I get to the hostel I am staying at for the next tonight’s, Isaac’s, eating some toast and marmalade and the first song to play when I sit down, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Held my breath for something off Joshua follow to follow.

I’m running on the hour and a half of sleep I got on the plane ride here; my flight left at 6:50 which meant I had to leave the house at four. It’s cold here. But I guess people don’t come to Dublin for the weather. What do they come here for? Whiskey? Guinness? I guess the reason I wanted to be here a few days before the rest of the company was for the Irish, the people.

I went through a period in high school where I was fully enchanted by anything Irish, this was around the time the movie Far and Away came out. Not ashamed to say I fully enjoyed that movie. It was also a time that I would sit in my room burning incense and reading Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton under my black light and glow-in-the-dark ceiling of stars with the Cranberries yodeling in the background of my consciousness at about the decibel level of a garbage disposal. I went through a similar phrase in college, albeit everything African.

So, now I am In Ireland for the first time! I would love to travel the western part of the country and experience those cliffs(I will be back for that), but today and tomorrow I’ll get to know the city a little and its people and probably a bit of its whiskey. By recommendation of a genuine ginger Irish friend I’ll probably feed the ducks in Stephens’ Green:

“Dublin can be heaven with coffee at eleven and a stroll in Stephens’ Green”

I already had a cup of coffee. Any more on this little sleep will just make me feel anxious. Now I wait for my laundry I couldn’t do yesterday since I came back from Holland in the late afternoon. Maybe I take a nap, like the girl on the couch. Gather, gather, gather steam for the pub crawl later tonight.

I’ve been wanting one for a while. I am in Holland in the city where What The Body Does Not Remeber first premiered: Haarlem. I haven’t made it into a “cafe” but I did find  a decent ukulele for 40 EUR. This really is a nice city. Quiet, but alive. Walked through a great market and bought some tasty olives and smoked fish(so good). And came across a church that is straight out of Game of Thrones!

Grote Kerk, Haarlem

 

Anyway, I’ve already learned the first two songs it seems are uke standard, Iz’s “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and Ingrid’s “You and I.” It totally relaxed me before the show and had a great show, I think, because of it. Excited to learn more!

Today my great aunt Fee-Fee died. It was quick, after a stroke she suffered last night. She was an amazingly generous woman. All my memories of her consist of her helping or loving people. She is a saint, Saint Fee-Fee.

It was in her car that I learned to drive.

 

She always brought me to get an ice cream or had popsicles at her house.

 

She never married and my first memories of Fee-Fee are of her taking care of her sister Emily. 

 

She certainly loved her cocker spaniels.

 

I learned what it means to be spoiled from her.

 

She was always willing to talk football with my stepdad and was over for most Packer games, yelling like the best of them.

 

She let my mom, my brother, and I stay at her house for a few weeks on a couple occasions when things were not going so well with my stepdad. 

 

She only ever rolled her eyes when I played with the loose skin under her chin, which I called her “Gobbledigook.”

 

I always was playing pranks on her. And she always called me a little shit after, MOSTLY with a grin on her face.

I was a little shit. Or a big shit, rather. But she was quick to forgive and not one to hold grudges. One time when we were in a Burger King drive-thru while she was ordering I turned off her car. Her hearing wasn’t so good so she didn’t notice. Once we got our food she pressed the gas to drive away and, nothing. She tried to restart the car. Nothing… but me trying not to bust out laughing. I put the car back in park so it would start and turned the key. “Eddie! You little shit.”

Another time Fee-Fee was taking me out to practice my driving when I sixteen. I was still a bit tense behind the wheel so I didn’t want to take my hand off to cover my mouth when I had to sneeze. So, unthinkingly I turned my head to the side and let out a sloppy, wet one right into Fee-Fee’s face which just happened to be looking directly at me. “Eddie! You little shit,” as she wiped off her glasses.

My friend Josh was over, we must have been around 17, and for some reason Fee-Fee was over at our house. In the old days, when the world used landlines you could call your own phone number, wait for a busy signal, and the phone would ring after you hung up. So, I had Josh sit in the den and keep an eye on the phone that was close to Fee-Fee while I called her with the cordless phone. I got our phone to ring and waited for Fee-Fee to pick up. When she answered I picked up and in a Gremlin voice said, “Hello, Fee-Fee,” back. Fee-Fee replied, “Oh, Hi, Patty,” thinking it was my aunt Patty, who smoked a lot but didn’t sound at all how I sounded. We continued in conversation for a few minutes, Josh dying from laughter and me trying to hold it together. I never told Fee-Fee it was me on the phone, but I know what she would have said if I did.

Later on sometime in my mid-twenties, I apologized to Fee-Fee for being such a pain in the ass. She said, “Oh, it’s alright. I still love you. You always were a little shit.” Ha!

Fee-Fee was another grandmother to me. My memory of her is one of a gentle, sturdy-built Bohemian woman who loved her family and whose life-joy was in the care she showed to others and who knew how to be silly. She had this way about her that just made you smile. I got a long letter from her during a hard time in my life and when I was done reading it I clapped with delight! I don’t remember any of the content, probably just a day-to-day-what’s-been-going-on type of letter, but I could hear her voice so clearly that it pulled me out of the murk I was in.

These last years she was under the grips of dementia. She wouldn’t remember our names, but she knew she loved us. In an hour we’d hear the same sentence 50 times. But her face would be a bright sun when we would visit her, as I’m sure it will be when we see her again.

Fee-Fee. You will live long in the memories of those who know and love you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been missing my dad a lot lately. I need to call him. Here in NYC I’ve had some really good Fil-Am (Filipino-American) food and it’s made me homesick. Also, being on either side of the Pacific in Australia and then LA and flying over Hawaii doesn’t help. I even had some Poke in LA that was wonderful! I feel that side of me calling. I need to go back soon.

Here’s a great essay I says partially printed in the restaurant I ate in yesterday. It is powerful and my heart connects. I am a Filipino.

 

No pools
Pissing in baths
Five poemserso late
Dead skin peels
Skinny stomach
All for
Semantics
Hide wrinkled
Placeholdtreadbeat

Where the dove
Where the figs
False messenger
Born out
Mirage saltwater imp
Man O War boquet
Of bolas
Turn ankles of
Ancestor self

Lost sunrise
Sky’s let me down
In alien world
Sprout from
Dent shins
Thin soil
Ink blot tattoo
From fossil chrysalis
Not clouds
Scars on eyes

Garden water dark moon
Ice lost to sun
Lost to gravity
Endless volley between
Heaven not heaven not
Placeholdtreadbeat
Till lukewarm universe

 

I see my own back from

40,000 km,

still broad abroad.

Is it yesterday, tomorrow? 

How (oh my) long my hair is;

how the curls are frayed from too many ponytails

and the grey is setting with the moonrise

(Deduction: it must be yesterday).

Will I be one to grow it until it recedes 

from my temples? My hair, and the moon

these days, wanes. These days are hills, mostly not.

Where’s my Delilah, my fire?

I’m done ripping my hair out for kindling.

I don’t trust myself,

with scissor or woman or flame.

I am a runner, they say.

 

Not really, though. I don’t

really believe that. Though, I don’t know

what I believe, really. But really, I believe really

too much. Need more less real, more dreams.

But see, that’s where Choose Your Own Adventure books 

really fucked me over. I start from the endendend!

“Oh, but without melancholy I would have no muse.

No use for writing at 4 in the morning.”

 

And this is where I thank god for trappist monks

and their high alcohol content beer. 

Thank you god

for proofing my beer.

Maybe you could up the percentage on my last one?

Maybe you could answer any of my fucking prayers?

 

Oop, sorry.

Too far?

 

Space for your response: _________________________

 

Daily the distance of what could be and what is broadens ,

like the vacuum from a missed train,

like all mailed and lost cardboard boxes,

like the foggy car windows on a hill at night,

like drinking my over-sweetened, still steeping Sleepy Time tea,

(like simile).

Like, like, like, like, like, like, like

(Seven ‘likes,’ like twelve goodbyes).

Like plans to order pizza but you’re too depressed to try to order in french.

Like passing out by the heater when you should be doing taxes.

Like reading old emails and poems and crying on the floor.

Like drinking your last beer and wishing you had vodka and pineapple juice.

Like touring around the world and ending up where you started but not where you’re left.

 

 

*live reading*