My Dublin Life

So, in the end I took the French boy to the cinema. We saw "Let the Right One in", a Swedish horror/art/coming of age flick.

I LOVED it. But (we'll call him) Pierre didn't. He said it was "pretentious" and "not as clever as it thought." We went for a drink afterwards, just around the corner from Smithfield, in a joint that advertised the "best crack in Dublin." This shocked me, briefly, until I remembered that this is usually spelled "craic".

I had a Guinness. Pierre had a red wine, which was "too cold" and "not good". I would question the wisdom of ordering wine in an Irish pub anyway. We talked in English and got on OK but...uf...I don't know. Do we have anything in common? I kept thinking, "This guy is boring," and then he would flick his hair in that Gallic way and say something Parisian and my heart would go pitter-patter. He walked me home but I didn't invite him in. BUT I did invite him round for dinner and Bepe will be cooking so it will be a date-not-a-date and perhaps I can make my mind up about him then.

Gotta go. My sister just rang and I'm summoned to the phone...

Well, I'm feeling a lot better. I've been getting work done, and I've been to the movies. I love going to the cinema by myself which is kind of loner-ish, I guess, but it's nice to be able to just sit in the dark with a big box of popcorn and just relax into a great film.

From where I live, I can reach several cinemas within a few minutes. Last night I went to Cineworld. I felt a bit guilty about it because Cineworld is sort of like the MacD's of cinema. It's a big Multiplex at the top of Parnell Street but as soon as you walk through the doors you could be pretty much anywhere in the world. The sound is great, the screens are fantastic, and the popcorn is good and hugely overpriced. There's something vaguely reassuring about the homogeneity of the international cinema experience.

For more arty days, there are two other options nearby. The Irish Film Institute and the Lighthouse Cinema.

The IFI has maybe seen better days but it's got a real arts-student vibe and a nice-enough bar with good coffee and very stoned-looking staff. I like it. The Lighthouse is special and it's very characteristic of, well, Manhattan I should think. It's gorgeous--all white spaces and shininess and Beautiful People having fancy cake in the chilly cafe upstairs.

All this waffling about cinema brings me to the real topic of this post: I met a boy! I went to the Ilac Library and found him lurking around the Internet area. One thing led to another (OK, I went up and started talking to him and we were asked to leave because we were being too noisy) and we ended up having some truly dreadful coffee at this grotty place in the Centre.

He's French, all sallow skinned and well-dressed and looks like he should have a Gauloise between those artist's fingers. I summoned my courage and invited him to the movies and we're going tomorrow as soon as I've decided what to see. Liberated me, huh? But it's tricky. A stupid film, and he'll think I'm an idiot. Something too arty? I might look pretentious --which I kinda AM but I don't want him to know on the first date.

More on this exciting topic to follow shortly!

I've been kinda sickish for a few days. A bit off-colour. And then this evening, the most surprising thing happened. Bepe came home from work with a pile of groceries from Moore Street and started making soup. Actual soup! From ingredients, not a can!



I've never, ever made soup. I had thought I was too sick too eat but when I smelled the minestrone smells wafting from the kitchen, I started to regret I hadn't asked him to pick up some take-out. And then he appeared with soup. On a tray. (Did we have a tray?) For me.

I was so surprised and touched. Then he said: "You probably wouldn't have got sick if you didn't eat all that unhealthy American rubbish," which sort of spoiled it, but not quite. And the soup was seriously good.

The sweetest thing of all was that he made it for me. There wasn't even any left for him.

I've spent the evening on my own though. Bepe and the girlfriend went to the Ilac Centre to practice their English. (Note to self: Join Ilac Centre library-I've been in there. Free Internet. Fabulous Book Collection. Periodicals. Music. I've got the TCD library for serious books, but this is a really cool inner-city library. Loving it.)

Apparently, the Ilac Centre library offers free language exchange sessions. I might even start going along myself. I could do with widening my social circle and brushing up my French. Like all "Canadians" (I am not a real Canadian, of course, being a Newfoundlander), I learned French at school, but it never really got that far.

Now that I've had something to eat--the first meal but left-over Chinese in two days, I actually feel a heck of a lot better, and determined to get some research done tomorrow without getting sidetracked so I'm off to bed for some beauty sleep. Gotta get me a recipe for that minestrone, though. Magical.

I have a cold. It's raining. There's no food. My housemate is out and I'm feeling too sick to crawl to the shop and too poor to order in. I went to a danceshow and caught a cold dancing about in a t-shirt and getting in a sweat. So now I look like a rednosed freak! Maybe I have swine flu

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!