17th of July, 2003 POST·MERIDIEM 06:52

Yesterday I finished work about fifty minutes later than usual. Since I live in a suburb of a suburb^[1] and thus am not well served by the public transport system, I had a choice of waiting just over an hour and getting a bus to my door, or getting an earlier bus and walking for twenty-five minutes. I chose the waiting, because after a twelve hour day and not much sleep walking tends to leave me even more frazzled next morning. :-)

I went to the Centra beside O’Connell bridge, got some potato wedges, bought Esquire—all the book shops were closed, and I’d already read GQ. (It doesn’t have AA Gill, and is thus distinctly not as good, in case you’re wondering about Esquire vs. GQ.) Sat on the Liffey boardwalk, ate my wedges, drank some diet coke (more places selling Dr. Pepper in Dublin would be good, btw), read, said hello to Mick^[2]. Walked over to Hawkin’s Street for my bus, and was told there’s wasn’t a driver for my bus^[3], I’d have to get the 38 and walk anyway. Ireland; we’ve a Northern European climate and a Mediterranean transport system. Fuсk them.

Observation; since I’ve gotten older (ooh, twenty-two, I hear you say, let’s elect you to Aosdána just for surviving that long), I seem to have lost a capacity for obsessive, uncritical enthusiasm. I spent sixth year listening to the Velvet Underground, to the extent that I could probably recite any their lyrics in album order if you asked me to, and despised say, Nathan Lane and Gay Byrne because despite being obviously smart, and energetic, there didn’t seem to be any subject matter close to their hearts.

Now, the most excited I’ve been about a piece of music I’ve been in years was when I heard Les Rois du Monde ^[4] at a party a few weeks ago, mainly because it was inescapable in LLN and I hadn’t heard it before or since. I still like stuff, but the obsession is gone. Rammstein and The Mamas and the Papas are alternating on my XMMS^[5], in fairness; if there was a drop of obsession one way or the other in me, one of them would be off the list.

Strangely, I realise I’ve been like that with regard to reading material for much longer, and am now probably reading more because I’m more comfortable with my state of mind in that area.

[1] http://​www.​tyrrelstown.​com/​
[2] http://​dot.​nologin.​net/​
[3] http://​www.​dublinbus.​ie/​your_journey/​tt/​38c.​html
[4] http://​www.​paroles.​net/​texte/​21331
[5] http://​www.​xmms.​org/​