Yes. To calm myself, I often need to double my difficulties to make them bearable.
I’d read her grocery list.
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On Friday night, I made a Nigella Lawson recipe: lentils and sausages. Very comforting, a good prescription for the rundown, but so many lentils. I have now had lentils for both an early and late breakfast. At this moment they rest in the office kitchen fridge. Waiting. Possibly breeding.
I attended a movie double bill on Saturday afternoon as part of the Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF): Palestinian filmmaker and actor Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention and It Must Be Heaven. Both excellent. The final scenes of the latter film particularly powerful. There is a tarot reading, some dancing, a woman walking.
Afterwards, I sat in a bar and overheard a man say how he had lost all respect for JD Vance. I suppose I’ll take the train arriving eventually over it not arriving at all.
On Sunday, I went to another DIFF double bill in Dublin Port (great venue!) to watch a short documentary about the canning industry in San Pedro, California and the Gene Kelly musical Anchors Aweigh. First time seeing it and I loved it, my sister said none of the songs were remotely memorable, but I maintained I still loved it. Great colours, great dancing, Dean Stockwell so cute the audience awwwed.
Afterward, we got some Japanese food and my sister read my tarot. I made a decision a few weeks ago and yesterday the cards ‘affirmed’ my choice. I’m not really into anything with a hint of the supernatural, I don’t trifle with God and his various cousins living in the ether and in fairy forts, but I do like to be told I’m right. Or at least that I’m going to be alright.
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A short story of mine was shortlisted for the Bournemouth Writing Prize. It’s called The Dimmed Tide and was inspired by the movie Aliens, good hotels, and a very famous Yeats poem. It will be published by the small Dorset-based press Dithering Chaps in an anthology in late April. You’ll be able to order it online. I’ll share the link when it’s live.
I’m delighted, that story knocked on lot of doors. It got great feedback from a handful of places, so I trusted it would eventually find a place. I’m very excited that it will exist in a book. But I have to repeat to myself that writing is different from being published and both of these are very different from being read and I’ve only control over the first action. Onto the next thing now.
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If you’re based in/near Dublin and love a table quiz and want to help with a fundraiser for a North East Inner City arts festival writing competition, I’m organising a table quiz in town this Thursday evening. Pop along, €20 a table, nice raffle.
