The Future Smells Like Half-Smoked Cigars: three stories

One.

On a completely full airplane

I dreamt I saw you undressed

Sitting on an unfamiliar bed

In a room with floral wallpaper

Which is something I suppose I can't tell you now

And ever because of the rules

But I swear I had

Loose bolts and spare change

Rolling around my stomach, hitting all the tender spots

I felt robotic romantic attraction

Like I should write blockbuster movie scripts

And kiss them closed with green lipstick

With red chapped lips underneath

Because I'm just goose bumps 

Ghosting for your attention

Two.

I'll meet you where your Chicago meets my Chicago.

I'll meet you where glass meets limestone

And starts to crumble under the weight of every stretch of skin

That gets reflected back at us on the sidewalk.

Church steeples rising out of pharmacy drive-thru windows

If superglue could fix all the flimsy things we said

When it was too hot to sleep with our twin-sized sheets

Knotted around our knees

I would buy all the bottles from the corner store

With their going out of business sale

Even our drunk thoughts would be discounted 25%

I’ll make you this deal

In a wood paneled room at the end of the world

Say something and I’ll say something back

Somehow we managed to ruin every song

With white noise fan blades blurring on

Three.

I checked the wind chill against your birthdate seeing as

I'm fixated on the idea of chunks of brain tissue freezing

And what memories am I losing to frozen cells?

The middle name of my dead dog

Because I gave my dog a middle name

Plucking flowers out of tablescapes

Shifting shamelessly in orange plastic chairs

In a room in a business park in the bad part of town

You get that close just to feel

Shoulder blades under electric skin

I am an authority on nothing except for being kissed hard

Against painted over cinderblock walls

Paczki Day

With Chicago in a freezing downward spiral, I too feel the same.

To be more frank and less dramatic about it, my seasonal depression is in full swing and with everyday looking gray and my bedroom being subjected to a constant draft, things aren't quite looking up at this very moment.

Despite this, I figured I should try to focus on things that offer little bits of happiness even if they're not long term because when you're feeling down, it seems far more likely that your mind will glaze over the good things and make everything look as dull an unappealing as the landscape.

Today I found a penny head's up outside of my door so I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.

I get to start looking for new apartments next month and I could not be more excited.

I'm working on new sewing projects that mean I get to give more patches to sweet people in my life.

I got so excited about Paczki Day that I got all bundled up and went out in the snow so I could sit on the couch and enjoy a slow morning eating pastry, watching X-Files, and drinking coffee that I didn't have to make myself.

I know there are people who are looking out for me no matter what.

I feel like I finally feel motivated enough to start writing again.

Okay, I know this list seems very disjointed already but I'll add one more thought for good measure. I feel like I'm getting far better at saying the things that are on my mind with no remorse. Partially because life is too short to deal with dumb stuff but mostly because I think I've finally realized that I'm worth having good things happen to me and I want any sort of weird confidence I portray to show that.

I'm going to tell you how I actually feel more now.
You should do the same.

I'm going to go take a very hot shower now and hope my exhaustion magically disappears so I have the energy to do the rest of my homework.

I hope your feet aren't cold and that you have plenty of snacks to sustain you through whatever is going on.

Impact

Bad things happen. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things tend to happen mysteriously when I'm away on school trips.

When I was in eighth grade, my class took their annual pilgrimage to Washington D.C. At the time, I was attending the Salem Academy Charter School, which was a combination middle school and high school. The trip was designed to be a reward for making it out of middle school alive but also, a bridge between those years and the more meaningful and demanding ones ahead.

Eighth grade was a rough year and I think afterwards, I went back and deleted all photographic evidence of this trip. This is all I could find.

As we got closer to the city, we started hearing radio broadcasts about road blockades within the city. What I really remember is the fact that it took an extra hour to make it to our hotel because of them. Later we would find out that there had been a shooting at the Holocaust Museum and a security guard had been shot and killed. We had been scheduled to go to the museum the next morning. I realize that eighth grade doesn't seem like that long ago but I don't remember this event sticking as a tragedy. I don't remember if there had been extensive news coverage about it. I remember being sad and that's it.

I did however, find this on someone else's Facebook. According to that caption, it was taken inside the Capitol Building and I suppose I just have to believe them.

When I was a senior in high school, I joined a community service trip through my local YMCA and accompanied them on a trip to New Orleans to help restore wetland growth and rebuild homes that were still in dire need of repairs after Hurricane Katrina. 

This photo was taken about twenty minutes after we first heard news about the bombing of the Boston Marathon. It was pouring rain that day and we were all standing in a garden full of mud, huddled around someone's phone, trying to listen to CNN reports. We were scared for our loved ones who may or may not have been in Boston at the time. We only lived 20 minutes outside of Boston. We felt that crushing blow. 

And still, we continued on with our work, tirelessly trying to ensure that a family had a home to come back to finally.  Each day we were skim coating drywall and each night we were sitting in the community room of the volunteer camp where we were staying, eyes glued to the news as more details came to light about the Boston bombing.

It was terrifying and emotional. I think we all cried at least a little when the manhunt was finally over but the most distinct memory for me was actually feeling like a community. We were Boston at that moment. As scared as we all were, we were there to support each other. 

That brings me to the tragedy of Charlie Hebdo. I think this is the only post I will make on the subject because I have a lot of conflicting feeling on the subject but, I will say that I am a journalist and I was in Europe at the time of the shootings. If anything, I was thankful to be surrounded by fellow journalists because for the most part, I knew that they were thinking some of the same things. We were all thinking carefully about our rights of free speech and how important, and possibly taken for granted, they are. We felt the crushing loss of these men and women as both people and journalists and I was more than thankful that at least we could try to combat and overcome that loss together. 

Searching

I am third generation Irish American and I did not come to Ireland looking for my family.

To be fair, I specifically didn’t come looking for family because I knew I wouldn’t find any. For the Jermyn’s, Walsh’s, and Davis’, the early 20^th century was the perfect time to uproot themselves and head to America. However, after finding out that the class would make a trip to Belfast, I did create a goal for myself: I wanted to go to the Titanic Museum and look at the passenger manifest. When I did so, I was looking for one specific name: Ms. Annie Jane Jermyn.

The exterior of the museum at night. I found it this to be in slightly poor taste but the whole thing is supposed to resemble an iceberg  

When I was in fourth grade, my class did a project on the heritage of each individual student. My Nana was the keeper of the records and my main source of information for this project. 

My cousin Jake, my Nana, and I

She told me all about my Great Grandmother who came over from Italy at the age of 18 and was the first woman in her community to learn how to drive and get her license. She let me make scans of the immigration papers of both of her parents and told me all about her life growing up during the great depression but what she left out was information about my Grandfather’s side of the family, the side that gave me my surname. After continuously asking for more information in what was probably a pestering manner, she offered me three facts:

1.     The names of my Great Grandparents were Mary and Elmer Jermyn and they had a turkey farm

2.     My Great Great Grandfather’s name was George

3.     We did have a relative on the Titanic. She was 3^rd class and she still survived

At this point in my life, I was just beginning to develop my acute obsession with all things related to the Titanic and this final fact was the one that really stuck with me but at that point in my life, jumping on Google and digging into records wasn’t easy as it is for me now.

Going to the Titanic Museum in Belfast last week rekindled my desire to know more about this family member. As I got to the section of the gallery that talked about the aftermath of the disaster, visitors were invited to browse through the passenger manifest on digital tablets. I immediately searched for the name Jermyn. Annie, age 26, popped up immediately but something was wrong: her nationality was listed as Danish.

I didn’t know that a mistake like that would affect me so much but I realized that the error was still in the back of my mind as we got back to Dublin that night so I decided to send a note of complaint to the museum. I informed them of the problem and even directed them to an article from Annie’s hometown and an article from an American newspaper talking about her experience as proof of her nationality. As of this time, I still have yet to hear back from anyone.

After I sent that message, I felt compelled to do some more digging. I wanted to know more about Annie because I felt a strange connection with her. She was only a few years older than me when she left for America. I could imagine her being as scared as I was to come on this trip.

I ended up finding a family photograph that must have been taken just a few years before she made her journey to America.

Annie Jane is in the top row, the third from the left

 I also found a census record for her family, taken in 1901. It was very sobering to see her siblings’ names listed out. 

It must have been so hard to leave them behind. I know how hard it is to say goodbye to my brother when I go back to school.

My brother Cole and I in Millennium Park the month before I started college

No one seems to know what happened to Annie in the end. Supposedly she fell in love with a man who was deemed unsuitable and her family estranged her. Not much has been recorded after that point but it was still important for me to find out about this part of my heritage that I knew so little about before. Now I can consider myself the family expert.

Dún Laoghaire or Bust

When I travel, I try to commit to mastering, or at least getting a solid handle on, whatever form of public transport a city offers. In Paris, I got on and off the Métro with liberal usage of “pardon,” but I still managed to get from Point A to Point B. In London, I felt as comfortable on the tube as I feel on the CTA. So far while in Dublin, I’ve managed myself pretty well on the city bus and the DART. Taking the DART to Dún Laoghaire, the system was far cleaner, comfier, and easier to use than I ever expected. The only real trip up seemed to be the tag-on-tag-off system of ticketing that jogged my memory as being eerily similar to London’s system—therefore, a piece of cake.

 The Sunday market in People’s Park is a must hit for foodies and families alike. Even in the winter off-season, there are several stalls and purveyors of food and goods alike happy to serve you. Perhaps something from Crêpes in the City  will make your stomach grumble even through it can’t have been more than an hour since breakfast. Yes, this was my exact situation and yes, I did remedy said situation with a crêpe. Specifically one filled with ham, cheese, sundried tomato pesto, and salad greens—not the easiest thing to eat but filling and warm on a chilly, yet typical, Irish winter day. The chocolate and marshmallow filled option also caught my eye and seems like the perfect fare to sit and admire all of the dogs in the park. If you make it down to the shore and brave the wind without wimping out, kudos to you. I think I lasted a total of twenty minutes before my hands started to cramp up from the cold. Shame me for forgetting my gloves. The view from the pier is quite expansive and on better days it seems like it would be well worth it to wander out to the lighthouse or take in some of the local performers with an ice cream in hand.

 Walking back towards dry land, you may think you’ve stumbled into a Wes Anderson movie when you spot the Royal Marine Hotel farther up the embankment. A pale shade of pink, with ornate white trimmings, the hotel resembles a perfectly frosted cake and would fit right in with the (sadly) fictional Society of the Crossed Keys. The lobby of the hotel doesn’t match the candy-coated exterior but with a cup of Earl Grey in hand, looking out at the Irish Sea, who wouldn't want to imagine Bill Murray as your concierge, standing diligently behind the front desk awaiting your beck and call?

Side Effects

Jet lag is a cruel mistress.

You really can't get around that one without cursing every time change repeatedly. I think maybe it should come with the same sort of warning that comes with medications. Things like, may cause nausea, vomiting, and middle-of-the-night panic attacks that leave you crying hysterically in a hotel bathroom so you don't wake your roommate up. Those are all true things by the way. My first night in Dublin was pretty tough to say the least but with a few hours of sleep in me, as well as some much needed coffee, I managed to get my butt in gear and conquer day two (or at least not collapse in a heap in some alleyway).

This is kind of just a generic update because we haven't done anything major yet but I wanted to make sure anyone who was curious about my trip, got a little taste of what was going on.

Also I wanted to share this killer street art that I very much adore.

Dublin, I may be your problem but you're certainly not mine.

Essential Packing Tips for the Lazy, Neurotic, and Book-loving

As much as I travel, I never seem to a handle on packing. I am famous for over packing a duffle bag or two only to spend the entire duration of my trip wearing the same three or four things over and over again. I think the problem is being raised with the notion of “better safe than sorry,” drilled into my head. My mother would always send me off on journeys into questionable New England weather with a raincoat and an umbrella just in case.

I have perused many an online article and countless info graphics promising to teach me how to pack my entire life into a carry on suitcase, or at least prepare for a three-week long journey but constantly I am thrown by the endless possibilities of traveling. How can I be sure that the weather will hold long enough to ensure that I don’t need to pack rain boots, especially  for a country like Ireland where a forecast full of rain is a certain as a bar having Guinness on tap. This time around I remedied the problem, as saved precious suitcase space, by only selecting two sturdy and flat pairs of boots, liberally coated in waterproofing substances.

In terms of actually dressing for any winter trip that isn’t to a tropical locale, dark colors ensure that items can be worn multiple times without showing wear and if you plan everything out just right, they are also all items that can be layered for whatever occasions pop up. Basic skirts can be layered with knit tights and sweaters for day outings and dressed up with a nicer shirt and a change of shoes for going to a nicer restaurant. Try to avoid packing things with wild patterns for these exact reasons.

Now packing a backpack or a purse is a completely different ballgame because more often than not, that is going to include everything that refuses to fit itself into your carry on, as well as toiletries that need to be taken out at security and whatever you want to entertain yourself on the flight.

If you don’t feel physically connected to your laptop, try to leave it at home. Check to see if your hotel has a business center where you can check your email if need be. Even better, if you’re lucky maybe your final destination has taken a leap into the future and installed free public Wi-Fi hotspots like Dublin has. If you are part of smartphone culture, you can use these locations to your heat’s content without eating into your data usage while being charged exorbitant international fees if you are indeed abroad like I will be.

I always keep a book in my backpack, especially if I am traveling. I never really got the hang of E-Readers and my apologies to the trees but I much prefer the feel of a paperback in my hands.  If you do prefer your Kindle to hardcopy, more power to you. You’ll probably end up with a bunch more space for any souvenirs you pick up along the way. If you’re like me, try to limit what you bring along to one sizable paperback or maybe two if one is really slim. This makes me feel guilty when I make my typical pilgrimage to a independent bookstore wherever I am to pick up a novel written by a local author. My picks for this trip ended up being a copy of The Beautiful and the Damned that has been sitting unread on the bookshelf of my childhood bedroom, likely since I impulsively bought it in high school, and The Body by Jenny Boully that was a Christmas present. Note: The Body is very slim and also considered an essay so I managed not to break my own rule.

The Body can be purchased here.

The Beautiful and the Damned can be purchased here.

This post from Oh Happy Day details how to pack for a 2 week France trip in only a carry on. It's a good starting place to practice your packing prowess. 

For more info on Dublin's wifi hotspots, see this article.