her name is stella and she is better than you

i made a new friend last sunday. we really bonded. you know how, sometimes, in a crowded room at a party, or a little coffee shop, or in the first class of a semester, somebody catches your eye? and you think that maybe fate is nudging you in the direction of the infinite possibilities your future holds in meaningful relationships (or a NCMO, either way)? that’s how i met stella. we’re bffls. i already know she’s going to help me through some tough times. she’s had it rough, i’ll tell you. some people think she dresses funny, and think that her coy smirk is actually judgment, when it’s actually just her fabulosity.

she told me i could post a picture of her on here but don’t spread it around, okay?

okay, she might be judging you a little. but it's just because she's not embarrassed about her standards!

isn’t she stunning? she spends most (all) of her time hanging around in the national gallery in dublin, in the european paintings wing. she’s quite content there. she’s even got a little plaque: ‘Stella in a Flowered Hat, by Kees van Dongen’.

i’m pretty sure i’m going to visit her all the time. you know, for some girl talk.

guess who just had a coke with an authentic irish cheeseburger?

and by ‘irish cheeseburger’ i mean ‘actual cheeseburger’ because i’m sorry, a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger whatever country you’re in.  (this is clearly a lie. i have only been to two countries. but still. cheeseburger.)

anyway! i was in dublin two days ago and i sort of never want to leave? ever? the cobbles of temple bar, the smell of whiskey pouring out of every shadowy pub doorway, the upturned irish smiles, the wind, the DART, the bustle of a metropolitan wrapped up in the intrigue and class of a centuries-year-old town.

i didn’t get enough pictures, but i’m sure that will be the prevailing feeling this semester. never enough of anything about this place.

come here. seriously. you’ve never seen the color green until you’ve been to ireland. you’ve never quite caught the peculiarities of the irish accent—never distinguished the subtleties between the tongue of a man from belfast and a schoolgirls gossiping on the DART. you’ve never been so happy to see the sun. you’ve never seen the atlantic ocean like this, so chopped by the wind and crashing against nothing but old stone and chalk and empty of a surfer or swimmer or kayak. it goes on for miles into a pink sunrise at 8am and it doesn’t ever stop, and there’s never enough.

i’m going into dublin again tonight, to a fish-n-chips place established in 1913 and still serving the regulars, with nine other tourists. we’ll embarrass ourselves trying to get pictures, being loud, and mishearing our server. it’ll still be pretty perfect.

basically what i’m saying is: i already miss mexican food

it’s one o’clock right now, according to my newly adjusted clocks. i missed everything this morning—including one of my roommates, Kate, waking up and getting ready—and now i am sitting on my laptop giving it a hearty goodbye, because who knows when i’ll be connected next? (…you can stop laughing at me now.)  anyway, here i am, sitting in a (very hard) mattress, chatting with me (lovely) roommates, and eating some (WAY BETTER THAN AMERICAN) bread. (DON’T GET EXCITED, because the ketchup is super gross.)

(i told you i like parentheses.)

anyway, we’ve got some good news: we figured out how to use our shower! as easy as flipping a switch, apparently. more good news: i think i’m pretty much over my cold. maybe sleeping for thirteen hours was just the thing my body needed to recover from plane germs. more MORE good news: i don’t think i forgot anything at home, our room is a LOT bigger than i thought, and the food is…decent. (more on that later. the jury is still out. it’s all homemade, but in bulk. after only two meals, i can’t rightly say yet whether i’m going to have to make random runs to the local fish-n-chip place to sustain my need for fatty, fried foods.)

on monday, classes will start. i am very excited because a) this is going to be the easiest academic semester in my college history, and b) the classes all sound great and we never start earlier than 9 (glory glory, hallelujah).

the town is beautiful. i promise i will take pictures when i am conscious—hopefully today. but i might pass out tonight at 7pm, with all the urgency of 20 years of US West Coast time behind my whacked out sleep schedule.

I LOVE YOU, DEAR READER, WHOEVER YOU MAY BE. (especially you, mom. i miss you a ton.)

(…i also miss mexican food. sigh.)

four sacrificed shoes and a 20-pound carry-on later, i am packed.

in five hours, i am going to pop a benadryl (to make me sleep, PLEASE GOD LET ME SLEEP) and pass out until 3am, at which point i will drag myself, probably very cranky and mostly unconscious, into the car, where my kindhearted and equally unconscious mother will drive me to FAT (seriously, our airport is FAT. fresno international airport. it’s quite fitting). hopefully my at-home scale is indeed accurate so i won’t have to open my suitcase in the middle of the airport in order to lose .5 lbs of clothing (read: another sacrificed pair of shoes, because apparently i cannot part with my sweaters).

and then

ireland

yes

this will be a funny blog i promise

my future home

(not exactly my future home. this is a wheatfield. wheat is growing there. a wheatfield is not an ideal location for 25 students to cohabitate (spellcheck doesn’t think that’s a word BUT IT TOALLY IS) and take classes.)

(greystones, ireland)

i made a blog and took too long to think of a username!

so nothing new.