Bridge

Today I went to Dublin to do some shopping. I  stopped while on the bridge to just enjoy the moment. I was staring at the river and beautiful view of the city. I was thinking it was the exact same place where about three years ago I gazed at this amazing city for the first time. And how lucky I was to be back. I was thinking that except for Branson I had a lot in common with Sybil from Downton. Okay, maybe the only thing I had in common with her was moving to Ireland. But still, it is a big thing.  Picture of me on same bridge three years ago.

When all of a sudden this grandad came up to me and was like "Don't jump!"
I responded with something, witty, charming and relevant like "Um... I wasn't going to. I was looking."

Then he said. "Be safe. You have to watch out. Hold your bag in the front love. There. Be safe. Be careful."

I was like. "Um okay. Thank you."

He wasn't satisfied until I backed away from the railing of the bridge and moved on with my shopping. "Alright now."

It was funny and sweet. I am a granddad magnet. Seriously. Old men just appear to help me. It is a genetic thing actually, my mom has it too.

But on a less funny note I saw two Nazis today. I was shocked. Two kids in white body suits covering their whole bodies ( I guess that is implied in the title "body suit") masks and swastikas attached to the hoods of the body suits. It was actually very disturbing.

I guess this is a post on the incredible range of the human species. We have old men who stop to help young girls. Even when said girl was not melancholy so much as philosophical. But we also have members of our species who embrace and revel in hate.

Parents and Aliens

This weekend my dad told me: "Never trust anyone who says Nutella is bad for you."
While my mom told me: "Your future requires money!"
There is only one explanation. The aliens, after doing whatever aliens do, put the brains back in the opposite bodies.

While this change has been difficult to adjust to I am left with two questions.
1. Did the aliens do this switch deliberately? 
2. Why were the aliens using people residing in Beaver County as part of their test?

I surely hope that it isn't a test only on people from Beaver County. I mean, they are going to get some pretty skewed results of the human race if they are only looking at Beaver County. But, then my parents aren't from Beaver County. I don't know. I'm not an alien expert. 

Okay their might be two explanations.
1. Alien experimentation on my parents causing brain mix up. Whether deliberate or accidental remains unclear.

2. Way too much Doctor Who this weekend. Way too much. Time to go watch a sick, but very much set in real-life, murder mystery.

London an Intro

I spend Easter Weekend in London. Just to get away and to be by myself. Just me and a new place.  Well, semi-new. I've been there once before.

I love London. Literally. It is one of my favorite settings. The city of Shakespeare, of Spooks, of Sherlock, of Platform 9 3/4 and a million others of my favorite stories and things.
It is the city of hundreds of years of fascinating history.
It is an amazing and beautiful city.

So why was I not enjoying myself?

I was on the trip I'd saved money for. That I'd looked forward too. I had been dreaming of this trip for basically three years since I had last seen London.

But now I was there. I was exhausted, annoyed, and wishing I was in my bed and watching TV or reading a book.

This was discouraging. I wanted to love this city. I wanted to feel inspired and enlightened and instead I was just exhausted. London in my mind was one of my favorite cities. Just like Galway or Edinburgh or D.C. But now that I was here I felt like Adele, lamenting that my deep passion lay unrequited.

I was so upset about this that I actually lay awake on Saturday night agonizing over it. Then I realized. I was in love with the London of the stories I loved. Now, a lot of these stories went to great lengths to capture London. But, that didn't change the fact the London I thought I knew I knew from other people's eyes. I had only ever been there once myself and had spent most the time in various theatre-- no regrets.

The main problem was that I was tired so tired. Too tired to really let these places have an emotional impact. Travel is always exhausting. But this was worse than tired. This was zombie walking through the holiday I'd been looking forward to.

So Saturday night, while pretending to be asleep on the wrecked hostel pillow as my Spanish roommates discussed their party plans for the night in steryo-typically loud voices, I made a plan. I would cut some things out of my list to see, I wasn't going to make it to most of them anyway at this rate. And, if I officially cut them from the list I wouldn't be stressing about missing them. I needed to relax. I needed to enjoy these things. I wouldn't see everything. But I would be happy seeing the things I did instead of just crossing off check marks.

London was huge city. It wouldn't become on of MY cities right away. I need to quit pushing expectations onto this place and just enjoy it. Furthermore I needed to quit comparing it to other trips. Like Edinburgh, I had loved every minute of that trip, but until now I had somehow allowed myself to forget that I had zombie walked through the beginning of that one too.

Slow down. Enjoy the city for itself as I saw it. 

And you know what? It worked.

I'm not saying that next time I go to London I won't be overwhelmed and exhausted. But, I am saying that London is still one of my favorite cities and this trip was great.

A tale of two monsters. One is an emotional trap and one is a cat.

The cat managed to squeeze her fat body through the child safety gate this morning. So while I was trying to get some productive me time before the morning officially started she was howling outside my door.

Then, wouldn't you know it the little boy woke up.


The cat and I have not been on speaking terms the rest of the day.

The morning went fine... toward the afternoon started to unravel. Nothing specific. Just little kids getting over colds and not in the mood to do what we had to do. Like eat lunch or go to school.

But we got out the door. We got to school. We got home. By the time I got the little girl down for her afternoon I was not in the best Madison Mood.


Then I got rejected for an online blogging job.
And the online magazine that has offered me a freelance job still isn't publishing any of my work.

I was stressed, annoyed with myself for being stressed, worried I'd been to sharp with the kids and basically just wanting my mom or my grandma.

Then I remembered that it was time for my weekly accountability in my writing group. Given that we literally spread across the globe and all at different stages in our writing we have decided the best thing is to post a bi-weekly word count. I posted honestly that I had not written a lot in my novel but had written a lot on the internet. Which made me feel guilty because a goal of mine in doing more writing for money was not to loose my artistic and personal writing.  Oooops.

While I was down on myself I decided to go on Pinterest and pin workouts. Just to make myself feel guilty for not working out basically since I decided it was my goal for Lent.


Then I decided to stop. Just stop. I wanted to get rid this mood-- which had basically come from being pissed off at a cat and mutated into a full fledged "I SUCK DAY".

So, I turned on my favorite show. Yes, I did feel guilty for watching TV when I should be working. And for watching something pirated on the internet.

But I needed to shake this mood before my little girl woke up-- it wasn't fair on her to have a cold and a grumpy au-pair.


I calmed down as the inciting incident insued. While the baddies were taking hostages I began to think.

What was I really feeling so guilty for? Why was I celebrating an "I SUCK DAY"?

Because the cat had annoyed me and woken up the kids? Well, that is life and not really anything I should hate myself for.

Because the kids had been a bit temperamental? Well, I had dealt with it. Possibly not perfectly. But, then what all things considered we had had a good day. They had eaten nutritious meals. And we had I had played games with them and read stories. It's not like I didn't do my job and most the morning they were happy. They were sick and sleepy by lunch time. I hadn't given them a cold, so it wasn't a reason to hate myself.

I got rejected from a job I didn't really want. There was still plenty of work for me on different sites. Besides, more time for personal writing.

That the online magazine wasn't getting back to me? Well there was nothing I could do about that. I had done what I could. Again, more time for personal writing.


That I hadn't worked out? Well, I had taken the kids to the park that morning, which is on the other side of town. And once there we played a lot of tag, which was actually quite the workout. And another fun time I'd had with the kids. So this one was actually exercise and proof that I wasn't an awful caregiver.

That I was watching TV? Was there really a reason not to do something I knew would put me in a better mood? For watching it pirated? Well, yes. This is wrong. But technically I have this series (Yes, I have seen every episode of this show at least 8 times.)  on DVD but it is an American DVD and doesn't work here.

So really I was left with no reason to hate myself. Then I was confused.  Wait, I didn't have to feel guilty?

But guilt was such a constant companion in my life. What would I ever do without it? There was no substance to anything I was guilt tripping myself over, but I was still beating myself up over them because, surely,  for some reason I should feel guilty.

Except I didn't need to feel guilty, as much as I habitually do walk around with this feeling. Why? Because I'm a woman? LDS? An artist? and that is simply how we live our lives??

Why???

St. Patrick's Day in Ireland

This weekend was St. Patrick's Bank Holiday Weekend!!

But turns out that St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is much different than it is in the states.


Like when I mentioned to my host mom that people in the states eat corn beef and cabage to celebrate this day she went : "Ugh. The Irish never eat corn beef. It's disgusting. The English eat that, they love their processed meet. Traditional St. Patrick's dinner is lamb. Which I also hate. So we'll be having curry chips."


But besides lamb St. Patrick's day also means another thing. The invasion of the Americans. Seriously so many Americans. All enjoyed the tradition of getting wasted. So, if they weren't loud before they were now. I don't drink so I didn't indulge in this tradition.

I think there was a parade on. But I didn't go see it. After working at Disney I have this aversion to parades. Seeing one would probably send me in to post-Vietnam like flash backs. 

So I didn't see the parade or go drinking.

What I did on St. Patrick's day in Ireland.

Well, I was going to go to a YSA convention down in Limerick. That didn't happen.

So I went into the city and allowed myself to buy pretty things I have been denying myself. Earrings, new make-up ect.

Then Sunday I went to church, and mentally made fun of the Americans on the bus.

Today I went for a long walk. It was amazing. I felt like James Herriot with all the country lanes. Then I wrote content. Then I caught up on Once Upon a Time... which is pandering in my opinion. We had potato and leak soup for lunch in honor of my being accepted into Aberystwyt. Then I took a long nap. Then I watched more TV. Then started beta reading an amazing manuscript and read a bit of Harry Potter.

Also been day dreaming about my trip to London coming up... can't even contain my excitement.

Yeah I don't have a closing paragraph. Deal with it. 

Things that freak me out

People have been telling me lately that I am brave. Which sounds like I'm bragging but it is true. My friends and relatives have been telling me that I am brave for the things I am doing. Mostly moving aboard and then going to graduate school abroad.

It is very nice of them to say but I don't think these choices make me brave. Because I wasn't scared of moving abroad.
Being brave is doing things that scare you. I know this because I have had to be brave sometimes.

Anyway. I decided to do a blog on things that scare me.


 1. Poisoned lip balm. I have a fear when I buy new lip balm that some psycho will have poisoned it and my lips will burn up or fall off.  So far neither has happened. Yet.

2. That I will be on the bus and the bus driver will turn out to be a terrorist and take the whole coach captive. Again, this hasn't happened yet.






3. Spiders and snakes. Most people are afraid of only one. seriously, this picture alone is giving me the shivers. 


4. Going blind and not being able to read or see the visual story telling in film. Sorry no image could do this terror justice.

5. People. People kind of scare me.  I think it is left-over shyness from my childhood. As a friend pointed out it was pretty ironic that I was always worried about who my roommates would be when I went back to school, but the  idea of moving in with strangers across the Atlantic was fine with me.

6. Sales Associates are especially terrifying. I always tell them I don't need help even when I do because they scare me. Even in Lush, my all time favorite store, with the all time best staff-- well, basically I choose which product to look at based on how close the customer service staff are to the product and how likely they are to pounce on me if I look at it.

7. Cars and driving are possibly the most terrifying things to me. See look at this picture. Tell me this menace  doesn't look like it is scowling, planning out demise.












8. Talking on the phone. Almost as scary as driving a car.


So, see I am not inherently brave. I am just not afraid of average things. 





 

This Scarf

A few years ago my Easter gift from my mom was a green scarf. I got it on the night before we departed for my little brother's Make a Wish Cruise.

Mary Chapin Carpenter wrote and sang an song called "This Shirt". If you have never heard it, look it up on youtube now.
Anyway, I don't have shirt like that but I have my green scarf.

I wore it on my first visit abroad.

It was essential to my first as an adult pirate costume party.

It loyally attempted to keep me warm in Idaho.

I wear it with my red leather jacket. Which actually looks much nicer than it sounds.

I use it dry the slides from rain and dew when I take the kids to the park.

I wore it on my first trip to Scotland. Which means I also wore it to the coffee shop J.K. Rowling wrote HP in. That's me and my scarf.



I know I wore it on my second trip to Belfast. Probably my first too.

I know I have worn it all over Ireland.

But this Saturday night I was sitting in the cinema (movie theater) with my friends and I realized I didn't have it. I knew I had it when I'd come in.

But it was no longer with me. I couldn't focus on the hot guy in the movie because I was already morning for my lost scarf.

Once the movie was over I looked where I had sat for a bit in the lobby. No scarf.

I decided to do something drastic. I asked the girl selling tickets if there was a lost and found. I have an irrational fear of customer service people.

But my bravery was rewarded by my being united with my baby.

The End.