Isn't that just such a beautiful picture?

My flight to Milan leaves at 17:35. It is currently 13:56. I will get up and make my way to the bus stop in just a short bit.

The conference (outside Venice) starts on Friday, but ends on Sunday. Then I will meet Stacey in Venice and there we'll stay a few days. Then we'll fly to Rome. Then back to Ireland, but into Shannon airport and potentially there we'll rent a car and make our way across the country to meet Bryan on Friday (April 6th) morning.

We will come back stocked up because everything will be closed. I hear they open at midnight, so fiesta pre-bar at MC flat once again.

This morning, I am getting particularly great/bad 80s songs stuck in my head. I am all bout it, bout it.

I leave for Italy in two (2!!!!) days. I need to finish up my sessions today because I am awful and have yet to do that. Then I have to finish up everything and be ready to b eaway for two weeks (yeah, how the HELL do you do that??), then I have to pack. The one thing that I have to buy still are hair ties. Mine have mysteriously disappeared (although they're probably buried under that pile of stuff next to my bed) and the one that I have left has exposed elastic and that kinda hurts sometimes.

Stacey will hopefully arrive in Venice on Friday evening. I cannot wait to see her. This is just bubbling up in my chest, all this excitement. It has been too long since I've seen her, and waaaaay too long since we've drummed up some trouble. What a better place to pull that than Italy??!

Milan, Venice, Rome.
Not long enough in any of the cities.

I want time at a beach. Just want to lay out in the sun and feel connected to something in nature again--I'm getting a little tired of this cityscape with all the vomit, the broken bottles and the shit on the sidewalks. I miss grass. I miss trees that are older than 20 years.

Before I head back to our side of the world, I'd like to hit up Portugal, Scotland and the Czech Republic. I don't think there's time for all of that, unfortunately. But I am definitely getting my ass to Scotland. I will roll around the hills giggling in the delight of the accents. Of this, I am sure.

Last night, Fergal came over and we watched Hostel. I'd never seen the ending. When Prue and I rented it before from Chartbusters (a movie rental, internet cafe and tanning salon! how hilarious is that??), the end didn't agree with my laptop and we never got a replacement disc. I now know to not be lured by beautiful betties in hostels that look more like 4-star hotels than shitholes. (Eli Roth is a bit pretentious and has yet to make a good movie; i still don't understand the fuss about him.)

We're off to a conference about climate change in just a few minutes. You know, do that thing and be fabulous and change the world.

I've been looking into so many different things to do when I leave. One of the things that's caught my eye is working for one of the camps in the national parks that works with disadvantaged urban youth.

I'm not really sure what it is that I want to do anymore, but I don't want to keep blindly going down the business path. I need to take stock and think about what really matters. How to take the inner-idealist and merge that with some part of me that's a bit more practical. In other words, I want to figure out something awesome that's going to rock the socks of the world.


When Vish and I were outside the other night taking a break from the craziness inside the bar, two kids stopped and were talking to us. One was actually a member of @DIT back in the day, when I'd suggested that maybe he take his traveling in a more structured way and do something to engage and better the societies he's visiting.

But it just hit how much I do miss the greenness of everything. No free days (this means Sunday afternoon) for a while that have been nice enough to head out of the city to somewhere with a considerable amount of greenness.

I do want to be in the States for the summer. I want to visit a few of the national parks, see things I haven't seen before and appreciate the backdrop of our history. I also want to take a trip through the dirty south and terrify myself with oodles of cultural shock within our borders. I'm not sure who I'll manage to drag with me on this one, but it will be a blast--of that I'm sure.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak
enough to be restrained.

William Blake

We went to see Ghost Rider yesterday. I can't say it was awful, but I'm not going to lie and say it was great either. Cheesy, yes, but it was on purpose so that somehow throws an entirely new dynamic in there.

So, that means I paid up on my part of the deal. Now I just have to wait for a fantastically chick-flick, emotion-laden film to come through to drag him to. I'll try to make it be one that I'd want to see anyway, but seeing something blatantly chick-flick might be worth it just to get him in there. Not too sure, but pretty sure either way.

It was a good day. There was movie seeing, pad thai-eating, some nappage while watching The Butterfly Effect (I swear it was a different ending than I remember seeing before, but I didn't put too much effort into investigation and will not, I admit), then some pint-drinking at Brazenhead and Flannery's. I will contend this, there was one missing thing that would have made the day a whole lot better, but I won't go into that. I'll just be better at living the Girl Scout motto: Be prepared.

Today, I had ice cream. Ben & Jerry's to be exact. Not the best one, but damn good anyway.
I won't think about how I work the whole weekend away. Not yet.

This is what I most want in the world right now.
I am jonesing for some peanut butter, corn bread, chicago-style pizza, tollhouse chocolate chips, greens and BallPark hotdogs. Mostly, just the peanut butter. Oh, and hummous.

This fact is for Amber, who never reads blogs:
People in the U.S. eat, on average, 7 pounds of peanuts and peanut products per person, per year.

I am positive that she is the person who keeps that average up for all the nut-allergic peeps. Or rather, legumes.


This last weekend wasn't a particularly fun one for working. Not at all. Last night was especially ridiculous for reasons I can't really recall, but I'm sure it had a lot to do with gross, drunken people.

These are the books I bought today from Hodges Figgis:
01. Best New American Voices 2005, edited by Francine Prose
02. Swift as Desire, by Laura Esquivel
03. Morvern Callar, by Alan Warner
04. Sex and the City, by Candance Bushnell
05. Truth or Dare: A Book of Secrets Shared, edited by Justine Picardie
06. The Cutting Room, by Louise Welsh

Total spent: 25.96 Euro

I've lost Perfume. Can't find it anywhere. My guess is that it's somewhere on/under/by my desk at the office. Not really sure, but I need to find it because I may go insane if I never finish it. Just like I need to finish Saving Piggy Sneed by John Irving.

The point is that I need to read more. Need more time to just think and read and read and read. I've been pretty good about the movies, watching movies like it's my job. And drinking Redbull and white mochas.

Not too good at reading, sleeping, relaxing, eating anything healthy, being productive, being content or ... stuff.

The countdown has begun for Stacey's visit. Within the month. I'm thinking a trip to Scotland may be in order. Unsure, but pretty sure all at the same time.
Bryan will be here for Paddy's and I will do my best to minimise time spent working in the pub to maximise time spent drinking with buddies.

this entry's for Prue.

One day, I'll have weekends again.

ONE DAY.

jiffy

I miss peanut butter. And graham crackers. I've been wanting to make a cheesecake, but there are no graham crackers to be had. I have yet to reduce myself to utilising digestives--I'm sure it will come eventually, but just not yet. [AND NO TOLLHOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIPS!]

Although, peanut butter ON graham crackers is mighty tastey.
I also miss UV. And tequila. And rum. Why can't this stuff be found cheaply here? Give me my 5 O'clock, Toro and Jim Beam. Boonesfarm & MD20/20. Mickey's, even. Natty Light, but not Beast.


Today is the first that I looked at headlines in over a week. These are what stuck out:

1. For want of a dentist
Maryland boy, 12, dies after bacteria from tooth spread to his brain

By Mary Otto
Updated: 2:20 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2007

WASHINGTON - Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.
A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.
If his mother had been insured

2. N.Y. city council rules n-word out of bounds
Nonbinding measure calls on all New Yorkers to stop using racial slur

NEW YORK - With supporters chanting "forwards, never backwards!" on the steps of City Hall, the City Council on Wednesday approved a symbolic resolution to ban a racial slur that has a painful history intertwined with slavery.

The nonbinding measure, approved unanimously, calls for New Yorkers to voluntarily stop using the word, which comes from a long past as a derogatory epithet against blacks but has more recently been adapted among entertainers and youths as a term of endearment.

"People are using it out of context," said Councilman Leroy Comrie, the sponsor of the bill. "People are also denigrating themselves by using the word, and disrespecting their history, disrespecting the history of a people and a country and also putting themselves in a negative light that we need to correct."



It's funny because the chat about the n-word has been coming up a lot in the last two weeks. I swear, I could strangle nearly every hip-hopper who has exported that word into the international market where people don't understand the context of the word, the mannner in which it's used [-er vs. -a, both still being a marked sign of stupidity], and won't listen to why it's a horrible, stupid term that shouldn't be perpetuated, especially internationally where the history and gravity isn't known and/or understood.

I hate what people think of American culture. It's hard to explain why the things are exported that are and that they are so just so someone else can make a [few million] bucks.

But it's also the reason to move home. Article one, especially. There are so many things to change. Too many people being overlooked, too many stupid policies and people acting a fool.

I'll move home, eventually. Just not yet.