The Letter

After A.W.

This is the ancient steel nib with which

I wrote you, love, a letter through my throat;

I am writing this through my oesophagus-

My silent throat a huge and growing wound.

I have not walked a barren road to come to an end

Salvaging nothing; I have not given myself wholly,

Would not have let you mayhem me wholly,

Were it to face an end uninhabited by you.

Years we struggled on our one worn track-

First loving, converging, finally raging and tearing apart

A thousand miles in opposite directions- you surging forth,

Strong, unforgiving and I, as always, glancing back, a wound in my throat,

My whole body longing, and dissolving to a pillar of salt.

October, 2009. Lorcan Black.

Never Think

Listening to Robert Pattinson's recording 'Never Think', I couldn't help thinking of a quote from my new project, 'Vide Cor Meum', and how very, sadly fitting it seems to be for me right now. I'm a silent, functioning wreck. Part of me wonders how long I can carry on like this, and the other part doesn't want to know...

"In another life it might all have worked out but you are the sand that has blown through my fingers, iridescent and ungraspable and I might as well be Lot's wife looking back in sorrow and regret, in shame, as I turn to a pillar of salt..."


I wish I could keep myself together, to stop from shivering apart, a thousand particles of salt eddying and dissipating on the winds as I struggle to form, to sliver my uncountable myriad pieces back together once again. That kind of love doesn't seem possible anymore. It's as though I have voided my chances, at twenty-three I'm beginning to understand that it's not futile, but it's true, you only get so many shots- what do you do when you blow them all?

Control

I have relinquished all control. I have accepted that what will happen shall happen. There is no point in my torturing myself over past decisions or choices I have made, when I know that I made the necessary choices and decisions that I could have, at those particular times. So it's over.

I am content (not happy, never happy) to let life flow. What will happen, shall happen. Perhaps whether I influence it or not. I am writing again, a third novel, but where this is going I do not yet know myself. I seem to have a lot of trouble focusing and concentrating my energies in that particular direction, but I do have some vague notions of where it might eventually go and so far this (possible) start on a third project is being titled Vide Cor Meum, after the operatic Aria written by Patrick Cassidy.

I need to work harder at this, I need to try to get back some semblance of peace in order to write again, to find that level, steady state of mind in which I can begin to work ceaselessly. If only it were so easy...

The State I'm In

A friend recently asked me how my life was going at the moment. My response was honest:
"Oh, I made two new friends recenty, yeah... self-loathing and self-loathing. We spend a lot of time together. Honestly? I absolutely hate my life at the moment. I hate my job, I hate my inability to get an agent, you name it... mostly I spend my time trying not to curl up in bed and cry."

He said "You don't seem it... but at least you finished a book. I haven't written anything in months." This was cue for more self-loathing on my part and a rant. Which seems to be what I do best at the moment.
"Two books," I corrected. "That's the pathetic part. Two books no agent or publisher wants to so much as touch with a barge pole because they're so serious and their themes are so fucked up they're all terrified they might not sell enough to turn a profit."

I mean, not to harp too much but I'm twenty-three goddamn years old and what? What have I done with my life so far? Sure I wrote a memoir about my struggle with manic-depression and on-going cocaine addiction, I wrote a fictional novel about a beautiful, talented woman who throws it all away over men who don't love her, whose life is defined by her own disillusion and ruined by it- I studied journalism and sociology but only graduated in sociology because I was so fucked up I dropped out of journalism. I was so fucked up in fact, on drugs and in my head, that my friends had to drag me to the exam hall so I could at least graduate in sociology.

Everyone around me tells me I'm going to make it, they all seem convinced. Thing is, I'm not so sure anymore. I feel like I'm somehow floating further and further from the place I want to be at. I wish I knew how to go about getting back on track.

I'm twenty-three, I've written two pretty heavy novels, I work full time in an art store (for God's sake) which pays peanuts and I've got virtually no shot at breaking into the industry unless, it seems, I come up with a light-hearted, fluffy happy-go-fucking-lucky beach-read- the kind that twenty-something yuppies would enjoy.

Thing is, I don't know how to write that and it's just not me, but what I do write, what I write so well (apparently) isn't what inspires agents or publishers to think will sell well by an unknown writer.

Disillusioned is not the word. And don't even start with that "You're only twenty-three" shit. Right now I'm beginning to think, Yeah I'm twenty-three, then twenty-four, and then twenty-five... suddenly I'll be thirty and still submitting to agents and getting those polite "Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity..." letters.

Right now I'm feeling rather low, and that boat I'm waiting on just doesn't seem to be coming in. I just really, seriously hope I can prove my current disillusion wrong.

This Life

"Well, I've never prayed
But tonight I'm on my knees..."
Lyrics to Bittersweet Symphony, by The Verve

The lyrics claim "I'm a million different people from one day to the next..." and the truth, to me, couldn't be clearer: some friends abett my using, most friends don't and I'm sick and tired trying to remember which ones are which. Now I try to stick with the ones who don't.

Meetings are painful, and often difficult to sit through without coming close to tears. I took eight days off from work in order to get myself back to some semblance of coherant functionality once again. I had originally booked these eight days off from work months ago when I still had the money and intention of actually going somewhere on my vacation, but when that fell through and things slipped the way they did, I decided it would be time wisely spent getting back on my sobriety feet once again.

Cue the dramatics: a guy I met five years ago in the bin (he was in for a detox while I was in for being just plain nuts in a dual-function rehab- for both the spun and the crazy, in other words) died of a speedball and all I could think when I turned up to the meeting and heard the news was, You stupid fuck. Which, really, is completely hypocritical when you think about it. Why do I call him a stupid fuck and ignore the fact that I myself am exactly the same stupid fuck that he was? Because he died of a mix of his prefered poison :speed and heroin, and I didn't die from an overdose of my prefered choice of cocaine. Pathetic and yet true.

Somehow high functioning addicts like myself tend to think ourselves (and each other) as being somehow not stupid, because our lives, messed up as they may be, are not in such relative termoil or disaster. We still go to work, we still function, we still meet friends for coffee at the time we agreed, we get up each morning and shower, dress, moisturise, shave etc. We're completely and utterly 'normal' except for the fact that we would use drugs like most people might play tennis- it's our recreational sport of choice.

What does get messy is when your recreational 'sport of choice' is cocaine and you're a twenty-something battling Bipolar Disorder. Suddenly your friends think this is a sign of things taking a bad turn around dark corner, suddenly you're in trouble (and denying it) while everyone around you is making a habit of studying your pupils each and everytime they run into you- and they're completely right, and the worst thing is that you know it.

Even if you're a high functioning addict, the one thing you can't deny forever is that obviously something is going wrong somewhere, otherwise why are you doing it? For anyone else, drugs can be a recreational flirtation of sorts, but for addicts (or addicts-in-the-making) we are the people who belong to that specific group of users who cannot do it, take it and leave it. We make it an activity whole, in and of itself. It becomes a total activity.

Then you know it's time to go to a meet, and to continue to go to meetings. Which is, thankfully, what I'm doing and what I'll continue to do until I feel I can leave it and not do it. Until then, I'll have to make meetings a whole activity in and of themselves. I might hate the program, but it is, unfortunately though like most addicts I hate to admit it, the only real thing that actually works.

Past & Present

I find myself adding a chapter to my memoir F*CKED (formerly titled Seven Psychotropic Pills By Bedtime). Truths I never thought I could possibly admit, the depths to which I didn't think I'd want known- relapsing behind everyone's back and re-using without all of my best friends' knowledge being key parts.

I find, as I go on, that I must write this- the whole of it- if I am to get to grips with it, if I am ever to get past it. Soon the entire edits and additions shall be up on Authonomy.com but not until I am satisfied.

Sugar Dust

I am out having drinks with Lukas, surprisingly, and his friend Con. We’ve been getting on very, very well since our break-up and are actually remaining friends as we said we would. There is no awkwardness, just tacit understanding.

Then I get drunk in the bar we’re sitting in on Caple street. It used to be called Gubu but now it’s Pantibar. I decide we should all go mad, the guys are talking about trying to score some weed, but I know I can score coke. So I do. I know this is the last thing on earth I should be doing. I know what happened the last time I used, I almost lost my life but somehow I text Baz anyway and run to the ATM. I can’t even afford to be running to ATMs for money for cocaine, but I do anyway. I know what I'm doing is a major no-no, I know this is a drug slip, a relapse, but I just can't stop myself. When he arrives I am waiting outside and I jump into his car, leaving the guys behind in the bar and we drive around the block while I pay him and pocket the little bag of cocaine. I get back to the bar and wink to the guys as signal and all but trip, hop and skip to the men’s room. I stow myself in a cubicle and do five lines one after the other. I’m a greedy bastard and I know it.

Lukas goes second, Con goes third. We do it an hour later too. I still have enough coke to last the night. I stay on Lukas’ sofa (formerly my sofa) in his elegant, palacial apartment (formerly our palacial apartment) near Smithfield. Except I don’t sleep: I stay awake all night snorting cocaine off the coffee table. I listen to music set low on the stereo so it doesn’t wake anyone up. It echoes softly around the massive room. The two sofas have been rearranged and I find myself distinctly preferring it the way it used to be when I lived there. The massive sheepskin rug is still under the coffee table. I find myself robbing some DVDs I’d given Lukas during the breakup, simply because they were previously mine and in my coked up state I feel entitled. I also steal his old sunglasses which I know full well cost about two hundred euro, but seeing as he doesn’t wear them any longer and I only find them because I’ve been rooting around in drawers, I also feel entitled to those too.

By the time he wakes up I have to quickly inhale all three lines I left on the coffee table from hours ago. He comes in, none the wiser and makes coffee and waffles for me. He’s so nice, so good, I feel a pang of pity at our breakup. Then I remember all the reasons we did breakup, the loss of love, the tension, the inability to bridge the gap.

I go to work. More cocaine cut up on the bathroom shelf. I feel wired, tense and slightly strung out. I know I look wide-eyed and fucked. I stare too long at people on the tram, I’m constantly sniffing and trying not to draw attention to my nose which only means I actually do. I keep getting paranoid that there are visible bits of coke around my nostrils. I know there aren’t but I can’t stop thinking there might be.

I wander the streets. I buy a striped black and white t-shirt only because it is kind of similar to the one Edie Sedgwick wears in her Andy Warhol screentest. I buy jeans in American Apparel for eighty-two Euro because I puked on the jeans I wore last night and they’re still wet from when I tried to wash them clean in Lukas’ bathroom. I meet up with Marie and go into the bathroom in McDonald’s on Grafton street to change my jeans which smell of puke. My new ones are a dull cream colour and are slim fitting, an incredibly great fit actually. I sip on my striped t-shirt and carry my American Apparel bag with my puked on jeans out. I dump them in a bin outside on the street.

Marie and I wander from store to store in the George’s Street arcade, me chain smoking and wearing Lukas’ oversized and overpriced sunglasses. Some dude tells me to quit smoking in the arcarde so I stamp it out under my foot. He doesn’t look impressed and starts yelling so we quickly leave, Marie laughing as we exit. On Exchequer street we pause for a bottle of wine in one of my favourite wine bars, which is que for another jaunt to the bathrooms so I can use again without Marie knowing. That night we get drunk. I get so drunk that I sleep over in Marie’s gorgeous new studio apartment.

The second we walk in the front door, I head into the kitchen, because I think it might be the bathroom but it’s not. I erupt like Vesuvius and vomit the day’s pasta all over her brand spanking new kitchen floor.

“Oh no,” she slurs and collapses on her bed. I walk over, past the living area to her bed and shake her.
“Marie, I just vomited all over your kitchen floor,” I say. She can’t hear me, she’s in the sleep of the dead. She mumbles something and I figure I too should pass out, so I lie on the fold down sofa, without folding it down, and cover myself with my jacket. I pass out, and how.

I go to work the next day wearing the clothes of the previous night. No-one seems to notice. I do lines in the bathroom. I’m wired to the moon. So much so I just can’t relax. I drink coffee on my break. I try to eat something because I haven’t eaten in days and don’t really feel the need to anymore.

I go back to work. I run to the bathroom. I cut lines, I go back downstairs. The cycle continues until that evening I’m so exhausted I sit in the smoking area at the side exit to Heuston station and text Marie. I tell her the truth. That I have just come out of the toilets after doing five or six lines in tandem and have actually finally flushed whatever was left of my coke down the toilet because I heard someone come in.

I’m wired. I’m wrecked, I look it. My eyes are dialated to the extreme I actually look ecstatic. Marie tells me “Wait right there. Don’t fucking move. I’m coming to get you.” She does. Within twenty minutes she makes it from Phibsboro to Heuston by bus.

The first thing she says is “Oh my god, dude, your eyes! What the hell happened?” I explain everything. How I first ran into Baz, how one thing led to another and now I’m minus five hundred and seventeen Euro in my current account and I have already destroyed my credit card. She asks me if I still have a number for my old sponser and I tell her I never had one. I have my counsellor’s old number though. I could call her. Marie takes me across the river to the Aisling Hotel, which has been surpringly upgraded to what one might now call classy, compared to what it used to be- a one night fuck joint for people who had no-where else to do it, due to their twenty-four hour check in policy which, from the looks of it, is still in operation but I highly doubt will work in quite the same fashion. I feel underdressed. But that could be the cocaine doing the thinking. I try to seem sober and less frenetic than I feel.

We sit at the bar and order two black coffees with extra sugar and cream. Marie pays because, obviously, at this point I have no money whatsoever. We discuss normal every day things until the man beside us leaves and we resume our outside conversation. She tells me I have to control myself, I have to get a handle on this. This isn’t cool, this is stupid, and she knows all about the last time it got out of hand, what with the sedatives and the overdose and the seizure and vomiting and bleeding from the nose. Not cool Lorcan, not cool at all.

So I agree I can’t do cocaine again. Ever. I agree that this is not the way I want my life to go. I agree to call my counsellor.
And I do.

Three days later I find myself sitting with Marie and Brian, a good friend of ours, in Dragon on George’s street. Jonah leaves due to the awkwardness of the conversation and my nasty remarks about how he’s never really ever emotionally there for me, especially when I need it- which is true. At some point we discuss my ‘problem’ and this is where it gets really soppy.

Brian is on my left and Marie, my right. They are both holding my hands. Marie turns to me and says “Let’s just call it what it is: Lorcan, love, you are an addcit. We love you anyway, but we’re going to help you get help.”
At this point it has become too difficult and I need a smoke. I stumble outside and am literally on the steps of the club when a scruffy man in his mid-fifties stops in front of me.

“You look like you could use this,” in his open palm is a large bag of cocaine. I shit you not. “It’s a gram. Do you have any money?”
“No,” I say truthfully, unable to tear my eyes off the gram of cocaine.
“That’s alright,” he says and before I can say No, it’s not alright, he adds: “You can go to an ATM.”
“I don’t, I’m sorry,” (I really am sorry), “I don’t even have my card.” The man shrugs and walks on. I have a smoke and seriously consider sprinting down the street and knocking him over so I can make good with his gram of cocaine.

I don’t but what on earth are the odds of just having admitted to two of your best friends, or rather them telling you, that you are a cocaine addict and then walking outside the door to be greeted with a massive bag of coke? I’m thinking it has to be the most ironic thing. I would’ve given anything to snort that entire bag (or at least attempt to) right there and then, and god knows had I my laser card I’d have overdrawn my account to do it. Only I didn’t and I couldn’t and it’s probably just as well.
Inside, we continue talking, assuring each other and they both promise me that I am to ever call them if I ever use, come close to using or feel like using ever again. I concede. Since we are all crying at this point and making rather a public spectical of ourselves (I assume the other people getting early night drinks assume we’re three drunks who can’t hold our drink) we decide to head back to Brian’s Camden street studio for a bottle of wine.

We put on some music and sit around talking. We gather around Brian’s laptop to look up various meetings of NA around the city centre. Suddenly things degenerate to tears again when Marie goes to the kitchen window for a smoke and begins weeping. Brian walks over crying too and by this time I am already bawling. The three of us huddle in the kitchen, bawling like a bag of cats and hugging each other, promising each other to always be there for each other.

Brian swears to me that he will not be angry if I use again, but he will be extraordinarally disappointed in me. This is infinitely worse to my mind, but it might just serve as another derrant to using again.

Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, I'm going to meetings. Wednesday night was like an episode of the Oprah Winnfrey show; honesty, realisations and tears.

As they say in the program, "Let go and let God," right?...

Back to Black

I'm so sick of people asking about my love life. Actually scratch that, what love life? Even the Good Doc was like "Really? Nothing?" I mean, what does that mean, exactly?...

They shoot single people now, don't they?...

The Yo-Heave-Ho

As we sped out of Rialto village, what was left of my life filling the trunk and back seats, and drove toward the motorway, I couldn't help but smile. I felt like the entire tribulations of the last year were falling away behind me, particles of dust in the wind; the break-up of my three year relationship, the struggle of breaking away from it, of gaining independence and living under such strenuous circumstances, constantly scrimping for cash every single day was all just a billowing plume of fine, grey dust falling away beyond and above me. I sighed- more out of relief, rather than nostalgia. It was finally over. A chapter was closed and shut and could never be reopened.

Ahead of me is nothing but opportunity. Next year I will at last return to college and complete my education, a degree in English Lit. and (probably) Anthropology. So this year I aim to save as much money as possible, and start that by looking for a better paying job- although with the current economy I know I'm lucky I have the luxury of looking for a job whilst still employed, so I can't complain.

When we'd initially come to the house I was leaving for good at lunchtime today, the new girl, Maura, opened the door.

"Hey, you got here. You're welcome, come in," she smiled. I gave a momentary smile that died on my lips almost the moment it appeared. She was welcoming me into the house I've lived in already for six months?
"Thanks," I said dryly. "I'll be quick, you won't even know I'm here." I said it trying to make up for my lack of enthusiasm at her welcoming me on what had been my own doorstep.
"Oh," she smiled. "Good." I'm sorry, excuse me? She thus disappeared into the kitchen. Mal and I started disconnecting the DVD player, Playstation, TV and surround sound system and packing them into the car. Last to be packed were Sofia's paintings, which were quite large (and expensive) and so we were careful to pack them in last.

"Okay, I just have to go take care of the- the money thing-" I told Mal, as I gestured back at toward the house. He laughed.
"Yeah, you do that, and I think I'll smoke for the both of us." I headed inside and found Maura in her large bedroom in the downstairs hall (formerly my large bedroom) and told her I was leaving and asked for the deposit.

"Okay there you go," she smiled handing it over and moving toward the kitchen door in a sort of semi-gracious won't-you-follow-me kind of way, as though after six months I didn't know where the front door was.
"Great," I said. I took fifty euro from it, added five euro from my pocket and laid it on the kitchen table. "Thirty five is for the gas bill that came while I was still here, and please tell Jana the other twenty is what I owe her."
"Sure," she smiled. "I'll just leave it in her room." I was aghast. Either this girl is so cocky (and patronising) she'd walk into someone else's room (when she could just leave it in the kitchen with a note like the rest of us did) or she's so chummy with them already that they've probably been bitching about me.

"Great," I echoed, adding, "I'm glad you settled in alright. I hope you enjoy living here... I'm glad I convinced them to take a chance on you. You'll fit in perfectly." I said it sincerely and with as patronising a smile as she'd given me. Her smile didn't faulter but the gleam in her eye was gone suddenly.

When Dani had lived there we all bitched about him. The girls constantly complained to me and each other about him. Heck I admit I bitched about him, but the difference is I never actually pretended to like him to his face like they did. They'd sit around and have wine and dinner and laugh with him, talk with him for hours and then bitch once he left. I knew now that it was clear they were doing the same thing with me. That patronising smile and attitude of her's said one thing and one thing only: 'I've heard all about you.'

As we drove further and further into the suburbs Mal insisted that at least now I could rid myself of all that unnecessary baggage and concentrate on what was important, moving on. I hadn't been able to think of just myself in so long. There was too much else going on- rent, bills, expenses that amounted to hundreds each month, medical care, everything was increasingly bringing me down and making me depressed. Once I was released from it all, and knew I would be released from it all, my mood returned to 'normal' and what did I have to show for it? €400, €300 of which would go on repairs to my macbook pro's screen because it decided to die, and my freedom.

I am, literally, starting from scratch with hardly a cent to my name. My overdraft is paid off, my loan from the bank is pretty much almost repaid and my other expenses are minimal. I've literally got a clean slate. It is such a liberating feeling that to describe it would be a cliché, suffice to say it's wonderful.

So, this, is Day One.

The Debt, the Muse & the Difficulties of Housemates

I thought I'd had it all planned out. I'd get my deposit back from my apartment tomorrow and simply save it. So at least I would have some savings to build on. Apparently this isn't allowed- why? Because that's just my luck, I think God is clearly having a laugh at my expense.

I switched off my macbook pro to bring it upstairs, and when I turned it on again, the computer worked but the screen was dead. For a second I thought it was the backlight that had died but no, no. The screen just isn't switching on at all. So most of the money I was going to save from my deposit shall go to pay for repairing my laptop next week. No joy for me, hey?

Apart from that, I am now out of debt; my overdraft has been completely paid off, I've been charged €30 for overdrawing on my card when I don't have an overdraft set up. So why, I ask you, do they allow it to be overdrawn in the first place? Oh yeah, that's right, so they can charge you €10 for every purchase over €20 that you overdraw (even though you apparently do not have an overdraft). I love banks. Really. Can't understand why people are so hostile about the banking sector... and I think we'll leave the blatant sarcasm there...

Of course naturally, the one time I want to write I can't. I figure this is really a mixture of excitement about having tried to begin a third novel. I'm still not sure where it's going but I have some loose ideas floating around in my head, but can't seem to pin them down. I think for the moment I'll just write whatever comes to mind, if it's interesting I'll use it, if not, disregard. At least until some sort of plan emerges, or my one great idea comes along.

It is, I must admit, very relaxing to be living at home. Tomorrow I shall go back to my old house and remove whatever's left. Speaking of which, I got a really rude phone call when I was in work from the new girl who has taken over my room.

"Hi, is this Lorcan? Lorcan this is M, the new girl who just moved in. Lorcan I'd just like to know when you plan on moving the rest of your stuff out. It's just that, you know, it's here and it's wrecking my head," she ranted.

I said, "I'm sorry but I told the others I'd be back to collect it as soon as my friend was free to move it. I don't drive and anyway I've been working, my family are working, so we don't have a lot of free-" she cut me off.

"Well Lorcan I just think, you know, I obliged by moving in on the second of July to give you more time..."

You what?! I got really angry then. Jana had told me to move out on the 28th, because this girl, M, was told she could move in then (by Jana). So why the fuck did she wait until the 2nd? Anyway I paid for the full month, what's three or four days extra? It's not my fault someone got their wires crossed and she moved in on July 2nd when, rushing in a panic, I packed everything in my bedroom and vacated on the 28th, thinking she'd move in that evening as soon as I was gone. Apparently not. So why did Jana tell me to move out on the 28th? Why tell the girl to move in on the 2nd? What's up with the conflicting stories? I'm beginning to think they all lied just to get me out of the house.

This is why I think my friend Marie has the right idea: she's just renting this beautiful large studio apartment and living alone. She's had enough of living with people and I can't say I blame her. It's always rosy in the garden for the first five months and after that, it curdles and goes sour very rapidly. Next time I move (whenever that will be) I'm going to live on my own, because honestly, I can't stand this sharing shit. People are bitches sometimes, becoming completely absurd over ridiculous, trivial things.

I don't know where my future is going, or what I'm going to do for the next year before I return to college. I want to get a better job, earn much better money and then at least have some sort of financial safety net to fall back on. However that's all easily said and not so easily done.

So tomorrow I have to meet Maura when Mal helps me move my things back home. I'm definitely setting her straight about the move-in date, even she doesn't mention it I will because I don't understand why she said she was giving me more time when Jana and Malwa told me I didn't have time, that I had to move out immediately on the 28th! I think I smell bullshit frankly.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day!...

The Uncertain Road Ahead

I refer back to my statement of "What is wrong with the men in this town?" from an earlier post. Seems that Army Guy I was seeing is indeed a player. Marie said our mutual best friend Tadgh swore her to secrecy, afraid that I'd get the wrong idea if she told me G had been chatting to Tadgh and coming on to him all night in a bar about a week ago. Naturally Tadgh was not at all interested since he wasn't sure what had gone on between me and this guy and basically told him to leave him alone, he wasn't interested but G, not taking no for an answer, continued whispering sweet nothings in his ear all night.

Honestly. Tadgh is well known and anyone who knows Tadgh knows his closest friends. It seems impossible to Marie that G could not have known Tadgh and I are all close friends. I'm guessing that was G's plan all along, to make me jealous? Sadly, I only get jealous about guys I actually like, thus I'm not jealous and actually don't really care what he does, but isn't going after my best friend just the most pathetic low? As my friend Ciarán put it, "All the lemons I've wasted my time on, if I was a slot machine I'd have hit the lemon jackpot a long time ago."

Living with the parents again is rather odd, it's like being a teenager, but without the restrictions. I do give them money for living here, obviously I mean that's just fair but I am missing not being so close to the city that I can just take a tram into Dublin city centre whenever I want etc.

One thing that needs to change, and due to the global "R"-word this will be difficult, but I need a new (proper) job. My pay is shit, my work is shit- I'm perpetually in a state of apathy and disinterest- and to be totally honest I can't concentrate when I get home enough to write anything. The writing isn't entirely the issue as I'm tying to allow ideas and concepts to build up and germinate in my mind at the moment but this is ridiculous. My best friend Sofia and I are fed up. Entirely. Enough is quite honestly enough to be very blunt.

I've disagreed with bosses I've had over their treatment and behaviour of staff and walked out. I've disagreed with bosses and tried to work with them, tried to come to some sort of working relationship only to be labelled 'rebellious' and been, after much legal scrounging on their part, fired in a way which they ensured I can't sue them. I've even worked for complete tryants, for idiots who didn't know any better and for wonderful, truly amazing people I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to call my bosses. I have never, ever had to shelve my pride in the way I'll have to this weekend. Maybe I'll write about it, but maybe I won't, all I'll say is that for the money I'm being paid and the hours I'm getting it's really not worth it at all. Sofia feels the exact same. I probably wouldn't mind prostituting my pride and self-respect for a job I believed in or loved, but this time I can't, don't and won't. The fact that I have a good manager is great, but why not let us draw straws and have one person do it. Why does everyone have to do it, and if one person has made the choice to turn this task down, why aren't they entitled to do this? Without recrimination?

We shall see what happens but either way both Sofia and I are throwing in the towel at the earliest opportunity. For Sofia, that day might be today...

A Dream Discarded

My whole life is packed up in boxes, ready to be brought back to my hometown. I have Sofia's paintings (all gifts), my sketches, bags of shoes, and only things left in my room unpacked are my clothes and various bathroom and cosmetic items I use daily. All that needs to be done is disconnect the TV, DVD and Playstation, with the surround sound system in the living room and give my brother-in-law a call so he can grand-theft-auto a police van (he's a cop) some afternoon when we're both free and ship it all back home for the final time.

I don't know when I will come back to live in Dublin. It could be a year, it could be three. All I know is that I'm keeping my job, so I'll commute only half an hour by train each morning and evening, which for me is fine. I used to go further for college so that's nothing. At least this way I can save money and still go out with my best friends after work, to save my social life.

Struggling to pay rent, bills and even feed and clothe myself has been exceedingly difficult. My medical bills are huge and every month costs me €100 euro at the pharmacy because I have, as of yet, to get my GP to sign the my medical card application form. I can only afford to eat very little, so much so that everytime my family see me they tell me I've lost yet more weight. To point where I'm back to fitting into (waist size) 30 inch jeans and some 28" jeans depending on the designer but I don't mind that. I've become the master of one meal a day simply because I cannot actually afford to eat more than that. There have been times when I've felt like I was about to faint and I'd eat an apple or smoke a cigarette, or mostly fill my stomach with fluids to keep the hunger at bay since large bottles of water and soft drinks are comparatively cheaper than food. Mostly it's been eat either lunch in work or eat dinner at home and I opt mostly for dinner and some fruit at lunch. But in the last five months, I'm living off an almost vegetarian diet just for the sole reason that meat is too expensive for me to buy. So plenty of vegetables, fruit and things like rice, pasta the odd bit of chicken, pizza or even (sometimes!) chinese take out. Some nights when I wanted to go out, I would end up not being able to eat at all during that day and night in order to actually buy the drinks in the club. So I got drunk fast and thus was forced to drink less, which was alright and I found the cigarettes and alcohol filled me up to the point where I didn't notice I was hungry. Obviously this can't go on. While I'm eating healthy when I do eat, I don't believe I'm eating enough. I'm sick of being constantly hungry, I'm sick of scrimping for cash down the back of my dresser in desperation because I seriously need to eat food. Thankfully this will all be over now, and at least in my parents house I can eat all I want and with my bike there, I can cycle in order to keep the excess weight off. You know when you can't afford to eat, things are seriously in a bad way.

I have tried hard to make this work. To make an independent life here work for far too long. It's finally time I discarded my ideal and pick it back up and make it work sometime in the future when I have a better paying job and can afford everything I should need to.

Also the situation with the guy I was seeing have, naturally, fallen apart. When we were together (briefly) we got on really well, we liked each other. He continuously told me how much he liked me, and didn't I realise it? I said I did, I was content. He seemed mature, he was in the army, very handsome. Seemed like the all round gentleman. However, he was twenty-seven and it was like chasing after a teenager. If I wanted to do that, I would. What is wrong with the men in this town? Is it so difficult to have an equal, adult relationship? I don't think I'm so awfully unappealing.

What I didn't understand was it take five seconds to say "I'm just not that into you." Instead all he kept saying was "I'm so into you, you know I am, you know that I really like you." So naturally I was extremely confused when we agreed to spend a day together again and all weekend I heard nothing. This was the fourth time he'd either cancelled last minute or backed out. He didn't text, didn't respond to my texts, didn't call, email, IM, nothing. There are men (and by 'men' I mean responsible, adult, mature - guys who are actually gutsy enough to tell you they don't like you to your face). I'm annoyed, not at him, but at his lack of guts.

Everyone who matters knows what I've been through (and some of them don't even know the entire extent of it, which is gruesome in parts), what I've struggled through (mental hospitals, violent assault and it's aftermath, drugs, drug overdoses) to achieve all that I've achieved which isn't much to some people but I've had to move goddamn mountains just to get to a place where I can accept my past experiences and have made a somewhat stable life for myself. I respect people who can own up to their shit and call it like it is. Honesty, for example. It's not easy perhaps, but it's required as an adult. I have absolutely no time for spineless behaviour, or spineless people for that matter. How is it so difficult? I don't find it terribly much to expect of someone who's twenty-seven years old to just tell me they're not interested. Hey, we could be friends, but until today, when he finally messeged me explaining how he felt, I was like "Fuck that shit now. I don't have time or energy for this. I'd rather spend my time on people who have a goddamn backbone." Do I sound bitter? I guess I am, but as the cliché goes, it's experience that has made me this way. Although, in the end as I mentioend he did messege me and apologised for being a complete ass, said he just wasn't sure what he wanted and asked that we remain friends. I accepted it. We're staying mates and I hope we really will, because despite his behaviour I know deep down he's a good guy. But we'll just see how that goes.

To be honest, I'm actually looking forward to moving back home. With my sister's baby due the second week in August, home is exactly where I want to be. I've been so fed up lately, and so exhausted by everything I've decided to book a flight to Prague in September. So I'm leaving, for a week. I don't care, I took holidays from work and got a friend who has agreed to come with me. We're going to base ourselves in Prague for the week with small trips to Trieste and Vienna too. Living at home in Kildare I can save money for the trip and after the trip I plan on saving more money and going back to college the following year, so I hope. English literature and Sociology but maybe Anthropolgy instead, my mother's best friend was doing Anthropology and Sociology and chose to continue only with Anthropology for her final years and it sounds so varied and interesting, the kind of thing I'd love to do. Being typically manic-depressive I find it difficult to settle on one thing, I want a million things and nothing all at once. So trying to tie myself to a college course is hard, but I have a year, less actually to make my mind up. I've decided to talk to her about her Anthropology course some evening and see what I think of it.

I feel, weirdly, that life is finally about to kick off. I'm going back to a haven, a place where I can be myself and relax, do some proper writing. Finish my edits on The Bridge and work on the start of my third novel (working title Ode to Paris, In Winter, or at the moment I'm just calling it Ode- the story of the years between three friends, their triangular-relations and the effect on their lives set in 1920s Paris and New Orleans). Everything else can take a backseat. Family and the quiet life are now a priority. So like I said, who knows how long I'll keep my job in Dublin. I'm guessing it might get pretty tiring travelling back and forth, God knows I don't have much patience for this kind of thing but well, I might love it in the end, I usually climatise to these strange in-between situations.

Here's to endings and most importantly, very special beginnings...

Yet More Photos..

A good indicator of how one of our nights went... hahaha




Marky (with a vaguely psychotic look on his face) and Marie










Lorcs & Grzegorz before the drunkenness set in!







Brian, Lorcs & Marky








Lorcs and Brian

The Frying Pan or the Fire

To vote or not to vote, that, seemingly, is the question on most people's lips. As I was out canvassing with my dad and his collegues yesterday and today, I came away rather perplexed and very frustrated.

People had no concept that this isn't a general election, there's no way to vote the ruling party out and anyway, who else is there? Fine Gael are more right wing and anti-gay rights (they say they support them but it's rather dubious, they've no plans to impliment it like Fianna Fáil will attempt in a few years if they're still in power).

The response is all very confusing. Some people, while admitting they're unhappy and disillusioned with the current administration, they promised my dad a vote- they know he's at local level, a groundworker if you like, and has no say, sway or influence at national level. He can't do anything about national policies etc. Others flat out refused to vote at all since they think it might be worse having anyone else in power but they refuse to vote for them anyway.

Someone, a nurse, asked him if she voted for him what he would do about the health service. I jumped in and said "I'm sorry, local elections have nothing to do with anything at a national level- that's a different ball game. This is simply electing a politician who can take care of the local community. My father- and all his other collegues- can do nothing about the current situation or anything at all on that par but-" she interrupted me and was, by this time, so angered I just let her talk.

My father looked proud, as I'd controlled myself and said it politely, rather than jumping on the woman and tearing her bleeding pieces with pure frustration. She didn't listen, or didn't care, and badgered him rudely about the state of the health service. I thought, Jesus, people just don't seem to get it. So Dad just let it go and walked away. All that woman wanted was a fight and trying to provoke him hadn't worked, the only thing that resulted was that her lack of abiliy to get a rise out of him made her even angrier.

Today however was different, a lot of people around the borders of the boglands assured my father a vote because they knew all the work he had done and is doing, regardless of his allegiance to any particular party.

I'm hoping it goes well but as I said, it's very difficult to gauge the response.

Here's hoping!