smileytraveler

Dublin, Ireland

Neice: So, how do you like Dublin?

She's so innocent, motivated, kind, and full of energy. She landed at 4:15am and was ready for breakfast with the tribe.

Me: It's alright...(long pause)...it's Europe.

Neice: What do you mean by that?

(Smart little fucker had to engage me. Dammit!)

Me: Oh, I mean Europe is pretty homogenous. Um...in other words. I feel like I could be anywhere right now. That is, if I couldn't hear the accents. Ya know?

What I really wanted to say was: I traveled a long fuckin' way, boarded my dog, the spoiled little shit with his Ritz Carlton doggie daycare, got on a plane, moved my meat halfway around the world, get off the plane, go to a Hilton, go to a restaurant, walk around, look at buildings (fine, they're old) feel empty inside, regret getting on the plane, we have buildings at home, why am I here, why can't I go to the Ritz Carlton doggie daycare and be pampered and spoiled rotten for $45 bucks a night? They're just like us, but they're Catholic with cute accents.

Anhedonia.

One of the most beautiful words in the English (Ha! We stole it!) language.

People are what make shit great. The company you keep is everything. I'm in a beautiful country but I'm an ungrateful bitch because of others around me.

I fantasize about escaping from the family compound and going out to chat with Irish folk. Any Irish folk. A homeless would do right now.

I'd jump on Tinder for a quick human, but that would send the wrong message. Tinder is for fucking. I think I'd disappoint them.

How can you have your entire family around you and feel so isolated? So empty? So alone?

I'll venture to say this is not normal. I fantasize about having two people in the entire world by my side right now, but I'll settle for the first dude on LinkedIn who wants to talk about “business”.

If you learn anything today learn this:

The QUANTITY of humans in your life is nothing! Focus always and forever on quality.

Good night.

Dublin, Irlenad

Such a defeatist, depressing statement, no? I first read it in high school on the insert on a Type O Negative album.

Almost everyone I speak to ain't down with it, for some reason. I suppose it's because people hate not having hope.

I don't look at it this way, at all. It's because, in this context, I translate the word “hope” to mean “expectation”. So I read it as:

NO EXPECTATION = NO FEAR

When proper expectations are set, no matter the circumstances, one's ability to maintain or achieve serenity, level-headedness, and peace are greatly increased.

It's also a huge time-saver for everyone involved.

For example, if you routinely disappoint and lie to someone who loves you, in due time you will be relieved of the burden of apology. You simply need not bother anymore.

Why?

Because we expected you to not come through. We expected you to say one thing and mean another. We expected you to get our “hope” up and then treat it like something cheap and disposable. We expected you to do what you were going to do anyway. We expected your assurances to be about as valuable as dogshit.

Save some time by saving your breath. Don't apologize. We knew what was going on all along, just like you did.

When there are no expectations of you, you are truly free. Free to do whatever you want without the necessity of making up tales. Making up a good tale takes energy, after all.

And since you're saving energy by not having to apologize, go ahead and save even more by saying nothing at all.

Ears grow deaf to meaningless breath.

Hotel Bar – Dublin, Ireland

Bad wine, good people. There's a wedding today so the place is filled with ruffles, sparkles, organza, and color.

And hats!!!

Oh, the hats are f'n killing me.

We don't have hats like this in the States – not even on the Palm Beach society types. Hats, yes. These hats? I've only ever seen them on the covers of British royals dirt mags in the supermarket checkout line.

Ruffly, wired numbers in flower shapes, pinned to the side of the head. I didn't realize common folk wore them. A-fuckin-dorable! I need to get me wonna those.

And there appears to be two brides? I'm so confused...

The women are so sparkly. I don't ever see sparkles, either. In the States, generally, you only see sparkles at Latino affairs, such as quinceañeras, or at...

Um...

Fuck it. “Lower class” shindigs. Let me put it this way: where I come from, if you are not Latina, there is no acceptable level of sparkle before you're trashy. One fuckin' sparkle is too many sparkles.

Here? I dunno. First time here and know fuck-all about Irish culture.

The women are incredibly beautiful, though and are having a great time.

Speaking of the women. I don't know if it's this family in particular but I can't help but notice how large the women are. Not large in a Midwestern kinda way, but in a linebacker kinda way. Thick and tall. Solid looking.

It works, though. They all have absolutely beautiful faces with killer bone structure.

And the boobs. Oh, lawd. All of 'em, I tell you! Ginormous, luscious, round, puffy, (American) football-shaped boobs, shoe-horned into bodices that make the boobs appear not to be attached to them, but rather are trying to suffocate them.

When I first got here there was a group of little girls playing in one of the booths. One of them looked like she couldn't have been more than eight, but she had this enormous, fully-formed rack. I thought holy shit. It made me uncomfortable to look at her. (The long press-on hooker nails didn't help either. But who am I to judge someone else's culture? We're the prudes.)

I figured it must be something in the food. Maybe like, I dunno, weird hormones in the mass-produced dairy?

But after seeing their moms and aunts it became crystal clear.

It's genetic.

Paper journal entry dated May 16, 2018

Man, these hipsters sure know how to depress a bitch.

Switch station to “Akon Radio”, where ballin', working hard, and taking pride in your talents are flaunted. No whining. No fucks given. Just what I need right now.

Trying to reconnect with people who make me happy. I'm blinded by powerful love.

It's absolutely true that love and loyalty will make you ignore all the bad and only see the good in people. And sometimes people know that and take advantage of this love.

For a little “insult to injury”, they'll also take advantage of your willingness and desire to forgive.

Well, it's immoral, disgusting, and it hurts.

First, there's realization. Then rage sets in. Then it's just plain hatred and avoidance.

Loyalty is absolute, then it evaporates into nothingness. There is no in-between. A nuclear bomb unleashed in a lush forest.

There is no slow burn.

My ability to forgive is boundless, but my willingness to give of myself and my limited minutes on this earth has clear limits.

Those limits depend on love. How intense it is.

Its intensity will cause me to hold my fire for one more precious day. My heart softens, my weapon lowers, and I march back into war unarmed. A little less trusting.

It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

To have had the bliss of the feeling is worth the humiliation, confusion, loss, and shattered sense of self.

So here we are.

Dublin, Ireland

No camera at all on this trip. Packing light doesn't even come close to describing my setup for the next couple of weeks.

Regret set in almost immediately once the plane took off, but I stood firm and chastised myself mentally, as always.

If you want to create art, describe shit! Photos (snapshots) aren't art, they are simple, meaningless diarreah!

Describe shit.

Let's see how much I can “art” with just paper and pen.

Dublin, Ireland

“Clinical depression” is an odd state of affairs. Not sure I believe it's a real medical diagnosis, but it's absolutely a real thing.

A bad thing?

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish with life. For example, I've never met or heard of a genius artist who wasn't at least a little batshit. Masterpieces aren't created by those fat, happy, content, and simple.

What if you don't want to live and don't want to die?

Yes, depression feels like shit, but in my case it's a very particular kind of shit. Always has been. I first figured out the exact feeling in high school:

Imagine being in a very long, narrow, windowless hallway. You're in the middle and you want out. There's a door at the end so you run toward it. In front of the door there's a thug with a machine gun who will shoot you if you try to escape. You turn and run to the opposite end. Another door, another thug who will shoot. The hallway is life. The thugs are death. Both choices suck but you persist in running from end to end because that's called “living” and there's no way to stop.

The only option, then, is drugs. They're called anti-depressants and are quite aptly named.

They work. But they literally produce “anti-depression”. Not happiness. Not contentment. Not vigor for life.

They make being in that hallway a neutral affair. Not good, not terrible. It's an emotional neutrality that's extremely hard to describe, although I've heard a lot of people describe it as “numbness”.

I stopped crying every day for no reason, so I got that going for me. However, I was incapable of crying at all. I could not do it. Watched tear-jerker movies and realized I should be crying and would will myself to do it. Not a tear could I muster.

It's an odd feeling...anti-depression.

From a paper journal entry dated August 3, 2017

On a plane. Thumbing through NY Times magazine. See an ad.

There's a chick in an infinity pool looking longingly out at the turquoise ocean. A palm tree. No coconuts.

Simple, stark, white copy proclaims:

“Give normal a few days off.”

Awwww! I think. So nice.

Look at the bottom of the page:

“visitflorida.com”

All of a sudden “give normal a few days off” has an entirely different meaning. If you've ever lived in Florida you know exactly what I mean.

From a paper journal entry dated August 3, 2017

“Why doesn't anything ever look as beautiful in photographs as it does in person?”

Just talking to myself.

Photographers who claim cell phones are going to put us out of business have no idea how valuable skill, personal aesthetic, and experience are.

The best photographers are, quite simply, talented artists who work with cameras.

You know who you are. And you ain't worried.

I tried being a hipster once. Unfortunately, I failed. Apparently I should learn to take myself a lot more seriously.

I've spent the last few weeks very angry.

The house is a petri dish. Mold in the air conditioner, mold in the bathroom, no ventilation. Gross. Hot. Rotting.

I've been tearing everything out and decided that if I can't buy the building soon, I'm going to build a prototype space in here.

I swear I just wanted to run away and sell this so many times. The HOA is absurd and I got yelled at for playing with my dog in a grassy fenced-in area.