landed

i landed in venice today. there are boats and tourists and old friends. i love it, the language and the photo's of photographers that i can take.

i miss you all.

--b

watching all the people

i want to go see jay-z
great i will go with you
really?
no. not really. i'm from the country, and i like it that way.
hmm. too bad. it's going to be awesome. it's going to be sold out
really. how are you going to get tickets? hey, do you want to camp out over night?
no.
i thought you wanted to go?
i do, but i'm not stupid. besides, you're the one that doesn't want to go.
i'm not stupid either. and it's not about the show, i just want an adventure.
you can go on your own and have your adventure.
that won't be fun.
neither will camping out over night. i wouldn't camp out overnight if i was ... camping.
nice one. oh, and ron white called. he wants his joke back.
tracy byrd called, he wants his song back.

the next morning came around and my alarm clock went off. why i ever let him talk me into waking up at eight to go wait in like for his tickets is beyond me. at least i had, or he had i can't remember, roped sarah into waiting with me. however, one look at my phone confirmed my suspicion that it was eight am and that i wasn't going anywhere until sarah told me she was already there.

the call came soon after. where are you in bed where are you in line you langer, get up.

she was waving me in as i scanned the crowd. not in the way mom gets your attention during the christmas rush at the mall food court, but in a way that said she was where she was and i needed to get there immediately. i called matty.

right on dude, is the line long.
not bad. but dude, it'll be you and most of mrs murphy's ninth grade class.
young crowd, eh.
yeah man. ha, no. i'm just taking the piss.

we bought the tickets, sarah told me the ticket girl was hiting on me and i told her that if it wasn't for her company, sarah's that is, that i would have had a date later that day.

langer.

so we sat for an hour just beside the master ticket because we were too tired to go anywhere else and watched all the people, living happily. we talked about life, relationships, love and travel. we made plans to do this when i returned from italy, and to do it once a week. i said it wouldn't happen because her beloved chris would soon be there and we were likely to never see her or him ever again. i'm not that kind of girl, ... and i believe her.

last night

my italian roommate, who had a party last night for his graduation, has photoshop on his computer and he's been nice enough to let me mop the floor and use his computer all afternoon. i am sure that if he was consious he would be apreciative of the floor having been mopped and my usage of the computer, however until he is revived i'll have to assume he would.

i'll bet he's dreaming of a way to get into our french roommates room without using the key that was lost last night at the party she wasn't at. here's hoping the landlord that doesn't know the italian graduate is living here doesn't mind giving us a new key for the room. although i'm sure he's dreaming of the pink dress he wore last night.

matty and i met our first neighbour last night, although the meeting would have been more enjoyable had it not been five in the morning, he not had his phone in his hand threatening to call the garda or had he have been sober.

there's an older man at the door, says an italian boy. he wants to know who's in charge. matt and i exchange looks and decide that it would be better for allan to deal with this one.

go wake up allan, says i. he'd know what to do. the italian boy stares blankly back with the expression of someone with enough apathy to leave out the back door, regardless of the dificulties that he might face, yet with enough empathy to continue staring at me until i decided that waking allan up, after him having been passed out for several hours, would not make for a well recieved conversation with the man at the door. fine, says i. i'll go talk with him.

i rounded the corner seperating the kitchen from the entrance and found several other italians speaking with the irish man whom at this time was holding his sober quite well. or prehaps, in hindsight, appeared more sober in his present company. somehow i convinced him not to call the guards and instead to tell me that he had a 14 year old daughter asleep inside and he had lived there for six years and some other things that i missed because i was holding back a question about him being as drunk as he was at five in the morning when he had a 14 year old daughter asleep inside. i was in the wrong, and so was the rest of the party i had with me, so we parted ways, him and i, likely never to ever speak again.

not a good first impression, perhaps i'll run into him again and have a better experience to tell about.

i did end with an appology to him and the house emptied quickly after he left. they all left for another house party a little ways away that didn't have daughters asleep next door. matty and i put the house back together and settled down to watch some march madness while we reminised about life at 141 and the craic we had. somethings never change.

spelling bee

i had the biggest headache yesterday. it was one that lasted the entire day. what a heck of a way to spend my last day off of work.

no, not that i'll never have another day off work - it's that today, rather tonight, is my "last" shirt at the shel. my "last" because i quit on the 14th, but i was kept on because i am just so darn good.

also, there was no one else.

but what the heck, right? what's another few hours, few friends, few euro's gonna hurt? i even have a few more happy customer stories except by happy i mean cutting off and by stories i mean encounters because what happened wasn't a story because stuff just ... well, happened with no outcome that means anything in any context.

first, two american girls sat, drank and wrote on their arms. i think they were twenty-one but i didn't check so who knows. turns out the one was keeping track of how much she had drank with ticks on her arm. that way when i wake up in the morning i'll know exactly the why of how i feel.

you have a serious problem that i can't even begin to discuss with you because we haven't the time nor do i have the interest i said to myself because i had had enough of speaking with her.

second, some langer went up to two women seated near the door which was handy for him becuase had they not been there he would have walked up to no on because there wasn't a hope in hell of him making it any further. i wouldn't have stopped him, his centre of balance would have. he then came up to me and had the adasity audacity to ask for a drink and the gull to have a confused look on his face when i told him the answer. he got over the rejection rather quickly and returned to the women at the table. i joined them quickly for a short while because that was all it took to convince him that following me and my beconing beckoning index finger out the door was a better idea than ... doing whatever it was he didn't know he was doing.

come here.
confused look.
no, no. come here.
confused follow
[outside the pub]
you should head home
confused look back into pub and one confident step towards the door again
no, no. don't go back in there.
look of understanding and step in the right direction

third, there is no third. i wish there was, but there isn't. perhaps next time i'll have a third and make the post complete. perhaps tonight during my 8-c i'll have a third. perhaps, for now, i've exhausted new words i can mispell.

monday morning i fly out to venice, italy. i'll be there for a week, maybe ... maybe longer, who knows. matty's not coming with me because he spent all his money on Jay-z tickets.

oh, and sorry about that last post. i had that headache i talked about and after an hour at the computer i could no longer think. i meant for it to be a series of more childhood memories, but i've now lost the direction the rest of the stories would have taken. hopefully they'll come back to me, but until then you'll just have to wait. in the future i'll try and make the posts more relevant to travelling too - unless they are making sense to people and you feel as though they are part of the greater context of the life of brad. please, let me know so i know how to write to your reading desires.

cheers,

--bbb

i am ...

i am seven and grandpa has taken me to a weekend hockey tournament. he has gone to the bathroom in the diner we are at, leaving me at the table to wait for the food.

i don't want anyone else to eat our food on us so you keep watch, he says. i
smile back.

the food arrives while he is away, but i am hungry so i eat.

growing up on the farm meant large, fast meals but fast in that we consumed all of it faster than the food could be passed around the table.

keep passing food around until everyone has some on their plate, dad would
say.

a statement which we would immediately ignore. we wouldn't ignore it on purpose, it was only because the food we were spooning onto our plate was more interesting than listening to something we'd heard everyday at every meal. we were more interested in eating, which, had it been explained to mom in that way, might have made it easier for dad to get us to pass food around first. we were really complementing mom, not ignoring dad.

grandpa returns from the bathroom and finds the table occupied by empty plates and a grandson. the server arrives at the same time with the bill. she is about twenty, brown hair in a ponytail and chews gum. the whole time i am sitting quietly watching them both.

did the food already come to the table?
yes
where's my burger then
he ate it

grandpa looks down at me. i look up at him, smiling and he starts laughing.

well, better order me another one then

I'll be at my local too

matty and the girls where out doing their thing. the girls, having skipped work, were at the brog (shoe) because it wasn't the shel because the shel was too close to work. matty was too close to work because he didn't want to miss some of his training. langer.

i had met up with brian at the shel and we left from there in a car of steven's because he was heading to a different part of town, but mostly because that's just the sort of thing you do for friends on paddy's day, which is to say everyday of the year. upon getting to the KLM we met terry and the regulars and the pool table named john. we made a point of making plans to go back to a pub near the shel because that's just the sort of thing that happens when you make plans three weeks prior; things change. this also meant that when the girls and matty took a notion to walk our way we'd likely pass them on the road.

a few phone calls, text's and several hours later we still hadn't left the KLM for the pub near the shel at which the girls and matty had been waiting for ... well, several hours. the phone call came in and i answered it and gave it to brian.
'i'm not talking to her'
'wat d'you mean?' asked a bewildered brian 'who's this?' he asked the phone. his face changed from one of a person in control and having a good time to that of a young child who had just been picked up by his father aftering pooping his pants. with eye's wider than most people would have thought possible he passed the phone to the only person who could protect him at all: his mother. who, need i remind you, has been in the pub since noon, which it is now several hours plus a few after.

mama brian delt with the situation the only way she new how which meant not dealing with the situation at all but pretending that she was speaking to a friend of hers whom she could hardly hear through the cell phone's reception which, ironically, was exactly what she thought was happening. brian turned the phone rightside up for her and moments later terry took the phone and gave directions.

the girls and matty turned up some time later and stayed for a bit, but my time has run out and i'll have to complete this again some other time.


[i hope you had a wonderful paddy's day! i posted some pictures on my flicker page, feel free to check them out.]

I'll be at my local

down to the KLM on paddy's day afternoon. it is a small pub just up the road from roy and finn's place, small and exclusive, although not because the barman says so. the regulars keep to themselves and to the people they know. they'll ask you questions if you come in, show you some kindness and perhaps even buy you a pint.

'be careful not to confuse apparent act of kindness and acceptance. there's a good chance that what you think is irish hospitality is actually them being nosey.'

this place is their's and every head will turn, and every eye stare, if no one recognizes what comes through the door.

'you'd better either know someone in there, or have some reason for going in or you'll not last long.'

we had made these plans with finn and roy nearly three weeks ago, and terry, another roommate, was to come along too. instead of coming along he was already there. finn showed up hours later when the three of us were heavy into a game of pool. it was a professional table and several thousands of euro's, or so i am told, have traded hands because of it. the bar was small and the table appeared to have been made to fit, not six feet long nor three feet wide, however, much like wonka's perception hallway the table did not look too small. it fit the room and occupied exactly as much of the area as it wanted. and as much as it fit the room, it fit the atmosphere of the crowd too: if it didn't want you to play well it wouldn't.
the barman sat on a stool, reading his paper and served drink when necessary. nothing was rushed, nothing was a bother and no one liked the temporary clover tattoo on my forehead; luckily i had brian with me, and luckily his parents were two of the four regulars there.

'wazat? u a toorist? silly yank'
'actually i'm a cana..'
'shur, shur. youwanapint?'
'ah, yeah sure. thank you'
'great then. Bill! what's in the news today? finefine, two hoinikin, when yer ready. hes payin.'
'thanks'

paddy's weekend

yes, it is upon us. the most wonderful time of the year. Ireland's national holiday, decked out in green and gold and some orange (but not much because that's the north's colours) like canadians on our national day (which i can't wait for either, but that will have to be told on a separate occation. it's be like an older brother totally taking the wind out of his younger sister's sails by coming out on a chariot, carried by four members of the rugby team, wearing a toga and olive branches only moments after she had given her speach on why she'd be a great OAC Rep. but that's only one example; i am sure you can think of others).

There's a parade on monday (wow), pubs open all over town (wow), and everyone dressed in green (wow). at home, the saying is on paddy's day, everyone's irish and here it is similar, although they add that everyone is also a tourist. shops are selling silly hats, tshirts, mugs, facepaint, flags, more hats, hairbandy thingies and pots of plastic gold.

oh, and i didn't even tell you the best part! they call it Paddy's Weekend!!!! not paddy's day... they make a whole friggen weekend out of it.

I'll take lots of pictures, and maybe even a few videos too.

all the best,

--bbb

are you kidding me?

... it's only three sleeps away?
it is. man, i can't beleive you haven't been counting.
oh, dude, i have been counting ... i just, must have lost count somewhere. what day is it, tuesday?
ha, look. Hogan Knows Best is on.
you're not even listening to me.
sure i am, i'll do them after this episode.
i already did them.
no you didn't.
but that's not my point. it's only three sleeps away and we haven't even talked about what we're going to do. it's the reason we came to here, basically, and we don't even have a plan.
how 'bout the same thing we do nearly every night?
eat, watch scrubs and fall asleep on the couch.
that's not even remotely funny. did we get this script from Mad TV?
no, but i do believe we've lost the point and, in all likelyhood, most of the audience.
right. suppose we pick this up again tomorrow?
pick what up?
i don't even know anymore.

photographed me

surfing at Foto National Park











Drinking the fresh waters of the *something* falls

tom barry's beer garden

wallflower me stood watching television, but only because i didn't know what else i was supposed to be doing. if i didn't figure out soon what what else i was supposed to be doing soon i knew i would regret it, and what's more i would be ridiculed at work; but only because i told them i was going on an adventure. what were likely the regulars kept peaking over at me wondering what it was i was supposed to be doing, while i wondered why it was they felt the need to wonder about me.

but in truth i know the why because i am a barman and barmen know these sorts of things, or so i've been told at some point or time.

the barmaids might have been wondering, although they didn't show it as they had more going on than would allow them to watch a wallflower. 'this is silly' said i, which got no response as i had learned that limiting the amount of small talk i made with myself made me look exponentially less insane.

the beer garden was full of picnic tables which were full of people who were full of conversation. none of that conversation sounded like the conversation i thought i might here. so there i was, a wallflower with an emptying pint and a regular group of wonderers noting my movements.

'this is still silly' said i again. i know, i know.

"you'll right der?" asked the barmaid as i approached the bar and she was pouring a pint.
"actually, no. is there a group meeting here tonight? couch surfers perhaps. or maybe you don't know or don't know what i am talking about" said i in a breath that had run out around tonight. 'you look silly.' i know.

liz finished the pint and answered all my questions, including the one about having heard me or not which i hadn't even asked, with a guesture to follow her out to the beer garden to all the tables full of people full of conversation that i was looking for.

"i think i'll have another one please liz"
"sure ting"

brother bear

it was a week or two ago. we were all on a patio. it was the day i reached a check point. the clay oven was burning rather quickly through the supply of wood on hand and it soon became apparent that more wood be needed if we wear to bee kept warm.

later i would have a dream about tearing down the shel, scavenging the place for bits of wood the owner, gilivan, wouldn't miss. roy was there, and a regular named a-min-d and a few of the other staff as well. soon the whole floor was ripped up the the bar was floating on the few remaining joist. with that job done i went back to the fire, which meant waking in a room full of smoky clothes.

roy's appartment is having work done, shelves removed and toilets added, and it was producing a great deal of, what turned out to be, unburnable bits of wood that, also, turned out to be too big for the clay fire. matty and i went to investigate the situtation and learned a long time after the facts described above. we had been gone a while and finn et al had some bits of stone to get rid of. they climbed on her brothers roof, just off the patio, and tossed pebbles. finn's brother had a few pebbles too, and tossed them her way. [get off d x'ng ruf] came the txt. the three of us, roy, matty and myself, returned bearing gifts of gold trim, wayne scotting and vanities, which needed to be made smaller.

luckly matty and i are ninja's.

my turn came after matt's and just before the arrival of a big angry brother ^[1]. i propped my bit of wood against the wall and would have split it in two, honest, had i not have been distracted.

before me was a bear wearing people clothes standing in the landing in front of me, guarding the only exit. it was speaking but i couldn't hear it over the sound of me pooping my pants for the second time ^[poop]. the bear, brother o'finn, inquired into the delivery of his text earlier.

Brother O'Finn told us he had to work in the morning, which was now an hour ago, and that he would appreciate if we would keep our noise to a non-existance in a tone that suggested his patience for shenanigans ^[2] had expired sometime around the mid 90's.

matty decided to leave when roy convinced himself that since Brother was up already we might as well continue on the same route to destruction we were on. i agreed because my smell was starting to discust myself.

but i don't mind because it gives me character.