True Wisdom (Cut to the chase)

I suppose true wisdom has, amongst other qualities, the understanding that any advice given will almost always fall on deaf ears, and it has no quarrel with that. Everybody has to do what they have to do. But then, there are approximately fourteen wise people in the whole wide world.

Celtic Tiger lies slain in the grounds of Lisa Stansfield's stately Dalkey pile

Limerick today: the window cleaners are barking instructions at each other in Polish. Real estate agents meet their clients in the Hilton hotel before bringing them to see prospective one bedroom apartments in blocks A, B and F. Lithuanian call centre agents are talking rurally isolated emailers through the process of setting up their computers for dial-up. The wifi techocrats are in love with the products they sell. And they need to sell. It makes them feel alive.

Hey, I don't know if anyone has actually absorbed this information, but the bell has tolled for the Celtic Tiger. Word got out a few days ago. Some minister or other made the announcement. No women in gold bikinis advertised THAT one on Grafton st. Now, I know it's been splashed all over the headlines of the newspapers, but as long as you can get an Amaretto truffle with your to-go cappucino served to you by an Estonian waitress working for the second highest minimum wage in Europe, I guess you mightn't really notice. Keep making those trips to Brown Thomas, and ripping the heart out of Georgian Limerick in order to replace it with more gigantic 24 hour shopping malls. But the news is in: the good times are over, folks. And you'll probably still have to commute for two and a half hours every day, even when it all turns grey. You just probably won't be able to rely on cashing in on your real estate investment (what used to be called home) at the end of the day.

I had an inkling about it when I heard that Lisa Stansfield had put her house on the market a couple of weeks ago. That day was it for the Celtic Tiger, as far as I'm concerned. Lisa Stansfield is a minor British popstar from the eighties who came to Dublin and bought a big house in Dalkey some time in the early nineties. I don't know how much she paid for it, but now her house is on the market for 7 million euros. And if she gets that, it may well be one of the last big killings of the Celtic Tiger years. It'll take care of her retirement, anyway. She was probably holding out for a while, enjoying the amazing views over Dublin bay, knowing that one day she was going to have to cash in her chips before time ran out, and the market evaporated.

Well, guess what, folks?

Riding into Black

I have one thing to say to all car drivers, when driving along unlit night-time country roads (not that you'd notice, because your headlights always light up the roads, so you never have to face the fact that the roads are actually BLACK at night) wherever they and you may be:

When you meet a cyclist coming against you, DIM YOUR LIGHTS DUDE. Don't wait for her to put her arm in front of her face to try to block out the glare in her eyes as she steers her bike around that bend, with the other hand.

Cycling home along black country roads is really a piece of work. When cars come by, as they do often on these roads that lead to and from Limerick city, there are these surreally intense flashes of strong white light and visibility, then back to black immediately afterward. As a car passes, you watch his headlights illuminate the immediate path ahead of you, so you can see if there's a rock in your way, ready to send you flying under the tyres of an oncoming car. It's no joke. Potholes, hairpin bends, high speed cars, that lunatic who passed me so close he could have kissed me while he was doing it - THREE TIMES last night (how did he do it?), riding the loudest motorbike I have ever heard, and driving faster than Evel Knievel in a determined moment - stones, uneven road surfaces (what, in Ireland of the four billion pound roads? surely not!) sudden gaps in the road, as in, here's the road, and then suddenly, here is no road, all these things are leaps of faith into the pure unknown, on the cycle home.

And I love it. The wind rustles in the trees, the air smells so good, your senses are WIDE awake, you can hear the nocturnal animals moving around, responding to you, doing their do. Everything looks unfamiliar at night, cycling home. You can forget what country you're in, who you are, what you're doing, where you're even going to. There's just the focus on the road, the task of getting through it alive, and being exhilarated by the journey.

I had a moment some day last week, when I realised that there was so much interesting about this city and just about anywhere I could possibly be, and that I need to write about it. That the streets are FULL of stories, and moments. And I slipped inside that insight, somehow, and space expanded within it. I dunno, I just started having fun here. It helps to have your eyes open, and a sense of humour handy. It really helps to have loving people about. That's a huge blessing.

It's amazing the kinds of moments you can have in your long-left hometown. I roared down O' Connell street (Limerick's Broadway) yesterday, on the bike, belting out Mystery Train at the top and bottom of my voice. God I love that song. I can smell that song. I can smell the wet heat of it. People actually jumped in the air. I'm having fun here. The most fun I've had in years here, probably. It's not so serious as it used to be, here. At least, what I mean by that is that clearly, I'M not so serious as I used to be, here. There's still a fair whack of seriousness around the Limerick streets. But your hometown can so easily bring out the seriousness in you in a what-a-pity-that's-happening sort of way.

And shortly after that, I was cycling over the Athlunkard bridge, and I saw a man walking toward me, on the footpath. We looked right into each other, and I realised that we had been in the same class in school when we were about six years old, and I realised that he realised the same thing. There may or may not have been crushes involved. They may or may not have been mutual. They were certainly unrequited (requiting it meant holding hands in an intensely meaningful way, at six). We each may or may not have lived out the legacy of that maybe/maybe not crush for a number of subsequent crushes/relationships. Either of us may or may not be still living in the shadow of that maybe/maybe not relationship scenario.

And we looked into each other, and we were kind of amazed, and we smiled. And I cycled, and he walked, past. Over the bridge. In opposite directions.

From the mean streets of Manhattan to the Limerick Hilton

I love watching footage of Manhattan from the seventies. Back in the time when Manhattan had neighbourhoods, when it was LIVING. Even when it's just a movie, but shot on the streets. Have you seen a movie called Cool Breeze? Some minor blaxploitation movie, sort of Shaft-like, set on the wild west streets and formica diners of newyorkcityland when they were wild and the men wore tight blue jeans and slang was jiving. And when the lay of the land was being carved up between black brothers and Irish cops. Jesus, the history of the Irish in America is AMAZINGLY interesting to me. Anyway, this movie is fabulous. Classic Irish brute v Nigguh brute battles in wartorn new york city, when Sistah Giuliani wasn't even an evil glint in a poof-fro'd pimp's eye.

Got sorted out last night by Polly Harvey and Lenny Bruce. I no longer feel alone in the world. Oh, and an interview with an Irish novelist called Anne Enright, who is just clearly a ROCKA. I want to read her books now. Or chat with her. Something. Felt like I was losing my soul yesterday. My sense of humour drained away like the colour from my cheeks. My cough is getting stronger. It feels like something pretty big is making its way into the world through my heaving chest.

I'm writing this in the Hilton. A little girl and a little boy have just passed where I'm sitting in the lobby. They are about eight years old. The little girl is in charge. She says to the little boy: "This I have to show you, just this and one more thing. This is my secret passage." And she shows him, and the little boy says, "cool". And then they have a very involved conversation in the secret passage. He asks her all sorts of questions about it. He seems to be particularly interested in the geography of the area, and the logistics of how to drive a car through it. She is more than adept to show him around, and orientate him. She sings as she shows. Then they have a conversation about the night he spent in Ennis, and she does a little step dancing.

And then off they go so she can show him the one more thing.

Nana's

It seems that I've moved into Nana's, the last couple of days. She's got wifi (nobody knows how) and I love it here, what can I say? It's also closer to town and right now I need the proximity.

Anyway, nana's kitchen is a bit like Freddy's, only with slightly more frenetic activity, constant coming and going, and EVERYBODY's a regular at nana's. Cousins, aunts and uncles, various inlaws, neighbours in gigantic curlers and headscarves, the occasional visit from a blonde lady with a nice bottle of wine, and Pinky the dancing queen labrador, who watches it all happen behind her glass door (and oh how she loves to dance)... it's all going on at nana's.

Motiveless joy

People are often suspicious of casual, inexplicable joy. It depends on the context. When you're at a party and everybody's having fun, nobody will look at you sideways for your meaningless joy. However, when you're walking down the street and everybody else is frowning, you can get the squinty eye.

Mosquitoes in my room in October

My room is full of mosquitoes that sit on one spot on the wall, fly around and make that special mosquito sound, but don't ever seem to bite. I wonder how they survive, but I don't wonder too hard. I think this is the first time I have ever shared living space with a mosquito that didn't want to eat me. There's a lot of punchdrunk October winged insects in our house right now, hiding out, hoping for the best. It's nice to hear that high pitched whiney hum and not lash out, not want to kill. I have been gazing at what began with a couple of dozen skeeters in my room here. They're welcome. They're friendly. Now that summer's gone, the edge is off their suspicion of humans and their need to feed off them. I fooled around with a fly who landed in my book today. He was just like those humans who have a few whiskeys and start getting frisky. Friendly kind of fella.

Having spent the whole summer with the strong desire to kill every time I met one of these guys, I find this current situation incredibly relaxing. I leave my window open at night and they seem to multiply. There's now what looks like five hundred benign mosquitoes and one very happy thin-legged spider hanging out in my sleeping chamber. It's quite spectacular to look at. The skeets are in all the various life stages, from babyskeethood to the one that's currently getting death-hugged by the thin-legged spider, and the carcass from my last impulse to kill a mosquito, that marks the wall, that I haven't had the inclination to wipe off. These skeets are fucking, fighting, dying, grooving, lifelessly alive, moving. All in full view of the entire mosquito population of the room, and me. Nothing hidden from view. Totally honest mosquito living.

The only thing I don't see them do is eat. I'm really the only bit of meat around and they're certainly not digging into me, not even particularly interested in my existence, really just my laptop screen when I sometimes turn the lights out, and then they dance over the flickering surface of the slideshow screensaver that shows pictures of Lucy, whippets, family, Irish landscape, friends, Freddy's, new york city. The baby ones zip around in circles, moving ecstatically, unaware that they've just been born at the wrong time of the year to have any kind of a productive or happy or long life. The older ones just sit around, sitting. An occasional trip near my ear to make that special whiney zz sound, which I'm growing to love. I never thought it could be like this with mosquitoes. I'm really enjoying their company. I mean it. I love watching them.

Ah who knows, maybe I'm just a mosquito too. What proof do I have that I'm really a human being ? Hearsay! A giant mosquito in a headscarf and heels!

Pretty Limerick

Notes from the old town

It's rare that I go back to the streets I grew up on. This time I visited a long stretch near my old house. It's by this bare green space they called a park, where we used to heave ourselves over the wall and find particular places on the other side of the wall where it's steep, to lower ourselves down. They've ripped up all the grass, have covered the whole space over with gravel and sand, apparently they're building tracks and draining the fields. The foot-holes we hacked out of the wall are still there. The wall and the nettley wild space between the back gardens and the wall of the park was, this morning, still intact, still wild. Walking down there, even in my fancy high heeled newyorkcity boots, was a thrill.

Limerick city has changed probably as much as Dubai has changed, over the past fifteen years. New streets where there were no streets before, old streets rebuilt, new bridges, roundabouts (a hot fave here), new building constantly everywhere, a new street pedestrianised every year, old elegant theatres, cinemas and hotels TORN DOWN, to be replaced with names like Hilton and Marriott. I am not taking the piss, Limerick city has a Hilton hotel. I'm sitting in it now. It's quite nice, actually. Free wifi.

But the notion of a listed building seems to be limited to safe old stately Georgian houses in private hands, in Limerick.

Houses have been recently torn down to make way for an expansion in a rugby stadium.. hmmm, it's beginning to sound like Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, the radio pumps out stories of multi-shootouts on housing estates and stabbings in hotel rooms and paedophilia rings in well-to-do neighbourhoods and drugs and stranglings.

And on the women and the men go. Shopping. Shopping. Shopping.

Me n my cousin Ross

Me and my cousin Conor

Mum n me

My uncle-in-law Noel, me and my cousin Conor

The jetlag roadshow rolls on

The jetlag show is the longest running musical in town, this week. This morning I awoke at 3.30 am, so now I'm on Moscow time, or something. I'm having all sorts of strange combinations of feelings, today, too. A little earlier it was despondent and fine. I've just been experiencing loss of faith in good things. It's such a pity when that happens.

A cringe ricocheted through the afternoon like a bullet of lightning.

I saw an excellent band last weekend. They're called Fly Ashtray, they're from the Bronx and they've been together for years. They make a gorgeous fat harmonic rocknroll sound. A love vibe composed of the orgasm bits of classic 70's rocknroll, mixed together with a little avant garde kick to the left, and delivered with a kind of expanded punk soul. And I've got to mention them, because they've just emailed me to say they're going to fill up my iPod with free cds. And they rock. Truly.

Anyone got a joke?

Nana n me

Jetlag hell on wheels

I'm having the jetlag horrors. Have you ever had the jetlag horrors? Are you having the jetlag horrors somewhere in the world right now, dear reader, and sending out thoughtwaves that I am all too susceptible to picking up, strongly suggesting that LUCY TAKES OFF transforms your jetlag feelings into words, and liberates you from the pain of your jeglag aloneness? Well, I'll do my best, dear reader. And bookmark this page for future reference. I'd rather not have to go through this experience again.

I'm in Ireland, and my body is fully and entirely on new york time, while still being subject to the normal human daytime demands of this strange new timezone. There was no other option but sleep when my plane got in at 6 am, and when I heard my dad play the piano downstairs a hundred years later, it was 4.24 pm. Bollocks.

My folks are not much help, having had no experience of this phenomenon, and have been encouraging me to sleep the way my body longs to. I lay in bed awake last night for about five hours, until I finally got up and took my Paul Auster book downstairs to the kitchen to eat some leftover smoked salmon sandwiches and chocolate and tea at 6 am. Got to sleep finally, around 7.30. Mum woke me up this morning at 9 as I asked her to, and I told her, I've had an hour and a half sleep, mum. I'm still on new york time. Well stay there so, answered my accommodating mum; dad will drive you in later. That sounded good to my ears, which were looking for any kind of easy answer that means more sleep. Ten minutes later, she's back.

So, what do you want to do? Um, I say, searching.. I'm thinking of cycling in a bit later.. And when I hear myself saying that I've just got to laugh because although I sometimes expect myself to be capable of Big Things Regardless of Circumstance, the notion of cycling into the city from my folks' country place, and back again, inevitably, later this afternoon, is just a step too far into the lunatic zone. Anyway, I chuckled at the eejit making excuses, and dragged myself out of bed. It's not so bad actually, but it's not yet noon. Limerick city is moving, but subdued. I've been taking a walk.

Visited some backalley backyard parts of the neighbourhood I grew up in, here in Limerick. My folks moved out to South East Clare as soon as they had me reared, and I kicked my own arse off to college at 17 years of age, and so when I go back to Ireland, I tend to spend most of my time out in Clare, and with visits to my nana's house, which has traffic from all the rest of the family.

It's like a play set in nana's kitchen. People show up suddenly, after years of absence, and immediately get offered tea and cake. Since I've been living in fancy cities, surrounded by schedulers, I've developed a lingo. I asked dad last night, so, what's your schedule tomorrow? And caught myself. He said it's okay, I use that kind of language too, now. It's just the way things have turned. But to phone my nana in advance of showing up in her kitchen, through her ever-unlocked back door, would just be the most weird and unnecessary thing to do ever in the history of weird and unnecessary things. I will go there today, when I've finished my city stuff, and sit there in her kitchen, getting fed tea and brown bread, and chatting until somebody comes to take me away.

Right now, I'm sitting in the Marriot hotel, on the site of what was once one of the most beautiful, elegant theatres in Ireland. I was born next door to that theatre. It's been torn down now, to make way for a Marriot hotel and another shopping centre. However, it's a pretty ace spot to work in and I've been here all day with one pot of tea, a massive comfy sofa, relaxed environment and free wifi. Nice. I think I'll be coming back here.

Dad looking fierce

Self portrait with green tongue and Ross

I sing the city electric

Parp.

The Big Money

I've just heard about a painter-businessman in the city, who earns $150,000 in a weekend, from talking to business executives creatively. There is money to be made in this town, and the extent of it is really quite extraordinary. You can hit the big time in this place if you have AUDACITY.

I was in Tokyo Joe's, this horrible-vibed designer thrift store on 11th st. a few weeks ago, and this woman came in the door, and she was stressed and uptight and then she got her purse out and pulled out some cash and she exhaled, and said with a look of sheer earnest love on her face: "I love money! I don't care, I love it, I do. I LOVE money!" And the Japanese chicks nodded their heads, wisely.