My Dublin Life

Fabia is in the flat and she and Bepe are having a row. I don't know what it's about -- Obviously, I don't speak Italian. I know she has to leave soon because she's supposed to be babysitting the kids of the family she works for so I'm just going to stay in here until they're done. Here's hoping she won't have any time for some make-up passion when it's all over.


I guess it might be nice to have a boyfriend but there are also some benefits to being single. I can do whatever I want. Sigh.

This weekend, my two girlfriends are going to be away "down the country" as they say in Ireland with their families and I suddenly realise that I don't know that many people here and that the city can be a lonely place. I don't feel like going to bars and things at the weekend, but I don't want to just be by myself either. There's lots I could do on my own but I'm not really sure that I want to. Maybe I should join some sort of a group. A hiking group? An astronomy group? Heck if I know. I am also a bit low on funds.

A quick browse of the Internet later and I have a plan. There's a dance festival on. Modern Dance is not really my sort of thing, but on the grounds that it is A) free and B) not far from my apartment I'm going to go to this. It's part of the Dublin Dance Festival. There seems to be some festival or other on at any given time. The Gay Theatre Festival is still ongoing. A coincidence?

Anyhoo, there are going to be free performances by artists from the festival at this show, so maybe I'll like modern dance more than I think (haven't really seen a whole lot of it) and I think it's the sort of thing you can go to on your own without looking like you're wearing a big L for "loser".





Not that I'll be doing any dancing myself. Most of my family members are great fiddle players and singers and they are all good at dancing. Me? I got two left feet.









Flip-flops: Wal-Mart
Feet: Model's own

So I went to see More lives than One--Oscar Wilde and the Black Douglas last night. It was fantastic. The venue was small so you could really get lost in the play. I took Bepe because nobody else wanted to come with me and he wasn't doing anything.

I have several remarks to make:

1) Why are so many gay guys also really good-looking. It's not fair! Guys--yours are the genes we really need to be spreading!
2) I really didn't know what to expect, but I can now confirm that gay theatre is in fact pretty similar to regular theatre, except that there are more hot men in the audience, and none of them are looking at ME.

Another thing that really struck me was the fact that while Oscar moved to England and wrote plays mostly set in England and about the English, there really is something very, very Irish about his sense of humour and approach to life and language.

Also, I was gently amused by how nervous Bepe was. He actually put his arm around me "so that THEY won't think I'm gay--not that there's anything wrong with that." A little anxious about your masculinity there, Bepe?

Well, I didn't mind. At least he's nice and clean--and I'm getting used to his cologne. He certainly puts on enough of it.

So I was at the Hellfire Club yesterday with my friend from college. I'm getting tired of calling her Morticia as she's really very sweet, so let's call her Pollyanna.
We went there by public transport, a long and rather tortuous experience in itself, in and out of a bewildering number of suburbs, and involving hitching a ride for the last bit, but finally we were there, in the foothills of the Dublin/Wicklow mountains. The walk up to Hellfire was short and the view across the city absolutely amazing. The weather was glorious.
The Club itself is really just a ruined house, but it is built from very dark stone, which gives it a very ominous air, and according to my guide, was built over two hundred years ago from stones ransacked from a local megalithic tomb, which would account for any curses or bad luck there might be floating about. Sadly, I didn't see any ghosts or ghouls, but I did some empty cider cans inside which suggested that maybe the young folks of the Dublin mountains have been using it as a hang out joint.
After paying our respects to the club we went for a little walk in the nearby Massey Woods and then made our way slowly and painfully back to the city.
This must be a fantastic place to visit if you have a car and I'm kicking myself for not having organised an international license when I was back home--not that I could afford to rent a car, mind you. Healthier looking people than me were going about on mountain bikes. Maybe in the summer.
Someone told me yesterday that, in Ireland, a good May means a bad summer, and the weather is actually pretty nice right now, so that's bad, right?
[Pause while I go to the kitchen to grab a cold one from the fridge]
I was just talking to Bepe. Fabia has the use of a car every second weekend; it belongs to the family she's au pairing for as they have two cars and take one to their country house in Courtown every second weekend. He says she'd love to take me to the Dublin mountains. So if I want to get there easily, I'll have to befriend that skinny bee-atch. Well, it's beautiful up there, so it might even be worth it!

So the last time I wrote I was really pissed with Bepe. Turns out HE was really pissed with me, because he had seen me coming in with Morticia and Wednesday and thought I had seen him and was ignoring when in fact I hadn't seen him and thought he was ignoring me when I did see him. So it was all a misunderstanding. But he and his buddies were still leering at girls and my feminist sensibilities were definitely drunkenly offended. But possibly that's not fair as I did see a very cute guy the very next evening and did some leering of my own.

I did have a little laugh to myself on Wednesday when Fabia was over to visit loverboy, thinking how she is so besotted with herself she probably hasn't a clue that he eyes up all the other girls when she is not around. So there.

Anyway. Work has been going well and I have been making excited plans to go to something in the upcoming Gay Theatre Festival!!!! I can only afford to go to one thing so I am working really hard to choose. There seem to be two categories--musicals and misery. I naturally lean towards doom and gloom, so I am thinking maybe a musical this time to shake me out of my rut.

Did you know that homosexuality was only decriminalised in Ireland in 1993? Jiminy cricket! That is well within my lifetime! For a country that produced one of the world's most famous gay men, that is pretty weird.

Because I'm writing my dissertation on Goth Lit I'm thinking I'll go see the Picture of Dorian Gray by the great man himself.

But I don't want to go on my own so I'm looking for a companion. I've asked the girls and they were definitely not interested so as I don't know many people yet I'm thinking maybe Bepe...I'll even put up with Fabia if she wants to come. I just feel a bit shy about going to the theatre by myself.

The weekend starts tomorrow and I do hope the weather will be nice because I'm up for my trek to the Hell Fire Club! Can't wait!