I have decided that I would very much like to make a Christmas decoration. Well, technically, what I would like is a decoration involving, but not interacting with, the Christmas Decoration Ethos. This decoration will involve red lights, plywood, and will probably never happen. I want a Koolaid man lawn ornament damn it. In lights.
Mark suggested that I wear this ornament myself, festooning myself as the Koolaid man which probably wouldn't be any harder. I suggested I would then go barreling through our neighbor's fence, since it's the shittiest looking fence I've ever seen and I haven't before encountered as good a way of pointing this out. Mark pointed out that I would then presumably be repeatedly punctured by nails and jagged bits of wood. I suggested that as I lay on the ground bleeding from many small puncture wounds, a passerby might pause, say "looks like someone spiked the punch", and then walk on.
These are just fantasies.
Two things I want to say. One, I think I'm pretty good at understanding people. This is probably something everyone thinks they're good at, so don't take it too much to heart. Part of it is probably that I just really like human beings, and am rooting for them, and so they tell me stuff and then I get to pretend lie I'm actually secretly perceptive. But I find myself in many situations telling other people they have to try to understand their peers.
I realized suddenly that these people PROBABLY think I'm trying to tell them to understand their peers so they have compassion for them and then when that happens, everything will be magically better. But no. ABSOLUTELY not. One of the world's worst secrets, worst because it's so obvious, is that it is not only possible but in many cases the best solution to have compassion for another person without doing anything for them. Just super common.
If I'm about anything, and I'm not, it's function. How to get things do, and when can you rest knowing you've really done your best at getting things done. We need to understand each other so we know how to DEAL with each other. A lot of people seem to think that because someone complains about something, or because someone says something,an issue has been created that must be dealt with. Understanding where that issue is coming from...for example that someone is complaining about x because actually they don't feel appreciated and feel the need to reassure themselves that the world is aware of their existence by being a squeaky wheel, can OBVIOUSLY be dealt with by treating the disease rather than the symptom. For example.
Instead most people say I can't believe they keep talking about x and as soon as I fix x I know they're going to start complaining about y. And of course they are because in 90% of the cases X isn't really the problem and their complaint isn't why you're bothered and fixing X won't solve the larger situation. Most problems can go away with a good hug physical or mental.
My grandfather, blind, going deaf, unable to walk well and alone, complains about the situation he's in because he hates having to be taken care of. That's the disease, the rest are symptoms. This is due to the fact that he has spent his whole life taking care of others and--since he grew up never realizing he had a choice in what to do with his life--he hasn't even had the comfort and congratulation of realizing the good he was doing. It was just the job. Now life is in the process of retiring him. I don't ask anyone to understand that so they feel better about being complained to, I ask them to so that they recognize the more the allow their wishes for his safety to take the appearance of favors and intelligent proposals rather than demands to someone used to being able to demand, the more likely they are to be accepted. Since we all want a safe and as-happy-as-possible grampa, this is function rather than compassion, but it ACHIEVES what compassion wants. That's all. In this neck of the woods, we get things done.
Take it from me, I know absolutely nothing about the world.
The forward arrow on my computer no longer works. I take it this is a sign from the gods to spend some time, now that I'm done with applications, working on where I am right now. A lot of sunsets remind me of other places, Mont St. Michel, Istanbul, Ireland. A lot of bars remind me of other beers I've had. It's a good thing time has been proven to be distinctly non-linear or I'd be nervous. As it it is I am more than happy to keep my ghosts of places and people around me always, they are my reserves and my support group (as are many living, wonderful people) and any time my shockingly easy life seems to get a little hard and I start to kick i look at all their faces and I think do i want to live my life being someone for whom THIS was too hard.
I have captured them in time, that friend in that bar on the wild, hazy night, that one in the dream I had once in that place, little homes I have carved out for them. So they won't go, have somewhere to live, I can feel surrounded and rooted for.
They just want me to be happy. And that’s much nicer than them wanting me to succeed, because success is so much luck. If I’m given a few days to come to grips I can probably be happy again, whatever. I keep my ghosts happy, I stay happy, I keep trying, this can’t be too hard for me because I don’t want to be the person for whom it was too hard.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The substance of unimportance:
It occurs to me that if you’re looking for what you might be, you might find someone to ask—it occurs to me that there is unfortunately no greater expert than yourself. This is as disappointing as can be, but true.
It occurs to me too, I do not think I will ever be entirely alone again having wandered through the Welsh countryside on my own, no sure destination and no one to speak to about it. The alone there is nothing I think I will match. Those were days when I was entirely in charge of myself. When I climbed hills and wandered through forests that could have held anything, from any time, over fifth century fortifications to twelfth century fortifications. What can anything be, that isn’t that, that would still be alone?
Things dissolve in these situations. Without the world telling you constantly what must be, what makes sense to be and do, you wonder if you might not have a chance at coming to your own conclusions.
It's not any kind of mystery that all religions ultimately revolve around murdering God. Christianity is the obvious example, but Buddhism involves denying the entire world-creation; Mithraism kills its god...At Troy the Gods fought men and won. In Ireland, the gods fought men and lost. People of Earth every function you perform is system, but you are a person doing it. Never forget to murder the thing you're becoming so you never forget what you are. Dear friends you have wonderful hearts, whenever you begin to focus too closely on what you should do rather than what you are, remember to do something effervescently silly so that your heart remembers--Dionysius was killed and his heart was put in clay. Remember that jobs and habitual activities are clay but let your heart beat, I cannot live in a world not filled with this thub-dub noise. I promise.
I’ll say this without a shred of dignity: I think I like poop jokes as much as anyone my age which is to say unduly, but not excessively. Not nearly as much, for example, as my girlfriend. Nevertheless, or simply the less, I can’t help but think that the coolest thing I could conceivably see would be poop on the highway. It is just possible that I would spend the entire day wondering at the mechanics. How it got there and when…probably poop no where else would make as strong a statement of reckless and abandon of function. Let us say that if there was something you wanted to leave the world, as a disappointing message, you could do worse than doing it in a place where all others are moving at 60-70 MPH. This part of the world I own because I am existing in defiance of all expectations for this part of the world, I am doing the opposite of what this was planned for, I am creating what should not be created where it should not be created YOU CANNOT OWN ME.
I think my peace comes largely from the fact that I am aware that I am not a lightweight. I’m not an expert on nearly anything, but I am educated enough on many things so that I know my opinion cannot be lightly brushed aside. I’m right often enough that I know others should think long and deeply before rejecting my thoughts. I can’t answer your questions but you might ask me to put in my two cents at some point. That makes me happy. That makes me peaceful. I think I am worth existing.
If it is illusion, what kind of bastard would take that away? Try it all. Refuse it, say it is a lie, love it, embrace it, do anything you can, it will help, I promise it will help.
It occurs to me that if you’re looking for what you might be, you might find someone to ask—it occurs to me that there is unfortunately no greater expert than yourself. This is as disappointing as can be, but true.
It occurs to me too, I do not think I will ever be entirely alone again having wandered through the Welsh countryside on my own, no sure destination and no one to speak to about it. The alone there is nothing I think I will match. Those were days when I was entirely in charge of myself. When I climbed hills and wandered through forests that could have held anything, from any time, over fifth century fortifications to twelfth century fortifications. What can anything be, that isn’t that, that would still be alone?
Things dissolve in these situations. Without the world telling you constantly what must be, what makes sense to be and do, you wonder if you might not have a chance at coming to your own conclusions.
It's not any kind of mystery that all religions ultimately revolve around murdering God. Christianity is the obvious example, but Buddhism involves denying the entire world-creation; Mithraism kills its god...At Troy the Gods fought men and won. In Ireland, the gods fought men and lost. People of Earth every function you perform is system, but you are a person doing it. Never forget to murder the thing you're becoming so you never forget what you are. Dear friends you have wonderful hearts, whenever you begin to focus too closely on what you should do rather than what you are, remember to do something effervescently silly so that your heart remembers--Dionysius was killed and his heart was put in clay. Remember that jobs and habitual activities are clay but let your heart beat, I cannot live in a world not filled with this thub-dub noise. I promise.
I’ll say this without a shred of dignity: I think I like poop jokes as much as anyone my age which is to say unduly, but not excessively. Not nearly as much, for example, as my girlfriend. Nevertheless, or simply the less, I can’t help but think that the coolest thing I could conceivably see would be poop on the highway. It is just possible that I would spend the entire day wondering at the mechanics. How it got there and when…probably poop no where else would make as strong a statement of reckless and abandon of function. Let us say that if there was something you wanted to leave the world, as a disappointing message, you could do worse than doing it in a place where all others are moving at 60-70 MPH. This part of the world I own because I am existing in defiance of all expectations for this part of the world, I am doing the opposite of what this was planned for, I am creating what should not be created where it should not be created YOU CANNOT OWN ME.
I think my peace comes largely from the fact that I am aware that I am not a lightweight. I’m not an expert on nearly anything, but I am educated enough on many things so that I know my opinion cannot be lightly brushed aside. I’m right often enough that I know others should think long and deeply before rejecting my thoughts. I can’t answer your questions but you might ask me to put in my two cents at some point. That makes me happy. That makes me peaceful. I think I am worth existing.
If it is illusion, what kind of bastard would take that away? Try it all. Refuse it, say it is a lie, love it, embrace it, do anything you can, it will help, I promise it will help.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Home again...
Maggie and I are officially the coolest couple ever. She’s a teacher and a student, delightful little closed loop, but there are ONLY SO MANY HOURS IN THE DAY.
She asked me recently why she had to choose between being an elementary school teacher, a middle school councilor, a math specialist and an education specialist. As an exercise in practicality, something I've been working on, I pointed say she only taught the elementary school kids until lunch, she wouldn’t get to the middle school to counsel until 1 or so. Then she’d probably have to run off to her math specialist job by say 2:30, which means by the time she got around to being an educational specialist MOST of the kids would have gone home. Not that that wouldn’t make the job a lot easier, an education specialist who doesn’t have anyone's education to worry about, I just think it’s impractical. Plus it leaves a whole elementary school class just wandering around by itself for an afternoon and THAT is a recipe for trouble.
Anyway, she does both these things, so on Wednesday for example she teaches her class until 3, after school tutors until 4, and then runs off to be a student---I don’t know exactly the hours of this but she returns home around 8. If she has a drug habit, something I fantasize about to make my life more exciting, somewhere in there would be the hours she indulges in it.
That’s fine. As for me, I take Greek or Hebrew MWF, from which I am not home AND free until 2, 2, and 1 respectively. After that it’s the work to make sure I don’t embarrass myself in front of these people who teach me. And then it’s my turn to be a teacher—Literature and English Vocabulary. I am comforted by the fact that my students, at least, will be fine no matter how poorly I advance them in these subjects. Nevertheless.
The point is, thanks to Maggie’s selfishness in her attempt to educate her twenty seven little babies, and the selfishness of people like her all over the educational map, I can’t get any teaching in until five or six because begod the runts are at their own schools. This means I work until 7 or 8.
I know you see where I’m going with this. If our paths do intersect during the week it’s in that lovely hour known as eight, a full hour and a half after what was once known as the witching hour among folks who went to bed a lot earlier than we do. Presumably because they had less websites to visit for the hundredth needless time.
What you don’t know is how we spend that time, and I’ll remedy that lack. Maggie’s a tired gal, she usually gets up around 5:30, a full 13 hours before that time once known as the witching etc. More or less we watch a TV show and she falls asleep on my shoulder.
She’s actually, for my money, the world champion at functioning while actually asleep so it was much to my benefit that I came to recognize the tone of voice which means “I’m talking but nobody’s home”. This kept me from communicating useful information at those times and also cleared the way for a whole host of entertaining one way conversations in which I could reliably depend on semi-appropriate responses.
Don’t get me wrong, I'm also sleepy, but less sleepy, and that makes me look cool, which I appreciate it.
Friday nights are date nights, which we enjoy sincerely, for we have wonderful dates, but on some level I think we both also consider it code for “we’re both pretty tired from the week and wouldn’t mind going to bed early. Let’s not let anyone else into our party who might try to make us do anything fun past, say 10:30”
Saturdays are usually normal days for normal youths! Are we youths?
And then Sunday is getting ready for Monday.
So to sum up, Maggie and I are the coolest.
Fall lingering in the edges of the sky now. I’ll be honest, I always thought of the sky as a kind of giant blue sheet, hiding God’s fort which looks pretty much like the ones we used to arrange out of chairs and sheets ourselves, in the living room. But when the seasons change I think they diffuse from around the sheet's corners, sent up to the majors, and I can feel it, when the evenings starts to dissolve rather than disappear. I think Samuel Beckett called it Echo’s Bones, referring to the nymph who slowly disappeared until nothing remained but her voice. Fall could do worse than be a voice bouncing through emptiness, it would make time seem purposeful.
It is purposeful, I’m sure, though it doesn't bother me either way. And yet I find myself against odds not more than a little worried about the future. Between you and me whenever they ask me what I’m going to be when I grow up, and I do have a pretty good answer these days, I still feel like I already am it only with so much to learn that has nothing to do with academics. Maybe if they phrased the question differently, I would feel the anxiety I need to.
Do you know what I mean? Hats are accessories, you put them on to make you look better, not because you’re to become all hat.
The sky seems so much bigger as the hands close around it.
She asked me recently why she had to choose between being an elementary school teacher, a middle school councilor, a math specialist and an education specialist. As an exercise in practicality, something I've been working on, I pointed say she only taught the elementary school kids until lunch, she wouldn’t get to the middle school to counsel until 1 or so. Then she’d probably have to run off to her math specialist job by say 2:30, which means by the time she got around to being an educational specialist MOST of the kids would have gone home. Not that that wouldn’t make the job a lot easier, an education specialist who doesn’t have anyone's education to worry about, I just think it’s impractical. Plus it leaves a whole elementary school class just wandering around by itself for an afternoon and THAT is a recipe for trouble.
Anyway, she does both these things, so on Wednesday for example she teaches her class until 3, after school tutors until 4, and then runs off to be a student---I don’t know exactly the hours of this but she returns home around 8. If she has a drug habit, something I fantasize about to make my life more exciting, somewhere in there would be the hours she indulges in it.
That’s fine. As for me, I take Greek or Hebrew MWF, from which I am not home AND free until 2, 2, and 1 respectively. After that it’s the work to make sure I don’t embarrass myself in front of these people who teach me. And then it’s my turn to be a teacher—Literature and English Vocabulary. I am comforted by the fact that my students, at least, will be fine no matter how poorly I advance them in these subjects. Nevertheless.
The point is, thanks to Maggie’s selfishness in her attempt to educate her twenty seven little babies, and the selfishness of people like her all over the educational map, I can’t get any teaching in until five or six because begod the runts are at their own schools. This means I work until 7 or 8.
I know you see where I’m going with this. If our paths do intersect during the week it’s in that lovely hour known as eight, a full hour and a half after what was once known as the witching hour among folks who went to bed a lot earlier than we do. Presumably because they had less websites to visit for the hundredth needless time.
What you don’t know is how we spend that time, and I’ll remedy that lack. Maggie’s a tired gal, she usually gets up around 5:30, a full 13 hours before that time once known as the witching etc. More or less we watch a TV show and she falls asleep on my shoulder.
She’s actually, for my money, the world champion at functioning while actually asleep so it was much to my benefit that I came to recognize the tone of voice which means “I’m talking but nobody’s home”. This kept me from communicating useful information at those times and also cleared the way for a whole host of entertaining one way conversations in which I could reliably depend on semi-appropriate responses.
Don’t get me wrong, I'm also sleepy, but less sleepy, and that makes me look cool, which I appreciate it.
Friday nights are date nights, which we enjoy sincerely, for we have wonderful dates, but on some level I think we both also consider it code for “we’re both pretty tired from the week and wouldn’t mind going to bed early. Let’s not let anyone else into our party who might try to make us do anything fun past, say 10:30”
Saturdays are usually normal days for normal youths! Are we youths?
And then Sunday is getting ready for Monday.
So to sum up, Maggie and I are the coolest.
Fall lingering in the edges of the sky now. I’ll be honest, I always thought of the sky as a kind of giant blue sheet, hiding God’s fort which looks pretty much like the ones we used to arrange out of chairs and sheets ourselves, in the living room. But when the seasons change I think they diffuse from around the sheet's corners, sent up to the majors, and I can feel it, when the evenings starts to dissolve rather than disappear. I think Samuel Beckett called it Echo’s Bones, referring to the nymph who slowly disappeared until nothing remained but her voice. Fall could do worse than be a voice bouncing through emptiness, it would make time seem purposeful.
It is purposeful, I’m sure, though it doesn't bother me either way. And yet I find myself against odds not more than a little worried about the future. Between you and me whenever they ask me what I’m going to be when I grow up, and I do have a pretty good answer these days, I still feel like I already am it only with so much to learn that has nothing to do with academics. Maybe if they phrased the question differently, I would feel the anxiety I need to.
Do you know what I mean? Hats are accessories, you put them on to make you look better, not because you’re to become all hat.
The sky seems so much bigger as the hands close around it.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
#17
Today I had my last basketball game. An open court, really, not specifically a game. There were some highs and some lows. The jumpshot was pretty good. They game was tied 9-9 when they came in and kicked us out. I raced to the three point line, and launched…
Hey, I’ve had some big moments in my life. Sometimes you go out on a skill-appropriate note, rather than a high one.
Anyway, I figured it was as good a footnote as any to write you all my last dispatch from the green isle. This time next week I’ll be in Rome, then Jerusalem---because that’s the route crusaders take, and I’m taking it back for Christendom—and thence in the great iron-winged bird across the sea back home.
Try not to get emotional, okay?
Actually I’m getting kind of emotional. My old foe, Irish bureaucracy is not letting me go without a fight. It’s sweet that it cares. Kinda brings a tear to your eye.
Of rage.
Two days ago I set out to do three errands, as usual in Ireland, expecting to complete one. Well, of course I’m not disappointed. Things I need to do: Get a paycheck, close my bank account, ship a box.
So I go to pick up my paycheck, and of course, it being a Friday, the office is closed. And of course, Monday is yet another holiday. What was I thinking? So then I can’t close my bank account because I can’t cash a check without a bank account. Great, two of the three impossible already. I go to the bank anyway, just to see how much money I have left. They say [insert paltry sum here].
Then I go to ship the box. It’s not an enormously heavy box, 15 Kg or so, which is like…3…5 pounds? But it’s a couple blocks walk so I try, brilliantly, to put the box in a suitcase so I can roll it there. It doesn’t work , but I like to think a blow was stuck for innovators everywhere.
Anyway, I go down there and tell them it doesn’t matter how long it takes, I’d like the cheapest way possible to send this box. They say, actually there’s only one way to send the box, it’ll get there in a week and be far too expensive. And I’m like, fine, whatever, I’m going to Rome and Jerusalem, I can’t have all this stuff with me. And they’re like we only take cash.
So I need…actually, you know I was trying to be decorous and not mention money but this story isn’t going to work, without numbers. So I have a little over 100 euros in the bank and I need about 60 more to make this payment. It’s alright, I have more in an offshore account—you know what I mean—but that’s complicated. Anyway.
So I leave my package sitting in this crowded post office and run to the only ATM for blocks. And of course, it’s out of everything but 50s, so there goes my account anyhow.
So I go out that night with a couple friends, have a pretty good time. Come home, it’s late, and I’ve got a nice email in the ol’ inbox…
See, I’d been offered a job teaching English at a community college in Dallas. Great, frankly, not only would it be a good experience for me on its own, but applying to PhD programs with a masters AND experience teaching undergrads? Money in the bank.
But the lovely woman who runs hiring says, a couple of days ago, she would like me to send her a transcript from my masters program to just complete the process. I make some inquiries and discover, somewhat to my surprise, that though I will be done with all my work by the time I leave here, and that everyone MUST be done with their work by the end of September, Trinity won’t be willing to hand out the ol’ degrees or confirm anyone until, say, January. So I can’t get a full transcript. Until at least January.
So I have to tell the community college folks I’d love to, but actually I can’t get them a FINISHED transcript till much later even though I’m done. I can get you a transcript so far and a letter from my advisor. Don’t suppose that would be alright, would it? And, as I suspected, this night as I’ve returned home, they’ve responded “Oh, yeah. No thanks then. But feel free to apply again to teach second semester in October.”
Actually, I won’t have my degree by October either. In fact, I won’t even have it by December, when I apply to PhD programs. So THAT’S cool. Rather than applying to PhD programs as a student with a masters and undergraduate teaching experience, I won’t actually have either. Although I think it’s likely I can get something official by December. I’m just afraid of being more than cautiously optimistic at this point.
The really exciting part about all of this is my mother and I spent a long time, before I came, trying to figure out when exactly they would get around to graduating me. As it turned out, we guessed wrong, and for all intents and purposes a six month program has been turned into a two year program.
So there I am, simultaneously seething and touched that Ireland cares enough to take one last whack at me. As if I could ever forget you darling. So I wake up in the morning and go down to get lunch. Pick up a sandwich, a coke, a muffin, carrying it back in my arms to find…oops, they’ve accidentally deactivated all the key cards for my dorm building.
See we all got emails about a week ago to the effect of “hey, you’ve all got to be out of dorms by May 31st.” Why. Well, you see, for some reason all the dorms on campus have different dates as to when their leases run out. Very few of these, incidentally, are AFTER exams are complete, but no big surprise there. My dorm lets out on June 6th.
I, like several of my friends, hurriedly emailed the front office with “what?!?!??! I thought I had to be out by June 6th!” And they’re like oh yes, terribly sorry, our mistake.
But of course nobody thought that might mean that all the residents in this dorm are listed as leaving May 31st. Sure enough, yesterday was may 31st and we all got locked out. So I walked the fifteen minutes to front gate, my sandwich cooling, my coke heating up---“I know a thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, but HOW DOES IT KNOW?” to get a new card and fifteen minutes back.
And we ain’t even heard from my arch-nemesis here yet, the library. I’m expecting BRIMSTONE.
Ah, Ireland, you cheeky rube. I really am going to miss you. I know you’re just trying to say you LOVE me.
Let’s be real cats. I’ve had my problems with bureaucracy here. But these are inconveniences and, I hope, funny inconveniences, nothing more. I’ve had a lot of opportunities here. Presented some papers at conferences, met Seamus Heaney (check that one off the list. WOOOO.), had a lot of good times that I mostly remember. And I complain because I find my tribulations, post-fact, humorous.
Let’s wrap this up, huh? We all have work to do.
Le Denouement:
You know, midway through the application process to various English PhD programs, oh more than a year ago today, I sort of changed my mind and decided to try masters programs instead. I knew I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and I didn’t want to commit. It wasn’t just postponing my gap year, which will now be next year, this qualification will serve me well…it’s more my personality, the way I had to do it. As I work next year (the where, as noted above, still to be determined) and enjoy the company of my family, my crazy, not very bright little dog, and my girlfriend, I’ll be content because I know I’m aiming at something.
I NEVER could have spent the last year at home, while waiting for a good idea, a sure idea, of what I wanted to do next to strike me. I’d have driven everyone I know nuts. So the shape of this year, and next year, sort of my like my face, just couldn’t have been rearranged in any more pleasing arrangement.
I’m going to apply for PhD programs in Religious Studies. I’m getting ready. That’s something I can focus on.
The point I’m trying to make is that at the beginning of last year I was wrong about nearly every single place I thought my life would go from there, and wrong about why I was doing it. But I had fun the whole time, learning how incredibly wrong I was, and it was a better teacher than refraining , out of uncertainty, would have been. I’m blessed that I can backtrack, a lot of people can’t. But I’m going to. And it’s going to be awesome.
For someone who had such a happy and well-adjusted childhood, I think ,perhaps, a little more darkly than is normal, from time to time. Truth is, you never know how long you have to hang out in these parts below the sun.
And to my parents, and to Maggie, and to all my friends who are back in Dallas for however long they will be (not long for most of them) I suppose you could be glad, if you felt like it, that you’re getting me back when I’m not, in the words of a wise philosopher, all squirmy.
What I’ve learned is that I’m an adult and adults don’t have any more clue than any else, but I suppose they take responsibility for it, and they strike out on their own. I’m proud enough of myself. I lived in a—at times difficult—foreign country where I didn’t know a single person for nearly a year, and I made friends, and I had great times, and I learned a heck of a lot. The experiment was a success, and I think the more you challenge yourself the more you trust yourself. I’ve still had very few sincerely difficult challenges, but when you come through knowing you’ve survived, I s’pose you know a little bit more about your threshold for surviving. That’s neat.
I missed you all. I’ll be glad to return to some place that’s basically on the same time zone. You could call, and we could talk. That’s luxury, isn’t it?
And I hope I’ll never again be what I was before this, and I hope I never stay at what I am after this.
And that, my friends, will be about it. I don’t want to get too personal, but ever since the summer after my junior year, every six months or so there’s been another hard loss to deal with. They’ve differed in character, and scope, though each has been irreplaceable. I would guess the point is, though, is it’s an extremely lucky man who’s had, in such a short space, so many things worth missing. You just try to swallow hard, stand up tall, and on to the next adventure.
Onwards, and upwards, and, as always, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
Love, last,
Andrew
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
#16
This will be, mostly silent loved ones and people who were shanghaied on to the list and remained too polite to tell me they want off, one of the last times you’ll hear from me. I leave here June 6th to return, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, to the place of my naissance.
Not specifically Medical City Hospital, but, you know… Dallas….and stuff….
I suppose when we left each other, brave soldiers, I was between Wales and France.
The parents got here, to Dublin. I amused them as best I could with my colorful antics and as a reward they took me to Paris. Which was nice, especially the “eating real food” parts. My skills as a translator were put to the limit, but I was able to correctly pronounce several key phrases including “where is the bathroom,” “I want that,” and “how much for the prostitute with one leg.”
Combien pour de prostitutee avec un jambe seulement.
I stayed at a place called the Peace and Love Hostel, run by a grumpy hippy who, when she learned my parents wouldn’t be staying with me, immediately accused them of staying in the Ritz Carlton and then ignored a very pretty Polish-sounding girl because she didn’t speak much English and, probably, was really pretty. I stayed in a four bunk-bed room that was through another four bunk-bed room, which was just fine. The problem was my four bunk-bed room was right on top of the bar, which was raucous until somewhere around 3 am, near as I could tell.
It’s funny the difference a day makes. Hostels are extremely variable experiences in that large amounts of people come and go every night and that’s what determines how the hostel is that night. The first night I was there, Friday night, I crawled into bed at 12:30 and everybody was already fast asleep. Although, how, with the pounding Pink Floyd down below, I’m not entirely sure.
The second night I got back around 1 am to find every body still awake. I got into bed because I had a 9 am flight and because I was alone, and they asked me “Bro! Why are you goin’ to bed so early!” I explained, and they said “ah, wicked. Sorry bro, we’ll go into the other room.” They did, very kindly but seemed to come back in every hour or so to either fall down, climb in and out of the bed above me or, at around 5:30 am (these times are all approximate) noisily eat a sandwich. I woke up at 6:30 and put my stuff together. Sandwich-eating girl, finally in bed, rolls over and says “oh my god, what time is it.” I tell her. She says “oh great.” And goes back to peaceful sleep. I remind myself forcefully that I do not approve of violence towards women.
Thence to Barcelona, where there was almost a mutiny.
My parents have this thing with eating in alleys. The idea is that alleys are more authentic than, say, plazas, which admittedly are rather obvious, all OUT there and easy to find and everything. You can tell the alley restaurants agree with this summation as they’ve raised their prices accordingly. Usually that’s fine, as I eat much better with them than with myself, but there’s thing where my dad doesn’t really get hungry. At this point I was extremely hungry, and even my mother was hungry enough to forgo, for the moment, her taste for alleys.
For the record, it doesn’t have to be in an alley so long as the tables are so close together that you feel like asking the family sitting next to you for Christmas presents, if you see what I mean. Although there is a certain intimacy bred among strangers when they have to reveal to each other their bathroom-related needs in order to be allowed up. Also, I’m mostly kidding. Happy Mother’s Day, mom…
Anyway, we did have a delicious meal which lasted us till mornin’.
The next day was my birthday.
Barcelona is a BEAUTIFUL city. It is light, airy, dotted with modern art installations and unique architecture. Unfortunately, as we went around on one of those hop on and hop off buses and when, SPECIFICALLY, we hopped off to see the most unique of all the architectures, the amazing La Sagrada Familia the sky opened up to near doomsday proportions just for the five minutes we were in line outside.
I spent most of the rest of my birthday damp, which was fine. The real problem was when we got BACK on the hop on, hop off, we ensconced ourselves into a corner…a middle-aged eastern European woman suddenly appeared and said to my father “that is my seat. I sit there.” The problem was that my father was, at this point, so damp, that the woman would probably be drowned if she got her seat back. She couldn’t muster any other English, but spent the whole rest of the bus…which was actually by far the longest hop on hop off bus experience of my life…glaring us. Quite impressive.
But the sun came out when we climbed the hill and it was a lovely walk and we celebrated the big day with a chocolate covered waffle. As a birthday miracle, though the tiny plastic fork I was given to deal with the chocolate waffle cracked in the center it held for the duration of the snack. Somehow, it held on.
I went on to Madrid, while they went to the South of France.
I say it again mates, hostels are all about timing. Either you meet some neat people right away or you never meet them at all. Because if you meet them quick you can get on the same schedule, otherwise you’re always leaving when they’re coming back and so on.
I sit down between two Canadians and a girl from N’awlins, currently at school in England, writing a paper on Stravinsky. She informs me that the problem with her paper is that as she’s studying abroad for a semester, the first semester was the one with all the information and this current semester is the one with all the application, so she’s more or less in trouble. Also, as I refrain from pointing out at this point, she’s trying to get work done in the social area of a hostel.
The first night, we have a grand party in that kitchen. Sean and I buy a mini-keg which, despite our poor tapping skills, has its applications. A large group slowly forms, centered around our beer-dispensing luminary. It plans to go out. At some point, most of the party traipses downstairs leaving me and Stravinsky girl, heretofore referred to as Elaine (a stage name, I presume), to wait for Canadian Angela to go to the bathroom.
SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG. As near as I can reconstruct it in the admittedly groggy morning, while Elaine and I waited in the kitchen they locked the kitchen door which Angela had just passed through. Hence, she couldn’t return directly. We waited 15 minutes and assumed everybody had left, so left ourselves. Apparently, however, the whole large group had NOT left but was searching the halls for the two of us. They didn’t find us, ‘cause we left. Basically.
So Elaine and I have a couple more beers, then we hang out in the bathroom so as not to wake anybody up. Don’t ask me, I don’t know which bathroom it was.
De next morning I am wakened by a pained groan. The kind of groan that says “I went to a club last night, actually, thank you for asking. And yes, I did have quite a few more beers. And no, I don’t think I’ll be moving for quite some time, if possible. It was, of course, Sean, on the bunk above me who had, with the large group, had quite a longer night than I had. Fair play to him though, I was gone enough I didn’t hear the other five people in the room come in…
After a lot of water and advil, Sean, Angela, Elaine and a darling Irish girl named Michelle (clearly, therefore, not from Dublin…that she’s darling, not that she’s named Michelle) head off to Toledo and I roam the streets of Madrid alone. I find the Prado WITH THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND LEAST CONVENIENT TOURIST MAP, which is fantastic of course, and then try to make it to the museo archaeologico but get poured again and decide to take a delicious nap.
When I wake up, the gang has gathered in the kitchen. We switch to wine and go out dancing. It was a fun night, ‘twas, but unfortunately at the end of the night (which is somehow around 4:30 am, I have no idea how time got to there, but time will always be a mystery to me. How it flees when you have work to do, how it stays when you are so bored you’re contemplating death) we discover someone has made off with Elaine’s jacket which very unfortunately had her camera in it. To console her, Sean and Michelle go buy a pizza in the only mini market I have ever seen with a line and a limit on the number of people allowed inside. We retire again to the bathroom to eat the pizza.
I reach out to pat Elaine on the shoulder, consolingly, and miss, knocking her half-eaten slice on to the bathroom floor.
Glad I could help, Elaine.
The next day I make it to the museo archaelogique which has the advantage of being free on Sundays and the disadvantage of being almost entirely closed. So we saw several nice rocks and pots, and could almost make out through various kinds of locked gratings mummies and other things in the darkness which are apparently pay-per-view.
After a nice lunch it’s back to dirty ol’ Dublin to meet my parents and quietly panic about having only a month to write a whole dissertation.
You know what’s funny, looking back on that hostel experience, everybody else appeared to be Dutch. I mean just tons and tons of Dutch people there. As I reported to Miss Brittany Groot by email earlier, I can only assume the purpose was some kind of military reconnaissance, and I wish them well with that.
Came back to Dublin, there to meet my parents again. Went up Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway. Quite pretty up there. Almost escaped without a whiff of that Northern Ireland business until, just as we were about to leave, entering a royalist part of the same, came across an enormous wall mural featuring a masked gunman with the sign “welcome to the real Belfast.”
So that’s nice. I’ve decided to spend the following paragraph talking about Ireland’s complicated history, briefly, for anyone who’s interested. This is what we call a disclaimer, so you can skip the paragraph if you choose. I’m not an expert anyway, this is just what I’ve been able to put together.
It started in the late 12th century. Henry II was king of England and Ireland was five provinces ruled by a succession of Irish high kings…anyway, one of the provincial kings, Diarmuid of Leinster has an affair with another king’s wife and gets kicked out of his kingdom. As wasn’t that unusual he runs off to England and asks an English earl, Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, to come help him get back his kingdom. As a reward Diarmuid said Strongbow could marry his daughter. Strongbow wins back the province but suddenly Diarmuid dies leaving Strongbow, married to Diarmuid’s daughter, the king of Leinster. King Henry’s like ohhh no, that can’t happen. So he conquers Ireland.
No one cares very much for a long time. Finally in the 16th century, Ireland’s like screw this (even though as near as I can tell the English weren’t doing much) and rebels. They get crushed. This is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who really starts enforcing British rule in Ireland, much more so than previously. She’s a protestant, thanks to her dad King Henry VIII. When a couple kings down the road Catholic agitation started against the protestants, the Irish, being 90% Catholic, were quite excited. They figured they’d get some rights back. But when William and Mary were invited over by the English to rule instead of the Catholic King James II, Ireland got by far the worst of it, lost major battles, and the catholics were not allowed to own land for approximately two hundred years. William won his big battle in 1690 it wasn’t until the late 1800s that Daniel O’Connell succeeded in getting Catholics the right to own any kind of land. Then, just as he was preparing to get more concessions from the British, the potato famine hit and everybody had more important things to worry about. Then, after the famine, came Charles Stuart Parnell, the so-called uncrowned King of Ireland who came so close to getting Home Rule until it came out that he’d been having an affair and dear old Catholic Ireland DESTROYED him for it. He died shortly thereafter and they all felt bad about it, but it was a bit late one feels. Sometimes you feel like Ireland and England spent a lot of time arguing over which one of them would get to shoot Ireland in the foot.
It was Queen Elizabeth, incidentally, who began the program of “plantations,” sending over a lot of protestants to live in one place together. Dublin and the North were the two biggest protestant areas.
Enter the 20th century. Britain says, look dawgs, we need your help in this world I, but we PROMISE that if you help us we’ll let you have home rule after as a reward. This is where things get way complicated. Ireland goes ahead with it. A LOT of Irish troops die in World War I, which lasted 1914-1918. But in 1916, Patrick Pearse and a bunch of guys are like, you know, we don’t want to wait. This is called the Post Office Rebellion, or the Easter Rebellion. They seize the general Post Office on O’Connell street and declare an Irish republic. The crazy thing is, they know they have no chance, but there’s this old Irish idea of blood sacrifice…if they die, it will inspire other people to seize the country.
People remain really conflicted about this business. There was no good reason to suspect the English wouldn’t keep faith, except that they hated the British. The Post Office Rebellion was followed by violence which resulted in a treaty with the British…this gave them some things, but not, most people, felt, enough. So Ireland immediately launched into a 20 year Civil war which finally resulted in its partition into North (officially still part of Britain) and the Republic of Ireland. That violence of course continued until the mid-90s in the North and is certainly not entirely dead. As Yeats put it in his poem Easter 1916:
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night, but death
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead
So no one’s really sure whether the Easter 1916 guys should be considered heroes…,no one was really sure at the time, and less so today…and all of the figures of the early Republic are tainted in some way by their role in the violence which may well (or perhaps may not) have been entirely needless.
In the North today, there are six provinces. It’s 40 % Catholic and 45 % Protestant, which explains the violence. Two of the Provinces, Tyrone and Fermanagh, are by far majority Catholic, Londonderry (which Catholics call simply “Derry”, cause of the London thing) is majority Catholic with a strong minority Protestant, Antrim and Downe are Protestant and Armagh is pretty divided. Each province, however, has catholic and protestant districts. And Dublin, being at the time of British rule the locus of it in Ireland, has a very equivocal position indeed. It’s in the south, but it was quite British…yet it was also the site of the Easter Rebellion and so on.
And so we on, boats against the current, blah blah. I thought somebody might be interested. And if they weren’t, I hope they’ve scrolled down…
Well, well. A RATHER long one today. Sorry cats, but you know where the delete button is.
Anyway, you’ll probably hear from me ‘bout once more, maybe twice, and I look forward to hearing about the Dutch takeover from Spain.
Love to those who have been judged and found worthy,
Andrew
Not specifically Medical City Hospital, but, you know… Dallas….and stuff….
I suppose when we left each other, brave soldiers, I was between Wales and France.
The parents got here, to Dublin. I amused them as best I could with my colorful antics and as a reward they took me to Paris. Which was nice, especially the “eating real food” parts. My skills as a translator were put to the limit, but I was able to correctly pronounce several key phrases including “where is the bathroom,” “I want that,” and “how much for the prostitute with one leg.”
Combien pour de prostitutee avec un jambe seulement.
I stayed at a place called the Peace and Love Hostel, run by a grumpy hippy who, when she learned my parents wouldn’t be staying with me, immediately accused them of staying in the Ritz Carlton and then ignored a very pretty Polish-sounding girl because she didn’t speak much English and, probably, was really pretty. I stayed in a four bunk-bed room that was through another four bunk-bed room, which was just fine. The problem was my four bunk-bed room was right on top of the bar, which was raucous until somewhere around 3 am, near as I could tell.
It’s funny the difference a day makes. Hostels are extremely variable experiences in that large amounts of people come and go every night and that’s what determines how the hostel is that night. The first night I was there, Friday night, I crawled into bed at 12:30 and everybody was already fast asleep. Although, how, with the pounding Pink Floyd down below, I’m not entirely sure.
The second night I got back around 1 am to find every body still awake. I got into bed because I had a 9 am flight and because I was alone, and they asked me “Bro! Why are you goin’ to bed so early!” I explained, and they said “ah, wicked. Sorry bro, we’ll go into the other room.” They did, very kindly but seemed to come back in every hour or so to either fall down, climb in and out of the bed above me or, at around 5:30 am (these times are all approximate) noisily eat a sandwich. I woke up at 6:30 and put my stuff together. Sandwich-eating girl, finally in bed, rolls over and says “oh my god, what time is it.” I tell her. She says “oh great.” And goes back to peaceful sleep. I remind myself forcefully that I do not approve of violence towards women.
Thence to Barcelona, where there was almost a mutiny.
My parents have this thing with eating in alleys. The idea is that alleys are more authentic than, say, plazas, which admittedly are rather obvious, all OUT there and easy to find and everything. You can tell the alley restaurants agree with this summation as they’ve raised their prices accordingly. Usually that’s fine, as I eat much better with them than with myself, but there’s thing where my dad doesn’t really get hungry. At this point I was extremely hungry, and even my mother was hungry enough to forgo, for the moment, her taste for alleys.
For the record, it doesn’t have to be in an alley so long as the tables are so close together that you feel like asking the family sitting next to you for Christmas presents, if you see what I mean. Although there is a certain intimacy bred among strangers when they have to reveal to each other their bathroom-related needs in order to be allowed up. Also, I’m mostly kidding. Happy Mother’s Day, mom…
Anyway, we did have a delicious meal which lasted us till mornin’.
The next day was my birthday.
Barcelona is a BEAUTIFUL city. It is light, airy, dotted with modern art installations and unique architecture. Unfortunately, as we went around on one of those hop on and hop off buses and when, SPECIFICALLY, we hopped off to see the most unique of all the architectures, the amazing La Sagrada Familia the sky opened up to near doomsday proportions just for the five minutes we were in line outside.
I spent most of the rest of my birthday damp, which was fine. The real problem was when we got BACK on the hop on, hop off, we ensconced ourselves into a corner…a middle-aged eastern European woman suddenly appeared and said to my father “that is my seat. I sit there.” The problem was that my father was, at this point, so damp, that the woman would probably be drowned if she got her seat back. She couldn’t muster any other English, but spent the whole rest of the bus…which was actually by far the longest hop on hop off bus experience of my life…glaring us. Quite impressive.
But the sun came out when we climbed the hill and it was a lovely walk and we celebrated the big day with a chocolate covered waffle. As a birthday miracle, though the tiny plastic fork I was given to deal with the chocolate waffle cracked in the center it held for the duration of the snack. Somehow, it held on.
I went on to Madrid, while they went to the South of France.
I say it again mates, hostels are all about timing. Either you meet some neat people right away or you never meet them at all. Because if you meet them quick you can get on the same schedule, otherwise you’re always leaving when they’re coming back and so on.
I sit down between two Canadians and a girl from N’awlins, currently at school in England, writing a paper on Stravinsky. She informs me that the problem with her paper is that as she’s studying abroad for a semester, the first semester was the one with all the information and this current semester is the one with all the application, so she’s more or less in trouble. Also, as I refrain from pointing out at this point, she’s trying to get work done in the social area of a hostel.
The first night, we have a grand party in that kitchen. Sean and I buy a mini-keg which, despite our poor tapping skills, has its applications. A large group slowly forms, centered around our beer-dispensing luminary. It plans to go out. At some point, most of the party traipses downstairs leaving me and Stravinsky girl, heretofore referred to as Elaine (a stage name, I presume), to wait for Canadian Angela to go to the bathroom.
SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG. As near as I can reconstruct it in the admittedly groggy morning, while Elaine and I waited in the kitchen they locked the kitchen door which Angela had just passed through. Hence, she couldn’t return directly. We waited 15 minutes and assumed everybody had left, so left ourselves. Apparently, however, the whole large group had NOT left but was searching the halls for the two of us. They didn’t find us, ‘cause we left. Basically.
So Elaine and I have a couple more beers, then we hang out in the bathroom so as not to wake anybody up. Don’t ask me, I don’t know which bathroom it was.
De next morning I am wakened by a pained groan. The kind of groan that says “I went to a club last night, actually, thank you for asking. And yes, I did have quite a few more beers. And no, I don’t think I’ll be moving for quite some time, if possible. It was, of course, Sean, on the bunk above me who had, with the large group, had quite a longer night than I had. Fair play to him though, I was gone enough I didn’t hear the other five people in the room come in…
After a lot of water and advil, Sean, Angela, Elaine and a darling Irish girl named Michelle (clearly, therefore, not from Dublin…that she’s darling, not that she’s named Michelle) head off to Toledo and I roam the streets of Madrid alone. I find the Prado WITH THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND LEAST CONVENIENT TOURIST MAP, which is fantastic of course, and then try to make it to the museo archaeologico but get poured again and decide to take a delicious nap.
When I wake up, the gang has gathered in the kitchen. We switch to wine and go out dancing. It was a fun night, ‘twas, but unfortunately at the end of the night (which is somehow around 4:30 am, I have no idea how time got to there, but time will always be a mystery to me. How it flees when you have work to do, how it stays when you are so bored you’re contemplating death) we discover someone has made off with Elaine’s jacket which very unfortunately had her camera in it. To console her, Sean and Michelle go buy a pizza in the only mini market I have ever seen with a line and a limit on the number of people allowed inside. We retire again to the bathroom to eat the pizza.
I reach out to pat Elaine on the shoulder, consolingly, and miss, knocking her half-eaten slice on to the bathroom floor.
Glad I could help, Elaine.
The next day I make it to the museo archaelogique which has the advantage of being free on Sundays and the disadvantage of being almost entirely closed. So we saw several nice rocks and pots, and could almost make out through various kinds of locked gratings mummies and other things in the darkness which are apparently pay-per-view.
After a nice lunch it’s back to dirty ol’ Dublin to meet my parents and quietly panic about having only a month to write a whole dissertation.
You know what’s funny, looking back on that hostel experience, everybody else appeared to be Dutch. I mean just tons and tons of Dutch people there. As I reported to Miss Brittany Groot by email earlier, I can only assume the purpose was some kind of military reconnaissance, and I wish them well with that.
Came back to Dublin, there to meet my parents again. Went up Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway. Quite pretty up there. Almost escaped without a whiff of that Northern Ireland business until, just as we were about to leave, entering a royalist part of the same, came across an enormous wall mural featuring a masked gunman with the sign “welcome to the real Belfast.”
So that’s nice. I’ve decided to spend the following paragraph talking about Ireland’s complicated history, briefly, for anyone who’s interested. This is what we call a disclaimer, so you can skip the paragraph if you choose. I’m not an expert anyway, this is just what I’ve been able to put together.
It started in the late 12th century. Henry II was king of England and Ireland was five provinces ruled by a succession of Irish high kings…anyway, one of the provincial kings, Diarmuid of Leinster has an affair with another king’s wife and gets kicked out of his kingdom. As wasn’t that unusual he runs off to England and asks an English earl, Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, to come help him get back his kingdom. As a reward Diarmuid said Strongbow could marry his daughter. Strongbow wins back the province but suddenly Diarmuid dies leaving Strongbow, married to Diarmuid’s daughter, the king of Leinster. King Henry’s like ohhh no, that can’t happen. So he conquers Ireland.
No one cares very much for a long time. Finally in the 16th century, Ireland’s like screw this (even though as near as I can tell the English weren’t doing much) and rebels. They get crushed. This is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who really starts enforcing British rule in Ireland, much more so than previously. She’s a protestant, thanks to her dad King Henry VIII. When a couple kings down the road Catholic agitation started against the protestants, the Irish, being 90% Catholic, were quite excited. They figured they’d get some rights back. But when William and Mary were invited over by the English to rule instead of the Catholic King James II, Ireland got by far the worst of it, lost major battles, and the catholics were not allowed to own land for approximately two hundred years. William won his big battle in 1690 it wasn’t until the late 1800s that Daniel O’Connell succeeded in getting Catholics the right to own any kind of land. Then, just as he was preparing to get more concessions from the British, the potato famine hit and everybody had more important things to worry about. Then, after the famine, came Charles Stuart Parnell, the so-called uncrowned King of Ireland who came so close to getting Home Rule until it came out that he’d been having an affair and dear old Catholic Ireland DESTROYED him for it. He died shortly thereafter and they all felt bad about it, but it was a bit late one feels. Sometimes you feel like Ireland and England spent a lot of time arguing over which one of them would get to shoot Ireland in the foot.
It was Queen Elizabeth, incidentally, who began the program of “plantations,” sending over a lot of protestants to live in one place together. Dublin and the North were the two biggest protestant areas.
Enter the 20th century. Britain says, look dawgs, we need your help in this world I, but we PROMISE that if you help us we’ll let you have home rule after as a reward. This is where things get way complicated. Ireland goes ahead with it. A LOT of Irish troops die in World War I, which lasted 1914-1918. But in 1916, Patrick Pearse and a bunch of guys are like, you know, we don’t want to wait. This is called the Post Office Rebellion, or the Easter Rebellion. They seize the general Post Office on O’Connell street and declare an Irish republic. The crazy thing is, they know they have no chance, but there’s this old Irish idea of blood sacrifice…if they die, it will inspire other people to seize the country.
People remain really conflicted about this business. There was no good reason to suspect the English wouldn’t keep faith, except that they hated the British. The Post Office Rebellion was followed by violence which resulted in a treaty with the British…this gave them some things, but not, most people, felt, enough. So Ireland immediately launched into a 20 year Civil war which finally resulted in its partition into North (officially still part of Britain) and the Republic of Ireland. That violence of course continued until the mid-90s in the North and is certainly not entirely dead. As Yeats put it in his poem Easter 1916:
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night, but death
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead
So no one’s really sure whether the Easter 1916 guys should be considered heroes…,no one was really sure at the time, and less so today…and all of the figures of the early Republic are tainted in some way by their role in the violence which may well (or perhaps may not) have been entirely needless.
In the North today, there are six provinces. It’s 40 % Catholic and 45 % Protestant, which explains the violence. Two of the Provinces, Tyrone and Fermanagh, are by far majority Catholic, Londonderry (which Catholics call simply “Derry”, cause of the London thing) is majority Catholic with a strong minority Protestant, Antrim and Downe are Protestant and Armagh is pretty divided. Each province, however, has catholic and protestant districts. And Dublin, being at the time of British rule the locus of it in Ireland, has a very equivocal position indeed. It’s in the south, but it was quite British…yet it was also the site of the Easter Rebellion and so on.
And so we on, boats against the current, blah blah. I thought somebody might be interested. And if they weren’t, I hope they’ve scrolled down…
Well, well. A RATHER long one today. Sorry cats, but you know where the delete button is.
Anyway, you’ll probably hear from me ‘bout once more, maybe twice, and I look forward to hearing about the Dutch takeover from Spain.
Love to those who have been judged and found worthy,
Andrew
#15
I’ve been slowly paring down the list of people I send this email to, as they become too dignified for the sorts of adventures I’ve started reporting. This is presumably due to a loosening of standards on my part, but if you’re still getting these emails…I don’t know, evaluate your lives, I guess…
This one should be better than most though, as I’ve been travelling and therefore don’t have to do quite so much of the ol’ squeezing wine from raisins, if you see what I mean. This’ll be more like me squeezing wine out of those mushy grapes that are turning kind of brown, at the bottom of the bowl, that you only eat when you’re desperate for grapes.
(Sidenote, does anyone love grapes as much as I do? You really don’t see them around much.
Did I miss the news article on the potentially fatal effects of grapes? Is this because I really like Classical History? Is this because I really like Futurama?)
The plan was to fly from Dublin to Birmingham (where the cheap flight was to), take the train to a town in northeastern Wales, spend a couple days there, then to Stratford-upon-Avon, back to Birmingham for the night to fly back here in the morning.
The bus system in Birmingham is by far the best I have ever seen in my life, and I’m someone who hates bus systems (listen, I hate tourists and visitors, here’s an idea. Why don’t we have a public transport system where we won’t announce what the next stop is, you have to announce before you get there that you intend to stop at it, and the next stop will be some ways off. Yes! Wonderful!). I stayed in two hotels (one on the way there, one on the way back), neither in the city, and was able to get around without any difficulty. Every 10 minutes to anywhere in the city. The problem is that there’s absolutely nowhere to GO in Birmingham. There are, literally, no interesting monuments commemorating no interesting events in no interesting places. The art museum was okay. So I wasn’t too bothered by leaving in the morning for Wales. Took a train. Big fan of trains.
Incidentally, this didn’t stop me from accidentally getting off the Birmingham bus about a mile early (I habitually do, I’m a nervous bus-rider). The area I stayed in was a little weird, as they usually are when you pay as little as I can afford. So: I got off at the wrong Rastafarian T-shirt shop.
It was a nice night and I didn’t mind the walk. I’m just saying. I GOT OFF AT THE WRONG RASTAFARIAN T-SHIRT SHOP.
It did snow while I was in Wales, something for which I was actually not prepared. We did learn a valuable lesson however. When you’re wearing every piece of clothing you’ve brought, your bag becomes incredibly light. Food for thought. Food. For thought…
Actually, I had been warned on my first day there, and even though it took me walking about 12 miles that day, I did go to all the stuff I wanted to see there, as the weather was fair. It wasn’t even the walking that ‘bout did me in (though it did. Who knew that was hard? Umm…part of it was up a mountain?....) it was the uncertainty caused by the fact that THERE WERE NO SIGNS ANYWHERE AND I WAS WANDERING DOWN SELDOM USED COUNTRY ROADS BY MYSELF.
There was one sign, a tricky one. It directed me into trespassing on someone’s farm which, if you’re wondering, did have a large dog, although I, having had misgivings since having to unlatch the gate and tiptoe around several sheep to start, caught sight of it before it caught me and made my dignified escape over mounds of sheep dung.
In fact, the snow only became a problem the second night, since well…because this was kind of a spur of the moment trip and because places like Llangollen, Wales, do not have youth hostels, accommodation was kind of a catch as catch can proposition. I emailed the Llangollen tourism center and they told me while they didn’t have a hostel, they had the next best thing, a bunkhouse. It was not open the first night I was there, but the second night, the snowy night, it sure was, so I signed up. I didn’t know what a bunkhouse was.
I’m used to hostels. I like them. Hostels, as you know I’m sure, are like hotels except that multiple people who don’t know each other share a room. A bunkhouse, on the other hand, at least this bunkhouse, is apparently just a little building behind the hotel. You know, like a shed. With beds in it.
I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm.
I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm on a SUNDAY when, apparently, the buses don’t run to Llangollen, so no one new can show up.
I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm, by myself. With a copy of the Daily Star, with a big picture of Matt Mosley, F1 Prez, and his nazi-style orgy.
It wasn’t THAT bad. I had a bed, with a fluffy blanket. There was a shower too, although I didn’t use it as I felt taking off any article of clothing would result in frostbite and there are some places the mind just refuses to go.
On to Stratford.
The buses in Stratford are the opposite of the buses in Birmingham in every sense. Birmingham buses can get you anywhere at any time, as long as you accept the fact that there won’t be anywhere you’ll want to go. In Stratford, there are plenty of places you want to see, but the buses will never arrive to take you there. I had missed the first, to the hostel, by about three minutes, not surprising since I had no idea where the bus stop was, how to get there, or any clue of its timetables, and the next one was in an hour and a half.
This was around 2. So I arrived at my hostel at about 3:45 and proceeded to my room, which I was sharing with a shy Indian gentleman whose name was apparently “Money”. I dropped my things and went back outside, ready to get back to the town. No more than five minutes had elapsed.The next bus was in an hour and a half. I cursed everything that had ever existed.
I arrived back in Stratford at around 5:30, everything obviously closed for the day.
Well cool. I walked around, had a nice British dinner and an ale or two, and looked at my watch.
It was 7:35 or so. I walked to the bus station.. I took note of the time tables at the bus so I’d know when to be back. Matter of fact, I took a picture of it. It said “AFTER 4 PM BUSES COME EVERY HOUR AT :10 and :30”. Good, about thirty five minutes to kill. I went and had another drink, looked at my watch, and then had another drink. Things were getting a little fuzzy, but that was alright. I was going to be on my way back, in a minute. I came back to the stop, 8:10 sharp. It said, and I swear these times had suddenly appeared on the sign while I’d been gone:
After 4 pm, every hour at :10 and :30 until 7:30, then at 10:30.
I don’t care what you guys say, when I’ve had a few to drink, I’m HILARIOUS. I have a distinct memory of yelling aloud “I’m going to punch a leper in the face.”
Then I had a whiskey. Then I still had some time. So I got some ice cream. It was awesome.
I got back and Money and some snoring dude were sleeping. “Money my man,” I muttered to myself, curling up at last under a warm blanket , refuge from a trying day. “You have a cool name, but you could live up to it a little more.”
Also, in Stratford, I caught sight of a British television host making fun of Texas women. I wasn’t even mad. I’ve seen British women. I just hope it helps keep the tears inside…
The next day, thanks to Snoring Sturluson (I enjoyed that joke, bite me) I got up wicked early, which I thought was good since that meant I’d catch an early bus. I was wrong, of course. I had missed one at 7 and the next one was at 9:20, in an hour and a half. I walked out at 9:20 to find those only come on Saturdays, for some reason, and it was actually 9:50. This leper shambled by and I gave him an atomic wedgie.
(If you don’t know what that is, ask a high-schooler. Go ahead, do it).
Back, at last, to Birmingham. And I showered. And it was glorious. And I drank a cup of tea. I don’t like tea, but they had an automatic kettle in the room, and hey, free tea.
Free tea.
Parents got here a couple days ago, I’ve been showin’ em round the place. Nothing much to report, or if there is I can’t remember it. Last night, Joe and I went out to a friend’s apartment for a party; on the bus we were standing next to this guy who was really fretting about how late he was for some music gig. These college girls got on and proceeded to take ten minutes to get out the proper change. “Jesus,” he says, “this stuff always happens when you’re late.”
At the next bus stop, and I am NOT kidding, a blind man got on, and then someone on crutches.
I was this close to telling the dude to get off the bus, I wanted to make it to my destination alive.
Tomorrow it’s for Paris, then Barcelona and Madrid. When I get back, it’ll be dissertation-working time. Can a young, college-educated lad (who will be 23 upon return. Also, not eating bread, it being Passover) write a 40 page dissertation in a month? Can he appease the gods of English literature with his offering and make it out of here alive?
I s’pect he better.
This dispatch (unofficially) sponsored by my favorite European delicacy-name Movenpick ice cream. Movenpick, it’s whistle-blowing good (and potentially hazardous).
(That’s not their slogan.),
Money
#14
I write to you from a much more peaceful place (some things excluded, of course. Hey, wicked fun being a Mavs fan lately huh? I tell you, it adds a special savor to watching a season go completely down the drain, the third choke job in a row, when the games don’t start until midnight…a fourth quarter lead frittered away is just that much more fritter-tastic at 2:30 am, let me tell you.).
I won’t tell you exactly how I got here, but I WILL say it involved Trinity College Library moving up into the previously uncrackable lists of “things which have earned my everlasting enmity, human embodiments of pure vile evil, towards which all my thoughts be bloody or nothing worth”, turning a top 2 into a top 3. The others, of course, Journalism and Journalists, Dell Technical Support (if you knew me in college, you knew this).
Welcome Trinity College Library. Get comfortable. On my chairs made of spikes.
(Also, as I just spent a week having to come back, every day, between 4 and 9 to sign my girlfriend in as a guest, just so if she actually raped and killed me, after I let her in through the THREE DOORS REQUIRING MY KEYCARD, EACH ONE MORE SPECIFICALLY TAILORED TO MY OWN CARD THAN THE LAST, I suppose they’d know who she was. The sign-in book only being left out between 4 (by which time you’ve certainly left for the day) and 9, (by which time you haven’t yet come back), necessitating a special trip, Trinity College Security had better watch itself…in Ireland we spend a lot of time worrying about things that aren’t dangerous).
Basically, Trinity is on a trimester program, so the last two weeks were what amounts to our spring break. Most of my good friends here were out of town, so I thought I’d take advantage by locking myself in my room with books (10 at a time) and getting enormous amounts of work done. This was risky business because I’m pretty sure I’ve never spent that long without human contact before. If anyone remembers four days weekends at Brown, specifically freshman year, they will recall I get pretty weird after a few days…
Sometimes people would call for me. I’d tell them I was afraid of the light. If they persisted, I would explain I had no face. But in the end I emerged with half of the semester’s work done, and had only eaten a LITTLE bit of my skin.
Yesterday, as custom has it, I shaved off my gross beard and went immediately to the pub. We are alive again…Glad to see you all again. Natural light, how I missed you so…
I’m going to tell this next story in two different ways. It is the story of the end of my career as a college basketball (B-Team) player. Both stories will be true, but the facts will be arranged differently.
Hollywood Version:
Dear friends, your hero began the career as a benchwarmer. He never got into a game. Slowly, however, taking practice and what few opportunities he was given to worm his way into the coach’s confidence, excelling in the short stint, uncomplainingly, he began to work his way up. He stopped eating muffins on the bench. His minutes per game grew. In the last game of the season, yours truly was named a starter.
Version with slightly MORE facts in it:
After starting out 4/6 on the season, I missed all three of my shots in the next game, the second to last. I did start, but I don’t think I actually played much more than I had been. Maybe a little bit, but only for about two minutes in the second half. I missed the only shot I took, dropping me to 4/10 on the season, not having scored a point in about 3 games. My general guess is that the coach wanted to see if I was going to be any good that day before deciding what to do with me. After I made the decision easy for him—somewhere between the bench and the woodchipper--justice took its course. Plus, our previous loss had negated any chances of us making the tournament, so why not let the kid get some minutes, huh?
When you make the movie about it, please cast Morgan Freeman as me, thanks.
I REGRET NOTHING WHICH HAS TAUGHT ME ANY LESSONS.
I tell you folks, being a political columnist is such a strange, interesting experience. I write for a small website which doesn’t pay me, and I presume about 12 people read my columns. And yet I already feel world-weary, bitter, like I’m spitting in the wind. I want to stress that I could not possibly be a less important pundit. But I’m pretty sure six of those twelve people are assholes. You can tell because, it being an internet column there’s a place to leave comments. My new column’s been up about four minutes, and already someone has generously offered me their pity, for my massive delusion.
I’ll keep it in a little jar by my bed.
The ironic thing is that my latest column is about how I really think party strife has gone far too far, that there are crazies and reasonable people in both, and that I really hope the reasonable people can stand up, be noticed, and work together. I even asked that, as I have this problem where I can’t TELL if a republican has responded to me if they’re not being an overt asshole, for people who disagreed with me on a reasonable level and didn’t just want to call me a socialist, pansy, or homosexual, to please note in their reasonable reply that they’re a republican, so I feel better. If you’re wondering, that’s not the delusion our friend was offering me pity for.
Actually as I’m typing this I got the greatest comment I have ever gotten. Again, the column literally requested anyone who had something reasonable and not pejorative, for example, not calling me a socialist, to say about my column to post it, with the additional tag “I’m a republican!” So far no dice, but I DID get:
“i'm a liberal... but i drink red stripe. Horray Socialism!”
-Lou.
Thanks Lou!
Also, a libertarian who’s voting for McCain. Whatever.
Yes, life is good my friends. I have 40 pages of writing standing between me and finishing my masters program, things are going great with Maggie and myself, and spring is starting to show up. Ireland, now, more often amuses me than infuriates me (like last week where we lost our basketball practice because the gym accidentally double-booked us with the trampoline team. Arbitration was decided in favor of the trampoline team because they had a REALLY IMPORTANT TRAMPOLINE COMPETITION and we only had two back to back games.) I’m off to Wales on Friday, then to Stratford-upon-Avon (long a source of contention between Mark and myself. He thinks I don’t give general humanity enough credit, which is probably true enough in most cases. I would like to say that my opinion is an unweighted one, IN THAT I don’t see how it actually is to anyone’s CREDIT to know that Shakespeare was born there, so I don’t think I should be accused of being snobbish for THIS reason anyhow. Not a fantastically useful piece of information. I don’t know where, for example, Proust was born. Or Allen Ginsburg. Or Jerry Bruckheimer. Or, in all probability, you.) Next Friday, Dr. and Mrs. Tobolowsky are coming to town where I will happily let them feed me delicious food, and we’ll be off to France and Spain as well.
They keep asking me about restaurants, as if I go to any. Sometimes I lie to make them feel better. It’s a sad, sad thing, having to pretend you’re cultured for your parents (“Oh yes! No, I had a broiled chicken last night. With lots of those…what do you call them?...vegetables?”). Here’s hoping I’ll have better information on the subject two weeks from now…
Plus, according to facebook, I’m still seventh most kissable among my group of friends. Eat THAT, 8 through infinity…
By the way, thanks very much to all of you who suggested songs for me to download. I downloaded some and quite liked them, even though some of you APPEAR to have thought my gift certificate was somewhere in the range of 1000 dollars. But very gracious as always, and my heartfelt thank yous all around.
In the final news of the day, it BEING April Fools Day, and I swear I’m not kidding, all the videos featured on Youtube right now will RickRoll you. Remarkable. I love this world. In the words of the Milk Hotel guys, “How strange it is to be anything at all.”
Indeed friends. Indeed.
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