Here is another of my favourites, an uncommon one with all of us together, fomr left Liam, Joan, Conal, Mise, Ben, Steve, Kevin, Laura, Pa. Guess which of us got naked later

My Bitchz

I have just been looking over the photos that i took in the last few days before i left Ireland and i have to admit they were some very good times. Almost everyday for a week before i left we would get together and do something; whether it be rent a video, go for a swim or go out. We could not have kept it up for the summer what with limited money and people leaving but i must say that i really enjoyed having Conal and Kevin around especailly as that is something of a novelty these days.

Anyway here is a picture taken the night before i left at a barbeque with all the women in my life (bar my wife and all the dears abroad of course) For those of ye that dont know starting from left we have Delicious Deidre (Steve Slush mom), my dear momma, Joan with her sexy sophis raven locks, my sister (no more to be said on that matter) and Perfect Peggy (Liams mom, also a Slush)

Edit: i decided to change the title of his post to sonething more fitting, "Summer Rememberence" sounds like a Maeve Binchy title.

Take the good with the bad

Well i have not updated properly now in a few days and i suppose i do have a few wee tidbits to entertain the masses. On Sunday myself. Suzanne and another of the managers went to a book sale inland a bit. First let me say that it was absolutely scorching and there is a huge difference over here in temperature and humidity once you move away from the coast, it was over 30 degrees at ten in the morning. Anyway the sale was a good laugh, all us trade buyers arrived early to get all the good stuff and we managed to get in first, i was just given two huge bags and told to find the sci-fi/fantasy section and pick out any and all books i though would be good, happy as a priest in a creche i was. Needless to say when i got back from that i was mighty tired and hot so Suzanne told me of a big lake a mile or two down the road. I ccled down and had the most refreshing swim. All in all a pretty nice day.

I have also received my social security number so i am no longer an illegal worker. I have been going in and doing work i 2nd Read (the bookstore) but i am not an employee or on any books. While this is only a technicality and i am still keeping a record of my hours and stuff i sometimes get the feeling that not much is expected off me. Perhaps it is because i came the whole way from Ireland and i am staying with and also friends with the boss but i am not being given a lot of work to do. Suzanne owns the company but she is usually working in her office or in another of the cafes across town so i in the day-to-day scheme of things i have two other managers, one for the cafe and one for the books. While everyone else works full hours i am only ever scheduled for six hours a day, i usually make a point of staying for the full eight cuz there is always some books to be shelved or priced but they do not seem to realise that i am here for the summer to work and get money. I would love to only work six hours a day but even as it stands i am getting paid a little less than irish minimum wage so i would like the hours. Besides i dont know anyone here outside work so it is my social scene as well.

Although things are looking up on that side of things. I went to a barbeque on Monday night up the coast a bit. It was a good laugh and the place where the house was was really class, it looked out on a meadow running down to the sea and when it got dark there was thousands of fire flies everywhere. twas like phosperescence except you stayed dry. There is one of the girls friends playing in the cafe on Friday night and he is supposed to be pretty good so i will go along to that and we will probably go out after although to where i do not know.

Not everything has been rosy however, i have developed strange red bumps on my feet, arms and shoulders. At first i thought they might be mosquito bites cuz they are everywhere around here and i am itching like crazy. But i have been getting tons of them and i have not been outside that often so i thought maybe i was allergic to something and that they were hives but today Suzanne said they might be spider bites. Yes thats right, every arachniphobes nightmare, i may be being bitten by spiders while i sleep. Anyway i have cleared out my entire room and washed all my clothes and sheets and am taking Benadril, which is a little pink anti-histamine pill. Its fucking weird, i only take them at night cuz they make you pure drowsy and i usually fall asleep straight after taking them. It means i go crazy at work in the mornings however and every half an hour i run to the bathrooms to slather myself in anti-histamine cream.

In between these bouts of orgasmic scratching (why does something so bad feel so good?) i have been working away like a little beaver, just the other day i was talking to a customer who was from just outside Poughkeepsie and went drinking in Snuggs and McGillies a lot which was class. The baker or cook of confectioniare (whatever you call people who make cookies, pastries and cakes) in the cafe does the best fucking fudge-brownies i have ever tasted. I have to try so hard to just limit myself to three a week, and with my employee discount they only cost me 90 cent. So delicious..........

Home sweet home

Here is my fair abode in Maine, my room is the corner one on the second floor near the front.

A Revelation

Today i went to rent some videos (Jackie Chan: The Legend of the Drunken Boxer if you must know) and i suddenly realised something, no longer do i have the squabbling, grunting psuedo-mature proles telling me what i can and cannot watch, finally i have complete freedom to rent whatever visually mind-expanding, culturally challenging, ethnic and imagination-driven movies i want. Tomorrow i will get Electra

Happy as a Pig in Shite

Ahh yes, lying in bed after a nice lie-in. I was up til all hours last night with Suzanne, my 55yr old boss/landlord. Turns out she is a huge fantasy/kung-fu fanatic so we got out two Jet-Ki movies (Legend 1 & 2, brilliant really funny and some really good fights, daft as a stick though) and talked about the respective strenghts and weaknesses of the Wheel of Time Series and the LOTR movie adaptations. I have the entire day off again and i am lost as to what to do. I would nearly prefere to go onto work for a while.

I cant hold it in

I did something dirty today, there is a Gathering type store in town. I bought the new White dwarf. There were paint sets and new Wood Elves are looking so good!

Sweet Sweet Temptation

Sweet, I have just received my first credit card! What shall my first purchase be? To be honest now I doubt I will be using it in anything but an emergency, I do not need anything that I cannot get with cash at the moment, although that could change. I went down to the Social Security Office yesterday in order to get a social security number. It turns out that I am not in the system yet and so they cannot give me a number meaning that Suzanne cannot legally pay me, she said that a few years ago she could have just paid me under the table but now they have gotten too big. Luckily I still have 100 dollars in cash and 350 euros in my account so I will be grand for the meantime. I am still going to work as usual and clock in and out and when I get the number (around a month they said) I will just be paid a lump sum, which will be nice. Like I said I do not really need money for anything bar food at the minute so I am not worried.

I had my first day off today and I decided to sleep in, at least that was the plan. I have been in America for a full week now but there is still a vestige of Irish time in me. I think nothing about going to bed at ten and getting up at nine cuz my body is telling me that I am going to bed at 3 in the morning and then getting up 1. It works out for the best cuz as you know I love my sleep and this way works out perfectly, perhaps I have been on American time since New Paltz and never got off it. Plus even though I have joined the gym (had the entire place to myself today, twas class) I will see if I get the protein drink again. I probably will but I will just stick to having it with me breakfast as I think that could have been what was causing my insomnia in NP.

I have downloaded Hello! (the photo uploader not the glossy rag mag that Joans magazines aspire to be) so I will be putting up shots soon. I know I have been promising it for a while but never do today what you can leave til tomorrow. Plus I only have joans camera with its crap 8mb memory card. Hope you are enjoying my sleek machine joan and thank God I deleted the photos off it before I left ehh Liam!!! You dirty little bugger.

Is there Hope?

so nearly a week here in Maine. I have to admit that i am enjoying it quite a lot. They do amazing fudge brownies in the cafe. I started in the gym today and i was plesently surprised, it cost me 99 dollars for three months and the place is nice enough. Plus i was talking to some people there *shock horror* my own age!

I have benn reading dear Zeta's blog and i must admit that i am quite impressed with her journalistic leanings, it makes my poor blog look like a glorified diary, which i suppose i started it off as. Perhaps in the future we shall see some musings on life and shit on these fair pages but not today.

One cool thing that has been happening recently is that i have been having very vivid dreams. They have wither been kind-of adventure ones where last night i rescued my brother and his class from some kind of sinking boat, i could fly like Crouching Tiger and also move really fast. The cool thing was that it was not completely ridiculous, i.e singing lobsters. and i also had a modicum of control over what i did.
The second kind of dream is one where i am just doing normal things but with people back home. The night before last i was at home but managed to teleport Amanda over from New Zealand and she came out to Mollies with us and met conal and the lads, the night before myself Liam and Caking were just doing normal stuff. When i wake up from those dreams it actually seems that i have spent time with those people and i feel happy rather than homesick.

I shall keep you posted on the weird and wonderful workings of Paul's inner brain some other time. I have tomorrow off and i intend having a lie-in then hitting the gym then the library. Crazy shit i tell you.

New York Longing & Serendipity

Had my first day of work today. Twas alright, the shop was really busy and that meant that there was noone to show me how to do stuff so I packed some shelves, organised and dusted some stuff. I was only there from 11 to 4. Still it shows promise, there is a mix of students and full time people working there and they seem sound. There was a solstice party in town today, the main street was closed to traffic and there were bands and stuff around. It was so American and wholesome. I went to a bar with a few people from work and had Bud light for the first time since New Paltz. That is one weird thing, although I am just here from home I am feeling really home-sick for New Paltz. I think it is because everything here is so familiar from the toilets to the money to the plastic cups and tipping in bars. It is so similar but also so far away. I definitely want to go there come august.

Plus I was talking to Suzanne (my boss and whom I live with) and we were talking about rent. Now she had originally said 200 dollars a month but she is thinking of changing that. She said that instead of that she would like me to cut the lawn once a week and help her in her big garden. Damn the bitch, how I hate her.

I am the 'Maine' Man

Ha ha ha ha, oh what a joculator i am. Well i have finally arrived and unpacked here in Maine and it does seem pretty sweet. The town itself is pretty small, for the locals think adare or maybe killaloe. I am staying in a hundred year old 4 floor house though that is really nice. i am up on the third floor with this amazing view. I will post pictures as soon as i get this 'Hello' thing working. One bad thing however is that i do not have broadband which is a set back for my plans for global domination. oh well, anyway i shall write again soon, i am still shattered and need sleep.

I am a naughty chap

Shhhhhh!!!! dont tell anyone but i am blogging at work. I is trying to burn time before i leave at six, thank God for CHH's i say. of course that means nothing to ye non-ISI plebs. I am going to a capoeira demonstration a sevven, the sun has been splitting all day but it is after getting very cloudy. If it rains i will be most displeased.