#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

#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.