True life tale of embarrassment over on SCDS

This week's installation of Sucky CD Sunday is on offer now. I am going to a wedding on Sunday so I will be in no position to sit in front a computer. So far I am only 1 for 2 on hitting Sunday for these posts but, hell, I am not that organized.

Because of this wedding and all the visiting that I am doing, I am on the move again and am only going to have the chance to catch up with all of ye next week so my I am going to comment on all your old stuff too.

10 little things I miss

My world is upside down. For all of you who don’t know because you never read the header of my blog, I live in Ireland for most of the year. For the past week, I have been back in the USA getting my fix of my own culture, my own family and my American friends for a while. I try to make it back at least twice a year. I would love to fix it so I did 3 months here/9 months there or 4 months here/8 months there – some such split just because I miss my family and friends more than I thought I would, not because I am tiring of Ireland, because I am not.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the little things that I missed about being here, and I mean the little, incidental things that you don’t take into consideration until you don’t have them. Here is what came to mind:

Big Cokes vs. Little Cokes

Picture this – you sit down to a big, juicy cheeseburger with fries and a coke the size of a thimble. What is wrong with this picture? And they don’t get it! American diner type restaurants are very popular in Ireland but they ruin the illusion when they give me a teacup with some warm coke…which brings me to my next point…

Ice in everything

I like ice! I don’t care if the temperature doesn’t rise above 60 degrees! All the better to store the ice, my dears. Cut the crap and put ice in my big, bucket sized coke. And give me free refills so I don’t feel like I am getting screwed by having my big, behemoth cup being filled 2/3 up with ice. For more on this subject, read up on how Ireland has not adopted the concept of Free Refills. This coffee blog is a good segway to my next point…


Dunkin Donuts

Maybe I can white knuckle it and live without my large hazelnut with skim milk no sugar in the morning. Perhaps I can exist without that cheery red and orange logo staring out from the 10,000 napkins I have taken just in case I spill my 2 gallons of coffee all over my car in the morning. Conceivably, I can live my life without hearing another guy from Brighton say “give me a regulah and a crullah” to a woman just off the boat from Bombay who is just learning the English for “coffee”, but to ask me to explain one more time to one more coffee jockey in Ireland how to make iced coffee and to endure the look on their faces as they hand it to me (sometimes I think they are going to take a picture of the iced coffee and me to show to their friends), is asking to much of this woman. Please Dunkin, try the Dublin market again (it failed 10 years ago) Ireland has grown as a nation!

Just as an aside, Starbucks just came to Ireland. There are only 3 or something in the whole country. I love that about Ireland actually.

Driving on the right side of the road

Just because. Its better. I feel like I am in a go-cart driving in Ireland with the wheel somewhere towards the middle. Right side steering wheels add to the “clown car” feeling of the driving experience along with the fact that minis look normal and smart cars may at any point pull up next to you. I expect to see Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in one with their bare feet sticking out the bottom.

I am all for saving the planet but this it ridiculous.




Squirrels

Since we were on the subject of driving, I have found I have to be extra diligent driving because of the wild life that I used to take for granted here in the US. Squirrels are only in parks in Ireland, basically because the whole place was deforested by the English (there is my political dig for the day and the only place where I am going to address politics). I love watching the squirrels that are outside my mother’s house. I love that we have to cover the trash to keep out the racoons. I love the possums. Horses, sheep and cows outside my door are good too but I wish I had the squirrels as well.

Buffalo Wings

Here is a shout out to anyone living outside of the US who can tell me where to get good buffalo wings. I am fairly certain they do not exist anywhere beyond these shores. I told this to someone in Ireland who then swore up and down that Elephant and Castle (a restaurant in the Temple Bar) was famous for their wings and they were the best in Ireland. Well, maybe so but they still sucked. I will mail anyone $5 in cold hard USD if they can give me a place, in any country in the EU, that is up to my standard. For definition of my standard, here is a link to Archie Moore’s in New Haven. The wings there rock hard.


Portion Sizes and Doggie Bags

Yeah, Americans are fat. Yeah, Americans are gluttonous and wasteful. Whatever. I like food and I need portions bigger than the size of a quarter. I also like to be able to take home the extra so I don’t have to cook for another 3 days. I also have a dog, Fergus, who would like to know where I have been and what I have been doing. When he asks, “What did you order?” I would like to have samples. Believe me, I pay the same amount in Ireland for ¼ the food so step it up guys!

All singing, all dancing grocery stores

Akin to portion sizes has to be the size of our grocery stores. I need 13,324 types of breakfast cereal to make me feel whole! You ain’t living if you can’t pick up a six pack of beer and buy lawn furniture in the same aisle at your shop around the corner. I come back to my local Stop&Shop to see fruit that I think only grows on one acre of land in the darkest corner of the rainforest. Did you know they sell naturally occurring purple and orange cauliflower?!? I sure didn’t but I do now and I need 3 colors of cauliflower in my life!

Let’s talk about watermelon since there has been some discussion around it as of late. I need to eat watermelon (and drink iced coffee) everyday that I am here. Why? Because I can get 1/8th of a crappy watermelon in Ireland that looks and tastes more like a cucumber for the equivalent of $5.60. I can get a whole, glorious, pregnant melon which is as red as a tomato for the same or less here. Bring it on! Too bad about the seeds though. If kids today only eat seedless melon, how do they have spitting contests?

Decent TV graphics and effects

Banners flying into the screen and spinning. Rotating time clocks on the news and text bars scrolling on the bottom telling me things that are not important enough to say but usually more interesting than the actual news. Talking heads powdered and puffed to perfection. Night cams and live satellite hook ups in caves and stuff. It beats some stiff shuffling papers on a desk and is so much more distracting! I don’t know where to look first!

Humidity/Snow/Leaves

I miss all the change of season. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I don’t have to live through extended harsh winters and oppressive summer heat but the marked movement of time within nature does add something to life. I guess it makes you feel human but it also reminds you that you are getting older. In Ireland, there is a myth about Tir na Og which means the “Land of Youth”. It is easy to see how the Irish conceived of such a place. Ireland is in perpetual spring. It is always in growth, always in bloom, always in youth. It is lovely and Eden-like and it never seems quite real. I suppose that is why people fall in love with it. I did but sometimes a does of reality in the splendour of dying leaves that look like they are on fire or this humid, swampy, lovely weather that we are having, is needed for some perspective.

Ok, that is me for now. I have so much catch up blog reading to do. I am looking forward to it. Too bad I can’t do it in bed or on the can!

Creepy whispering vocals on Sucky CD Sunday

Hi Everyone,

The new installment of Sucky CD Sunday is available for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

On Writing and Blogging

I was reading Sage's post on things that go bump in the night and the eventual discovery of the Truth of all things via the scientific method (don't agree but that is for another time for Sage and I to get out our dueling foils). What really intrigued me was the comments about comments that followed that post, especially from Sage, Dim and Annoyed about the use of blogs to enhance the writing process.

I too began to blog (after Road turning me onto it - thanks sista!) to "hone my craft" and to get a little discipline and routing into my writing schedule, just like Sage. I am new to blogging so it has been an awakening of sorts, to a voice that I did not know I had, but what is it doing, if anything, to my fiction writing voice? When I write fiction for print publication, I cannot take for granted that people reading my work will be able to read my entire catalogue of writing, may know me personally, etc. so the dynamic changes.

This scares me a little bit because we are talking about two very different disciplines here and I think we have identified it as handy to the creative process as a defibrillator is to medic but ultimately, how do we use it to our best advantage? Is there a possibility that the blog is like a weed with pretty flowers that we use for extra color in the yard yet could be responsible for choking the rose garden sometime in the future? The rose garden is the actual pieces of work - that novel, that collection of poems or short fiction- that we are laboring over on trains to our money-paying jobs - sorry, I lost the meaning in the metaphor.


And there it is again! I allowed myself to put something down that isn't entirely clear, very clumsy and wouldn't even make the first public draft of a piece of fiction I am working on but I allow it because this is a blog and bloggers are family. If you guys won't forgive me clunkiness, no one will.

I do see the immediate benefits to my writing overall. I find it easier to turn the wheels on a short story I am writing, say, because of the blog-grease that is applied on an almost daily basis. I also find the writing of first person POV much easier and the creation of first person POV a snap because what is a blog if not the writing of yourself into a character. And many of us are all in character, my lovely's, that beautiful pseudonym lets us take on the mantle of so many wonderful things that the shoes of our everyday existance would never allow. Fresh Air's blog is very intriguing as she, as many of your comments indicate, seems to have no barrier, no sense of filter which makes her voice honest and daring or she has created such a complete and rich narrator which she calls Fresh Air that it is worth a pulitzer. Which ever is the truth, snaps to you girl, both are difficult to pull off.

But I am wary of the future, long term effects and I would love to hear from all you writers who have more time in the City of Blog to their credit than me. Sage, how has your fiction been affected by blogging? Dim and Annoyed, do you have a feeling to write beyond blogs now and has the added creativity brought on by blogs extended into other areas. Road, how does business writing get effected, it must in some way?

Anyway, apologies for the less than entertaining blog but I am attracted to this idea of not only blog as a creative spark plug but also as a community of people who are naturally inclined put pen to paper - well ok, not pen to paper but you get my drift.

And of course I am making the assumption, as I do with both blogging and Writing with a capital "W" that anyone is out there reading any of this anyway. I often do find myself talking to myself - I think all writers do.

In Praise of Bad Music

Ok, listen up all you music lovers whose blogs I read and who read this blog, I have something to say to you. You all have been talking about tunes lately and you know what? You are all snobs! Snobs of first degree. First class snobs. Get out the double breasted pea coat and yachts man’s hats, you Thurston Howell the thirds you, ‘cause you all are cultural elitists of the utmost degree.

Hands off the comment button, did I say elitism was a bad thing? It has only recently turned into a term to be used as a weapon, as if saying elitism was narrow-minded or non-visionary. That is not what I am saying. I mean it in its pure, unmolested, unchanged by modern prejudice sense. I just have noticed that I am feeling somewhat - I dunno - left out by all this waxing philosophic on all things acoustic.

As I read deeper into the blogs, everyone is on the pulse of all this new bands, new sounds, everything. Has the wax even hardened before it is the subject of blog scrutiny? Don’t get me wrong, I like reading it all. I especially like it when I have heard the bands. Over on this side of the pond, bands like the Artic Monkey and Snow Patrol get played back to back with the Sugar Babes, new George Michael so I am all confused. It all sounds kinda all the same and too pop-like and teenager-y to me. I guess that is just me getting old. I think that every generation has their sound that defines them, Paul Simon said that, and I agree. Unfortunately, I prefer my mother’s generation and even my grandmother’s generation to my own.

Having said that, and to get back to the purpose of this blog, I want to start a feature in this blog which is the antithesis, the counterpoint, if you will, to March’s Forgotten Disc Friday. March is fantastic! The fact that he featured Elvis Costello on one of the Fridays stole my heart so my counterpoint is copying and flattery at its most sincere

I will not be posting about Led Zep, Hendrix, Janis or the others which were almost as much of an influence on my upbringing as my parents. That would be boring and March, Road and the other music snobs would argue that I am just preaching to the choir, and where is the fun in that? No, I will bring to your attention, dear readers, the music that you have forgotten on purpose. I will search into the archives and titillate you with the best of the worst. The scary thing about it is - I love it! I always have! If it is pre-1990 and I can dance to it, bring it on and bring it on fast! There is room in my heart and my CD case for “Night on Studio 54” along side of The Jam “This is a modern world”, Derek and the Dominos” Layla and Other love songs”, Steely Dan’s “Can’t buy a Thrill”, Smokey Robinson and Stan Getz and Gilberto doing the bossanova thing they do so well. I am going to further rob March of his creativity and call it Sucky Disc Sunday. The fact that this is not Sunday has not been lost on me. Deal with it - I haven’t posted in a while.

So March, since you are the inspiration, I dedicate it to you. And remember, if I like it, there is a 50% chance that is sucks.

Here is the first installment of Sucky CD Sunday. I hope you will consider it for your reading and musical pleasure.

Bloomsday

Tomorrow is Bloomsday. It is the day that Leopold Bloom stepped out of his house on Eccles Street and into literary infamy. It is the day on which the story penned by James Joyce in his novel Ulysses. This book single-handedly changed literature - all literature, written in any language - for the rest of time. There would be no blogs without Joyce, no joke. There are few works of art that can lay that claim. I am sure all you audiophiles who read blogs can relate some piece of music that has done that. I would love to read about it in your comments. For me, the most important things are books - good books.

Also nodding to you audiophiles, it may interest you that Joyce was an accomplished musician and sang opera, almost on a professional level. The chapter in Ulysses, called Sirens, I have been told is written in the same poetic meter as a Fugue. I know very little about music, especially classical or baroque music, but I do know that the Sirens in the Homer's Odyssey, otherwise known as Ulysses, were temptresses whose beautiful voices made sailors dash their vessels onto the rocks. That is why I am delighted when I find two barmaids singing with the drinkers in the pub, plying them with more music and drink until one by one, they come to some form of personal undoing - crashing into their metaphorical rocks.

And everything in the chapter gets tied back to music. Take a look at this ...

O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. Tinkling. Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the resonance changes according as the weight of the water is equal to the law of falling water. Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddle iddle addle addle oodle oodle. Hiss. Now. Maybe now. Before.

The fact that Bloom is thinking about his wife, Molly, taking a piss in the above passage should not be lost in the puzzle and music of the language. Joyce is scatalogical, perverted and a scream at the best of times. The book was banned, remember. Ironically it was banned in Ireland for the longest time.

Anyway, there is tons more. You can read this book forever and still not solve all the puzzles, make all the connections between all the layers and allusions, get all the jokes.

For all of you who don't give a crap about literature, music, Joyce, Bloomsday or otherwise but have kept reading to this point (why? haven't you anything better to do?) you may want to come to Dublin on Bloomsday anyway. There is a tradition of crawling all the pubs that are mentioned in Ulysses on June 16th. There are so many, including Mulligan's that has the best pint of Guinness in Ireland (this is saying something) and Keogh's, one of my personal favs, that you don't need to even be literate to have a good time.

The Old Apartment

I am thinking of putting my Brookline apartment on the market. Well, more than thinking of it, I am going to do it but ever since I made the decision to sell, I have been feeling like someone ripped out half of my small intestines.

The apartment is a one bedroom standard brownstone right off Beacon street. I lived in it for 5 years. I bought it because the place that I was renting wouldn't allow pets and my rabbit Murphy wasn't going anywhere! I was tired of having to explain a pet rabbit to landlords so I looked for 2 weeks and found a place of my own. I barely thought about what I was doing.

I have had some good memories there - actually, great ones - and they are right in the walls and the floors. Kieran and I smashed through the bedroom wall into the living room and put in french doors. I had to walk around with a towel wrapped around my head for a month because of all the dust. I hosted Don's graduation party and catered it from the good Jewish delis in Coolidge Corner. Peter used to drop by with some prominent traditional irish musician and music would fill the entire building. There was Rob from Wales and his wacko lovelife; Michelle in her single days who would drop so we could figure out ways to get Pierce to propose to her (they finally eloped). Road would come out drinking on the Saturday and stay all Sunday. We watched Lifetime Television for Women like it was going to save our souls. I was living in that apartment while I was waiting by the phone for JPD to call. I made him the first meal we ate together there.

I had some of the worst memories too. Murphy died in the apartment. I watched 9/11 unfold in that apartment and learned that a good friend of mine was on the second plane that hit the towers. I cried myself to sleep after more bad dates and breakups then I care to remember.

That apartment is me when I was younger, my friends were single and ready to play, when Murphy was alive, when I still thought there was plenty of time for everything. I am losing that link back to my youth and to that life I once had. I have no regrets - none - and I am looking forward to what is coming but I miss things from that time at it has knocked me for seven. Half of me feels like if I don't sell it, I won't have to give all of that up. I also know that I am wistful for a place in time that is in my head and even if I moved back to Brookline, I wouldn't have that life anymore. In a way, I know I wouldn't want it back. I have a life now that I wouldn't want to trade for it.

Time to let go.

Notes on London City Airport

First of all, I would like to apologize to Road and March for using there comment space for my rantings. You see, I was stuck in London City Airport tonight when my flight back to Dublin was delayed for 2 hours, and all I had to amuse myself was a book of short stories and a public internet drop which took credit cards. The problem was the place was packed and there were barely any seats. The coffee docks were over-crowded, the bar was 2 persons deep. I read stories and I read your blogs. It was great! Thanks!

I was a frustrated young woman today, waiting at London City Airport. I thought I was going to get off lightly this trip - get in , get out, short and sweet - no screwing around with the central line to the eastern line to Paddington station and onto Heathrow. Simple, right? A cab to the airport and then home. The problem is there was a delay and this airport is useless for shopping. There is absolutely nothing to do. It is geared at the business traveller so usually all you see are men in the same suit reading newspapers and taking up all the seats but it was even worse because France had just tied with Switzerland in their first world cup game and they were pissed! I guess they were supposed to slaughter them.

This brings me to Cultural Stereotype #1 - the Angry Frenchman

Mad french guys are hysterical. They fold their arms and get all huffy and start blowing air out of the sides of their mouths. Then they start talking to each other quickly and gesticulating at the TV even though the game has long since been over. They were swarming, yes, swarming is the right word, all over the place as I was trying to pay for a £2.10 cup of coffee with my Amex because I only had euros left. Nightmare.

I can't even say that I had a great day in London, which I am convinced is an oxymoronic proposition. I am there just about every week and I can say, with conviction, that London is not a fun town. All the nonsense of a big city with none of the magic. Without Road flirting with the boys carrying chandeliers or JPD spitting at the statue of Oliver Cromwell at the House of Parliament, London is no craic at all! So my busy, no craic work day just added insult to injury that I was cooling my heels with the aforementioned angry French dudes and the tired, overheating Irish guys, which, ta da, brings me to...

Cultural stereotype #2 - Irish men do not look good in suits

Let me caveat this. They sometimes do and don't get me wrong, when JPD puts on his suit (the one that we bought which had to be for weddings AND funerals because he "wasn't getting two") he looks great but if it has to be worn for longer than the length of a typical mass, is starts getting ugly. Even the best dressed of them begins to look like rejects from Good Will. Last wedding we went to, he actually lost the brand new jacket of the new suit because God forbid he wore it for a nano-second longer than what was absolutely the bare minimum time that he had to wear it to be considered polite and when we frantically went around the hall to get it back, we found it in a pile of about a dozen others from guys who had done the same thing. There is no chance of a young Irish man getting caught on the cover of GQ. I think it used to be different - there are some very natty dressers amongst the older crowd - just another sign that everything is going to hell.

When I got home, 2 hours late, at 10:30, twilight had just set in, the street lights had just come on and Fergus was so happy to see me, you would have thought it was 18 days and not 18 hours since I saw him last. That's a great feeling - must be like that to have a kid but without worrying about the cost of college tuition in 18 years.



By the way, check this out. There is an international bloggers day. Go figure.

Avoiding the World Cup, Part 1 - or - Why I should never be Tim Curry's agent

It is World Cup fever on this side of the pond. We are a day and a half into 4 weeks of soccer hell (I am not a fan of the sport) and I am already thinking of ways to top myself. Luckily, both Irish and English television have taken preventative measures to keep the suicide rate down and have planned their programming to offer an alterative to the endless, useless running up and down a field that is "futball". It is apparently all aimed at a female audience but so obviously picked by men that its laughable. My movie choice for tonight is Charlie's Angels because, all chicks love Charlie's Angels, right? Hey, does anyone else think that Cameron Diaz looks much better as a long-haired brunnette? I sure do.
Otherwise she just looks like Tweety Bird, doesn't she?!?
Uncanny, isn't it?

This brings me to the part about Tim Curry. Perhaps this blog should also be called The Curse of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As any fan of Charlie's Angels - The Movie (Part 1) can tell you (I expect all 3 of you out there to comment in), Tim Curry is in it. He plays the main bad guy.


<----- There he is doing his thing in Charlie's Angels. But the problem is, I can not - not for one second, no matter how hard I try, and I have, I am trying now but it is not working...

I CANNOT look at Tim Curry and not see him like this --------> God I wish I was watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show instead of Charlie's Angels right now. Even without audiance participation and the trannie stage show, it is better than Charlie's Angels. Don't get me wrong, I am not a card-carrying fan of the RHPS, I like it enough and love, love, love the elevator scene when we first see Mr. Curry however it beats this anyday of the week! This being Charlie's Angels AND the World Cup.

The funny thing about RHPS is that all of the actors had questionable careers after doing the cult classic. I don't think any one of them was as good as when they were in RHPS and that includes Susan Sarandon - God I hate her!

Barry Boswick, who was the actor who played Brad also was the mayor on that Spin City show with that other short guy, what's his name? Oh, Michael J. Fox. That blows my mind! I didn't make that connection until I started writing this blog! Who knew and why didn't anyone tell me!?!

Anyway, Spin City vs. RHPS - still no contest.

I would say the same thing about Meat Loaf, who played Eddie in the RHPS (in one scene they ate him - it was great) as I do about the rest of the Rocky cast, but I thought Fight Club was good except for the end.

Ok, I am almost done but I have to keep writing because Togo and friggin' Mongolia are still kicking a ball around a field ... Bill Murray is great in anything, why did he do Charlie's Angels? Was it because he liked the soundtrack? I like the soundtrack but I am a disco queen so I am sure that is on an annoyance level for someone as well.

So as you can see, if it were up to me, Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Boswick would have made the Rocky Horror Picture Show and retired. It probably would have done them and us a world of good. Meat Loaf can stay because "Two outta three ain't bad" - sorry, bad joke and it isn't on even on any of the soundtracks.

Game's over, movie is too. Until next time, G'night.

"I see you shiver in antici ...... pation"

Free pints with the toucan

I was reading Guinness for Strength's blog, I love the name, and I was inspired. Guinness, as most know, is a most ubiquitous drink in Ireland. You can't pass 10 yards without seeing a pub with a Guinness sign outside of it, a Guinness ad, an empty Guinness can, something. They are a huge corporate sponsor over here and they do have some of the most clever advertising campaigns going. Touring St. James Gate (the Guinness Brewery) is the highlight of the sightseeing tour around Dublin. Probably because they give it away after the tour is done.

The problem that Guinness has, however, is that people who normally would drink it, tend not to during the summer. Why? Because it is perceived as heavy (I disagree) and it is filling (this is true) and does not have the refreshing appeal of lager or cider. (Girls put cheap beer over ice here in the summertime. I balked at it at first but I am a convert now!) So, anyway, Guinness comes out with these new "formulas" to Guinness to get some of the drinking public back to Guinness drinking during the summer. What better way to do this than a promotion? On Thursday, I was in a pub - well outside in the beer garden - when one such a promotion was going on. This is what happened:

I joined my friends at an outside table which was full of Guinness Toucan - one of these new formulas which is on the sweeter side. It is nice! There were 10 poured pints just sitting there, waiting for be quaffed. I found this strange but I don't look gift horses in the mouth. My friends told me they were giving them away for free and that was good enough. I grabbed one didn't think about it again. Then some guy came around with a clip board and said, "so how are you enjoying those?" and Leighton, one of the guys I work with says, "I probably need another one to decide" The guy rolls his eyes but soon after the table is filled with another round. Free Guinness! Heaven had opened up and delivered its bounty!

So, time passes and the pints are drained and the guy with the clipboard comes around again to conclude his market research. This is what he gathered for the cost of his time, effort and 20 odd pints of free stout:

Guinness Rep: "So, are you all enjoying yourselves?"
Us: "Yes"
GR: "Are you enjoying the Guinness?"
Us: "Yes"
GR: "Are you all regular Guinness drinkers?"
Us: "Yes"
GR: "Would you drink Guinness in the summer time?"
Us: "Um, yes."
GR: "Would you drink Guinness toucan in the summer over regular Guinness?"
Us (except me): "Nah, probably not. Maybe. Yeah, ok. Hold on - no. Can't really tell."
Me: "Wait, we aren't drinking regular Guinness?"


I hope they keep Toucan. It is good. It is very new, it isn't even on their web site yet but I have it on good authority that it gives you strength.

Head Bangers on the Streets of Dublin

Tonight a really drunk guy fell over from a standing position and hit his head on the curb right in front of Trinity College. It made such a crack that it drowned out the DJ playing the Bank pub. This was a fall from about at least 4 feet staight to stone. Bone meet stone, stone meet bone. Blood is everywhere and we have one unconscious vagrant going down on the street right in front of us.

The problem is, there were a bunch of first year medical students from the Royal College of Surgeons who watched too much ER and felt the need to turn this into some kind of trauma reality show (last one to check vitals is voted out). My father, who is a doctor, checked the guy out. He was fine. Bleeding but fine. So fine, in fact, that when he came to the first thought was to look for his bottle which was still laying in the street. He kept trying to get to his feet until someone had the good sense to put the booze in his hands. He nuzzled it like a teddy bear and calmed right the hell down. I called 999 - that is 911 for Eire in case anyone needs that information and I know you do you boozy whores - and 15 minutes later, *poof*, there they were and we were off to the pub.

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. The irish health service is much maligned and admittingly it does have its problems, but when that ambulance cut across cow path like streets glutted with traffic whilst dodging in and out of pissed teenagers fresh from the Robbie Williams concert - well sweethearts, it made me proud to be ... well it made me proud. Dad said that 15 minutes in that situation was reasonable (I didn't say the guy was dying to 999, and I said he was talking and conscious which he was, so they knew it wasn't a life or death situation). When he had to do that emergency trach in Disney World when I was a kid, the parametics took longer to get to the scene.

This brings me to the real, real purpose of this blog. I can't think of any worse job in Ireland than working in a trauma unit on a Saturday night in Dublin. The vomit alone has to reach unthinkable amounts. The amount of drunk related stupidity has got to be astronomical! The government said recently that if they could just cut out the alcohol related injuries and incidents from the trauma units in Ireland, the health system would not be under such a crisis! I am talking about this (getting some face to face feedback about my potential blog topic for the night, as you do) and my taxi driver, it turns out, used to work security in the ER. Yes, security. Apparently, they need guards around the waiting room in the trauma center for when bar fights break out! No joke.

The taxi driver figured it was safer to pick up total strangers in a care then to work in a Dublin hospital.

And to those first year med students ... let this serve as a cautionary tale. Do you really want to become a doctor? It often ruins an otherwise fine night out.

Cookie the Horse and Jan the Weenie

I got a call today about 4 pm my time from Jan, the German guy, who lives near me in Cork, who is supposed to be checking on whether or not I can get broadband in the cottage. This is severely important to me because if I can get broadband in the cottage, it means I can fully work from the cottage and if I can fully work from the cottage, it means that I can move away from Dublin forever and live a life of complete and total beauty and bliss in the bounty and dream-like landscape of West Cork. Whether or not I want to forgo Dublin in toto is another discussion but I certainly want the option.

So Jan, a tall, blond, strapping Teutonic lad that he is, told me all about his company one night at the tin pub and raised my hopes and expectations that perhaps, just maybe, they would be able to bring my little stone cottage, which doesn't even boast central heating, a place in modern technology. The only thing standing in the way, apparently, was Cookie the horse. Jan and his equally as cowardly companion, would not take the damn truck up through the field to my house because they were - and I quote directly - "not comfortable with the horse".

Jan, with all his manly bravado and Aryan nation pride, Ladies and Gentlemen, would not take on the challenge of Cookie the horse. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I submit Exhibit A, a picture of Cookie.




Does this look like the face of a killer much less the kind of beast that would keep two strong young men away from their journey up the field to a lone, defenseless cottage???

Anyway, they did not check to see if I could get broadband or not because Jan and whoever else was in the truck with him was afraid of Cookie the Horse. She is about my height which is 5 foot nothing and is easily pushed around with a gentle hand and the bribe of some cookies (hence the name, get it?)

Verdict is that I have to wait for the next 3 weeks before they can even tell me if they think I can get broadband in the cottage.

I shouldn't be that surprised. Jan is a sissy name. It is a scared of a poor defenseless and curious horse name. I am naming my next horse "Jan is a Weenie" but only on the racing ticket. In the stables it will be called by the name of Weenie because it is less gay than Jan.

[that is Cookie in the window and my mom next to her. Awww. Bless.]

Lessons on being catty, part 2

More about our weekend in Kilkenny and the various characters that we met on and off the stage. No complaints except for the "life coaches" that we met who tried to get us to sign up to a €23,000 weekend (that is like, $30,000) which is going to teach us how to live in the moment. "The power of now", Carpe Diem. Shite. What a wacko. They were some of these Tony Quinn disciples. The strangest thing about these types is that they are the saddest, most desperate people who have this unsettling urgency in their eyes as if they are drowning, as if they are just hanging on ... and they are trying to convince me they have the secret of life and the key to everlasting happiness. Again, at the risk of repeating myself - Shite.

One of the reasons that meeting this pair really has stuck in my mind, besides the fact that they wasted and hour of our time (thank Christ for the beer garden and my huge, dark sunglasses that make me look like a bug - I could catch a couple much needed zzzzzz's), is that people can get so lost they will cling to anything. I was half hoping that with age brought wisdom but I look around me and it seems that sad young people are just becoming sadder older people. Apparently the oncoming of years are not bringing on any solace, peace of mind or epiphanies about the life. The secret isn't revealed. We just get older.

Whoa! What a bummer! And it doesn't stop there. One of the guys, the one that was less of a zealot and somewhat bearable, lost his phone during his night out. I heard this story the next day (they were staying in our hotel and I made the mistake of going to breakfast). How did he lose his glasses? A girl comes up to him and asks if she could borrow his phone to call her friend but she can't hear inside the bar so she has to walk out into the street with it. I guess she kept walking because he never saw her again.

Here is the summary of Lessons on being Catty #2:

• With age does not come wisdom
• Beware false prophets

If the girl that took that poor shnook's phone reads this (snowball and hell come to mind) give that guy back his phone!

If we "do no harm" perhaps we have a change to age gracefully with a little dignity.

Lessons on being catty, part 1

Road and I are just back from the Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival. We saw some great comedians, ate dinner with some famous people, stayed in a hotel which would put Buckingham palace to shame and decided that sleep was for weenies. Two beautiful sunrises, 2 kegs of Guinness, 14+ whiskey & whites (Road is hooked) and a steady flow of flirtatious banter and I had totally forgotten that I had a brand new blog to attend to. It it were tamagotchi, it would have been dead. This got me thinking about how I switched from being a newly indoctrinated blogger to someone who didn't give a crap about blogging in less than a half a day. Maybe it is the brevity of my time as a blogger and I guess we can say that and leave it at that but I have another theory.

On this trip, I was relaxed; I was happy; I was looking forward to the weekend under an impossibly blue sky in village with a castle and pubs that had us sipping the black stuff in walls that were build before 1600. Everyone was my friend. We were all dance partners, debating foes, drinking buddies, and companion witnesses to the fact that we were in the best place on earth at that moment. We actually felt sorry for anyone who was not in Kilkenny this weekend. Consequently, I had absolutely nothing to bitch about and no inclination, no urge to make public my meanderings about nonsensical social issues. I had no rants. I had no raves. I was calm as the rolling green fields I had outside my window. Plus, I had lots of real human contact! Real social interaction! I talked into the face of other human beings - and honeys - as much as I like technology - and I do - there is no "virtualization" equal to that.

So, ok, to recap because it is late. Here is my theory as to why people blog:

1. Because they need to bitch
2. Because they have no one to bitch to
3. Because even if they have someone to bitch to face to face, they are afraid that if they bitch, they will be judged unfairly and need to face the consequences of it. Anonymity, thy name is free speech and unadulterated bitch-festing!
4. They want to talk about books, movies and music. (Please see #2 and replace the words "bitch to" with the words "discuss with" and proceed with the steps.
5. To get virtual dates. Yuck.
6. To express a propensity for sexual behavior which would make any seasoned whore/b-grade adult movie actor blush - and find like minded-people. Please go to step #5 and replace "Yuck" with "Yuck. Ugh. Yuck"

For anyone with the mind to comment (not that anyone reads this) and tell me I am closed minded, especially about the nocturnal practices, don't bother. I don't care. It's not bohemian. It's just sick. Find out what my screen name means and apply.

Maybe I am wrong. I just needed to bitch.

No free refills

The first time I moved to Dublin, it was to get my Master's Degree at Trinity College. This was over 12 years ago and Dublin at that time was a very, very different place. There were less cars on the roads, not a new building in site, Playboy magazine was disallowed in the local newsagents by virtue of the Irish Government a.k.a the Catholic Church. Divorce was a no-no and bans on movies like The Life of Brian had almost just been begrudgingly lifted, so when I tell you that you could not - I mean, not for love nor money - get a decent cup of coffee in this town, it should come as no surprise. Some hot water and a teaspoon of nescafe and they sent you on your way.

Irish cuisine back 12 years ago had not gone through the ultra-chic transformation that it has now. A couple of years back, anyone in Ireland who was even thinking about becoming a professional chef was shipped off to somewhere else - the continent, the States, wherever, thank Christ. There they learned that there were other ways to turn food from raw to cooked other than putting it in a pot and boiling the shite out of it. They also were forced to take courses such as "Spices: a world beyond Salt" and "The Potato - its ok to let go". While these new Irish chefs were cutting it up in the Cordon Bleu, they learned a thing or two about coffee...sort of.

Now in Ireland, coffee is all over the place - in gas stations, in pubs, all of that. And they've gone one better. Coffee doesn't come out of pregnant pots that are sitting on semi-hot electric burners all day. It isn't dripped through a filter, percolated or pressed. Instead, most coffee is espresso, made in a $67,000 machine by some surly, pimpled girl from the Czech republic. All coffees are only available with their Italian names and all come with an optional shot of flavoring that violates the sanctity and purity of the bean. There is no "cup o' Joe". There is no bottomless mug. No free refills. The Irish learned a thing or two about coffee but they totally missed the point of it.

Picture this ...
Bitter, black coffee and cigarettes in an empty diner at 3am with jazz in the background. Lies have been told, hearts have been broken, there are decisions to make and a train headed for Chicago due out in about a half an hour. The waitress is heading towards you with a freshly made pot. Her smile is wistful and you can see the resignation in her eyes...

Where does skinny latte with soya milk fit into scene?

If you want anything remotely resembling a normal cup of coffee, you have to order the espresso with hot water which is supposed to make a regular cup of filtered coffee. It doesn't, but I appreciate the effort. This concoction is known as an "Americano".

I guess there are more than me out there who are still going through separation anxiety.

Idea for new game show - BBC/RTE are you listening?

I consider my "gaydar" one of the most finely calibrated psycho/sexual investigative systems going - A bloodhound for puffs, if you will. And tell me, in this day and age, what girl doesn't need such a weapon in her arsenal for traversing this treacherous territory of singledom? Navigating between the "metero-sexuals" (it used to be that guys who used hair gel were suspect) and the growing army of post-ops, it is no wonder we are all a bit confused!

This brings me to my idea for a show. A game show that asks the question, "Gay or Just from the Continent?" because I swear to God, I can't tell. These sophisticated, handsome, polite guys who can bake (bake!) and match their cologne to the fabric of their tailored-slim-in-the-waist suits are making this gal's finally tuned nose for all things left-footed look Login's air traffic control system meets a 747 full of Nokia's in full operational mode. I know I promised to wax philosophic about the Irish but believe me, the Irish do not qualify as contestants on my new game show. There are no metero-sexuals in Ireland. I know guys here who stay away from chapstick because they are afraid it may seem too much like cosmetics!!! I am thinking about the group of Italian guys who wouldn't let us into the bathroom at the party on Saturday because they were too busy "getting ready" or the Spanish guy I worked with who would comment on my handbags ... and how about my French friend who I have known for years? Handsome, intelligent, wonderful but even Road asked me - "Is L gay?" and my response was, "Maybe, or he could just be French."

This isn't really so "out there" as you may think. Take a look at the predecessors. But like the Irish, the English are easy - they don't like soccer or rugby? Slap a label on 'em boys, they are on the one-way express to homo-ville. I need help on my city breaks abroad! One flash of newly bleached teeth and a well co-ordinated dinner ensemble, and I may melt into the arms of romantic-language speaking lothario! If he would have me!