My life was ruined when the Green Dragon closed

It was about 8am today when my phone rang. It was late enough in the day not to be an "Oh God, what's wrong?" sort of feeling when it rang -- but just the same, I didn't know why anyone would be calling.

I answered to San in fits of tears, telling me it hurt to pee and asking me to take her to the hospital. Of course, I paused only to dress and headed over to her flat -- where I expected I would wake the whole place up.

I'd forgotten that today San and various flatmates were meant to be going on a road trip to Blackpool, and kind of final group bonding outing for the girls. So they were all already awake, and reassuring San while she looked up things like "cystitis" and "urinary tract infections". With San suitably convinced that she wasn't dying of anything, and that I hadn't passed on anything I might have caught off any random slutty (and entirely fictitious) girl, she dressed and a plan was made.

We would take San to the chemist we knew was open, she'd tell them what was up and most likely they'd say to see a doctor when the surgeries reopen and to drink lots of water. And then with a free space in the car, I'd accompany the hotties -- sorry, flatmates -- on their roadtrip to the coast.

These things never really go to plan. The chemist couldn't help, because they weren't sure if San had cystitis or a urinary tract infection, and so San insisted on going to the hospital while the others went to Blackpool, without us. They practically begged San to go with them, and San even said I could go. But, really -- if San wouldn't, then I couldn't leave her.

The hospital.......
...................gave San a prescription, and said to see her doctor. They could have done that tomorrow, and we could have gone to t'pool. But never mind. San took me to the hospital when I needed her to, twice, and instead we just had a low-key day together and I cooked a roast dinner tonight.

San leaves Leicester tomorrow, I've got about a month left. She said she turned down a place at Derby university originally because she felt it would be weird seeing all the places we'd gone to when she was visiting me there. But now she feels that way about it here, I won't be here next year -- but first I've got a month without her here. The weekends without her seem quiet enough.

All day staring at the ceiling

It's Sunday, and San has only just started talking to me again.

We didn't even really have a row. She and I don't really argue, she has said before that she thought we should argue more -- though I can't remember exactly why, maybe it was for the making up afterwards? I can't say.

Anyway, on Friday it was much like this. I went over to San's, she was tired from the night before and so she slept while I used her laptop -- mostly trying to sort out a mess on ebay that we got ourselves into. But that's a long story in itself, and generally requires a passing familiarity with different models of Nokia mobile phones.

So San slept for an hour or so, until a friend of hers stopped by to pick up some clothes she had left behind the night before. San was in a bad mood with me when she woke up -- because she had a dream that I was ignoring her, and when she woke up it seemed to be real. I think that's where it started -- San can take hours to calm down once she's got mad, even if she forgives you.

After her friend left I think I mostly finished what I was doing online and San got out of bed to use her computer herself. Once she was using it, however, she was behaving exactly how she described I was behaving in her dream -- that is, more or less ignoring me. Eventually I got fed up with it, and with nothing better to do decided to go home. San showed so little interest that it annoyed me further, though I didn't show it.

San got the hump that I was leaving, and wouldn't so much as hug me goodbye. The argument for the rest of the day was, from her side, that because she was a little grouchy I got in a mood and just walked out.

The way I tell it is like this. When it's not sunny, San will be in a bad mood. When San has a cold she claims -- literally -- that she is dying. She will insist over and over that she feels like she is dying. So she was in a bad mood, and when I felt ignored I did decided to leave and when she made no indication of wanting me to stay, or noticing I was there, I was less inclined to stay. I did not just walk out, I even asked San for a hug before I left and she refused me.

By the time I got home I wasn't really that annoyed any more. I find it hard to hold a grudge for long, and I was more bothered about trying to get it sorted out. I called San and we tried to talk about it, but she was mad at me and didn't want to talk to me, and even when I explained to her how I felt and apologised there was no apology forthcoming from her.

Like I say, that was Friday and only now is she talking to me again properly. She confirmed yesterday when I spoke to her she was still mad at me, and expected to be for the rest of the weekend. All because I apparently walked out, when she knows full well that I didn't even.

Next weekend San moves out of halls here in Leicester for the summer, and it will be at least a month before I leave here. What happens between us after that -- after being used to seeing each other whenever, to not even knowing where I will be in a few months time, not to mention San most likely going to college in Maryland from January. It feels very familiar and I wonder if San isn't pushing me away to make anything that comes next easier.

Saturday night

I wasn't planning to update quite yet, but since barely anyone actually still reads this I might as well -- especially since I found my notebook in my bag. So this will be part three of my writings from Ireland.
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Saturday night, 8.30pm

I almost feel as if I am at home here. I'm pleased to see Juan-Manuel (one of [Dave]'s flatmates) come home, even if our conversations are limited and in broken English. I just like him, he seems like a genuine, and honestly friendly person. I love to listen to him talk, imparting his 30-odd years of life lessons in his clumsy and stilted English.

And there's Julie, too. I have no romantic or sexual designs on her -- which is unusual, I just like her, and am happy to just be around her, causually.

I feel, in some way, as if I belong here, or at the very least that I am welcome here, with these people.

Not to leave out Dave, my very generous -- and modest -- host.

I spend the days mostly on my own at the moment, or I go to the pub, and I can almost forget how so very cool, and -- yes -- welcoming he is. I didn't realise that he was a shy person, and often he can't be convinced to discuss what is on his mind. Even though he knows that I know, or I at least have an idea, of the basics -- but just the same he can't be drawn on it.
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The second entry ends there, almost abruptly. I can't remember now if I was writing that before we were going out, but it seems to but off suddenly -- as if I had to stop writing in the middle of a train of thought. But I like it like that.

She's gone

So, Rie has gone.

Friday night San and I got a train to Derby to see Rie one last time, at least for the forseeable future. It was a typically-Rie evening. I called her from the station after we had been waiting for a while, and it turned out she wasn't in Derby herself but had been visiting friends somewhere else. So I had to call her friends Anouska and Ben, who I vaguely knew from Derby -- mostly Ben -- to get them to pick us up. It could have been very awkward, but Anouska is an outgoing person who likes nothing better, it seems, than to make a fuss of people. We talked plans for the night and after Rie arrived we headed out into the night.

Like I say, it was a night typical of Rie -- I barely saw her all night, she spent the night flitting between where we were sat and talking to the DJ she had a crush on, and god knows where else. Photos were taken and stories were told. And Rie lost the keys to the flat where she had recently been staying and where me and San were supposed to stay the night. So instead, Anouska gave us sleeping bags and pillows and a duvet and we slept on her living room floor.

It was sad to say goodbye to Rie. To hug her and call her a butt-monkey and know I might never see her again. I don't know how Matt took the news that his recently-ex wife was leaving, or how he reacted when he said goodbye to her the day before.

I know she will be fine, she's a survivor -- in comparison to some of the other things she has been through in her life, this is nothing. She will see her family and some of her oldest friends again, and I expect for her life will more or less pick up where she left it, before she met Matt and everything changed.

A dirty news bomb irradiating the reader with facts

I don't have my paper journal here with me today, so there will unfortunately be nothing from Ireland today. I'm not sure what more I have in there that's worth reading anyway, but the other entries will follow with some kind of more prosaic ramblings like before.

Instead today I just feel like writing about what's on my mind. I don't want to talk about "the beheading", I said my piece in the forums and I find it upsetting. Nuff said.

I've been working the past two nights in a Royal Mail sorting office, sorting parcels -- or "packets" as they are called. It's not very interesting, but talking to the guy next to me is entertaining enough. I start work at 9.30 and finish at 6am. Like today, I go home, go to bed, and get up around midday. Then I am spending the day being a journo and trying to find news, interview people from the fostering and adoption agency or whatever and try not to think "I'm tired".

Next week I resit my first law exam. A lot of fun there.

[Rie] emailed me today to say that on Saturday she is going back to America, never to return. Just the other week she was talking about moving to London, and inviting me to come and stay with her in Derby. Now she has broken up with her boyfriend and is leaving, and I might never see her again.

I used to be in love with Rie. Or maybe not. But there was a time, when I was first leaving in Salt Lake and missing Fiona, that I would see Rie every weekend and we would just hang out and wrestle or do fun stuff. And I had a crush on her, She didn't mention it at the time, but she liked me too. But she was married to Matt, and it was Fi that I really wanted and nothing ever happened about it. In Derby when we lived together and she broke up with Matt we talked about a marriage of convenience, where we would get the appropriate visas for each other's home countries, But it was more of a joke than a real idea.

The adoption agency aren't calling me back. I might save the copy to disk and work on it from there. I also have a whole stack of letters to send to newspapers. Aren't I just a dirty bomb of interesting info today?

The much-delayed

I know it's been forever since I last updated, and for that I am sorry. Life has been getting in the way just lately, with nights spent at San's when I locked myself out (yes, again) or weekends spent in Hull with Tom. I did actually write an entry about the Wednesday night in Ireland, but I accidentally navigated off the page and lost it all. I know it was weeks ago now, but I figure if anyone is reading at all then you won't mind what I write.
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Wednesday (the first) night.

The flight to Cork itself was short and unremarkable. I stared intently out of the window on the descent into Ireland, trying desperately to see if I could spot the Spire that I had read about. [Dave] found this very amusing when I told him later I hadn't seen it, since the Spire is in Dublin and not Cork so he would have been very surprised if I had seen it.

Dave met me at the airport without a hitch. Among the crowd of friends and relatives looking for their own individual passengers I saw him, waiting for me. It makes a real difference to arrive somewhere to see someone waiting for you. We stepped out of the airport into the night and pouring rain and waited for the bus into the city. Dave said he felt bad that my first impression of Ireland was to be waiting for a bus in the rain. But the truth was, my head was reeling and buzzing. Ahead of me was a week, if not of adventure then certainly of good times and new experiences in an unexplored city. The truth is, I hardly noticed the rain.

On the walk from the bus station to Dave's house we stopped at a bar for a drink -- a recurring theme of the week is stopping at bars, although the last night I think was a record. We sat at the bar and talked and I had a feeling not so much of being somewhere new, but of somewhere known to me, but forgotten. It felt like I'd been there before, in some half-remembered way. It's difficult to explain. The feeling wasn't of deja-vu, an odd disquiet when something echoes a dream, but rather more was just familiar. Perhaps it's that sometimes one bar is often much like the next, whether it is in England or Ireland or North America. Maybe it was that Dave and I already knew each other, have known each other for several years, but have only spoken on the phone twice and never met before.

All the same, the bar was what you'd expect on a dark and wet night in the middle of the week. A few friends were sat in a corner talking and drinking, the bar tender was polishing glasses or reading the newspaper, when he was around at all.

I don't much remember now what we talked about. It wasn't anything life changing, and if it was important or personal I didn't feel the need to record it in my notebook. Maybe we discussed past relationships, current friendships, the state and direction of our respective lives. Maybe we talked about films or tv, I couldn't tell you.

After one drink we continued our short walk back to Dave's house. I don't remember it as a short walk. I remember the dark and the rain, and constantly looking around me at all of the streets and houses. So in my memory the walk was both short, because it was almost no distance at all -- even when you don't know where you are or where you are going -- but at the same time it seems much longer, since I was seeing everything for the first time.

We got to the bar where we had arranged to meet friends -- other diary friends, namely [Cat], Dan, [Joe], Naomi and [Tara], along with Cat's friend Anne, who doesn't have a diary and most likely won't be mentioned again. Probably ever.

The bar was the Bodgea, described in my very-short Cork guidebook as Dublin chic comes to Cork. Since I have no idea what Dublin is like I don't know what that means, but the bar was very impressive. A huge place, with impossibly high ceilings and a sweeping expanse of floorspace, and huge lampshades hanging from the lights. A bar like that you might find in London, but there would no doubt be a door charge and a dress code and you'd need proof of earnings before being served. In Cork it was none of those things, just a very cool bar with people enjoying their night.

Dave and I walked in, and I was immediately struck by the size and scale of the place, along with feeling intensely nervous about all the people I was about to meet -- people whose diaries I have read and have emailed and chatted to, but never actually spoken to any of them. We looked around but couldn't see our friends, so we decided the best course of action would be to head to the bar, get some drinks, and then armed with a couple of pints try to find them. I think I just wanted a drink.

In what may be a recurring of my stay, Dave ran into some other friends of his on the way to the bar (he had already known the other customers in the earlier bar), and while he stood talking to them Cat spotted us, and came over. We hugged briefly, then I told Dave I was going to the bar to get our drinks and where we would be. And that's exactly what I did. I was introduced to everyone at the table, who were far less scary than I had expected. Since there are my Thursday-morning thoughts and deconstructions of various people I won't go into any real detail about them -- also because any commenting here might reveal their individual identities in the Thursday morning entry. It's enough to say that everyone was very welcoming, considering that I was practically a stranger to them I was pleased to find that I was firmly treated as a friend.

I commented to a couple of people in the course of the night that I felt I had the attention span of a cat. I was constantly looking about me, there was different conversations going on around the table -- that each required my full attention if I was to decipher what was being said through the accents and the general noise of the bar, there was different things to be seen, and naturally different people I wanted to talk at great length to about everything in the world. This is starting to sound like I had drunk too much, if you imagine it as a blur of colours and noises and accents and conversations and music and body language I would study when I couldn't hear what was being said. I was drinking probably too much too fast, but I was nervous as hell and trying to project myself as someone interesting and at least a little outgoing or confident, rather than the moody and pensive individual most people know me as. Not that how I was projecting myself wasn't real, but more a side to me that has to be consciously projected sometimes rather than being allowed to show through naturally. In the circumstances, it made sense.

All too quickly the bar was closing and we were going to an alternative club -- by all accounts the definitive alternative club of the city. Dave had to go home because he'd been up early that morning, but left me in the capable charge of the others -- once armed with the knowledge of his address, if not exactly how to get there. "It's near a bridge" I said, and everyone laughed. Cork is full of bridges. I may as well have said he lived on a hill, and now I think of it, I probably did.

The club was good -- although not as good as it used to be in its previous incarnations at different venues, as many people told me. I couldn't get the girl behind the bar to understand my accent above the music and resorted to trying to point at what I wanted from the fridge. Instead of a bottle of beer I got some white wine cooler thing. Luckily for me, Cat took pity on me when I moaned to her about it and took it off my hands and bought me a beer in exchange.

As with many nights, the later parts become less clear. I remember Tara good-naturedly dragging me back onto the dance floor whenever I wandered off, and at the end of the night Tara and Dan took me to a kebab fast-food place -- it seemed strange, because although kebabs are almost compulsory in England after a night out we don't have -- to my knowledge -- any big places dedicated to kebabs like Abrakebabra was. Sometimes I really feel almost like a stray animal, like when Kyle took me in when I was down and out in Salt Lake City, or this night when I was in new country with no idea how to get home on my own and no money left. Tara and Dan looked after me, got me food and let me share their cab ride home.

I only regret I didn't get the chance to see either of them again after that first night, but I hope there will be other opportunities.