My Dublin Life

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!

I have been working very hard. Lectures don't begin until the fall semester and I don't have to hand in my dissertation until the summer but I've been wanting to get a head start so I'm sorted out with a card for the university library and I have been getting my head into the books.

I am so totally eighteenth century, although if I had lived then, I'd have rather been a man. Preferably http://englishhistory.net/byron.html.

TCD library is a tad disappointing, all modern lighting and carrels and not at all like the cool old library where all the tourists go and where I will visit when my older, richer sister is over and will pay for me. On the other hand, the new library is very well stocked and I can find everything I need for my research.

On the third hand, I have found some better places to study. Right nearby, I've been hauling my ass into the National Library. Even the smell in there makes me feel more scholarly and wise. I can sit at a great old mahogany desk and order up books and just inhale the generations of wisdom. Loving it. Plus, I kind of have a crush on one of the librarians. I just want to take off his glasses and ruffle his hair and pat him on his corduroy-clad ass and say "But George...you're beautiful..."

On the fourth hand, there's an even cooler library in town. Marsh's Library, which was founded when my home town, and even St. John's, were just a twinkle in the eye of the colonists. It was founded in 1701 and seems to look pretty much as it did on the day it opened. On the minus side, I don't really need to use any of their books which aren't really on my topic. On the plus side, they have a very realistic old replica of Dean Swift's girlfriend's skull!!! Apparently they dug the poor lady up to take a cast of her skull and then put her back. Why? Who knows.

Photo posed by model. Not actual skull.

I'm off to bed. Bepe had some friends around this evening and he made massive amounts of pizza and I'm full. Thankfully, Fabia didn't make an appearance with her teeny ass and her stupid lace underwear. But the friends all missed their buses so now the living room is full of Italians drinking wine and shouting at each other about football. Or something.

I don't care. I've got my earplugs.

OK, so before I left Newfoundland, I had to dump my boyfriend. I say "dump" in the loose sense of the word, because he knew that I was coming here and he knew that I was going to do a masters degree so we had both agreed that it was going to be a temporary thing and between you and me and the lamppost I was kinda glad when it ended because I had gotten tired of the whole thing.

But I want to be NICE, right? So I let him be my buddy on Facebook. And I give him my Skype details and my landline and whatever. And I SAY, "So let's keep in touch," but I don't mean it. I mean, we all know that "let's keep in touch," means the opposite. Right? Right? So of course now he's calling all the time, forgetting about the three-and-a-half hour time difference (we Newfoundlanders are so contrary we are in our own half-hour time zone) and I'm trying to figure out how to get him out of my life. Still trying to be nice. Of course.

I'm telling you -- he was getting on Bepe's nerves too. So finally he calls last night at nine and we're just watching reruns of Friends on TV and Bepe picks up the phone and says, "I'm sorree to tell you thees, but I am in luf with her and we would like some privacee."

Cue silence from Buddy. But he hasn't called since. And I just laughed my heart out, callously. Anyway. He deserved it. The funniest bit is the idea of me getting involved with Bepe, who thinks a book is something to hold the bathroom door open so you can listen to the football commentary while you're on the toilet. (I haven't witnessed this actually happening, but it seems likely.)

To celebrate, I went and got chips. After exhaustive research I have found out that Irish fish-n-chips are almost, but not quite as good as the ones back in St. John's. I still dream of chips and gravy from Ches's and I probably always will, but these are not bad and on my budget I won't be eating out in many fancy restaurants. As Bepe's girlfriend (let' s call her Fabia) pointed out, my panties aren't that small as it is, so why bother dieting?

I have investigated quite thoroughly a number of fine establishments, including a range of Italian named (WTF? Italians making chips) venues, from Borzas to Romas. I have explored the ins and outs of Burdocks. (Niente male, Bepe said). And, ladies and gentlemen of the juries, I have determined that for a combination of taste and closeness to my apartment, the winner is Beshoffs on O'Connell Street.

But you can't eat chips every night so today I am off to Moore Street Market (also a winner in the apartment-proximity stakes) for some cheap vegetables. I may not be planning on cashing my panties in for a size smaller, but I don't want to go up a size either.

That's all fer now folks!

My Dear Sister just confirmed her arrival here on June 14th, complete with three kids, one husband (I didn’t bargain on HIM coming) and her mother-in-law.

Holy Shit.

I told Bepe. He looked a bit alarmed.
“Ahem,” he said. “Will they all be staying here?”
I thought about stringing him along for a while, but I just burst out laughing. He was really trying to be polite. I don’t think my “beloved” brother-in-law would think much of kipping on the floor of our tiny apartment. So because they don’t seem to be able to organise themselves out of a paper bag, it’s up to me to find hotels and entertainments for three kids, one hassled Mom, one pain-in-the-ass brother-in-law and one grandma who has never left the province before.

Ugh. I’ll think about it later.