August 1999

Sunday August 1^st – Interviewed/hired by The Clarence Hotel as a maid, five days a week. This meant she had to quit at a place she’d just been hired, Pasta di Milano, in the midst of (paid) job training, which obviously didn’t please them at all. Just as obviously under the circumstances, there was no way she could have turned it down. On the same day she ended up meeting and sitting down at a coffee shop with a grey-haired man she’d passed multiple times on the street; the fascination had obviously been mutual; his name was Ochine. Through him she met Joe, who was sitting with another woman who was Swiss.

August 10^th – Got ticket to see Cave at the Liss Ard Festival in Skibbereen after all. Read an article from the Sunday paper about delusive 30-something women who failed to come to terms with their own needs and poured all of their emotion and lack of fulfillment into a protracted imaginary boyfriend, sadly knowing that if she made disclosure to anyone, she’d be labeled a walking textbook case. But wasn’t the fact that she was here indication enough that she was fully willing to terminate the delusion, if that was what it was? If there was no reaction or response, she understood the outcomes; it was a threshold she would not cross. It would work to end it, and that ultimatum was what she was bracing herself for. It was a day of doubt but at the same time she felt no one on earth could have had a construct as immaculately complex or involved as her own. She hadn’t ended up there easily.

August 11^th – Went on the roof and pulled her shades on and scattered her hair over her eyes so she could watch the eclipse, the first over Ireland since 1927, with the next being in 2090, which for her given her attempted advent over the water was chalk full of symbolic import, imputed by what her presumed target had laid out in song (not to mention she’d just been hired by his hotel). It was even signified almost literally in that sense that the path of the eclipse actually began over Halifax (Canada) crossed the Atlantic, only to hit its zenith over Cornwall where Cave was to perform at Liss Ard, the same festival she was set to see him at in Skibbereen. Unfortunately the million souls who gathered to see it in Cornwall didn’t, thanks to rain. But over Dublin the view was just fine. She could see the shrinking sliver clearly, and felt the unnatural cold accompanying the shade as it grew darker and darker. She could tell it was not quite total. The diffracting effect of her hair shielding her eyes made it look like the frozen explosion of a firecracker that would glance, dance and shift with any head movement; fun to play with. On Monday she’d read a huge article about it representing a mass paradigm shift in humanity’s thinking.

August 13^th – Was examining “new” U2 CD’s of the perhaps bootlegged variety. She noticed that there was a picture behind the CD and cautiously opened it. There Bono’s smiling glowing face practically loomed out of the picture, his hands clasped together in a traditional prayer supplication. Oh Jesus Christ! (Not that she actually thought God’s name in vain, but the emotion in extremis was just that.) She slammed the CD shut. How typical of you to project that, she thought. How over the top. It feels covertly targeted, even though that’s not possible. Wait, she smiled wryly. That was how you felt about it, then. (It was the Zooropa end of the tour.) Mild wry amusement.

If he were to put in another photo later, he would appear pissed off. Which led her to speculate about the next live offering, which was PoP. Maybe there’s a back photo there as well. (Gentlemen, lay your bets.) Sure enough. An even closer shot, head cocked and brows glowering. Gales and hoots of laughter for over a minute. Of course. She just died. His middle finger was perilously close to flipping the bird. Fuck you! With the coy upturned edges of an almost smile. But not quite. That image too comes off as posed. That’s part of the fun. The sentiment is projected, intended. Expected. Part played.

Fuck, let’s get this over with. The game is nearly finished.

Back to the open, open face. Man you were zonked. Look at those pupils!

We had to kill that image, you know, for both of us.

I’m sorry.

You don’t know it, but it had to be done.

Friday August 13^th – Went on a camping trip to Monaghan with Irish friends (Luke and Jeannette in particular) for the motorcycle racing. Somewhat of a lost weekend under a yellow sickle moon and the Milky Way stars. Got kissed by a girl. Had her first real Irish breakfast. After a couple of nigh sleepless nights ended up languidly wandering the grounds of Castle Leslie, followed by a lake and a pasture where she was greeted by a bay colt and his grey dam, which fulfilled her ambition for a country weekend, meeting horses. She was infinitely thankful just to have finally made it into the countryside.

On Sunday she read that the body transmits radio signals. Did that have something to do with it? Maybe Stipe was right.

August 18^th - Found article “A Mystery in the Sky Bewilders Scientists”. It made her think of the Star of Bethlehem, and appeared to have been even more bemusing to scientists than that had been for the Magi, and, appeared in the sky three years before, putting it near when…. A star that “read” like a perpetual supernova. Most anyone’s rejoinder when she told them about it was “It’s the end of the world.” But it lightened Sabrina. She used the article to deter and comfort her; she’d brought up having contemplation of suicide. Ray’s head soared on the thought that there really is one, there really is one, except, she was “Rachel” now. She was working when she found the article and was told that Bono was simultaneously downstairs at the Octagon, which made her feel like losing her mind. Do you know what, Bono, there really is one. There really is a Star…to Sabrina she said, “Do you know how frustrating this is?” Maria had snuck them up to view the penthouse suite; ₤6000.00 a night. When she found out he was in the bar, she was in the penthouse, having just found the article that morning. Based on Sabrina’s advice she’d requested days off the following week, not knowing the outcome of the request for hours, it got put on hold. Afterwards at Joe’s she ended up staring far too intently into the intricate carvings of the antique table; it prompted him to ask, “What’s wrong with you?” Upon explanation he responded, “It will happen.”

August 19^th - She found out about the birth of Bono’s baby boy. Congratulations to you both. Apparently he was in the Octagon a second time, and she’d missed him at the studio because he came at three, not in the morning.

She officially registered with the gardai as a “Resident Alien”. 

Aug 21^st –She saw Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters at The Vicar (he/they of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” –he on whom this character in “Across the Universe” was based). Bad drinking combo all ‘round all night, started by a bottle of bad red wine consumed solo, followed by a massive shot/chaser of good sherry, topped off by a double whiskey and coke with the Canadian boys to round out the home imbibing. At the gig she absentmindedly ordered a Carlsberg and then thought, “You Fool!” –But was fine all the same. Then these two lads bought her a Guinness. This was followed by a jaunt to Isolde’s Tower and two pints of Bulmers, and a boy feeling up her thigh at the table while holding hands with his Japanese girlfriend.