henry [street] and the big erection

thursday and friday i found myself in dublin again, this time visiting mumsy and family-friend rita, with my bodyguard [atif]. very rarely do my worlds [family, high school friends, university friends, san francisco friends, work friends, new york friends, london friends] collide. i was a bit anxious, not necessarily because i feared atif and mumsy wouldn’t get along, but mainly because i hadn’t seen my mom in ages, and we had a lot of catching up to do [namely, explaining to her that i'm broke and unemployed and alcoholic and single and aimless but otherwise happy, thanks for asking].

no, i exaggerate, we all had an amazing time. atif and i started out by hanging out with simon le bon and other duran duran stragglers in the queue for the metal detectors at heathrow, before meeting up with the gals in christchurch, pretty much in the thick of things in dublin. it took me forever to get my bearings, even though i’ve visited dublin now some 6 times since 1998… maybe it’s the psychomagnetic effects of the ~`new’~ dublin spike that’s throwing off my bearings?

we slugged back some tea in the apartment, sharing stories and catching up and introducing atif to the ladies and vice-versa. we strolled around for a bit before enjoying a nice meal. in the past, i’d felt doubly-self conscious when dining with mumsy… sometimes feeling a bit pretentious or embarassed at a nice restaurant, as my mom just hasn’t been exposed to as much big-city dining [or big-city life, generally] as i have.

unlike previous attempts at me forcing metropolitan/european life down her throat, this time around she seemed very much at ease at dinner, letting me choose the wine but smoothly choosing her entrée and topics of conversation herself. topics of conversation included how much i look like my father, what the hell am i doing with my life, why don’t i ever come back to indiana to visit, and countless of embarassing eric childhood stories, of which atif will undoubtedly bring up at every future opportunity.

i also got to hear lots of stories that i’d never heard before, like my mom and dad’s very first date—it was a double-date, and my dad ignored my mom for the first two hours, since he was so nervous. or how i once turned all of my socks into sock puppets. or how my childhood dream was to own my own candy store [want some candy, little boy?] and all those repressed memories of growing up in the trailer park.

my mom’s been through a lot in her life, and the past few years have been a bit of a turning point for her, and i’ve been encouraging her to really start living life. she’s started dating again, she’s started to grow her network of friends and started to tiptoe into the big city [chicago] a bit more often. i love her to pieces—i have her to thank for encouraging me to be an exchange student when i was 15, and to attend university so far away from home, and i just want to return the favor now by prodding her to be a bit adventurous in her day-to-day routines, as tough as that may seem.

after a lovely full irish breakkie, we sent them to the airport and then atif and i proceeded to paint the town pink. we’ve become entirely too good/bad at sussing out gay scenes around the globe [manchester, tokyo, brighton, sydney in the past 6 months alone], but i wouldn’t have it any other way. we really enjoyed the front room, an almost-glamorous piano pub with a mix of gay/trendy straight/artsty common/blokey clientele.

atif kept complaining about all of the ginger boys around us, and i shushed him, explaining that they were simply rolling out the red carpet for us. i made a funny. look at me—enjoying the craic.

tiptoeing into the george was very fun, very familiar. i remember playing trannie bingo with chris [rip] in 1998. i remember breaking up once and for all with damien, sat in a booth with his mates in 1999. i remember getting dizzy from the booze with christopher in 2002. and now, 2004, i’m with atif trying to find just one attractive leprechaun to kiss my blarney stone polish my four-leaf clover [insert clever irish-themed euphamism here].

we had it on good authority from the aforementioned damien as well as two pairs of eastern-european lesbians that the ~`place to be’~ on a friday night is horsemen at the pod. queued for our jackets at the george. hailed taxi, drove to the pod. listened as doorman tells us that horsemen isn’t there any more, that we wouldn’t like the pod, that it’s an old crowd. argue with doorman, insisting that he let us in. he puts in a taxi back to the george. queue to get in. queue to check our coats.

everyone wanted to complain to me about the new smoking ban [smoking is forbidden in all public buildings in ireland, penalty €3000]. the law makes sense—no employee should be forced to inhale smoke in their workplace. but, it’s a bit draconian, it’s a bit sudden and it’s a bit strange in environments like bars and clubs, where the socializing centers around smoking, where the environment is enhanced by smoking, and where everyone there is already seriously damaging their bodies by drinking, drugging and listening to entirely-too-loud music. as a non-smoker and avid drinker/clubber, i’d argue that an exception should’ve been made for pubs & clubs, or, at least a phased approach [smoking only after 10pm or 12am or something].

this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that i spent most of my evening freezing my bollocks off, cruising the cute smokers huddled outside the emergency exit in the alley outside the george. ;)