From an Internet cafe in Covent Garden
Posted by: lucie
Ah, London. The hustle and bustle, the people, the shoppping, the complete impossibility of finding one's way around. If I haven't yet mentioned this here, I should: I can't find my way anywhere. I have no sense of direction. I'm visually retarded. This means I can have a map of central London in my hand, see the street I'm on and the street I need to get to but be completely unable to find my way from one to the other despite the route being right there, literally in black and white, in front of me. Sometimes this actually frustrates me to tears, but usually only when there's a car involved.
So far I've seen Jen (my Prague pilgrimage mate), Ms Thing and her hubby, and spent about 3 hours in the Indian Embassy to get permission to hang out in New Delhi for a few days. Wait an hour to hand in your application and passport, wait two hours to get your passport back. It's all a bit of a drag but when you get it in the end it does feel like a hard won victory. It's anything but hard won, of course - you only have to fill out the paperwork properly, give them your passport, some money and a couple photos, and sit around waiting, but it does test one's patience.
I'm meeting Matt tonight, hanging out with Lloyd tomorrow, spending a bit more quality time with my lovely hostess Ms Thing on Wednesday, then heading over to Matt's again on Thursday. I found the BEST thing to do on Thursday night. Check this out: Shaolin Monks. Those are real monks from the Shaolin Temple. You know, the infamous Kung Fu masters Wu Tang are always on about. We're going to go watch them break cement blocks over each other's heads, do handstands on two fingers and lift each other up with the tips of swords. I'm very excited. Then Friday we're off to idyllic Devon.
None of this 'leaving the country, leaving my life of two years behind' stuff has particularly hit me yet. I left my job and it felt pretty normal. I left the North of England and that felt pretty normal. Leaving London shouldn't cause much of a twinge as I've only ever spent a few days at a time here, so I guess it's down to leaving Heathrow now. That has to get a reaction, right? Maybe nothing will get a reaction. Maybe I'm just so cool now in my old age (I'm officially pushing 30), having moved to a couple new countries, found myself alone in one of them after a failed relationship, switched careers ten thousand times and realized it all works out in the end, that nothing phases me anymore. Except love, probably. Love will always mess with your head.
The Internet cafe clock is ticking so I must leave it at that. Thank you all for your comments over the last few days - it's been very exciting to see them!
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
Posted by: lucie
Anonymity and Anna
Posted by: lucie
I keep this blog anonymous and secret, as I've mentioned many times, and I intend to keep doing so, but there are a few people in on it.
The first was Cabel, Mac and Internet celebrity, Portland man-about-town, intuitive entrepreneur extraordinaire and one of my favorite people on this planet since 7th grade. He's probably my oldest friend, in fact, and I daresay I'd have a shot at being his oldest friend if it wasn't for that pesky Steve, with whom I also had to compete for Cabel Phone Time in middle school. Which reminds me, Steve will be in on this secret too, whether or not he is interested enough to bother reading it. Hi Steve! Congratulations again on your engagement.
Cabel hooked me up with Mikey, who graciously gave me this blog space, for which I cannot thank him enough. And it was kind of weird knowing that Cabel was possibly reading my words when I started writing occasional things about, um, sex. Not that there was anything particularly dirty or embarrassing, but somehow in the 15+ years we've been friends I'm reasonably sure Cabel and I had never even so much as uttered the word 'sex' to each other. I just I can't recall it ever coming up, strangely enough. Oh, except the time we were talking about friends of ours from high school, and how the boy was pressuring the girl to sleep with him and, for reasons I could not understand, referred to this as giving her 'a hot beef injection.' We had a good laugh over that romantic phraseology, and that was about sex, I guess. But otherwise no sex talk.
So anyway, one day I had to get on iChat and say 'Cabel, depending on how much you want to know about my personal life, you may not want to read blog entries from this week,' and his response was 'Sounds like I have a blog to read!' and it was all fine.
Then there was Josephine, who I met when I came back to the Northwest in July. We declared ourselves instant best friends after admitting our guilty musical pleasures to each other: hers was Lyle Lovett and mine was The Eagles. She was like, 'You're funny. I like you,' and I was like 'You're cool. Let's be best friends,' so we proclaimed it to anyone who cared to listen and proceeded to act as if we'd known each other forever. Someone even mistook us for lesbian lovers. When I got back to England, Josephine and I started writing each other these very candid emails about our lives and secrets and boy dramas, and I eventually told her about the blog. Jolee, are you reading this? I don't know if she reads this. She's never mentioned.
Next came Lloyd, who I emailed one day in a burst of inspiration saying that I wanted to stay in England and was going to apply for an MBA and would be please write me a reference? And because in the process of searching for Lloyd I had stumbled upon his blog, and because I knew Lloyd was into blogging, and because Lloyd doesn't know anyone else in my entire life so it seemed safe enough, I let him in on the secret.
And that, I believe, is it. I know there are a few other people in Portland who kick around the Urho circle who may or may not find this interesting enough to read and who I've met briefly, who know my real name, which is fine - I don't mind people knowing my real name, I just don't want people from my life stumbling upon my thoughts uninvited.
The next category of people, after those who actually know where to find this blog, is the very small group who know it exists but haven't been invited to view it. In this group: my last roommate from when I lived in the States, Anna, Rebecca and perhaps a couple other people I've mentioned it to in passing. This is a risky category because if someone were exceptionally curious they could probably hunt me down.
Anna in particular has always been intrigued by the idea of the blog. I think I told her about it when we were in Edinburgh, maybe sooner, and the moment I remember most is when she asked if I ever wrote about her, which naturally I do because she has been my very best partner in crime for a while, and when I said yes she looked a bit stunned and went, "Wow. I'm... out there," as if she wasn't entirely sure whether she liked this idea or not.
It comes up from time to time, and last week when we were crying at the pub about me leaving I finally said I'd give her the blog address when I left town. I kind of always figured I'd give it to her eventually - it's just time now. I totally trust her with it, and there are some good memories on here of times we've spent together. She may scold me for misrepresenting or misquoting her occasionally, but I believe she's been portrayed in the very best light - and this for the obvious reason that she's been my best friend here and I love her to death. I mean, you guys probably have an idea of Anna by now, and I think you probably feel generally quite fond of her.
So Anna, welcome to the blog! It started in May with this if you feel like going back to the beginning.
Itinerary
Posted by: lucie
No TV, no stereo... the flat is so empty and quiet. I'm getting a taste of what the monastery will be like - silent, silent silent.
I hand in my keys tomorrow at 4:30pm and head down to London on Saturday. In an attempt to live life a bit more for the moment I've decided not to made frantic efforts to update the blog. If it happens, it happens. It probably will, you know. I'm taking my laptop for a reason, and I'll really want to post thoughts and observations and maybe even pictures if it works out. But it might not, and I don't want it to get in the way of the experience.
May I just say that I'll miss this? I feel like I've only recently gotten into a groove with it. When I come back to Overarching I'll be in a new city, new country, new career. Well, not new. Past life, kind of. I'll be working for an editor I admire, trying to write features that sing, trying to report stories that mean something and walking the shaky line between roommate and romance with Tom (yes, I'm pretty sure I'm moving in with him - at least for a little while, and we'll just see how it goes. Nothing is official until I get there and we talk about it. I realize how stupid this sounds but he has an open room, isn't looking for a roommate particularly, and has offered it to me. If it's weird, I'll leave and it'll go back to being an open room - no big deal. I know it is stupid but sometimes I make stupid decisions quite knowingly. Sometimes I need to see things through to their messy ends even when I know I shouldn't.). I will try to keep the blog a secret from my colleagues, roommate and friends, which could be tough. We'll see how it goes.
I'll try to impart some kind of interesting information about Eastern Europe to you, not just self-absorbed ramblings about drunken evenings full of silly boys. Well, we'll see what we get. I just don't know.
Tomorrow at 4:30 I become homeless. I won't have that feeling of awe at finding that my keys are exactly where I left them - that feeling you get after a long night out or a long journey away, when you reach into your pocket, or that special pouch in your bag, and realize that your keys haven't escaped, that your home life is there waiting for you to take it back. I won't have any keys. I don't have a car, I don't have a flat. I have stuff in storage in England, stuff waiting for me in my new city, and one suitcase to live out of for the next couple of months.
I'll be keeping a paper journal throughout all of this. I'm bringing two blank notebooks as I expect to be prolific, and when I get back I hope to publish lots of excerpts and pictures.
You know what's funny? I'm totally going to be back on here tomorrow. I have all day to hang out and clean my house, and I'll have all kinds of thoughts I'll want to get down - my last pre-adventure thoughts. Who's kidding who? I'll see you in the morning.
Thank you notes
Posted by: lucie
I wrote a little card to the ex's parents, aka my former in-laws. It wasn't much - just a brief note to let them know I was leaving the country and thank them for everything they had done for me... back when they were still talking to me.
Yeah, they could have been better about the breakup. They could have dropped a little note through the door with my post rather than just slipping it coldly through the letter slot with no explanation. They could have even called once in a blue moon to say hi, knowing that I had no friends or family in town. Those would have been nice things to do. A few times in the last week I’ve thought 'screw them, they don't even deserve a card,' then remembered that breakups are miserable for everyone involved, and it wouldn't have been all that easy for them to maintain a relationship with me when I wasn't talking to their son anymore. I saw the tears in their eyes when I picked my stuff up from their house. They were losing someone too.
So I wrote them this little card to say thank you for their support back when they were like my own parents in this country, and because it seemed polite to say I was going rather than slip quietly away. I didn't include any contact details; they have them already, and I didn't want to put any pressure on them to call me. I don't expect them to call, or even email. It just felt like the right thing to do, to say goodbye.
It doesn't feel right with the ex, though. He'll know that my time here is running out, that my visa expires at the end of the year, and that I must be going soon. He may even wonder if I've already gone. I still can't think of anything to say to him. You know when you break up with someone and you think you'll always love them no matter what, even when you move on? Often untrue. I do not love him. If he were in trouble and called me for help I'd help him, but I don't really want to know what he's doing, whether he's happy, whether he's with someone.
I don’t hope he’s doing well, I don’t hope he's doing badly, I don't hope he misses me... I just don't care about him. It’s strange to feel that way about someone who was the most important person in your life for over three years. What's that about? Ain't love grand?
Goodbye Wynd
Posted by: lucie
(I have lived behind the second set of windows above Michael Poole for the last year.)
(I come home through the door on the left. The charity shops are at the very back!)
Hospice shops
Posted by: lucie
Downstairs there are two hospice charity shops, tucked away in a little wynd (which is like a nice version of an alleyway) off the High Street, just past the salon, barber, shoe store and fish shop. This is where I take most things I don't want anymore, partly because I am too lazy to make full use of ebay and partly because being charitable makes me feel better about my bad spending habits. I buy too much crap but I eventually donate it to charity. It's good for the world, or so I tell myself.
For the past two months I've been leaving a garbage bag outside one of their doors almost every week. Clothes that don't fit anymore (too big, too small - we have a bit of everything around here), clothes I admit to never wearing, books, stacks of gewgaws bestowed on me by family members for birthdays and Christmas. Who needs a lavender-scented pillow just for their neck? How many framed inspirational quotes can grace a single flat? What on earth is such a perpetual migrant as myself meant to DO with white linen napkins?
So these things, those that aren't claimed by friends, end up in anonymous garbage bags outside the hospice charity shops, generally left there at night to be discovered by the volunteer staff in the morning.
I don't actually know exactly what a hospice is, but two of them are being well supported by my discarded stuff.
Today, as I dropped two garbage bags of random spring-cleaned possessions aside their doors, I wondered about these volunteer ladies.
Given that I've been leaving these offerings for a couple of months, I wondered whether anyone had picked up the thread. Are they making a connection between the bags? A lot of people leave anonymous donations, but they'll be seeing clothes in the same size, occasionally from the same store, always in longer cuts where possible, so maybe they know my bags when they see them. And if they do, I thought maybe they might be concerned. I mean, I'm getting rid of SO much stuff that it wouldn't be completely off base to think 'Oh my goodness, there's some tall girl around here getting ready to off herself. She's giving all her stuff away! All these clothes and strange little gifts. We should call the police and get her some help.'
Then I wondered whether they ever see garbage bags in front of each other's doors and steal them, like whether they get all charity-competitive. I make a sincere effort to divide my discarded posessions equally between these two storefronts, but how do I know who gets to work first? Maybe the old lady from the hospice on the right makes it to work before the old lady from the hospice on the left, spies the other old lady's bag, rustles through it to see if there's anything she can sell for more than 50p and snags it. Or maybe she has something of a conscience so she merely compares the bags and chooses the one she likes best. Maybe she knows it's wrong, because this is all for charity after all, but it sparks the fire of competition in her heart and she gets a kick out of it.
Anyway, that's where about 1/3 of my stuff goes - the stuff not going to Prague or into storage at Anna's house.
Prague shipment tomorrow. Car dropoff tomorrow. I am seriously moving. Scattered, scattered, scattered. It's Tuesday night - Tuesday night is Singles Night at the club next door. I have lived here for a year and proudly avoided this weekly ritual - the lowest of the low. It's where you go to pick up married coppers.
Scattered.
Scattered notes on turning points
Posted by: lucie
In Summer 2001 I cracked my head open, dismantled my brain and laid its pieces out on the carpet before me. There they remained, exposed, for some weeks, if not months. I fasted, wrote incessantly in journals, had my tarot cards read, examined my psyche and what I could remember of my childhood, and sorted through these parts, polishing up a few, chucking out old rusty bits that didn't seem to serve a purpose, shifting things.
Around this time I had a dream that I came back from a DJ gig and someone I didn't know met me at an airport and took me away to a very quiet, comfortable building with a library of 'healthy' books, spiritual books, books by Jung and the like (I was in a major Jung obsessive phase so this was particularly exciting). It was a relaxing place, if confusing, and I wondered if my parents had arranged to have me taken back to rehab. To test this theory, I ordered room service: pizza and a beer. When it arrived I knew I couldn't be in rehab again. They'd never give me the beer. I was safe. But where was I?
I stayed there for a while, reading, relaxing, away from the world, and went home when I felt ready. Two of my friends were waiting at my flat and I told them about this place, how I had no idea what it was but I felt so refreshed and ready to approach life with renewed vigor, and they said "Oh yes, a restaway!" As if I were the only person who'd never heard of such a thing. Later in the same journal I worried whether it was a mental hospital. Was my dream telling me I needed to be in a mental hospital? Isn't "a rest" a euphemism for a stay in a mental hospital?
There is a link between the rehab experience, which was scary but character-defining, and this dismantling of my brain, the self-imposed brutality of which was necessary at the time.
Rehab became a life-changing experience because they were on a mission to psychologically break me. I can understand it; step one is that whole 'admitting you are powerless over your addiction and need help' thing, and if you're not ready to admit that, what else can they do but try to force you to a point of hopelessness? Some of the people in there really did shoot up eightballs of crystal meth, so I guess the end justified the means in many cases. If you're not ready for step one, if you haven't hit Rock Bottom, they chip away at you until you get there. Then they can build you back up, a stronger, healthier person. I guess. I only stuck around for the breaking down part.
It was a harsh reality check. Not because it made me realize I'd been doing too many drugs - I figured that out before I got there - but because it made me realize what a helpless child I'd been; how spoiled and reliant on my parents, even at 18. Walking out of that place marked the beginning of my adult life. In some ways it was teenage rebellion: fuck my parents, they can't control me, I'm going to go live my own life. But the bigger lesson was more powerful: you're on your own, kiddo.
That's a good lesson. We are all on our own, kiddos. It's just good to admit this to yourself. Then you can get on with things and take responsibility for yourself and make life what you want to make it. I remember being fascinated by a certain Timothy Leary quote around the time I moved into my first flat, a shoebox-sized space of my own in the world: "Start your own religion, baby. No one else is going to do it for you."
Summer 2001 was another turning point. It simply felt like it was time to prise open the dark closets in my brain and clean them out. I think it was prompted by the realization that I couldn't, or chose not to, remember all that much of my childhood, and that seemed forboding.
That excavation process was dark - violent, even. I'm not ready to read those particular journals yet, or to try to explain here how the process went. But I can identify the next big lesson: families fuck you up, and you have to understand the ways in which your family has fucked you up and it's fair to be mad at them for it - even blame them for it.
I think some people stop there, or they sit in shrinks' offices for the rest of their lives discussing all the ways in which their shortcomings are their parents' fault. I suppose other people can help you unravel the tangled mess your family helps you become, understand how the threads carry through to who you are today. But this is the important piece, I think: when it comes to picking up the pieces and becoming who you want to be, we're back to foundation knowledge again. You're on your own, kiddo. Become it.
These have been the two biggest realizations of my adult life, the two most intense phases of growing up by leaps and bounds, and each has been prompted by a sort of spiritual crisis.
The time in the monastery is a chance to be introspective in a much gentler way; to take and plan the next steps on my spiritual path deliberately. It's the right time and the perfect place to dismantle my brain again, but carefully this time. A bit more lovingly, perhaps. It'll still be scary; these things have to be. But this time there will be structure, ritual, support and guidance. I'm so ready for it, and it's going to be amazing.
Leaving work, leaving the fairgrounds
Posted by: lucie
I don't have a job, and I won't have a job again until January.
Seventeen people came to my goodbye lunch, which was flattering because I didn't think I was actually all that popular at work, what with my no-nonsense (some might say impolite) American ways. I never could quite master the English way of disagreeing, ie saying "That's a great idea and I completely agree with you," then letting you know in a roundabout, long-winded way that I completely disagree with everything you've just said.
My colleagues, tipped off by Anna, gave me the perfect gift: a digital voice recorder. I now have exactly what I need to re-enter the world of journalism, plus a huge bunch of flowers!
Anna picked me up after work and we drank two bottles of wine and cried in the pub because I am really leaving and we won't see each other for months, then I cried over whether I should get in touch with my ex's parents because I love them and they were like my parents, then we cried some more about not seeing each other and she said she couldn't take me to the train station because she'd be too upset and I cried more and said she had to and she kept saying she couldn't and we both kept crying more while laughing at ourselves and wiping our eyes with our sleeves.
It was all very dramatic.
This weekend I'm at Anna's house feeding her cats and taking refuge from the noise of the fair. No gypsies have broken into my house yet, though friends have pointed out that tonight would be the night as they are leaving in the morning.
Billy did actually make me a little nervous today. I asked what time he would be leaving so I could be there to unplug his extension cord, and we agreed on 9am. I said okay, see you at 9am, and he asked where I was going. "Are you going back into the house now?" he asked, for no apparent reason that I was comfortable thinking about, and it felt sketchy. I said yes, though I was plannning on leaving, then went back in to open the curtains and turn the light on. On it shall remain all night. I also - and I do feel like a bad person about this, but I did it - threw my laptop, ipod and all my jewelry into my bag.
If they do break into my house they'll find lots of things neatly boxed up and labelled. Like 'bedding' and 'journals and photos,' etc. If they stole the journals it would save me wondering whether I should continue to cart them all around the world.
At some point in the next week I need to spend some time reflecting on why I am going into the monastery. Must get that down before it all begins.
I think I am falling in love with the very brave Rory Carroll. My two favorite moments in his story: when he talks about the Iraqi guy telling him "it's okay, it's okay" and then writes simply, "It was not okay." And the mention of how he went to Iraq to clear his head after the demise of a relationship. Now go listen to the audio and hear how cool he sounds. I'll be his new girlfriend (but not in Iraq - come home, baby).
My thoughts are as scattered as this blog entry. One more week! Just one week.
Notes
Posted by: lucie
The Town Fair isn't quite so cute anymore. It's loud. This is cute from 6pm to 8pm, at which point you think dear God, please don't tell me this noise is going to continue for another three hours, so you go in search of a nice quiet pub where you can read a book, but all the pubs are closed, like all the other businesses on the street, because they're all frightened of the chaos that is the Town Fair. Here is the view out my window:
Now imagine the street filled with people and a different banging techno track or repetitive line from "We Will Rock You" coming from each of those rides. It's kind of bad.
I did get some good photos of kids on the horses, teacups and crazy cottage, and a man in the midst of 101 dalmations. There are more, but I am too tired to edit them right now.
The MBA people emailed me to say that my file will go before the committee next week. So I should hear something before I leave the country, I expect. Note to self: if I don't get in, it's clearly not something I'm meant to do. Pick up bruised ego and move on.
Today is my last day at work. It's 10:30 and I'm still working, tying up loose ends. It's strange to think this is the last day I'll spend in this building. These things never hit you until you actually walk out, I suppose. We're having a lunch and I suspect they'll try to force some alcohol down my throat.
I have one week, just one short week, to get my life in order, pack up my house, store stuff at Anna's, send stuff to Rebecca, donate stuff to charity and whittle the rest down to one suitcase for my travels. Then it's off to London, to Devon, to Nepal, to New Delhi, and back to Eastern Europe.
One week.
Gypsies & fairs
Posted by: lucie
When I say the fair is in town, I mean it's in my town, and because I live dead in the centre of the High Street of my town, I have rides right in front of my house. Wednesday the High Street was completely empty at dusk and in a matter of minutes the trucks took over and rides were unpacked and assembled with breathtaking speed.
My posh little town is now full of gypsies and traveling fair people, which makes the locals squirmy. When you hear the word 'gypsy,' do you think of fortune tellers who wear scarves on their heads and big gold hoop earrings in their ears and gaze into crystal balls? I used to.
Then I moved to Eastern Europe, where 'gypsies' were an actual race of people (called 'Roma' there, 'Romany' many other places) with skin darker than mine. I could never accurately identify Roma people. Eastern European people universally agree that they are animals. Roma kids are jettisoned to special needs schools. Roma adults can't get jobs. Pardon me for using the word, but it suits: they are the niggers of Eastern Europe. And when your local friends start saying embarrassingly ignorant things about gypsies, you have to keep your mouth shut because it's a cultural issue and you really have no right to get preachy in someone else's country.
Now I'm in England and they have 'gypsies and travelers,' also nearly universally hated by English people who think it's okay to make sweeping generalizations about how they are all dirty thieves. To further confuse matters, lots of them are white. "How am I supposed to know a gypsy if I see one?" I asked one of my work colleagues yesterday, and he replied "They're usually carrying a TV or something."
I'm trying to keep the faith. Wednesday night I made friends with Billy who runs the shooting stall. He asked if he could plug an extension cord in at my house, just to run his tv and turn his lights on. He offered me ten pounds for the favor, but I said I'd rather just have permission to ask him a whole bunch of questions about touring around with the fair. "Anything you want to know," he said. Poor guy doesn't know what he's letting himself in for. I'll be demanding to run the shooting game next.
I lowered a rope from my second floor window, Billy tied it to the extension cord and I hoisted it up and plugged him in. The cord prevents my window from closing securely, so everyone at work thinks I'm crazy. Apparently you shouldn't have any interaction at all with gypsies because "they'll steal your front door if you give them half a chance."
No one's going to steal my tv. Will Billy let me in the back door of the shooting stall to take pictures or something? Will he tell me crazy stories about life on the road with the fair? I'm more concerned about that.
Like unwrapping Christmas presents
Posted by: lucie
The carnival is coming to town
Posted by: lucie
Hot date
Posted by: lucie
"Ottery St. Mary is internationally renowned for its Tar Barrels, an old custom said to have originated in the 17th century, and which is held on November 5th each year. Each of Ottery's central public houses sponsors a single barrel. In the weeks prior to the day of the event, November 5th, the barrels are soaked with tar. The barrels are lit outside each of the pubs in turn and once the flames begin to pour out, they are hoisted up onto local people's backs and shoulders. The streets and alleys around the pubs are packed with people, all eager to feel the lick of the barrels flame. Seventeen Barrels all in all are lit over the course of the evening. In the afternoon and early evening there are women's and boy's barrels, but as the evening progresses the barrels get larger and by midnight they weigh at least 30 kilos. A great sense of camaraderie exists between the 'Barrel Rollers', despite the fact that they tussle constantly for supremacy of the barrel. In most cases, generations of the same family carry the barrels and take great pride in doing so. It perpetuates Ottery St Mary's great sense of tradition, of time and of history. Opinion differs as to the origin of this festival of fire, but the most widely accepted version is that it began as a pagan ritual that cleanses the streets of evil spirits. It is an incredible night to remember - one of the biggest bonfires in the South West is ignited on the banks of the River Otter and behind it are the flashing neon's of the annual fun fair."
Matt and I will be taking our relationship to the next level in my last few days in England. Out of the bedroom, out of the pubs, out of the restaurants, even. Beyond naked mass photo shoots in Newcastle and tourist hikes through London.
We're going away for a weekend - my last weekend in the country - and on Sunday he's taking me directly to Heathrow airport, where I shall board a flight to Nepal. We'll witness this tar barrel madness and stay at an idyllic little b&b.
My last images of England will be English countrysides and coastlines, a 16th century thatched farmhouse bed & breakfast and men, women and children running around at night with flaming barrels of tar on their backs.
I cannot believe how lucky I am.
Hotel Mysteries (or: Thursday night, Dublin, pt2)
Posted by: lucie
You don't know how you'd react to discovering a strange man in your hotel room in the middle of the night until you actually do wake up to discover a strange man in your hotel room in the middle of the night, his shirtless muscular silhouette framed, in a not at all sexy way because what the hell is he doing there(?!), by the bathroom door.
I awoke with something of a start, not because there was a strange man in the room, but because I'd fallen asleep without locking the door or making sure Anna got back in safely. I'd only left her in front of the hotel having a cigarette, but I must have been out cold the moment I pulled the covers up to my chin, and it was probably about 4am when I next had a conscious thought. Anna was quietly wheezing away, not quite snoring, and then there were footsteps moving toward the bathroom, and a door opening. So... Anna was still wheezing, and the door was opening at the same time. This was not right.
Rolling over, I saw Anna sleeping soundly in the next bed, then took in the entire room, and that's when the silhouette came into play. There was definitely a strange man in our hotel room. Without a shirt. So I did exactly what any half-awake girl in a confined space with a strange man shouldn't do: threw the covers off, jumped out of bed and chased him.
The bathroom door was half an inch from closed when I reached it, threw my hand out and flung it aggressively open, gripping either side of the doorframe and leaning forward in some half-conscious attempt to look menacing.
I was face to face with Rob The Rocker. And he looked scared to death.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded angrily, confused. He mumbled something about having had too much to drink and sleeping on the floor. "Does Anna know you're here?" I asked. It was a dumb question. How else would he have found our room?
But the answer was dumber. "Who?" he said.
Anna. Anna who stopped to have a cigarette with him while he was waiting for Olivia to come back down from her room and meet him outside our hotel. After luring him a mile and a half out of the centre Olivia then changed her mind and decided she felt like going to bed (alone). Being a kind and sweet English Rose, and feeling a bit sorry for him, Anna agreed to join him for a few more drinks while he was in the neighborhood.
Somehow one thing led to another, or Rob thought it was leading somewhere, because he made comments about cab drivers never knowing how to find his hotel and then actually refused to get into a cab on the grounds that he didn't trust the driver to find his way. This all sounded like a very obvious, and not very smooth, plot to get into Anna's hotel room, but being a kind and sweet English Rose she tends to see the best in people and miss things.
After enduring 3 hours of Thin Lizzy stories, glimpsing the tattoo ("The Rocker" on his arm in thin, fancy script) and finding herself the target of such lines as "I want to tell you something. No no, I shouldn't tell you. No, never mind. Well, okay. I think you're the cutest. I really do, I think you're the cutest out of the four of you," and so forth, The Rocker got his wish. She said he could sleep on our hotel room floor if he really needed to.
The Rocker was apparently unimpressed when Anna actually started pulling pillows and blankets out of the closet. Even after the reality of the sleeping arrangements had been laid out for him and he was settled on the floor, he kept grabbing the corner of her bed and shaking it like a kid at a slumber party in an attempt to restart conversation and keep her awake. She blocked him out and went to sleep.
She'd tried to wake me up when they first got in, she said, but I was sound asleep. So I had to discover The Rocker in our room later, on my own terms.
He seemed to feel a bit sheepish, his plan for action completely foiled, his back sore from camping out on some girls' hotel room floor when he'd thought he was going to score. He slipped out the door about a half hour after our bathroom encounter (which ended with me saying 'Okay, well, sorry, never mind, it's cool, I was just, um, surprised') when he thought I'd fallen back to sleep.
In the morning all that remained was a piece of hotel paper that said: "Rob. The Regent, room 402."
The Rocker (or: Thursday night, Dublin)
Posted by: lucie
I am your main man if you're looking for trouble
I'll take no lip 'cause no one's tougher than me
If I kicked your face you'd soon be seeing double
Hey little girl, keep your hands off me
'cause I'm a rocker
It was the flash that did it. He was a lone traveller milling awkwardly around a hipster bar looking for company, and the camera gave us away. Tourists.
He said his name was Rob and that he'd travelled all the way from Chicago to Dublin by himself and didn't know a soul. Three of us went, 'awwwww, all by yourself?' but Olivia snidely retorted, 'Poor baby, cashing in on the travelling all alone story, now we feel sorry for you.'
Rob looked at her quizzically, unsure what to make of this hostility, then glanced at Anna and me. We did our best to radiate sufficient warmth to defrost Olivia's vibe and motioned to a bar stool, inviting him to join us for a drink. He was about 35, dressed in jeans and a rather tight t-shirt topped off with a 90s-style leather bomber jacket, and what hair he had left on his head was cropped close to the scalp. What he lacked in height he made up in muscle.
He looked like a young New York City cop out of his element and more than a little scared, which was probably because he had never left America before. This trip to Dublin was a sort of spiritual journey, if you will, but no, no, we probably didn't want to hear about it.
The girls pointed at me, shouting "She'll want to hear about it!" and "She's the spiritual one," and "That's your girl, she's becoming a monk for a month." I didn't think you had to be particularly spiritual to want to hear more, but I was curious. "Tell me," I said. So Rob did.
He'd flown all these miles - alone - to see his hero Thin Lizzy's grave. He'd been threatening to do it for years, and his friends all thought he was crazy. But he followed his dream and came to Dublin, and it worked out better than he could ever have expected. He found Thin Lizzy's mom's phone number in the phonebook and called her. She invited him over, made him a cup of tea, answered his questions and even let him hold Thin Lizzy's guitar. Then he stood before the grave and felt the power of Thin Lizzy. It was pretty deep.
Watching his eyes as he recalled the day's events you could tell Rob idolized this man intensely - that the experience had felt spiritual to him. His choice of guru seemed odd to me, but, well, who's to judge? And maybe I listened to far too much This American Life the week prior to this chance encounter, because suddenly I felt like I was interviewing him for a TAL piece. I assumed an Ira Glass-esque stance of impartiality and fascination. Burning with a desire to draw his story out of him and get him to reflect on its meaning, all TAL style, I suspended all judgment and started enthusiastically firing questions at him.
It didn't work all that well. I mean, I tried to get him to reveal why he related to Thin Lizzy so much that he would leave his country for the first time ever and travel 4000 miles to see his grave - what was it about him, exactly? - but Rob couldn't really say. He just told me he used Thin Lizzy's nickname, "The Rocker," wherever possible. He had 'The Rocker' tattooed on his arm; his email address was therocker@wherever.com.
This fascinated me. Rob didn't merely love Thin Lizzy - he actually wanted to be him. You know how you can completely idolize someone and then, one day, you realize you have to be yourself and do your own thing, and their untouchable, otherworldly magic begins to dwindle? I was remembering the times I'd had someone up there and had to let go, and these ideas led me to my Big Question.
It came out all jumbled, but it was something like: "Okay, so you LOVE Thin Lizzy so much that you even have The Rocker tattooed on your arm, and he's been this major influence on who you are to the extent that seeing his grave was like a spiritual experience for you, but... what now? You know, where do you go from here? Do you think now that you've made this kind of pilgrimage to see his grave and had this intense experience that you can be, like, reborn in a way, as Rob... and leave The Rocker behind?"
Oh, it sounded dead interesting to me at the time. I told Anna about this question later and she thought it was mean, but I wasn't trying to make fun of him - I really wanted to know. I stared at Rob in anticipation, expecting some major epiphany. He looked like he was giving it some thought, so I got my hopes up. This was going to be The Big Revealing Quote.
"No," he finally answered matter-of-factly. "I'll always be The Rocker."
I said "hey baby, meet me I'm a tough guy"
Got my cycle outside, you wanna try?
She just looked at me and rolled them big eyes
And said "ooh I'd do anything for you
'cause you're a rocker"
detox
Posted by: lucie
So as to get the most out of the monastery experience and not simply spend the first two weeks in chemical shock, I shall attempt to begin detoxing now. I'm pretty sure that if you broke down my diet for the last month, you'd find that at least half of my caloric intake was comprised of alcohol and sugary snacks. Hence, for the next two weeks, no sugar and no alcohol.
Dear God, what am I letting myself in for?
Rural England
Posted by: lucie
People in this part of England have a typical small-town mentality: they're born here, they grow up here, they settle down here. Ask if they've ever thought of leaving and they'll tend to respond with a blank stare.
Little of the outside world penetrates the borders of this particular county, which is just another way to say that there's not much culture. At the risk of sounding like a complete snob - which I will, but please don't judge me until you've lived in rural Iowa or the equivalent - it's very blue collar. Save hanging out in pubs, going to the gym, shopping or maybe playing Bingo, there's little to do. Round here you work, drink, talk about mortgages, fix up your house and have babies pretty young. It's a simple life that seems to make some people happy enough.
Not being one of them, I've found it a bit of a struggle.
But this is all just a meandering, long-winded way of trying to confess that even though I don't belong here and have never fit in, there are things I'll miss. Being able to walk ten minutes from my house and see animals grazing in fields, for example, is pretty cool.
A couple weeks ago I had two dear friends in town. Given the lack of local sights and/or culture, we opted to make the most of the countryside. It was a sunny day, so we set off for a 3 mile hike out to a nearby village that boasted little more than houses, a church, a petrol station and a pub that we expected to be a hole in the wall. We thought we'd pop in for a pint or two, then hike the 3 miles back, congratulating ourselves for such a healthy afternoon outing.
Surprisingly, it was enormous: 4 big rooms with fireplaces, an incredible kitchen churning out food you'd never expect to find 3 miles out in the countryside, and a laid-back 'locals only' kind of 'who are you, we've never seen you here before, but I suppose it's alright if you stay so long as you don't make any trouble' kind of vibe.
We settled into a corner in this room and chatted for hours on end, ordered lunch, played darts, tried local ales and took shelter from the wind.
I love English country pubs. They rank amongst the coziest places in the universe.
Warmed and relaxed by the ale, we set off again a good four hours later to make the 3-mile journey back home. Halfway back we spotted a flock of mesmerized geese. We leaned against a wooden fence and watched them, looking periodically to our left in an attempt to figure out what had them so entranced. There didn't seem to be anything there. They stared off into the distance thus transfixed for a good five minutes. We stared at them in silence.
"Well, that's what three pints in the afternoon will do to you," one of the friends finally said, and we all giggled in embarrassment and moved on.
Next we saw this knobbly-kneed little gentleman, whose pictures speak two thousand words, I think. When did you last see anything this precious in the city?
Getting down to business
Posted by: lucie
Applying to grad school is about as confidence-inspiring as walking into a job interview. It must be the trauma of laying yourself out on paper for someone to judge that makes the accompanying feelings of insecurity so easy to forget, because every time it comes up again I seem to be caught off guard.
Anyway, I have, for the most part, finished my MBA application. In the process of writing the essay I actually convinced myself that I wanted to do it, though two weeks ago I could never have imagined such a day.
The essay is odd. I'm not the typical candidate and in some ways my words feel too informal, too honest, too cheeky, but very... well, me. That's me, and I wouldn't particularly want to be accepted on the basis of some stuffy sounding bizspeak bs. I don't have an undergraduate degree in Finance or anything; I'm just this girl who's done a lot of things, been successful at most of them, and could do well for herself in an MBA program. No sense pretending to be something else.
It was a taxing piece to write, in part because the topic was so bland and uninspiring: Why I Wish to Study for the MBA. It had to cover how I saw it affecting my career plans, what I could contribute and why I chose this particular university. (in the end I only applied to one). But mostly it was difficult to write because I had to somehow extol my non-traditional background while simultaneously explaining why I'd want to go the very traditional route of getting an MBA. So: I've come this far without training - I don't need no training! But I want this training because I need it to be better. That's a tricky thing to do.
The truth is, my primary reason for wanting to do the thing was that I'm sick of having a big blank 'education' section on applications, and having no education section at all on my CV. I don't think I'm any less qualified than, say, someone with an undergraduate degree in psychology or sociology or English, but you get tired of defending it. And it's demoralizing to explain "Well, maybe I could get a company to sponsor me for a work permit, but as I don't have a degree no one will view me as exceptionally qualified." I went through it in Eastern Europe (had to find creative ways to get a visa) and have been through it again in England (can't get a visa to stay if I want to), and it's a pain in the ass. Being degree-less just ain't conducive to international living.
When I rediscovered my passion for journalism the MBA fell another notch, becoming a mere backup plan in case my leap of faith turned out to be a mistake. The thing is, a leap of faith can never truly be a mistake if it's made wholeheartedly, so I came this close to blowing off the application completely. I couldn't muster the passion to write a convincing essay, and people were starting to say you know, if you don't want to do it, just don't do it. And I'd say no, but it's the responsible, adult thing to do, to have a backup plan. I've never had a backup plan before. Think how lighthearted I could be if I had one! I could go to Eastern Europe without second guessing myself. I could screw everything up with Tom and get my heart broken, not get a job at the paper, make an entire mess of my life and say eh, whatever, it's just a 9-month break before I go do the MBA and start acting like a responsible adult.
Oh, I'd never do those things - at least not on purpose - but what a luxury it would be to know that my whole future wasn't riding on everything working out exactly right.
Still, I could foresee, somehow, a future in which I would value having this option at my disposal. And if I was going to apply, I needed to do it from within a management position - not when I was back pursuing journalism. I mean, try explaining that.
In the end it was pure discipline - never my strength - that pulled it through. I chipped away at the application, gave the CV a facelift, and finally confronted the essay. It took about a week of obsessing to draw it out. Okay. Why do this? Why actually do this? Because if journalism isn't what I'm supposed to do, then business is. Business has always felt a bit inevitable, but what an unromantic thing to be destined for. I'm good at it. I actually enjoy it. But I feel so dirty for liking it. It's just... business. It's got no soul. Except it can, in rare cases.
(In truth, what lies behind this idea that business is soulless and dirty is a whole 'nother entry having to do with my dad the power-tripping manipulative control freak entrepreneur business genius, but that's a can of worms, my friends.)
Anyway, let's say business is the thing; I'd want the MBA so I could be taken seriously. And I'd also like to have some foundation business knowledge because making everything up as you go along gets really tiring; at some point it would be nice to feel a little less scrambley. And there's more I'd do well to know before starting my own business again (ie not an indie record label that never stood a chance of turning an actual profit). So okay. I'm channeling the girl who really wants to do the MBA, and here's why she wants to do it. And the essay finally came out, and it was honest.
In the process, I actually discovered there were some good reasons to do the thing. It's one possible future. The other is journalism. These are the two things I could make a career of. They're entirely disparate and I'm divided straight down the middle. I could be happy, in different ways, with either.
Being at a career crossroads like this is a luxury, right? Not something to stress about.
Anyway, at the moment it's in the hands of the applications department, so there's no sense worrying. The path will make itself apparent when it's time. For now, I'm just relieved to have finished the damn essay.
Those monks think they know everything!
Posted by: lucie
A month from today I'll begin my 30 day meditation program at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. It's going to be hard. Oh sure, there'll be serenity and monks and prayer wheels and chanting and breathtaking views of the Himalayas. There'll be wholesome vegan food and lessons about Buddhism and meditation and tea. But let's make a list of things there won't be - a list I also like to call 'Things That Take The Edge Off':
alcohol
music
talking to friends
internet
phone
sex (okay, not such a big deal for that length of time, but...)
any contact at all with the opposite sex (as above, but...)
flirting, even (!)
snacks
sugar
caffeine
shopping
bitching about stuff aka venting
talking before breakfast
All that serenity could potentially drive a person crazy.
Plus you only get one meal a day for the last two weeks. And when the 30 days are done, there's the 7 day silent retreat.
"I wonder what they do when people freak out," Tom said, and for the first time I realized that for some people this might not just be hard - for some people it might actually be too much. I considered this for a moment and speculated, "They probably just lovebomb them until they calm down."
Later Anna wondered how many people would drop out. This possibility hadn't occurred to me either, but I suppose one or two might well decide it isn't what they thought they signed up for.
Freaking out isn't my style. My style is more along the lines of getting tense for lack of outlets and beginning to think the monks are actually being unreasonable. They think they know everything. These rules are stupid. I'm perfectly capable of talking before breakfast and being serene. Who do they think they are?!
I'd like to think that if I find myself silently bitching about Buddhist monks I'll realize I've hit some kind of wall and need to take a deep breath - especially having reflected on this possibility beforehand.
I'm going to try really really hard.
Check us out
Posted by: lucie
Last night I was putting the final touches on my 'Why I wish to do an MBA' essay (on which more later) when I got an email from one K Mike M asking what I thought of the new design. Eh?
I checked my blog - it looked the same. Then I refreshed, and I saw this! Check us out!! Overarching is a real blog now, with a real design and everything!
I had no idea there was a redesign in the works. It's all very exciting. I feel special.
Urbanhonking rocks. Thank you guys!
Guinness only sold here
Posted by: lucie
The small print says "Guinness is good for you." Sorry for the blurriness - I may have had a bit too much to drink.
My fellow Americans, a shred of knowledge it took me too many years to procure: Guinness in cans is nothing compared to Guinness in bottles. Guinness in bottles is nothing compared to Guinness on tap. Guinness on tap in America is nothing compared to Guinness on tap in England, which is nothing compared to Guinness on tap in Ireland.
Guiness on tap in Ireland is sweet, sticky, beautiful, opiate stuff.
They say Guinness on tap in the Guinness brewery is even better, but we were too hungover to make it to the Guinness brewery tour. This is just one of many reasons I must revisit Dublin.
I don't know if I ever reported back on the outcome of my bold email to the Irish editor, but it was surprisingly positive, given that I was expecting something along the lines of "I appreciate your enthusiasm - good effort - but no."
Key quote: "I won't know for a while yet what the situation is, but I will promise this - if we do look like we are going to need someone, you will be the first person I call." It sounded like he was just being polite, and I didn't think much of it until we met up for lunch in London.
It was the weekend I was down to see Matt, and the Editor and I had been hoping to find a time to reconnect and get to know each other a bit, talk about some story ideas, have a sober conversation that didn't involve cat ear headbands, hen dos and stag groups... long story.
Anyway, we agreed on Saturday lunch. I don't know London very well so I texted him the name of Matt's neighborhood. "Let's meet on the steps of the British Museum at 1pm - I think it's close," he texted back.
It felt a bit rude arranging a business meeting in the middle of my weekend with Matt, but it was really the only chance I had as the Editor was scheduled to be in Myanmar during my Dublin trip (travel writer - tough life). "I remember you talking about how you used to be a journalist and saying you missed it," Matt wrote back when I emailed him apologetically soliciting his blessing, "so of course you must meet the editor." Isn't that sweet? I'm very fond of Matt. More on his fascinating character soon, but not today.
So meet him I did, on the steps of the British Museum. God, I have to find a picture of the British Museum to do this justice. Ah yes, here are are - thanks to Richard Fuller, on whose page I found it.
This is exactly what you see when you step through the gates in front of the British Museum. Ensconced below the second column from the left imagine a lanky grey-haired guy with a broadsheet newspaper extended at arm's length, motionlessly engrossed in it as you cut through the depth of the courtyard. He never looks up.
Last time I saw him it was 3am in Edinburgh and we were both worse for wear, so you'd think I'd have a tough time recognizing him, but no - he's the newspaper guy. He's The Editor, on the steps of the British museum. I feel like Woodward or Bernstein or Deep Throat or even James Bond. It's just so iconic. "Well, you're pretty easy to spot," I say at the end of my approach, and only then does he shake the newspaper, fold its crisp pages back together and say hello.
We go out for Thai food and I spill my guts about how I am planning to go back to Eastern Europe and get back in to journalism - I want to jump ship and swim, and I tell him I know I can rely on him to take the journalism side. "Tell me to do it!" I beg, and he does. He says nice things about my writing that I won't repeat here because I'm too embarrassed, but one of them is that he wouldn't have offered to give me a job, should the situation become possible, if he didn't genuinely like my work. And that's the moment I realize he wasn't just messing me around.
So that's another possibility in my strange world - that I may have a chance to go work for The Editor in Dublin. He's not bothered about the minefield of legalities and work permits. There are a bazillion illegals in Dublin. Really, you'd be shocked at the number of internet cafes you see there, and they all double as discount call centres, displaying rates for international calls in their front windows. I asked a taxi driver about it (Dublin taxi drivers rule - they won't talk to you if you don't talk to them first, but if you make friends with them they'll tell you the world), and he said yeah, lots of foreign nationals here - they call home from those places. It had to be something, because internet cafes are dying everywhere else as far as I can see.
I don't know what happened here, because this entry was truly only meant to be this little picture from a Dublin pub and a word or two about Guinness, but here we are. I'm putting the final touches on my MBA essay - or I should be - so that probably explains a few things.
Swan Crossing
Posted by: lucie
We were sitting in the Portobello drinking Guinness, like good tourists, when we spotted these two little guys crossing the road. They walked with a hobbling gait, two infirm old men unsure of their shaky canes. Time and traffic stopped for them, and all the patrons piled out of the pub to observe their uncertain journey.
"It happens from time to time," a friendly taxi driver told us. "They lose track of where they are and don't realize the danger. But the cars always wait patiently. It's nice."
Friday night, Dublin, pt6 (the end)
Posted by: lucie
The lack of available taxis in Dublin after 2am on a Friday night leads to a sociable mass pedestrian exodus from the city. An international crowd of inebriated revellers takes the party to the streets, stumbling, mingling, shouting all the way home, and we march along with our drunken stompyboots demeanor, cursing the name of Richard the doorman who didn't show up, or at least not in time, then deciding that of course he did show up just after we left and now he is brokenhearted.
He probably didn't, though, so we curse him some more. "I didn't even care about him and now I feel dissed!" I pout. "How do I end up feeling dissed when I didn't even care?" Stomp stomp stomp.
And in swerves Jerry. "What are you saying about Irish men?" he demands playfully, in a voice camp as a row of tents. I'm drunk, he's gay - I instantly love him. I link arms with him and begin recounting the details of my evening. His boyfriend is a few paces ahead making halfhearted, sullen attempts to hail a taxi, looking pretty unamused, and Anna goes to keep him company.
"Not all Irish men, Jerry," I reassure him after we get acquainted, then explain the evening's events, Richard's behavior ("He's in LOVE with you!"), how I had two other guys I could have taken home ("Of COURSE you did!") and I didn't get why he would tell me to go to this other place if he wasn't going to show up. Jerry doesn't get it either. "I don't care!" I tell him. "Who needs him?" Jerry cackles, and then Anna and I trade gay boys.
Jerry's boyfriend is a moody Englishman. I recount my story to him for a second opinion and he sighs. "I'm sorry, honey," he says gloomily, shaking his head, "but he was messing with you. That's Irish men for you. Irish men just looove to have their egos boosted." Sounds like he and Jerry might be having some cultural conflicts of their own. I steer him back to his man, grab Anna off Jerry's arm, and we press on.
Anna declares a desperate craving for chips with mayonnaise and cheese and locks her sights on one of the late night shops that sell deep fried indulgences to drunks looking for something to soak up the dregs of the evening. It's overflowing, so I wait outside, lean against a lamppost, gaze vacantly across the street... I'm idly obsessing on the Richard thing when a tall, skinny, redhaired Irish boy bounds up - right up, to within inches of my face.
"Excuse me, can I just ask you a question?" he says gently. I nod, a bit caught off guard. "Are you as angry as you look?"
"Ohmygoshnoooooo!!" I swear up and down, "No, I was just thinking about this thing about this guy - did I really look that angry? I'm not angry!"
His name is Morgan, he's glad I'm not as angry as I look, and he wonders if I'd like to come to a party at his house. He asks in a tone that suggests he's just thought of the idea and is a bit surprised to hear it escaping his lips, but thinks it's the best idea he's ever had, inviting some strange American girl over. Part of me wants to say yes, but I tell him my friend is really tired and it wouldn't be right to keep dragging her around. "Come on, we can smoke a little bit of marijuaaaana," he wheedles. I swear my friend is knackered, so he says he'll settle for a hug. He's completely harmless, so I oblige - just as Anna walks out the door with her cheesey chips.
"Bloody hell, woman," she declares, "I leave you alone for 30 seconds!" Later she will describe the look of sincerity on Morgan's face - eyes closed, head slightly tilted, holding me tight like I am one of his most cherished, beloved friends.
Morgan asks Anna if she'd like to come to a party and she doesn't think so, which seems to settle the matter, but he walks with us for the next 1/2 mile, suggesting over and over that we'd really have a great time and stopping me twice more to ask for hugs. It takes a minute or two to detach ourselves from him when we reach the hotel door, but one last hug laced with a vibe of finality does the trick.
We float into the elevator, tiptoe down the hotel hall and land in heaps on our beds. "Four hugs, that was the most action I got tonight," I tell Anna, and we laugh ourselves to sleep.
Friday night, Dublin, pt5
Posted by: lucie
Dan alludes once more to his lack of funds and I give in and say we can buy him a drink if he wants to come. "If you insist," he chirps triumphantly. I consider pointing out that I'm not insisting and also that I won't be going "home" with him (where is he planning on taking me, anyway? I'm sure he said he was staying in a dormitory-style 10-bed room in a hostel), but I let it slide.
The three of us walk down the street, arms linked. Anna manages, in the space of about 60 seconds, to mention that she has FF boobs and then declare, "We're a threesome!"
We reach the club - it's called Sin. The doorman considers us briefly and locks onto Dan. "I think you've had too much to drink," he says, waving Anna and me through.
"I really haven't," Dan replies with a laugh. "You're gonna have to do better than that. What, is it my shoes?"
"Sorry mate," the doorman says with a knowing smirk, "Looks to me like you've just had a little bit too much to drink."
Anna and I glance at each other, at Dan, at Dan's shoes, and back at each other. He does look a bit like a scrappy backpacker. Maybe that is it, which is a bit shallow and unfair. But given that he presumes I'm going to sleep with him and he's trying to mooch off us, I make a split second decision to cut him loose. "I hate to be mean, Dan, but... it was nice to meet you," I tell him, and turn to walk inside as he shrugs. Anna stays back like the nice girl she is, hugs him goodnight and wishes him luck.
Anna is always the sweet one; I am the smartass. We make a good team.
It's nice to be back to basics, because we're still reeling and frowning from the closing time bad trip. We sit down, take deep breaths and place bets on whether Richard will show up. He won't, I say, but Anna insists that he is smitten with me, that he's been gazing at me through the window all night. I'm not holding my breath.
A long-haired, Spanish-looking Antonio Banderas wannabe - only skinnier, and Irish - sits down across the table and wordlessly pushes two shots of Bailey's and Kahlua our way. We decline politely, mostly because we're not stupid enough to accept drinks from strangers, but partly because a shot would really do us in. He keeps pushing them, we keep declining, he becomes agitated and now we start a conversation as a means to deflect his insistence. Anna is fed up now, and suddenly I'm the nice one.
I ask where he's from, and he looks suspicious. "From here," he says defensively, "But I wanna get out of here too." Too? He looks furtively from side to side to see if anyone might be listening, then leans across the table and cups one hand around the side of his mouth. "I'm from here but my mom's adopted," he discloses. He looks jerkily over his left shoulder, then his right. "But I don't want anyone else to hear me saying that."
I can almost hear Anna's silent screams of frustration. "Try to be amused," I tell her. "Pretend you're writing a story about it - look at it from the outside in. Observe and laugh." Easy for me to say, she tells me, because I will write about it. She's just here.
Antonio takes the first of the shots himself, then releases his long, wavy brown hair from its ponytail and shakes his loosened locks down around his face. The first strains of the Pussycat Dolls' 'Dontcha,' which I abhor but Anna loves, vibrate the walls, and every woman in the place is instantly communing with her inner stripper. Anna cheers up. Antonio pulls a tortured sexy face and sings along with the chorus, punctuating each dontcha with his best smoldering, seductive look. He seems to be channelling a female porn star. He even rubs his imaginary breasts.
I'm beginning to pine for Richard, who I now envisage as my strong, sober boyfriend on the way to rescue me from this evening of singlehood and seedy men. He'll appear quietly, sit down next to me, raise a subtle eyebrow at Antonio and make us feel all safe. I'll let my guard down and be nice, drop my head to his shoulder in a moment of relief, and we'll have a real conversation.
Either this or he'll just walk in, sit down and I'll ask him twenty questions, beginning with "cats or dogs?" I don't care whether he likes cats or dogs; I am just drunk enough to think it would be witty for this to be the first thing I say to him when he sits down. Then I will ask, "Are you a nice boy, Richard?" and "Did you leave your flat tidy in case you brought one of your girls home tonight?" and "Will you bring me a cup of tea in bed in the morning when I'm hungover?"
Antonio keeps pushing the second shot of Kahlua and Bailey's toward us. I suggest he pour it into his Corona and see if it's nice. "Ohshutthefuckup," he tells me, and knocks it back. Leaving the nearly-full beer at the table he heads out for a cigarette after which, I suspect, the bouncers deny him re-entry. Or maybe he passes out. He was pretty far gone even before the shots.
With the final strains of 'Dontcha' fading away, a look of exhaustion returns to Anna's face. We are bored, and it begins to feel like we're just waiting for Richard to turn up. We hang out for about an hour, all in, before Anna says, "He's not coming. Let's go."
It's approaching 3am and there isn't an empty taxi in sight. Eh... we'll walk the mile and a half back to our hotel.
Friday night, Dublin, pt4
Posted by: lucie
I keep one eye on Richard in an attempt to catch him talking to other girls, but he never does. In fact, he comes through the door periodically, walks past my table and ducks back outside without looking at me, then peers in through the window. He's beginning to seem kind of nervous and sweet.
Dan and Tripper are entertaining enough and I find myself settling once again into travel talk. Dan complains about how someone stole his wallet in Poland and now someone has stolen his last ten euro at the hostel. He brings it up a few times and goes "Thieves, man. I'm so sick of thieves," with a somehow contrived look of pain and anger on his face. I can't figure out why he's lying, but he is. I tell him it's probably for the best that he lost his wallet - he'll have more adventures that way.
Anna has been off chatting to some Irish guys at the bar, but I can't see her. I look around and out the windows, conclude that she must be outside having a cigarette, and exit through Richard's door. He's ready for me. The moment I step out he sings me just one line of Lionel Richie: "Is it me you're looking for?"
"Sing me the whole song," I demand with a grin.
"No," he says.
"Fine then," I say, and walk away. We go on like this all night.
At 1:30, closing time, the place explodes. Anna's older men, who have been buying her drinks despite her protestations and, as such, think they own her, get hostile when Dan and Tripper come over. "Are you with those guys?" they demand, as if she isn't allowed to be. It's strange.
I'm trying to tell Anna about Richard's Lionel Richie song, and one of her guys interjects. "Wait, what did he sing?" he asks. Lionel Richie, I tell him. "I heard him talking to someone about you!" he proclaims most confusingly. I don't get it. "I heard him saying he sang you a Lionel Richie song! He said there was this nice American girl and he sang to you." I am certain, because of his shifty manner, that he is making at least part of this up, but I can't figure out why. Richard would not, at this point, describe me as "nice."
The doormen and barmen are yelling at the top of their lungs and hustling drinkers out the door, and everyone gets hostile. Tripper is telling Anna that it's funny about our names because she looks like Lucille Ball and I look like Anna Kournikova. This is completely untrue on both counts - he's just tripping on names - but she doesn't get it, and she takes offense at being called Lucille Ball.
She throws some words at him to that effect, so now he says she really does look like Lucille Ball, and what's more, I'm strange looking. Then he gets in my face and says "He's taking you home," gesturing to Dan. Huh? "He's taking you home," he tattles again, "he told me earlier."
"You should shut up," I tell him, and he continues to spout nonsense in my face until I shout in frustration, "What drugs are you on?! God!" and grab Anna to leave.
Anna's aggro because she's been called Lucille Ball and the guys she was talking to are seething at her because she's obviously not going home with them; I'm shaken because of my face-off with Tripper, and Dan's puffed up because I didn't pointedly say that I wasn't going home with him, so now he thinks he's in there.
We get outside and take a deep breath. Anna seethes over the older men, repeats ten times that she told them she was married and tried to refuse the drinks they bought her and what was the matter with them anyway? I repeat ten times that the pub turned into a bad trip at closing time and observe that my browline muscles are beginning to ache from making such deep faces of discomfort and confusion. Dan keeps going "So what's the plan?" Tripper has disappeared.
We're decompressing outside the bar and don't have a plan. Some absolutely adorable boy walks up and just says hi, chills out next to us and asks how our night is going, as though we all know each other. I am confused, waiting for him to ask a question. His friend walks up and offers us some Pringles. I am perplexed and amused. They wander away.
Suddenly appears Richard, which startles me because I've forgotten all about him in the melee. Now I'm embarrassed because it looks like I'm just standing here waiting for him to come find me, which isn't very smooth, so I act disinterested and say hey, what's open right now? "Four lefts," he says, pointing down the street, telling us there's a good bar open for another couple hours.
I ask if he's going to take us there and he says he actually has to stick around the pub for another 45 minutes to help clear up, but he'll come meet us. "Okay," I tell him nonchalantly, "maybe we'll see you there later," and start down the street as if I couldn't care less, Anna and Dan in tow.
I know this is getting kind of stupid, but tbc.
Friday night, Dublin, pt3
Posted by: lucie
Right, so we've got Richard staring in the window. We've got hairpulling Shane around the corner with Gazza, and they've just noticed that we're back in the place. We still don't know whether they ditched us or vice versa, so I opt for sauntering past as if they're not there, but Anna stops and says we've been to some other bars, found them wanting, and returned. Shane looks at me questioningly and I announce I'm going downstairs to the ladies'. I am a woman possibly scorned, opting to act as such.
As I ascend the stairs from the girls' room I find he's standing at the top, wearing another questioning look. I raise my eyebrows and give him a neutral, silent "what?", pause for a millisecond to see if he speaks, then glide past and sit down with Anna. The last image I have in my mind of him is Shane grinning and somewhat perplexed.
"He's right on the other side of that pole," Anna reports. I don't think I care but then I remember the hair thing. "If he comes up behind me and does the hair thing again, I'll leave with him right now, I swear," I tell her, because I'm full of shit. "Otherwise I'm bored of him." He doesn't, of course, and they leave.
It's the first chance we've had in hours to be girly so we sit and enjoy each other's company. Anna maneouvres me to a window as close as possible to Richard, and I opt to take the seat with my back to him so I won't get caught looking. This is a stupid move. Why don't I just flirt with him through the window? Wouldn't that be more fun?
Thumbnail sketch of me on a night out: 7pm I think I'm totally unattractive and no boy could ever be interested in me, 8pm someone is talking to me and telling Anna he likes me, and I'm like "Me? He likes me?" (This is partly down to the fact boys tend to like her better.) By 9 he's said he wants to take me home and I start to get all hard to get. Next thing you know I'm outside exchanging banter with a boy I would earlier have considered out of my league and wonder why he's said "Only the good looking ones" in reference to me, then shrugging him off like whatever, he's alright, I don't like him that much. By 11:00 I'm blowing off both of them when at 7 I wouldn't have had the nerve to speak to either, because I'm the queen of the bloody pub now and everyone is supposed to try and impress me.
It's fun, of course... And naturally the more arrogant and unattainable you become, the hotter they think you are. But that's only because they don't realize that you're acting all arrogant and unattainable because you're actually defensive, because you don't actually believe that they could actually like you - or at least that's how it works if you're me. Why did I play games with Richard instead of flirting with him? Because I really didn't believe he was even slightly interested in me. Because I really didn't think I was cute enough for him to pick me out of the crowd, so rather than take it to heart and be flattered I had to be antagonistic and fuck with him. I mean, bad example, because for chrissake he is a doorman and he deserves it, and we had fun with each other, but it does give me some insight into my own insecurities.
Anyway, enough introspection. We're drunk, we're flirting with boys, we're not on a shrink's couch, right? Let's have some fun.
Now two more boys walk up and just sit themselves down at our table as if they've just come in from having a cigarette and we're all just meant to resume our previous conversation. A dready hippie Australian boy called Dan, and the Irish boy he just met in his hostel... I can't remember his name but he was absolutely mad and we'll just call him Tripper. I'm taken aback. There is something wrong with this - they aren't in the same psychic space as us at all and I'm immediately convinced that there's some acid or speed in play, at least with tripper. Dan, I think, is just a bit stoned.
Dan is, like Shane, hot in a completely not-my-type kind of way. I don't think I've ever kissed a dready hippie boy. I just go for these middle-of-the-road type clean-cut boys all the time. Dan's cute and has a gorgeous smile but he's not even a blip on my radar, possibly because I'm a bit overwhelmed by boy attention at this point, possibly because he's probably 5 years younger than me. Tripper has - and I note this very objectively, clinically - amazing bone structure. He looks like a rock star. He also looks spun out and feels very wrong to me, the energy about him, but his jawline, his cheekbones, are undeniably beautiful. Again, this does not register as attraction because there is something awry. Later I will yell as much in his face, but that's later.
Dan and I go out for a cigarette and I stand around the corner from Richard pretending not to notice him. He stands around the corner pretending likewise not to notice me, but I keep catching him peeking around. I love this. Finally I edge toward him and catch his eye next time he peeks.
"Still looking to get laid?" he asks.
"Never was, actually. You misinterpreted that conversation. I wasn't looking, Richard, I just had offers." Pause. "Why, are you?"
He smirks and stares me square in the eye. "Yep."
I love this boy's nerve. I love games. Games are so much more fun than waking up with a strange person in your hotel room in the morning, really, and I have never had any intention of taking him home or letting him take me home, but we are having fun. "Well," I tell him, laughing again, "I guess we'll see what happens at 1:30!"
Dan, who has been pretending not to listen to our conversation, gasps at me when I turn back his direction. "What did you just say to that guy?" he asks, astounded. I think he thinks I have been talking about him. I tell him it was nothing.
oh, tbc.
Friday night, Dublin, pt2
Posted by: lucie
The thing about Shane was that he was a dirty dirty boy, and sometimes girls prefer the idea of boys like that to the actual reality. Or maybe I just didn't have the nerve to take home a big strapping lad who'd grabbed me and talked to me that way in a pub. I might not sound like it very often, but I'm actually a pretty nice girl. Seriously, I swear it. Or maybe it's not actually that I'm such a nice girl, but I'm not quite as brave as I come off, and he scared me a little.
So we sat there staring at each other and I didn't deny him, but I didn't give him any further encouragement. I mean, what was I supposed to do, hand him a golden ticket embossed with 'Congratulations, you are cordially invited to my bed'? I hadn't made my mind up yet. He was still in with a chance, but he would have to be smooth. Smooth wasn't really Shane's thing, so it seemed unlikely. The chilling effect of the hair thing was wearing off; that was the problem.
He finally suggested we move on to another bar. Anna and I were definitely up for it - the meat market vibe of the first pub was getting a bit silly. Gazza seemed up for it until, I think, Shane let him in on what I'd said about him not getting anywhere with Anna. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We agreed to find another pub. Anna and I were straight out the door and stood outside, as is our drunken habit, having a cigarette (we don't smoke sober; we pretend this makes it okay). The boys were lagging behind, or downstairs in the bathroom, or reviewing the situation amongst themselves. She prodded me for answers as to my intentions and I changed the subject to Gazza's pursuit of her. "Whatever!" she practically screamed, "I'm married! You're the one who's getting LAID!"
Remember the tall, boyishly handsome doorman dressed all in black? Anna was approximately two feet from him but somehow unaware of his presence, blending as he did into the doorframe. I shook my head in embarrassment and looked at him. "I'm not," I said. He raised an eyebrow, smirked, asked how my night was going and said his name was Richard. I liked the smirk.
"Do you smoke, Richard?"
"Nope. Quit. It was affecting my sexual performance. I was fading after about 45 minutes." Smirk.
"So how's it going since you quit? Go much longer now?"
He blinked. "I get off at 1:30 if you want to come find out," he said matter-of-factly.
"Is this what you do in this job, Richard? Stand outside turning away the drunks and chatting up tipsy girls?" I asked him, laughing, thoroughly entertained by his nerve.
"Only the good looking ones," he said, and turned away with a slightly embarrassed laugh.
"So if I said let's go right now, would you come with me?" I challenged. He shook his head and said he was working. "That's no good, Richard," I told him. "I mean, if you're not even willing to take the fall, that's just not that impressive."
"It's impossible," he said.
"What do they say about Irish boys?" I shot back. He looked confused. "What kind of reputation do Irish boys have? What do they say about them?"
I don't think he was used to girls giving him a run for his money; especially the kinds of silly drunk tourist girls who hang out in Temple Bar. I was firing comments and questions at him a bit too quickly and he was at a loss for a witty answer. "They're great," he said. Smirk. Just great? "Yep. They're great."
But where were the Aussie boys? Still not out the door. "I'm not going home with that dirty Australian boy," I told Anna quietly. "He had black fingernails. I can't do it."
Dirty hands are a pretty big turnoff. Anna was like well, they're craftsmen, and I said yeah, but so what? He's not a mechanic, he's a carpenter or something. Why should his hands be that dirty? I don't want those hands near me. And besides, what the hell was taking them so long? We were getting annoyed.
So we decided to leave. We were unsure, at that point, of whether we were ditching the Aussie boys or they had ditched us. I suspect Shane couldn't get Gazza to leave the meat market without a better prospect for the night, and once he knew he was getting nowhere with Anna he thought he'd work the rest of the room. In any case, we weren't going back inside to ask.
We bid Richard adieu. He implored us to stay, then reminded me to come back for him at 1:30, and I laughed and wondered aloud how many girls he said that to on an average night. I was pleasantly tipsy and overconfident and wanted to snog him just for fun (there's a certain point I reach after a few drinks where I think it's a good idea to walk up to boys and snog them, but I never do it), but I'd been drinking and smoking all night and he'd been standing at the door, sober, breathing fresh air, and I thought he'd find me gross. Plus he was working.
We moved on. Anna, who actually doesn't want anyone but her husband but gets desperately envious after a couple of drinks at the way possibility spices up my nights, said she wanted to trade personalities for the evening - I could wear her wedding rings and be her, and she could be me and go sleep with someone, then trade back in the morning and go back to her husband guilt-free.
She noted that I'd left two guaranteed shags behind, but I wasn't looking for action. I wasn't even wearing cute underwear - I offer this as proof. But I forgot that fact after another couple drinks, and we went back to the first bar. Oh, the meat market vibe was annoying when we were there, but as soon as we left we missed it. It had been exciting. So we marched back in to have more fun and play more games, dodging Richard and entering through the other door lest he think I'd actually come back for him, which I had not.
We got drinks. We weren't there five minutes before Anna spotted some boyish eyes peering in the window. "He's spotted you," she said, eyes darting toward the window. I turned to find him blatantly staring. He gave me the smirk and the upward nod. I gave him the upward nod back. He saluted. I ignored him.
tbc.
Friday night, Dublin, pt1
Posted by: lucie
I don't know what the hell happened on Friday night, but I was the pied piper of boys. Thursday had been a complete blowout, with Anna and I landing in our hotel feeling washed up and completely unattractive. Really, no boys talked to us all night. We were invisible. But Friday? Friday night we had the magic.
It started with two big manly Australian backpacker boys at a touristy bar in the center of Dublin. Shane overheard Anna commenting on a guy at the other side of the bar. "I normally don't find bald guys hot, but he's hot," she was whispering loudly, and up came Shane, having noted the body language. "Alriiight, who's the guy?"
"Robbie Williams," I said, bored at his attempt to infringe on our space and idle girly conversation. "We're celebrity spotting, and Robbie Williams is over there in the corner." He played along for a moment, apologized for interrupting and melted away. Fifteen minutes later, with his friend Gary ("You can call me Gazza if you want!") at his side, he moved back into the frame a bit more gracefully. We found ourselves slipping into a chill travel conversation - no lines, no gimmicks, and they turned out to be good company. When they ducked away for a moment to get drinks we even chastised ourselves for our earlier rudeness and contemplated an apology (which we decided against).
Turns out Shane and Gazza were tradesmen, carpenters I think, and had been wandering around the UK working here and there for six months or so. It's crap, they'd decided, and on this we all agreed. They sang their home country's praises, extolled its sunny days and beautiful beaches, expained how they'd come to appreciate what they had before they left and wondered why anyone would actually want to live in grey, dismal England. And from there it went, rolling into tales of backpacking, cities the world over... the kinds of stories over which travellers instantly bond.
Shane was possessed of a brawny, bad boy handsomeness miles from my usual type (tall, relatively clean cut, boyishly good looks, often a bit effeminate; I'm trying to switch to men who don't moisturize, but always fall for the prettyboys). He was big, rugged, with a scar on his cheek where once upon a time someone had knifed him in the face. Shane would have spit at the mention of moisturizer. He had big, beefy hands, fingers an inch in diameter, a chest like a barrel; he was intimidating.
Hotter as the night went on, as all this ruggedness was charmingly accompanied by a maniacal laugh, bright cheeky eyes, good conversation and a genuinely entertaining sense of humor. He never showed any real interest - at least not in the way you'd expect that kind of boy to show interest, ie: obviously.
So it was a bit surprising when I came back from the bathroom and Anna whispered that he'd confided "I really like her."
What, all shy? Weird. I also thought it odd that he liked me. I was sure I couldn't be his type, and there were many hotter girls eyeing him up. Yet he stuck by my side for at least two hours and never talked to any of them, so I guess... yeah, I guess he did.
It was around that two hour mark that he dropped the bomb.
Leaning toward me like he was going to tell me a secret, he grabbed a handful of hair on the back of my head, put his mouth so close to my ear I could feel his lips moving and said, in a raspy whisper, "I'd really like to fuck you tonight."
Girls, I hate to let the side down by admitting this because we all know that 99 times out of 100 we'd roll our eyes, walk away or consider slapping a boy for that type of stunt, but listen: it was perfectly executed, I have a major thing about guys grabbing my hair, and... it was so hot. It was so hot. For at least a half hour I was stunned and lost for words. I couldn't believe he'd done it. I couldn't believe how much I liked it.
I told Anna. She ran to the bathroom and came back with condoms to shove in my purse. We went out for a cigarette to discuss the matter. Was I actually going to take home this dirty dirty Australian boy? It was a fun idea. So early in the night, though, and I wasn't ready to leave, and what was Anna to do while I was... using our hotel room? She actually offered to hang out in the lobby. That's the mark of a true friend.
Would I even want him anymore by the time we got to the hotel? What if the two-mile taxi ride ended up feeling unbearably long and the mood fell away? "He'd have to keep hold of my hair the whole way," I speculated to Anna, "to make sure it didn't wear off." It was all so complicated.
The doorman, every bit the tall, slim, boyishly handsome, dressed-all-in-black type I'd normally sweat, could tell we were whispering about something scandalous and seemed to keep one eye and one ear trained on us as we debated my options. In the end there was simply nothing for it but to go in and see how things developed. It was too early for decisions, and I definitely didn't have the nerve to do what I thought I wanted to do (Shane).
Gazza was after Anna and there was no way he was getting any. She's married. In a momentary lull, Shane and I gazed at them. "Your boy isn't getting anywhere with my girl," I murmured. "He thinks he is, but he's not."
"Yeah? So he's getting nowhere, is he?" I nodded decisively. "Am I?" he asked, suddenly becoming quite still and staring at me with some intensity.
"Well," I said thoughtfully, "that hair thing was pretty hot."
"Yeah?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, well, I spank ass and everything. I'm multitalented."
Oh my God.
Shane was regarding me with great anticipation, as if I were about to deliver a final verdict on his fate for the evening, and I hadn't made a decision. I thought about telling him as much, but feared it would come off a bit haughty, so I just stared back.
tbc.
Rehab Miniseries Epilogue
Posted by: lucie
I walked out of Rehab that afternoon, looking for all the world like a 'Runaway' afterschool special: parked on the curb flanked by bags, fighting back tears and trying to appear fearless.
The residents all saw me march down the hall with my luggage and dutifully tried to stop me. I did my best to accept their platitudes with some semblance of grace.
By the time Tom and Keith pulled up outside, returning for their daily outpatient NA meeting, my patience had worn pretty thin. Tom wound his window down. "Leaving?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied without looking at him, trying not to roll my eyes in anticipation of the oncoming lecture, "and please don't try to tell me to stay."
"I won't," he promised, and paused for a moment's thought. "Want some company while you wait for your ride?" I eyed him warily. "I have a daughter about your age," he said evenly. "I'd like to think if she was in a situation like this, someone would wait with her." Still leery, still looking away, unable to speak for fear of a flood of choking tears, I acquiesced with a jerky nod.
Only with my reluctant permission did Tom step out of the car, gently shut the door and take a seat on the curb next to me. He sat in silence for a minute or two, training his gaze at the driveway in unison with my own. I think he was letting me get accustomed to the idea that he wasn't there to argue with my decision. Maybe he just didn't know what to say.
"Got a plan?" he queried at last, gently as he could manage. Frustration welled up in my throat - so what if I didn't have a plan? The main thing was to get the hell out, dammit. I didn't need another lecture. "No," I answered aggressively. "Just to leave."
"You'll need a plan after that," he offered in an instructive, calming tone. "Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? You should start formulating a plan as soon as possible."
I stared at him. He embodied the Northwest dad cliche: bearlike, tall, broad shouldered, probably wearing a button-up plaid shirt, jeans and Timberlands, maybe a fleece. You know how every kid has a friend whose family seems to epitomize normality? Tom was that kid's dad. And at my most pathetic, low, bad teenager moment, Mr Normal Dad took my side.
Tom was a lawyer, and he enlightened me on some basic facts of the law: that my car was mine if it was registered in my name, whether my parents paid for it or not; that my stuff was my stuff, even if it was in my parents' house; that I could even get a police escort to go and wait outside their house while I retrieved it, if it came to that.
He told me my rights. He took me seriously. He accepted that I was leaving, and that it took some balls to do it, and he helped me look at my situation logically and figure out what to do next. He helped me overcome my emotional panic and focus on the task at hand.
None of us at Rehab knew each other's last names, and they won't release such information. I've thought of Tom often in the past ten years with such gratitude; he offered me a precious shred of comfort when I felt desperately alone in the world. Maybe someday I'll find a way to track him down.
A year later I was driving around Portland and a tall, slim, boyishly handsome man in his late twenties caught my eye: Darin, of course, out of nowhere. Without thinking, I jumped out of my car, which was still running and holding up minor traffic at a corner just off 23rd, and shouted his name. "It's Lucie!" I said excitedly, waving him over. "From... you know!" - suddenly realizing he might not welcome this reunion.
He approached gingerly, as if he feared a sermon, and recounted how he'd relapsed and done another month-long stint at Rehab. I told him I'd run off a couple days after he left. I wanted to invite him for coffee but could tell I was dredging up unhappy memories.
And I could understand that. I mean, a place like that, it's the kind of experience you really want to put behind you for at least... well, ten years.
