Ireland
MONDAY, 3/21/05: 12:05PM: Trying to see if I need new batteries or not---surely the typing touch is becoming more and more difficult. But what do I NEED? My list "Before Ireland" grew and grew: 1) Get haircut, 2) Trim beard, 3) Buy AlphaSmart batteries---3 AA batteries, 4) Check camera film/batteries, 5) Check video film, 6) Check prescription, which ended up "Check Monday morning," 7) Pay Visa bill, 8) See Met Museum, 9) Get CASH, 10) Do INDEX, 11) See Goldberger at 10:30 Monday, 12) John, plants watered and NY Times, 13) Mail pickup, ARNOLD, with Bob's mail, 14) Gym, 15) Lunch, 16) Pack, 17) Check e-mail, and 18) $7 on table for JA's Times. Obviously the list was only up to 10 by Thursday, 11 and 12 by Friday, and the rest later as the time for the trip drew nearer. Took the entire day Friday to go to the Met and to the National Academy "American Surrealism" show, and then started keeping a check-off list at the top of the page with 17. Saturday I did most of the index, but spent a lot of time watching Troy and was fairly happy when they didn't have any movie for me to check out for Saturday and Sunday, since I probably wouldn't have had time for it. Then Sunday I continued with messy living room, but I did go to the gym, mailed a letter, and went to MAN and got the Times and tried going to bed at 10AM but got horny about 11PM and jerked off until 1AM, figuring my "catching up on the time change" went totally to hell. So I got to bed about 1:30AM Monday and figured I'd get up when I got up, and fuck the rest of it. Got up about 7:30, feeling tired, had breakfast to get that out of the way, adding 15) Lunch, 16) Pack, 17) Check e-mail, and then when I called John to pick up the Times for me and water my plants, he ordered me to put $7 on the table for him, so I added that as the last item. Then decided to trim my beard before having breakfast, then finished the index and mailed it off to Meagher about 9:30, checking the e-mail for the last time, and then decided to go down the list, finding that my AlphaSmart took REGULAR AA batteries, of which I had three spares, so I started piling things to pack up on the dining room table while I put the laundry away, turned off the humidifier, recorded a phone-message, checked that I had enough video film and camera film and batteries, so I crossed all THOSE off the list, and then I had an early lunch to empty out the last of the meat and put the rest of the rotting salad in the garbage bag, taking out the cans and bottles in the meantime, feeling quite good about finishing things, brushing my teeth while watching TV and getting out to Goldberger to find that he DRILLED some of the temporary away, and put in new stuff, and made an appointment for 4/5, the day AFTER I get back, and phoned to find that Rite Aid WOULD fill my gemfibrozil prescription while I filled the last of the slots with the pills for 16 days in case I got held over, and made a separate list of what I had to do OUT: 1) get $300 cash while depositing my $600 Springer check that came in the mail, along with the blessed Choice Visa bill, which at $42XX+ I found I had to make out a Schwab One check AND an HSBC check to cover it, but at least I didn't have to go through the agony of PHONING them. By this time it was close to 2:30 and I decided I HAD to go to the gym, which I did, then did the three chores in jig time, gemfibrozil costing only $10, which made it easy to get a $5 and five singles for my $20 in payment, and got back to the apartment about 3:15 to have phoned the car service and getting a quote of $46 for picking up both of us, which I called Fred about 1PM to inform him, which was good of me, and then I had the table full of stuff that I alternately threw away and put into a pile to look into when I got back from the trip, including a long-term-care-insurance bill of $1400 that would be due on April 10, long enough ahead so that I could do it, and crossed off and threw out the three-item do-outside slip, leaving me only with taking out the checks for Choice Visa and packing at 3:15, which wasn't nearly enough time, because by the time I got out the bag and the clothes and put things into my overstuffed A&K bag and measured that it was 18# and the blue bag was 12#, I didn't have really enough tine to look at the list to get my current converter (which wouldn't have worked with the t-shaped Irish plugs anyway), which I had to buy Monday for 7€ from Katie, and weighed the bag and didn't keep track of the money except to say that I spent $26 on the half of the taxi plus tip with Fred, getting to the airport about 4:05, then paying $9.75 for a tuna sandwich and a medium Sprite while he shopped around, we both admiring some good-looking fellows waiting for planes, and I felt pretty good with taking three Valium each of the last three days, and I didn't have much of a chance to do anything but stuff things into my bag before we boarded flight 155 at 7:45 and we backed out at 8PM, 6:20 flight, totally dark, and some woman was placed in the aisle seat where I'd hoped to have three across, and I looked at the British Airways TV system, which seemed to have 18 LEGITIMATE channels, and watched lots of the end of a very World War I-bloody A Very Long Engagement, where she seemed content only to take care of him, and lots of rough-and-tumble nonsense from The Incredibles, which I'm glad I didn't have to rent for home, and the end of Vera Drake, where she seemed to get only 2.5 years in jail, and the steward remarked that I hadn't slept any at all, and I hadn't.
TUESDAY, 3/22/05: There were bright lights below from Fire Island and Connecticut before fading into nothingness about 9PM, and then I watched the movies and looked out later to see what seemed to be moonlight lighting the clouds, and then about 5AM the sky got lighter and lighter and the plane started trembling and we had only an hour to go and we saw nothing below but clouds, and then there were large green fields at 7:14 and we land at 7:55, clear through to Terminal 1 at 8:48, LONGEST walk to 9:33, and board at 9:50. Back out at 10:21, plane jammed, and at 10:34 London airport construction #20. #21 at 11:28 farms on landing. #22 Dublin airport at 11:32AM. Change clock to 4:32PM. Country 127! Out rear exit, nice and convenient, and get Fred's luggage FIRST and mine about 5th and out to find Katie and a driver waiting for us and 7 other people, and we three cab to the Cassidy's Hotel on Parnell Square, and check into room 229, and I find I'd forgotten my converter, which Katie volunteers to buy for me for 7€. Out for a walk and stop in a fish-and-chips place for awful plaice and a good orange Sunburst for 9.75€, and walk to look at the bank, change 100€ and another 60€ at an ATM, and tired back to hotel to unpack cursorily and FALL into bed to sleep, almost immediately wakened by Fred at 5:05 and dress for 5:15 meeting where we're told we can have the Giant's Causeway and the Cliffs of Moher tour, but not the dinner, which can be had free nearby with better quality. Have a good gin and tonic while Fred makes a map of us at dinner starting with me, him, Josie (a real foodie who knows Beard and Per Se), then Ailila (I-LEE-la) and her new long-haired husband Dean, then Katie, then June (older and pushier), then Fred says it's a quiet Carol that I think is a quiet GUY, and then Jim next to me. GOOD potato leek soup with brie wedge, then pork with carrots and potatoes and soda bread and good butter, then good apple pie, death by chocolate, and pecan pie, and about 7 I leave to come up to bring this up-to-date, shitting a hard shit and Fred comes back up to turn on TV and I finish this to 8:45 to start putting stuff away for tomorrow's wake-up call at 7:30, to breakfast at 8, so I finish this up. VIDEOCAMERA broken! Try fixing it to 10PM then EXHAUSTED to bed.
WEDNESDAY, 3/23/05: 5:03AM: Wake feeling quite refreshed, but then the problem of the videocamera comes back: of course, I had debated bringing it at ALL, and now I'm faced with the possibility of not using it at all, since the knob seems really BROKEN, and unless a "piece" can be added that alternates among the three functions, I won't be able to use it. Last night's final activity was a flurry of putting THINGS away: 1) stuff into the dop kit, 2) clothes into the closet, 3) bags into bigger bags, 4) and STUFF into bags vaguely according to frequency of use, from bathing suits to euros. NOW I have to worry about my mental state from being deprived of Valium. And so many PILLS to segregate: morning, noon, and night vitamins, three night-pills, no need for Ambien, which I didn't take anyway, and then melitonin (which I took only once), a Cipro replacement from Ken. AND then comes the finickiness of typing this, which has to be so closely monitored that I have to respell practically every word. And then the possible problematic of the group of us 9, which I think has a good chance of being at each other's throats in a day or so. But the trip has STARTED, and the journal has been STARTED, and I've peed this morning, the bed is comfortable, the food has been fairly good, and Katie has been kind and helpful, and thousands of daffodils and some flowering trees have boded well for "spring" in Ireland! Now back to bed, and vague memories of dreams of counting things, or trying to organize things, and just trying to enjoy the vacation without all the NEGATIVE against it: 1) SO tired and unbalanced yesterday, 2) broken videocamera, 3) AlphaSmart degrading, but then I COULD try replacing its batteries! 9:42PM: Wake at 7:28AM, but Fred said that the 7:30 call never arrived. Shower and sort things out and get down to a filling breakfast of bacon, two sausages, good apple-green tea with lots of sugar and milk, and scrambled eggs and potato cakes rather the cooler for not being heated. Lots of talk back and forth, and I get four addresses for possible videocorder repair. Leave at 8:55AM and find that Pete's on Parnell Street isn't open until 10AM because of sales-training; try Sony Centre and it isn't open by 9:15 [and isn't even open by 6PM the following evening]; and then go up to Jarvis Street that I see in the distance, and finally get asked what kind of unit I have and I say RCA and they haven't even HEARD of it! AND they say I'd have to leave it with them for three or four weeks! But he tells me to try some place called Pixel's, through Marks and Spencer's, and I try THAT and it doesn't work, and dash back to the full bus at 9:40AM, apologizing, and off to the National Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St. Patrick in Dublin, and take #23 of Cathedral Sigil at 10:25, #24 of Boyle's (of Boyle's Law) gravesite, #25 Handel played the first Messiah on this organ; #26 high-altar at 10:45. #27 stained glass by Guinness family, now the Earl of Ivegh, of Mother Earth. #28 13th Century St. Patrick, head from later; #29 Swift's grave, wrote Gulliver's Travels while here. #30 Swift's death mask. #31 BLUE john light at 1:04. FANTASTIC Bell Library book for 5.95€. #32 Harp and Molly Malone at 1:15. #33 Badass café, where we have lunch, Fred and Jim (awful Jim) sharing their pizza, I having a lovely lemon-lime soda, and #34 of building after Badass at 2:13. #35 St. Stephan's green atrium at 5:42. VERY tired walking, disgusted with Jim along with his fat ass and slow pace, chatting up Fred, and I go to the National Gallery and look at almost all the paintings, including the great Caravaggio, a poor Vermeer, two questionable Rembrandts, and a great Avercamp. Wait for them to join me in the entranceway for about 20 minutes, and persuade them to visit the National Gallery at 3:50, but though the presentation is off, the guide does a wonderful job about a silver chalice from 800AD, rocks, lovely sights and gold and amber and good tales, and leave just before 5 having seen lots of Viking-Irish interrelations, and get to the Meridien Hotel for a bar drink of Dunlop's (or something like) apple cider, refreshing, take #36 of church on Anne St., off Crafton St. at 6:01 and talk and out to walk along park and pass Toddy's, where I seem to see good steaks, and it starts raining, and we're back to the hotel and rest for a bit, and I think I nap until 7:30, and then out in rain to a dinner where the hilarious waitress spills a glass of wine on Fred and gives us TWO free glasses of wine and two extra baked potatoes, which we can't take out with us because a law passed last year won't allow it, and we eat to surfeit, not hungry for dessert, quite drunk, and back to hotel to leave a call for 7AM, knowing it'll be raining tomorrow, and it's now 9:57 and I prepare to brush my teeth while Fred "um-HMs" about a soccer team while I fume. Also stopped in to Camera Centre on the walk back (just accidentally noticed it) and found I wouldn't possibly get my videocorder repaired, so that's THAT! 10:26PM: Brush teeth, put things away, get pills and magazines ready for tomorrow's 7AM wake-up call, and type this before going to bed, earplugs in, Fred still orgasming over the sexy Samoans playing soccer on TV, ejaculating out loud without any concern about neighbors. I'm looking forward to 8.5 hours sleep to get me back on schedule.
THURSDAY, 3/24/05: 3:30AM: Dream of planning a new version of West Side Story or Flower Drum Song or some such Oriental play in which the heroine will dress increasingly provocatively, and the VILLAINESS will do the same, so that both sides will take advantage of increasing sexiness to accomplish their ends. Another fragment had a woman coming up a flight of stairs making sure that the night manager was aware she was dressed particularly seductively in order to further some plot point and make the whole thing sexier. Sit and pee, but don't particularly feel like shitting, and the typing is becoming increasingly difficult, UGH, with my videocamera no longer working. But it's already THURSDAY and the trip is already 1/5 over! 8:31AM: Good cheddar on scrambled eggs, same good oranges with no discernible segmentation, but still at a table with Jim, whom I really can't stand, so I'll ask June if I can breakfast with her instead---checking first with Fred, of course. "Tea" turns out to be served WITH tea, so I have to ask for hot water if I want my own teabag. Newlyweds get me in the elevator and ask if I want to see the free Irish dance show, and I say I would and would be delighted to join them. SHE also, wisely, points out that "return to hotel between 5-5:30 Friday" should have a LINE before Friday, since that starts a NEW day's description. Conversation at the breakfast table is dismal, as I REFUSE to participate with Jim. Type this out, getting ready for the bus at 9:05AM in front of the Gresham Hotel, booked under Josephine Dewey, who arranged to handle our credit cards. Packing will be lighter with my videocamera in permanent storage. Fred seemed to have used BOTH towels this morning, inanely suggesting "it may have gotten wet" when he'd clearly USED it. Get 8.5 hours' sleep last night but STILL don't feel quite up to snuff, though tonight's sleep should do it. Now to get ready and maybe get to bus early enough to get to sit with June. When I gave "Zolnerzak" to the seating waitress at breakfast, I wasn't there, so I had her look under Lasker and my name had ALREADY been crossed off! So much to learn, so little time. REST OF DAY LOST!! No, it was just mistyped BELOW, from which I now move it to HERE: Then to get back to the history of the day: we climbed into a bus carrying a maximum of 14 people, and the nine of us (Katie didn't come with us, Mannis was our guide and driver) fit in comfortably, but then we stopped at another hotel to pick up a lower-class family of three, a mother and two daughters, and one fat one sat next to me and I refused to say anything to her except "No, thanks" when she offered to show me a detailed map of the area we were touring, and THEN we stopped AGAIN to pick up a young Chinese couple who took every other empty seat. It rained for a bit as we stopped to look over Lake Tara, and Josie slipped deeply into a hole filled with water and complained about being cold and wet for the rest of the trip despite the fact that Fred happened to have a spare set of dry socks he loaned her. Then we took some pictures of a waterfall down a hill, and then of another lake surrounded by a lavish country estate owned by the Guinness family (and later in the day Katie tells us that just recently the last actual Guinness resigned from the company, so it will enter an entirely new phase of its history). Another stop was made at a "Forgiveness center," advertising "the F word," and there were some purple flowers growing on lichen-covered stone walls of an old prison complex, which seemed to have little point except as a detention center for some underprivileged people. We stopped at a touristy lunch place, where I ordered steak and mushroom pie for 5.75€, and when I said I wanted no vegetables she really loaded on the meat, and though they didn't have the Brambly, or whatever, apple cider, they had some Mumbly, or a name like that, of a kind, for 9.75€ in all, very satisfying until Fred nodded to Jim that he could join us. Then June came through saying they had wonderful profiteroles in the adjoining room, and I joined her and we split two each for 4.75 total. Back on bus to an old temple area in Glendalough where we walked a long distance through moss-covered-tree-filled woods, and up a long path to some multileveled falls, of which I took a number of photos that probably won't come out because it was too dark, but it was a charming climb and I really enjoyed noting the colors of the rocks and flowers and shapes of the waterfall with Fred for some of the first truly idyllically beautiful and peaceful moments of the trip so far. Then to the Information Center and people seemed to spend endless time buying souvenirs and postcards and going to the john, but we were back for a two-hour drive back to Dublin during which both Fred and I nodded off quite a bit before getting stuck in rush-hour traffic and getting back to the hotel at 6PM to find that the touted Chapter One Restaurant was totally full, but Fred had found a place called the Kingfisher across from the bus stop, which he said had a good menu, so I dressed in my jacket and he didn't and we looked at a few attractive men as we reveled in a special 9.99€ dinner of egg mayonnaise, over lettuce and tomato, and haddock fish and chips with chips made good only with lots of ketchup, and the bony fish bettered with tartar sauce, and I had lemon tea that they had to get from the B&B next door, and the waiter was friendly and serviceable, and the fruit in whipped cream was an unusual dessert, and we left feeling typically full. Fred wanted to sit in the bar for a bit, and I started a Times crossword puzzle that seemed unusually hard (which turned out to be from Saturday), maybe because I hadn't been practicing for over a week, and went to sleep about 10:30, finding it the least bit difficult to get to sleep with his TV and light on, but got to sleep to get up to pee at 1:11AM.
FRIDAY, 3/25/05: 5:47AM: Dream of being in Joe Easter's apartment and wanting to go to the john, but for some reason I thought it was going to be very DRY in there, so I went to a bulky humidifier next to the chair in which he was sitting, talking to three or four other people in the apartment, and brought the machine forward in preparation for turning it on, and he looked at me in his exasperated puzzlement and I tried to explain that I was going to the john and wanted to turn the humidifier on, and he patiently let me go ahead with it. Another section before that involved my extending my discussion of some Indian god or goddess, influencing the greater power of some OTHER god or goddess, in an attempt to clarify and magnify the significance of each to the other. And then again now to type all this by 6:08AM, still comfortably ahead of the day's schedule of breakfast starting at 7:30, where we're DETERMINED to sit at a table for two WITHOUT Jim, and bags, only one for each, out at 8:30, and departure by bus at 9:30 for our next destination for two nights. Not the most exciting trip, but the old tower, the ruined churches, the old tilted tombstones and muddy paths of the sanctuary rather magical in their antique foreignness. Got back from dinner in the Granville Hotel in Waterford about 8:45, tired of trying to entertain the alternately amused and offended June, and proofread most of the foregoing before starting on today's adventures at 9:40PM, again needing digestion time before going to sleep. Again closed my eyes a lot while we rolled through the countryside, and then got to Lyle of Langan, or wherever, where we left the bus and went back to the bridge to take the "right" picture of the castle, which happened to be closed for Good Friday, and then walked down a few streets trying to find a place for lunch before stopping into a Family Playtime place for a perfectly good bacon-burger with cheese and a Halle Berry smoothie, which for some reason was only 2.95€ rather than the advertised 3.50€, quite good, but appalled to find Jim sitting at the very next table to FRED! Sit and eat and look at all the sexy vacationers enjoying their Good Friday off, and out about 2PM to walk past the old Court House and the Roche House toward the Cathedral, again an Anglican Cathedral, which Fred questions in this supposedly Catholic country, and we're there at 3PM as the service ends and the dean comes out to welcome us to a tour filled with the names of Braveheart and GreatArm and Ormonds and Kilkenneys, and I'm so impressed I have to buy a book for 5€ to remember all the things I would have forgotten, and then get out at 3:55 to look at the 200-foot tower, accessible for 2€, and the two cute students watching over the admissions tell me and two French girls that we can go up free so long as we come back down in five minutes, and I climb up first, the narrow stair rotating 270 degrees at each landing, every stair needing both hands to climb up, and around and around, and up the final six steps to the open-top to not recognize a THING from the surroundings, so I take three or four pictures and let it go at that, which reminds me that I haven't copied down the notes that I took during the day: Hellfire Club, Satanism and two women vanish, devil appears when one walks around counterclockwise three times. Roll 2: #1 Reconciliation Center at 10:51AM. #2 top of center, clouds at 10;58. #3 SOME sun at 11:10, to lake. To #8 muddy and cloudy. To #12 Lake Tae, Guinness estate; Roundwood: highest village. To #18 falls to 1:03. #19 stag statue, heather, church at 2:23. #24 St. Kevin's cross, largest from 800AD at 2:57. Then from Friday: #31 nursing foal at 11:06AM at the Horse Farm, good tour, but no flash possible for sleeping foals. To #37 in Japanese Garden to 11:46, not that great, lots of kids and dog. Leave Stud Farm at 12:17 and go to take #2 at Kilkenny Castle at 1:46. Through #9 at TOP of tower (free!) to 3:57. Buy 5€ book. Then into Granville Hotel, on riverfront at 5PM, room 415, small but able to open the window, and I rest on the bed, try some more of the puzzles, but then rest until dinner at 7PM, when we join June and Carol for a hilarious dinner with lots of hairpins dropped, except that June HATED my recital of Dennis's "Moon in Penis." I decide to leave: the chicken was good, the salad excellent, the dessert good, two bottles of Beaujolais on OUR bill for 21€ each, and I tasted everyone's salmon and roast beef and carrots and teas. Fred comes in and fusses about as I finish this at 9:55, ready for bed, caught up, big tour to Waterford tomorrow, where I hope to be able to remember the name of the restaurant that served us St. Patrick's evening dinner at the Beard. AND brush my teeth! Actually get to bed at 10:17PM, taking a bit of time to fall asleep, but Fred goes to bed the same time, so it's easier.
SATURDAY, 3/26/05: 2:10AM: Dream of Arnold saying something very complicated to me, but it turns out that he thinks that the last page of some document of importance, like his will, which had been missing, might be on the last page of a set of pages he sent to Norma some time ago for some other reason, and I'm supposed to call her (I guess she's supposed to be still alive) and ask her if she can find that all-important last page. This typing is getting more and more messy! Sit and shit a bit and get back to bed, happy to still have so many hours to sleep. Take out a couple of redundant dates to make the flow of commentary more logical. Five days gone: 1/3 the trip already. Look down to find I've peed on the fucking floor, which is HARD to wipe up, then shit a few hard turds and get back to bed. 5:50AM: So many layers it's hard to separate them out: 1) I was an object of desire: walking down a street, attractive men would look at me with desire and I wondered what notoriety I had ascended into, but then it became silly, as when a fairly cute dwarf on roller skates came up to me and then skated backward smiling constantly up at me in an infatuated way. 2) Then I was home at 1221 Dietz and had undertaken some major project that involved tearing hunks of wood out of doors and pieces of furniture, then realizing that Mom would soon be home and I'd have to put the place back in some sort of order, but how could I explain it to her? 3) Then I was watching some kind of experimental movie that I had possibly made part of, watching desolate young men wander listlessly through deserted city streets in vivid color with heartbreakingly beautiful music accompanying them, and I wondered whom I could possibly [go to next file at 5:58AM 3/26/05:] interest in distributing such movies. 4) Then, frighteningly, I went into my bedroom, surprising a robber jammed between my furniture, looking through my stuff as if I'd just unpacked from a trip and realized I had wallets of dollars and euros he could easily steal, but worst of all he had a gun that he had no qualms about threatening me with, with a mad look about his eyes and face that really made me fear him, but I somehow worked free from that to thinking it WAS a dream, and then 5) I was sitting in a theater like the Thalia, which was getting more and more crowded, and management tried checking tickets to see who really belonged for watching which performance, and a group of three or four young men were fighting over the right to sit in my row, and I thought of suggesting that THEY could sit more to the side and let ME sit more near the middle, since THEY seemed to be the interlopers, but then I looked around and everyone seemed to be sitting on floors and on edges of chairs as if waiting for a LIVE performance of some avant-garde presentation that promised some attractive erotic male-on-male action, and I seemed to be fairly front-and-center anyway, and maybe I should just wait patiently for it to start before deciding whether my position was good enough or not. Woke for maybe the third time, amazed that my mind was turning over such dream-images, and looked again at my watch and took my AlphaSmart into the bathroom to type this out to 6:04AM, still a long time before having to wake up, and waiting until I FINISHED typing before peeing, so I could take CARE not to pee on the floor, wondering AGAIN about the reason or reasons for such bizarre sets of dreams while I was traveling, and also whether my coming off my first Valium (maybe even combined at the start with Effexor) could have anything to do with it, or even the surreal dinner (and conversation) last night with Joan and---I STILL don't know her name [Carol]---and Fred before coming up to type up my day's activities, and now I'm on file 2, so I should even hope to get to maybe file 4 before the end of this 15-day trip, which is only 5 days over. Finish now at 6:08AM, wondering if THIS will be the last for tonight? Maybe even thinking vaguely, previously tonight, that the TV series Carnivale had something to do with my strange dream scenarios? 7:45AM: ANOTHER suite of dreams that I don't even recall, another set of performances that I sat through, or acted in, and then the alarm went and the memories went, and I decided not to shower and just put on my black sweater and black pants and decided to let the day take its form. The black sweater turned out to be too itchy during the day, so I won't wear THAT again. To the Waterford Factory in a gleaming new building, where we had a glib talker and I think I even took a picture where I shouldn't have. Few people seemed to be working, and the emphasis was on the freehand skill of the 6- and 8-year trained-personnel who cut each curve and facet according to their own tastes, rather than according to a set pattern, and she kept talking about the "progress and refinement of the tradition," which seemed quite a contradiction to me, and the pieces DID seem to be museum pieces, with the least pricey glass being about 50€ and each design seemed made for a Masterpiece Theater showplace. Some of the chandeliers showed a bit of glorious color-flash, but I couldn't see ANY reason for having ANY of it, as some seemed to have. NO refreshments or entertainment aside from a three-screen "spectacle" that ended with gratuitous laser-beams and light circles on the ceilings and floors. Took #10 and #11 in the factory at 10:23AM. Out to the bus mercifully quickly and through narrow country roads, Werner often seeming to drive quite fast, and the first sight of the gray-clouded Rock of Cashel was impressive, but it wasn't possible to get a good picture of the ensemble, and the best place I found was down a side road with a view over some particular abbey whose name I took down on a sheet of paper now consigned to the archives [Hore Abbey], which I took in a hopefully evocative panoramic mode that showed the sheep-dotted, fence-squared, mountain-backed landscape that was pleasing but not quite as effective as northern Scotland, though the landscape last night (Sunday night) seemed better. Through many ruined rooms and broken arches and putative histories of people and influences, but I wasn't terribly impressed and began thinking maybe this wasn't going to be the most interesting trip aside from the people on the tour and their animosities. Finally found a food guide that mentioned the Beard Restaurant [Dunbrody Country House Hotel and Restaurant], saying it seated 80, early dinner was 35€ (6:30-7:30) and set dinner was 55€, wines at 20€. N11 to Wexford, R733 from Wexford to Arthurstown, telephone 051 389 600, on the Hook Peninsula in Georgian Mansion. I talked to Werner and he said it might be possible if everyone wanted him to drive us by BUS there, and then talked to Katie, who phoned to find that (she said, but I guess I should trust her) it was completely booked. So much for THAT! #13 Hore Abbey, named from monks' hoarfrost-colored robes. #14 Rock of Cashel at 1:32PM. #19 Treasury and group and guide and Fred and Katie in road at 1:50PM. Lovely panorama from the hilltop. Also took St. Patrick's cross from 1200. Buy 5€ book, and leave at 3:07PM. Sometime in here I also recorded that my blue bag weighed 13#, my brown bag weighed 16#, and I had $286.25 in US cash and 134.12€ at the rate of 72.4€/$. [Seem to take HOURS to proofread and update lists I'd written into this log by 10:12PM while Fred watched TV but then seemed to get ready for bed, shutting off TV, and I hadn't even started on TODAY!] It was this evening we went to the Waterford Castle by taxi at 6:15 and ferry to have kir royales in the magnificently wood-paneled reception area, [prompted by June's assurance that it was one of the best on the island] alone as the first guests, then into the Lady-Hamilton-Lord-Nelson-painting-dominated dining room, where June kept talking about her previous visit with her daughter, after we went up various stairs and looked at such room names as the Taj Mahal, the Presidential, and got a rate sheet and history book, and even at the end a copy of the menu. They took the interesting things, so I settled for a very filling pressed-chicken terrine, which was good with many herbs and leaves and beans and mayonnaises on the side, and then a delicious mushroom soup, followed by a rather dry but tasty beef fillet with the inevitable carrot and potato and broccoli sides, and tasted some of Carol's venison and June's brill, or cod, or whatever. We simplified things by each having our own glass of wine, each of which was 6.5€, so the bill came out the same, and we shared everything, down to the chocolate-covered Rice Krispies and white-chocolate-dusted balls, and oh yes the O'Quinn chef came out to be praised for his bread, and to give a copy of the recipe and even a LOAF for June to put in my bag to take home, along with chocolates to give to Fred. When it was to be a 45-minute wait from 9:30 for the taxi, I went out for a walk, enjoying the cloud-dappled full moon, the quiet of the evening, the lights from the rooms lighting the grounds down to the paved walk to the iron gate through the woods to the ruined stone-hut of some previous history, and many white and red rhododendron bushes in bloom and some budding magnolias for a very pleasant interlude with not much wine: good kir royale but not great, good Montepulciano in a generous pour because everyone was having a sip of everyone else's, but it was only just worth the $112 bill with $16 tip, handily all given in dollars, and then the 14€ ride back with the cheery cabbie who would work until 4AM, and I went right up to be surprised to find Fred in bed because at 10:30 it turned out to be 11:30PM, since the time had changed at 2AM that morning, making the morning wake-up time quite DARK, but the light until 8:30PM the next night was appreciated. Now caught up with this at 7:32AM on Monday morning, ready for another day, the peacock finally giving its morning call. Fred leaves for breakfast---are we not being so friendly now?
SUNDAY, 3/27/05: [Transcribed from note 6 on 3/30:] Hour changed, so up at 5:25, which is really 6:25 now, quite dark. Bags out at 7:30 and breakfast 7:30-8:25. Do teeth and I'm last on bus at 8:32AM. To Cohb (pronounced Cove, since Irish doesn't have v or a few other letters) at 10, museum to 11:29 looking at the Titanic, Lusitania, and other ships, some good photos of high seas and sound-effects of people screaming, but I end up feeling very TIRED. #29 Cobh and Titanic Bar in great distance at 11:25 from high viewpoint near church, which is nearly always Anglican, Katie says, unless it has a spire, but then of course the next few spired churches weren't Catholic. #31 Cobh Catholic Cathedral. To 33 Cobh view, church, into sun. To Blarney Castle 12:25 to 3:15, up following the fairly small, fast-moving line where they INSIST I take my glasses off, and give my camera to Carol to take a picture, but I forget to tell her to turn it ON and I think she didn't get me. Lots of ruined rooms to visit on the side, but not much view from the top, and it's not really that high up, nor is the stone you kiss THAT low down. Were told that the Musketeer Army was a good place for lunch, but when I looked in, it looked just like a ratty bar. #34 Blarney Castle at 12:14. #36 heather. Roll #4: #1 unknown. #3 MY shot of the stone-kissing area, did she take #2? #6 kissing-stone from BELOW, and down at 1:06. Into town and forget where I had lunch, but I might have a bill from it. #11 Unicorn sculpture along road, one we stopped for at 4:29, a number of others we just passed by, some, like the golden-winged horse, without even a comment. 5:13PM: Checked into the Kenmare Bay Hotel room 427, waiting for my bag to prove that I did NOT take June's Ireland book that she said I borrowed and didn't return. NOT that happy with the trip, with my sleeping-jags on the bus (with not that much to see) but at least there wasn't much of a wait on the trip to Blarney, with the silly kiss of the rock, and the GROUNDS outside were spectacular: blooming camellias, red and white rhododendrons, almost-bloomed magnolias, myriads of marigolds, and white and purple heather against the green-lichened Castle towers. Then the Druid Stone, the Wishing Steps, the Fairy Circle, the Magic Glen, the redbreasts which are not robins, and of course lots of kids and lovers. Looked into the recommended McCurdy's Inn, or whatever, but it was a dump and I went to the Mill House, taking Fred's recommendation for a good mushroom soup, the ham and cheese sandwich, and sat to pass time until going through the shop, then getting on the bus to ride through increasingly mountainous scenery to stop at 5PM to be told to walk into town at 6 to find a place to drink, and dinner here at 7PM. Do puzzles and at 6:02 remember I wanted to go into town with Katie, so I dressed and got to an empty lobby and out to the "shortcut" to the town center, and they weren't there, so I walked to end of Main Street, then back down to V-intersection of Broad Street, but find no one, so back to room at 6:32 to be ready for dinner of table-of-seven for chicken-liver paté that tasted more like some other animal, better than chicken, then roast lamb, good with intense mint sauce and potatoes and carrots, and then Poire Belle Helene for which she brought me 6 extra chocolate combs when I asked for more chocolate, and they HAD no herbal tea, so I finished and had Josie's chocolate-marshmallow egg, with Fred's and my Merlot from Chile, and went to room at 8:30 to finish most of puzzles while Fred watched Gene Hackman in Heist and I peed and went to sleep about 10:30PM.
MONDAY, 3/28/05: 12:46AM: Wake with bile-mixed choking to dream of PHRASES carrying ideas of dream UNALPHABETIZED and swirling through subsequent sorting routines, [10:23PM Tuesday Fred sends me into the bathroom to finish Crime and Punishment while he goes to sleep.] sometimes falsely linking disparate ideas, but always getting closer to an actual INDEX of topics of the dream, which I could then interpret as I wished. Sat on the john and tried to shit after peeing at 12:56AM, getting more and more words incorrect on the increasingly recalcitrant AlphaSmart, and I WILL have to try new batteries to see if that helps. Silly skylight in bathroom door lets in much light, and everyone hopes for good weather for today's significant event of circling the Ring of Kerry, counterclockwise, Katie saying that if we ever thought of taking Dramamine against car-motion sickness, today would be the day to take it. TOPIC of dream, something about travel, of course, has been forgotten in the meantime now that I stop typing at 1:00AM. Woke again about 5:30 to pee again with a vague memory of a dream not worth recording, and the alarm-phone went at 6:45 and I went into the shower first, accompanied by a huge mosquito-mayfly inch-long object on the wall, and typed yesterday into the record by 7:35, when we have to get to breakfast for the 8:30 departure for the Ring of Kerry. To the breakfast room (which is also the dining room) early to find we have fried eggs, of which I take two, and a sausage and piece of ham and some mushrooms and a glass of juice, and return to the table with Jim at the head and Fred with EXACTLY what I have on HIS plate. Get toast and tea and eat while others (except for June, who stays here for the day) join us to eat until 8:15AM, when I get upstairs to brush my teeth and dress and get down to the bus for the ride whose times I've filled in elsewhere: Monday, #12 and #13 Macgillycuddy Reeks Lakes at 9AM. Ride 9:30-10:18, pictures to #21 and 12€ at 10:36 to shop at 11:04. Stop for Irish coffee (very weak) at a friend of Katie's, where I look at stuff and only then go to shit in the toilet, and then don't go in to the next place, where they say the Irish coffee is quite a bit better. Get to Killarney National Park, where we transfer to an 8-passenger Jargies, with the newlyweds sitting in front and the other six of us nestled under blankets while we clip-clop through a forest, over rivers, photographing castles and stags posing bronzely for us. Then back to the bus for a five-minute ride to a lunch place [#25 lunch stop at thatch cottage at 12:30], lunch to 1:20, where I have a tuna salad sandwich and a grapefruit drink and a piece of dried carrot cake, then look upstairs at other purchases and buy a book of the Ring of Pringle Peninsula for 4.2€ and go wait for them to open the bus, and then we ride around the ring, stopping at many places, some spectacular, among them #26 Charlie Chaplin in Waterville, where his daughter Geraldine still comes to stay in their old seaside cottage, photo at 1:47PM. Someone pointed out the old ring-fort (called a "cadge" in photo #30 or #31) that I hadn't seen below. #32 from Coomakista Pass, and 2:50-3:05 in Sneem, #34 "Crusher" Casey in Sneem at 2:54, where I spend 1.2€ for a vanilla cone and 4.2€ for a Ring of Kerry book that I'd mistakenly thought I'd bought before. Leave Sneem at 4PM and walk to town at 6:55 after checking into the hotel on the hill with the peacocks, changing to another roll of film, and back to ride back to the hotel without looking at the menus for dinner, when Fred and I look at TV and the news of another tsunami after an 8.7 earthquake off Banda Aceh, and I sleep while we watch some jungle documentary and then leave at 6:55 to walk to Davitt's---somewhere in here we stopped in Sneem and I had an ice cream at the Riney for 1.2€ and bought a book on the Ring of Kerry for 4.2€---and back to bus to hotels to walk to town to wave to June (who's furious, I think, until she comes to pat my back and kiss Fred on the cheek, calling him a wonderful person) and Carol, and across to Josie and Anne and Jim at another table, and order a good Antinori Santa Caterina for 18€ and he has duck for 17€ and I three appetizer fish that turn out fabulous: great salmon plain, cod wrapped in pancetta, and monkfish deep-fried, all of which are so good we order dessert, and his Tiramisu and my hot Apple Crisp with ice cream are truly GREAT, and we give samples to the two women, who ask us for drinks, but we walk back in very light rain, Fred surprisingly goes to bed at 8:30, and I finally finish all the old NY Times puzzles by 10:30 and go to bed, only to wake at 11:57PM and decide to type the dream into file 3, since I decide to finish the day here in file 2, which I do by 12:14AM on Tuesday, at which time I return to the "end" of file 3 and type----MONDAY, 3/28/05: 11:57PM: Wake with dream and type while peeing: I'm undergoing an elimination to star in a Hollywood movie about my life, and I'm about to win when Charles has to come to California to help bury a strange friend whom I fantasize has left him an enormous fortune if he will only film my life story, which sounds circular only because it is. I see him attending the funeral (11:58PM Fred knocks on the door to pee!), helping friends lug the coffin up or down stairs and prepare to enter an entire new era of my life.
TUESDAY, 3/29/05: 12:15AM: My birthday tomorrow, only 6.5 hours before my wake-up call at 6:45AM for our packing before the 7:30 suitcase pickup and breakfast and start of another day. End at 12:16AM. 4:08AM: Dream of a super-luxurious film of ultimate female degradation: beautiful women are whipped, disfigured, branded, but even worse are the production of mental misfits: an idiotic nobleman from one of the best families is obviously insane, made more insane with chemicals, torture, and brain operations, his sick eyes closing with relief as his blond wig slips his curls off his dark hair as he falls into a demented sleep from which a horridly deformed daughter of astonishing inferiority will be produced to entertain and mortify visiting dignitaries and other afficionados of abject misery objectified in beautiful skin and opulent surroundings, but manifesting the most repellent physical, mental, and moral despicableness. Shit and type to 4:14AM, tired still. No call, up at 7:23AM, bag out at 7:45, breakfast of only cereal and two pieces of toast and juice and tea to 8:05, and out at 8:20, leaving at 8:31, GRAY day. #35 thatched roof at 10:47 and in Adare mail 7 postcards that I wrote last night on the free (at last, cheapest before as much as 65 cents and only as low as 40 cents) hotel cards, stamps at 65 cents each. #37 Trinitarian church at 10:52. Roll #5. Leave Mare Bunratty 11:53-2:35, good stuff to see. #1 great hall with no flash at 12:10, through #12. Day in Bunratty starts with nice castle, despite fact of no flash, and climb both towers and take pictures and then get down to the Folk Park to the Mountain Farmhouse and Fisherman's Shack and other farmhouses with real peat fires burning in fireplaces (some of which I put on myself to admire the smoke pouring from the chimney later), some sheep and pigs in proper places, even with a deer park in the center, and stop in the Tea Room for a nice shared egg salad sandwich, mushroom soup with scones, and a good hot chocolate for me, and Carol and June eating by themselves, and rest a bit, then continue walking past gardens not yet in bloom and to the Talbot Collection of farm implements in the gardens of the Bunratty House (which was unfortunately closed), but we continue to the Village Street and look in shops, two charming girls in Victorian costumes in the photography shop being cropped on a computer screen, and finally the exit through another shop, where I spend 5€ or 7€ for a great Bunratty Castle book, simply because there's so much to remember from it, including an idyllic moment looking at the countryside and thinking it might be nice to live there for a FEW days, near the boat in the pond with the swans swimming. To Imperial Hotel in Galway at 4:34PM, meet at 4:45 for walk down a rainy Galway Main pedestrian drag with Katie on my arm because she doesn't have an umbrella, and few choose to come along, and she points out some shops and places to eat, and I take #13 of Galway Street at 5:30, and then she takes us down a side street to the Cathedral and shows the ORIGINAL site of the lynching of the child of a Lynch who killed a man who looked leeringly at his fiancee, and the magistrate had to lynch the man's son in the sense of justice, but never forgave himself. Across the street is a wonderful cheese shop and Josie insists we go in for tastes, but Katie won't join us because she says it smells so awful, which is strange. We taste ABOUT a dozen cheeses and finally settle on five, many of too heavy a size, but the best is a creamy unpasteurized Durrus for 23€/kg at 84 grams for 1.94E, a marvelous Bellingham Blue at 27.5€/kg for 102 grams for 2.81€, and a too-big piece of Coolea Mature, like a big Swiss, at 24.2€/kg at 244 grams for 5.9€, and then a smoky Knockandre Smoked for 20.79€/kg at 120 grams for 2.49€, and a good Milleens at 22.35€/kg for 94 grams for 2.10€, and then Organic Rye Wafers for 3.25€, then we pass a wine shop and I've never tasted a Yellow Tail and vote for the Merlot, which Josie buys for just under 9€ and I contribute 4€ and we bring back the whole sack with two apples and two pears after making a stop at the fast-flowing river, watching a dog retrieve an empty water bottle and then insisting each in our group play fetch with him until we finally all leave him behind, and I stop off at the bar for two knives and four wineglasses, and Josie gets her roommate Mary Lou to give each of us 2€, and I open the wine and the women cut the fruit and the cheese and we start eating and eating and drinking, and it's all wonderful and lasts until 6:45, when I get back to the room (Fred strangely refused to participate in any of this) to find he's eager to get down to dinner, and so I wash my face and join him with June and try to order the smallest portions: a melon and salad appetizer that isn't that bad, but the vegetarian spring roll with sweet and sour sauce was just awful, with potatoes and carrots (which, with butter, was the best of the lot) and broccoli, awful, and Fred ordered another Grenache Merlot which wasn't bad for 16€ or so, and I let the waiter take most of the awful dinner away, but the Imperial tasting of strawberries in cream, a tiramisu, a lemon pie-piece, and a good gingerbread-type dessert were all pretty good, washed down with regular tea because I didn't have the energy to order anything else, and swallowed what much have been 3/4 of a carafe of water to dilute the almost two bottles of wine I had through the evening. Get back to type at 8:25, but the files are in SUCH poor shape that I start PROOFREADING at 8:25 and pass the evening to 10:37PM: I just let myself get too far behind: still haven't transcribed notes 6-8 and anything from today, but tired enough to quit, wash my face and teeth, and get to bed. Bed at 10:58PM and take some little time to get to sleep.
WEDNESDAY, 3/30/05: 4:25AM: Dream of sitting in a huge auditorium waiting for some kind of spectacle to begin, and from all around me cords supporting some kind of web rise up, to which everyone in the audience clings to be drawn halfway up the center of the amphitheater to form the basis for a kind of acrobatic-trapeze act that promises to be spectacular, but which starts only with a man lying on his side in various parts of the web and kicking out at a mouse (maybe like one of those bronze ones on display in one of the dungeons in Castle Bunratty yesterday) that artfully dodges him and keeps the performance moving. Then pee and back to sleep, and wake some time later to see the beginning of light, and then the phone rings at 7:34AM and I answer it and Fred gets up to shower and I get out my next-to-last set of new underwear and socks and type this to 7:45AM and get ready to shower myself into this day, which looks cloudy, but not rainy, and I hope I can incorporate notes from Sunday and Monday into file 2 before having to expand that into file 3. To breakfast 8:15AM with TV reporting on Monday's 8.7 earthquake, a "twin" of December 26's. Back up at 8:52 and continue typing in file 2. Get caught up some and stop typing at 9:20 to get down to bus for day's tour. Leave at 9:32. #17 Kinvara Castle at 10:02. #18 Galway Bay at 10:22. #19 Burren, two people ON hill and one below at 10:55, waiting for Aillwee Cave tour, which starts at 11:06, nothing really except some flowstone and a parsnip bunch that I snap flashes of, and stop at 11:18 and out at 11:44. Pee. To Poulnabrone "Hole of Sadness" at 12:14 for pictures #23-27, 16 adults found, only 1 over 40, with 13 children and lots of cups and implements, dating from 3200BC. To 12:35, lots of people around. #28 Lemenagh Castle and signs at 12:43. Burren Center at Kilfenora from 12:50, good displays after a good 12-minute video, and #29 Irish elk and mammoth tusk, that won't produce a good picture, at 1:10. #30 Cathair Chomain, JUST like Skerra Brae. #32 GROUP at 2:53 after lunch at Vaughan's, introducing her brother and mother and aunt, and I had awful cabbage and ham while Fred and Carol had good beef and Guinness and Josie had the veal, but no one had the chicken. THEN Katie comes out of the kitchen with a cake with eight candles singing "Happy Birthday" to ME! I blush and smile and blow out the candles as everyone takes pictures, and she cuts the cake into 10 perfect pieces, one for everyone there except her and of course June, who isn't there, so I eat her piece with great gusto! GREAT treat! Katie said she'd gotten the information from my registration forms. GOOD SHOW, so Fred didn't have to say anything, except to wish me happy birthday a number of times during the day. To the Cliffs of Moher at 3:26 and be told to be back at 4:15, and though I insist it should be 4:30, she maintains 4:15. I take to #37 frantically to 3:34, breathing heavily getting to the top of the first hill, taking her advice not to pay the extra 3€ to climb the tower, which gives no advantage, and the SUN is in the wrong place (but it had rained in the morning, so driver wisely saved the best part for the sunny afternoon), so I have to go WEST, which I do, running and dodging and taking pictures and looking back and looking forward and passing Fred and taking more pictures and get to a TALL second point and a smaller third point and a tallest, farthest (thought there were some BEYOND that) point, gasping for breath, taking picture after picture of the 700-foot cliffs, wheeling birds, free-standing surf-sprayed rocks and beaches, and loving couples framing views, and dash back for a final pee and gasp into the bus last at 4:32, having taken to #26, shirt completely wet. Stop in Monk's at 5:21 and look into the fishless water from the pier, then back into the bus about 5:30 after taking #27 of glorious clouds (BEST of all days with MOST sun of ANY day!) at 5:26, and back to hotel at 6:35, TIRED, but get out the sheets to be typed, get caught up on the two previously described lacunae, and finally catch entirely up to date, Fred finishing the last of his gin and tonic, I saying I'd go anywhere with him to dinner, and complete this at 7:32, pleased to be FINISHED TO DATE. Tomorrow: bags out at 8, bus leaves at 9. Put my first Valium of the return trip (12 left for 6 days, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon) into my pills and we leave at 7:35 and get slightly lost before finding MacDonough's Fish Shop and stand in a line that DOESN'T move (behind a GORGEOUS guy that I conclude is being paid for by his obese blonde bitch at whom he hardly looks and barely communicates) until about 8:45, when we get set next to a loquacious salesman who tells Fred all about the Bushmill's factory tour and where and what to buy. We both have cod fish and chips for 11€ and a bottle of Muscadet-sur-Lie for 18E, for a bill of 22€ each, and then we walk back along the fast-flowing river to the Catholic Saint Nicholas Cathedral, nicely lit, and then stagger back across bridges and through streets to the hotel, with the lounge loud with a singing playing combo with a stamping clapping audience, and get to the room at 10:50 to tell Fred I'll be typing for only 10 minutes, and he undresses and puts on TV hoping for a weather forecast for tomorrow, and it's 10:54 and he's rattling pills and I have three more to take while brushing my teeth and getting to bed by 11PM, not having to get up until the 7AM wake-up call tomorrow. Bed at 11:18PM, not 8 hours of sleep possible.
THURSDAY, 3/31/05: Pee at 4:15AM. Sleep again and wake and then Fred's up and I ask what time it is and it's 7:05AM, so they missed another wake-up call. I lie in slight misery---only 5 days left, only 1/3 the trip---and get up at 7:10AM to type this by 7:14AM, ready to pack. Bag out at 7:25, and it's gone by the time Fred puts his out 20 minutes later. Shower to 7:45 and hear a bit of the news (nothing more on the earthquake, but there are two armored-car robberies in the multiple millions, so there "will be more gun wars"). Down to an empty, quiet breakfast room for yogurt and peaches, then eggs and ham and tomato and some of June's pouring cream in my hot chocolate, and soon alone at the end: heaven! The plastic-magnetic key that didn't work last night now works. Back up to finish packing and do this by 8:45AM, nicely along. Fred checked out, others got spurious bills. Katie's bag missing for a bit, but then found. Got LAST seat on left at 8:01AM. #28 and #29 Connemara Mountains, cloudy and hard to get all in at 10:31AM. Lake Inagh (EYE-na). Cooler than usual. Kylemore 10:20-12:15. #30 and #31 Abbey and CHRIST in upper left at 10:34. #33 Mystic Lamb repro of lower section from St. Bavo in Ghent by van Eyck. #36 Mausoleum: SHE dying in 1874 (Cairo fever) at age 45, HE dying in 1910, age 85. #37 church from better angle. Roll #7: #1 Christ, hill, and signs at 11:21. Impressive building and decor, and race for bus for garden, leaving at 11:30, and get on with 3 others and take photos to #8 in gardens, and back to bus at 11:55 and back to video at 12:03, to 12:15, when I try racing back to bus to find six people in tea shoppe, so I relax with them and back to WASHED bus at 12:24. #9 "Lenane" on post office on left at 12:45. #10 Killary Harbor at low tide at 12:50, getting tired. [Supermax was the name of the place Jim sat next to me and Fred without talking while we had good burgers.] Leave Lenane 12:53. To Westport on Corrib River at 1:30 and told to leave at 3:30 from St. Patrick. Lunch in Gavin's Cafe to 2:20 with great tuna-salad/onion sandwich on brown bread with hot chocolate. #11 cute shop models with flash at 2:31. #12 and #13 in St. Mary's Cathedral with great stained glass windows from 1960. #14 up street in Westport in rain to St. Patrick's after lunch. Leave 3:32 and sleep a lot to Sligo (after some spectacular mountains and lakes and vistas) at 5:02, to Southern Hotel, and I rest while Fred fusses and unpacks, and then we leave about 5:50 to case streets and places to eat and finally find our way to O'Connell Street and look in at Bistro Bianconi, where we order a good Valpolicella for 17.5€ and I have a fantastic cheese, pepperoni, ham, mushroom, and olive pizza for 15.55€ and Fred a Steak Bianconi with lots of garlic butter for 18.55€, which we split, and walk back to hotel at 8PM to turn on TV, I write last three postcards to Susie, John, and Arnold and finish this to date at 8:40PM, nothing to do for the rest of the evening but read and watch TV and relax! At last! Took third Valium this evening but seem to feel no effect yet, though I'm not concerned about return trip yet. THIS place allowed me to take two HUGE pieces of pizza back with me, where it is now resting on the windowsill and which I'll take on the bus tomorrow---for lunch? Put more stuff away and have luxury of putting bags out at 9AM and leaving at 10AM tomorrow! Maybe even use the swimming pool! Start reading through page 23 of The Purple Cloud, but then get tired, even though Fred is watching some silly TV movie, and I brush my teeth and take my pills and wash my face and finish this and go to bed at 10:15PM, hoping for at least 9 hours of sleep.
FRIDAY, 4/1/05: 5:32AM: Wake after 7 1/2 hours with a vaguely sexual dream in a classroom with a dark-haired young man, but no other details remembered. Back to sleep immediately and wake at 6:38AM, now 8 1/2 hours, and pee and type this, no additional dreams, feeling VERY calm even though the trip is ending, and finish typing this at 6:43AM, hoping for even more sleep. I doze on and off and Fred's into bathroom at 8:15AM without wake-up call. I'm up and start packing. [Oh, forgot CUTE SEXY maitre d' from Boncioni last night.] 8:25AM: Only call from Josie: "Tell Fred to consider himself charged [his digital camera]." To breakfast at 8:50 after showering and leaving circled note on sentence reading "Leave towels on rack" saying "WHAT towel rack?" For a horrible moment I think I have to sit with June, but someone's just left the table with Fred and Josie and Mary Lou, so I sit there, but they have NO hot chocolate, so I have to settle for only apple juice, and then two eggs and two pieces of "bacon" and two half-slices of good brown bread and a bowl of Rice Krispies just to get THAT out of my system, and then have a fudge yogurt that hardly tastes like fudge. Back to the room to brush my teeth and catch up with this after setting my pills in final order, through Monday evening, by 9:38AM, not that much before our 10AM departure. 9:46: Fred leaves ME key to check out. Leave at 10:02, first seat on left, in somewhat of a rain. #15 Yeats's tomb at 10:18. #16 inside Drumcliff Church at 10:20. #17 crows' nests over graveyard. I go down to riverwalk (nothing special) and look at GRAVES (husband buries wife at 40, daughter at 11, HE at 90!) others intermixed and sad. Others shop and gab. Leave at 10:40. To Northern Ireland, country #128 for Belleek at 11:22. #18 Belleek building at 12:28 after good video 12:02-12:22 and tour without photos and lot of gift shops. Donegal 1:12-3:15. #19 Donegal Cemetery Abbey ruins 1:21. 2.5€ entry for #20 Donegal Castle roof at 1:57, some nice furniture, lots of people through history, expansions through time, but not really worth it. But from the cheat-sheet I copy the information about the garde-robe: "In the inner chamber was the toilet seat. An apocryphal story claims that the open chute taking the 'waste' down to the river had to be angled in such a way that an enemy archer could not catch one by surprise! The garde-robe functioned as a cloakroom, the holes in the walls carried batons supporting a bench upon which people threw their robes to benefit from the supposed disinfectant properties of the ammonia wafting through from the urine in the toilet." #23 Pier 1 and information office after my delicious reheated pizza slice (after eating the FIRST unheated slice in the cemetery, to poor taste) and Guinness for 3.4 at 3:06. Leave Donegal at 3;15 to a sunny ride through mediocre scenery to Letterkenny, through which Katie tried to lead Werner on a bus tour, but the traffic at 4PM was so terrible that we quickly turned off, getting an ad for a Conal Gallen concert live at the An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny on April 1 and 2. To hotel at 4:40, getting room 221, WAY at the end, and Fred turns on TV and puts things away, and we BOTH have a double bed for the first time in ages, and I'm up-to-date at 4:55PM. Fred insists on getting the charges for the meals I put on my card, and when I give him the whole bag of souvenirs and suggest HE look through for it, I thought he'd kill me with a glance, so when he insisted and seemed to say that our whole future relationship would depend on my next action, I took the opportunity to go through ALL the souvenirs and sort them out by size and significance (bills, withdrawal slips, etc.) and finished that by 5:30, looking out to see the sky still blue, which does us no good, since our hotel is SO far from anything there's no chance of DOING anything. I suggest to Fred that we could hire a taxi and go in to town to walk around for an hour and then taxi back, but he counters that if I had a bathing suit we could go to the pool, at which I tell him I HAVE a bathing suit, so he smiles snidely and suggest that I go down and check it out for him, since he's writing now. So I go back to typing and he smiles "I guess not." So I'll wash my face, maybe shit again (I seem to shit AT LEAST twice a day!), and pick up again on The Purple Cloud (TPC). Start reading TPC at 5:48 and stop at 6:30 and rest before dinner at 6:55; but when we get downstairs everyone is WAITING for us, having had free wine drinks, and we're shown into a special room where we're offered vegetable soup, better with a pat of butter, Fred and I order the good Antinori wine, but my chicken is impossibly tough, even after I get two pieces of "bacon" to go with it, and the buttered carrots and parsnips go down OK, as does the totally hollow Irish (Welsh?) pudding, and the mashed potatoes aren't bad with equal amounts of butter, either. But the talk is pretty bad, June getting into string theory again and I have to throw out J.A. Wheeler and Misner and Thorne to shut her up, and tell others about TPC, and I didn't know The Da Vinci Code was about the election of a pope, which we may be about to have. Finish the awful trifle dessert, and recall that breakfast is at 8:15, and upstairs at 9PM to finish this, take off my tight black pants, and get ready to read before bed. Start reading at 9:47 and stop at 10:45 after also watching TV's Grumpy Old Men.
SATURDAY, 4/2/05: 4:36AM: Pee and remember vague dreams. 7:44AM: Phone rings, Fred goes to shower, and then radio starts blaring away and I try to stop it three or four ways. Remember part of dream: I've checked my coat on some kind of list, but the list is lost, though my friend has HIS coat, and I keep thinking mine must be here SOMEHERE, but it's not, and finally a friendly clerk offers to take me to a sort of lost-and-found office, where I find a number of coats LIKE mine, but none are mine, and in one I remember feeling a lump in a pocket and feeling a set of keys, thinking it must be REALLY difficult for this person to have lost his coat, but I still can't find mine and wake with a vague sense of frustration. Type this while Fred comes in to say that a radio must always be checked because sometimes a prankster "who lost at the casino" will set the alarm maliciously at like 2:30AM. Type this to 6:58AM and prepare to get out my last clean set of underwear and socks: only three days of the trip left! And have THREE spare pair of socks! After seeing the two obviously gay young lovers in the Belleek tour, I felt myself sexually stimulated walking down a street and calculated that I only had to wait until the day after tomorrow to be able to jerk off again. BUT one of the sad things about the trip has been the EVIDENCE OF AGING that has become so clear. MAYBE because of Valium-no Valium-Valium pattern, MAYBE because I HAVE been running from hilltop to hilltop of the Cliffs of Moher and the Giant's Causeway, and a few of the churches, as well as the garden at the Kylamore Abbey. I've been TIRED and STIFF to the point of lack of balance in getting out of my seat in the bus, or going down the steps, or even showering. I just feel WEAKER and MORE TIRED than seems consistent with my levels of activity on the trip. So, then, to today. Start typing at 9:52 after a late dinner in the Pub of the Clanree Hotel in Letterkenny: FAST breakfast, with NO hot chocolate, AWFUL scrambled eggs, to us at 8:17AM, not the last. 9AM Martin's tour of Derry, sometimes Londonderry. #24 wall dividing Catholic and Protestants in Derry. #26 Foyle's at 10:22, museum closed, so we get a voucher for a tea or coffee at five places, including Marks and Spencer's, but they won't give anything BESIDE tea or coffee, so I have a glass of ice water while looking over the bleak river at the bleak city on the other side. #27 "North Ireland" from Marks and Spencer's coffee shop at 10:43. Katie: Yasir Arafat: "Fighting over religion is like fighting over who has the best imaginary friend." Leave Marks and Spencer's at 10:56. #28 sheep, hills, and sun in North Ireland at 11:44AM. Get to Giant's Causeway and told to stay 12:15-1:45, given 1.6£ for bus down and back, which I decide to take, since I'll be doing a lot of walking when I get down there, and #29 WEST at 12:15. Watch video 12:10-12:35, good, then to bus down. #30 down from BUS at 12:36, probably blurred. #36 fellow on WET ROCK on right at 12:46. #37 last photo on roll. Roll #8: #1 unknown. #7 People on path across way. One wave came RIGHT to my FEET from far away, causing me to move my pack behind me so I wouldn't get it wet. Ride UP, being asked if I'll stand and I say it's perfect, to 1:20, and have quick egg salad and onion and elderflower pressé and fruit tart for 5.90£, getting 60p change from a 10€ note, leaving me with that in pounds and 22 cents in euros TOTAL foreign currency. LATE to bus, but see everyone sitting on the side of the road waiting for the bus, and I finish my sandwich and get on bus NOT last at 1:55. Photos through #8. For tomorrow, luggage out and breakfast at 7:30 and leave at 8:30 for last trip to Dublin. #9 Bushmill's tour "volunteers" at 2:53, after impressive tour of almost 300-year-old factory, and #10 old Bushmill's buildings at the end of the tour at 3:20. Leave at 3:34, warm in sun, and doze to hotel at 5:10 and decide to eat in the Pub, since it isn't worth it for a trip into town, and this is the last night at a remote hotel. Get to room and find that the maid had REMOVED the top three bathing caps, along with all my spare lunchtime calcium caplets, and thrown them away! I get furious and go down with Fred for dinner to ask for a manager, but it takes so long for her to come out that we go in to sit next to Josie and Mary Lou, who recommend the lamb chops (which Fred has, which aren't very good), and I have the well-done burger (which might have been good), with two salads and a nice piece of baked Brie, and a bottle of Carmen Merlot (which isn't very good), but follow it up with a Fetzer Zinfandel Shiraz (which isn't bad), and Fred pays in cash and I with a credit card, borrowing 4€ from him until I get upstairs and pay him back, and get back to room at 10 or so and type to 10:17, watching some horror show with Geena Davis and some guy, and feel totally full, [SATURDAY, 4/2/05: 10:19PM:] and just switch to the final file and burp sour wine and have to clean my teeth and wake-up call was left for 6:45, so I have only 25 minutes to get 8 hours' sleep. OH, did I say that I DID get to the manager and complained about her taking my three shower caps and SHE BRINGS THEM TO ME, including two calcium tablets and an empty Certs box, and I feel just GREAT about getting it all back. Finish this and get ready for bed. Then Fred is in the middle of watching The Long Kiss Goodbye, with who looks to be Faye Dunaway and Robert Mitchum and other Hollywood notables of a few years back, and the general bad acting and camp possibilities keep us amused until it's over at 12:03AM, at which time we shut off the lights and go to sleep.
SUNDAY, 4/3/05: 5:06AM: Wake with a strange dream set vaguely on the New York subway system, where someone like Andre Eryol has produced---a rehearsal?---a performance?---a happening? involving semi-stars of the New York fashion and fashionable elite and elaborate costumes, mannered maquillage, and whole train-cars of exhibit-like spaces void of seats and people but only showing sketches, drawings, paintings, or furniture of a vague Dadaist bent: luxurious materials, nonfunctional seating arrangements, and slanting shapes that don't quite fit into the rectangular spaces of normal subway cars. Andre and Charles seem equally responsible for effect and production, and they fuss over details and rather self-consciously worry whether "it will all be taken in the right way." I'm more of a plebian interloper than an invited guest or participant, and feel slightly guilty moving from car to car with someone like Ken or Fred on a travel excursion right in New York City, trying to see the extent of the exhibits without being too obviously LOOKING to see what there is to be seen. An indefinite air of "How will this be reviewed, or received, or perceived?" perfumes the stuffy air of the salon-like spaces as the cars move from station to station without particularly following a set route or even allowing "ordinary" passengers on or off. A decadent air of bored "Oh, what could we do now that would be of ANY interest" prevailed, much like that present in some contemporary galleries that seem more interested in "being interesting" than in actually showing works of art that might be critiqued and sold. Don't quite know how I'll describe the dream, and seem to finish sufficiently at 5:24AM, feeling vaguely tired and not quite up to the task, rather like I was composing a not-quite-successful New Yorker "Talk of the Town" piece that no one would ever read, or, if they did, about which no one would ever deign to offer an opinion. 6:51AM: Phone rings, from hotel, waking me in the middle of a BIZARRE dream of being in the backyard of 1221 Dietz, which had been transformed into a water-zoo, with allées of squid and sharks and flukes coursing up and down water- and algae-filled aisles while guests milled around the sides oohing and aahing about the transformation that had been caused by my mother, who was a dwarf rather like a more masculine Nina Rosinek, languidly greeting critics and celebrities at this phantasmagoria of a piscine obscene travesty of an aquarium in a limited area. I was hungry, and chewing on a live fish, but I'd had more than enough and put the carcass down for a cat to finish, who sniffed at it delicately and then started chewing on the tuna-colored flesh just under the shiny scales of the nose. As earlier, an air of bored decadence suffused the atmosphere, so possibly, as Fred has so often suggested the past few days, my fatigue or soreness concerning the trip is really a manifestation of my boredom with it, or with myself, with my mind muffled with Valium and not wanting to look at the imminent end of the trip tomorrow----tomorrow after about six meals and eight hours of plane flights and hours of boredom on the plane, where at least I might be able to finish reading some of the books I've brought along and haven't finished reading yet, now I finish typing at 7AM and Fred appears to be finishing in the bathroom already. 7:27AM: Finish showering and Fred's gone down to pay the bill and I turn on TV to possibly one of the most bizarre images of the late Pope's life (who died, at last, last night), with a rapper spinning on his head and one arm to the amazement of the Pope, sitting on his papal throne surrounded by marble columns and floors and luxuriant tapestries, smiling at this baggy-panted black spinner for his amusement. Answer a call from Josie that we did not need a wake-up call, finish dressing and packing and putting out the bag and go to breakfast at 7:37AM. Sit opposite Jim, so say almost nothing during breakfast, still no hot chocolate, though an egg-cooker is willing to give three of us SOFT yolks in their eggs, and I leave Fred to clean his teeth and HE monopolizes the room while I finish this at 8:24, bus loading at 8:30. 8:34 leave, Katie on last, me in last left set. 10:27 to Belfast, totally closed on Sunday morning. #11 "Titanic Made In Belfast" on Cathedral, and should be back at 11:30. #12 Queen Victoria, City Hall, and SUN at 10:30. #13 Scottish Provincial Institution at 10:35. 1:10 bus tour just left at 10:30, next at 11, pity. #14 Presbyterian Church at 10:42. #15 Cirque and Grand Opera House, Boogie Nights 2 at 10:45. #16 Hotel Europa (most bombed) at 10:47, with unseen sculpture about the lower-image of women with implements about their bodies. Pee in Great Northern Mall Bus Station, one of the few places actually open. #17 Male strip ad at 10:53. #18 Victoria Street old building at 11:09. #19 across from City Hall at 11:15. #20 Motorcycle club outside City Hall at 11:16. #21 Motorcycles from bus; I'm first back, trying to get a picture of the largest crane in the world, but it turns out to appear on a page in the Life newsmagazine I got in the hotel this morning! #22 road back to Dublin on leaving at 12:24. Fairway's Hotel for lunch (78 km N of Dublin), is just AWFUL: three pats of butter, lots of salt and pepper, and even extra milk didn't make it better, and the beef sandwich was VERY thin. Though the Blue Nun wine for 4.5€ was good, total of 13.5€. Out at 1:45, trip over in about 30 hours. Leave restaurant at 1:54, only person liking it, perversely, was June! Cross Dublin Boundary at 2:49, cloudy and not really much to watch, even when they stopped the bus to take a look at sheep, which few took a picture of. Tomorrow Fred and I and Carol and June leave at 9AM, bags out at 8:30. Tonight, farewell drinks in the bar at 6:30, no final meal, as Fred wants to return to the place across from the bus stop where we had the 9.99€ special our second night here. Get to Hotel at 3PM (Cassidy's) and up to unpack and fill out the evaluation sheet, remembering almost nothing except to say that most of the hotels were good, food only fair, few towel racks, and not enough time at Moher and Causeway, which I also put down as the most memorable sights. Leave at 3:50 after getting more towels and #23 at Garden of Remembrance, where Josie tells me that King Lir turned his four children into swans because his new wife was jealous of their beauty, and it was only after 400-500 years that the gods took mercy and changed the swans back to kids. Flag is half-mast for the Pope, who died yesterday, unleashing a spate of "How great he was" while SOME chose to say he was against abortion, women becoming priests, any innovations, and even ignored AIDS. They'll mourn for 9 days, have 15 days to start voting and should have the results in 20 days. Get exchange for 90 euros for tips, figuring at the rate of 73€/$100 that 15€ for Werner is good, as is 30€ for Katie, which I put in envelopes and sign. Fred's fascinated by the Irish football team members, and I watch until 5PM, then decide to start this and finish at 5:25, not thinking of much to add except that I've had PLENTY of sexy thoughts today and can't wait for tomorrow night to jerk off, and keep taking only two Valium per day, which seems to be keeping the megrims off, but can take 3 tomorrow and even an Ambien tonight if it seems necessary, or even take an Ambien on the flight across the Atlantic, so I won't feel like going to sleep at 7PM when it's midnight in Ireland. Lots of books to take home, even Fred has the accounts squared away to the point of seeming to owe me 9.37€, which can't be verified by me until I get all MY bills together, which I have somewhat sorted out, and hope to have enough room in my A&K bag for a duty-free Bushmill's Cream. Spending everything on credit card, which will be tight even getting home to record my SS income to pay for my rent first thing, and I'd better stop thinking about all I have to do when I get home (Fred read his calendar and literally has something to do EVERY night this week!). Wasn't the greatest trip in the world, and even sort of wonder, except for the barge tour that I owe Fred, which he seems determined to make France, if we'll travel together that much after this, since we seem to spend more and more time independently, including going and coming from meals together. Now 5:30 and I'm ready to go to note 13, having taken only to #24 with Josie and Mary Lou at the Garden of Remembrance on the next-to-last roll of film, which I hope to finish off tomorrow, so I'll have 8 rolls to send off for development for return before the start of the Madagascar trip, which I can hardly believe comes up THIS MONTH! Watch Cheetahs on TV to 6:15, and then down for drinks at 6:25 that are fairly difficult, with many jokes, photos, tries at amity, and at the end I say we really should go to dinner, back to Kingfisher, which has a 9.99€ special of oxtail or minestrone soup, pork chop or plaice, both of which we each have, me first, and then homemade ice cream with apple pie, when Fred goes to the john and comes back with Johnathan (Johnny) Blake, who owns the place with his brother and I swear COMES ON TO US, with great eye contact, strong handshake, and GREAT personality. Drink wine and return at 9:15 to start watching South Park, but The Matrix is on and I get hooked into the VERY beginning, hoping Fred will go along with it from 9:20, when he comes in and says his stomach doesn't feel very well. Let's hope for a Matrix evening! Forgot LOTS of the movie, but it still seems good, and there's only one sunrise to go before I get back to NYC! Took my pills, brushed my teeth, got my bed ready, got everything finished except packing, which doesn't have to be done until tomorrow. Now 11PM, clearly the movie will last till midnight. The Pope is now lying in state. Movie over at 11:32PM in fact and we both go immediately to bed and to sleep as far as I can tell.
MONDAY, 4/4/05: Wake at 4:15AM to pee, then later with some vague erotic dream that again has me trying to get myself, or someone else, very sexually hard, but it's not yet quite the time for it and I think "But tonight it WILL be the time for it." Look at my watch at 6:38AM and again at 6:58AM and decide to go in and shit before Fred gets in there, and as I'm shitting the phone rings, and I come out and the phone rings AGAIN at 7:05 and Fred said he asked for TWO wake-up calls. The morning stretches luxuriously ahead: bags not due out until 8:30 and our bus leaves at 9AM for our 11:30, or whatever, flight, and then a two-hour layover in Heathrow before the 7:15 flight gets us into NYC about 6:50PM, which should still be well lighted, and then HOME SWEET HOME. Fred starts his shower now at 7:14AM and I think of all I'll be reading before I get home, counting hours, but not REALLY anxious about the flights, thank goodness---as usual, I just want to get HOME and resume my normal life until my NEXT (too soon) trip. Shower, and Fred leaves TV on BLARINGLY loud as he leaves for breakfast. I pack blue bag with almost everything and get it out at 7:50 and finish this at 7:52AM, dressing for breakfast. Back from breakfast 8:25AM: minimal scrambled eggs, two pieces of "bacon," decent but not GOOD hot chocolate, and only Werner and Katie at the next table, except as June swept in as I swept out, barely acknowledging my "Good morning," followed by Carol, to whom I said, "It's about time!" and she said, "The princess slept in." Brush my teeth and finish packing by 8:40, then downstairs to all sad goodbyes, Katie announcing some kind of departure she has to meet (sure!), so we're only Werner and Fred and Carol and me and June in the bus, the last two rather cool, but what difference does it make? However, it turns out their DIRECT flight west was canceled and they have to come to London WITH us. I manage to cadge 1 cent from Carol and change 50 cents in euros to a 50-cent euro piece, and five 2-euro coins into a 10-euro note, reducing my change-weight considerably. Pick up a newspaper to read and get to the bus, which leaves hotel at 9:06. Not much traffic and we're at Dublin airport at 9:30, getting carts for our bags and going in quickly and getting Fred's name (NOT mine) on Quick-Pass and get to desk to get MY bag through and clerk thinks to ask Fred if we're staying in London, and he has to STAPLE a tag to HIS bag to make sure MY bag is ALSO checked through to London, implying that it's "99% sure" and I say, "Well, if two million people fly today---" and he smiles, so I'll try to check again in London. Fred changes his WINDOW seat to an aisle in MY row, where I have a window IN FRONT of the wing, he assures me, but again smiles: "At least that's the way it should be." Check through by 10:07 and check out Bushmill's Cream for 700 ml for 10.15€ and 1000 ml for 15.7€, which is .157 for 10 ml of BIG bottle but only .145 for 10 ml of SMALL bottle. But all my pills (not many left) and reading material are in my A&K bag, which gets heavier when I add the Bushmill's, which fits nicely. Fred joins, saying he spent a mint in the shops, at 10:37, and the time is rapidly counting down, though airport is LOUD with kids. Read newspaper to 10:54 and start 3/21 New Yorker. Pee; start New York magazine 3/14-21 as flight starts boarding at 11:52. Board at 12:02, crowded but GOOD seat and CLEAR SKY at 12:16. "50 minutes' flight with tailwind!" Finish New York at 12:26, taxiing. Off at 12:30. #25 Dublin into sun at 12:34. #26 private island offshore at 12:36. #27 first SCOTS island at 12:43. 12:50 mostly clouds, and I start 3/28 New York magazine. Land at 1:23, rainy, and start TREK to the new flight at 1:30. Terminal 4 signs vanish at 1:48. Finally see that the side-signs not only go to London on one side, but they go to Terminal 4 on the other side, and the next one is in 10 minutes, Fred long gone ahead of me. Train comes in at 1:56, leaves at 1:59, and gets in at 2:03. Look longly for a decent place to eat, not interested in just sandwiches, not to mention that I have a lot of time to spare, and start another note as I sit and wait for Chicken Tikka Masala from Weatherspoon's at 2:50, with a good pint of Guinness. Finish at 3:13, and find that we board for flight (which had been blank because departure time was so long a time away) at gate 22, while I'm AT gate 6 and it takes 20 minutes to get to gate 22 and the gate closes at 3:45! So there goes all the spare time. Get to gate 22 at 3:28, check that the flight is still scheduled to be on time. Boarding announced at 3:44 and board at 3:55, finally catching sight of Fred, who'd been sitting at the far other end of the room. Announced at 7:14 flight, with some bumps. At 4:25 finish 3/28 New York magazine, putting remnants in seat pocket in front of me for staff to clear out. Lots of young women come and go in seats around me, but finally the one next to me leaves, which gives me more space. Off at 4:45PM and take #28 of lion in grass, possibly not too clear, at 4:53. DROP my penultimate Valium and CAN'T find it under my chair-seat, though I try hard by pulling up the chair-seat and trying to push aside the supporting webbing. Take the LAST one with pills and dinner and water and wine at 5:45, hoping there's no delay that would have me wish I'd kept one. SOME bumps, but smooth most of the time, but variegatedly cloudy. As a joke, choice of dinner is chicken or beef lasagna, so I get the beef and hear that I got the last one when no one in front of me is given the choice. Actually it wasn't bad, and though I was full, I had a tiny bottle of red to start, a bottle of white with the meal, and then got a second bottle of white from the somewhat stern-looking steward. When I went back to pee, Fred (who had moved back because "the bitch in front leaned back and wouldn't straighten up, and I couldn't lean back because the bitch in back insisted on using her computer and had to have all her room, so I got moved back here") had asked for extra gin twice and eventually didn't even get that. There WAS a small tailwind, but now there's a headwind and it started about 440 minutes and is now 344 minutes, so the time is going. #29 MAYBE the Giant's Causeway at the north of Ireland, and #30 MAYBE part of the Cliffs of Moher---can't WAIT to see the slides [which I haven't sent off yet and it's already THURSDAY as I'm typing this]! Watch Meet the Fockers, which is just awful, and then National Treasure, which is absolutely totally unbelievable, but it passes the time from 8:20-10:48, just one hour to go. I'm feeling tired. Cloudy out, though there'd been spectacular icebergs in the northern Atlantic and some spectacular Labrador ice fields and rivers and ridges. At 11:08 get up to wash my face, which makes me feel better. Take through #33 with various views of the southern parts of Long Island in the setting sun and land at 11:49PM, which is 6:49PM local time, which happened to change to Daylight Savings a week AFTER it changed in Ireland. When everyone gets off I clear everything off the floor and FIND my last Valium and get off plane at 12:02AM.
TUESDAY, 4/5/05: Worry about getting my bag, since ALL bags are coming off VERY slowly, and FINALLY Fred's shows up, but as there are still lots of people waiting, I'm still not worried when mine FINALLY appears and we take off in 57° pleasantness to wait a bit for a taxi at 12:40, and let Fred off when the bill shows over $30 and he gives me $20 for his share, and when I get out it's $35.10 and I give him $40 and he almost leaves before I can get my bag out of the trunk! Home at 1:35AM, which is really 6:35AM in Ireland, so it's no wonder I'm totally fatigued, just get out my night pills and get to bed at 1:49AM. Wake at 2:43, strangely horny, and decide to get up at 2:48 and jerk off to 4:06. Shit, take melatonin, and get to bed at a time when my bedroom clock says 2:20, so I really can't square it and don't care to try. Up at 7:03, feeling washed out, and at least have the wit of putting things back into the bags to find that my A&K bag weighs 17# and my blue bag 25# for a total of 42#, and I have 51.5€ and $76 cash in wallet and $20 in my pocket from Fred and still haven't checked how much I still have in my A&K under-wallet. Feel so woozy I can't think of anything better than to go through the mail to 9:25AM, have breakfast to 9:48, having to put the still-frozen milk that I took out of the freezer last night into a bowl of warm water to cool and melt to sweeten my oatmeal, and manage to brush my teeth and change undershirt and shirt and get to dentist at 10:36, but he doesn't ask for me until 10:44, so I guess I didn't hold him back. He comes in cheerily, and when I mention I'm still groggy from the jet lag, he jokes, "So I guess you don't need anesthesia?" "Ha ha," I reply. He's very good, says I don't need a bite-block, and I panic a bit when the assistant asks if he'll have to cut into the gumline to get the root out, and he says he hopes not, and it turns out he doesn't, and he praises my lack of bleeding and says it looks very good (and I joke that I want a copy of the videotape, but I don't get it), and I praise his skill that makes the job so easy. Out of the chair in exactly one hour, at 11:44, and tentatively ask, "The price?" and he says, "Oh, no charge." How GREAT! Although, of course, it WAS $1200 from the start, and his secretary calls the next morning to check that I feel OK. Back feeling STILL horny, so I use the porno that I left out last night (or rather, this morning) and cum AGAIN to 1:23, have lunch while looking at some of the magazines that are new, and finally taking note of the 6 telephone calls: 1) Shelley saying she'll be in the hospital 5 days for her gallbladder removal, so she may not be home when I get back, but welcome home; 2) and 3) Blanche about Lina's coming to town 5/18, when, I phone back to say, I'll be in Madagascar; 4) Lisa from Bookspan for a rush job on Presidents, which sounds too much like a biography, so I say I'm booked up, but keep me in mind; 5) Dr. Goldberger's secretary reminding me of my 10:30 appointment Tuesday; and 6) Katherine Happ with two possible indexes, of which I get one with a STACK of mail later today, and another of which I got on Wednesday, but couldn't pick it up because the regular guy wasn't on when I got back for ANOTHER big stack of mail. Also told Katherine to look into my $1300 bill from 2/28. Then I just can't take my mind off my sore cock, so I sit down to look through practically ALL the DVD to cum AGAIN at 4PM (also miraculously finding a last package of bidis in the sex drawer), a RECORD 3 times in one day for one of the first days of my SEVENTH DECADE OF LIFE! John calls and tells me he watered just SUNDAY, so no wonder my small watering caused everything to overflow. Look through the March 27 Sunday Times (of which I have TWO copies, since I forgot to tell Spartacus that I'd told JOHN to get them), and find I didn't do the March 21 puzzles, which I got out and did and phoned Spartacus a few times but he didn't answer and so I decided to check my e-mail about 9PM and worked on my Zagat's survey answers through the letter H until about 10, then phoned him to tell him I was going to bed, and got to bed at 10:27PM.
WEDNESDAY, 4/6/05: Wake at 3:47 and pee and decide to take Ambien and melatonin to get this time-change over with as soon as possible, and get up at 7:40, having actually slept 9:13, but still feeling sleepy. Made a note to change my watch, which somehow reads Thursday, but all I did was change it to read FRIDAY! Talked to Shelley, and I continued through stacks of mail, having mailed the rent-check yesterday, and Ken called for me to tell Paul to make reservations for Aux Lyonnais on 5/25, since they don't start taking reservations until 5/1 and we won't be here. I'd called Steve Hayes in the morning to check that the pool party was IN FACT at 7PM tonight, leaving about 6:50 for the pool party, taking a towel and shower clogs, and getting there SO early there was hardly anything to eat and the pool was still covered, but chatted with Steve Hayes, looked at some nice cocks, enjoyed a few good books and Steve's hilarious "World News" with some of the present nudists at a MIXED nudie-dinner, then decided to splurge on three beers and some wine and their good chicken and pasta salad and potatoes, and GREAT cheesecake with lots of chips and grapes and about a half-hour in the tub, but then just got VERY tired about 10 and subway home, unwrap my copy of Powys's Art of Growing Old, which he wrote when he was 70, and get to bed at 10:47PM, not bad progress (and had reset ALL the clocks during the day, too), and took Ambien and melatonin right off the bat and got RIGHT to sleep.
THURSDAY, 4/7/05: Wake at 8:14AM, STILL groggy, but maybe from all the pills, having slept 9:27! Have breakfast just to DO it, and then finish BOTH copies of the April 3 Sunday Times, ironically turning out that the ONLY section that I noticed was DIFFERENT, the Sports section, was IN FACT the only section that was different in the two copies, but I took out two huge stacks of newspapers yesterday and already have the slot almost half full of Times now. Finish the Times at 11:05, and set up to transfer my AlphaSmart to WP51 and phone Arnold while doing so, firming up meeting at 6:45 for the Ballet tonight, and taking his offer of some play on Saturday, so my calendar's filling up and I'm not even unpacked. Transfer the AlphaSmart to 11:35AM and finish this up-to-date at 12:45PM, ready to proofread---no, I should get out the films to be mailed when I pick up my prescriptions at 1:15 this afternoon, while getting groceries! Mail EIGHT rolls in SEVEN mailers to 1:40 and pick up one prescription to find that I have to wait until 4/16 for the second one, and get groceries, have lunch, play FreeCell for a long time, actually breaking 47.0032% at 5:20PM, start putting stuff away, then leave at 6:45PM to meet Spartacus at the Clark Street Station and give him $7 for his Times and $3 for the Audience Extra ticket to The Contract (Pied Piper of Hamelin) by the Canadian Ballet at BAM, actually pretty bad, from 7:36-8:56, and then we dash down Livingston Street for the Dallas BBQ there, still crowded with Blacks, and have good ribs and baked potatoes and a VERY tasty Texas-sized apple martini for $7.50, but his dry chicken wings were even more and he used his discount card as well. Out to find TEEMING rain, and we run for a bus shelter and I dash to his apartment to be let onto the overpass, which is hardly draining at all, a real moat, and get to bed at 11:43PM, taking only the three night pills, and NO Ambien or melatonin, hoping to wake up feeling more rested and "human" than I have so far.
FRIDAY, 4/8/05: Up at 7:41, feeling nicely rested, and make out my "first dozen" list, which actually expands to 19 by the time the day is over: 1) Sew umbrella tine, 2) Finish unpacking, 3) Finish TR/IRELAND, 4) Send for Madagascar visa, 5) Finish tax forms, 6) Do Fashion index, 7) Do Audition index, 8) Phone Sherryl, Mildred, and Charles, 9) Ask Ken about Spamalot, 10) Schedule Antarctica showing, 11) Fix RCA camcorder, 12) Fix Kodak projector, 13) Sort mail stacks, 14) Go to gym, 15) Order 4/16 prescription, 16) Reorder Valium, 17) Call for DeMatteo appointment, 18) Use Henry's End birthday card, and 19) Order film/mailers from B&H. Unpack and breakfast to 10:15AM. Then do 17) and 8), phoning, and 14), going to the gym, in order to 4:45. Then go through Visa bill, with questions, and start Madagascar visa application, and leave at 5:55 to meet Sherryl at Henry's End for a GREAT meal: mushroom soup with truffle oil, chicken and morels and asparagus, a $5 kir and a $7.50 champagne and a one-candle mud pie for me, and veal and fennel and shiitake and lime pie for Sherryl, with good salads and breads for both, and they took $20+ off my "$18.75 limit" and "two-days past validity" card, Sherryl paying $26 and enjoying her FIRST visit to Henry's End VERY much. I get home and decide to start proofreading this, taking a LONG time with MANY corrections, and finally get a call from Stephanie at 10:40PM sort of deciding the Antarctic slide-show will be the evening of April 17, ending this evening in good form, but there are STILL over a dozen things to be done tomorrow and even the day after, not to mention that I get YET ANOTHER Sunday Times tomorrow night! Bed at 11:10PM.
SATURDAY, 4/9/05: Up at 7:26AM, take out magazines, discard old indexes, print 21 pages of this and breakfast by 9:10AM. Update mailing list to 9:40AM. Print out the DREAMS pages and then make the Summary page to 12:30PM, which will become page 23, and I can't believe it took that long to verify names and dates and places. Marj calls and talks an INCREDIBLE amount of time to about 2:40, then I have lunch and play FreeCell until 7:15, when I leave too late to see the first few moments of Moonlight and Magnolias, free from Bob Lambiase, and get the Times and have a late dinner and finish puzzles and go to bed 12:45AM.
SUNDAY, 4/10/05: Up at 8:12AM, clip my toenails, and then play FreeCell to 10AM and decide to FINISH this page: add totals later by deleting blank lines here.
TRIP SUMMARY
MON,3/21/05: Dine at 7th Avenue Deli at JFK at 6:30PM. Fly JFK 8:30PM to Heathrow for 6:20 flight. Watch A Very Long Engagement and The Incredibles and end of Vera Drake, so that finishes off THOSE movies, all pretty poor.
TUE,3/22/05: Land in Heathrow at 7:55AM after 5-hour time-change. Fly Heathrow to Dublin 10:33-11:32AM. Cab to Cassidy's Hotel on Parnell Square and walk to lunch in Clerys O'Connell St., dine in hotel, videocamera broken! Bed at 10PM.
WED,3/23/05: No luck trying video-repair places. Tour National Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St. Patrick; Trinity College Library; lunch at Badass Cafe; St. Stephan's; National Gallery; Museum of Natural History; Shelbourne-Meridien Hotel for Bulmer's apple cider; dinner at Toddy's Bar at the Gresham Hotel, wine spilled on Fred; bed at 10:30PM.
THU,3/24/05: Bus tour to Lake Tara and waterfall and Forgiveness Center, lunch on steak and mushroom pie at Lynam's of Laragh; then Glendalough for Abbey ruins, old crosses, and many falls. Dine at Kingfisher Restaurant. Bed 10:30PM.
FRI,3/25/05: To National Stud Farm and Japanese Garden, lunch in McDonald's-like Family Playtime, then Kilkenny Castle, Cathedral, and tower; to Granville Hotel on riverfront in Waterford. Dinner in hotel and bed at 10:17PM.
SAT,3/26/05: Waterford Crystal factory-tour, stop somewhere for lunch, then to Rock of Cashel and with June and Carol to Waterford Castle for a $112 dinner, not including taxi to and from hotel, including lovely private woods-walk.
SUN,3/27/05: Cobh (Queenstown) for Titanic and Lusitania museum, then to Blarney Castle to kiss the rock, and to Blarney Woollen Mills for great mushroom soup and a ham and cheddar lunch. To Kenmare Bay Hotel in County Kerry, stroll into town to find nothing, and dinner with group at hotel.
MON,3/28/05: Ring of Kerry with Macgillycuddy Reeks Lakes; to Killarney National Park for an 8-passenger Jargies ride, lunch stop at thatch cottage, visit Waterville and Sneem for ice cream at Riney's; great dinner at Davitt's.
TUE,3/29/05: Visit Adare, Trinitarian Church, and Bunratty Castle and Folk Park for lunch in Tea Room. To Imperial Hotel in Galway, walk in rain to get cheese and wine for feast before awful dinner in hotel. Proofread files; bed at 11PM.
WED,3/30/05: Kinvara Castle, Galway Bay, Burren, Aillwee Cave tour, "Hole of Sadness" grave at Poulnabrone; Burren Center. Lunch at Vaughan's with my climax of a birthday cake! Cliffs of Moher glorious, stop in Monk's, and dine after long wait in MacDonough's Fish Shop, walking to Saint Nicholas Cathedral, and bed.
THU,3/31/05: Connemara Mountains, Kylemore Abbey and Gardens, Lenane visit and Killary Harbor. Westport lunch in Gavin's Cafe; visit St. Mary's and St. Patrick's and sleep to Southern Hotel in Sligo; dine on great Bistro Bianconi pizza. Start reading The Purple Cloud. Bed at 10:15PM.
FRI,4/1/05: Yeats's tomb, Drumcliff Church, to Northern Ireland for Belleek tour. To Donegal Cemetery Abbey and Castle, Pier 1 for Guinness and wonderful reheated pizza slice from Bianconi. Bus to Letterkenny Clanree (Holiday Inn) Hotel for poor hotel dinner and watch Grumpy Old Men on TV to 10:45PM.
SAT,4/2/05: Martin's tour of Derry, water in Marks and Spencer's; to Giant's Causeway for bus ride down and up, lunch in coffee shop. Bushmill's tour and tasting and again dinner in poor hotel Pub. Watch end of The Long Kiss Goodbye, camp with Geena Davis from 1996.
SUN,4/3/05: The Pope died last night. Bus to closed Belfast, Cathedral, City Hall, Opera House, Hotel Europa. To awful Fairway's Hotel lunch. To Cassidy's Hotel and Garden of Remembrance, Cheetahs on TV, one free farewell drink in bar, then to Kingfisher for good special dinner, then back to watch most of The Matrix.
MON,4/4/05: Pack, say goodbyes, buy Bushmill's Cream, read magazines. Fly Dublin to Heathrow 12:30-1:23PM. Lunch at Weatherspoon's on Chicken Tikka Masala and Guinness, and fly Heathrow-JFK 4:45PM-11:49PM, 6:49PM local time, having watched awful Meet the Fockers and National Treasure. Some good views.
TUE,4/5/05: Off plane 12:02AM. Into bed 1:49AM, jerk off to 4:06 and up at 7:03. Read mail, go to Goldberger for root-removal, cum twice more, bed 10:27.
WED,4/6/05: Unpack, read Times, pool party.
THU,4/7/05: Transfer AlphaSmart and feel GOOD!
IRELAND PHOTO LIST - 1
Roll 1
#20 10:34 London airport construction
#21 at 11:28 farms on landing
#22 Dublin airport at 11:32AM
#23 of Cathedral Sigil at 10:25
#24 of Boyle's (of Boyle's Law) gravesite
#25 Handel played the first Messiah on this organ
#26 high-altar at 10:45
#27 stained glass by Guinness family, now the Earl of Ivegh, of Mother Earth
#28 13th Century St. Patrick, head from later
#29 Swift's grave, wrote Gulliver's Travels while here
#30 Swift's death mask
#31 BLUE john light at 1:04
#32 Harp and Molly Malone at 1:15
#33 Badass Cafe, where we have lunch
#34 of building after Badass at 2:13
#35 St. Stephan's green atrium at 5:42
#36 of church on Anne St., off Crafton St. at 6:01
Roll 2:
#1 Reconciliation Center at 10:51AM
#2 top of center, clouds at 10:58
#3 SOME sun at 11:10, to lake
To #8 muddy and cloudy
To #12 Lake Tae, Guinness estate; Roundwood: highest village
To #18 falls to 1:03
#19 stag statue, heather, church at 2:23
#24 St. Kevin's cross, largest from 800AD at 2:57
#31 nursing foal at 11:06AM at the Horse Farm
To #37 in Japanese Garden to 11:46
Roll 3:
#2 at Kilkenny Castle at 1:46
Through #9 at TOP of tower (free!) to 3:57
#10 and #11 in Waterford Crystal factory at 10:23AM
#13 Hore Abbey, named from monks' hoarfrost-colored robes
#14 Rock of Cashel at 1:32PM
#19 Treasury and group and guide and Fred and Katie in road at 1:50PM. Lovely panorama from the hilltop. Also took St. Patrick's cross from 1200
#29 Cobh and Titanic Bar in great distance at 11:25 from viewpoint near church
#31 Cobh Catholic Cathedral
To #33 Cobh view, church, into sun
#34 Blarney Castle at 12:14
#36 heather
Roll 4:
#1 unknown
#3 MY shot of the stone-kissing area, did she take #2?
#6 kissing-stone from BELOW
#11 Unicorn sculpture along road, one we stopped for at 4:29
#12 and #13 Macgillycuddy Reeks Lakes at 9AM
Ride 9:30-10:18, pictures to #21
#25 lunch stop at thatch cottage at 12:30
#26 Charlie Chaplin in Waterville
old ring-fort (called a "cadge" in photo #30 or #31) that I hadn't seen below
#32 from Coomakista Pass, and 2:50-3:05 in Sneem
#34 "Crusher" Casey in Sneem at 2:54
#35 thatched roof at 10:47
#37 Trinitarian church at 10:52
IRELAND PHOTO LIST - 2
Roll 5:
#1 great hall at Bunratty with no flash at 12:10, through #12
#13 of Galway Street at 5:30
#17 Kinvara Castle at 10:02
#18 Galway Bay at 10:22
#19 Burren, two people ON hill and one below at 10:55
Poulnabrone "Hole of Sadness" at 12:14 for pictures #23-27
#28 Lemenagh Castle and signs at 12:43
#29 Irish elk and mammoth tusk which won't come out at 1:10
#30 Cathair Chomain, JUST like Skerra Brae
#32 GROUP at 2:53 after lunch at Vaughan's
To #37 on Cliffs of Moher frantically to 3:34
Roll 6:
To 4:32, having taken to #26 on Cliffs of Moher, shirt completely wet
#27 of glorious clouds (BEST of all days with MOST sun of ANY day!) at 5:26
#28 and #29 Connemara Mountains, cloudy and hard to get all in at 10:31AM
#30 and #31 Abbey and CHRIST in upper left at 10:34
#33 Mystic Lamb repro of lower section from St. Bavo in Ghent by van Eyck
#36 Mausoleum: SHE dying 1874 (Cairo fever) at age 45, HE dying 1910, age 85
#37 church from better angle
Roll 7:
#1 Christ, hill, and signs at 11:21
To #8 in gardens, and back to bus at 11:55
#9 "Lenane" on post office on left at 12:45
#10 Killary Harbor at low tide at 12:50
#11 cute shop models with flash at 2:31
#12 and #13 in St. Mary's Cathedral with great stained glass windows from 1960
#14 up street in Westport in rain to St. Patrick's after lunch
#15 Yeats's tomb at 10:18
#16 inside Drumcliff Church at 10:20
#17 crows' nests over graveyard
#18 Belleek building at 12:28
#19 Donegal Cemetery Abbey ruins 1:21
2.5€ entry for #20 Donegal Castle roof at 1:57
#23 Pier 1 and information office
#24 wall dividing Catholic and Protestants in Derry
#26 Foyle's at 10:22
#27 "North Ireland" from Marks and Spencer's coffee shop at 10:43
#28 sheep, hills, and sun in North Ireland at 11:44AM
#29 WEST at Giant's Causeway at 12:15
#30 down from BUS at 12:36, probably blurred
#36 fellow in WET ROCK on right at 12:46
#37 last photo on roll
Roll 8:
#1 unknown
#7 People on path across way
Photos through #8
#9 Bushmill's tour "volunteers" at 2:53
#10 old Bushmill's buildings at the end of the tour at 3:20
#11 "Titanic Made In Belfast" on Cathedral
#12 Queen Victoria, City Hall, and SUN at 10:30
#13 Scottish Provincial Institution at 10:35
#14 Presbyterian Church at 10:42
#15 Cirque and Grand Opera House, Boogie Nights 2 at 10:45
#16 Hotel Europa---most bombed, at 10:47
#17 Male strip ad at 10:53
#18 Victoria Street old building at 11:09
IRELAND PHOTO LIST - 3
#19 across from City Hall at 11:15
#20 Motorcycle club outside City Hall at 11:16
#21 Motorcycles from bus
#22 road back to Dublin on leaving at 12:24
#23 at Garden of Remembrance
#24 with Josie and Mary Lou at the Garden of Remembrance
#25 Dublin into sun at 12:34
#26 private island offshore at 12:36
#27 first SCOTS island at 12:43
#28 of lion in grass, possibly not too clear, at 4:53
#29 MAYBE the Giant's Causeway at the north of Ireland
#30 MAYBE part of the Cliffs of Moher---can't WAIT to see the slides
Through #33 with various views of the southern parts of Long Island in the setting sun
Through #37 with shots at 101 Clark, ending with one of Manhattan at #37