbags as I sipped martinis and sampled haute cuisine. I'd this idea of rolling into the office each morning wearing power outfits and designing amazing spaces for the sophisticated elite of Manhattan.

I laugh at that too. For we all know which sophisticated elite I designed spaces for and why my sexy stilettos and power ensembles paled in comparison to the staff uniform of our client.

In fact, the only time I wore stilettos, I regretted it instantly. Too far to walk on hard pavement, on cobblestones, after a martini or two. My shoes were wrecked, my feet in tatters, and my outfit not nearly as expensive as it needed to be in order to impress anyone in the room.

And then the heat of summer set in, heat I am no longer accustomed to, and I was required to shop or melt. I gave Carrie and co. a hearty shove and invested in pieces to ward off heat stroke.

I've always been a practical girl, so shopping for things I already own really got to me. I hadn't thought to bring yoga clothes, which I own in abundance in Ireland. I hadn't thought to bring slip on shoes because I never anticipated my feet swelling in the heat. And I certainly didn't bring any billowy sun dresses because it was winter when I left. So I bought clothes and shoes and sheets and towels and all sorts of things I own in Ireland because in Ireland, I figured I would be gone just a few weeks and could rough it until I returned home. Urban camping in a manner of speaking.

But here I am, 4 1/2 months later, at my sisters house borrowing her clothes and synching her CDs to my iPod because I didn't think to bring music with me either. I am tired and I want to go home. I want to go home but I have no job there and no answer here. I am in limbo and at the end of any enthusiasm I may have had for this little adventure. Don't get me wrong, I love spending this time with my family. I wouldn't trade this for the world. But I'm tired of living out of a suitcase. And it is a rather pretty suitcase!

I think what it boils down to is that I'm ready to go Home. I'm a nester at heart and autumn makes that instinct roar. I'm ready to make a home for myself, settle down and plant some roots. But my circumstances are against that at the moment. I can go home to Dublin and find a job, easily or painfully I don't know, but I'll find a job and life will take shape, until January when I have to renew my work permit. Since I am only in Ireland under the endangered species act of the employment bureau, it is quite possible the Irish government will kindly ask me to leave instead of welcoming me to another 2 years in the country. What would I do then? It is maddeningly as Lamborghini Boy said: I have no home. Do I go back to Dallas and take up my old life there? Do I blindly try another part of the country and hope for the best? I'm tired of starting over and quite frankly, I only have one more big move in me. I hadn't really planned on leaving Ireland. i forgot I was only a guest.

It is still possible my application for a UK work permit is granted, in which case I would happily move to London, but it is also likely it will be mid-October before they reach a decision on the matter. I can't wait that long. What if they decide to decline? I'll have spent 6 months treading water for nothing.

I believe I have hit the bottom of the demoralization barrel.

More Things I Have Forgotten

2008-08-19T17:51:00.009+01:00

Or perhaps discovered about living in the US...

Americans are obsessed with beverages. Jump on a subway and everyone will have commuter coffees. Driving to work in the car, bound to be a beverage in there. Walking with a drink of some variety has become as American as apple pie. We drink more than anyone I know without actually getting drunk. I hadn't really noticed it until I started watching Weeds. Main character Nancy has something to drink in nearly every scene, be it a can of diet coke she's fished out of the nearest fridge or an iced beverage she's sucking thru a straw. The girl is never without a drink of some sort.
Now that I've lived there, I can say this: New York is a great city but the people are some of the most selfish on earth. I blame it on the sheer vastness of the city and the anonymity it offers. Knowing I would never see these people again, I was all the more apt to cut them off or take the last seat on the train. And the many varied ways of being selfish are astounding. One guy spoke at length on a crowded train about his firm belief that those engaging in sodomy should pay less taxes. After all, why should he pay for some breeder's kids to go to school? Did I mention he was loud and exceptionally foul about it? The more uncomfortable the car got, the worse he got.
My newest pet peeve is people who stop at the worst possible place on earth, such as at the top of the staircase, effectively making those behind wait until you've caught your breath. Or the one woman who stopped in the middle of the stairs to chat with her friend on the other side. How can you possibly think that's a good idea? If I did it to you, you'd complain, but if you do it to others, its absolutely fair game? Sigh.... The worst behavior I found in New York was on the subway. It's very common for people to run to the train and stop the moment they cross the threshold, effectively blocking entry for anyone behind them. One morning, it was just too much and the next thing I knew, my hand was in the middle of his back, shoving him into the car. He glared at me for a few stops but that let 4 more of us on the train. I'll never have to see him again.
Baseball is a breathtakingly boring game to watch, even at the stadium.
TV commercials for prescription drugs are definitely an American thing. It's quite the cottage industry that I somehow suspect is subsidized by the American Medical Association. Show an idyllic but quintessentially American scene, then launch into how this particular affliction has kept you from your inalienable right to the previous scene, throw in some uplifting music to mask the long list of horrific side effects due to taking the drug, finish with more idyllic scenes of how much better life will be on the drugs, and quietly exhort the viewer to discuss with a physician if the drug is right for the viewer. Life is better on the good drugs, you'll see.
Mosquitoes. I'd forgotten about them entirely and now I'm full of scratchy itchy bites in all sorts of awkward places. Hate the mosquito intensely.
Volleyball is much better than I remembered. I'm playing on my brother-in-laws team and although we have 6 players instead of my preferred 4, it's really good to be back out in the sand. Quite evident that I haven't played in 4 years; my serves barely reach the net, I can't jump, and my arms are on fire. God I've missed it!
Americans often take casual dressing too far. It's almost as if it's the newest amendment: You have the right to dress as you wish at all times, regardless of occasion, fit, or perception of cleanliness. Comfort is key, expressing personality is the goal. The fact that you look like you rolled out of a trash heap to go on a date is just me being snobbish. If I see one more hat sitting backwards on unwashed hair, I'm gonna let New York Beth loose.

Running Seriously Behind

2008-06-19T04:34:00.003+01:00

Yeah, I know... it's been ages since I've written anything and it's all piling up on me. I've been to Dallas, to see Melanie and Hippie get married. I went to see roller derby while there and it was really interesting. I saw tons of friends, ate loads of Mexican and generally sweated my body weight daily while asking no one in particular frequently: how did I do this for 15 years?

I also have many observations of life in New York, which is so much more than I ever thought it would be. I've had two visitors, Paraic and Flatmate Suzie and have photos to prove it. Work is so much busier than I'd agreed to that I wonder if I should renegotiate my contract for a higher salary. I've moved into a cute apartment for the next couple of months; cute now that I've spent 4 days cleaning it, mostly with bleach.

And generally, I just need to catch up with everyone. But time seen exponentially faster here. I managed to clean the fridge tonight (destroying the planet one bleach soaked rag at time), make dinner and have a cup of tea. It's now nearly midnight. Clearly my vegetable chopping skills need some polish.

So I'll leave you with this at the moment:

I am well. New York is loud. I have no idea when I'll be home.

Soon, I hope.

The Crosses We Bear

2008-06-02T04:56:00.002+01:00

On Memorial Day, I rose early from my friend’s oh-so-comfy spare bed, after a mere 4 hours sleep, to pack my belongings, drop off my rental car and present myself at the airport for my return home to the Big Apple. It seemed such an unreasonable hour to travel but it is what my friend Rodd booked for me.

I’ve known Rodd since we were 4. He and his twin brother, Todd (yes, the Simpsons got that one right) and I have the same birthday. In a town of 475 people, the chances of people having the same birthday are pretty slim. Couple that with three children in kindergarten and one in fourth grade all having the same birthday and I’m betting were talking Lottery type odds here. Yet there we were every year celebrating our collective birthdays with our class. It was a bit of cruelty really.

Our class only had 15-18 kids in it, which as Rodd pointed out, is a very large percentage of the class, not including the summer birthday kids who never got to bring snacks to school. With a Three-for-one, the chances to knock off early for the day and ingest some serious sugar were decreased significantly. We only got one cupcake to celebrate all three. Had we separate birthdays, that would have been 2 extra party days a year. I’m amazed no one stoned us at recess.

But back to the airport. Rodd and Todd rather improbably grew up and became airline pilots. Yep, both of them. But the best part of all of it is this: they fly for the same airline, sometimes together. When that happens, they stand at the door of the cockpit and greet all the passengers, just to see the bewildered faces. I think I would enjoy doing that as well in truth.

At any rate, Rodd very kindly offered me a Buddy Pass to get to Dallas for a wedding and I rather happily accepted. he made it perfectly clear that I was flying stand by and that I’d have to be patient in case the flights were full.

Fine by me.

I presented myself to the check-in at the appointed time to be told that I’d easily get a seat to Dallas but getting to Denver to catch it was in question. Upon presenting myself to the gate agent, I asked if there was any chance at all or had I just wasted cab fare to hang out at the airport for the afternoon. She smiled, checked her computer and replied: You should pray for a disaster; you’re 7th on the list for 5 open seats. It seemed to mean to pray for disaster so instead I asked for bad traffic or a change of mind.

Whatever it was, I got a seat. And about half way to Denver they announced we’d be landing 30 minutes late, since we were delayed in New York due to weather. 2 call lights immediately went off. Ummm…. I have 35 minutes between scheduled flights and we’re pulling in about 20 gates away. Denver is a linear air terminal and a long one at that. 20 gates could easily be 20 gates in a row on one side. I’ve spent my fair share of time sprinting on the moving sidewalks thru that airport and I had absolutely no desire to do it in 3” heels.

God bless the flight crew of that plane. They arranged to move me to the front row, found out where I needed to go, and then instructed the first few rows not to exit until I’d bolted. It was the best he could for me and it turned out to be good enough. As instructed, I turned left and ran like hell for 20 gates, arriving just in time to be the last person seated on a plane containing 25 people.

I flew to Dallas a very happy woman.

On the way back, however, it was an entirely different story. I was a very tired woman, one with a significantly lighter bank account but new luggage. I checked in and was told no problem getting to Denver. We arrived at 9:30am with just about an hour before the next flight, conveniently located a mere 4 gates away.

I amused myself until the gate attendant told me she’d rolled us all over to the next flight to New York, at 3pm. What? So now I’ve got 4 hours to kill in the airport with a very low possibility of getting on that flight. But the next next one might offer hope, at midnight-thirty.

So I bought a pass to the first class lounge room, figuring it would keep me occupied for the day. Yeah, not so much. No tv, no internet, no books or magazines, very few non-café chairs, free coffee and bar service, but snacks limited to chips and bread sticks. And granola bars. I’d have been better off staying outside with the commoners. Or signing up for the British Airways lounge, which stayed open until the wee hours, unlike Continental which closed at 6pm.

Tired. So tired and so over being at the airport.

After I was bumped from the 3pm flight, I called Rodd and asked what I should do. He was flying in from Atlanta at 9 and would meet me to sort it out. It’s very nice to have a knight in shining armour.

We had drinks and caught up at the bar while waiting for the red-eye flight, which he was completely sure I’d get a seat. People always no-show for those. Unless, it would seem, it is a holiday weekend there is work the following day.

So I got to spend the night at Rodd’s apartment. Poor guy. But I must say, for a guy, he keeps a tidy and very female friendly apartment. Great coffee, comfy bed with soft sheets, conditioner in the shower and even a toothbrush for me. He’s mighty prepared for unexpected guests.

We woke the next morning and readied ourselves for a day at the airport. I had a slim chance of making the 10am flight, none for the 3pm and was 3rd for 8 seats on the red eye. I sent my bosses a text while I had coffee on his balcony, staring out at the skyline of Denver and of the Rocky Mountains. I pondered if I should just stay. His building is across the alley from an architecture firm. I like Denver. Its close to family.

Just sayin’…

Turns out that there is a ranking for stand-by seats on airlines. People who bought tickets and were bumped by the airline get priority standing. Following them are people who bought tickets but missed their flight because they are stupid. (That’s been me before) Then come the employees and then come their friends and family.

Had we been traveling together, I’d have had a seat no problem but since I was alone, at the bottom of the list. With no hope of leaving Denver until midnight-thirty again.

So Rodd came to New York with me.

The benefits of being a pilot are pretty cool. So he stayed in my not-so-ready-for-anyone –on-earth-including-me sublet in Harlem. I do, however have plenty of conditioner which meant little since he had a bag packed already.

It was a great time to spend with him though. We’ve not seen each other in 6 or 7 years and we had quite a bit of catching up to do. We got thru the past, discussing the people we grew up with, where they are, who is doing what, supposing about the others. We talked about his travels in Europe, my living in Europe and how neither of us would give that up to settle down. We talked about how odd it is that he’s 39 and I’m not a day past 28 and yet we have the same birth date. We talked about how annoying it is that no one can tell them apart. I can. I've always been able to. Even when he sends me photos out of the blue, I always know and I'm always amazed other people don't see it. that then segued into how we all have things in our lives we'd like to change but cannot. Persnickety things unique to us that never fail to annoy.. I, for instance, will always order the one wine that is unavailable. Give me a wine list with 75 wines on it and I’ll pick the one they don’t have. To contrast with that, I can always turn left on to a busy street. Rodd’s version is that people always cut in front of him only to walk slowly. Sure enough, our entire transit in New York was people with slow walkers. I don’t remember that on Seinfield.

It was a beautiful night that demanded a bit more atmosphere than my neighborhood so we hopped on the subway and emerged in Little Italy. We had martinis in a very fancy New York bar that was used in Sex in the City and has an actual history to it that I can't quite remember. Something about a tunnel between what was the bordello and the police station next door. We followed martinis with amazing Italian food in a virtually empty restaurant. And they even had the wine I wanted! It was such a great night; it was almost worth 18 sleep deprived hours at the Denver airport.

Well…

New Photos are Posted!

2008-05-21T17:07:00.003+01:00

Including birthdays for Fi, Ali, me, random New York shots, Paraic's visit... it's just a clearinghouse of evidence really. Same link can also be found on the side of the page under 2008 photos. Enjoy!

as always, click the photograph for the link

For Julia

2008-05-20T05:18:00.003+01:00

Because vacation photos just aren't the same without a little pointing.

Fuck you, you fucking fucker**

2008-04-28T02:36:00.002+01:00

I am now a New Yorker.

In what is surely the strangest chapter of my more-often-than-not strange life, I will be residing here in the Big Apple for a few months. I have a job, it is not glamorous but it is interesting in ways that will never make my portfolio. I have a home, but only for a brief amount of time. I have friends in the city, which means I have social obligations. I’ve been here two weeks and I’m exhausted already.

This is definitely not the normal ‘moving to New York’ story thus far.

I have two roommates, one of which I’ve not met. She’s a PhD student at nearby Columbia and keeps hours like I did in grad school, which is to say she comes home very few days to sleep for 4 hours, shower and change clothes. So in reality, I have one roommate, who is an architect from St. Louis with a coffee addiction to rival mine. We get on quite well as you might imagine. We live in what is now being billed as Hamilton Heights but is, in reality, Harlem. It’s an interesting neighborhood that reminds me of my triangle in LA where people stare at me because I am a white girl who is quite obviously lost. Eh, whatever. I’m thrilled to have my room even if I am moving in a week. The girl who normally occupies this room is crashing with her boyfriend until next week, when he leaves for a month-long business stint. He’s an actor I guess and I’ll be moving into his room while he’s gone so she can have her room back. It’s literally a case of giving me the shirt off her back and on short notice too. Bless her, because I was this close to hitting Chinatown for recipes for Pitt Bull Stew if I stayed a minute longer in Kevin’s apartment. I have so many bruises and scratches on my legs from a dog named Schmuck.

The commute to work is now a quick 20 minute subway ride. I exit the system at Zabar’s and then walk 2 blocks to the office which is a further 2 blocks from Central Park. I spend my lunch hour there on warm days. It’s cherry blossom time and all the trees are pink. It’s wonderful. The whole city is pink at the moment and next weekend I’m going to the botanical garden’s Cherry Blossom Festival. It’s all so very gentile for a city once renown for porn theatres and muggers.

I like taking the subway for the most part. It is the loudest subway I’ve ever experienced, which, to me, explains why New Yorkers are loud talkers: they’re all deaf from the subways. No wonder they shout when they speak. A train pulls up, even if it isn’t yours, there is no way to communicate. With the curved tunnels and hard surfaces, there are never enough people standing around to absorb the noise. But the artwork in the stations is charming. The mosaic tiles at Lincoln Centre are all opera figures and very dramatic. One station features Alice in Wonderland mosaics; one is decorated with hats from the 1900s, another with silhouetted figures of street life. Every stop has a different theme and I rather like that. Not that it helps me navigate but you know... it breaks up the ride.

My office is a small firm and while I enjoy the day-to-day, it’s nothing I’ll be putting in my portfolio. I’m working on a smoking terrace for a strip club. Yep, from Four Seasons hotels to Debbie Bares It All. (not the actual name, as if you couldn’t tell) I am on the trajectory UP. This is the first time I’ve ever refused, vehemently even, to visit a job site. Loads of stupid jokes in the office for this one, as you can imagine. Oh, and the best part is, on the strength of this work, we’ve just gotten another job from Igor the 25 year old Russian ‘diamond broker’ who wants to open a strip club and pay us in cash.

It doesn’t get better than this really. If I wrote it in a book, people would never believe me, but I’m telling you, this is my life. 2 weeks here and I’m on the periphery of the seedy underbelly of Gotham.

God knows where the money comes from, laundered to within a millimeter of its life, but he actually called to ask if it was ok to pay us in cash. Ummm… yeah, what do you say to that when you’re actually a legitimate business? I mean, money’s money and I’m in this for the paycheck but still, do I want to know the actual source of that cash? Helllll no. And should I feel ethically tied to it? I don’t know… They didn’t cover this in my professional practice classes.

I spent my first weekend here with friends from Dublin. Mark and Eithne just happened to be in New York, so we met up. Nothing much happened, other than loads of laughter and a very funny French waiter. Being with friends from home was a great way to 'move' to a new city.

The following weekend I went to my friend Ali’s birthday party in Brooklyn. It was at a BB-Q place that sold beer by the gallon. Seriously. $32 for a gallon of beer and the food was served on baking sheets, priced by the pound. Did I mention the glasses were mason jars? And that the neighbor was an auto salvage yard? This is the most sophisticated city in the world and I’m sitting on a tractor seat welded to a steel post? Faaaan-tastic.

It was definitely not Sex in the City material but it was a great night.

My upcoming weeks in New York, if they in any way rival the first few weeks, promise to be the stuff of legend. Let’s hope not. I’m tired and old and trying to move back home to Dublin where they are sane. Well…

**an actual phrase in New York and a delightful t-shirt I spotted the other day

Things I Had Forgotten

2008-04-27T16:46:00.002+01:00

I have forgotten how to be an American. Or rather, what it is like to be one. My first two weeks in New York has been marked by things I have forgotten, the odd things I have come to accept while living in another country, and many, many stupid questions. The most common comment out of me these days is 'I forgot about that' followed by 'I forgot we do it this way' I am a very different woman then when I left the US, in ways I could never have expected.

1- I am gaining a tremendous amount of weight. In my first week here I have eaten more than all of the last month in Dublin. The portions are huge and I had forgotten that I need to exercise discipline in not eating the entire plate. Because one plate in New York would most judiciously feed 2 ½ people; I have no need to clean my plate unless I want to be as big as 2 ½ people. And available variety is astounding. So far, I’ve had Spanish, Cuban, Mexican, Asian fusion, southern BBQ, American comfort, Italian, French, and enough pastries to give me adult onset diabetes.

2- Iced tea! I had completely forgotten about the existence of iced tea. I love iced tea, especially in the summer. I order it with every lunch, every brunch, and quite often, dinner. It is my beverage of choice and it just simply does not exist in Europe. I drink a lot more water in Europe than I do in the US. Which is probably good for me since water does not have caffeine.

3- Americans are obsessed with coffee. They trade coffee places like baseball cards. ‘Oh not here, I don’t like their roast’ is not an uncommon comment. Finding the best coffee available on the way to work is the back-up national past time of New Yorkers. And I love my coffee but what I cannot stand is the amount of packaging involved in picking up a cup of coffee. The cardboard cup (or that melty Styrofoam type I hate), the plastic lid, a cardboard sleeve, plastic spoon/stirrer, packet of sugar, packet of alternate sugar, packet of creamer, 3 napkins, and a paper bag to put it all in for the walk to work. I realize a lot of people need foreign things like milk in their coffee but really? Can’t I just doctor it all up on the way out the door? Must I leave the shop with a week’s recycling in hand?

4- And on that note, every cold beverage is served with a straw. I’d forgotten that. A plastic straw sticking out of anything liquid and containing ice. I’ve missed ice greatly, but the thing is I’ve never been a straw girl; I prefer to drink out of the glass itself, mostly because I do not wear lipstick. But now all I can see are landfills of plastic straws.

5- I was at a birthday party the other night and met a friend of my friend, as you tend to do at social occasions. We decided to get together for brunch a few days later, and so she handed me her card so I could call her. What followed was a blizzard of general card exchanging at the table. I think I was the only one that didn’t have one. Everyone in New York, it seems, has a business +/or personal card. Every restaurant has one by the front door, every shop has one, hell, the hot dog vendor has one. Every man, woman and child in the city has one. Except me and I need one quite desperately. I cannot remember where I live if asked and we all know how great I am with phone numbers.

6- People are so busy here that I wonder that anything ever gets done. ‘I’m too busy this week for that’ is the tag-line of many a New Yorker. Everyone is rushing around telling everyone else how busy they are. And they are, really. I’ve been out and about socializing more than I do in Dublin. As Kevin said: there is no hanging at the house in New York; the city is our living room.

7- How’d you sleep? = How are you?

8- I am shocked when staff is nice to me. I was in a pub having lunch the other day and I asked if the salad had onions on it what followed was a discourse on my onion allergy between the waitress and I, and then the cook came out to ask if I should be having the salsa because it too, had onions in it. After I assured him it was fine, he then proceeded to finish making my lunch for me. And that happened at another place last night too. Americans are better at customer service than any place on earth. Pay for something at a department store and the clerk will most likely smile and thank you for shopping there. Enter into any conversation with her and you can get a discount card and a recommendation on the best place nearby for drinks. Please, thank you, sir/ma’am, it’s all so very polite and all so very unexpected for me. I’ve missed people being nice to me as I give them my money.

9- Flip-flops as every day wear. In the rest of the world, a flip flop is relegated to poolside footwear and showering at the gym. In the US, they are a legitimate choice of foot wear, for any occasion apparently. I’ve seen special occasion flip flops, every day flip flops, designer flip flops that retail for more than my last handbag. Who knew cheap beach wear would be so versatile?

10- I had forgotten how many companies deliver glossy sales magazines in an effort to market/raise the greed level. In our little apartment, I’ve stumbled across magazines from Red Envelop, Crate + Barrel, Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma (which I don’t really mind so much), Ikea and The New Yorker, which I recognize as a subscription magazine but it still comes weekly and promotes New York to New Yorkers. I do remember that once on the mailing list, these catalogs come at least monthly, in a new format, showing the latest sales until you either buy something or die underneath the avalanche of gloss. I never minded the Williams Sonoma ones because they came with recipies and I used to cook a lot, so that was quite a welcome way to convince me I needed pastel colored individual sized ramekins for my next dinner party. Which I used to own, come to think of it. I guess that type of marketing really does work.

11- In my own personal habits, I have noticed that I am horrified by the lack of recycling, appalled by the waste created with excess food being served and shocked when people insist on putting my purchases in a plastic bag after I already showed them my canvas shopping bag. I am also the woman who turns out lights, shuts off appliances, and yet lets her computer run for 4 straight days trying desperately to defragment the sucker. I look the wrong way when crossing the street, on two continents now. I continually shut doors behind me instead of leaving them open in the apartment. I’d much rather send a text message instead of speak on the phone, even though they are the same price here. Yeah, I may not be completely Irish, but I’m not absolutely American either.

Oprah's Better Than I Remembered

2008-04-14T22:37:00.002+01:00

I lasted 8 days. 8 days of unemployment in 19-20 years of employment, full time student-ship, working while in school, or for a few years there, working two jobs. I'm starting to understand where there exist so many stereotypes of women who stay at home. Technically, I got it the first week.

Thus far, in my unemployment, I've spent about 200 Euro I normally wouldn't have, not including my trip to New York. I don't think the concept of unemployment has sunk in yet. Neither do I think I am suited to this life style.

I blame my father, for whom working a half day has always meant a minimum of 8 hours at the office. This is definitely his fault, my not being able to laze around, which brings me back to bored housewives rather nicely.

My first day off, I slept in and then ran errands. Day two I used to read on the sofa and then I watched Oprah. She had Bill Cosby and some PhD on discussing why the black community needs to raise the bar on parenting standards before the absolute massacre of young black men can stop. It was fascinating but not enough to make me tune in every day. More like having lunch with an old friend; great to see her and catch up but difficult to work into the heavy rotation.

Day three I obsessively cleaned the house and by day four I was looking rather longingly at the wine stash wondering where in the world it was happy hour if it was 2:15pm in Dublin.

By Friday I was absolutely out of things to do so I went shopping. I was strong enough not to buy anything but it was rather difficult.

The weekend helped pull my head together but I'll admit, as Sunday night approached and Suzie and I sat on the sofa watching TV, the thought did dawn on me heavily: I didn't have to go to bed. I didn't have to get up in the morning and be alert. Watching deep late night TV was a strong possibility. Not a good idea, mind you, but there would be no consequences in the morning to pay. Although, watching 'Badly Dubbed Porn' might lead to some strange dreams.

So there I was, on Wednesday, nestled into a wine bar with an amusing little Sancerre (cue fluttering eyelashes here) after spending 60Euro on jewelry I probably don't need. I believe my original estimate of 200Euro is dreadfully low, being that I am traditionally crap at mental math and now only just remembering the new hand bag and the late night dinner after the fashion show on Saturday.

Yeah, I don't think unemployment suits me on many levels. But in my ridiculous defense, I do have 3 job offers and a fourth one pending, so I don't think a global recession could be measured by me.

It is a very odd experience though, this unemployment thing. I have so many choices at the moment, I find myself nearly paralyzed in the decision making process. I have a lot of variable and very few of them are in my hands. It is deeply unsatisfying for a control freak.

At the new year, I made a resolution, which I almost never do; I promised that I would actually ask for help when I needed it, rather than toughing thru everything alone. I then promptly wrenched my back hauling my suitcase up the stairs because my inner Monica Gellar didn't want to wait for Flatmate Suzie to come home and help me.

So this time, when I needed it, I asked for help. I hadn't counted on the overwhelming response. I have multiple temporary job offers in 3 separate cities, home opened up to me, references, introductions to people I'd have otherwise never have met. I feel a little like George Bailey, but without the snow.

Having options is a good thing, certainly, but having too many is damn near debilitating. And, oddly enough, humbling. I am not alone in this world, even if I often feel I am. It is an easy mentality to slip into. It takes me 3 to 4 hours to pack my entire apartment and less to unpack it. Contrast that to most of my friends who have houses, spouses and kids. I am unencumbered by such things so it doesn't really occur to me that, while I may not have put down roots in my own life, I have done so in others lives. Any move I make, for instance, affects Suzie, even if it is only delayed cash flow. Moving out altogether would be just as big a change for her as for me.

My Sunday night dinners with Paraic disappear. My spur of the moment lunches with Joe, travels with Mark and Sarah... it all changes entirely the moment I no longer live here. I spent last night in Will + Susan's kitchen, sipping wine, having dinner and realizing that there is no other place in Dublin I feel more at home in than their house. And if I move, I give that up. But, as Susan hugged me at the door while my taxi very patiently waited, she has to give that up too.

It's part of the problem with being single at this age. I forget that I mean something to the people in my life because all the people in my life come with Other. Others that always outrank me too. So I struggled to understand why Joe was yelling at me for what amounted to skulking out of town under cover of office hours.

I'm going to the US for a few months, but then I'll be back. I don't think is any big deal at all but everyone in my life seems to. They want to say good bye 'just in case'. I had forgotten that immigration out of Ireland often involves a lifetime absence. when I left Dallas for grad school in LA, my going away party was sparsely attended because everyone knew I'd be back. Back for holidays, for breaks, and after graduation. We are a mobile people in the US, so it didn't enter my mind that I leaving might mean something to someone other than myself.

So I will have a combined birthday party/ leaving do and we'll all have drinks and beautiful food and lots of hugging will be done. And then I'll hop a plane to New York and learn how to live in that city. Ironic that the people who have always been in my blog will now be the ones reading the blog to see what I'm up to.

Who could have predicted that?

Lifting the Green Veil

2008-03-17T13:16:00.003Z

Americans have a love affair with St Patrick’s Day that is very difficult to explain to the Irish. Every year, the city floods with Americans, here to celebrate the great Irish holiday and marinate in the authentic experience that is Paddy’s Day in Ireland.

In preparation for the reverse temporary immigration, the Irish generally leave town.

It is traditionally a religious holiday in Ireland. As it is also a national holiday, we have the day off work, so most people use this time to spend with their families, traveling down to the country for an extended weekend. It is only a beer holiday in the US.

But as the Irish have always been good hosts, they have created an industry around the holiday and thus we have a parade, a festival, fireworks display, and general controlled mayhem.

The city centre is filled with tourists, mainly American, but most of the European Union is represented, Dublin being akin to Europe what Vegas is to the US. The shops fill with foam leprechaun hats and beards, shamrock beaded necklaces, Guinness pint hats; all sorts of Irish gear for the festivities. People sell fresh shamrocks on the street for lapels. One sandwich chain has shamrock shaped bread. Musicians are out in full force, dressed suddenly in kilts, playing the old songs. If someone were to be drop shipped into the madness unaware, it would more resemble a David Lynch movie with an Irish theme than Dublin on a typical weekend.

The tourists come and watch the French light show, ooo and ahhh over the Chinese fireworks and wonder why their American beer isn’t green. They pilgrimage to the Guinness factory and then on to the Jameson distillery, stopping between the two for a pint of Guinness and maybe some Irish stew. The parade features more international groups than Irish groups, although some of them are actually living in Dublin at the moment. The Dublin Sikh group, for instance put on an impressive display of saris and sitars.

But none of this is a genuine experience. It’s all for the tourists.

The Irish experience of St Patrick’s Day is far more urbane. It generally features 6 Nations rugby and the Gaelic hurling finals. Pick your sport and head to your local for a pint to watch the match, but it’s not more than one would normally do. Some will wear fresh shamrocks in their button holes. Other than this year, most of the senior generation would be found at Mass at some point during the day. It is a quiet holiday, but it definitely a holiday. And ironically, the Taoiseach, who is sort of the Prime Minister of Ireland if they had such a title, is hosting the parade in Philadelphia. Not the one here in Dublin, no. He’s in the US where the good parades are being held.

In fact, the US has larger parades, louder celebrations and more anticipation for this day than anyone in Ireland. It’s just not that big of a deal. Not anymore than, say, May Bank Holiday weekend, first one of the summer, or October bank holiday weekend, which includes Halloween.

I remember years ago, when I had just graduated from college and was making real money for the first time in my life, my brother and I were talking about spending Paddy’s Day together in Chicago or Boston. Somewhere along the line, I pitched Dublin. Dan was a bit puzzled but he warmed to the idea. What better place to celebrate Ireland than in the Land of the Irish? Neither of us had been here and our families sport Irish heritage so it would have been a natural progression of ideas. That was nearly 10 years ago and had we arrived here, we’d have been sorely disappointed. The St Patrick’s Festival as I know it is only a few years old. We would have landed in Every Day Dublin to find the city virtually empty. No parade, no fireworks, barely any tourists. Granted, we could have walked right into the Guinness factory but the cool exhibition it is now was completed in 2000. It would have been an authentic experience, sure, but not the one we wanted or would have been prepared to meet.

In fact, the Irish government only set about changing that in 1995. The brief to the festival committee included getting the Irish population abroad to come home for it, outshining any other celebration world wide, and to provide “an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country”. Well, they’ve certainly provided for the international attraction but a less accurate portrait of Ireland could hardly be drawn from observing the festivities.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Paddy’s Day here. There is no better time to be crawling around Dublin’s pubs than March 17th. People are really happy to be there, the mood is jolly and infectious, it’s hard to be in a bad mood when that many tourists are so happy. And provided you leave Temple Bar around midnight, it’s a great day out. It gets a lot messy after that. Only the Irish were bred for 12+ hours of drinking and still managing to hold themselves together.

So today is for the tourists and although there will be some Irish mixed among them, wishing them a good weekend, it will be decidedly an international holiday. I for one, having the day off, plan on celebrating like the Irish, authentically avoiding the cartoon holiday it has become. I have been on the Guinness tour 6 times. I have been to the parade and led the pub crawl charge on many a Paddy’s Day, happily I might add. But today, I plan to go to the gym and then meet a friend for coffee as far from the city centre as we can manage.

Have a green beer for me.

Black is the True Color of St Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T11:47:00.004Z

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY ALL!

Particularly Irish Phrases

2008-03-03T22:18:00.002Z

They Never Put These in Those ‘So You’re Going to Ireland? Learn How to Speak Like a Native’ slang books**:

1 - Are you well? How you keeping? How’ya? (Hi, how are you?)
2 - Grand. Not a bother. Not a sausage. (Fine. Not great, just fine)
3 - Up for a few scoops? How about a few jars. (Pints of beer)
4 - Happy as Larry (Or it might be Lairey. Either way, pretty self-evident that one)
5 - It’s bucketing outside. It’s lashing out. It’s pissing down. (It’s raining really hard. Well, it is Ireland…)
6 - Do you want to meet for a coffee? (Let’s go for pints)
7 - I’m smashed. (I’ve got no money, not even for a pint, which in the US would get you smashed)
8 - That’ll cost you a few bob. (a little bit of money, not the contents of your savings account but probably more than you were planning on spending)
9 - Not a lot of talent out tonight. (no cute guys to choose from. See: Slim Pickins Texan/English Dictionary)
10 - Langered, trolleyed, well gone, off his head/face, pissed. (The Eskimos have multiple words for Snow, the Irish have many for drunk. Go figure.)
11 - A heavy session. (loads of drinking the night before or, interestingly enough, an evening of traditional music, which I find heavy going)
12 - Let’s just go for one. (2 drink minimum)
13 - Give em socks! (Give em hell!)
14 - Manky. (filthy and disgusting)
15 - One for the Road (2 drink minimum and usually a bad idea)

** I’d like to see someone pick up Irish from a phrase book. 3 years here and I still can’t sound out words I know.

Quality Always

2008-03-01T16:53:00.002Z

What a way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I spent all week doing laundry, cleaning the house, dishes… basic domestic goddess chores save grocery shopping, because I am once again, fearful of the grocery store for some reason, so I could spend the weekend relaxing and doing whatever I wanted to do.

So today, I am doing absolutely nothing and berating myself for not being productive. Why can I not just waste a day without recriminations from the Efficiency Bitch Within? She needs a different hobby.

So here I sit, on the sofa, well, on the floor now, watching quality Saturday afternoon TV and eating chocolate ice cream from the container. And it is no small container at that. I’m eating straight out of the family size bucket. I had coffee and chocolates for breakfast and the natural successor to that meal is, of course, ice cream for lunch.

I just finished watching Janice Dickenson’s Modeling Agency, which his always just a love letter to herself and her boobs, but its good fun no less. As I started the computer to ‘do some worthwhile writing’, America’s Next Top Model started and I could only thing one thing: Thank You! It’s the perfect thing to get me thru an ever darkening Saturday afternoon.

I actually watch it quite a bit. One could say it is my guilty pleasure but I don’t feel guilty at all for watching it. It’s actually a really good lesson for me, I’ve noticed. The day after I watch it, I am very aware of my posture while walking and sitting and even standing. It makes me want to spend more time on my appearance, something that went out the window completely in architecture school. I asked a friend once if he would describe me as high maintenance and he consider the question for a moment and responded with:

No, you’re more like No Maintenance. Ooo, that doesn’t sound good either, does it?

We then discussed the fact that I took less time to get ready to leave the house than he did and that my idea of a makeup routine consisted of applying mascara occasionally.

Not normal girl fare. I’ve softened a bit since moving to Ireland. I think having Sarah for a friend has helped that. She’s a bit of a make up guru. She’s the one that taught me to wear gold glitter eye shadow and told me I could get away with bright colours because I have dark eyes. I still don’t wear them but I have expanded my color range from brown to brown, blue, green, and a bit of copper.

I’m such a girly girl.

Oooo, MythBuster is on next. Think I’ll order a pizza.

A Three Hour Tour

2008-02-28T23:28:00.004Z

Here’s something I never thought I’d say to a man:

So, if I actually were going to throw up, where would be the best place for that sort of thing to happen?

And that, my friends, was the highlight of my weekend.

It is 6 Nations time again (that would be a rugby tournament) and on Saturday, Scotland came to town. I equated it to Fleet Week in New York but with kilts and better accents. Since I ended up in a gay bar last time the Scots came to town, I rounded up the girlfriends and we hit the town.

The objective was simple: to get chatted up by cute Scottish guys in kilts and if a kiss came my way, roll with it.

I found myself in a pub, with 6 Scots at our table, all in kilts, all 55+ and married. Not exactly the way I envisioned things going… I ended up on my sofa at midnight-thirty screaming down the phone to my sister, who decided it was like having Christmas cancelled. She’s a good sister.

So when I woke up on Sunday and was asked if I wanted to go for a sail, I figured it was a good way of redeeming my weekend. I’ve always wanted to sail and let’s face it, a cute guy asks you to go sailing when you’re bitter and sulking, you jump at the chance.

That was how I found myself throwing up on our first date. Not, I’ll admit, the best impression to have made on my part. He felt terrible. Not as terrible as I did but you know, it’s sort of rude to make your date vomit. But he was kind enough to keep imploring me not to be embarrassed. ‘We’ve all been there’, he said.

The funny thing was I wasn’t embarrassed at all. In fact, I found it quite funny. There I was, throwing up on a boat, so far removed from who I am normally. And I kept humming the theme from Gilligan's Island. It just made me giggle. After I came out of the bathroom, he looked uncomfortably chagrined but I just smiled and said to him: I feel soooo much better! Because that’s the thing about motion sickness, you always feel better on an empty stomach.

The stupid thing is, while I was waiting for my train to arrive, I flashed back to a boat ride I took while I was a student in Sweden. I'd gone traveling around and was taking a day trip with two girls from my hostel. We were about 30 minutes into the trip when I got most violently and painfully motion sick. I spent the rest of the 2 hour trip in the doctor's cabin, lying down and praying for death. Finally we arrived at Estonia.

It was the only time in my life I've ever been sick on a boat but it did make me wonder if I should be hitting the pharmacy for Dramamine instead of having coffee.

Should have gone with the instinct. Ah well, it was good fun for most of the day. I did really enjoy being on the boat, seeing the shore from a completely different perspective. The sun felt good when it did come out. The wind wasn’t as cold as I was expecting, although the four layers I was wearing might have helped that. I liked his dog very much.

But it didn’t give us much of a chance to talk, seeing as he was concentrating on getting me back to land as fast as possible and I was concentrating on not throwing up any more. Staring at the shore really does help. So if and when he does ask me for another date, land bound hopefully, I think I’ll say yes. I figure if he can get over that, he must be worth a do-over. Right?

The Professor and Mary Ann... Here on Gilligan's Island.

The Italian Job

2008-02-28T10:08:00.004Z

THIS is the best story I've read in a long time, other than the obvious name dropping, for which I rather loathe MSN news. I am amazed, however, at the lack of references to the Italian Job, because I'm betting that's where they got the idea.

La Luna Era Nuvoloso

2008-02-21T13:44:00.002Z

I did wake at 3am. As I turned the alarm off, I thought to myself: do I really want to do this? My bed is toasty warm. Yeah, why not. You're awake now.

So I went to the window and peeked at the sky.

It was cloudy.

I went back to bed.

Eh, the moon was red last summer.

La Luna e Bella

2008-02-20T21:21:00.001Z

I am spending the evening on the sofa with chocolate ice cream, watching a movie, and wondering if I will get out of my warm bed as planned tonight at 3am. No, not for vacation, that would be easy. Instead I am intending to witness the total lunar eclipse tonight, which begins at 3am. Well, I understand the best part of it is at 3am. It technically begins at 1am. It is the last one until New Year’s Eve 2015, which definitely gives me something to look forward to on that particular evening, but even so, it’s a bit of extreme advanced planning, even for me. So when I was looking thru the DVDs for something to watch, I settled for the obvious, Moonstruck. I haven’t seen it in years and frankly, it seemed like a harbinger.

I’m not normally one for these types of excursions but after I saw the images on the internet, and read as astronomy-types harangued me into not missing the event, I decided I should listen. I only wish I had a telescope.

So, even though I am tired now, at 9:17pm, I will set the alarm for 3am, bundle up in the warmest clothes I can lay my hands on at such an unreasonable hour, and head out into the cold to see a blood red moon. Or lack of moon. With luck, the sky will be clear and I will not have adventured in vain.

Wish me luck.

Enjoy Your VD

2008-02-14T16:18:00.002Z

I had my high school reunion this summer and a list was distributed of everyone’s contact information. I’ve gotten emails from various people including the wife of one former classmate. It was harmless spam, of course it was spam, but when she started sending me religio-political emails, espousing outright hatred for various groups, including my gay husband, I'd had enough. I’ve never met her, she knows nothing of me or my belief system. I politely asked her to stop, she did and all was fine.

Until today.

This just came in for me and, I’m sure, anyone who has ever been in her address book:

HOPE EVERYONE HAS A WONDERFUL VALENTINES DAY! Today marks 11 years of marriage for us. I hope everyone has been as BLESSED as we have, hope you have a wonderful day!

It sucks being single on Valentine’s day. It’s worse having every retailer on earth reminding me that I am single on Valentine’s day and therefore unworthy of flowers, chocolates, sex, love or creepy stuffed animals.

But really. This. Is. The Limit.

I’m happy she still loves her husband and has something to celebrate. I wish more couples could last 11 years without incident. But do I really need to have this shoved in my face?

No.

I don’t need to celebrate anyone’s marriage other than my family members, and they barely get remembered. I also don’t need to be told that I am not ‘blessed’ unless I have a partner. Or, more importantly, as blessed as she is, which implies a competition of blessedness, wherein we singles are just out of the game before the Fat Lady even starts to sing. Hell, she hasn’t even started warming up yet. In fact, she’s probably sitting on her ass in her dressing room eating all her heart-shaped chocolates, the bitch. It’s a bad enough day for me, given the amount of times I’ve been dumped on or just before the day but to have the tidings of others’ great joy delivered to me is just IT.

Bring on the f-ing tequila!

A Walk in Central Park

2008-02-13T16:26:00.004Z

click to open the photo gallery

Just a few more photos of my trip to New York, courtesy of MegaRon. Thanks!

Taxi Rant

2008-01-31T22:03:00.000Z

Here's what hacks me off about today. I was in a a taxi 3 times. The experiences are always different but today there were quite pronounced.

My first ride was my normal monthly bank run. From the office to the bank to transfer money for student loan, geedy bastards. The second was a return to the office with lunch in hand since it takes me the entire hour to hit the bank, grab lunch and get back again.

I eat lunch in a taxi once a month. It is not something I enjoy.

Normally, the taxi drivers just drive. Occassionally they pick up on my American accent and want to know where I'm from/what brought me here/wax lyrical about their trip to (insert massive coastal city here). It's all fine and dandy, I'm always up for educating people on the where abouts of Wyoming and the fact that we don't 'drive horses'. We drive cattle. Unless you think our main transportation is comprised of animal choices, in which case we drive Ford and Chevy. Horse power, not actual horses.

But today, as I was starving, I dove into my lunch and immediately had to explain that I was late to the office, had spent my lunch hours standing in line in the bank and was ready to chew my arm off. Driver was appropriatly sympathetic and I munched away. Then he started talking. Specifically, he started questioning. Questions that demanded actual answers. I have to say, it was a bit annoying. All I wanted was to eat my lunch in relative peace while directing the cab. What I did not want was to discuss the economy, whether or not we are 'a tough people', or if farming is lucrative. I wanted sea salt and black pepper chips (crisps) not conversation.

So I paid my fare and hopped out, leaving my sandwich to be eaten at my desk in between plots. (those would be the large sheets of drawings we do, not schemes to be hatched a la daytime soap operas)

Tonight however, I met an entirely different beast.

I knew from the outset I didn't want to get into the cab but it was the first one at the taxi rank and it was too slow and cold to wait for another car. So I hopped into a Mercedes.

What I love about New York cabs, and indeed any city with a standard issue cab, is that it doesn't actually belong to the driver. Which means there is precious little preciousness about the vehicle.

This guy slowed down to 2mph each time we went over a speed bump. And there are tons of speed bumps in Dublin. He didn't need to slow down that much, and after the 6th one I could only feel sorry for the car behind us, because said driver would tear between the speed bumps only to slow down to a near stop before surmmounting the extra 6" of tarmac. The time it took for him to drive me home, cautiously ascending the dizzying heights of Mt. Humpty cost me an extra two euro.

Which isn't much, I'll give you. That's $3 in the US, so maybe it is a bit.

What hacks me off is that before we've even moved an inch in Dublin, the moment I enter a cab, I already owe 4.10. If I pick a friend up at the airport, it is 4.10+1.00 for the friend and +1.00 for each bag the friend brought with them. So without even starting the car, I'm in for 6Euro, which is $9.

And the thing that pisses me off is that the baggage fee isn't mentioned in the official taxi literature provided by the union in each cab! It covers the cost of extra passengers, even offering a discount for kids, but no where does it mention the cost for bags. And by bags, I've been charged for groceries. I've been charged for a carrier bag with a pillow in it sitting in the seat beside me. I actually argued with a driver one day because he charged me 6euro extra on the fare 'for the bags'. I pointed to the laminated sign in his taxi, provided by the taxi union, and explained that there was no mention of charges for baggage. He dug in and so did I. I kept pointing at his sign and he finally backed down.

The thing is, its an 'unwritten rule' of taxi fares. Everyone knows about it, so it must be above board, right? I'm sorry but when you tell me my rights and then dictate my responsiblities as a passenger (all perfectly reasonable; don't be unruly, don't break shit, don't assault anyone, pay your fare, don't puke), I will not abide by hidden charges. You wouldn't take that from a bank, or a restuarant, so why should I go quietly for a taxi?

But tonight, what got to me was the other hidden side of hiring a taxi.

I crawled in and immediately realized the driver, who is quite tall, had pushed his seat as far back as he could and was reclining for more head room.

Honestly, do I need your head in my lap? No. I'm not paying extra for that. In fact, you should be paying me for the priviledge. This is not a case of simply picking up a hitch-hiker on the side of the road and I should be happy just for the damn ride; I'm paying you for a professional service. I should not have to ride with my knees touching my shoulders simply because you won't buy a car to fit your body. You knew how tall you were when you bought the car! You are providing a service, not a favor. And as a professional, you have stated that I have rights. Why is the right to space for my legs not included? It's bad enough I'm in your smelly cab listening to any varitey of music (or worse, you taking personal phone calls, which is 1-dangerous and 2-illeagal, because it's dangerous) but do I really need to contort myself into advanced yoga positions for your comfort and benefit?

No. I do not.

And what's more, stop arguing with me when I pay you! You tell me my fare, I offer you a note to pay for it. I make a point to offer you the smallest demonination possible, but occassionally, I have to hit the ATM before I head home, and you know as well as I do, Irish ATMs dispense 50 euro notes more often than not.

So don't yell at me when I offer you cold hard cash and YOU DON"T HAVE CHANGE! It's your job to have change! And if you don't have it, don't be sitting in the taxi rank doing crosswords next to a Spar (7-11 for the Americans) where you could easily get change!

Can you imagine a bartender refusing to give you the pint because he couldn't change a 50? Your cab is not a luxury you extend to me. It's your office and I expect as much professional behaviour out of you as you expect courtsey out of me.

Have some standards, please.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

New Year, New York

2008-01-31T11:43:00.000Z

Photos from my Christmas Extravaganza can now be viewed for those who wish to do so. Commentary is, as alwasy, welcome, but please keep it clean enough that my mother doesn't nag me. As previously, click the photo for the link.

Christmas on Long Island

New Year's Eve in New York

I'll never be president...

I take it back

2008-01-30T09:42:00.000Z

This is my idea of heaven. Someone better buy me a box of chocolates quick!

Dress Mess

2008-01-29T23:16:00.000Z

My dress is cursed. There can be no other explanation. I bought the dress for my birthday and it sat in my closet for 2 months, smoldering because I wouldn’t take it out to play. By the third month, it had plotted revenge.

The first time I wore it, Joe and I got in our first big ugly fight. And considering it was he who pushed me to try on the dress in the first place, that was a little too rich for my taste.

The second time I wore the dress, it was Joe’s 40th birthday bash and I considered it a do-over. The night went fine until that bottle of wine fell out of the fridge and soaked into the hem of my dress as I tried to mop up the floor.

The third time I wore the dress was over new year. I figured it was exactly the type of dress to be worn for a fancy proper New Years Bash in New York. So I took it with me, excited to give it a proper night out.

After a week in Long Island with my sister-in-law’s family, I failed to anticipate the weight gain inevitable with a family whose motto is: If you aren’t physically sick, you haven’t eaten enough. It took two of us 10 minutes to zip me into the dress. And considering it was after the shops closed and just before we had to leave for the party, I was worried. I’d brought no back up outfits, so I had to fit into the damn thing. The good news is, once into the dress I discovered I had cleavage, actual décolletage for the first time in my life.

The dress must have forgiven me, no?

I finished dressing, by which I mean staring at my own breasts, and off we sped to our posh, fancy, Michelin star, Gordon Ramsey restaurant for our 5 course meal.

Great idea/bad idea.

The meal was fantastic. The food was exquisite and made me realize how much I miss eating for sport. The company was fantastic and the conversation was lively. The wine menu was tough. Average price for a bottle of white was $100, do-able for a dinner party of 8 people. Average price for a bottle of red was $250, not so do-able for a dinner party of 8 people.

We should have stuck with the white.

Not only was the red not great, I managed to launch a glass at (wait for it, you know it’s coming) myself! And stain the holy hell out of the cursed dress.

I wasn’t even drunk. It wasn’t even 11:00. And what did I say to my sister-in-law just that afternoon?

Sister-in-law: So what are you drinking tonight?
Me: Champagne, of course.
S-I-L: Niiiice…
Me: Nothing of color will come near this dress. That would only end in heartbreak.

If only I’d known how true that would be.

New Years Day, over disco fries (French fries smothered in gravy and topped with melted cheese… it’s a wonder that should never be indulged in twice) Ron and I rationalized that it was better to get the stains while they were fresh, so I gave him the dress to take to his usual dry cleaners.

They promptly lost the dress somewhere in New Jersey where their plant is located. I did the only thing I could.

I ordered another margarita and gave Ron $40 for postage and dry cleaning.

So I came home and got back into the usual swing of things, because that’s what you do when vacation is over. Ron emailed me to let me know the dress was 1- on the way and 2- miraculously, stain free.

Clearly, the dress had forgiven me. Nothing short of that could explain it.

The dress may well have forgiven me but it would appear I have offended the Irish postal system.

The dress arrived at my office late one Tuesday afternoon, in the hands of the surliest postal worker on earth. He shook me down for cash and then explained that the customs office had levied an import fee on the dress that I needed to hand over to him, in cash, at that particular moment. $80 in taxes for a dress I already owned. 50 fuuuuuucking Euro for my oooooo-wn dress!!! A dress, it might be noted, I’d already paid taxes for upon purchasing.

But it doesn’t end there. The fun never stops with the cursed dress it would seem.

The Surly Postal Worker pointed to a customs number and said that was all I needed to collect the package since I didn’t happen to have the cash on me at that particular moment. I’m paraphrasing here mostly because I don’t know how to spell his grunting. He was far from eloquent.

Knowing how post offices work, and more importantly, knowing how my brain transposes numbers when they are imperative, I took the package and told him I’d just copy the information down quickly.

He wasn’t happy about that.

He wasn’t happy about that in spite of the fact that I was in full view of him the entire time. I sat down at my desk and started copying everything on the envelope.

Long story short, in the next 4 minutes he barked at one co-worker, shoved another aside, stormed in the office and ripped the dress out of my hands, saying, as he stormed back out the door, that I had ‘no right to any of the information’.

And off he went, leaving me nothing with which to track the package, including where I could collect the package.

It was not a nice exchange and it stopped my entire office.

2 days later I spoke to the customs office about the fee levied on my own dress. That almost stopped the office. After speaking to two individuals, the first of which told me I should have noted on the customs slip that I already owned the dress and should not have insured the dress, I ascertained the following:

1- Customs is greedy as hell and will slap a 21% fee on any package with a monetary value associated with it, regardless of what is actually in the package.

2- Any package coming into Ireland from a non-EU country is counted as an ‘import’ regardless of the contents of the package and therefore subject to a 21% tax.

3- You can lie your ass off on the customs form on the airplane and bring in voluminous amounts of stuff to sell off later at a profit but forget your personal belongings and they are subject to a 21% import tax.

4- Proof of ownership of personal belongings means squat to customs because it cancels any taxes that could otherwise be collected from the belongings.

5- Customs and An Post between them can’t get a story straight let alone track a package. Even one with a 21% fee awaiting collection.

6- I hate both Customs and An Post.

7- No one believes Surly Postal Worker actually works for the post office, despite his An Post uniform and van. Clearly I was mistaken there.

This afternoon was dedicated to tracking the cursed dress, without a tracking number or knowing which office was actually holding the dress. It took me one trip to the post office where the guy at the collections window spent 15 minutes rooting thru all the packages that had arrived in the past week, one call to the main post office where they told me I had to collect the dress in Deepest Suburban Dublin but couldn’t tell me the actual address of the postal centre but could assure me it was beside a hotel, and two phone calls to the hotel adjacent postal centre to ascertain that the delivery guy should have given me a slip with the tracking number on it.

Wow, thanks. I’d have never thought to get a tracking number. Next time I’ll know better. I’ll also not register value of the package and let you just simply lose my mail, as you’ve done on two previous occasions.

I JUST WANT MY DAMN CURSED DRESS BACK!!!!

So tomorrow morning I have to call the postal office again to see if 1- Port Authority actually, physically has my dress in its possession and 2- if they will send it back to Dublin so I can go thru the whole thing again.

If not, they send it back to Ron in New York (either tomorrow or in another 3 weeks, no one is really sure). I can only assume that it will end up in the closet of some customs official and I’ll spot her on the LUAS one afternoon wearing it and reading the book Ron threw in the box for me.

If the dress weren’t worth more than the 50 Euro, I’d write I off, take the damn money and go buy a new dress. One that isn’t cursed.

If I should actually manage to get the dress back, does anyone know how to cleanse the aura of a cursed dress?

The Candidate Matrix

2008-01-29T10:26:00.000Z

THIS is an interesting little tool and quite helpful to sort out who's who in this race of 1000 candidates, most of whom are too little to be well known without research. Now I'm not saying it's perfect or non-partisan, but it is a handy little tool to start exploring the candidates' stance on these issues. I was in a discussion with some friends over the weekend about the presidential race and it struck me as odd that the only issue Europeans consider important is the Iraq war. I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that do as well and I realize it's no small thing. But, there are other issues to decide upon when voting for president and I think this matrix brings several of the big ones forward. Because voting based on one issue alone is just irresponsible. I mean, do you remember Nader's Green Party from 2000? It included every freak fringe group willing to go in with him, a veritable circus of security risk lobbies. But he garnered a lot of votes for an independent because he was Green Party and who doesn't care about the environment? I've never been so frightened as the day I went to his official home page and read his official platform.

So, remember that the deadline to Register to Vote in the Primaries is Feb 4, 2008. I can't throw another Election Day party this year, unless you all want to come to Dublin to do it, but I can still nag you to be an adult and GO VOTE!!! I don't even care who you vote for, just do it.

There's that stupid Nike slogan again. I hope that ad company got paid tons...

Feeling Charlotte

2008-01-23T13:51:00.000Z

I wasn’t raised in a naked house.

No one in my family walked around naked. A towel around the head was the raciest you could expect to see after someone bathed. Maybe my father in his t-shirt because he’d just finished shaving. But generally speaking, it was far too cold most of the year to walk around in the all together. So when Charlotte utters that statement on a Sex in the City episode, I completely understood what she meant. Public nudity makes me uncomfortable.

I’m no stranger to gym rooms. I was in all sorts of sports growing up; competitive volleyball being my primary sport until I was 18. So I’ve seen my fair share of locker rooms and the activities that happen there. But I still will never understand women who saunter around the room naked.

My first foray to the gym, I was slightly taken aback when a woman walked past me wearing nothing but flip flops and a towel. I honestly didn’t know where to look, because there was a woman across the room dressing after her shower.
My prudishness came as quite a shock to me but I still felt the need to change behind the saloon doors in the corner.

Gym Bunnies tend to keep a very regular schedule. I’m given to understand that it is the most successful strategy for making it to the gym, rather than appearing sporadically and donating your monthly gym fee for little or nothing in return.
Because Carmel and I are becoming morning regulars, we see the same people every time. The familiarity of faces is calming to me and I feel less traumatized each trip. I am confident that no one will either laugh and point or ambush me with a ‘ready for instant uploading’ U-Tube linked cell phone. I still change behind the saloon doors, and I apply my body lotion in the shower because, quite simply, there parts of me no one wants to see without owning a medical degree.

As relaxed as I am getting, there is still one barrier I cannot overcome. Her name is Lady Godiva. (at least that’s what I call her) The first time I noticed her, Carmel and I were getting ready for work, smirking to each other and giggling like school boys. We were just shy of pointing and cruising by to check her out. Shameful, I know, but this woman stays naked as long as humanly possible while getting ready.

She strips for her shower and strolls thru the locker room carrying her towel over her shoulder. She applies her lotion at her locker. She slips on a thong and then sits down to spend the next 40 minutes blowing her hair dry. Her short, just below the chin length bobbed hair. My hair is halfway down my back and it takes me 8 minutes, 12 if I’m actually styling it, to wick away any thought of moisture my hair ever entertained.

40 minutes of topless blow drying. Followed by 15 minutes of makeup application.

I realize she paid a lot of money for the implants but do we have to be the visual beneficiaries of them? I say no.

In the many conversations we had about her, Carmel and I are stumped as to what she does for a living. On first glance, I decided she was a stripper, retired. She is in her late 40s, tanned to the shade of Louis Vuitton leather, and has a perfect French manicure on both hands and toes. She also drives a whore-house red Porche.

But then we saw her dressed the other day. She wears suits, expensive ones, and is on the same schedule as we are which would imply that she is on her way to work, not to shop. So Carmel’s suggestion of her being one of the Ladies Who Lunch doesn’t really apply. Those ladies drive conservative vehicles.

So we are left with nothing to suggest who she is and what she does. And I’m not sure why it matters so much. Yes, she’s something to discuss, ponder and speculate about, but we’ll get no answers unless we ask her. And neither of us is about to approach her and strike up a conversation.

I wouldn’t know where to look. It would be tantamount to rubber necking at an accident scene. You don’t want to look but you are compelled to do so by forces larger than yourself. I’d end up looking everywhere but at her; at the ceiling, the floor, a shoe on the bench, the clock...

She’s comfortable with her body, I get that. I’m fairly comfortable with mine too. Sure there are things I want to change, I’m working on them, but overall, I’m ok with what I have. I just don’t see that parading it around is a sign of confidence. I think it’s simply a lack of modesty, and there is a big difference between those mindsets.

I am not comfortable with her naked body. Apparently, I am only comfortable with my naked body.

Charlotte and I have much in common.

Gym Bunny

2008-01-22T14:20:00.000Z

As part of my campaign to Do Differently, and part of her campaign of Great Reduction, my friend Carmel and I joined a gym. I loathe gyms. I have always made fun of people who go to gyms, including my own friends, often to their faces. I am as surprised as anyone I have friends.

But now, I am a gym bunny just like those I mock. I am, in many ways, ashamed of myself. I work my social life around making it to the gym for particular classes. I bought a gym bag and a workout clothes. I own a water bottle.

I’ve never owned such things before. I played competitive sand volleyball until a few years ago, but that requires very little gear really, a towel, some insect repellent, beer money, etc... So when I was home for Christmas, I enlisted my sister-in-law to put together a gym bag for me. I had no idea it was such a costly exercise. Then again, I had no idea how much stuff actually went in a gym bag. I had to double my toiletries, make up, lotions, potions and such, in order to get ready for work after my ‘workout’. After the signup fee, the first month’s fee, that was a whole lot of outlay I hadn’t planned on just to go swimming and get bendy in yoga.

When Carmel and I went to tour the gym, I had agreed without thinking about it first. Had I stopped drafting long enough to really process what she said, I’d be writing about a whole different campaign. Since she got me at a weak moment, I went to have a look.

I was seduced by the pool and joined immediately.

It is no ordinary pool. There is nothing athletic or traditional about this pool. I sincerely doubt this pool is even from the same species. I suspect it is more closely related to the Spa Weekend Getaway Pool. The room is blue, aqua blue, with beautiful tile work and painted murals of the sea. There is mood lighting and it is generally a quiet peaceful space. For you see, in a non-traditional twist of beautiful environmental consciousness, it is a saltwater pool. Water is taken from Dublin bay, which would be the Irish Sea, filtered and cleaned, heated and then pumped into the pool. And it is amazing to wade into first thing in the morning. My skin loves salt water, so when I finish my swim, I am as soft and silky as if I’d spent hours and tons of cash on treatments in the spa. I’m saving a fortune.

Not that I spend a great deal of time or money in spas. But still. I don’t have to now.

In addition to the pool, they also feature a plunge pool (eh...), a sauna (hmmm...), a Turkish bath (interesting), and a caldarium (seriously?). Owing to my swimming injury this morning, I tried them all. I now know what it felt like to be an ancient Roman, a Turk and a Finn.

A caldarium is part of the old Roman bath system, a dry heated room with benches. After the caldarium, one would enter the fridgedarium, and then proceed thru all the different types of rooms before dressing and heading back out into the white city. Caldariums are quite boring unless there is an actual assassination plot being hatched or the beginnings of modern democracy being hammered out. No wonder they tried to take over the world. Without intrigue, it’s just a hot room with uncomfortably warm tiles scoring red lines on your butt.

I preferred the sauna immediately when I entered. I like steam. It’s good for the sinuses. But my favourite of the three would definitely be the Turkish bath. Hot, steamy, humid and slightly fragrant, it could knock the toxins out of the worst drug addict in no time. (Calling Amy Winehouse!) Sitting there for 3 minutes, I had more sweat on me than playing sand volleyball in the height of the Texas summer. But no mosquitoes or fire ants. Bonus. But 3 minutes was about all either of us could take, so we headed to the Bubbles, which is the true reward for getting out of bed early.

Beside the pool, the entire length of the 25 metres is a special feature called the water jet wall, which is affectionately known as The Bubbles. 3 separate areas lined with water jets strategically placed to massage various muscle groups. Stand at the far end, it works the neck, shoulders, and thighs. Sit in the middle section, it works the lower back, calves and feet. Lie down in the front section, it gives you a full body massage.

That is a glorious way to greet the morning.

We’ve decided to swim three mornings a week, take yoga one day a week and then she’ll head to the women’s gym and I’ll head to the spin studio. So far, she’s on track and I’ve yet to hit the spin studio. The woman that teaches the class is the same woman who taught our Thai Chi/Yoga/Pilates class over the weekend. She is less affectionately knows a Mean Mommy.

I’ve taken Pilates for a few years now, but never Yoga. It is something I have been wanting to do after pulling a muscle in Pilates, which made me realize I was nowhere near bendy enough for Advanced Pilates. Having said that, I know this much, at least, about Yoga:

1- It is not a competitive sport.
2- The phrase ‘Feel the Burn!’ should never be used.
3- Profuse sweating in the warm-up is a bad sign.

I’ve never worked so hard. There was nothing relaxing about it. In fact, I’ve never been more uncomfortable doing Pilates in my life. I realized a little too late that choosing a spot next to the glass wall looking out onto the treadmills/stair steppers/elliptical machines was probably the worst position to have taken. When she had us get into the Happy Baby pose all I could focus on was the fact that guy running on the treadmill was getting quite the intimate view of me without having to take me to dinner first.

I’ll be at the back of the room next time.

Auntie Mame

2008-01-21T14:28:00.000Z

click the comic to go to the actual strip

Why do I have the sinking suspicion that, given the opportunity to live anywhere near my niece and nephew, one of them would sooner or later have fallen into this trap? My sister is right, I am Auntie Mame. Or perhaps she said Auntie Lame. Hard telling.

Return of the Jedi

2008-01-08T14:11:00.000Z

I’m back people. Did you miss me??

My trip to New York and Long Island was fantastic. I got to see all the family, all the friends, and a whole lot of my hotel room, which I rather enjoyed. Plus I shopped. All around, a great vacation for me. No sights, no shows, no museums... just hanging out with friends and watching bad afternoon TV. It was exactly what I needed. So anyone who wants to write in and yell at me for not doing/seeing/going to whatever the hell you did while you were in New York ‘doing it right’, can just screw off. This was my vacation, not yours. Finally.

I sound hostile, don’t I?

Might have something to do with the fact that I wrenched the holy hell out of my back dragging my suitcase up the stairs when I arrived home. Some would say that was the Universe telling me to work on Asking For Help as my new year’s resolution. Eh, I only know that I managed to get my suitcase unpacked in record setting time for me. That might be my new resolution: get it done. There are worse mantras, I suppose.

That being said, I must get back to work. I will do my best to upload all the photos tonight, for your viewing pleasure. Stories to follow soon after.

My Office Christmas Party

2007-12-21T12:44:00.000Z

Click the photo to see the evidence.

I think it was 4:30 when Carmel and I stumbled home. I know there was Lagavulin, loads of it apparently and I distinctly remember walking down the middle of Dawson street trying to flag down anything that resembled a taxi.

Which pretty much sounds like pretty much every night in Dublin.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

The Year in Review

2007-12-19T14:00:00.000Z

As 2007 comes to an end, a quick review of the year. Anyone else care to answer a few of them?
*****************************************************

1- Where did you begin 2007?

New Years Eve in Dallas, so hungover I could hardly stand up. It was an early night, obviously.

2- Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Yep, taking Italian lessons.

3- How did you earn your money?
In theory, I’m an architect. In reality, I’m a glorified paper pusher.

4- Did you have to go to the hospital?
Nope, thankfully.

5- Did you have any encounters with the police?
Not this year.

6- Where did you travel this year?
Northern Ireland, England, Italy, Italy again, New York. It’s been a slow year.

7- What did you purchase that was over $1000?
See previous list.

8- Did you know anybody who got married?
Laura and Joey

9- Did you know anybody who passed away?
Personally, no.

10- Did you move anywhere new?
Back in with Flatmate Suzie

11- What concerts/shows did you see?
The Editiors and then Ash/The Fratellis/Kaiser Chiefs

12- Favorite night out??
Oh dear god... I have to choose one? Let’s go with the night Sammi, Lauren, Sara, and I had a Sex + the City marathon at my place.

13- Where do you live?
Dublin, Ireland

14- Describe your birthday.
It encompassed several of the 7 Deadly Sins and I’ll say no more.

15- What's one thing you thought you'd never do but did in 2007?
Vacation with my mother and not kill her.

16- What has been your favourite moment?
Watching my mother walk around Italy so utterly amazed she just giggled.

17- What's something you learned about yourself?
I hate hot air balloons.

18- Any new additions to your family?
Other than my Barcelona chair?

19- What was your best month?
August and September brought a lot of family to see me.

20- What music will you remember 2007 by?
Costello Music by the Fratellis.

Please Christmas Don't Be Late

2007-12-17T15:26:00.001Z

It's getting silly in the office and it's only Monday. Since two of our coworkers are leaving tomorrow, and our office party isn't until Wednesday, we've decided to open our Secret Santa gifts this afternoon and have a round of Irish Coffees. So my day began by sneaking a large wrapped gift into the office. At the present moment, I am wearing an orange paper crown left on my desk by some unknown soul who pulled the first Christmas Cracker and I have just won the prize in the cracker I pulled with Carmel, who is wearing a navy blue paper crown. I won a small 'silver' picture frame which now resides on my desk with a picture of my beloved in it, Grover.

They holidays might be getting to me already.

We Actually Studied

2007-12-11T12:59:00.000Z

Click above for the photos

I went to Paris. It was cold, which was not such a good thing for me. There was a transit strike which was a good thing for me, because I was really sick while I was in Paris and if I’d had to walk and take the metro to see all the stuff we’d planned, I’d have dropped dead somewhere near Notre Dame, which could only be a good thing, since dying near national cathedrals puts you at the front of the line for admission to heaven, right?

My boss decided to take a long weekend and ship the office to Paris for a study tour. Please note there are no quotes around the phrase study tour. When BDP took us to Paris it was a ‘study tour’, which translated into the Irish means ‘free weekend in Paris to drunkenly tear around the city’. This tour, however, we had a mini bus and a chauffeur to take us to our appointments to see various projects. Studying was done, as was much swilling of wine and inhaling of food. I am not, however, any heavier than when I left Dublin and I consider that a great failing on my part.

I’d been feeling a bit sick in the days leading up to Paris and thought that I’d be ok if I dressed for deepest winter, so out came the wool tights, the thick socks, the turtlenecks and the thick sweaters. It wasn’t enough. By the morning of day two, I hit the pharmacy for medicine and was hopped up for the next 6 days. I was hoping to be proposed to again but I guess my cough was more ‘I have TB’ and less ‘I’m a sexy smoker’ which the Parisians are fine with. God, they smoke everywhere. I thought the British were bad… When Melanie and Hippie and I were in England, we would hang our clothes out every night so we didn’t contaminate our clean clothing after a night in the pubs. After the first night in Paris, I realized the Brits have a lot to learn from the French about lingering smoke.

Our first day we landed at noon and after checking into the hotel immediately went to lunch. Evidently I caught the waitress’s fancy, because I was the only one she’d look at, smile at, or speak to, and I speak no French what so ever. I did manage to get my food first though. I’m not stupid, I’ll smile pretty if it means my crème brulee comes out of the kitchen well in advance of everyone else’s and still steaming from the mini blowtorch. Hey, she was beautiful, so it was hardly a hardship post. And my crème brulee was really good.

After a very long lunch, we went for a walking tour of central Paris, part in twilight, part by the light of the moon. It’s a beautiful way to see Paris. We stopped in Notre Dame just as Mass started, which featured an all female choir. That was worth the trip to Paris for just that. Beautiful sweet voices ringing through the cathedral, echoing off the gray stone pillars, lit by candles and chandeliers so high up they appear as candle light.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen the mass in a foreign language and I stand by my observations from Italy the first and second time; it is a strangely hypnotic performance art piece. I know what is happening, I understand the rituals and yet, because I cannot understand what they are saying, the effect is mystical. I understand why Christianity held such sway over people for so long; the mass was in Latin for thousands of years and only a very few could understand it. Every week, the same mysterious rituals followed by a harrowing sermon delivered by a powerful man dressed in finer clothing that most of the population would ever see, let alone own. It must have been a powerful spectacle. It is now.

We stepped out of the cathedral after about 20 minutes and continued our tour of Paris with no real agenda but to end up near the new opera house for dinner. I’ve never seen the new opera house but I know the stories. It was a competition; the winner was an absolute nobody who won only because the judges thought it was a hastily designed entry by Richard Meier. They assumed the design would develop after he won. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Meier and it didn’t develop after the competition and so Paris has an opera house that looks like a telecom headquarters in the tech suburbs of Dallas. At least it’s off my list of things to see in Paris.

We had dinner, we tried unsuccessfully to get taxis back to the hotel, thus we walked a very long way home. I went with my French coworker to meet her friends for drinks after we returned to the hotel, which was rather stupid on several fronts. For one, I was in no mood for yet another drink, let alone to inhale more secondhand smoke into lungs that were already protesting. Secondly, her friends don’t speak much English and having me at the table, with absolutely no French beyond the pleasantries of hello, please and thank you, meant they had to converse in English. It’s not a great way to catch up with long lost friends. I’ve never been so happy to see those tiny glasses of wine they pour. I gulped it down, bid them good night and then fell happily into my bed where I had bizarre fever induced nightmares.

The next two days we were in the mini-bus, being driven around Paris both past and present. It was my only salvation for the weekend. Mini-bus means you can sleep between sights. Metro means you cannot. Our itinerary for the weekend was this:

Maison La Roche Jenneret by Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye also by Le Corbusier
Parc Citroen by people I cannot recall
Musée du Quai Branly by Jean Nouvel
Bibliotheque Nationale de France by Dominique Perrault.

I’ll be posting more architectural comments on these projects in a later post, when I manage to get around to it (snore) which means this post is really just about the fun ‘let’s go eat!’ part of Paris with some buildings thrown in for good measure.

We started the tour by visiting Maison La Roche Jenneret in a very pretty suburb of Paris. It is one of the place we had an appointment, and with the transit strike (I’m unclear how this works here) there was very little traffic on the road so we had 30 minutes to kill before we presented ourselves. One would think the congestion on the roads would be worse with no bus/metro/taxis but no, Parisians do their own thing once again.

We found a little café nearby and went for a coffee. It was an odd little place on many fronts. Firstly, it featured the best selection of Scotch I’ve seen outside a whiskey shop. All my favorites were there and it was only 10am. Secondly, Next to the massive keg sized bottles of Veuve Clicot, signed by, presumably, the dinner party that consumed the champagne, was a vintage Guinness sign. The Irish are indeed everywhere. Thirdly, the man seated behind us muttering to his paper, and occasionally shouting at it, was dressed head to toe in pumpkin orange: orange turtleneck, orange button up, orange trousers. We tried to sneak a photo of him since he didn’t seem the type to pose for me.

One quick coffee later and we were walking into my first Le Corbusier house. We’d studied it in undergrad, everyone does, and I was sort of excited to take photos and send them back to my friends from those days. Bragging is, of course, the main reason I travel. My obversations? It’s tiny. Which I suppose for an urban lot is to be expected, but all the photos I’ve ever seen and the drawings had led me to believe it was this grand white mini-mansion in the city. It’s the size of an average house. Also, serious lack of detail on the house. Nothing really finished in any way, edges were rough and just sort of banged out. I was shocked by the rudimentary detailing but chalked it up to the amount of years it was abandoned and in need of renovation. However, Jeanne, my French co-worker, and I had a conversation about her dislike of Corb for exactly that reason. All grand gestures, no detail. Great entrance space though, nice day light in the rooms. But overall, I left thinking: I am not a fan of Corb. And that, my non-architecture friends, is a heresy, a grand one.

From there we went to Parc Citroen, which is, as you might, imagine, associated with the car maker. I believe the area was a car factory and then a munitions factory and then abandoned for many years only to be re-adapted as a park in the 90s. This one I studied in grad school and was quite excited to see what the hell my professor was so inarticulately trying to describe to us. The only things I remembered from what he was telling us was the following list: palm trees, black stone, water and trees. It’s an interesting materials list. It was an interesting park. I now understand what he was talking about and will be inarticulately trying to describe it myself in the future.

It’s a very modern park, designer park if you like and it really is best seen in plan to understand how the elements relate to one another, especially the diagonal slash thru the entire park. Luckily, there is a hot air balloon in the park that rises 150 metres in the air for some amount of time to do just that. For the bargain price of 12 euro a person, the viewer is treated to stunning views of the city of Paris and the park below. I can only assume this, since I was on the floor of the balloon trying my best not to burst into tears. I was unsuccessful. I have both a fear of heights and vertigo and I have never been so terrified in my life. I don’t know what made me think I could do this but I know I rationalized it thusly:

Is this one of those experiences you’d regret not trying, because of a stupid fear? How would I feel listening to everyone talking about how cool it was after the fact? Would I then wish bitterly I’d gone? It is a once in a lifetime sort of experience. The balloon is attached to a cable, which allows it to go straight up and down. If I look straight out to the horizon and don’t look down, I’ll probably be fine. The floor is solid, as are the sides, so it will probably be ok. Just do it!

I hadn’t factored in the air currents and the fact the balloon would sway and rock and creak. About 1 minute into it the ascent, I started to panic. At around the 75 meter mark, I was in a full blown panic and gulping for air. At 100 meters, someone helped me sit down so I could curl up and breathe deeply so as to not hit my coworkers who were, lovely people, laughing at me. And taking photos of me. I don’t think they quite grasped how serious the situation was for me.

They all sort of zoomed around the balloon taking shots of the various view of Paris, stepping over me and offering words of comfort like: it’s not that high, we’ll be ok, these things are usually safe. When they all ended up on the one side and the balloon tilted, I burst into tears. Mercifully, I couldn’t feel us descending, so when I saw the tops of the trees, I hardly dared believe my eyes. We landed, most disembarked, and Suraya, Carmel and Sandra helped me off the Balloon of Doom and onto the Bench of Salvation. When they saw I was shaking too badly to walk, people ceased laughing and no one mentioned it until much later when I was able to laugh about it.

You know the best part of it all though? I paid for that. Nearly $20.

Stupid Nike slogan…

From there we loaded up and drove thru the streets to our last visit for the day, the new Jean Nouvel museum, Musée du Quai Branly. On my last trip to Paris, only the administration building was finished and while the intent was obvious, the plantings hadn’t quite taken root, so the building was a bit weedy. The façade of the building is essentially a garden, planted with native species, irrigated and tilted to the vertical rather than the traditional horizontal we mere mortals are familiar with. I was quite excited to see how it looked 2 years later. Garden as building. It was amazing and shocking and beautiful. Which sort of describes most of his projects. The final part of the museum has been built and the entire thing is open. We went, we saw, I tried not to 1- steal the café chairs, 2- stalk the fireman strutting thru, and 3- laugh and point at Jeanne who got busted by a guard for smoking, outside, in the grounds of the considerable landscape which were plants native to Africa. I managed the first two. Plus Laura and I played Top Model on the café chairs, which had to have amused the patrons inside the café. Kate Moss is losing no sleep.

We didn’t stay very long, since it was closing shortly and the driver was double parked, so back into the van to the hotel where we could rest before dinner. That was a very welcome thing. Unfortunately for Jeanne, the restaurant we booked was so far away, we had no way of getting there, so she spent the break trying to find some place that could take 10 of us for dinner in a few hours. I spent the break sleeping.

Dinner was a lovely affair in a tiny restaurant called La Rough Poisson, the Red Fish. It was the favorite of the trip and for a last minute replacement, absolutely perfect. They have amazing little chocolate melty bundt cake things. That’s about all I remember. That and watching the very cute owner read a newspaper at the bar because he was bored. Actually, I remember a lot of the restaurant and the patrons but little of my colleagues because I wasn’t really able to participate in the conversation much. Being hopped up on cold medicine will do that to you. I remember the menus were all written on fish shaped chalk boards and that I decided it was less than effective since no one could read the writing, let alone decipher the French. I ordered something with polenta, which I then had to explain to the group, since they didn’t know what it was. There was beef, there was polenta, I was happy. There was a very cute brand new baby who was fed at the table next to us. The table right in front of the door. So anyone walking by or into the restaurant would have a view of new mother breast feeding. From the street, it must have been quite a show because more than one man slowed down for gander as he walked by. Eh, what are you gonna do? Me, I had the chocolate melty thing and some more wine.

The next morning, furthered by loads of sleep and even more medicine, we drove to Poissy which is a town outside of Paris notable for only one thing: Villa Savoye, my second Corb house and definitively The Icon of the Modern Movement. Not really looking forward to it after my first brush with Corb, especially since it was bitterly cold and foggy, but it was instantly better upon arrival. Perhaps the celebrity of the project had something to do with it, I don’t know, but crunching up the drive, I was excited to see it.

Two things I did not remember about the project: there is a guardhouse/garage at the entry and the front door is at the back of the site. I find that odd, so it makes me wonder if I ever realized the front door is in the back. Who walks the entire way round their house to enter it? It hadn’t occurred to me there was no sidewalk. The Savoy family was a very wealthy family who were driven to their country home by their chauffeur who would drive under the overhang, round to the front door, drop the family, and then proceed back to the gatehouse. It was never intended for any other purpose than to have rich people dropped at the door. I am not rich and so would not have gleaned this fact had the docent not explained it to us on our tour.

She was helpful, despite only speaking French. Jeanne reluctantly translated, since the transit strike kept our promised English speaking docent in Paris. We had room in the mini-bus; had they only told us, we would have happily collected him. It was a Great tour in which she explained a lot that I did not know about the house. Or perhaps I’d known at one point in architecture school but forgot in all the sleep deprivation. Very glad I got to see it; I was the first one in the van again.

From there we drove back into Paris to see our last project: Bibliotheque Nationale de France by Dominique Perrault. I slept all the way until Yves Montand interrupted my sleep. It was actually the chauffeur, on the microphone, serenading us with an Yves tune that he’d been hyping for days to the Spanish girls. Karaoke and unlimited Kleenex supplies, he was a bargain that man. The fact that he didn’t know his way around Paris… was trifling really. The group then asked me to sing some Sinatra for them to which I replied, rather politely, no way in hell. I went back to sleep. When we got to the library, I remember the daylight was golden, the bridge was interesting and the towers were large. I took some photos and then went inside to sleep in a chair in the hall.

Not the best trip to the library for me admittedly. From there we went back to the hotel, and had a long lunch before the first half of the group went back to the airport. Jeanne was adamant that everyone be on time for the shuttle bus to the airport because he would not wait for anyone. He was allowed to be late, we were not. Don’t be late for the shuttle to the airport, there aren’t any taxis if you miss him and the airport is an hour by car outside of Paris. That’s a very long walk with luggage if you miss the shuttle. Don’t be late.

Who was late for the shuttle then? Jeanne. We had split up to do some shopping, she went to visit friends and we agreed to meet for the late shuttle to the airport at the hotel. She rushed in just in time.

It was a sad ride thru the streets of Paris, seeing all the cute restaurants and shops we wouldn’t be in, the nice bars yet unexplored. As we passed Per Lachaise cemetery, my heart sank. Going back to Dublin has never been so sad.

Joe's 40th Birthday Bash

2007-12-06T15:11:00.000Z

The Photos Are Ready!!

click photo for link to photos

A Whole Lotta Me Time

2007-12-03T21:35:00.000Z

Right, so I was in Paris a few weeks ago and instead of pate and champagne coming home with me it was a pack of Kleenex and some seriously bizarrely tasting cough syrup. I haven't been this sick in quite some time. Stupid trip. Anyway, while home sick one afternoon, I started blogging my adventures of my 2.5 days in Paris on company money and when I realized I was already at a 10 page word document for the first 1.5 days there, a decision was undertaken, after much muttering, swearing, and cold medicine swilling, that I would separate it into two documents: Architects Paris, Foodies Paris. And then I went to lie down because all that muttering and swearing beat me down.

I was just on the cusp of a full recovery when i realized Joe's 40th birthday bash was approaching at warp speed which meant every spare moment would then be dedicated to finding the perfect gift, assembling the perfect outfit and playing the perfect bingo in online scrabble. (I fully blame this burgeoning addiction on Flatmate Suzie. Bad flatmate.)

But the party has happened, fun was had by all, and the wind storms we've been experiencing all the past week have done what they traditionally do: they awaken my insomnia. So excuse me if I'm not so keen on getting Paris done. Perhpas this weekend. Right now, I'm cranky. I've been up since 230am and all the chamomile in the world isn't gonna help me sleep tonight.

It Wasn't Me

2007-11-29T18:14:00.001Z

I'd never drink Carlsberg...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22024571/?GT1=10547

Let Me Eat Cake

2007-11-15T23:18:00.001Z

So I'm off to Paris on a 'study tour' with my office. It's gonna be a hard slog of wine and pastries and cheese and pate and more pastries and chocolate and wine and...

Well...

Let's hope it goes this well...

Enjoy your weekend!

Mark's 28th Birthday Party

2007-11-14T22:59:00.000Z

The photos are ready!!

Click on the photo for most of the dirty details.

Things I Really Miss About The US

2007-11-14T13:17:00.000Z

Target. As much as I hate to admit it, this shopping at little mom-n-pop joints all over the town sucks. It took me 3 weeks to locate a closet rail and now it needs to go back to the store because it's too large. Being able to pop into one place and pick up housewares, socks, toothpaste and a garden hose is becoming my new version of heaven.
Space. More specifically, the luxuriousness of space. Things here are as small as possible, meeting the minimum standard and not going one spare inch over that. Our flat, which is quite spacious, is the same size as my one bedroom apartment in Dallas. Which was all fine and good until I went to a friend's the other night and realized his bathroom was the size of our kitchen. I'm bursting at the seams in my bedroom and he's got closet space to spare.
Central heat. The radiators are on timers, which means they turn off completely for part of the day. I cannot sleep in a cold room, it makes me very sick, but there isn't a way to simply lower the temperature in the house for nighttime. It's either on or off. Which makes for very cold bathrooms in the morning and very quick showers.
Meeting friends for dinner. The Irish don't meet for dinner; they meet at the pub after dinner, unless it's a special occasion. But it's nice to meet a friend on a Tuesday night and catch up. I miss meeting for lunch on Saturday before a spot of shopping.
Grocery shopping. The choices aren't a plentiful. The stock isn't consistent. The produce isn't as varied. Plus I can't buy more than I can carry unless there is a bus route near by, or I can take a taxi. But some taxi guys will charge you for each bag and that gets expensive.
Owning a car. Hate to admit this one too, but it was dead handy to have a car while people visited over the summer. It costs me 12 euro and 1 hour to go greet someone at the airport, which translates into taking at least a half day off work. Home Depot is only in the deepest suburbs and really, can you imagine me on a bus home with lumber and hardware? Plus I miss putting gas in the car. I have always loved that smell.
Jazz. I don't know anyone that listens to it, anywhere to listen to it regularly, and I am unaware of any champagne brunches with live jazz.
Micro brew beers. I miss Fat Tire. I miss the Old Monk. I miss dark beer that isn't Guinness. A girl can only take so much before she needs some damn variety!
Patio culture. They just don't have the weather here to be able to give space over to outdoor seating. There are a few places that have it, but if it is a nice day, those places are overrun. I miss saying "we need to be on a patio with chips and salsa!"
Mexican food. But I've gone over this one before.

Something Chocolate

2007-11-09T14:01:00.001Z

This is the conversation I had last night when a friend and I popped in to Dakotas for a night cap. He even used that word, night cap. I’ve never had a night cap before. It was remarkably similar to Joe’s ‘Ah let’s have one last one for the road’.

Me: Hi there!
Bartender: Hi. It’s good to see you.
Me: You too. It’s been awhile.
Bartender: 7 months.
Me: um... sorry?
Bartender: It’s been 7 months since you been in to see me.
Me: ... umm...
Bartender: (laughing) What can I get you?
Me: ... (shakes head) I’ll have something chocolate.

Bartender shakes head and proceeds to make me Something Chocolate that I’m regretting this morning. The stupid thing is, he’s right. The last time I was there was Joe’s leaving do, which was just over 6 months ago.

How bizarre is that?

X Factor

2007-11-05T13:31:00.000Z

I didn’t sleep well last night. In fact, I barely slept. I woke repeatedly and tossed and turned and had very odd dreams. It’s a bad sign when I look at the clock in the dark and wonder if it’s late enough to get out of bed yet.

I woke up this morning singing Meatloaf. More succinctly, I woke to a dream where I was singing Meatloaf on an American Idol type show. And I made the next round after they decided that I didn’t have the best voice but I really expressed the emotion of the song and could learn the technical aspects of singing later. I don’t know what sort of emotion is expressed in a song with dirty lyrics but evidently I do dirty well. And emotionally. I don’t know how I would know to express the emotion of telling someone I love them by pointing to ‘my faded Levi’s tearing apart’ as an example of said love, but that’s the stuff dreams are made of, I suppose.

Shortly before the Meatloaf Victory, I was an archaeologist excavating at King Tut’s tomb. It was a clearing house of dreaming I guess. Over dinner with Paraic, I had been discussing how very much I want to go to Egypt to see King Tut since they have just lifted him out of his coffin for the first time in 50 some odd years. I’ve been obsessed with him ever since our National Geographic arrived in 1974 featuring his first world tour. And now, the museum in Cairo has found a way to preserve him absolutely, so he is going on open casket display for the first time ever. Being the morbid history buff I am, I want to see it. And Paraic said he did too. Which is odd considering he’d just lambasted me for saying I’m a fan of graveyards. I don’t know why mummies and tombs are removed from the idea of visiting the dead, that sense of mortality is intangible somehow, but, when looking at the mummy of a pharaoh, it is a dead body.

Chipper today, aren’t I?

Earlier yesterday, while waiting for him, I was having wine after spending way too much money on magazines at Eason’s. I have sincerely missed my monthly instalment of Wine Spectator and stumbled across a UK magazine that could be the replacement, so I went to find it. Indeed I did, along with Wine Spectator and Focus, a Discovery Channel magazine. €18 lighter, I went for wine and read all about a King Tut exhibition in London for the month of November, featuring all the goods from his tomb. This is to be his farewell tour, so it’s now or never or Egypt. Unfortunately, I think it’s going to have to be Egypt since virtually all my weekends in November are spoken for. I suppose the bright side to this is that a week in Egypt will cost me the same as a weekend in London, but with better weather.

So I’m a bit groggy and cranky today and I don’t really feel like sitting at my desk working, yet my concentration levels this morning are vastly surpassing my concentration levels for all of last week, when I considered myself well rested. I don’t get it. My fellow grad students always told me that I was at my most beautiful when I was completely and utterly exhausted. I was also at my most sarcastic on those mornings, which apparently was hysterical. The Universe it trying to tell me what, exactly? Sleep deprivation works for me? I’ll take the land of the living thank you. Unless it’s a mummy, apparently.

Being Stalked By My Past

2007-11-01T23:44:00.000Z

Air Supply is stalking me. Its true. Awareness of a thing for the first time leads immediately to constant references to the thing over the course of the next few weeks. Like the word effete. It was in my book last night, I had to look it up in the dictionary and tonight it was on my beer coaster. It's the word of the week apparently. So I've ascertained that Air Supply is stalking me. I've heard them serenade me 3 times this week alone and I notice they're in concert here shortly. You read that correctly. Not only are they still alive, they're touring. I'm no musical snob but men that sing like Anne Murray should never be allowed to tour.

Ah, Air Supply... the sound track to my overly emotional and hyper romantic early teen years. I remember roller skating to them, holding hands with some boy in the dark during the couples only skate. It was all so very poignant, except I didn't know that word then. I believe it was my first album. I know I played it over and over again, singing along, wretched in the heart break of it all. Turns out I still know all the words.

As I turned 15 I moved on to my Chicago years, the last few good years of Saturday in the Park and the monster ballad that was 'Hard To Say I'm Sorry'. Grant Jones and I used to make out to that album. That's how I learned my Roman numerals. The album, not making out with Grant. After the duet with Amy Grant, Chicago went downhill and I was searching about for an emotional outlet. It was then my brother introduced me to my first real love: Judas Priest.

But for tonight, I am back to Air Supply, drifting into hazy, saccahrine -laced, romance laden dreams.

And what would you say if I called on you now

And said that I can't hold on

There's no easy way, it gets harder each day

Please love me or I'll be gone,

I'll be gone

massive strings crescendo

plaintive acapella

I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you

I know you were right believing for so long

slow build up to grande finale

I'm all out of love, what am I without you

I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong

Lights up, hands dropped, back to friends.

Halloween

2007-10-31T14:17:00.000Z

H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N ! ! !

All the People

2007-10-28T12:37:00.000Z

click the photo for the link to the photos

All the people...
So many people...

Two lines from a song by Blur, I think, that I sang the entire week I was in Florence with my mother. I have never seen it so crowded. This is my 8th or 9th trip to Florence so I've seen it change quite a bit over the years and I have to say, I don't like who she's become. And yet, I still love the city. I just don't love that it is so overrun with tourism, in all the bad ways. As the Professor said it, the city has a bad case of tourist influenza.

But, that said, it was a great trip. After my aunties left Dublin, I threw my mother on a plane and we flew to Italy. She didn't know where we were going until we got to the airport. I had given her a choice of 4 cities. Any one she picked was fine with me, she had only to choose and I'd make all the arrangements. She didn't pick so I chose and then refused to give her the details. I even got my aunts to throw out various cities to mess with her.

I booked the flights to Bologna and as we sat on the plane she was telling me the places she's always dreamed about going. Then she said the sweetest thing ever: And some day, I'd love to got to Florence.

Whee....

So we went to Florence. The taxi dropped us off at the apartment I'd booked, which was in the centre of town. Dead smack in the middle of town. On the main shopping street. A mere 2 minute walk to the Duomo, and 4 to the Ufizzi gallery. I figured it would be worth it for the location, even if it was a bit noisy at night. It wasn't noisy at night, it was noisy in the mornings. I've never stayed this close to the duomo and I didn't know the bells started pealing the hours at 7am. And since you could actually see the bell tower from our living room window, we got to hear a lot of those bells.

But the apartment was lovely and every time we walked out the front door, mom sort of giggled. Literally, out the door and onto the pedestrianized shopping street. It was brilliant and I would absolutely stay there again.

My agenda was to steep Mom in the classic art of Italy. She's an artist you see, and Florence is the centre of the Renaissance, which is amazingly enough, the story of art. So I whisked her off to see the David. When I saw him the first time, 10 years ago, I walked in off the street and found myself in a room with him alone. We hung out together for about an hour before I headed back out into the streets. In the last couple years, a line has developed to see him that stretches close to 2 hours. Unless you have reservations, which I'd booked. So we presented ourselves at the appointed time and were told to wait in a line. he was quite rude about it, but I'll just skip over him and fast forward the 40 minutes to our entry thru the metal detectors, over the crowds and into the hallway leading to David.

David has his own room, at the end of the hall, so you can see him as soon as you turn the corner. She didn't say anything, so I'm not sure what she was looking at. I pointed out the sculptures that line the hall to her. They are studies done by Michelangelo for the tomb of Julius II, which is in the Vatican. I find them fascinating. Sketches of sculpture, done in marble, 8 to 10 feet high, unfinished but discernible. I think of the sketches I do before I've got a firm idea of what I'm doing and then I do it 'for real'. These blocks of marble are the same thing, but 3 and 4 tons of rock instead of a bit of butter paper.

When we walked into David's room, I heard Mom whisper: wow.

And then nothing.

I was worried she didn't like it or was offended by the fact that you cannot escape his very naked penis, which is about the size of my head. We walked around him, and then sat down on a bench, located directly over the air conditioning vent (best bench to have) and she told me, voice dripping with awe, that she had no idea it was such a large statue.

David is 18' tall and stands on a 6' high podium. But since he's in a room alone, and always photographed alone, he's scaleless. And he's huge.

We looked around the gallery for about 90 minutes and then left, Mom remarking how large the canvases were and how she was intimidated by her canvas sizes. Well, when you paint an alterpiece, it has to be large enough to fill the church.

I remember a study a few years ago about the correlation of artist's canvas size and the size of their studios. Kandinsky has two sizes of paintings generally: pre and post Bauhaus. When he was in Russia, in a cramped studio, his canvases are poster sized. When he moved to the Bauhaus and had run of the place, his canvases were room sized. I wonder what my mother would do if she had an entire double height loft to work in?

The following day I took her to San Gimignano, perhaps the most touristy of the hill towns surrounding Florence, but I love it there and I knew she'd like it. The city is lined with small shops of artists, wine shops (hello!), olive oil products, or pottery. Shopping in the medieval twisty streets of a city once renown for hundreds of towers... it's just something you need to experience on your first trip to Tuscany.

The bus drops tourists off at the main city gate. From there, it is a short walk up the street to the main piazza. And by up, I mean up. This is not called a hill town for nothing. San Gimi is hard walking sometimes and that first hill gets everyone. Usually in the same place. The last 1/4 of a block is a definite steepening of the hill. Amazingly, there is a small mini-piazza there, because it is where everyone stops to catch their breath. Then it's just a 30 second walk to the main piazza.

We had lunch in Piazza Cisterna, which is where the city's cistern is located. Very important thing to have in a city. Since all the Tuscan cities were warring in the Renaissance, being under seige was a common thing. A city can last significantly longer under seige with a fresh water supply. San Gimignano was one of the few hilltowns to withstand the capture by surrounding factions thru the ages.

After lunch we wandered over to the church, which I'm growing more and more fond of as I visit. This time it was my turn to wear the disposable blue modesty skirt. I wrapped it around my bare legs and we entered the very dim, very frescoed medieval church. Mom was immediately dizzy so we sat until she felt better. She gets thrown off balance in tall rooms we discovered. Not a great country to visit if that's the case.

I looked at the mural Hippie and I were discussing last time I was there, and then we exited, leaving my lovely frock behind. We sat on the steps for a bit, resting and undizzied, watching kids and pigeons and people take photos. Then we just wandered the city; in and out of shops, down the streets, out the city gate and into the hills beyond. The view from outside the city gates is amazing. Being on a hill offers many advantages and scenery is but one. We photographed and wandered a bit and then decided to head back inside the city walls.

I bought some gifts, she bought some gifts, we stopped for pastries and prosecco. The surrounding hills yield grapes and olives, so I was drinking a local champagne. It's hard to go wrong with bubbly in such an atmospheric surrounding. And San Gimi is steeped in atmosphere.

We shopped our way back to the bus stop and watched the sun set over the hills. By the time we got back to Florence, it was time for dinner. So I took her to a family favorite, Giannino in San Lorenzo.

This is a local restaurant my sister and I found on our trip to Florence. She was living in Zurich then so I went to visit and dragged her to Italy for a few days before Mom and our aunt arrived in Switzerland. We were the only ones in the restaurant that night and were having a grand time. As we waited for our bill to arrive, a waiter arrived, placed a bottle of vin Santo in the middle of the table and then put a sheet of paper and a pen on the table.

Please, I'm in a band and we need the words to this song.

My sister dutifully scribbled the words to Tears in Heaven for him, we had our vin santo and coffee and Fabrizzio got an eyeful of my sister, which was the whole point anyway.

After she left, I went back in one night for dinner. He waited on me and then changed my life forever. At the end of dinner he set a frozen stemmed shot glass on my table and poured me my first limoncello. I went back a lot after that.

When I arrived with Melanie and Hippie, I took them there for dinner one night. It's really good food but I was delighted to see the diplomas of Fabrizzio decorating the wall behind the bar. He had been studying restaurant and hotel management when we met him and he'd graduated by the time I was back. When I saw my sister the following week, I told her and we were so stupidly proud. But it was like running into an old friend.

So I took my mother there for dinner. And when we walked in, who was standing there but Fabrizzio himself. He's now the manager.

The following day I had reservations for the Ufizzi Galleries, something I've visited in all my trips. Unfortunately, I had in my mind that our reservations were for 4pm. They were actually for 10am. Crap. So we bolted over to the ticket office, prayed we were granted some mercy and then pushed my reservation form to the clerk. She didn't even bat an eye. We had our tickets and two minutes later were checking our bags and getting the audio tour headset.

I like the Ufizzi.

We wandered the galleries and I have to say, it wasn't what I expected. This is a world famous gallery, on par with the Lourve and the Met and frankly, it left us both underwhelmed. The most exciting things to see were the Botticellis, which I've never seen before. They are magnificent, I have to say. but if you aren't well versed in pre-, high, and post Renaissance Italian art, it's all just a bit obscure. But the building is quite nice. And the views over the Arno from the landing are worth the price of admission.

I think, however, our favorite part of the day was having lunch on the terrace, at the base of the tower for Plazzzo della Signoria, which was the city hall for centuries. (it's now an art museum) The food was just ok, but the view was amazing. And the entertainment was priceless.

Mom was seated next to a topiary that we discovered was home to a rather large bunch of sparrows. I know they're a mean bird, but I like sparrows; they're fun to watch. What we couldn't have anticipated was Mom feeding the sparrows out of her hand. Those are some tame buggers, I'll tell ya. She tore bits of her bread off and held it near the branches of the topiary. The birds would hop, hop, hop over to her and then grab the bread and disappear in the tree. We sat there for probably 30 minutes, hand feeding the birds. all that art below us and we're marvelling at unnatural nature.

It was a good day.

We spent the rest of our time in Florence wandering and shopping. I took her to my favorite shoe store where we both bought shoes. I told her the story of Florence as we wandered through the streets. We looked at every street artist on display. And then as we were returning from Oltrarno, happily fed, delightedly shod, a police car whizzed by on the street, lights and siren blaring. Not that exceptional until the following car whizzed by; a convertible with 3 Italian beauty queens sitting and waving at we the gawkers. It was very odd. Then another police car, and a minute later the bikers. There was a bike race thru the streets of Florence, ending very near by. So we watched and cheered as they zipped thru and then continued on our way.

You just never know what you're gonna get in Florence. I think it's part of the charm, tourists and all.

The next morning, we woke early and made our way to the street to wait for the taxi. It was still dark and the streets were empty. I'd left most of my paycheck in the shops and mom left with a beautiful watercolor from San Gimi. On the train back to Bologna, she photographed the countryside and I read an Italian newspaper. She just kept saying, the entire trip really, that she couldn't believe she was there, seeing those things, doing all of this. I think I overwhelmed her. I'd been aiming to thrill her.

Mission accomplished.

Seeing Red

2007-10-26T10:39:00.001+01:00

First of all, I think its beautiful. Secondly, I absolutely agree with him. 15 million Euro ($21.5 million) is obscene for a film festival. But thankfully, the dye didn't harm the fountain. I'd have hunted him down myself if it had.

A Post About Shoes, Martinis and Babies

2007-10-24T21:07:00.000+01:00

It was a slow morning on Sunday. When we both found ourselves in the kitchen having coffee and toast, Flatmate Suzie and I decided we needed to take ourselves out shopping or waste the entire day indoors. Given the days are getting exponentially darker and exponentially earlier, any sunshine is not to be wasted. So we threw ourselves together and hit Grafton Street. I realize that going in and out of shops hardly qualifies as enjoying the sun but neither does sitting in my beautiful chair in the living room.

No shock to anyone who knows us, we ended up in the she department in Brown Thomas. Suzie trying on shoes she should not afford and me trying to figure out which ones I should not try on. And then it happened. I found them: beautiful gray patent leather peep toes with white heels and double ankle straps of white patent leather.

“Oh! I love these! I love them so much I want to marry them!”

And then my eyes came back in focus to see a woman I do not know smiling at me. It was a very long second but not nearly long enough as I tried to come up something to explain what was an otherwise ridiculous statement.

“I know exactly what you mean!” she laughed and moved on.

And she did. Every woman knows exactly what I was saying.

After I saw the price tag, I realized it was meant to be an unrequited love and gently set them back down. Before I walked away, I petted them one last time and found myself in Jimmy Choo. Suzie was still waiting to try on her shoes, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to look a bit more. In Jimmy’s very pale pink boutique I had just picked up a beautiful moss green patent leather peep toe (I’m sensing a theme with me here) when the cute little baby girl started bawling. Her mother picked her up and immediately she gurgled. I bent down and said to her:

“Why are you squalling? You’re in Jimmy Choo.”

She smiled. So did everyone in Jimmy Choo.

We shopped until all the stores closed, which was only a few hours, that tends to happen when you leave the house at 3 in the afternoon, but we just weren’t ready to come home yet. As we considered shopping at a newspaper agent, a dire option at best, Suzie came out with quite the request.

“Take me to one of your fancy places.”

I’ve never heard anyone say that before, so I took her to Venue for martinis. She told me she’d never been there and was curious after seeing the photos. It’s the fanciest place I could think of so down to the bar we went. We had the place to ourselves for the most part and the cute Australian barman brought us a rather large bowl of veggie chips. Yum! I had a frozen apple daiquiri and she had a Hunk martini. Then we had a load of water because her martini was quite strong and she doesn’t really drink much.

When we emerged there was no more sun to be had so we hopped in a cab and came home. It was a good way to spend the day.

Have You Met Miss Jones?

2007-10-18T22:44:00.000+01:00

I spent the evening in the UK. It was one of those evenings when you simply don’t want to do anything, go anywhere, or speak with anyone but still have this sense of needing to be entertained somehow by someone. So I curled up in bed with Bridget and Renton.

It’s been a long time since I’ve hung out with Bridget Jones and frankly, I’ve missed her. For years I’ve thought of her as a close personal friend, even though she’s a work of fiction. And of the movies. I popped the DVD into my laptop, curled up in a blanket and munched my way thru far too much junk food while she chased Daniel Cleaver around central London. After she learned the truth and got the good guy, I took a short dinner break and headed to Scotland for a late night rendezvous with the heroin addicts of Trainspotting, which is one of my all time favorite movies. Chic lit to drug addicts. What would Freud think of that do you suppose? I love Ewen McGregor, what can I say?

It was a good evening. I haven’t done this in ages and I’m thrilled I declined the invitation for pints tonight.

One of the things I like best about having my laptop is the DVD player. I love curling up in bed and watching movies. I can be absolutely selfish since the screen is really single sized. Although, in grad school, Ann and I would curl up on the sofa occasionally and watch something together. And on one desperate evening, there were 4 of us curled up together watching movies. Comical does not even begin to describe the site of us. It did require that we were all good friends, since we spent 90 minutes essentially on top of one another trying to get a better view of Pacino and Di Nero stalk one other thru LA.

But tonight, I was alone in my room surrounded by pillows and warm blankets. Flatmate Suzie was in much the same mood and so she was in her room, watching movies on her laptop as well. We cannot watch movies together. For one, she calls them films and she only watches important ones. Me, I watch movies, usually trashy Hollywood types, like Bridget Jones’ Diary and Harry Potter, occasionally several in a row. (I love that I can sit thru a double feature in my pajamas.) I spend my entire day focused on minute, finicky stuff and when I come home, my brain is usually overloaded. The last thing I want is to be confronted and made to think.

She, on the other hand, has had the same job for 12 years and can easily phone it in from a beach in Mexico if need be. So when she comes home, she’s craving cranial activity. So tonight, she watched a film and I hung out with Bridget.

I love that we can spend time together separately.

I'd Much Rather Go Home with Spanish Than Irish

2007-10-15T22:04:00.000+01:00

Interior designers throw the best parties. In part because they have better industry perks than architects but mostly because they can leave the office behind them and enjoy the evening. Also, they have free bars all night long. So when the invite came to go to the launch of the new Knoll office system, I willingly went. I like Knoll. I wanted to see the new system that I’ll never specify because I am an architect. I needed a free glass of wine. And Joe volunteered to go with me. All in all it was shaping up to be a good night.

As we entered the party, we were given name tags and shaken down for business cards for the raffle they were having later. I happened to have one, Joe happened to have one, so we entered. He dropped the card in with ‘I never win these things.’ And I dropped mine in with ‘Be lucky!’ to which the entire staff manning the door laughed.

We walked into the Round Room, which is the name of the venue, hence capital letters, to see the furniture on the far side and the bar on the near side by the cocktail tables. Guess where all the people were?

Dutifully we grabbed a glass of wine from a nearby waiter and went to have a look at the furniture. They had the hall of fame lit up quite well, the womb chair, the classic Eames chairs, a Saarinen or two hanging about. Unfortunately, it overshadowed the featured furniture, which was really nothing more than typical office systems cleaned up with funky colors. We were having a look when the speech started.

Breathtakingly boring but entertaining in that he had his hands in his trouser pockets. He was a bit nervous I suspect; his hands kept moving round in his pockets. It was really most unfortunate and included a badly put together slide show, mostly of the furniture in front of us. As he was speaking, I received a text from Whiskey Boy telling me he had to cancel our date, which had previously been rescheduled for the following evening. Luckily for him, that speech was lengthy.

After the designer finally finished (dear god he needs a public speaking course), Joe and I moved to the bar so I could self-medicate with canapés and vent. Just as I was building up a head of steam, they decided to draw for the two winners in the raffle. Grand prize: a white Barcelona Chair. Runner up? Who the hell cares, they were giving away a Barcelona?! The wine was free. There were canapés!

So they drew Una Johnston’s name and Joe and I clapped and cheered for her and went back to vilifying Whiskey Boy. We were interrupted by them putting her name back into the draw, at her insistence, since her company is a kissing cousin of Knoll. Doing the right thing never hurt her so much, I’m betting. It was a good night for Unas since that was the second name they called. She wasn’t there and you had to be present to win. Perhaps not such a good night for Unas.

So they drew a third time and called my name. I was so stunned Joe had to shove me out of the crowd. I actually looked over at him and asked if they had just called my name just to make sure I wasn't being obscenely greedy and more than a little delusional. He laughed and shooed me toward the stage. A smattering of clapping, the head honcho of Knoll asking if I had a way to transport it home and that’s when I turned around to see 1- the chair with still no real dawning of what had just transpired and 2- quite a hostile looking crowd of designers. Jealous bitches, all.

The next thing I know, he’s shaking my hand, all of the Knoll staff is lined up around me and being photographed. It’ll be quite a photo, I’m sure. They all look happy and I look like my wife unexpectedly gave birth to triplets. I even made him show me the card to make sure it was mine and not a mistake.

I must have asked Joe 8 times that night if it was really mine. It just didn’t process. Even when people started coming up to congratulate me. I know how Oscar winners feel now. This is probably the most coveted piece of furniture in the design world and I now own it. And it was free!

It was the most remarkable evening after that. Joe and I were out dancing at one point and I looked at him and said ‘It feels like it’s my party now’ and he laughed and said that it really was.

I was speaking with one of the Knoll employees and she was asking me about the color, saying that they had agonized over it, since architects only ever order the black, and they really didn’t want to see it end up on eBay the next day. Personally, I wouldn’t be nearly as excited if it were black. I love the white. It makes the chair more feminine and certainly more sophisticated and versatile. It’s the purest white you can have in leather and I adore it.

As we were chatting, a German guy came up and asked what I was going to do with it. The Knoll girl and I looked at each other for a second and then he tipped his card.

‘Are you going to put it on eBay? You know, because it’s not the good one, it’s the white one.’
‘So you can swoop it up for half the price?’ sheepish grin from German.

The chair here retails for 4000 euro. And that’s the entry level chair. There are two frames, mine is the expensive one, and then the quality of leather is chosen. My particular chair would retail in the US for around $6000.

The rest of the night, people came up to me and offered congratulations, introduced me as 'the girl who won the chair'. And then the strangest thing started to happen.

Men from all over the party started hitting on me. Men, who just 20 minutes previously hadn’t given me a second glance were actually lining up to talk to me. One even went so far as to offer to have sex on the chair with me.

It’s a chair, people!! It’s not a car or a yacht that we can go for a ride in, it is a seating option. And I’m pretty sure no sex you can offer me will compel me to give you the chair as a reward. I wouldn’t give it to Clive Owen if he offered to sleep with me. Well, I might think about it. Briefly.

Then people were taking it down from the display stand and having their photographs taken in it which I just cannot figure out. It’s not a rare chair, or the pope’s throne in St Peter’s, or even an Egyptian sarcophagus, which would render the photo contraband. It’s a chair; a rather expensive but quite common chair. And can I just mention the Polish girl who was photographed in quite provocative positions all night long with my chair? I just know it’s going to be on a porn site somewhere. (Never tell me if you find it.)

Architects are a weird little race of people.

Joe and I left at nearly 2am, quite drunk and very happy. I finally quit asking him to verify I hadn’t hallucinated the whole night and he wished me good night and congratulated me once again.

They delivered the chair to the house a few days later. It’s beautiful and easily the coolest thing I’ve ever owned. My sister has already claimed dibs on it upon my death, so don’t bother asking; she’s as tenacious as she is opportunistic. Joe likes to say I deserved the chair since I’d been dumped by not one but three potential dates within a week and the universe was making it up to me. I say, I’d much rather have the chair since it’ll last longer than any Irishman.

Besides, it appears I can cash it in for sex if need be.

My Mothman Prophecy

2007-10-09T23:26:00.000+01:00

I woke this morning in a sheer panic. I heard the church bells chime 9 and opened my eyes to decide what to wear to work. Yes, it takes me 30 minutes to get ready and I stayed up too late last night to get up early and putter around in the house before work. So when I rolled back over to check and see that my chosen outfit was indeed clean, I noticed the clock read 10:10. Adrenaline is much more effective than caffeine in the mornings.

I leapt up, wondering how that happened and grabbed my cell phone which read 9:10.

Excuse me? Perhaps adrenaline isn't so effective after all. I did feel a bit fuzzy but generally speaking I can read digital times no matter the sleep deficiency. I decided better to haul ass and be early than to be fired.

As I pulled on my jeans (forgot what I was planning on wearing and went for the nearest available), I grabbed the watch on my dresser and tried formulate a credible excuse for showing up 45 minutes late for the meeting I’d insisted on with my boss, ‘first thing in the morning’. The watch, too, read 10:12. That stopped me dead for a moment. I can understand how I accidentally reset the clock by my bed, but the watch?

I finished getting dressed and walked into the kitchen just as Flatmate Suzie came out of her bedroom. She, poor thing, was greeted with me hollering to her: What time is it?!

Upon inspection of her phone and the clock in the bathroom, it was decided it was 9:20 and I was not yet late for work. While brushing my teeth I saw the usual people I do in the mornings: the man who bikes to work in a black overcoat, the woman who walks with a slight haunch. That’s when I decided it was going to be ok but there was still an irrational stab of fear when I opened the office door.

But I still don’t understand how I managed to set both the clock and the watch in correctly. And identically incorrectly, I think that’s my favorite part.

I’ve rest all the clocks. Let’s see how tomorrow starts, shall we?

Rugby Rituals I'd Love to See

2007-10-08T21:01:00.000+01:00

This is doing nothing to curb my obsession with the Scottish not to mention my newly discovered love of rugby.

More Things I'll Never Get Used To

2007-10-05T13:40:00.000+01:00

Letters are pronounced differently here. I understand this concept when it is another language we’re talking about but the Irish speak English, so I was caught unaware on this one. The letter H is pronounced Hay-ch, the letter R is Oar and Z is zed, which is all fine and well until one of your software packages is called RGC.
Babies in strollers crossing their legs. Proper legs crossed at tea crossing of the legs. I’ve seen it quite a few times and I always think ‘how wrongly sophisticated’. And for that matter, 10 year old children pushing babies in strollers disturbs me. I realize they’re probably just babysitting, I tell myself that anyway, but 10 is just too young to be in charge. Then again, I panic when I see a teenage girl pushing one too, so apparently, I’m just disturbed to see anyone under the age of 30 pushing a baby carriage.
I’m acutely aware of the weather now and I wonder what used to preoccupy my mind. I marvel at the weather when it is in any hospitable. Mostly because a day here can vary from snowing to sunglasses to rain in the span of a couple of hours, so a nice day tends to be marked by the prevailing weather while walking to and from lunch, to and from the house, or while on site trying to draw on soggy paper that you cannot see thru your fogged-over glasses. Trembling hands tend to make it difficult to read dimensions and notes later. ‘From the door to the stair it’s 12. Twelve what, meters or inches? How the hell should I know, it looks like IS to me!’
Trousers = pants. Pants = underwear. Must be very careful who you say ‘I loved those pants you wore last night’ to when in a crowded room.
I know it’s written on the pavement, but I’m fighting decades of looking left not right when I step off a sidewalk. It’s just unnatural, dammit. Can’t you just drive on the right as God intended?
I can confidently order chips when I want them but ‘crisps’ is just never going to happen.
‘Ah, you’re a Yank’. What is this, war time Dixie? Where’s my hoop skirt? Does that make you a Reb? I’m an American, thank you. I don’t call you a Mick or a leprachaun... and while we’re on the subject, why is it when I’m an American living here, meh... but when I’m an American visiting here, Wow!?
Does my bagel come with onions on it? How about my pizza? My ham and cheese sandwich? My toast and nutella? My water? Raw onions should not be used as a garnish. Parsley should. Or colourful splashes of paprika and saffron but never onions. That’s just mean.
Last night on TV I watched Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, The Ghost Whisperer (yes, I know), and Sex and the City. Um, what country am I in again? I suppose I could watch Fair City and the Irish channel, but last night they were featuring a documentary on why Leitrim farmers are the best in Ireland at cutting bog. I think there was even a contest involved.
In most of Ireland, Irish is considered a dead language. It's just not in every day use for close to 85% of the country. But they have a habit of making up Irish words for things that never existed when the language was in existance, like taxi. It used to drive Tax Boy crazy. So the other day when I drove by Bertie Ahern's office, I noticed this carved delicately in white stone: Department of the Taoiseach / Roinn an Taosigh Taoiseach is Irish for Chieftian and is used for the political ruler of Ireland. But, if Taoiseach is already an Irish word, why does it have a different spelling in Irish?

Yeah, yeah, I had sex with her too

2007-09-30T22:42:00.000+01:00

What a weird day. That was overheard in a bar as I had wine with Joe after dinner.

Some 24 year old rich kid art school drop out was chatting with his coked out friends just behind us and since the conversation was at an obvious lull he turned it to his hook up that included being tied up before I started giggling and grabbed Joe’s knee and stopped listening. Who uses that material for conversation filler?! Other than boys in the gym? And when the hell did it become pick-up line material? Because he was chatting up a group of women when he said it. Really, who wouldn’t pass up that prize?

I woke this morning to a phone call from a friend and then did absolutely nothing, because I’ve earned the right to do nothing after months of guests and tour guide services and early starts. After yet another breakfast of coffee and cookies, I launched myself quite slowly off the sofa, and I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to catch the train to Malahide to meet Tracey for rugby. I like rugby and this is the World Cup, Irleand v Argentia for a qualifying position in the semi-finals. Very important match for us since we’ve been sucking hard and it was do or die time. I missed the train by 90 seconds. The next one wasn’t for another hour, which put me in the pub at half time. Not willing to miss that much of the match, I veered into the Palace to watch the opening while friends decided where to meet for brunch and hair of the dog. It was Feargal’s birthday last night and while I prudently left at 230am, the boys stayed up drinking and chatting until 7-something this morning.

So I went to the Palace because I knew they’d be showing the match and I knew I’d be ok to sit there for a few minutes by myself without feeling like bait. I needn’t have worried; the rugby was on and the bar was filled with grandfathers. One even bought me a sparkling water after I corrected him. Turns out Sparkling Water in an American accent sounds deceptively like Scotch and Water to old Irish menfolk.

Ireland lost. I just can’t even bring myself to discuss it. I’ve never been in a quieter pub in my life. I will, however, attack any of them I run across it the next weeks, however. My press clipping will be interesting at my funeral: Crazy American Attacks Irish Rugby Team, Offered Place on Squad.

Joe joined me for the last few moments of the match and then we went for dinner to discuss our holidays. I went to Florence with my mother and he went to Tenerife with friends. We both had quiet holidays, mostly devoid of alcohol but mine was certainly more story-filled than his. That happens when you travel with friends to what amounts to a retirement village. After dinner we went to a favorite pub for a glass of wine and got quite a show. We’ve been going to this pub for a few months now and no none of us can quite peg it. Normally, we meet in the afternoon for pies and a few beers before heading home to an early bed. The crowd on those occasions is pretty chilled and we can chat like the normal half adults we are. But as soon as the sun goes down, it’s a crap shoot for crowd types. Tonight it was coked-up-rich-kids-just-back-at-college night. It was interesting. I felt old. And terribly unhip. And amazingly sober. I could have crawled out on all fours and still have passed with a lower BAC than those kids. Ah, who said higher education was wasted on the wealthy?

So here I am, wrapped in a blanket, watching House and marveling at the accent on Hugh Laurie, who I only just realized was an Englishman, and typing up my day of nonsense for your amusement. In the coming days, I’ll post tales of shepherding my relatives around Dublin’s cultural sites against their will and kidnapping my mother to Italy, kicking and screaming all the way. You’ll love the pictures.

Normal People Don't Document Their Lives This Way

2007-09-19T00:21:00.001+01:00

Yeah well... we're hardly normal people, now are we?

Because some people have asked recently, all of my photos from the last two years can be found here including Lara's recent trip, The Fratellis Gig, and the trip to London for Orange Sherrrrrrrbet. It can also be found, as always, on the lefthand side of the blog under the link My Photo Albums.

Stop by anytime, feel free to sign the guest book, enjoy the show. I know it was fun creating it.

Sad Songs of the 70's

2007-09-07T00:26:00.000+01:00

On Pan flute!! That was my taxi ride home after dinner. And the taxi driver was dumming along and sort of singing even though there wasn't a vocalist.

Let me assure you, life is simply not as sweet until you've heard Carley Simon and Air Supply on Peruvian Pan Flute.

Anyone Look Familiar in there?

2007-09-01T12:29:00.000+01:00

Getting to be 18 Again

2007-09-01T12:13:00.000+01:00

My favorite niece came to town to see me a few weeks ago. I can call her the favorite because she's the only one I have at the moment but she'll always have a special place in my Scrooge-like little heart, and not just because she bought me jewelery in Amsterdam.

Sammi just graduated from high school and in a well deserved celebration of her newly found freedom and grown up-ness, she grabbed her two best friends and come to this side of the pond where they could drink legally. I think the parents were somewhat comforted by the fact they were coming to see me, reportedly an adult, and that I'd be travelling with them. It didn't quite happen like that since they dithered about for a-a-a-a-a-ges deciding when they would arrive and the window for me to take time off disappeared. They managed to survive however so no one need have worried. Except perhaps whoever it is that cleans the kitchen of the place they rented in Limerick.

The agenda for the girls was to use the house as a base for their many travels while here. I would learn to live with their luggage so they would be able to travel light. I may have done them a disservice for any future travel they undertake since they completely over-packed for this trip. Ah well, you can't get everything right.

I showed them around Dublin for a few days, bought them their first legal beer, Guinness naturally, and introduced them to Joe who joined us for dinner and drinks. They love Joe and not just because he bought them dinner, which he admitted later to be a shameless ploy to gain their favour. Which is a bit annoying, since Joe never offers to buy my dinner to gain my favour and I'm marrying the guy! (green card marriage, everyone relax) He does, however, refuse to let me buy my own drinks, so maybe I should stop bitching since we drink a whole lot more than we go out to dinner. Moving right along, Joe met the girls and they got on really well which caused them to hound me for a few days about how cute he is and how it was a shame we really weren't getting married because he's really cute and so nice! (shameless ploy evidently worked)

They took off for their tour of Ireland, skipping Galway after a last minute scheduling snafu and instead, I sent them to Limerick, so they could hike in the Burren and take in the Cliffs of Moher. Joe was scandalized. Limerick is know throughout Ireland as Stab City. Evidently, they have a high rate of woundings by knife and there is little else in the city of interest for 18 year old girls. Unless, of course, they wanted to sharpen their knife skills. I countered with the fact that they were only going there for a springing point, which was a brilliant argument until it rained so hard they couldn't leave the apartment. It was the only time they saw rain on the trip and it was the worst city they visited. I tried.

From there they went to Killarney, which had just won a 'most beautiful village in Ireland' contest, and the girls confirmed it was justified. They spent a couple of days in Kilkenny, mostly in the park at the castle talking with Italian boys. I heard a lot about the boys. They went to Blarney castle, they stayed in a haunted castle, and seem to have taken Cork by storm, spending quite a bit of time partying with The Flaws.

Upon return to Dublin, they were faced with the saddest pub crawl in history, since all of Temple Bar seems to have raised the entry age for the summer to 20. Miles joined us for a few drinks, and mostly to see if any of the girls were hot. He was amazed by them, which he should be, and they hounded me about hooking up with Miles. (he's not the sort you date, I said. They didn't really care.) I'm proud of him, he only made one semi-skeezy remark and only to me. boys...

Off they trundled to Amsterdam and Germany next, promising to buy me chocolate waffles in Belgium and a nice ring from my favourite jewellery store in Amsterdam. They did both of those and then cleaned out the military base in Germany to bring me a table full of American foods, including hazelnut coffee. It was so sweet of them and I was quite thrilled that they thought to do it. And I love ring they picked out for me. They said it was really difficult to pick something out for someone else and together settled on a simply 'it looked arty' ring of silver with a small diamond. They did good. It's my first diamond. Which, incidentally, is my birthstone, and which, also incidentally, sucks.

When the girls arrived back, it was only for a day and then they were heading home, so I had one chance to take them down to show them Dun Laogharie. And wouldn't you know it, when we walked out to the train, it was pouring rain and the train wasn't running. They made some half hearted protestations of 'it'll be a good day to see the national gallery' and 'I'd love to spend the day in the museum', which was good of them, but really not how I wanted them to spend their last day in Ireland. So I threw them in a cab and took them down anyway.

When we arrived, the rain had stopped. When we made it to the pier, the fog had lifted. When we walked back off the pier, the day had totally changed and it was a good day to be at the seaside. They quite liked Dun Laogharie, I think.

We wandered the pier and took photos, laughing the entire time in only the way teenage girls can and then had a quick stroll thru the market in the park. Not much happening at that point, since most of the merchants had packed up, but there were a few left so the could get a sense of it. From there I took them to lunch at Harry's Cafe which is a great little spot on the main street. It took us forever to order because I've never had anything bad there and the menu is really quite good. Lunch was fantastic. We loaded up on their sinful desserts and decided on a night of sugar, wine, and Sex + the City instead of pints in city centre.

It was a great night. They packed while I opened a bottle of my favourite Spanish red wine, which I did share with them, and we chatted and laughed and screwed around and watched Sex and packed some more. I forgot what it's like to hang out with your girlfriends like that. My girlfriends are all married or partnered, save Suzie, so it's been ages since I've been in that situation. I've missed it. The girls are funny, strong, and intelligent women. I have to say I've not met a trio of girls that age who are so very solid in who they are and what they are about. Their parents should be proud of them. Sure, they have their stupid moments and they get a little crazy, but overall, those heads are screwed on right. And I loved getting to know them this way. I loved having them in my house, in and out of my house really, and just chatting away about absolutely nothing at all, taking stupid photos, laughing ourselves sick.

When they finally left the following morning, it didn't seem final. They'd come and gone so many times it was more like they'd only gone travelling again. But surveying the debris field they left in the living room and the abundant space in my bedroom where their luggage had stood, it slowly sunk in. I was gonna miss them.

Ron Weasley Would Be in Hell

2007-08-31T16:29:00.000+01:00

Interesting item to read about really. A lot of strange natural phenomenons seem to occur in Texas: the bats in Austin, the fireflies that blink in unison, flying cockroaches...

I Sell Propane and Propane Accessories

2007-08-23T20:53:00.000+01:00

Today is the best day ever. Maybe not ever, but certianly the best one in quite some time. I woke up earlier than 5 minutes before I had to be at work owing to the fact that I actually slept well, well enough that is, the cute guy in my local called and asked me out (provided he comes back from his vacation in Greece and doesn’t remain there courtesy of the government after trying to export small children or unnamed white tablets, I should have a date next week) and after getting home, chatting with Flatmate Suzie, I cleaned the house and made dinner. How’s that for one hell of a run on sentence? Ah… spicy pasta and iced tea in front of the TV. I watched the last few minutes of the Simpson’s episode guest staring Stephen Hawking and then channel surfed in time to see the beginning of King of the Hill!! I’m so thrilled they’re finally getting this show.

For those of you not in the know, King of the Hill is a cartoon set in Arlen, Texas, which is really the home of creator Mike Judge, Garland, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. It features Hank Hill, his wife Peggy, his son Bobby, and niece LuAnn, who is voiced by Brittney Murphy. It is truly a piece of unadulterated Texas, accents and attitudes included. I never thought I’d say this: I've really missed it. I love that Peggy is the elementary school Spanish teacher and yet cannot speak Spanish. I love that LuAnn is both a crack car mechanic and beautician. And I miss Boomhauer. What the hell is going on with me?

So you may have copped on to the fact that I’m in a much better mood today. The sun came out, I spent last night in the kitchen chopping veggies, and I got some decent sleep, enough sleep clearly; I feel like a whole different person. And now that I’ve got Hank Hill on the tube weekly… life is good.

Seething, thanks. How are you?

2007-08-20T16:49:00.000+01:00

First he gets me kicked off the job. Then he tells me he ‘needs my help’ on the job because he’s swamped, cannot possibly get to the work needed; ditto for his team of 4. The fact that I have 2 SD sets due in 3 weeks is nothing to be concerned about at all. I don’t even have drawings that would be considered a DD set at this point, not to mention the fact no one has even started the applications, which take about a week to get together. And since he has everyone in the office working on his job, guess who is going to get screwed when it comes time to lodge the planning applications before my vacation but with incomplete sets of drawings? I could kill this guy. I’m going to be here until 10 tonight, finishing his drawings for him because my projects ‘aren’t that complicated and can go in for planning with minimal information on the drawings.’ I barely have drawings...

And now he’s sitting at my desk telling me how good the drawings look, how thankful he is to have my help, suck up, suck up , suck up.

Go away little man, I have your work to do.

Whining

2007-08-20T06:17:00.000+01:00

It is 6am and I have been awake for well over an hour. I laid there listening to it rain heavily, movie type rain, and singing a Snow Patrol song. That's how my mind works, apparently. I haven't listened to them in awhile now, I've been loading up on the Fratellis in anticipation of their concert this coming weekend, and yet, out of a dead sleep, I wake to find Spitting Games going round in my head. I don't even know all the words.

I laid there for an hour, trying to find a comfortable position, rearranging the pillows, discussing with myself how that song seems to be a running theme with them about weight and relationships and the man being able to support his love. I was trying to still my mind when I realized it was a lost cause. Insomnia is miserable. I'm actually quite exhausted and yet I cannot sleep. Last week felt like it was 6 weeks long. My niece left on Wednesday and that seems several decades ago. Thursday was the opera in Temple Bar, which also seems to have taken place when I was much younger. Friday was a going away party at the office, for which I was in no mood, but managed to rise to the occasion. I finally hit my pillow at 2am on Friday and didn't wake until 1:30 Saturday afternoon. I never sleep that late. And even at 1:30 I had to force myself out of bed. I went to an appointment and then found myself in the company of Joe and friends, completely unable to contribute to the conversation. I came home and was tucked in bed before midnight and yet had to force myself out of bed again on Sunday (was that really only yesterday?) just before noon.

It has occurred to me that I need a vacation. A proper 'get away from every one and every thing and do whatever the hell you feel like doing even if that only involves staring into the distance for hours at a time' holiday. But I am booked every weekend until October. The Fratellis this weekend, a friend in town the following weekend. Then my mother and my Aunts come to town for 2 weeks. After the aunties leave, my mother and I are going to Italy for a long weekend and then I return home to watch the calendar turn to October. Which all doesn't sound too bad unless you consider that my niece was here for 3 weeks, and friends of the family popped in for a quick visit during that time and an old friend from college kicked it all off a few weekends before that.

The sick thing is, I love seeing everyone and I wouldn't have it otherwise. I was thrilled to bits when the niece told me they'd be here and I'd get to spend a lot of time with her. I'm exhausted, but very happy. We had a great time. And I loved seeing the family friends. I cannot wait to see the Aunties again and to show my mother Dún Laoghaire. It's just that I want a break. And I don't want people to read this and feel guilty about visiting. (mom) It's just feels like time has opened up and expanded into a strange 3 dimensional quality where it needs to be traversed rather than experienced.

Actually, this is very similar to how I felt each time I finished a semester in architecture school. I'd have been awake for months, quite literally, surviving on short 3 hour stretches of sleep every few days. By the time the final projects were juried and the tests were taken, I'd fall into bed and not move for 4 days. I remember the first semester of grad school, I had flown from LA to Boston to spend Christmas with my brother, who was utterly unprepared for how exhausted I was. I'd nearly been evicted because of BitchHo, I was spending upwards of 40+hours at a stretch at my computer, and my diet consisted mostly of fast food because that's all that's available at 4am on a Tuesday. You don't dare go home; your bed is at home and that's far to tempting on a deadline. So when I got off the plane and on to his sofa, I stayed there for what seemed like days, puttering around the house in my pajamas, doing absolutely nothing. He was concerned. Then he was convinced I had no money with which to do things. Then he was concerned again. I rallied after a few days of recovery and made a mental note to never see the family immediately after the semester finished.

That's what I feel like at the moment, only this time I'm not nearly as physically exhausted. Except that waking up at 5am means I'll be fading hard and fast at my desk around 3pm and I'll have gotten my second wind about 9pm, rendering an early bedtime impossible. It's a rough way to start the week.

Happy Monday everyone.

Full Moon. That explains it.

2007-08-01T00:16:00.000+01:00

It was such a crap day that ended so well, it was almost worth the crap to get to the goods. (I think I can kiss my Pulitzer goodbye after that one)

Sister-in-law Jenn called yesterday at work to tell me her Aunts were in town for one day. Today was the day. I had known they were going to be here some unfixed time this summer, but since it's now 50+ days of rain, summer just doesn't seem to be in Ireland. So I forgot all about it until Jenn called yesterday afternoon. I took down the name of the hotel, the phone number and the correct spellings of their last names. After work I called the hotel and was told no one was registered under that name. In fact, only one guest was registered for one night and after a quick chat with him, I ascertained that he was not indeed 2 ladies from Long Island. So I called everyone I could, left messages, sent emails and then wandered round to the chipper because I was starving and, frankly, I'd done everything I could do at that point but drown myself in a tub of chocolate ice cream and go to bed. Just as I finished my oh-so-healthy meal, the house phone rang and it was Joanne. She was on her way to a pub, was it too late for me to join them? Ummm... no.

She was waiting at the door as I arrived and after a big hug (the sort only Americans can give) she guided me back to the table where the group was seated. Its always nice to see people from home even if technically, they aren't your home.

As we passed by the bar, I heard a guy say 'Hey Beth, how are you?'. He greeted me so casually, my brain decided he was a friend from here but in reality he's a friend from there. I was stunned to see BJ, since I had no idea he was coming along. And he said it so nonchalantly, as if he'd seen me in the office just this afternoon, I just stared at him for a moment before it dawned on me who he actually was. I knew my brain was processing slowly today but I had no idea it was that slow. He laughed. Joanne laughed. I laughed.

After dinner I led the group on a short moonlit walking tour of Dublin. Well, the Dublin you encounter on the way back to their hotel anyway, pointing out things like Trinity College, Stephen's Green and the best place to buy Waterford crystal. Halfway to the hotel, I looked up and saw the moon, bright golden white in the sky, with a bit of a mist clinging to it, absolutely full. Makes utter and complete sense. I had just been remarking on what a strange collection of people were in town tonight. I've been off kilter all day. They got lost 6 times on the way into town from the airport. That might not have been the moon's fault though; Dublin is missing a fair portion of their street signs.

I left them at the hotel, where most of them will head into the country tomorrow, but BJ and his girlfriend will be in town for one more day, so I'll get to see them and catch up. Hopefully this time I'll recognize him when I pass him at the bar.

Thunder only Happens when its Raining

2007-07-26T15:12:00.000+01:00

Now that was the first honest-to-god thunder I’ve heard since I’ve been here. My niece and her friends just left to go visit the countryside this morning. It’s been sunny and warm sine they arrived and we’ve been joking they brought the good weather with them. I’m starting to give that theory credence. I haven’t seen it rain like this either since I left Texas. I sort of miss those storms. Not the ones that sound like a shotgun at your bedside, obviously.

Those Were The Days

2007-07-23T06:58:00.001+01:00

This just in from the Rodpracha Collection. I believe this is 1997, just before we all graduated from architecture school. Brian and Shelly had just gotten married. Bryson and Wendy were about to get married. Baker, Farris and Nathalie were far from it. Pat was still leagal on her own. John was a bit confused and Ron, Ian, and I were still single. Well, some things never change.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at 2:11am July 22, 2007

2007-07-22T11:29:00.000+01:00

And it was FANTASTIC!! Anyone wishing to discuss it can email me straight away!

I’m Holding Harry Potter…

2007-07-21T12:09:00.000+01:00

I went last night, at 11:30 to my local bookstore for the midnight release of the last Harry Potter book. Joe texted me to see if I was actually going to stand in line for a childrens books and I sent this back as a reply:

Officially queuing for Harry Potter. Is it wrong I want to wait in the pub instead of in the rain?

It was, of course, raining and the bookstore is next door to the local pub. When I arrived, I heard lots of loud boisterous voices and the patio of the pub was packed with people. Knowing it was too much to hope for, I still prayed that pub is far more popular with college students than I’d given it credit for. As I went to cross the street, I saw the children in the line. It stretched back maybe 60 people. Not bad, so I joined. I waited about 20 minutes when the countdown began. It was like New Years Eve. A huge cheer went up and the first book left the store in the hands of a 18 year old rugby player. The line was a grab bag of people but had significantly less people than I’d imagined. Lots of parents, a few kids in the range of 10-12, only two wearing Hogwarts robes, and then an amazing amount of teenagers, which shouldn’t surprise me. After all, they’ve grown up with Harry. Many are the same age as Harry. And it is they the book was written for all those years ago.

Had I gone into town to the big corporate bookstores, it would have been a more elaborate party, as well as much longer line. Kids had been in line since early afternoon. As it happens, I’m lazy and I like this little bookstore, so I went there. Plus, my robes are dirty. When I walked in, one of the owners looked at me and asked how many books I wanted. I was given my orange bag and I proceeded to the checkout where a man in a black robe greeted me and took my money. They were playing the soundtrack to the movie and stuffing the bags with goodies as I exited. The group of women at the door peeked into my bag and remarked how thick the book was: 3 ½ inches. As I was walking home, I saw a girl who’d been in line in front of me. She was sitting in a taxi with a flashlight, reading already. When I arrived home, I did what absolutely had to be done. I called my nephew and bragged. He’s in Arkansas and was a full 6 hours away from getting his hands on the book. I described the cover to him and then the contents of my goodie bag. They gave me an officially book release poster, a lollypop, a balloon and some stickers, two of which say “I’m on page ___ of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and one that says “I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at ___ o’clock on ________. “ When was the last time you heard kids bragging about how fast they can rip through a 607 page book?

Was it worth going? Hell yes. I was amused beyond belief. I wish I’d done it for the other books as well. As for myself, I broke with tradition and I’m starting this morning instead of reading into the dawn. So if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Wizard. See you in a couple of days.

Bizarro World

2007-07-20T01:52:00.000+01:00

What a bizarre day. It started with the oddest hangover ever, followed by a ride halfway to work, which means my two minute commute was cut in half so I could pick up a breakfast roll for Carmel while she opened the office and made coffee for me. From there, the day went along pretty much as normal but then I went to meet an old friend for drinks.

I received an email earlier this week, from a mutual friend, letting me know that a guy I went to college with was in town on business and wanted to meet me. Great. Dandy. Fantastic. Except the last time I remember seeing him, we were in my favorite restaurant in Dallas, he was blasted out of his mind and I had a migraine. The head butt was really the death knell of the evening, since both my boyfriend and his both wanted to throttle him. I’ve never seen anyone pulled from a restaurant with such speed before. So when I agreed to meet him, I decided it was best to bring some friends along, just in case. Who knew the whole of Dublin would turn out? For some unbelievable reason, the sky cleared, the sun shone, and it was legitimately summertime tonight after work. Given that it’s been raining for well over a month, every soul in Dublin hit the few pubs that have patios in the sun for after work drinks. When I arrived, my friends were people watching and picking out husbands and I quite happily joined them. It was a great evening to be out in Dublin.

So the old friend arrived, and we had a catch up and then we went to dinner. And he talked about living in London, and what he’s been doing since we’ve last seen each other (7 years ago) and what his job I like, and where he’s traveled, and what’s happening with his old boyfriend, and about his new friends, and all his new coworkers and his afternoon in Dublin on his first trip here.

The food was divine.

And then Finn and I went for a drink while he trundled back to his hotel, since he has to be coherent at 8am tomorrow.

Finn and I had one drink at the Bank and as we were leaving, a man approached to tell us that his two friends thought we were fantastic looking and we should really go over and say hello. He then went on to declare himself the world’s worst matchmaker, which neither Finn nor I was in a rush to correct, and then sort of babbled for a bit before leaving quite abruptly. We laughed and walked out, me thinking ‘that’s typical of the Dublin man. Stare all night but don’t make a move until she’s halfway out the door’ No balls in this town, I swear.

On the way home, the taxi driver and I were chatting a bit, which is normal, but things got really odd when he said he didn’t speak any Irish. Fair enough, neither does anyone I know, but they all have enough of it in their background to hazard a guess. He spent the rest of the trip telling me that he considered himself British, well, Irish since he’s Dublin born and raised, but he’s from a long line of French Huguenots, traceable in some church document in some hyper-anglicized church in Dublin. In fact, he’s the treasurer of some Men’s Only Protestant group in Dublin. Just as we approached the house, and I began to get really nervous, he started telling me he was also a member of the Orange Order and was I Canadian? Sincere disappointment when I told him I was American. I was quite happy to be home. Because the thing is, he was infinitely proud of the Huguenot heritage, pointing out every instance of the city that owes its inception to the Huguenots and every prominent member of Dublin history who had a French surname. By the time I exited the cab, he was positively glowing with nationalistic pride. For a country he’s never lived in.

And there’s the rub. I, as an American, cannot espouse such enthusiasm for my homeland. I, as an American, cannot claim such pride in my heritage. I cannot claim to be Irish, since I am the only member of my family in many generations to actually live here. I cannot take pride in my political affiliations because no one likes our president. But here is this man, who is Irish down to his accent, espousing his French-ness to me, his isolationist club ties and his activities in a group responsible for quite a bit of violence. How the hell am I supposed to feel when presented with that? I’m not supposed to be proud of being an American because most of the world hates our president. Fine. I’ll stop being proud but you have to relinquish all your American goods. Most of the inventions/products/items in peoples houses are American. We invented the light bulb and the car, we’re the ones that brought the assembly line to the world and revolutionized computers; we produce most of the movies and quite a bit of the popular music; you might not like it, but when was the last time you said no to a coke or a Starbucks or Levis on the basis of a general American Boycott? In a country that has given so much to the world, and a world that has taken so happily, why am I not allowed to be proud of my homeland? Because you don’t like my president. And here’s the other rub of the evening.

I don’t like Americans. Succinctly, I don’t like the type of American I was with tonight. He dominated the conversation, he interrupted while others were talking, he asked questions only to reveal the answer of himself. And I hate that about people. Don’t ask me about horses just so you can tell me you have horses. Don’t interrupt the story to tell us your experience with something sort of related to the matter. Tell me something that matters and that isn’t your job. I actually said at one point: enough work! You are more than your job. He kept talking about work. It’s one of the deplorable characteristics about Americans. We talk about work in intimate detail to anyone who will listen. Anyone at all. Busboys. Bank tellers. Trash collectors. He actually told the waitress we were architects and that accounted for our exceptionally tidy table. She was pulling our plates because they were closing down and the staff wanted to go home. What that has to do with us being architects, I’ll never know.

So tomorrow, I’ll answer my phone and find out where to meet him for dinner and drinks and at some point in the evening, we’ll go to the George, because his friend was here once and said it was a good bar. When I recommended another bar that my friends favor, he said to me ‘Honey! My friend said this is the best bar to go to. You have no idea.’ I live here and have been there on several occasions. What the hell would I know? I certainly wouldn’t have the faintest idea if it’s a good place, I’m not a gay man. How could I possibly know?

Ummm… have you met my friends?

It’s been a bizarre day. And none of it ties together in a Hollywood Red Bow. I didn’t learn anything. I have no greater insights. My life isn’t necessarily richer for having left the house this evening. It is, however, more colorful and maybe that’s the only point.

Things I'll Never Get Used To

2007-07-17T13:37:00.000+01:00

01- Washers without Dryers
02- Public transportation never having to be on time. Or even show up.
03- Men ordering tea. 'Oh, I'd love a cup of tea.' It just doesn't seem masculine.
04- Flying to New York for a weekend shopping excursion because the Dollar is weak.
05- Abhorrently poor service everywhere.
06 - Verifying my order does not have onions in it, even if the menu lists all the ingredients.
07- 24 Hour clock math. I still have no idea what time 18:43 is without subtracting 12 first.
08- Non-Irish saying 'thanks a mil' or 'grand', especially if they are of any Asian variety.
09- 4 Seasons of weather within 3 hours.
10- Children telling adults to F-off! Same for the parents telling their children.

Things I have gotten used to:

01- Recycling, even if I can't quite remember what goes in the green bag and what doesn't.
02- Drinking in round. Drinking in general, actually.
03- Turning the heaters on and off at the wall outlet.
04- Taxis, especially in the rain.
05- I can tell the difference between soccer +rugby jerseys and distinguish some of the teams.
06- Refusing a shopping bag if I already have one that is sufficiently big enough.
07- Walking along the beach and letting the sea air work magic on me.
08- Visitors popping over to see me.
09- 35 vacation days a year, 36.5 hour working weeks, monthly paychecks.
10- Sleeping with my windows open.

Friday the 13th

2007-07-13T14:16:00.000+01:00

And man does the weather suck outside. But luckily enough for me, MSN had good news on this auspicious date. According to this QUIZ, I am 17% more likely than you to commit suicide. As are my mother and brother, due to being born in the Spring. Isn't that a lovely way to start a crappy, rainy, cold summer day?

Ron Was Right

2007-07-11T12:22:00.000+01:00

Ok, my mood has officially shifted. I took Ron’s advice, loaded up on my Metallica this morning and am happily head-banging away at my desk, with a trace of a smile on my face. What is it about thrash metal that cheers me? I suspect it is because the chemicals in my brain get sloshed around as my head bobs, but that’s just a working theory. Doesn’t really matter, I’ve washed the weekend and the black mood of the weekend from my being. Well, until I run out of CDs that is. I only own 4 and I’ve just realized I left Godsmack at home. Surely somewhere on the vast universe of the internet there is an all-metal-all-the-time radio I can stream. Surely…

Lucky 7-7-7 My Ass

2007-07-07T10:35:00.000+01:00

Mother Nature is mocking me.

It is bright blue, sunny and puffy white cloud skies outside and I am on the sofa having morning toast and coffee.

Shouldn't you be at the festival already? you ask.

Why yes, except that Mark lost the tickets.

800 Euro worth of tickets gone. And why are they gone, you ask? Because our Compatriots of Indecision cannot make a decision to save their lives. Miles decided it was in his best interest to stay in Dublin and watch the Rugby finals this afternoon and then join us this evening for the concerts, in spite of the fact that South Africa is playing their second string, who Miles estimates as "crap". And Matt decided he was too sick to camp out but could endure the 2 hour ride to the campsite both mornings in order to see the concerts. So Mark agreed to bring the tickets with him into work on Friday, in order that the boys could show up whenever the hell they liked. All of which is fair enough except that Mark had to travel yesterday, which means he was up at the crack of dawn to catch a train for a client meeting out of town, returning just in time to drop off the tickets, collect me and head out to the campsite. Against his better judgment, he packed the tickets in his bag. And that was the last he saw of them.

The bag was searched by 3 people. His house has been ransacked 4 times. He called the client and had them search their offices. Then he tried to track down the confirmation number in order to call Ticketmaster in an effort to find us some options other than sitting on my sofa, having morning toast and coffee and seething. He couldn’t find the confirmation and that’s when he started to wonder if he’d imagined it all. After a prolonged search of all his email accounts, he located the confirmation only to find out that Ticketmaster was closed and wouldn’t start answering their phones until 930 this morning. I got the text from him at 945:

Ticketmaster can do nothing. Will search once again but at this stage I think we are not going.

Two months of planning have gone into this. Two months of staking out the bands, lining up my preferred concerts, soliciting advice on camping out. Two month's of taking shit from friends for agreeing to go camp out. I now own a tent for god’s sake. And rain gear. All purchased for this event. Instead of rocking out to the Fratellis and the Klaxons, I’m sitting on my sofa. I’ve been up since 7am. I couldn’t sleep any longer and I spent the night dreaming about not finding the tickets. In fact, we were all in the house I grew up in, in my childhood bedroom, and when I woke at 9, the guys were all packed, so we could leave at a moment’s notice, watching Mark with the phone to his ear. I was the only one still in PJs, which is ironic, since I’ve been telling him since yesterday that it wasn’t over until we spoke with Ticketmaster.

I mean, really… what the hell is the point of putting bar codes on the tickets and linking it to my credit card number if the process cannot work backwards? There is no possible way Ticketmaster cannot cancel those serial numbers and re-issue us tickets? The scanners are clearly able to scroll thru thousands of serial numbers in a heartbeat, verifying valid tickets. You’re telling me there’s not way for that information to be updated? I cannot believe in this era of computer technology that Ticketmaster cannot cancel serial numbers. My god, think of the money they’re losing in replacement fees. Perhaps no one should inform them; they charge too much as it is. But still… Lost or stolen tickets? You’re screwed, thank you for chosing Ticketmaster.

And to top it all off? It’s georgeous outside! First time in weeks. I wonder how much of this gear I can return... That’ll be a fun way to spend Saturday afternoon.

And why are you returning this? Because my friend lost the tickets.

I hope it snows.

The Lengths a Girl Goes To for Music

2007-07-05T22:18:00.000+01:00

I'm going camping tomorrow and I'm a little nervous. It's my first foray into camping and also into the summer music festival scene. Several months ago, I was sitting and getting all warm and fuzzy with Joe in a wine bar when I informed him that Snow Patrol was headlining the Oxegen Festival this year. Somewhere between the first and second bottle of Albarino, I was on the phone to Mark, suggesting... nay, insisting, that we book tickets for the weekend. Somehow, before the second bottle was finished, Mark, Joe, Miles and I had full camping weekend tickets. Clearly, I should drunk dial in a much different way.

In the months since we've purchased the full camping weekend, Joe has cancelled, Miles promised the tickets to his friend Chris who then sold them to another party altogether, and then Mark, who originally purchased the tickets, got the spare back and sold it to Matt, who is now sick and will be joining for the concerts but not the camping. And those are just the highlights, folks. I no longer work with Miles, Mark, and Matt, so I missed all the intervening conversations, and apparently one huge shouting match, that comprised the interstitial spaces between those milestones. So last weekend, while The Professor was here, I met with the boys to make crucial decisions on tents, transportation, preferred concerts and alcohol. Gripping for him, I'd imagine. We purchased tents and chairs and thermoses and rain gear. Oh the rain gear...

It's been miserable here lately. Coworker Clare has been watching the forecasts for me for over a week. Depending on which one you read, it's all intermittent showers to mostly raining. Today was so cold and miserable I wished I had my gloves. And then the skies cleared and I wished I had my sunglasses and lighter layers. Now that I'm sitting in the cozy house with wine and Sex and the City, Mother Nature has decided to send me a wind storm. Nothing scares me more than a wind storm. And if this is what it's like tomorrow night, I'm sleeping in the car. I consider that much harsher roughing it than sleeping on the ground. On my air mattress. Covered in 300 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. What? I'm not going to shower for 2 days, I consider that hardship enough. No one said camping had to forsake all the creature comforts, did they? Did they?

I've asked for advice from plenty of people, who have come up aces on things I'd have never thought of, like ear plugs and a private stash of toilet paper, fresh fruit and veg and a thermos for hot coffee for the morning. Flatmate Suzie chimed in with waterproof trousers. Jenn suggested cereal bars in the backpack. I'm taking more on this little foray into the wilderness than I do on a 10 day vacation anywhere foreign. It's amazing how compact camping gear packs down but how much camping gear you need to take with you. So I'm camping in the rain this weekend. And the sun. And the mud. Keep your fingers crossed. Not for me, for the M boys who are spending the weekend with me. They might need some extra help. Talk to you next week!

Oh, and Maximus... can't get thru to your email for anything in the world. Thought you were IT in a former life. :-)

It was indeed a learning experience

2007-07-05T09:16:00.000+01:00

Someone once told me that I embody Duality. At the time I had to ask what that meant. On Saturday, I rather proved it. I walked into the house the proud owner of French perfume and camping gear.

The Professor was in town to see me. He’s been leading students around on their summer study programs in France and Italy and need a break, so he came to hang out for a completely ordinary weekend in Dublin. He came bearing Swiss chocolate and French perfume. Why can’t all men do that? Why don’t all men know to do that? He’s very good at gifts, admittedly. About a million years ago he gave me my first pair of crystal wine glasses. He’d been antiquing with his sisters over Christmas and saw them, thinking they needed to go to a good home and the only one he knew who drank wine was me. And we weren’t speaking to one another. We had dated, we split, we weren’t speaking. He decided it was a good peace offering. So he called and presented me with antique crystal wine glasses and it worked; we were fast friends until he married and disappeared. Alright, it wasn’t that simple, but it’s ancient history.

He got back in touch with me, via the blog of all things, about a year ago. Someone told him about it and we started emailing one another. At Christmas, he picked me up from my sisters house and we drove back to Dallas together, catching up in the 5 hour drive. So when he said he was going to be on the trip, I had only one response: you gonna get to travel/where should I meet you? But instead, he met me in Dublin. It was exactly as he’d asked; an ordinary weekend. Except that I was buying camping gear for a music festival this weekend.

He arrived late on Friday, owing to the bomb scare in London, where he was visiting a friend. We had a drink together and agreed to meet the next morning to visit Glendalough. When I woke it was pouring down rain and I remembered it was the last chance for me to buy a tent and rain gear, so we scrapped it in favor of shopping. We met my friends for lunch to discuss the tent situation, we toodled around picking up the random stuff I’d need for my first foray into both the world of camping and music festivals. We went to dinner and then met Mark and Joe for a mini-pub crawl. They got on spectacularly and a lot of laughing was done. The next day we took the train all the way south to Greystones and walked on the beach and around the town. We came back in to Dublin and walked around Dublin. We walked all over Dublin, actually. And we talked. We spent the entire weekend talking, that sort of talking that only very close friends can do, where it never occurs to you censor anything or hold back. We cleared up the past, which was much murkier than I’d remembered, we discussed our presents, my professional worries, his professional worries, his impending return to single life, my ever present single life, our old professors, his new professors, my life here in Dublin. For a weekend of doing pretty much nothing, I was absolutely exhausted by the time Monday rolled around. But it was a great weekend. We caught up, he got a great feel for both Dublin and how I’m doing. I got a good idea of how he’s really doing and where he’s going in the next few years. It was the most satisfying visit I’ve ever had with a house guest. And I do confess, it was difficult to turn off Tour Guide Beth in favor of Normal Every Day Beth. He didn’t come to see the National Gallery and the new Docklands; he came to do exactly what we did: talk. It was a quiet little weekend but a great one.

I've Been Gone Too Long

2007-07-04T09:51:00.000+01:00

I forgot it was the 4th of July today. Ron reminded me. The office talked about it yesterday. And this morning I got two emails from Joe wishing me a happy fourth in very large text while the office wondered when the BBQ, fireworks and beer would begin. I might have to stop in the pub for a Buswiser today; penance and touchstone of home in one frothy pint.

Happy Independance to everyone in the US, but mostly to you, Alan Johnston.

Pride, in the name of friendship

2007-07-02T22:06:00.000+01:00

I marched. It was remarkably low key. It more fun that it ought to have been.

Photos from the Gay Pride Parade in Dublin are located HERE for your enjoyment.

Roma 2007

2007-06-28T22:51:00.000+01:00

The Photos are HERE. Enjoy...

What a Difference a Day Makes

2007-06-26T22:34:00.000+01:00

I think I have used that title before, but it really is appropriate. Its damn near dead of winter still here in the Emerald Isle and I for one am sick to death of it. For no other reason than I cannot sleep. I'm back in my normal (dear god, what a thing to say) sleeping pattern of not being able to fall asleep followed by tossing and turning and frequent waking, accompanied by, as an added benefit of insomnia, seriously messed up dreams. This morning was a lovely episode of me camping, being robbed blind by a guy I was dating and then watching a man throw himself off a tower in front of me. I think he was wearing an orange jumper, but that's really more of an aside than anything. Delightful way to wake up from fitful sleep, no?

I came out for coffee and toast with Flatmate Suzie, who wisely surmised I was in no mood to be toyed with, and laid out the nights 'rest' for her; she declared it no fair way to start the day. She, too, does not sleep well, so when she says it's bad... It wasn't looking like a good start to the day. And yet, as we had dinner tonight, she remarked that I was in a great mood. And it's true. I'm bubbly and energetic and happy and just short of screaming my way around the block. I think it's mostly because of last night. Jenn called and while we chatted, I unpacked my suitcase from Rome. Yes, I know that was 3 weeks ago and it's been lying in a heap ever since. It wouldn't be a big deal if not for the fact that I had to salvage items out of it and that my room needs to be much larger than it is given my proclivity towards untidiness. As it stands, a weekday newspaper is capable of trashing my room, so the suitcase and the explosion of items within proved to be too much. I've been tripping over clothes for 3 weeks and last night, I had the energy to take care of it. I cannot sleep in a messy room. The house can be an utter wreck, but the bedroom is somehow crucial. And potentially, the kitchen. I cannot explain it.

So when I crawled in bed last night, I felt sure I'd have a nice restful night's sleep, especially since I was falling asleep on my Doonesbury book at 10:30, an hour earlier than I normally go to bed. Ah, you can hear God laugh, can't you? As soon as the light went out, the eyes popped open and stayed that way for hours; mind racing at speeds that would amaze Andretti. When I did manage to fall asleep, it was only for a few hours. I woke and it was dark. It's light until 11pm these days, so dark is a good indicator. I saw 4am and the sun starting to dawn. I saw 6am and it was light. I gave up altogether at 745, which is when I fell into the lovely dream described above. But I did wake singing the new Fratellis tune, Flathead, which is really quite happy if you don't listen to the words, so they may have inadvertently been my salvation. At the office, I loaded up my favorite radio station and it was only about 15 minutes before they played the song, so I've been dancing around all day with it in my head. (I think the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me. It's my fourth night out of six that I've not slept well.)

I left work and went grocery shopping. I came home and cleaned the kitchen. I made dinner. I cleaned the kitchen again and then called my mother. It's been an eventful evening for me considering. It's now just shy of 11pm and I'm yawning as I type this, 10% of my Rome photos uploaded, and I want very much to go to bed. I'm just afraid I'll be in here at 2am, unable to sleep, labeling my Rome photos for your amusement.

I need to invest in some Valium.

I enjoyed that tremendously

2007-06-23T13:11:00.000+01:00

There is a scene in the Red Violin where one of the characters is playing the violin at a Sunday afternoon recital in a English conservatory somewhere in the time when women wore bustles and gloves and still rode in horse drawn carriages. It was what you did since the motion picture hadn’t been invented yet. Apparently you went to hear the latest composers work, the greatest hits and then went for afternoon tea or a ride in the park, which was the front runner of dragging main that my friends and I engaged in religiously in high school. A very refined way to spend the afternoon, music recitals, I have always thought. Personally, I’ve never had the opportunity to test that theory until now.

It’s been winter here in Dublin recently. Mother Nature seems to be nostalgic for November so she sent a little rain and cold our way to remind us of how much we appreciate not waking up in the darkness. And since the forecasts couldn’t agree on the weather for the weekend, some said rain, some said partial sun, none said summer, I decided it was a good weekend for some indoor activities. Actually, the whole thing started at work Friday afternoon. Carmel the office manager informed me that she was using my boss’ tickets to see the last concert of the Music in Great Irish Houses series. It is exactly that; a series of classical recitals by musicians from around the globe played in some of the great old country houses, castles, parliament buildings around Ireland. My boss goes for the houses; Carmel was going for the music. As I was perusing the booklet, reading about her concert that evening, I noted that the quartet invited a Scottish percussionist to join them and I duly informed Carmel that if he was cute and tall, she had a moral obligation to tell him all about me and try to fix me up with a date. She laughed and thought I wasn’t serious. As I turned the page, I found that the Scot was playing a recital Saturday afternoon at the National Art Gallery and the admission was only 5 Euro. I can afford 5 Euro and I’ve never been to the National Gallery, so I decided it was going to be an arty day for me.

I arrived on time and asked the information desk where to go for the recital. The girl pointed to a desk next to her, a mere 10 feet away, sporting a rather large Music in Great Irish Houses sign. I’m observant. I paid my admission fee and as I was packing up my change, Colin Currie wandered out into the hallway. Definitely Scottish, definitely attractive, definitely 5’5” and married. Well, that’s that then. I walked into the room to find a seat, which was easy enough, since the grand hall was set for 150-200 people and there were only about 40 of us in attendance. How insulting for the artist really. I admired the grand staircase forming the stage, marveled at the 6 chandeliers, studied the larger than life portraits while waiting for the recital to begin. It was what one might call a very well appointed room. They introduced the artist and he strode up the asile and began without a word. The stage was set with all manner of instruments including a gong which I was more than excited to hear sounded. I’ve never been to a percussion recital so I wasn’t really sure what to expect; I knew it wouldn’t be a solid hour of some guy banging out rhythms on a snare set, but past that, I’d no idea how we’d spend our time together. He began with an instrument that resembled mobile pipe organs combined with wooden xylophones. They had a soft bell sound to them and he played a tribal African piece that was composed for the opening of a Concert Hall in some country in Africa I’ve never heard of. After the first few bars, I was very glad I came. In between pieces, he spoke a little bit (and damn if his London education didn’t wipe out his Scottish accent!) to explain the piece, the instruments, and the composers of the pieces. Most of what he played were composed specifically for him by some of the greatest living composers of our (his) day. Evidently, I was witnessing a modern day percussion giant perform.

He played about 6 or 8 pieces in total and the crowd seemed politely interested. The man in front of me brought his 3 year old grandson who was a little angel until he ran out of candy and asked, quite quietly for a 3 year old, if they could leave. I could see how he would be bored, given that he could not see. And for much of it, there wasn’t much to see, until the piece just after they left. Isn’t that always the way?

Colin switched over to a set of more or less traditional drums and pounded out some amazing sounds, including the gong. I was most excited to hear the gong, deep and reverberant (is that a word?) and very long. But he only used it once. I suppose it’s not something you bang out a roll on; it would sound for days if you did that. It was amazing to watch him on this and you can tell that drums are his first love. I’ve always admired drummers. They have what I consider an amazing ability to move both arms and legs absolutely independently in much different rhythms at the same time while counting and occasionally singing. I can’t do the ‘rub your belly and pat your head at the same time’ trick. So here he was, with 8 different drums, 3 cymbals, 2 footpedals and a gong, banging away at some incredible speeds. At one point he switched mallets mid-riff, and had his left hand tapping out a rhythm. As he turned back to the full set, the right had took over for the left so it could move to another drum and tap out something entirely different. He made it look as effortless as me switching on my laptop. I was astounded. It was a fantastic performance and I enjoyed it tremendously, clapping longer and louder than I have for a long time.

After the performance, I wandered the galleries. I never spend time in art museums but I have to say, for me and my little pea brain, the curator did things just right. I cannot speak for anyone else but I learned a great deal. I looked at the map to realized the lower floors were dedicated to Irish artists with a small wing of British and American art, and the upper floor was dedicated to the rest of Europe. After wandering the Irish collection for a bit, I found my way to the Italian collection. It was very interesting to see. For one, I realized that Italians have a very distinct style and that style is discernable after seeing the Irish. Secondly, I noticed two paintings near each other, both of St. Mark’s Square, both the same time period, both from a non-traditional view point. They were painted from the side of the square, so the cathedral was to the left and the tower in front. One was on the street that leads to the canals, so you could see the boats and San Grigorio Maggiorie across the canal; the other was from the centre point of the plaza, focusing on the space created by the square. It was as if they had been in the same art class on an excursion day and I was fascinated by comparing them. One was very crisp and detailed, depicting some filthy market stalls near the cathedral but the figures were all from the upper classes. The other was very dark and dingy, showing the plaza filled with all manner of people, including a few rather grand market stalls in the same location. I much preferred the dingy one since it more corresponds to my experiences in St Mark’s Square. The other just felt too sterile and was a little too precise to capture the essence of the place. Turns out the one I don’t like is by a very famous 16th century Italian master and the other is by a much lesser know artist.

Next to this room was the Caravaggio room, which I was most interested to see. I quite like his work and have seen a few of his canvases, including the Card Sharps in the Kimball Art Museum and the Calling of St Matthew in a church in Rome. It’s quite a misleading name, the Caravaggio Room, since in includes but one of his paintings. It’s a good one, but having one hardly begets a ‘collection’. Instead, the room was filled with canvases of his students works, so the obvious style of Caravaggio, and indeed his contribution to the world of art, was the focus of the room. As I wandered to the Flemish collection in the next room, I realized the entire museum was set up this way. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Poussin, all had a few pieces displayed surrounded by their students works. It was quite fascinating and I cannot say I’ve ever enjoyed a museum more.

As I left I found my stomach leading the way toward the food court at the Bloomsday Festival. Every year there is a festival dedicated to Joyce’s greatest work Ulysses. I’ve never been but it seems to be a time to dress in period clothing, read the work aloud while following a path thru the city of places mentioned in the book and then eat the vile concoction of lambs kidneys cooked in sherry, which I think is taking it just that much too far. Still though, I suppose it’s nice to remember the great contributions Ireland has had on the literature world. It also happens to coincide with the World Championship of Street Performers, which is an irony I think Joyce would find particularly vile. I watched a few of the performances but since it was raining, I didn’t stay long. It would have been a good day for it, since the rain kept most of the people at bay, which means you could actually see what was happening but to stand in the rain and watch juggling was just more than I could bear. From one art form to another, I’d had enough. I wandered into town with a friend I’d bumped into and we ended the afternoon in a French pastry shop, eating gorgeous chocolate creations and sipping coffee.

I rather like being arty.

Mother Nature is a terrifying creature

2007-06-21T13:33:00.000+01:00

Wow : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6225676.stm

I cannot imagine what that must have looked like. I would, however, pay the 10 bucks to watch the movie of it happening, as long as it doesn't star someone lame as the hero geologist like, say, Ben Affleck or Martin Short. I would pay double to watch the Imax version of the movie too. I'd actually prefer that. I miss Imax and I'm going to have to travel long distances to find one in time for the Harry Potter premiere in July. I cannot fathom a better way to see Harry Potter. Wonder where the nearest one is? I'm betting London.

Today I woke to rain. It's been raining a lot lately, so much so that I toasted the boys with 'Happy October' the other night. It looks like late autumn. It feels like late autumn. It's unpredictable like late autumn. I'm tired of late autumn. It was supposed to be partly cloudy today which would have been perfect since I had to visit a site and take measurements outdoors. It's impossible to measure, draw and hold an umbrella at the same time. I could have used a little good weather. Instead, I'm wrapped up in my wool tights and cashmere sweater, stomping around underneath an umbrella, swearing but grateful that, at least, I do not need my mittens. I now understand why tropical vacations are so popular with UK and Irish residents. I need some sun and not in the bottle variety.

Enter: General Malaise...

It Wasn't Us

2007-06-14T14:07:00.000+01:00

Drunk man descends Spanish Steps — in car

ROME - A man was arrested before dawn on Wednesday as he drove his Toyota Celica down the Spanish Steps, one of Rome's most popular tourist spots where visitors are usually banned from drinking and singing, let alone driving.
Photographs showed police surrounding the sports car as it neared the bottom of the sweeping 18th-century staircase, almost reaching the Piazza di Spagna.
Police told Italian media the driver was a 24-year-old man of Colombian origin who had turned left at the Trinita dei Monti church at the top of the staircase, apparently mistaking the steps for a road.

He was found to be twice above the legal limit for alcohol, media reported. (imagine that)

Where's My Camera When I Need It?

2007-06-10T11:46:00.000+01:00

Friday I was in, what I believe is referred to as, a right state. Ever had one of those days when you wake up in a foul mood that refuses to dissipate as the day progresses? And the day conspires to deepen the mood? It was one of those and it would seem the entire office caught a nasty case of it as well. Co-worker Clare had a crap day, my boss had a crap day, Carmel had a crap day… it was just crap all the way round.

I walked in the door only to be greeted by my Co-worker of the Faulty Fly gleefully informing me that the plotter had run out of both ink and paper overnight and he had only just changed it. As I trudged up from the plotter, I informed both him and my boss that not a single of my 40 sheets had plotted. I sent them to print overnight because it takes hours for that amount of printing to be done on our machine.

That was just the beginning of the day too. After I started reprinting, another co-worker found 75% of my prints buried in hers, which he’d retrieved without telling me. Charming… I had to track down Wednesdays newspaper because I’d foolishly cut my planning ad out of the paper instead of submitting the entire sheet, something they simply don’t specify in the instructions for submitting a planning application, so that took me on the bus to the city centre, searching for the newspaper offices in shoes that were leaving blisters on my feet. I had a crap lunch, fishing an enormous amount of red onions out of my increasingly sloppy sandwich. Then my boss asked how I was getting along on another project, to which I replied that I was finishing up this application (a project that has been my sole priority for months now, by his design) to which he replied that he was under the impression it had gone out weeks ago and that he really wanted the other project progressed. What can I say? You take me out of the office for a day, put me in a bunch of meetings to discuss other projects, throw in a holiday and I just don’t seem to get everything done.

I managed to get the planning application finished, I informed my boss I had 3 strong sketch designs for the restaurant and then whimperingly agreed to go for a very large pint with Carmel after work, which just couldn’t have arrived soon enough.

We walked down to Slattery’s and managed to get a seat on the patio in the sun, just under the tree. I walked into the bar and ordered the largest glass of pinot grigio he could serve me. Truthfully, I asked if I could just put my head on the bar and have the wine poured directly into my mouth. Laughingly the bartender agreed without a moment’s hesitation. Good man that bartender; he filled my glass to the rim and passed it to me with a smile. I actually had to bend down and slurp off a bit before I picked it up, a rather sophisticated move appreciated by the German BusinessSuits standing next to me.

I plonked myself down at our table and Carmel and I just chatted. It was great really; she’s a very bubbly personality, even when it’s a tough day, so she really helped salvage me. We talked about my trip to Rome, her bible study classes, religion in general, the office, we planned a trip later in the summer with all our friends who have no idea we’re going on a trip yet… and in the midst of this, the patio filled and we started to notice a strange phenomenon. Groups of people, mostly men, were passing by us in Hen party gear. Instead of bachelorette parties, in Ireland and the UK, they have Hen Parties, where the entire party dresses in some sort of theme. Matching t-shirts, angel wings and the bride in devils horns, police hats and uniforms, etc… It’s quite organized and occasionally impressive. Usually, it’s a drunken brawl, but whatever. So when Carmel was explaining that her bible study group would finish for the summer, I was gaping at the group of 5 men strolling by casually wearing pink fairy wings and tutus. It’s hard not to gape. This isn’t the area for a lot of these parties; most of them happen in the city centre, where it’s only 30 seconds between pubs. We’re firmly 20-30 minutes out of the city centre with precious few pubs on the way. So what they were doing in this part of town, we’ve no idea.

I turned my attention back to Carmel after we had a good laugh, only to have it distracted again, but this time it was a group of men from a different direction wearing hot pink cowboy hats. They were followed shortly by a group wearing fluffy pink playboy ears and then a group wearing red, Spanish neckerchiefs and carrying Tommy Guns. When the group with women carrying neon colored inflatable water wings and pool rafts strolled by, we decided it had to be one party that divided into teams for some strange scavenger hunt. When the next team came by, we decided absolutely that was the case; they were mostly women with one rather older man, all wearing blue and white feather boas. They definitely added a David Lynch surrealist bent to the afternoon. I can quite imagine this is how he got most of his ideas for Twin Peaks. Well, that or a lot of drugs. I mean, really… It’s not every day you see men wearing pink fairy wings with a rugby jersey.

Arrivederci ragazzi!

2007-05-30T17:51:00.000+01:00

I’m off to Rome! Well, tomorrow morning at 6:30 at any rate. I’ll eat tons of gelato for you all; I’ll take loads of photographs; I’ll butcher the Italian language to be best of my ability. I’ll be back very late on Monday, provided Aer Lingus flies on time; very early Tuesday if they don’t. Miss me until then...