clearbluecup

This is Samorost... very cool. even if you're not usually a link-clicker, try it out! it's a flash-based game, but clever and full of lichen.

thanks to ariel for the link.

Being in dublin has totally changed my routine, which I had expected, but what I hadn't expected is the drastic reduction in the time I spend online. While this frees up a lot of time for sitting in caf駸, reading books, making origami and going shopping, I am finding it hard to sit down and write a blog entry on a regular basis.

This doesn't mean I am abandoning you, my readers. I just have a bit of writer's block at the moment. or blogger's block. There are lots of things happening that I haven't quite sorted out in my own mind yet, which I feel I cannot broadcast on the world wide web. And the dialup at my flat is a bit painful, I'm sure you understand.

Recent events in my life include the paddy's day parade, a kila concert, the playboy of the western world, a night out at the porterhouse and clubbing at ri ra. Busy-ness is my motto, and it's certainly working in terms of keeping me away from the black holes of loneliness and depression. And there is so much going on in dublin, so there's no problem finding things to do and places to go. After a somewhat rocky start I'm starting to feel at home here.

What does it all mean? What does the future have in store? I have no idea, and I'm letting these questions rest for a while. I am right here right now, and I am going to make the most of it.

As I walk to work, I listen to music. I recently got a 20gig portable player, so some days it's psytrance, other days it's leonard cohen, today it was freaky flow. The walk itself is long and straight. This means that I walk fast, and I mean FAST. Don't weave around the sidewalk if you're pottering along in front of me, I tell you. Sometimes I duck into the bicycle lane to pass crowds of small children or congested lumps of slow worker-types wearing impractical shoes.

With a 45-minute walk in both the morning and the evening, I have a lot of time with myself to think about things. I see people going by, caressing their take away cappucinos, and I think about how much I love coffee. I don't let myself buy any coffee on my way into work. The reasons for this are twofold: 1. I would spill my coffee trying to walk so fast, and 2. If I started that early in the morning, there would be no hope for the rest of the day. It would just be one after the other at regular two-hour intervals until I found myself popping aspirin and twitching at my desk at 4pm with a double-espresso quivering in my hand. I guess there's another reason as well, 3. I would go broke buying cappucinos all day.

It's one of those things that gives me pleasure to think about though, so I often fantasize about walking to work with a coffee in my hand even though I never actually do it. I also watch the people going by wearing jeans and dreads and carrying translucent bags with coil bound student notebooks inside them. And I think, what would my life would be like if I were a student today instead of a worker? I could go into that cool café I pass by every morning to drink cappucino and read philosophy. I'd probably be broke, I think, and I continue walking to work.

Sometimes I think about moving here, living in the big city on a permanent basis. What would I do? I would go out all the time to gigs and clubs, I'd wear fancy funky clothes and get expensive haircuts and eat sushi that glides by my plate on a revolving platter. I would get a big butterfly tattooed on my upper arm (left arm, I think. Lots of twirly swirly bits in pink and purple and green) and wear my hair in a pixie cut. And I would buy a black kohl eyeliner, I think. And wear floating, diaphnous skirts. And I'd probably become very shallow and overly concerned with appearances, and would most likely have trouble sleeping from the amount of caffiene I would consume, and I might start shouldering people out of my way on the sidewalk, and I'd never get to hang out in west cork on the squishy seaside grass and breathe the ocean air deep into my lungs.

Ariel and Amy have been posting about poetry. Following their links brought me here: (by e.e. cummings)

let it go-the

smashed word broken

open vow or

the oath cracked length

wise-let it go it

was sworn to

go

let them go-the

truthful liars and

the false fair friends

and the boths and

neithers-you must let them go they

were born

to go

let all go-the

big small middling

tall bigger really

the biggest and all

things-let all go

dear

so comes love

I think I'm starting to develop an addiction to lush. First it was just nice soaps and bubble bath, and the occasional henna treatment or bath ballistic. But now that I'm working mere minutes from a shop, it's gotten much, much more serious. I'm not one to go brand-happy or evangelistic over skin products, but this time I've just gotta spread the news.

First, there was Ultrabland and Enzymion. And seriously, in one or two days my freaked out skin, which had previously started breaking out in a big way because of the air quality and increased stress, completely calmed down and cleared up. ok, we might be onto something here, I thought.

They also gave me a sample of King of Skin, which I couldn't figure out how to use at first but once I got the hang of it I found it lovely. (they're clever business-people too... ultra-friendly AND they give you free stuff?)

So I went back to try Herbalism for those days that I'm not wearing makeup. (which I've only started to do since my skin cleared up...) smells like sage and tea tree, sort of magical. Skin is still perfectly clear, soft & smooth.

And Strawberry Boat I just tried today. Whoever thought to combine fresh strawberries, ginger and sea salt, and then rub it all over your body? I don't know, but they are a genius. I seriously went around smelling my arm and exclaiming over the softness and smoothness and loveliness of my skin for a good while today.

I think I might be at risk here - what if I'm being sucked into a cult?? A cult of strawberry-flavoured-arm-sniffing-skin-care-evangelist-zombies, who are going to attempt to take over the world with tea-tree and lavender oils? if you're coming to try and save me, I'll be in the bath.

dreaming of driving through the mountains with my love. We stop at the side of the road to boil the percolator, looking out over a dusty yellow and faded plain stretched out at the feet of craggy jagged mountains. Sitting in the back of the van, we stick our legs out the door and rest our feet on the edge, cradling our cups and blowing the steam out into the wind.

- - -

dreaming of sitting on the edge of the van, knees poking up into the cool grey air as we rest our heels on the edge of the doorway. I look down at my brown birkenstocks and grey woolen worksocks slouched around my ankles, toes pointing inwards and jeans rolled up a couple of times at the bottom. fine yellow grit rises in soft swirls across the plain as the wind breathes a sigh of relief.

- - -

dreaming of sitting on a weathered brown picnic table, the hot dry wind blowing beneath the brim of my hat and covering the back of my neck with a soft yellowy dust. Mosquitoes hover above the bridge of my nose, and over my hands and the backs of my legs, and over everything I can see on and on into infinity. There is a field in front of me, green grass that has been bleached out into dry yellow straw by the cruelty of the unceasing wind. I watch. The wind blows; the trees dance a reply. The mountain stands quiet and stoic in the background. The wind blows. The wind blows. The wind blows. Weary, I rub the back of my neck. I swat at the mosquitoes. I drink water from my thermos. I look down at my hands, yellowed and worn with the grit. The wind blows, and I hear a peep that has been carried up on the yellowed wind. In a blink, I see a tiny brown creature peeping at me from a small mound in the field. In a blink, he is gone.