(Written sitting in the Station House Hotel Bar) So Day two didn’t really end there. I didn’t manage to get any sleep at all that night. I lay in bed for hours following various trains of thought and generally being restless. That was the smallest bed we have had to share so far as well. Eventually I decided to just get up. Then I realized that we had lost power! Ireland experienced a severe storm and a huge chunk of the country lost power during the night. How thrilling. I spent time down in the lobby knitting and chatting with the night porter because there were battery operated emergency lights down there. He was an odd man. His name was Sean. He lived in the states for about three years prior to/during the Vietnam War and fled our country when he was drafted. Oops. He spent a while being semi-hostile about towards Americans in general and I… kept my mouth shut. A rare occurrence, I know. (Have I mentioned that the bartender in this bar is really cute? I probably haven’t. But I’m thinking it… and I’ve had uhm… several drinks tonight, so I’ll share the information…) Anyway. The night porter was an odd duck. Eventually I went back up to the room and Tom was awake. It was around 5am. He said he had been up for a while. We had one of those process-ey type of conversations that people shouldn’t have about why our relationship ended and how we have felt since it is over. I told him that I felt like he hadn’t given our relationship much of a mourning period. He said that he mourned it, and he still sometimes mourns it. It was a sad conversation. I left it feeling like it is an incredibly good thing that we broke up. He really isn’t the man for me. I never feel like he cares much about me when we talk. He doesn’t ask me about myself. He doesn’t want to know what I think or feel about anything. That is ok, it just isn’t what I want to live with for the rest of my life.

Anyway. He turned on a movie that I don’t like [he used his laptop which has a decent battery life so the lack of electricity didn’t matter much] (Oh, he brought three movies with him on the trip and announced it quite jovially on the plane as we were heading out. We could watch them if we got bored! “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” I’m an indifferent Clint Eastwood fan at best, but I have tolerated him over the years with remarkable good grace; “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein,” both of which I hate. I absolutely despise Mel Brooks and I am pretty anti-stupid comedy movies in general. I’ve never liked them. I have been hostile about them from day one. He announces that he brought these movies for ‘us’ to watch?!?! Freakin jerk.) so I got up to bathe and prepare for the day. It was some of the freakin coldest water I’ve dealt with in years; well, at least inside. The water in Alaska was colder…. I was ok with the water in Alaska though. This wasn’t fun. I got through it quickly and then got dressed and packed up to leave.

(Break in writing because some unpleasantness happened. I’ll tell you about that in proper chronological order though.)

The day in the car wasn’t very interesting. It is amazing how little Tom and I talk in the car. I have gotten used to it over the years though and resigned myself to it I suppose. I mind him not talking less than I used to, or at least I get less actively pissy, so it is quiet and unremarkable. La la la and all. After a few hours I fell asleep. I got about an hours nap. Napping = goodness.

We got to the hotel and holy cow was it posh! Amazingly, overwhelmingly posh! Dude. It was gorgeous. I got in a very very nice bath. I shaved my legs. That was decadence. I spent some time online (that was where my blip came from) and I got to call James. That was very nice. Tom and I spent a few hours in a pub listening to a rather good bunch of locals playing traditional music. One kind gentleman consented to a waltz with me (in a 2’ by 2’ area. And we bitch about the room at the Plough!) and then Tom wanted to go. He was suuuuuper tired. He had been very nice in driving 30 minutes away from the hotel for me to listen to the music so I left much earlier than I wanted to in order to be nice. I slept! Yay. It was way necessary. Thus ended day three.

Day four was pretty fun. We left the hotel and set out on our meandering roads. We found a gorgeous beach with a really awesome stone structure, almost like a dock that went out a ways. I talked Tom into indulging me in my very fucking strange interest in taking my clothes off in freezing cold, wet places. Some fun pictures. Mostly the pictures convinced me that I need to go back to the gym. Oy. My belly is technically smaller than it has been in a while but it is not as toned as it was. Alright alright, I’ll go to the gym already. Vanity is such a harsh task mistress. We found some post cards and sent them off. I ditched Tom in the hotel room for a while because he wanted to watch tv that was driving me nuts. This is a huge step for me folks. To go off by myself when I’m far out of my comfort zone is… disconcerting to put it mildly. Major panic attacks is more accurate. I sat in the hotel bar and ordered a drink. No one seemed chatty so I pulled out my laptop and typed up a bunch of stuff and organized a bunch of stuff on my computer that has needed it for a while. After about an hour I wandered over to the hotel and told Tom I was off to town in search of music and/or dinner. He said he would maybe catch up with me later.

I found a bar with some music. Mostly a belligerent old man who alternated between a violin and an accordion and occasionally one or two other guys on accordions. They bickered a lot. It was hella funny. I pulled out my knitting and settled in to enjoy the music. I chatted a bit with one fellow, but not much. I requested “Spanish Lady” and it turned into an argument with a drunken woman who wanted me to sing it. I didn’t feel comfortable doing so, I just wanted to hear it. She wouldn’t back off so I dropped it and pretty much left the bar then. I went around the town looking for food and ended up back at the hotel bar. I placed my order at 8:40, they stop serving at 9. At 9:20 the waitress told me that the kitchen was closed and they weren’t going to fill my order. I was rather pissed off. I stomped over to the hotel. Had a snippy conversation with the porter and ended up with a really good sandwich via room service. I called James because I was feeling shitty and pissy and like a total baby and I wanted some Daddy vibe. It turned into an unpleasant conversation because I have these conflicting needs and desires in the relationship and in trying to accommodate one set of them he stomps on others of them and… yeah. I hate being a stupid, hormonal girl. It isn’t his fault that I am so tempestuous and needy in widely varying ways. But he is sure bearing the brunt of me being frustrated lately. Poor guy. *sigh I waited up several hours for Tom to come back from wherever he had wandered to. At close to midnight I went searching for him. I found him drunk off his ass in the bar where I had been listening to music. He introduced me to half the room by name.

Digression into self-pity mode. I felt really pathetic that Tom managed to meet people and I hadn’t. I’m not sure how he did it. Usually I am the much more out-going/friendly one and it has always seemed that I know many more people. My ego took a hit on this one. End of digression.

I went back to the hotel room and had an Enormous Helping of Self-Pity tm. Anyway. Tom didn’t stumble back till almost two. I read and played solitaire. Mindless activities. I finished my favoritest book (again, for like the 300th time) which involved hysterical sobbing into my pillow. God the ending is sad. Truly heart wrenching horribleness. I didn’t fall asleep till after 4:30. *sigh I need some sleep. (In my defense: that means it was a whopping 8:30 pm California time. I maintain that I’m just having trouble switching internal clocks. Not that I am being an insomniac.) End of day four. Wow. This is getting long…

Day five is today. What did we do…. Hmmm. Drove. Lots of driving. We wandered around Galway for a couple of hours. We blasted Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and I sang along and Tom did finger dancing (his signature and only style of dancing). [Digression. I have been slamming Tom a lot. I don’t mean to. I truly like Tom as a person. He is a wonderful man. We just don’t have much in common and it has become more glaringly obvious over the years. We approach every single situation in non-compatible ways. *shrug Just a part of life. I am actually having fun with him. But I also am desperately missing the company of people who feed me the energy I need to stay ‘up’ and happy.]

Galway was cool. I enjoyed going through the generic stores in the locals’ shopping district. I dislike tourist shops. We stopped in a hardware store and Tom found some very awesome locks that will look bitchin on the cage. I confess that it felt like he was ripping my heart out and stomping on it to ask me to take them out of the package so he could play with them while driving. He will never use these locks with me, so I would prefer to just not touch them. Oh well though. I found a cooooooool present for a very sweet little girl in my life. I can’t say what it is though cause she reads my journal.

Then we got to the hotel. I, being the kind of girl that I am, instantly started negotiations of, “So—is there internet access at all in the hotel?” “Yes, but only in some rooms.” “Well, can we have one of those rooms then?”

So here I am. Online. In Killarney Ireland. Typing away at my travelogue and chatting with wonderful people. I should be sleeping (It’s about 1am here, but I figure I will be leaving the country in 58 hours or so… so why push changing my schedule?) but I’m instead very happy to be talking with people. I am so cheered up. I think I will be in a better mood tomorrow and the day after because of my influx of good spirits. James and I had a long chat about some of the things that were sucky to talk about yesterday. I still don’t think that is going to be an easy relationship—we both have an awful lot of baggage… but we’ll plug along I suppose.

I’m happy. So despite not going to bed yet… I leave you with this as the close of day five.