Bog Roll and James Joyce (I Love Your Writing)

Guys, I’m fuelled by the magic of my first peppermint mocha of the season (we asked the barista here if they make them even though they’re not on the Irish Starbucks menu and they gave me a look like who's asking? so I threw out my Basic Betch pokeball and they were like ohhhh she so basic yes indeed we will make you a couple so Falalalala la la la hell yeah) and I’ve got chicken legs baking in the oven, so I’m gonna throw a real positive Pete out at you and say: thank you to everyone who takes the time to write. 

Never Give Up On Pumpkin

Things are different in Dublin. You don't find your every day things in their every day (Canadian) places. A bottle of regular ol' bleach takes an entire city hunt to find; forget about coffee creamer (I promise that one day I will get over this, but that day isn't anywhere near today) because here, it's completely unheard of; and don't even think about pizza yeast or pizza sauce because pizzas are always ready and waiting, everywhere you look, so people don't really make them from scratch. A couple of weeks ago, on my way home from Canada, I turned a blind eye to all of the above and, having to lose some weight in my suitcase (again with the unrealistic expectations ugh #fightback2016) I left behind a beautiful can of pureed pumpkin. I left it behind convinced that I'd find canned pumpkin in Dublin because duh it's fall and everyone loves pumpkin everything, but when I got to Dublin and asked around for it, I was given not only confused but disgusted looks. One store did have it, and that store sells imported American things that are sold at absolutely insane astronomical prices. I simply couldn't afford it. Well fine, I thought, I'll just outsmart them all and for my traditional pumpkin cream cheese roll, I'll use fresh pumpkin.   

The Last Day of My 20s

It’s 8 pm, the sky is black, and I just finished a Skype call with my family, whose laughing faces were illuminated by lazy Sunday brunch sunshine. I’m an ocean away, in the bedroom of our little apartment. Two doors away, in the living room, I hear the rustling of gift wrap. I am banned from that room for the night: Jeff is preparing a birthday surprise.  Tomorrow, as previously feared, I will be 30. From the vault of my ridiculous and unfounded worries: I will wake up covered in menopause, with a sudden penchant for raisin scones and trousers that button up just at tit level. Tomorrow is the first day of a new decade, and for the first time in my life, I feel like age means something. I mean, I’m not even sure what’ll happen when the gods above see my un-finished 30 before 30 list, but now I’ve also gotta explain (to someone?) why I don’t want kids or a mortgage (…yet.) 

I'm lucky that my friends are all relatively the same age, and we're all making this leap into this new decade, one by one, like popcorn kernels. Meanwhile, in Ireland, because moving to another country wasn't enough change, I decided to round up my favourite memories from this decade, to hopefully stop my ears from ringing with the fear that I'm going to be Ye Aulde with nothing to show for it. 

8 Before 30

I love lists. To-do lists, to-buy lists, to-read lists, you name it, I’ve made a list for it.  In my desk, there is currently a growing list of food I want to eat in the near future, because I can’t think clearly when I’m thrashing violently Emily Rose style, seized by the satanic hands of Father Hunger. In my purse is a list of songs to sing in my head when I’m on the train, and a list of dead animals I’ve seen by the side of the road leading up to that train. Just kidding, if I had a list like that, it would only have one item: a rat.  Can I just mention that nobody seems to mind this recurring appearance? I’m the only one clutching my chest, gasping for breath when I find myself nearly stepping on its body, mouthing “Oh my God” to let everyone know I am a compassionate human being, outraged by dead rats, and clearly much more sensitive/distinguished than those who simply walk past it. No one cares, and, in the afternoon, on my walk back, the rat is gone. It’s probably the same rat every time. Desperate for attention, he plays dead a couple of times a week, and when the morning rush carelessly walks by (well because they already know this trick and have had enough, cheers) he slowly sits up, fixes his hair, dusts off his knees, and walks back into the bushes. Number of people gasping Oh My God today: One, his list says, Will return tomorrow.

Dublin and Me

Hello, do you have brewed coffee? Brewed. Brewed. It’s like…when you run beans through a filter. Nope, not like an Americano. Okay, that’s fine. I’ll have an Americano.

It’s Alisa.

Alisa. A….L…..I……S……A.

Haha, no, I can’t help push Trump out of the elections. I’m Canadian. Actually, I’m from Ottawa. It’s….like…do you know Toronto? It’s kinda beside that. Yeah. I like Drake too.

I’ve been living in Dublin almost 6 months now, and I’m just now admitting that there is no way to concisely organize my thoughts into one short and coherent blog post about my experiences, so I might as well just bite the bullet and talk about the part that’s been sort of the parchment paper lining the uhh muffins of my Irish…adventure. I’ll try to fix this analogy later.