10 things which make being single better then being something else.

Relationships aye? Bit of a tricky thing those ones. So we all go through phases of being in them and not being in them and being in them but not wanting to be in them or being not in them and wanting to be in one. Ah love, you are a many splendored thing.

For example when you are in a relationship you get to do all sorts of great things, like going out to eat together or taking photos of yourselves looking in love (and uploading them onto social networking sites so others can be jealous) or watching films about love and thinking how lucky you are not to be alone or spending hours just staring into each others eyes or taking lovely sunset walks and throwing stones at the single people.

However for those of us who are currently not enjoying the many splendors love has to offer (but are instead feasting from the cornucopia of single person living) get to spend our time eating (alone), drinking (alone), feeding stray animals in attempts to not be alone and hiding below ground during day light hours so as to avoid the stones thrown by couples.

.

There are, of course, innumerous wonderful things about being "single". However I like a challenge so I went ahead and attempted to make a top 10....

1. Bed Clothes....I'm a hogger. Fact. And an unapologetic one at that. I'm half your weight, just pull the duvet back or man up.

2. No one to disprove it when I lie about why I am late for something.
Yes I am always late.
Yes I always have a excuse.
No there is no one to witness the freak hurricane which ripped through my flat and made me lose 40 minutes.

3: Watching really terrible shows: Yes ANTM, yes Glee, yes Jersey Shore, yes yes, yes.

4: High heels, as high as I like and no Napoleon complex to deal with.

5: Man flu. Nuff said.

6: Talking to myself is now truly to myself and no one can complain that I have been singing an off key version of "Total eclipse of the heart" for the past 4 days.

7: Wearing layers of the brightest lipstick known to mankind.

8: White girl dancing. Ok I did this when I wasn't single also but I find it more rewarding now.

9: Wandering around my house dressed like a "Grey Gardens" refugee.

10:The less people around you have around you, the less chance there is of one of them being a CIA planted killer robot.
That's just sound logic.

Cada Loco Con Su Tema

An open letter to my dearest Barcelona,

.

Once upon a time there was a girl. A girl who swore the day her exams ended she would be on the first plane out of Ireland and never look back. And so it was, with her best friend by her side and a partially formed plan in mind she arrived in Barcelona for what was supposed to be "a ten day holiday". Ten days some how became 3 years and suddenly the day arrived that the girl decided to leave.


In case you didn't get it, I am that girl. But you got that right? Right. Lets continue.

So, Barcelona, here we are. I hate to say it but its not you, its me. It's your fault it's me, but it's me. We had some good times though. Lets be honest, when we were on we were ON. I think you are really beautiful. Honestly, I love all of you, even the bad parts. I will never forget the magic of waking up to you every day.


But you could be a little abusive. Im not going to lie, a couple of times you almost broke me down. I know you are bad for me, I know you never gave me a real job and sometimes you tried to mug me and there was that one time a prostitute punched me which frankly was a little uncalled for. You also have a seedy side. With the sex trade and the muggings and the general feeling of threat which occurs on small dark streets at night. But the thing about night is that eventually the sun goes up, then there is morning.

But lets talk about the good times shall we? Lets talk about the lovely sunny afternoon all year round and of sitting outside cafes watching the world go by. Lets talk about all the amazing people you bought into my life and all the fun I had living in this huge mixing pot of the world. Lets talk about the feeling of joy I still get from running up the metro stairs and stepping out into the city.


I'll so miss street parties and 24hr bars, the parks, the music, the hidden corners in the Gotico, the Rambla Catalunya, sitting on benches in Psg de Gracia, the flower market, the cathedral on psg San Juan that I would walk to when I couldn't sleep, street beers, monsoons in the autumn, heat stoke in the summer, Casa Bon Success, Casa Trippy, The Quiet Man, moments on my roof, breakfast in bed, Lola Kitten, the sound of skateboard of tiled streets, the funicular, jumping into the sea on a boiling hot day (or an ice cold night as the case may be), parties that lasted all night and into the day, afternoons wasted lying on the grass and 100 more moments that hit me whenever I think about leaving.


And the men. Wow, I never knew there were so many wonderful guys out there for me to make an ass of myself in front of. I grew up in a small town Barcelona, I was not prepared for the smorgasbord that you had to offer. It was like an all you could eat buffet and I attempted to fill my plate with a little of everything. Greedy greedy me. But I got some great stories out of it didnt I? That's the thing about you BCN, you always made for great stories.


There was love too wasn't there? Let us not forget the love. One big one. Love that is. Didn't really end so great but that's the way these things go isn't it? It's all part of the process. I will remember the good parts and learn from the bad parts and take it all a lesson. Just like I did with you Barcy. It's all just been a series of lessons wrapped up in one big lesson.


Friends. Friends I will have forever and some I may never see again but still
all of them giving me something, helping me along my way. Take care of them wont you?

There's a funny feeling in the air here. A nature of moving on, everyone on there way somewhere else, everyone working to fund their real jobs. We all leave you eventually don't we? Do you ever get tired of it? Or do you enjoy the high turn over? Always new faces and new stories. It must get tiring. I know that's why I am leaving. I got tired of doing it all over again. New job, new house, new people. I guess I have started to crave what it was I always hated, what I was trying to get away from. Tedium, routine, stability. I wonder how long before I get sick of it again.


I don't know if I will always feel so deeply for cities I live in. You were my first, that means something right? I always was just looking for a place to feel like home, a place to feel like I belonged.


And sometimes I found that in you.

I'll be back soon, you know that. I have left way too many shoes not to come back.

BCN, Te quiero.

xx

p.s Ill write again soon.

Fall backwards

I havnt forgot you dearest blog babies. Just a little low on time and inspiration.

Still doing a photo a day over at Letter to a Stranger!

Reasons I know it is Autum

- My sequined hot pants have been retired.

- I just spent 15 minutes attempting to cut a butter nut squash with my kitchen knife which, I am starting to suspect is actually made of cardboard covered in tin foil.

- I just spent 15 minutes swearing at a squash.

- I woke up this morning to find the cat under the duvet with me. The Cat Cave.

- I no longer feel guilty for not having a tan.

- Staying inside all day is the clever choice.

- I am inexplicably drawn to listening to Irish singer/songwriters.

Wash away

1 day of summer

"Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever. Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies...".

"Rule number two: Everything lasts forever".

- Craig Ferguson

I never forget a face but in your case, I'll make an exception

I have a strange memory. I seem to accumulate an infinite number of useless facts, song lyrics, stories, names, faces, I can recall with precision important moments, unimportant moments, chance meetings, first meetings, uneventful afternoons, mixed tapes, quotes, conversations....and yet...I cant remember to pick up my house keys, to buy cat food, to call someone back, math formulas, language rules, which apartment my best friend lives in, to put my watch on after a shower. It's like the useless memory information pushes out the important here and now information.

.

The biggest memory trigger for me is clothes. I can recall any event by remembering what I was wearing. It sound silly and people never believe me when I tell them but its true. I remember what I wore, I can remember everything. I can usually tell other people what they wore too...its like my brain takes a photo of the event and by bringing it up, everything else comes wooshing back.

.

I have a habit of loving items of clothing to death, till I am sick of them or they fall apart. I refer to times in life as when I always wore a black v-neck or only road jeans. There was a summer that I always had a Korn hoody round my waist and one that I truly believed my skin tight flares were the height of coolness.


The green top I wore when I kissed my first boyfriend for the first time by the bus station that was under construction. My brothers shirt I borrowed and wore the first time I threw up from drinking too much, in a field with Eoin holding my hair back. The green dressing gown I was wearing when I found out my friend had died, the one I didn't take off for 3 day. The jeans I was wearing the first time my heart broke while I sat on a bus. The coat I was wearing when I looked in the mirror and realised for the first time I was happy with myself. The hat I wore when I dropped my ex at the bus stop and realised I would never see him again. The dress I was wearing when I told someone special how I felt about them on my sofa.


But with this comes a different problem. If something bad happens to me while I am wearing something in particular then, well, that poor item will get resigned to the back of the wardrobe till a time comes around when I can look it in the eye. It's almost as if I blame that item in a way. A dress I couldnt ware for a week because it arrived the same day someone left, an outfit I thought was so cute until I found out "he" was seeing someone else, the skirt my mom brought me as a present but 2 days later I wore it to my grandmothers funeral, and a hundred more things I would love to sit here and list but know no one will ever get through them all.

I wonder if anyone else does this? Do other people find themselves unable to look at certain items of clothing after something bad happens in them?! Maybe I am just strange....

Things which are nice

If my life was a pie chart and that pie chart was divided into sections of "things I have under control in my life" and "things I do not have under control in my life" then the section of pie that represents the latter category would be very slim indeed.

.
(do you like my very "hyprbole and a half" pie chart?)

This graph may actually over estimate quite how much I do have in control.

Being, as I am, a person who likes to be in control I have taken the path of "pretending nothing is wrong" as a way to combat this issue. Instead of focusing on the 10 thousand things which are wrong, which range from small and insignificant to huge and life altering, I keep myself happy by listing things which keep me from being crushed under the immense weight of wrongitude.

Here's a few:

- Emails. I love a good email. One with lots of information and nice sentiments. Love it.

- My hair. Its just really very nice right now.

- Boys. Instead of worrying about just one, I'm just going to like them all.

- Katie C Turner. She likes cute boys too and draws lovely pictures about them.

She rules.

.

- Mark Ruffalo. Because he is Mark Ruffalo and that is all any man could want to be.

- Fur and socks. Hello autumn.

.

- All my friends helping out with guests post over at Letters to a Stranger
while I got my teeth out. You guys rule.

- Gracie being in New York. Because she deserves to be.

.

My so-called life

I have managed 46 days in photos over at my other blog "Letters to a Stranger"!


.

Its full of cats and sunsets and other day to day wonders. Go check it out!

My family and other animals

Vivre sa vie

Ghosts

A little interchange that went on between me and my ex which pretty much sums up our relationship:

Me:

"you are always hurt...

like a limping puppy"

Ex:

"and you are always insulting at least once in a conversation"

Aaaaah love....

Second hand emotion

Oh decisions decisions....

What to do, where to go, who to listen to?

Allow myself to be pulled with the tide or keep digging my toes into the sand?
People keep telling me that I shouldn't let fear stop me from doing anything, but since when did self preservation become a bad thing?
When did the safe route become the wrong choice?
When did we stop allowing ourselves to save ourselves?
Where do others find the strength to allow themselves to be battered by the waves?

If history has taught us anything its that the only person you can rely on is yourself.
Should lessons that were so hard learned be disregarded?
What to do, what to do....

A grand day out

Coffee and some shopping

And some posing in doorways, of course

Ciara looks longingly whilst inwardly cursing Barcelona's strange public seating placement

While I attempt to not drop ice cream all over myself

(p.s I failed)