Hello, Sligo

The plumber laughed at me when he saw me assembling the new bookcase with a screwdriver: "I'd wager you'll be at dat all day. You need an electric drill for dat!"

Well, it only took me half a day! My right arm got a much-needed workout, and now we have a place to store our books and CDs. In our old apartment, they were stacked on the fireplace. We didn't have room for extra furniture.

We're in Sligo, and it's not even a terrible place. In fact, it's pretty beautiful. We found a gloriously large 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2-story townhouse (staircase!) for less that we were paying in Dublin for our 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom, 1-living room + kitchen-closet apartment. The town is, of course, much smaller than Dublin, but I'm liking that at the moment. The youth are calmer, the centre is quainter, and the junkies are non-existent. I feel safe walking alone at night, and the weather has been unusually cool and crisp (as opposed to dark and rainy) with a sprinkling of snow, which makes me feel like I'm living in an idyllic snowglobe land.

We are settling in with the GD back at work and me trying to make work for myself. Comedy tour pending.

Writing as an exercise in writing

Catching up:

1. I am intimidated by my prolonged absence. The longer I put off writing, the longer I put off writing.

2. I won a stand up comedy contest in mid-November. I was/am stoked. I did a six-week workshop which was basically a way to force/motivate myself to write material and show up rehearsed every Wednesday night. We had one end-of-class showcase (mostly friends in the audience) that went really well, and then I got a gig for the following Thursday night. I didn't know it was a competition until I showed up. I wasn't supposed to be in it but someone dropped out. It was audience vote, and everyone was allowed to vote twice (to try to neutralize people only voting for them). And I didn't even have any friends with me! Just my boyfriend and he almost forgot to win! And I tied with this girl!

We dubiously agree to split the 50 euro prize.

That's right, out of two women and eight men, the two women tied. Pretty awesome to be so hilarious.

3. My new dream is to someday fly first class. I recently had a rather harrowing journey from London back home to Portland involving delays, missed flights, rescheduling and an un-reimbursed night in a Washington, D.C. Best Western. As I finally boarded my homeward bound flight, I nearly fell over in pure exhaustion into one of the fully-reclinable, semi-private, entirely exclusive seats of first class. My body just wanted it. Instead, I squeezed into a middle seat with shared luggage space under the seat in front of me and tried to make myself enjoy 7 hours of mediocre film.

I wanted to recline. All the way. I wanted to make my own little bed and sleep in it and for flight attendants to offer me warm things like towels and peanuts.

Maybe one day I will be seated next to a dangerous detainee and his guards and a flight attendant will spot me there and say to me, "Excuse me, Ms. Zander, I think you'd be more comfortable if you would just follow me." And I would be. I would.

Neglect

I went on vacation and then I was going to write about it, but then I started a knitting course instead.  Check out my new project!

Split focus = hopefully I'll someday tell you about Sweden.

Ireland, Get Out The Vote!

It's voting day in Dublin, and the Lisbon Treaty is the hot issue.

Source: ft.com. Check out the full slideshow of images here.

When I first started seeing YES and NO to Lisbon signs about a month and half ago, I thought they were voting on whether to allow Lisbon into the EU.  Yes, it seemed a bit weird that they'd vote on a city rather than, say, the entire country of Portugal, but I'm just American, I don't know about this stuff.  

As it turns out, I still don't know much about it, but I did educate myself enough to know that it's a Treaty that was voted on in 2007, and that Ireland voted against it.  So, basically, there's now kind of a 're-vote' happening, and people are really, really divided on the issue.  The No People are like, WTF, didn't we already vote against this?  And the Yes Folks are all, Maybe we should stick with the European Union on this one?

More interesting to me than the issues, however, are the campaign tactics.  It's a pretty hilarious contrast.

The 'Yes to Lisbon' campaign is ridiculously upbeat and cheesy.  The street signs are simple enough: big YES FOR WORKERS and YES TO EUROPE posters stuck on street poles, each with a person of a different ethnicity leaning against a wall, arms crossed with a knowing smile, or looking up as they wipe their hands on their apron on a break in the local diner.  That kind of stuff.  A bit cliché, but harmless.  The video campaigns, however, as this article and several internet forums aptly point out, are just plain patronizing.  

I went to see Julie & Julia last weekend (great movie, adorable, teared up several times) and Away We Go the week before (a little meandering, but got better as it went).  So, just like the effing 'Twenty' that we have to sit through in the states, there are advertisement that run in Irish cinemas before the previews start, and now included among them is a pro-Lisbon (cleverly disguised in flashy cartoons and a friendly, female Irish voiceover) ad called 'what's this eu thingy doing for me?'  The nice lady proceeds to tell you, Not to worry, the seats you're sitting in right now are measured the the standards of European comfort! That popcorn you're eating isn't from China (okay, my words, not hers)!  And gosh, no matter which 'exotic' European location you want to travel to, no need to worry about the price of souvenirs, 'the Euro will sort you out'! 

 The most patronizing thing about it, though, is the repeated used of the word 'thingy,' as thought the Irish use it all the time because they're too stupid to use real, accurate words and that the word is the best way to explain a complicated treaty that would change the way the EU elects its officials and other EU processes and thing(y)s.

But the No campaign is even more (darkly) hilarious.

Source: indymedia.ie

It's basically fear-mongering, and from what I've read in 'non-biased' articles, a lot of it is based on false claims.  But I don't vote here, so again, I don't care much for the real issues.  It's the posters that really crack me up.

One features a tiny man in a hardhat, about to be stomped on my a giant, steel-toed workers boot, his arms flung desperately in front of him as though they will somehow protect him from this enormous foe: FOR WORKERS, NO TO LISBON.  This theme of people being crushed or bulldozed or otherwise physically harmed by large objects or beings is recurring in the No campaign, as though there's some clause in the treaty that will finally allow Giantland to join the EU and its citizens to lumber in and annihilate all the Irish.  

Leprechaun syndrome, anyone?  I think the Irish are a bit sensitive about feeling small.

My favorite No poster, however, doesn't involved direct depictions of violence and it only went up a few days ago, just in time to really impact the vote.  IRISH DEMOCRACY 1921*-2009? NO TO LISBON is written across the top half.  Pretty straight forward message; a yes to Lisbon is a no to democracy.  Covering the bottom half of the poster, however, is a picture of a tearful, green-eyed, creamy-skinned, Irish girl.  That's right.  Vote yes to Lisbon and you will make adorable, Gaelic children cry!  It's completely incongruous, but brilliant.  I'm sure some poor old lady changed her vote because of it.

In conclusion, politics are much the same everywhere.  It's the image that counts, not the issues.

*I'm not too sure about that date, but that is the year that Ireland became an independent state.  I wish I had had my camera to take a picture of the poster.

More cards

And also, some new toys.

Also...

I had a dream last night that the GD was away and Bret and Jemaine came to visit me, only at my mom's house in Vancouver, WA.  Jemaine wasn't around much, maybe he's just a more devoted husband slash father and so he had better things to do.  Too bad, because he's actually my favorite (no offense, Bret, if you're reading this, I'm just attracted to awkward and kind of weird looking).  Anyhow, I tried to pass Bret off as the Good Doctor so my mom wouldn't ask any questions, mostly by hiding him so she couldn't see that he wasn't actually the same Kiwi boyfriend she had met just months earlier.  She came into my room once as we were setting up my childhood trundle bed (that's right, I wasn't actually going to cheat on the GD with Bret-- we slept in separate, nestling beds), but a fortuitous blinding ray of sunlight came streaming through the window and prevented her from getting a good look.  Whew!  Anyhow, then Bret and I had kind of an awkward slumber party.  I drew a picture.

My sister used to sleep in that thing.

Then, back in real life, the GD woke me up to say goodbye, he was going to work.  I told him what I was dreaming about.  He whispered, "Go back to them.  Go back to sleep."

What new music should I buy?

It just occurred to me that I haven't bought a new CD in over a year.  I am bad at keeping up with new artists in the States, but when I'm abroad, I don't listen to the radio at all and (apparently) don't hang out with people who know about new music.  I am sick of my iPod and the Good Doctor is in the same boat.

Suggestions?  Dissuasions?  Food for my starving artist?