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I am tired of keeping three journals, but living one life. Okay, I don't really keep this one up so I suppose it does not count, but it's the only one accessible via clicking. If I clicked at my green suede-y beauty of a book/journal, it probably wouldn't move. However if I clicked at my Moleskine, I like to think it would click back. Today I bought tickets to see Ryan Adams in concert in Dublin. I think my life may be complete.

Claire visited last Thursday through Sunday. She is the kind of person that fits the term "lovely" in all its splendor. I took her on a supertour of the northern coast. We went to Belfast. Rain. We took the train to Derry. Rain. But, then we went to the Giant's Causeway Saturday. Sun, breeze, the softest, most pillowy grass I've ever laid my head upon, and a bluff! made for a great day.

By showing someone else the sights, I realize how truly dingey all the cities are here. They have a rugged, dirty smell and way about them, as smoky and confusing as this country's history. And the rain is constant -- the sky as grey as the car exhaust, the ever present mud puddles. But I'm quite content in the midst (and the mist) of it all. The hills are still green, like huge emeralds sprinkled around a little post apocalyptic city. Okay, it's not quite that bad. But the walls. The walls are terrible -- physical manifestations of centuries of conflict. Oh hey, here's an idea, let's just put up a ton of walls, and the violence and mutual alienation and oppression of opposing groups will disappear. Yeah! I get it. I get the reasoning, but I hate those damn walls.

That's why I'm going to see Ryan Adams. Because there are still places with walls. What are you keeping out of your garden? Wolves and Catholics?

I sat in the daffodil garden today. It's rather difficult to find on campus. Mainly, because there are actually no daffodils there for 11 months out of the year. But to its credit, there is a lovely bog, stream and waterfall. I wrote a poem about someone who only makes left turns, and gets left behind. I'm still miffed at the UNC Creative Writing Dept. They don't deserve to be capitalized. They will henceforth be known as the unc creative writing department. I wish there was something smaller and more insignificant than lower case. That's harsh, but I'm allowed to be harsh. They won't let me take the advanced poetry class, and now they are doomed forever, banished to the bog of lower case letters. It's not even that bad. I know some fine poets who live there.