The Post Where I Break Things and Get Confused

This semester I discovered I have this really amazing talent.

I can break things without touching them.

Awesome, right?

The first thing I broke was a bracelet from Icing. It was made out of old fashioned looking keys and was completely gorgeous. I'd only had it a day and I was in love with it enough to wear it on the first day of classes.

I was sitting on a patch of grass, catching up with some friends when I noticed my bracelet wasn't on my wrist. I quickly searched for it on the ground, hoping it hadn't gone the way of my dearly departed claddagh ring. It hadn't, but it was snapped in two, not a foot away from my hand.

I was a bit confused, because how did it break like that without me noticing? It was a pretty thick bracelet.

I decided not be bothered by it, and put its pieces in my purse to superglue later. Except when I took out the two shards to fix them, there were three of them. It had broke even more. At which point I was like, "fuck it," and tossed the bracelet pieces onto my dresser where they remain to this day.

Unless they've broken into four without me noticing.

Because I also managed to break this awesome clock keychain. Or it broke itself. Whatever really happened I might never know, but about a week ago, I was reaching around for my keys when I noticed that, oh hey, I had the clock bit but not the key bit. I freaked out for a second, but luckily I found them because I wouldn't want to owe my school the eighty million qruadrillion dollars I know they'd charge me. (Just kidding, it'd probably be something like 400 dollars. You know, something reasonable.)

Anyway, that's when I noticed that the keychainy thing that held the key part of the keychain (you can tell I'm a writer) and the mini clock was completely missing. As opposed to sort of missing. And I was confused again.

But I managed to fix it, by screwing the keyring with keys to the watch bit. Except then that broke like a day later, and I can't even figure out how that happened, but apparently I give up easily because after that I was just like, "whatever, I never figured out how to set you, anyway," to the mini clock, and now I don't even bother with it.

(I don't really give up easily. PS.)

Still alive, I promise

I swear I haven't abandoned you guys.

I'm just lazy.

Sometimes.

Anyway.

Hi, let's reunite. I'm Ashley and I want to go back to Ireland wicked bad and not much else is new, except for the stuff that is.

Oh! And I turned 21! Awesome, right? Finally a birthday I can be stoked about, except now that it's over, all the others will be a little sad. I mean, who wants to turn 22? I actually may have said something like that on my birthday, and I may have accidentally offended someone, but I can't completely remember.

Oh, and another, sadder thing? I lost the claddagh ring I got in Galway. SAD. Especially considering how I lost it. I was at work, at the cash register, and my ring was a bit loose. At some point, it must have fallen off my hand into some customer's bag. When I noticed, I was absolutely, a million percent heart broken. I almost cried. I started picturing the customer. I imagined that they must be the worst kind of customer. One of the old, Floridian retirees with summer homes, who stop at absolutely nothing to get their bahhhgains. And my ring must have been the ultimate bargain to them, the kind they would brag about to all their other Floridian retiree friends with summer homes, about how they got this ring for free, and their friends would all be speechless because they were about to brag about how they got this ugly pink visor for 20 percent off because there was a string hanging from it, but they know they've got nothing on a free ring from Ireland. So they suggest a game of Yahtzee instead to hide their shame.

I was devastated.

Other things happened, too, but that was definitely the saddest part of my summer.

I had another story, but I've already forgotten what it was supposed to be.

Anyway, I'm back now, and I'm definitely going to be blogging more.

The Revenge of Helen Keller

A while ago-- weeks, already, don't ask me how-- my Vermont besties, Meg and Ryan, came to the Cape for a week. And by came, I mean they suddenly appeared in my doorway. You know, homeless and stuff. Except not really because it was all planned by everyone except me. I have NO CLUE how they managed to keep it a secret, but it was funny, Meg was all, "didn't you think it was strange that your parents bought a new air mattress and a bunch of other stuff?" and I was all, "no, my parents are weird!"

Anyhoo, I guess we must be weird, too, because what we ended up doing most of the time (in between going to the drive ins and P-town and clubbing and stuff) was laughing about Helen Keller.

(I'm pretty sure he was pretending to be Helen Keller.)

They liked the fact that Cape Cod has a bunch of braille trails. The kind with ropes to hold on to while you walk, attached to splintery wooden posts that you smack your hands against because you're blind and can't see them.

Like this:

(Conveniently, this trail's winding and there's also lots of roots to trip on!)

But yeah, we laughed at her lots. I mean, with her. I guess she started to get annoyed with it. (Though she had to admit that I hula hooped just like her.)

See? Just. Like. Helen. Keller.

Anyway, the last night they were on Cape, we were figuring out what to do. I didn't get out of work till ten at night and they were leaving at like one in the morning (slight exaggeration), so they didn't want to do anything too intense. SO, we went with the obvious option of going back to Johnny Kelly Park with a ouija board to contact Helen Keller's ghost. Obvious choice.

Since the Cape doesn't believe in street lights of any kind, it was wicked dark and sketchy and we ended up never even taking the ouija board out if the box. We just huddled on a piece of playground equipment like cool kids and giggled. (See?? We are so cool!) We stayed like that for a couple minutes before I mentioned that Helen Keller's ghost doesn't talk, it touches. Which, you know, was a great idea, because then we kept expecting Helen Keller to reach out and touch us and got wicked sketched out and ran away via the slide. Zak Bagans would be so proud. Except not, because we never yelled at her, bro.

(The funny thing is that I was hanging out with another friend a few nights later, and we decided to walk around a graveyard because we were bored, and it was only a little sketchy.)

Anyway, as we were going down the slide, the strap of my purse broke. Right away, I knew is was the ghost of Helen Keller. Touching my purse.

That was pretty anticlimactic. But, you know, Helen Keller hates climaxes.

airports suck

It was worth it last night when I didn't go to bed, but now I'm suffering. I have three hours before my plane boards, and then seven hours in the air, and then two hours driving from Boston to the Cape. I think I might die. Especially since the only food I have on me is the chocolate I bought my family (and I already ate way too much of that for breakfast because, um, I've been completely broke for a while) and I just feel like crying, but I think that might be a bad thing, considering where I am. But, really, I just want to start bawling because I don't feel well and I don't wanna go yet and airports suck.

I'm sure everything will be good once I'm actually home, but I hate change sometimes (like now). And I'm really tired. Not that I've been anything but a ball of emotions this week. Really, it's been crazy.

Ahhhhhhhh I wanna cry!

The Garda Won't Let Blarney Castle Keep Their Weed

Or, Cork part 2!

My second day at Cork started fantastically; my camera fell off my bunk bed. Yay! I was stoked, obviously.

Actually, though, I wasn't too worried, because my camera was at least still working. I mean, the little door thing covering the place you put the batteries in (I'm wicked technical, yo) wouldn't completely close, but as long as I held it shut, it would still take pictures. Then, it stopped and I was completely and utterly devastated. But I'll get to that later.

(I swear, though, I could write an entire blog about nothing but technology hating me. In the past month, I've had my laptop break, my camera break, my favorite coat ever got stolen-- which totally counts; coats were technology once! I bet if a cave man saw my coat, he'd be wicked impressed!-- and today, my iPod broke. But then it.. unbroke, so that wasn't too bad. Technically. Anyway, I basically have a black thumb, but with technology instead of gardening. Everything I touch falls apart. Except for phones, for some reason. Watch, though-- I probably just jinxed myself.)

Anyway, the day before, I was told that I absolutely had to go to Blarney Castle, no excuses. So I did. I mean, my schedule was completely open. Completely. Honestly, when I chose to go to Cork, I chose it on the basis that everyone said it was really pretty. No other reason. Nothing else. So, I was just basically going to go where everyone said was cool. So, I did.

And, oh my God, I don't regret it at all.

Blarney Castle was amazing. And the grounds were beautiful beyond words. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Okay, I lied. Still talking. BUT LOOK HOW PRETTY THE CASTLE IS.

And, oh, look, there are trees! Finally, finally trees! (It's impossible to say how much I've missed frolicking around in the woods!) And it's sunny! Crazy, ridiculously sunny! And the grass is GREEN! Ahhhh I love nature!!

And then, I got closer to the castle. And it was awesome. Just as awesome as Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland. Different, though; it goes up instead of spreading across the land.

It was all so gorgeous, and I was so excited to take a million pictures. I was so excited to post them all on facebook, too. But, oh, the drama, it was not to be. I got to take two more pictures, and then my camera died. I could have cried.

The last picture I got to take before my camera died. FOREVER. Or three days. But, it felt like FOREVER. It was legit awful, guys.

I managed to still have fun, though. (So much fun.) I played around on the castle. And then I nearly died climbing up it. It's kind of pathetic, probably, but I absolutely hate climbing up spiral staircases. They terrify me. And to get to the top of the castle, you have to climb up approximately one million of them. And they're all completely made of stone. Ancient stone, partially weathered away by centuries and centuries of feet. And that made them slippery. Oh, and they were steep. And I'm short. (Especially in Ireland. Oh my God. Land of leprechauns? Yeah, um, no. Giants, more like.) Oh, and, also, to climb them, you have to cling on desperately to a rope.

It was sort of petrifying.

I had the most fun once I got out of the castle and got to see more of the grounds. These grounds were about eight million, give or take a couple, times as beautiful as the ones in the beginning. And I have no pictures of them.

Sad face.

Anyway, the first thing I did when I got out of the castle (besides buy batteries, in the desperate hope that that was all my camera needed. It didn't work, and I was sad) was go to the poison garden. It was awesome. It was something I would have adored back when I was a little kid and liked to make magic potions with leaves and dirt and stuff. Though-- who am I kidding-- part of me (most of me) would still totally love doing that. And the poison garden was still wicked fantastic.

The best part, though, was the fact that they used to have a marijuana plant growing there. But, the Garda-- the Irish police-- confiscated it. No lie. There was even a notification-- it made me laugh, so I made sure to write it down-- saying, "We apologize for the absence of this plant. It has been seized by the Garda."

I KNOW RIGHT.

And then my camera went into a coma.

Cork? Was awesome. Except for the fact that my camera kind of broke. Except I think it's actually working again, now, which is weird. I'll take it, though, after four days of seeing beautiful, beautiful places and not being able to keep any of them. Because as awful as it is to say, my memory isn't nearly enough.

Really, what did people do before cameras? I mean, I know that people traveled loads less back in the day, but there were still those who sailed to different continents and stuff. And yeah, some of them painted what they saw, but not everyone has, um, artistic talent. I could try to draw Cork for you guys, but I can't promise that it would a actually look like Cork. Or anywhere in Ireland. Or anywhere in anywhere. You know.

So, I'm picturing explorers coming back from the sea to their homes, their family, and their friends, and trying to describe it all.

"Aw, man, dude, it was wicked, like, just legit, you know? There was, like, grass and stuff, and it was really long, right? Like really long, and there were trees and they were really tall! And then, there were these weird fucking animals, dude, with these crazy beard things. Oh, and one of them ate Paul. Yeah, sorry about that. He tried to pet it. His bad. But, like, other than that, it was like one big party, you know?"

See? It doesn't work. Especially if you're on opium, like that dude apparently was.

Anyhoo, I'll have more on Cork later. Including pictures from when my camera was actually cooperating!

(Technology really, really doesn't like me, does it?)

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvivteevvvvvtvpeevvtig5vvv

It seems like every so often, everyone's laptop will blow up and die. Well, minus the blowing up part. Hopefully.

The keyboard of my beloved Macbook has decided that working's for losers. Really, it was only a matter of time before my laptop called it quits, considering that it has, um, holes in it, around the thing you plug your charger in. Okay, so time hasn't been too kind to my laptop. (Sort of like how that flight of stairs it tripped down freshman year, or that day last year it tumbled off my bed twice in a row, or that time my little brother spilled a glass of water on it haven't been particularly kind to it, either.) But, still, I was kind of surprised when I got up for a second to grab some food, and when I came back, the 'z' key wouldn't work. And then five minutes later, when all I could type was, "vvvvvvvvvvvvvvivteevvvvvtvpeevvtig5vvv," because by then almost none of the keys were working, except for the 'v' which wouldn't stop working. And then when none of them worked.

Maybe I'd have been more surprised if my laptop was the only one with suicidal tendencies. But in the past two weeks alone, half of everyone has had something tragic happen to their computer. And even though that's an exaggeration, it's not as big of one as you'd think.

I'm lucky, though, because my mom actually made me bring her old laptop over with me, because she knew mine was bound to die here, what with its holes and all. Of course, I'm totally brilliant and completely forgot about it until yesterday, but it's nice to be able to post on facebook again.

Oh, and complete change of subject, but spring break is next week! I'm still not sure what I'm going to do-- pretty much everyone else is leaving Ireland, but I don't have the money, so I'm staying. I'm definitely going to travel around Ireland, though. I just need to figure out how to get away from Dublin and book hostels and stuff. I'm wicked stoked. I've never traveled alone before in my life, but it's going to be absolutely amazing, I know.

Casper Shaggs the Friendly Horse

This is Casper Shaggs. We went hiking, and he ate my sandwich.

I'd post more, but I'm really, really tired. Not because of the hiking, though. That would be really pathetic, since that happened a week ago. I'm tired just because I'm tired. I know; this is totes a ravishingly interesting blog entry. But the horse is pretty nifty.

Dear person who found my blog by searching for, "stds from hookers in dublin,"

Thank you!

I have been waiting for someone to find me with some creepy sexual google search since, well, the day I started this blog! So, I've been waiting for more than a year. That's a long time.

This feeling is so fun. You know, everyone should have the chance to have a dream or two of theirs realized. The world would just be so much happier.

Love, Me.

PS. Since you seemed to be wondering, you're probably better off not seeking prostitutes at all, from anywhere. Maybe get a girlfriend, yeah? Oh, and you're welcome. Have the best day ever.

The Mean Streets of Cape Cod

Us Cape Codders? We're tough. We have to be.

If we aren't, the turkeys will get us.

They smell fear, you know.

I Got Laughed at by a Group of Irish School Children

True story, actually.

I was walking back from class with a couple of my friends, talking. I don't remember about what, but I'm sure it was ridiculously interesting and stuff. Anyway, as this was all going on, we started to walk past a group of little seven year old girls. Who promptly burst out laughing. One even gleefully shouted, "her voice!"

I was sad. Except not, because I figured they were talking about my accent. That would be understandable, right? American accents are probably pretty weird. But, according to Amber and Ashley, the friends I was walking with, they were definitely talking about the pitch of my voice. Huh. My life.

Bright side? I can add that to my list of authentic Irish experiences. First Guinness- check. First visit to the rugged Irish seaside- check. First time being made fun of by toddlers- check.

Yay.

The Human Centipede. Or, my eyes are never gonna be the same.

I'm not really sure why The Human Centipede is called The Human Centipede. If I had made it, which I wouldn't evereverever anyway, I would have called it, "OH MY GOD HOLY CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK OH SHIT MY EYES." Or something like that. I mean, I think it has a pretty nice ring.

True story, don't watch this movie.

There are no words to describe its horrors. But, know that even a compostable bag of sun chips crackling over and over again in your ears wouldn't be enough to silence what takes place in it. Which means that nothing is. Nothing. Don't watch it.

Watching this movie is being like being some sort of Alaskan fish, slammed out of life by Sarah Palin just as you're about to make it to the safe shores of Russia. It's like never finding Nemo. Like being one of Sid's toys in Toy Story. Like living in a world where everyone is Nigel Thornberry, and Nigel Thornberry is a cannibal. Like dying a hundred million trillion and five times in the worst way possible times a gazillion.

It's like being tortured and having your knee caps and teeth removed, your mouth sewn to some dude's ass, and-- OH WAIT.

Yeah.

Nigel Thornberry. Nnnghjshsnort.

Lately has been ridiculous. In someways awful, in someways not awful, and in someways just weird. In lots of ways really confusing. I'm not going to go to in depth, because this is the interwebs and stuff, but it was the kind of week (well, the end half of it) where everything felt blurred and impossible. Like, true story, wednesday felt like tuesday and thursday combined, while thursday felt like wednesday.

Oh, and I saw some guy sleeping on a roof, in windy, 20 degree weather.

And we still haven't had actual snow. The fuck, right?

Well, I'll leave with the parting words of the immortal and smashing (poppet) Nigel Thornberry, "Ngnnggisdffff."

*Not my picture. The interweb's picture. Though it is my facebook profile picture. I think there's a striking resemblance.

Granite World! Yeah!

There's this little store in Hyannis called Granite World. I think it sells granite. And, it makes me laugh. I mean, "Granite World." That's basically the most exciting world ever, right? It's like Candy Land. But with Granite. Granite lollipops, chocolate flavored granite, granite flavored chocolate. The possibilities are endless.

You know, I think all stores should be named like that. Like, Shaws could be Grocery World. Best Buy could be Electronic Shit World. Or Stuff I Can't Do World. Everything would just be so much more exciting. Or something.

(I'm bored. And tired. But mostly, I really really don't want to do my homework. Sadface.)

I Woke Up Flapping My Arms

True story, actually.

I had the weirdest dream last night, though I really just remember the end of it.

I was walking along the beach with Michael Cera and some really, really British actor with brown hair who may or may not be a real person. (Also, the British actor earlier told me that the Christmas Tree Shops that do the best are the ones with the most books. Pretty sure that's not true, but that's actually the only part of the dream I remember that wasn't at the very end.)

We kept walking farther and farther along the beach, talking about something I can't remember. I started to walk through a tide pool, when the little shrimp swimming in it rose out of the water and started to fly. Oh, holy shit. They began flying all around me, buzzing and buzzing. I freaked out, of course, and waved my arms around like a crazy person terrified of being bitten. Which I was still doing when I woke up. It was pretty awkward. And really terrifying, actually. I don't do bugs. Nor little fish turned into bugs. Especially not them.

It was wicked sketch.

Updateish

So, I was just looking at my blog stats, pretending, as I like to do, that I have readers. I was going down the list of visitors... me, me, me, probably me-- oh, hey, dude from Romania. So, I officially have an international blog. Except, not really. Honestly, I don't even think that's a real term. And, anyway, the dude only stayed for, "zero seconds." (Which makes sense. I basically have the least awesome blog in the world.) What's funny is that he found me by searching, "I've been wicked busy lately." How random is that? I mean, I'm pretty sure that people in Romania don't use the word, "wicked." I'm pretty sure they don't use English very often, either, but even the ones that do, I doubt they know all the region specific slang words, even crazy awesome ones like wicked.

Also, I'm really sorry I haven't been able to write a goodish blog post lately. Somuchworksomuchworksomuchworkholyshit. I have to write the rough draft of an entire play by Sunday night. I'm six pages in and it's going to end up at at least twenty. Probably thirty. Probably more. But, it's actually coming okay, so far. I'm really shit at dialogue, of course, but it isn't totally awful, I don't think. If it comes out okay, I might post it? I'm thinking of maybe later, turning it into a short story, since I like to think I'm better at those.

Oh, Hey

I'm even more officially going to Ireland! Plane tickets equal bought. Now, I just hope that the plane doesn't crash. And that we don't get any turbulence, because if that happened, I know I'd freak out really pathetically. People would point and laugh. It would be terrible.

I kind of wish I could skip the plane ride all together, though. Or, take a boat. That would be pretty badass, actually. I could be all, "I'm on a boat," and then everybody'd be all, "aw shit!" and get wicked jealous. And since I was a pirate for Halloween, I could totally wear my costume on the boat or something. Like, the whole time. Which would definitely be the best thing ever. Basically.

I'm really tired. I promise I'll have a real blog post soon, though!

Dreams and Sleep and Stuff and also I really hope I'm not pyschic

I mostly don't sleep like a normal person. Most people go to sleep, stay asleep, and finally wake up with their alarm clock. I wake up about 80 times, usually. Which I don't mind. It makes my nights of spacing out under warm covers last longer.

The other night, though, I didn't wake up at all until 11:00, with the screaming of my alarm clock. And I was really confused. For a good minute, I just sat on my bed, light pouring in through the window shades and my alarm clock still blaring (luckily, the roommates weren't there), trying to figure out where I was (I didn't recognize my own bedroom? Yeah, I don't know, either) and what was going on. It was sketch, dood.

Then, last night, I dreamt that I was in an airport, about to go to Ireland, and I was totally positive that the plane was going to crash and we were all going to die*. I was kind of freaking out. I even thought about tossing away my plane ticket and hopping a boat to Europe. After a little while of just worrying and worrying and panicking and panicking, I finally just asked this dude who worked at the airport how common plane crashes were, hoping that he'd say something about them never ever happening ever. Well, that wasn't what happened. Nope, he was all like, "yeah, actually, we had one yesterday. Their bodies are still on the runway! lol!" And I was like, "what the fuck, dream?!"

*Actually, it was my second, "oh holy shit the plane to Ireland is totally gonna blow up or something and I'm gonna die," dream in a month. It's awkward.

I'm not dead

Sorry I've been such a fail blogger. I've been wicked busy, lately...

I promise I'll post something that's actually something sometime soon.

<3

Typos are Fun

I just made the best typo ever.

I was writing this sentance (well, it's actually just part of the sentance, but you know): "The wind was gentle," only I'm totally an amazing speller and spelled gentle, "gental." Well, Word, in its infinite wisdom, figured that I obviously must have meant genital.

Yup. My sentence now reads, "The wind was genital."

I think it's amazing.

I almost want to keep it that way, just for the laughs.