Tuna Canoe (1)
Hopefully the title got a snigger, I saw it on Popbitch (my favourite site in the world ever) and laughed out loud. Despite my being in the Aihua Centre. Yes kids, that’s right. I’m back in Ireland. Holiday over and just knocked up four straight days of solid(ish) work. So how does it feel? Am I, like Potential, suffering from Post Holiday Stress Disorder? Do I miss getting up at 11am and lazing around in the sun and sea til night falls? Do I miss drunkenly playing pool every single night?
Damn right I do!
Sunday night was best forgotten. We landed in Dublin at around 4pm, Sis and myself got a bus into town and drove Dad’s car back out to the airport from the car park of his work. Sounds tight-fisted, but Aer Rianta a 40 charge PER WEEK for the privilege of parking your own car in one of their increasingly remote long-term car parks. Drove straight from the city centre to the airport in less than 30 minutes. Hell has yet to freeze over, but give it time.
I had to go to Mate’s 21st. She’d booked a floor in Bad Bob’s (she said her job had connections) so the fun was to start at 8pm. Mate and me have been fooling ourselves for quite some time about our “friendship”. the fact is, we have nothing in common. I used to think I was because I’m so obviously a car crash on legs, a curiousity that some look at but most try to avoid. But no, now I’m coming to a slow realisation that her boyfriend actually hates me and she’s compromising for him. Which I suppose I’d find admirable if it wasn’t me on the shitty end of the deal. Nevertheless, I had to go through the motions and buy her a bottle of expensive perfume. She has a quick, abrupt Dublin accent (Embryo might call it a “schwerrr”) and I thought it’d be funny to her her say “Issey Miyake”, so I smelled it, liked it and bought it. For the price of a week’s parking at the airport. Jayzus.
So I ran over to her house with it and she told me they’d be all heading in on the 7pm bus. Only when I got down to the bus stop, there was no-one. So I rung her house and her mam said she was down in the local drinkery. And she was, with everyone gathered around. She looked shocked. Of course it was an omen, but I had the doggedness about me that I wasn’t going to chicken out of being sociable. My rehabiltation back into some kind of circle must begin somewhere. I know I shouldn’t care what they think, but I’m only human.
So Mate’s dad turns up and drives us into town. The Bad Bob floor turns out to be empty and huge, but pints were 4.15 and the place was far from off-limits to other people. Which turned the whole reserving the floor thing into a farce. But I don’t think she was charged so….
More and more suburb people came and everyone ignored me. I sound like a spoilt child to say that, but am I REALLY that abhorrent. Maybe they don’t know what to say to me, but the basic lack of acknowledgement was hard to take. My self-confidence is extremely low at the best of times, so to have this to deal with after coming home on a high was tough.
I felt good leaving the house. I found a pair of 40 inch waist jeans that make me look slim (miraculous I’m sure you’ll agree) and an equally-slimming t-shirt. I looked well, with my medium rare tanned face and brown arms. I went all out trying to present a new Joe. And yet, no. I was not new. I was still the geek who talks about planning. The guy who hasn’t done anything. The one Mate says analyses things too much. And yet she still invited me, because we’re afraid of letting go of the one thing we’ve both had through the most turbulent years of our lives so far. She once told me I made her what she is today. Funny, I thought the same about her. Without her, I’d have been nothing. At least now I can kind of hobble along. But it’s scary to think what I’d have been like if I missed out on all the times we had. Back in the day, as we’re found of saying these days, we went out a lot. Not as much as most, but still I always felt she was behind me, pushing me forward. That’s always what I’ve thought of her, the girl who pushed me out into the world. Only now I know there’s a lot of pushing left to be done yet, and this time I have to do the work.
Back to Sunday night. Bad Bob’s (I’d never been before) was jammers. We had tables, if we didn’t it’d have been pointless to stay. The greed of Dublin pubs is unbeleviable. People were being charged in to a three-floored jam-packed pub with too much smoke and exorbitant prices. Mate’s brother told me about a concoction that he’d just taken from the bar which would liven me up. I decided to try it; I had just told Mate I was going to leave just like I’ve always done. But now I was staying, and from past experience, deciding to stay can have surprising results. So I went to the bar and asked for “whatever that bloke had”. The barman asked if I was sure. I said yes. “And you want it…..all?” “Eh….yeah”