My Bachelorette Weekend

Floyd was off to a "stag weekend" down in Cork so I was on my own for the weekend. Friday afternoon through Sunday evening. This wouldn't be such a big deal for lots of couples but Floyd and I are joined at the hip. We enjoy spending time together and our continuing infatuation with each other tends to annoy people (I think it might have something to do with the monosyllabic, pre-hominid babytalk involved...mbeb).

So being away from Floyd and having the weekend to myself was a big deal. The world was my oyster. I could do anything I wanted...literally. I could've done some traveling, done some great cultural things in Dublin, gone bird-watching down near Waterford. Anything. So what did I do? Nothing. Big, fat nothing. If it weren't for the family that I drove to the airport on Saturday afternoon, I wouldn't have bathed or bothered to put on clean clothes. As soon as I dropped Floyd at the train station I went to the video store, then the library, then the grocery store. As soon as I walked in our door I baked myself a single batch of chocolate chip cookies (I don't even think I took my coat off). I just couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do this weekend that didn't involve having chocolate chip cookie crumbs on my chin.

So I watched movies (The Stepford Wives and Breakfast on Pluto - both chick flicks but otherwise in very different categories), watched one episode of My Name is Earl (borrowed Season One on DVD...brilliance), finished a book ("A Lesson Before Dying" - wonderful book, read it), started another book ("The Kid" by Dan Savage of Savage Love fame - a gay couple's experience with open adoption - I'm laughing hysterically and learning some things too), talked on the phone until 2am (I'm 8 hours ahead of all of my friends and family), had cookies and stout for dinner (not breakfast...but tempting), worked on kitchen/house design (this effort is consuming me), traded sweet little text messages with Floyd (awww...) and talked to my cat.

I think it's also notable that, aside from the ~4.5 hours that the television was on, our house was completely silent. I chose not to listen to any music, which is a choice I often make living out here. I think it's because it's absolutely, perfectly, pin-drop silent at the end of our little road. During the day you might hear a tractor off in the distance or a horse whinnying. If you step outside you can hear the birds singing (Spring!!) or the distant train to Cork. But that's it. It's really really quiet and I know that this may be the only time, for a really really long time, that I will be able to enjoy this kind of peace and quiet. So I relish it. I celebrate it. I wallow in it.

The silence was broken when I went to the grocery store (on a Sunday afternoon, what in G0d's name was I thinking?) and picked the lads up at the train station in Dublin. Suddenly, there I was with a car load of men slightly wounded by their debaucherous weekend. It was as quiet as a car full of Irish lads could be...which, actually, isn't quiet at all. For what it's worth, I think they had a good enough time to justify their ashen complexions and their curdling smell.

And, actually, so did I.