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.
#13
Actually, a lot has happened since you heard from me last my most cherished friends and acquaintances I sort of want to impress. For example, I took a week long intensive program in French. For those of you who are aware of the hilariously tragic ineptness of the portion of my life subtitled “Andrew’s adventures in learning foreign languages,” (for example when, during a french oral exam in college, while trying to describe things I didn’t like to do (je deteste), I repeatedly told my interviewer that I hated her (je te deteste) you may already be aware, too, that mild forms of hilarity ensued.
Probably the most amusing part to me was that each day had a theme around which the studying and activity occurred. On the third day the theme was “the myth of the weak female.” The only other guy in the class dropped out the day before, so that was a fun day for me.
Probably the best part was, at the end of the day, organizing a feminist rally in French ,which came naturally. A poor mythical French woman had been fired for getting pregnant and we were rallying on her behalf. I came up with a number of slogans, of course, including “Fire my husband, I’m working for two,” “My cravings? Pickles, Ice Creams, a Job,” “My husband is an astronaut” (a long story. Okay, not that long a story. An activity earlier in the day involved a faux family counseling session where it turned out the difficult was that she had to take care of the baby all the time, as he was an astronaut. Later this turned out to be only a prelude, as the REAL tragedy was his dalliance, on the Russian space station, with a woman named Svenka. Our hearts were broken because of Svenka. Why couldn’t he take the baby into space with him sometimes?) and “don’t mess with me I’m large and angry.” Probably my favorite though was a little drawing I did of a woman sitting at a computer typing, and then a baby in swaddling clothes, sitting in a tiny chair next to her, also at a tiny computer, and typing. First, it’s adorable, second it’s practical.
The first day the theme was love. My French love letter was ultimately voted best in the class. Why, you ask? Because I didn’t understand the direction (inasmuch as they were in French) and broke pretty much every guideline. So well done there…
(The letter was from superman to Lois Lane. Honey, I have to tell you, I have an entirely secret identity. But I don’t want you to worry. You can trust me, even though I’ve lied to you about every single thing about me and have this double life which involves me leaving at all hours of the day and night to save the lives of beautiful women who are, afterwards, very grateful. No big, right? Hey, has anyone ever tried this as an adultery defense?)
The other thing that happened was a new chapter in my ongoing feud with the library. I wanted to check out a book over my lunch break but again, I already had 10 out. Because God knows, WRITING A DISSERTATION AND AN ESSAY ON SAMUEL BECKETT SHOULD IN NO WAY TAKE MORE THAN 10 BOOKS, RIGHT? I went back to French class to bitch about this (in English, so upset was I), only to hear that undergraduates are apparently allowed to check out FOUR books at a time. I was horrified. “How can that possibly be?” I said. One of them asked me what the big deal was. She could, she said, only read one book at a time anyway.
Sometimes real academics like to, you know, reference things from time to time. You know, to do work that’s actually relevant and worth doing and professional. But hey, what do I know?
During an afternoon break I walked back to my dorm, took a checked out book from there, returned it, and checked out the one I’d been looking at AFTER class, because I’m never going to let those particular illegitimus me carborundum. But it was a darn close run thing.
The list of things I hate now looks like this:
1. Racism, Intolerance, injustice, baseball cards
2. Journalism, Journalists
3. A world with no puppies
4. Trinity College Library
The French thing was two weeks ago; this week Maggie came to visit me over her spring break. We had an excellent time. St. Paddy’s day came and went and we saw a bizarre parade full of hungover highschool students from the United States and drank beer out of Gatorade bottles like the extremely classy folks we are. Later, Maggie took me out, for my pretend birthday (more on that later) to (my choice) what was supposed to be a pretty good Mexican restaurant, something I’d never dared attempt on my own. It started with the margarita, which promised a smooth, “creamy” taste, “unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.” Indeed it was like nothing I’d ever tasted, as I consider most Margaritas possible to be drunk with at least a modicum of pleasure. I might have gotten the hint, as “creamy” is not an adjective I would seek out in margarita experimentation, but I didn’t. Then the salsa, which was probably ragu, was poured on top of a bowl of burnt chips, and cost five euros. Then nachos with beef, involving chips, ground beef, something green resembling guacamole, and a couple fragments of melted cheese. Thus endeth experiment Mexicaine, without pleasure.
(It was MexiCAN’T! HA!)
At least the company was good. I mean my company, for Maggie. I’m a charming rake, if you hadn’t noticed.
Sometimes I have to call people’s attention to it.
Another basketball game, performed about up to my usual standards. Three or so minutes played, 1-2 (I know, that drops my average from .750 to the sign of the beast, but I guess that’s more appropriate). The guys tell me my one make was a kind of cool looking hook shot. I don’t remember, myself, all I can recall is getting the ball while pretty much unguarded under the basket and thinking “if I don’t put this in, they’ll never let me on the court again.”
Anyway, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure my minutes and points per game is pretty much identical with J.J. Redick’s, on the Orlando Magic, and that my shooting percentages are probably even better, and he was a former college player of the year, if memory serves. So I’ll be waiting for that call from the Magic. You know, NBADL. That’s all I’m saying.
(Seriously though, lest this sound bitter, I’m having a great time on the team. Sometimes people get upset while playin the game, but in general we act like a B team. Hell, we look like a B team. I play all the time in practice. It’s all good.)
What else? Nothin’ man. This is getting really long and I got some damn work to do. So final word:
I may regret this entirely but I’ve decided it might be fun to make this a little interactive. Since during my actual birthday, in April, I’ll be in Spain or some place, Maggie brought me several lovely birthday presents. One of these was an itunes gift card. Now, I love new music, but if I don’t know that it exists, I can hardly know that I want it, can I? Thus an open invitation to anyone out there who is reasonably familiar with my music tastes and knows some kickin’ tunes: feel free to suggest songs for me to download avec le fiche d’itunes. I may take you up on it. And if I don’t like it, I’ll come to your house with a bunch of spray paint cans and spray them into the air, emitting tons and tons of fluorocarbons into the atmosphere weakening the ozone layer directly above where you live and melting your house. It’s kind of a high stakes game, but that’s what makes it so exciting.
#12
I was sitting in my room late one night wishing I had some food in the apartment, wishing especially that I had something to put in the hamburger buns that I did have when suddenly I realized something. Hamburger buns can be food by themselves! They're made of bread! There's nothing weird about eating a piece of bread!
Another paradigm shattered.
I have, I don't mind telling you, made it into another basketball game for three minutes, and this when were at full strength. I made the only shot I took and grabbed some rebounds. On the season, then, I am 3-4, and 1-1 from three-point range. This presumably makes me, percentage wise, the greatest shooter in the history of the Irish basketball league. Also, I am probably its leading points-per-minute scorer, at about 1 for 1, or 48 points per 48 minutes. As much as I want to get into the games, some part of me almost hopes nobody notices my performance so I don't get the chance to significantly worsen my stats as almost certainly I would do. A 75% shooting percentage, 100% from three, is hard to maintain.
At least for now I am John Hollinger's favorite player.
In somewhat better news, I submitted a paper to the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, which has been accepted. So I'll be in Boston in November to deliver it, if anyone's around. This is apparently the largest collection of biblical scholars in the world. Just imagine if terrorists targeted the convention center. How far back would that set the world of Biblical scholarship huh? Nightmarish, right? HOW WILL YOU LEARN ABOUT IRON AGE JERUSALEM?!?! WHO'S GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE TABLETS OF UGARIT?!?!
Anyway, hopefully I'll have bodyguards, or something.
Friend Melissa came to visit this week, on her way to Deutschland. She was a fantastic guest as I rarely saw her. "I'm going to class," I would say in the mornings, "come meet me at the front gate at 8pm." And so we went on, boats against the current.
On the occasions that she allowed me to accompany her on her city rounds, she would often ask me quite reasonable questions about the history of places or the significance of certain monuments along the way. I would usually respond by saying "yes, that would be an interesting thing to know, wouldn't it?" See, the Irish for some reason don't want to go to the bother of explaining what, for example, a particular statue might commemorate, or whom a certain tomb belongs to, etc. Too much bother. My favorite is in Christchurch where what seems to be a most fascinating inscription (all I can make out is "this scrupulously copied from the ancient writing by…." And then a long wall inscription entirely covered by the gift shop stall. Because really, who cares, right?
Oh, also, I've apparently become a political columnist, for those of you who just can't get enough. Here's the latest effort: http://www.411mania.com/politics/columns/70240/Hillary%5C%5Cs-Political-Side-Comes-Out.htm . Please note that the only comment to date is from my girlfriend who has very helpfully pointed out an error in fact that I made in regards to a rather infamous television commercial.
She is quite right. Thanks, sweetheart.
I'll also have you know that in a previous column I referred to the U.S. Presidency as "the most exclusive club in America outside of the Pen-15 club."
Because since they don't pay me, they can't really fire me. Woo.
Did I do anything else? I'm sure I did, I visited some other places around the Dublin area, etc. I can't really think of times that I momentously embarrassed myself for which I apologize since, as I well know, many of you read this just to see me get knocked down several pegs. Oh, I was at a production of Macbeth tonight where, as everyone milled around, I asked one of the ushers if he thought there'd be enough time for me to make water. He replied, in an extremely concerned voice "I'm sorry sir, but they're just about to close the doors! Do you think you can hold it for two hours?"
I might just make it sir, thank you.
Oh a last note, why not. The head of the democratic club here at Trinity is a girl by the name of...oh we'll say...
Nick McNiece. I know, I know, I thought she was a dude too. Funny story, actually (aren't they all), I came back one night from a bout of deep…metaphysical discourse…with my classmates to find an email from Ms. Beard regarding Muslim prayer rooms, of which there are two, and how they need to be refurbished. As I was a tad bit under the influence of metaphysical discourse, I initiated an email exchange which went something like this
Me (that night): MUSLIM PRAYER ROOMS?!?! (@P(#@(*&$#@*()#@!!!! WE ALREADY HAVE TWO OF THOSE! WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR JEWS, HUH? NOTHING! THAT'S RIGHT, NOTHING! NO SPACE, NO BOOKS, NOTHING! (*)#$*()$#*(_@#$*) DEMOCRACY.
Her (the next morning): Hmmm. I take your point. My question is, I know Muslims need a space so they have SOMEWHERE TO PRAY FIVE TIMES A DAY, but what do Jews need?
Me (same morning): Heh.. Heh…yeah…I mean…yeah….touche salesman…touché…Got you! Zing!!!....
Her (very kindly. I know that's not a chronological note. Shut it.): No, really, if you're interested, what would Jewish people on campus need? I'll be honest, all I know about Judaism is from a not-too-religious boyfriend in highschool.
Me (too myself. Probably midafternoon, since you're so adamant about it): Hey, Nick Beard is gay, how liberal of Ireland.
Anyway, the point of this story, besides my making an ass of myself, is that I later saw a picture of her on a flyer and found out that she was not, after all, a dude, and so was able to make this incredibly perfect sentence in my head: "I thought he was gay, but then it turned out she wasn't."
Man. THAT is a good sentence. That's the kind of sentence you could take home to meet the rents. Unless they're republican.
I'm picturing several sentences and my parents shaking hands with each other. I'm trying to figure out who would handle it better.
The dog is furiously trying to lick both of them.
Allez la vie!
From Ireland with love.
Monday, February 18, 2008
#11
Sometimes the 24 hour European clock makes for more interesting conversations than you'd expect. For example, I was in the supermarket the other day when one clerk informed another that it was 1944. Oh no! I thought. The Blitz!
Luckily the next two years passed in minutes, and I celebrated VE day with the purchase of more Big Al's Lemon-Chili chicken.
Every time I think my Wednesday research seminar doesn't secretly exist because some people don't know how to use technology, I run across something, as in our last class, like so: when the woman running the seminar asked us to type in a URL. "It's very long," she said. "I'll give you a few minutes."
Uh-huh.
It's been an interesting few weeks, that's why you haven't heard from me in so long my friends. A busy few weeks. Friend Jeanette visited a week or so ago, and that was nice. Once you start buying groceries in a place, I think you stop thinking about it as an exciting location. Wandering around with a map in my hand again, made it all sort of feel new. Which was fortunate, because it gave Ireland another chance to eat at my soul. Sightseeing in Dublin, or indeed Malahide or Dun Laoghaire, places we also went: Does it matter if you get an early start on the day? Of course not, nothing opens till ten. Will it matter if you're hungry? No, you can't eat anywhere till 12:30. And can you have an event-filled day? Sure, if you can pack it in between 10 and the closing time of 3.
And that's during the week. When we went to Dun Laoghaire, to the Joyce museum out there, there was a sign that literally said: closed. Next opening, next Sunday, 9:30-10:30.
We all feel pretty much the same way over here, I think. We're really enjoying ourselves, we're all glad we did it, but there is something about this damn country. Oh well. All you can do is laugh. And sob, sob unstintingly.
The other day I woke feeling rather ill, which was at least marginally self-inflicted. But being the studious gentleman that I am (impelled a little, I confess, by a text message with the charming words 'where are you, you (*#@$*()#in lightweight) I dragged myself to my 10 am class.
While there are many things I feel one can study while slightly under the weather, I feel Joyce's Ulysses is, in those conditions, more like attending a STOMP concert. Two hours and I'd been reduced to a quivering pile of jelly, requiring my friends to drag me back to my room in tea spoons.
Unfortunately, awaiting me there was an email from my Hebrew professor. I'd just been bumped up from basic to intermediate Hebrew and was supposed to attend my first class that day. Unfortunately, said class had been shifted from 4 pm, to 1. It was now 12:20. I taped myself together and dragged myself down the road again.
Now I know what you're thinking. While I was walking, was I beset by a sudden FREAK HAILSTORM? Why YES, I WAS. When I got to where the class was supposed to be, was it there? WHY NO IT WAS NOT. How did I find out? BECAUSE UPON SITTING DOWN I WAS HANDED AN ESSAY TEST ON A SUBJECT RELATING TO EUROPEAN HISTORY BECAUSE GOD KNOWS IT'S IN NO WAY UNREASONABLE TO EXPECT THAT IN A CLASS OF SEVEN PEOPLE NO ONE WOULD NOTICE THAT HEY, THIS KID WHO SHOWED UP TO TAKE THE ESSAY TEST, I'VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE.
Did I find the Hebrew class. No I did not. Did I give up and go home to take my much needed nap. Yes, I did. Was the sun shining, then, in the immortal words of Paul Simon, like a red, rubber ball. It was. Did I punt a squirrel over the life sciences building in murderous rage. Of course.
That night I had one of my best basketball practices ever, incidentally. But I'm not sure it's worth the risk. Besides, I don't think it was quite impressive enough. I did get into the last two minutes of a game recently as every other person on the team got injured and fouled out, but I'm not sure that counts as a valuable contribution. Also, as a sop to my wounded pride, the coach told me he was all about to put me in, in the third quarter, because we had a huge lead, but then we frittered it away so he could no longer take that risk. Oh well. At least it's only because he thought I'd be a risk to our winning the game.
I did show my hustle in helping to drag a wounded teammate off the field. My celerity was remarked upon, post-game. Happy to be a'service, guv'nor.
I watched the superbowl in the same bizarre dance club in which I'd watched the playoff games. They'd turned the dance floor into a theater, which was occupied by my group of five or so, a party of confused Nigerians who'd come to watch the African Cup soccer champions, and some kind of sports team behind us that kept getting into huddles and celebrating everything in general and nothing specific. I believe they were rooting for football to happen. And it did.
Nevertheless, we all went absolutely nuts when David Tyree caught that ball from Manning….that was literally the most amazing football play I have ever seen live. It was 4 am and we'd been drinking since 9 (hey, we had to save our seats) but wow. With less than 2 minutes left, to rip yourself away from the Pats d-line, to have that kind of catch made…wow.
I had basketball practice on valentine's day. I can't help but comment, often, on how clear it is that we're the B-team. It's not that the A-team is so very good at basketball, but you can pretty much tell the difference by looking at our two squads. Just as a note on this phenomenon, let me say that the Volleyball team, which practices at the same time we do on the court next to us, was decimated by the holiday. The B Basketball team has rarely had such a good turn out. Well done, fellas. Well done.
On that note, Maggie and I are now back together. Or, to put it another way, we have put our…lack of differences…ahead of us… My personal life is my personal life, but I felt that she deserved a shoutout. and here it is!
ßthat's your shoutout! Enjoy it.
(She didn't ask, I'm just like that).
This is getting long. What else? I have the sneaking suspicion G-mail doesn't like Jews, for one. You know how they have ads on the side of g-mail specifically relating to the stuff you're writing about? Well I presented a paper on ancient Judaism at a symposium the other day and, while sending an email about it, among the ads about learning Hebrew and traveling to Israel was one for "Dublin Colon Cleansing."
I find that unnecessary.
(Both because it's rude and...really? Colon Cleansing? This is a market?)
All continues well with me. Little bit of a cold, no big deal. Writing about Joyce, no big deal. Concentrated Zombie invasion, worry about tomorrow. Which puts me rather in mind of Ross' hilarious one-act play on zombie apocalypse, now that I'm reminiscing. Ah, Zombie apocalypse.
With love to them deserving of love, and hate to those before us, I remain
6 feet tall and about 150,
Andrew
Friday, February 1, 2008
#10
There is a…I don’t know how to describe it exactly…our courtyard is paved with flat rectangular paving stones of appreciable size, and the thing about them is some of them no longer fit well in their original casings (presumably because Ireland, in dampness, is superior to some parts of the Pacific Ocean). And so one side of them ,generally, is slanted down which is where the daily rainfall collects (as all of us are equal children of God’s gravity, but some of us more than others). And the thing is, see, as you’re walking along, you’re not going to step in the wet pool, so you step on the other side, but that’s a bad idea because as everyone knows, if you step on the raised side of a vertical plane, what happens? Yes, it forms at that point what I like to refer to as a “water catapult,” dousing your leg from the knee down (drowning hapless leprechauns) and then you have the enviable task of walking to class, or around campus, with a wet leg, a wet shoe, and a poor dead leprechaun on your conscience.
I hope, ten dispatches in that we can be honest with each other. I’ve described already the laundry situation—that, in short, if ever I want to do it, I have to carry my laundry for about 15 minutes to the front of college, pay 3 euros (about five bucks) per wash and a euro per dry, carry it 15 minutes back (what, you thought it’d get shorter? My, we are parenthetical today….) and then hang it up around the tiny room anyway because actually that dryer is just a leprechaun with a hair dryer, and also, your pants leg is wet anyhow. What I haven’t described, I suppose, is the effect this has on my daily life. Basically, when I can put off laundry no longer, I pull out a suitcase, and then I pull out my large heap of dirty clothes. Then I look from one to the other, say no f—in way. And then-and here’s where it gets hairy-- I start deciding which things actually aren’t that dirty after all and put them back in my closet. Sweaters, overshirts, things that probably didn’t actually touch my skin, lacy underwear…that kind of thing.
I know, gross. And some shirts just get cut out of the rotation altogether. I can hear my mother saying “you should have brought them home over winter break!!!” Chillax, ma.
I’VE BECOME MORE BEAST THAN MAN.
And just as well, because I am once again living in a cave. That’s right, another light has burned out. Perhaps burned out is too strong a word; what I mean really is flicker uncontrollably. This is twice the problem actually because it’s the main light, and uses the same switch as the one that controls the only other light in the room. So we choose between catalytic, twitchy fit, and darkness. Am I writing this dispatch and doing all my reading by table lamp? I am, thank you for your concern. Will this ever be fixed? Answer hazy, ask again later.
I tell you guys. Prices are so high here, you’d think there’d be a lot of cash to go around, and you’d think some of that cash might go to fixing some stuff that’s broken. There’s a leak in the walkway between my building in the rest of campus. Been there for weeks. Do they fix it? Nah. They just add more buckets…there are about five now…
ITS BECOME MORE BUCKET…DEN… THAN HALLWAY…..
(I heart parallelism).
News in brief: Recent basketball games: 1) showed up to, did not play. We lost (wonder why, huh?). 2) Did not show up, we lost by same amount (my cheering apparently has no discernible effect? Sad). Superbowl coming up, no comment (Go giants. Gross). Adipose tissue, still as was when left. What are my roommates listening to? Me playing the Killers’ read my mind constantly, loudly, poorly on guitar. Etc.
I learned yesterday the reason that the library is a terrific eyesore. Seems they were going for a hanging gardens of Babylon thing (no, really, this time) only the architect forgot to calculate for the weight of the soil. So after everything sprung leaks they had the place de-potted, so to speak, which is why it now looks like three giant, empty flowerpots stacked on top of each other.
I’ve gone out a few nights in a row this last week, so I’ve had a hard time leaving enough money to, you know, eat food. This has caused some borderline dangerous activity on my part. Last night I had “Big Al’s Chili-Lime Chicken Mini-Fillets” for dinner. I bought them half price, for 1,50 euros at a grocery store. For the last week I’ve been eating mostly a packet of seasoned chicken I bought, opened, put in the fridge, and occasionally put on bread, with cheese, grill, eat. Problem is I have no cellophane or anything so even though its been in the fridge, it has been opened. Other items on my food list recently include microwaveable spring rolls, zap ‘em till they’re soggy. I’m still alive, but for how long?
Brief update: Sunday night, pouring out of a bar like a Guinness myself, I eyed, finally and for the first time, the “restaurant” across the street whose halogen name blazed only “Hot Food.” I had heretofore always assumed this was a warning sign, as in really? That’s the best you can do? I think most places have that as the starter set. But that night…
That night, for less than 4 euros (you can barely get a coke for less than four euros) I took home some bizarre hamburger crossover, whom they may have had to chop the legs off briefly before serving. Owing to the light situation, I consumed it in darkness, and have no recollection at all of what it may have looked like. That only made it more delicious.
Seriously, I’m not sure I’m going to keep living.
In other news, a truly terrible thing happened to me this morning. I went to buy shampoo, having run out the day before, but accidentally pick up conditioner. Just conditioner. I then went to take a shower, and I had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON. It wouldn’t go into my hair! And then it wouldn’t come out of my hair! I didn’t know what had happened, or what to do about it!
It pretty much ruined my day.
Have I done anything in these past weeks? Not really, I suppose. Papers, I blame papers, an unfortunate occupational hazard of this brave line of work. I hereby promise to get out a little bit more, and ignore, more forcefully, the promptings of my inner conscience. For you, my friends, for you. Achievements? I don’t know, but beGod, I’ve kept a pint or two company all the way to the bottom of the glass.
Love,
A
I hope, ten dispatches in that we can be honest with each other. I’ve described already the laundry situation—that, in short, if ever I want to do it, I have to carry my laundry for about 15 minutes to the front of college, pay 3 euros (about five bucks) per wash and a euro per dry, carry it 15 minutes back (what, you thought it’d get shorter? My, we are parenthetical today….) and then hang it up around the tiny room anyway because actually that dryer is just a leprechaun with a hair dryer, and also, your pants leg is wet anyhow. What I haven’t described, I suppose, is the effect this has on my daily life. Basically, when I can put off laundry no longer, I pull out a suitcase, and then I pull out my large heap of dirty clothes. Then I look from one to the other, say no f—in way. And then-and here’s where it gets hairy-- I start deciding which things actually aren’t that dirty after all and put them back in my closet. Sweaters, overshirts, things that probably didn’t actually touch my skin, lacy underwear…that kind of thing.
I know, gross. And some shirts just get cut out of the rotation altogether. I can hear my mother saying “you should have brought them home over winter break!!!” Chillax, ma.
I’VE BECOME MORE BEAST THAN MAN.
And just as well, because I am once again living in a cave. That’s right, another light has burned out. Perhaps burned out is too strong a word; what I mean really is flicker uncontrollably. This is twice the problem actually because it’s the main light, and uses the same switch as the one that controls the only other light in the room. So we choose between catalytic, twitchy fit, and darkness. Am I writing this dispatch and doing all my reading by table lamp? I am, thank you for your concern. Will this ever be fixed? Answer hazy, ask again later.
I tell you guys. Prices are so high here, you’d think there’d be a lot of cash to go around, and you’d think some of that cash might go to fixing some stuff that’s broken. There’s a leak in the walkway between my building in the rest of campus. Been there for weeks. Do they fix it? Nah. They just add more buckets…there are about five now…
ITS BECOME MORE BUCKET…DEN… THAN HALLWAY…..
(I heart parallelism).
News in brief: Recent basketball games: 1) showed up to, did not play. We lost (wonder why, huh?). 2) Did not show up, we lost by same amount (my cheering apparently has no discernible effect? Sad). Superbowl coming up, no comment (Go giants. Gross). Adipose tissue, still as was when left. What are my roommates listening to? Me playing the Killers’ read my mind constantly, loudly, poorly on guitar. Etc.
I learned yesterday the reason that the library is a terrific eyesore. Seems they were going for a hanging gardens of Babylon thing (no, really, this time) only the architect forgot to calculate for the weight of the soil. So after everything sprung leaks they had the place de-potted, so to speak, which is why it now looks like three giant, empty flowerpots stacked on top of each other.
I’ve gone out a few nights in a row this last week, so I’ve had a hard time leaving enough money to, you know, eat food. This has caused some borderline dangerous activity on my part. Last night I had “Big Al’s Chili-Lime Chicken Mini-Fillets” for dinner. I bought them half price, for 1,50 euros at a grocery store. For the last week I’ve been eating mostly a packet of seasoned chicken I bought, opened, put in the fridge, and occasionally put on bread, with cheese, grill, eat. Problem is I have no cellophane or anything so even though its been in the fridge, it has been opened. Other items on my food list recently include microwaveable spring rolls, zap ‘em till they’re soggy. I’m still alive, but for how long?
Brief update: Sunday night, pouring out of a bar like a Guinness myself, I eyed, finally and for the first time, the “restaurant” across the street whose halogen name blazed only “Hot Food.” I had heretofore always assumed this was a warning sign, as in really? That’s the best you can do? I think most places have that as the starter set. But that night…
That night, for less than 4 euros (you can barely get a coke for less than four euros) I took home some bizarre hamburger crossover, whom they may have had to chop the legs off briefly before serving. Owing to the light situation, I consumed it in darkness, and have no recollection at all of what it may have looked like. That only made it more delicious.
Seriously, I’m not sure I’m going to keep living.
In other news, a truly terrible thing happened to me this morning. I went to buy shampoo, having run out the day before, but accidentally pick up conditioner. Just conditioner. I then went to take a shower, and I had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON. It wouldn’t go into my hair! And then it wouldn’t come out of my hair! I didn’t know what had happened, or what to do about it!
It pretty much ruined my day.
Have I done anything in these past weeks? Not really, I suppose. Papers, I blame papers, an unfortunate occupational hazard of this brave line of work. I hereby promise to get out a little bit more, and ignore, more forcefully, the promptings of my inner conscience. For you, my friends, for you. Achievements? I don’t know, but beGod, I’ve kept a pint or two company all the way to the bottom of the glass.
Love,
A
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
#9
Day 116: An exciting new discovery. I can actually turn on my heater myself. It’s not controlled by the administration. I never bothered to check. I’m an idiot.
The exciting thing about realizing you were an idiot, for example the slow realization that you were an idiot when you were younger, is it’s an annual ritual, repeated every year on the grounds of the previous. You’ve all known me when I was an idiot. Friends yet unmet, same biz. Sorry.
On to Irish things.
They’ve finally installed vending machines in our part of campus…or, I should say, finally filled the ones that have been here longer than I have. This would be much more exciting, since it’s a five minute walk to any kind of snack and since (tiny fridge) I can’t keep much food in the apartment, except for the fact that…haha…you can’t actually get food out of it. See It just has this little design flaw where it responds neither to cash nor coins. And if you’re wondering whether there’s some kind of card, like a trinity key card or something, with which you can get at the delicious things inside, well no, actually, there isn’t. The full vending machine is purely aesthetic. And very pretty she is.
And when they fix it, the first candy bars that will be coming out of that thing will be a month old. Yum.
I had another of what I consider a purely Irish experience recently. I ended up at a pub for dinner which, while an uncommon experience for me, is actually pretty normal. There are certainly far more pubs than restaurants in the city. I don’t go to pubs to eat because I don’t go to restaurants either. But sometimes it happens.
Anyway, we were finishing up when suddenly this older couple, with their grandson, comes in to the bar. The old folks sit down the kid, about three I’d guess, immediately starts running around like a mad person. Why aren’t they paying attention to the child? WELL, it’s because grandpa is, as we say in Victorian England, about seven sheets to the wind. And grandma’s not happy. So they’re a bit preoccupied. The precious little child comes over to our table and offers me some plastic coin he got at a toy store or somewhere. No thank you, I say politely, you should keep that. So then he drops it in my drink.
This is actually a capital offense in Ireland, punishable by being kicked to death by a leprechaun (tiny feet of fury)but that’s beside the point, he’s a minor. Grandma notices, finally and apologizes I say no big deal, no big deal, whatever. He offers one to my friend. She says no. He throws the coin in her face. Grandma, nerves on the raw evidently, promises he’ll be brutally beaten by grandpa just as soon as he gets back. But grandpa doesn’t really care, because he’s smashed. So whatever, we quickly pay our bill and leave, except that I notice my hat isn’t in my pocket. So I search around the table for it, it’s not there. I remember we were sitting somewhere else earlier, before a better table opened up, go back, it’s not there. The girl sitting at that table now asks me, was it a black hat? Why yes, I say. That kid has it, she says.
Why so he does. And that’s how I ended up wrestling a three year old for a hat in the middle of a bar.
I did win in case you’re curious. And as a proper finial, as I more or less run out the door, grandpa’s coming after me, I assume to apologize. But no, he actually wants to buy the hat from me. The price he offered was good, but I decide that at least one of us should teach the kid its not fantastic to act like a little shit. He follows me out into the street. I can’t believe this scene literally refuses to end. Ah, the future of our planet.
The big news, so far, is that owing to a number of the better players (I should say, the better known players. No, I shouldn’t.) having not returned from their holidays yet, I did finally get into a basketball game as a player, which means I have now officially represented a university in its athletics, even if it is roughly Div. CMVI (Division 906 for those few of you who aren’t latin scholars. No, it doesn’t exist. I was parodying American sports arrangements; if their worst is Div. III, then….very clever, I’m sure you’ll agree). More importantly, I did creditably! In about six minutes of action I was 2-3, with a three pointer. And the third shot was what I would refer to, if I were standing in front of you and talking rather than typing to a word processor far away, as “this close.” No, I don’t actually mean that the shot itself was “this close” to going in—would that it were-- I mean I was standing “this close” to the basket when I shot it. Oops. Maybe there’s a reason they don’t let me out there too often…
On the plus side, as I’ll probably never play again owing to the return of other players, I may finish the season with a 100% shooting percentage from three point range which even Steve Kerr would admit is pretty good, and given that I also grabbed about four rebounds and dished out a few assists, I’m willing to be my PER (ignore this joke if you’re not an espn.com reader) is through the roof. And as we all know, that’s the only measure to judge anyone at anything ever. God bless you John Hollinger, and your nerdy, short-sighted ways. Also, damn you, since your whole system was invented to place the Mavericks lower than they deserve, you bastard.
Everything in life is about picking which parts of your battles you choose to report.
My teammates are very kind, however, and when referring to my incurious absence from the starting roster cite, for example, that earlier in the year I rarely made it to both practices in the same week. They’re lying, of course. Not that I did make it to both practices in the same week, but about that being the reason. How do I know? quatralogue (think of it as two dialogues if neologisms make you uncomfortable) with the coach:
Me, after game: Frankly (although thoroughly trounced by a Filipino team) I’m just happy to have gotten a chance to play today even though we lost. It was fun. My first time
S: Well you remember early in the season you weren’t on the roster because you never made it to both practices
Other person: Yeah, and, blah blah blah
Coach: And then there was the time (after I missed two weeks of practice because I was in Istanbul, and then because my sister visited) when you came back and it was like you’d been doing nothing but eating for two weeks straight.
Ah yes. That time I couldn’t play well because I was very fat. We appreciate it, but believe what you actually mean is “slow,” a condition much more chronic than temporary…. Other things that might have been plausibly cited, well before obesity turned up: my lack of “hops,” lateral speed, ability to make layups, grace, unhappy childhood, THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON, foundational sense of right and wrong, etc.
But I’m a terror playing against small children.
On the earnest request of my father I have purchased an Irish radio. He was right, it seems. In just the last 10 minutes I’ve heard two commercials advertising cheap property in Egypt, and experience an almost existential enjoyment of the weather reports, a sentence of which I give you now just as I heard it: “Blah kind of weather tonight, yucky stuff tomorrow.” Thank you too , sir. I’ll be sure to wear my Yucky Stuff boots.
The other day some friends and I were on the way to one of our more common watering holes, which we don’t like at all (actually hate), but which shows the American football games when we came across a place much closer, much nicer looking, and also showing the game so we went in. It looked fancy. As time poured on, the reason became clear: that it was, in fact, also a club. And every hour or so, the whole experience got sexier. The lights got lower, the music got louder, and the flashing strobe cranked up to epileptic seizure levels. It was a slippery slope. By the time the Cowboys broke my heart, for the fourth time in Dallas sports in the last two years, leaving me entirely unable to trust, believe, or expect anything but inevitable failure and destruction for all that I believe in and love, like a giant black widow, perched on a silver thread, also holding up a glimmering sword of Damocles over not only my head but the heads of all that I care about, with the red star, Nemesis, simultaneously flashing dully in the lower black reaches of a nefarious, ghastly, nocturnal empyrean….we were all in danger of breaking the dress code. And somehow my collar had, all on its own, turned up. (also, dogs howling, the black ship of human nails setting sail, Haley’s comet, snow day in hell, THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON, and what appears to be some kind of diseased crow whispering something about buying him a drink first. Etc.).
Neat.
I don’t know, lads. It’s a good year, but some parts of sure ain’t easy. They never are, eh? A new one now, I suppose, and that’s pretty hopeful. What’ll we want to be when it’s over? What’ll we be allowed to keep?
. Integer vitae scelerisque puris/ non eget Mauris iaculis
(A clean life and a pure…I don’t know, I can’t remember now, spirit maybe, heart…has no need of Moroccan javelins.
I don’t know what Moroccan javelins have to do with it, to be entirely honest.)
A
P.S.
Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
arbor aestiua recreatur aura,
quod latus mundi nebulae malusque
Iuppiter urget;
pone sub curru nimium propinqui
solis, in terra domibus negata;
dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
dulce loquentem.
(put me alone, on a barren plane
Where no fresh breeze refreshes the trees
A bitter plain of the world oppressed by Jupiter
And an evil star
Put me underneath the wheels
Of the chariot of the sun, on an Earth devoid of life
Still will I love my Lalage, sweetly laughing
Sweetly speaking.
See, it gets better.)
P.P.S Look ma, I translated latin.
#8
I habitually approach Chicago O’Hare airport these days as small, crunchy mammals, with a certain sense of fatalism, do jungle cats. With dread, but also with a sense of wry curiosity about just how it’s going to go down. I have spent, to date, four separate nights on the floor of O’Hare airport. As I have told many a friend, in my life, the cheeseburgers at the McDonalds they have there literally taste of long delays.
And yet, after all this time I can still report that the gods are not only crazy they are fiendishly creative. The cause of my five hour delay—post-getting on the plan—this time? Well, it’s cold in Chicago. As it always is, this time of year, making you wonder why exactly someone decided that the perfect thing for one of the world’s worst weather cities was a huge international transport hub. And in the process of putting fresh water in the plane’s latrines, the hose froze solid to the tank. So they had to get a heater out, and then, since the hose hadn’t completed its grisly task by the time it went de-com, get another out there. Of course, if you thought that was the end of the airplane’s troubles, you don’t know me and Chicago.
Considering hose dethawing, hose replacement steps 1, and 2:
Step 3: Pull away from the gate!
Step 4: Engine light goes on. It’s probably nothing but we have to go back to reset some control panel stuff. Kind of peeved, but recognize that “engine warning light” and “seven hour flight” don’t sound so good no matter how you write the sentence.
Step 5: This one’s actually to congratulate myself: I begin to wonder, as we reset, how much fuel we’ve spent wandering around the airport like some kind of giant, collective Jimmy Valvano. Turns out a lot, and we need to refuel
Step 6: Pull away from the gate!
Step 7: Engine light comes back on. We’ll go back and get that thing fixed.
Step 8: Ragnarok, end of times, dogs and cats living together.
Everything up to step 7 was 100% true, step 8 about 85%.
I had a wonderful break. In certain senses made so by circumstances which I will not mention by name but now leaves me in some sadness, if bitter sweet for the sincere happiness it occasioned me, one of the least complicated or mixed I’ve known. It is very hard, sometimes, as a young person in a transitional stage that sometimes a more complete happiness is something you must simply believe to be waiting down the road, rather than be allowed to keep. Memory is a wonderful thing, and a useful balm, but if it was the same as holding in my hand there would be no pause to happiness, and there’d be nothing at all to be afraid of.
Still, emotion and convenience are not things that either do go hand and hand or should, inasmuch as the latter relies upon time and we never know what will happen. So courage, friends! Love what you cannot keep. And to anyone curious, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, I’d have absolutely no regrets except for the little one about walking in front of that goddamn bus.
That’s mine. For yours, a number of Humorous and Diverting Incidents which Occurred, including:
-The continued adventures of Shadow the Dog, the most photographed creature on facebook, whose new 9 pm bedtime (in my parent’s bed) is not to be trifled with. Coupled with my parents’ new midnight bedtime it made for a somewhat disconcerting break. I’m pretty sure I used to have play chase with SOMEONE around 1 AM each night. Maybe it was the ‘rents after all.
-Learning that naps will often be punctuated (indeed, terminated) by expedient of high-speed canine-to-crotch impact
-The purchase of a new camera with exclusive “you tube” feature, creating perfectly formatted and sized videos for uploading to youtube! But you’ll never find the tapes, copper….
-A New Years reenactment of Steve’s most recent arrest, where we all showed up at his apartment dressed like midgets. No, not really. But now you people not in the know are wondering what exactly he did with midgets.
-A Guinness drinking competition with Steve which I lost soundly (6 to…8?)
-A Hamburger grilling competition with Steve which I won slimly (3 to 2. Don’t complain about the adverb, I’m neologism certified).
-Both Christi and Maggie wondering why Steve and I can’t just be friends
-Me salting the earth of Steve’s garden, so nothing will ever grow again
-Being outside, because it’s Texas and you can do that kind of thing in December
-Ragnarok, end of times, dogs and cats living together
My first day back I went to a riveting Mavericks game where, despite it being about 5 am Dublin time and my having been awake for around 30 hours straight, I definitely recall some kind of sport happening. Now the break seems to have passed in the same way: a very pleasant whirl; and still certainly one of the best games of the year. I’ll leave it short this time because this is technically supposed to be an Irish correspondent and I’d hate to be accused of straying from my balliwick (1, it’s nice and cozy, 2, I have no idea what one is), but deep love and warmest New Years greetings to all and off we go again. Our hands around the old bull’s throat.
Resolutely, tearfully, manfully,
A
Study questions: At what age do people stop asking you questions about what was your favorite this or that about an experience? For some reason I feel like adults don’t have to answer that kind of thing. It’s not that I really mind, it’s only that what X offers, with its similarly-sized drawbacks, can’t really be measured against Y because of its different texture (although one certainly has an extra fun-sized straight line).
No, seriously, why can’t children modulate the volume of their voices? Is that why voices crack? So self-loathing will teach you to keep it down once in a while?
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