Seriously, I'd Like to be Asleep Instead of Blogging

It is 3:19 a.m. I cannot sleep. I was sleeping, right up until about 1:00 when an errant bass line from an unknown location infiltrated my room. I woke up just enough to realize my pillow cradles my head as effectively as a sink basin at some low-rent hairdresser. Then I remembered I hadn't really eaten any dinner, and that I'd fallen asleep at 9:00 and that it was going to be a long time before I fell asleep again.

I shall reminisce about my day.

I went into the city to return movies and told myself very sternly that no more movies were to be rented because there is such a lot of reading to do. I immediately ignored myself and rented two more movies. I'm disciplined like that. I then wandered around a touristy outdoor market affair where I promptly found a tea shop. If there is one thing I don't need to be spending money on is tea. I have loads, both the kind that I have purchased for myself and that has been sent to me by kind and generous friends. Therefore, I bought more tea. I even bought a tea strainer. If only tea provided me with my daily essential minerals and vitamins, I might be able to justify this extravagance, as it is, I can't.

And then I decided lunch was in order. I tried out a new restaurant that appeared to be vegetarian friendly and was, for the most part, except for the stray bit of ham in my omelet. Everyone involved was very sorry.

As I was enjoying coffee after lunch (what is it about a cup of coffee after a mid-day meal? It is in my top 5 favorite run-of-the-mill things) I looked out the restaurant window and saw a bus go by. Plastered on its side was an advertisement that read:

"Always there for you with fresh fruit for Halloween"

Seriously? That's the best some ad agency could come up with? Okay, we'll just let it go that fruit is being pushed on the holiday where high fructose corn syrup-y treats reign supreme, but really? Some corporate entity is taking it upon itself to steer children toward apples and bananas and kiwi and mangoes for Halloween, fair enough. But that's as snappy as they could make it? It doesn't really pop, does it? "Fruit - Halloween - Eat" They could've used that and saved themselves a few letters.

So then I started to notice that Ireland has this sort of lack when it comes to the catchy one-liner. I was later in a big coffee store chain (drinking water, not more coffee) not unlike Starbucks, and noticed that their treat case included the poorly labeled, "Fresh Square Brownie". Uh...yeah, I guess, as opposed to "stale octagonal brownie" or "day old rhombus brownie". And then there was something called "tea brack"* which I just assumed was a typo for "tea brick", neither of which sound all that great.

After mentally criticizing these things that ultimately don't matter one whit, I bought a vegetable steamer and then decided to walk to a grocery store, in order to get something to steam. That's when I got lost. I sort of thought I had a handle on the city center and the general layout. Not so. I ended up in the kind of area where trash bins line the streets and newspapers blow around, hitting one's shins and making a general nuisance of themselves. I finally turned down a small side street which was really more like an alley. I assumed I would be jumped by a gang of hooligans, relieved of my vegetable steamer and any small amount of cash I might have left on my person, and then unceremoniously placed head first into a dumpster where I'd re-emerge several hours later covered in cabbage leaves and stinking of day old sausages. Rather anti-climactically I came across a perfectly un-hooligan-ish senior citizen who directed me back to a main street.

The grocery store proved to be a bit much in terms of overstimulation after such a tiring day of mostly imagined circumstances. I found myself absolutely done in by the concept of canned marrowfat peas. I could only stare, and stare some more, and then shuffle away, hoping against hope that that horrible vision would somehow be erased from my memory.

And now, let there please please be sleep, for the sake of all involved with my rambling blog.

* Update on "brak". A kindly Irish informant has translated for me and I now know that brak = fruitcake. Okay, tea fruitcake. Nope, still sounds like ass.