Bank Holiday Lovelies

Everyone loves a three day weekend (except my liver who looks forward with trepidation and back with horror...)

Work has been crazy busy lately (although I HAD to go to the circus last week to do RESEARCH so I can't really complain...even though it was technically a 16 hour day.) Three days of sleeping, drinking, eating, and other loveliness was well deserved. The party actually started on Thurs. night when one pint turned into last call with a couple of co-workers. The next day included a leaving do for another co-worker and therefore, bottles of wine needed to be drank (?) with lunch. Trying to go back to work and be productive after that was ridiculous, I tell ya.

I went to a "fancy dress party" friday night which is Ireland's strange and oddly innapropriate name for a costume party. (I guess if they called it a costume party everyone would show up with their suntan lotion and their bathing "costumes.") As it was pretty last minute, I just grabbed all my goth gear (fishnets, black clothes, leather bracelets, etc...) and had a friend pickup some white face paint and vampire teeth. Can't say I was very original but at least I wasn't lame and totally uncostumed like soooommmmmeeee people (Tom included.) There was lots of dancing and ghost lollipops and cool costumes to be had (and my liver got a much needed break if you don't count the bottles of wine we all drank with our tasty thai dinner pre-party.) Funny how no matter where you are there is always that one guy at a party who is ridiculously shitfaced, with or without really bad B.O. (with in this case) who runs around talking too loudly and trying to either start shit or vomit in your boots. This time, the guy was also one of those close dancers and the bang off him (as they say here) was worse than three day old feet. He was also strangely obssessed with talking about the 'ra and he wasn't from the North. Maybe that was supposed to be his costume, "disgruntled IRA man." He kept walking by people and saying Up the 'Ra and Tiocfaidh Ar La. (Note: Pronunciation of that bizarre looking alphabet vomit is "Chuckie - are - la," and is a nationalist slogan meaning, "Our day will come." Next time you find yerself hanging with a bunch of Northies talking about Chuckies, you can tell your own personal kneecapping story and they'll all think yer the coolest thing since sliced bread. ;) ) Anyway, other than wierd, smelly, drunk, political-rambling guy, it was a good night out and followed by that most necessary of a good, long, lie-in.

Had a couple people over fer dinner on Saturday night and Sunday was back at it with Tommy as we went to see the Scratch Perverts (Hip-hop / scratch DJs.) They didn't actually go on till 1am making me feel very old as I was already yawning by the time they showed up on stage. Had to drink multiple red-bulls (which I generally hate, btw) to stay awake. More dancing and minimal drinking was had and other than a few hundred smelly men in one smallish room, it was good times. We left round quarter to 3 and given that it was a bank holiday Sunday combined with Halloween, the streets were absolutely mental. It was like Dublin's 3am version of Times Square at rush hour. Hundreds of people everywhere in every state of "fancy dress" and every state of drunken debaucherousness. Temple bar is gross at the best of times at 3am on a weekend but this time, superman and his sexy nurse were the ones puking on their shoes. The excess of a drunken Dublin weekend is truly something to behold. It's filthy (read: dodge the growing pool of piss on the sidewalk coming from drunko in the corner; dodge the pile of puke and unidentifiable chunks of someone's stomach.) It's rowdy: ("You lookin' at me?") And yet, it's festive somehow. It picks you up and carries you along with all the allure of a train wreck. You just have to have one more look at the stumbling girl with a skirt so short that you can see her belly button. You have to see if that guy really is going to blow his hand off with that sparkler. It's like one big, dirty, drunken carnival... Watch yer step, like.

For a change of scenery, I woke up "early" this morning after staying out till 4am and went to meet up with a couple of people to watch another friend run the Dublin Marathon... From complete debachery to complete self-denial in a few hours. The Dublin of 11am is a far cry from the Dublin of 3am. I watched serious athletes looking like death warmed over as they crossed the 26 mile mark... and then I went home and took a nap.

Well, back to the grind tomorrow. If any of you plan to be in the Dublin area next Friday and want free tickets to the circus (so I can run around getting photos of ya...) give a holler. ;) If only I could beam you all over... Till then, Be good, be happy, and don't run any marathons or puke in any gutters.