dublin diaries issue 4

coming back after break, new apartment... thank god I'm back

It is so good to be back in Dublin! Last update, I was flying to Wyoming for around three weeks to spend Christmas with my family and go to the launch of a literary magazine I had a story in (more on that later). Spending a little time away has only affirmed how much Dublin has become home in the last few months. I missed the autonomy, the bursting possibility, my friends, classes, the gorgeous colorful townhouse doors, grocery shopping at Dunnes, looking around Boots. It’s funny to technically go “home” and realize you’re homesick. Maybe that’s growing up.

This is going to be a quick one since I’ve only been back since January 14, but so much has unfolded in the last two weeks, enough to fill out a diary update. For one, I toured a new apartment, signed the lease, and moved in that span I’ve time. I spent the end of January making my new space feel like home. I’m past the point of shying away from creating a sense of permanence even though I don’t know what the next few years have in store for me. I’m buying art and hanging it on the wall, getting the slotted spoon that makes cooking pasta easier, getting plants and a hair dryer and asserting to my brain that even if this isn’t forever, the now is still permanent in its own way. Moving past half-living my life for fear that it will all fade away too soon. I’ve always believed it was a fallacy to think something isn’t worth doing because there’s an expiration date, and I’m putting that belief into practice.

Food

Fidelity

Remember how I told you in the last update that I was reminded of just how much I enjoy a whiskey sour? I went out for drinks this month, and when I hesitated when asked what I wanted, Mac ordered me a whiskey sour. I always forget I can just ask for whatever I want at a bar, even if the display overhead is just a million draft beers. While my sample size is only two, this is my favorite whiskey sour in Dublin yet. Absolutely delicious in that dangerous way that makes you want more when you get to the bottom of your glass and with pretty art in the foam on top. I’m so used to just sipping at things that spontaneous drinks on an empty stomach where I actually did finish the cocktail reminded me of the weird, floaty, silly feeling of getting a little tipsy.

Homemade Food / Grocery Shopping with Friends

Ever since I moved into my new place, I’ve actually been batch cooking meals. It’s helpful to not have roommates that take over the entire kitchen. I’ve been loving making easy meals that remind me of home—particularly broccoli, chicken, tortellini pasta with a creme freshe sauce. I missed cooking! So now I load up my tote bag and go to the social kitchen once a week to make a few different meals. It also means I’m back to baking again! I also took Zoie to M&S with me for the first time. I don’t go there often, but there are a few things I can only get there, and she was excited to wander a new grocery store. It’s so much fun to do the mundane tasks of life with a friend. Suddenly, everything is novel, fun, a conversation.

Pepper Pot Cafe

This is the cafe in the Powerscourt Mall, which, because it’s Dublin, is extremely aesthetic as far as malls go. We all know about it because it’s right next to the knitting store. For someone who doesn’t knit, I spend a lot of time in the knitting store. Zoie and I had brunch here, enjoying the mismatched china as we sipped our tea. I decided 2026 needs to have a lot more tea parties, and so far, I’ve made good on that resolution.

Nando’s

It’s been a One Direction-ful month with Harry Styles coming back to the music world. So when we were hanging out in the Swords Mall, I talked Zoie (who never cared about One Direction) and Adri (who is quietly a Niall girl) into finally trying the chain that the band lodged in millions of teenage girls’ brains. I’ve gotta say, for a fast casual place, I was thrilled. You order online and have it delivered to the table, so I got to order 3 side dishes with no shame. I’ll take any excuse to have halloumi and mashed potatoes and broccolini.

Fable Bakery

I rounded up a whole new crowd to go to the Forty Foot by saying we’d stop at Fable Bakery on the way to the ocean. Compared to wading in up to my knees in water that made my feet freeze, go numb, and then start to burn, the sugar was an equal rush. The bakery is tiny, and we got lucky that the rain stopped around the time that we got there because there’s no seating in the bakery. So we wandered to the park and stood as we attempted to eat our treats. There wasn’t an extensive menu, but everything looked so good, we almost all got multiple things. I tried the tiramisu bun that was in its last week (and was surprised to find it not only had mascarpone and coco powder but also lady fingers buried in the middle) and a cardamon bun that was sticky and delicious and perfect balanced. Definitely worth taking the DART for.

Places

Silent Book Club

I actually went to Dublin’s chapter of the Silent Book Club after spending all last semester regretting not going. It did move to a location much closer to me, which felt like I had no excuse not to go. The place was already packed when I walked in three minutes after the start time. I’m glad that I went, and I loved being surrounded by a room of readers of all ages excited about whatever they were currently reading and wanting to commune in that with other people. Reading for an hour and a half on a bench with no back support, though, made me wonder how my body had already deteriorated so much at twenty-two. I usually can’t read in public, but everyone was so deeply focused, I ended up finishing 20% of my book by the end of the meeting. So it was a win for forcing myself to read—something I’ve struggled to make time for lately.

My New Place

Alas, another place that you can’t go for the list, but a deeply important one to me. After a long saga with student housing, I’ve made my way into a studio apartment that might only be marginally bigger but has already changed my life. For one, I have a small couch and a little cafe table, which means that I don’t eat in bed anymore (I hate to admit that everyone who says you should absolutely never eat in bed is 100% correct). I don’t have a full kitchen but I have a mini fridge and a microwave and a full set of plates and bowls and silverware and (funnily) wine glasses as well as access to many fully equipped kitchens in the building. Everything is compact but thoughtfully arranged, allowing me to feel organized for the first time since the move. There’s beautiful shelves to display all my precious memory items and a narrow shelf over the radiator for my books. Also, there’s a ledge behind the bed that has solved my life problem of sleeping with a pile of journals and books and a laptop beside me every night. Can you tell I love my apartment?

December and the start of January was really hard for me, watching my parents pack up the house I grew up in and experiencing the destabilized feeling of not knowing where home was anymore. I crave stability more than anything, which, I know, isn’t what this phase of life is about, but now I do feel like this little shoebox in Dublin is my home.

Maybe it’s the abstract emotional things that are helping my mental health, or it could just be the fact that it’s finally quiet enough for me to sleep at night.

An Post in the Centra

This is super random, but the new place is much closer to life’s necessities, so the other morning, I thought I’d take advantage and walk the five minutes to An Post and buy international stamps so I could send my grandma a handmade card for Valentine’s Day (her favorite holiday). I discovered after some confused staring that the An Post was a window inside the Centra on the corner, and my American mind was blown when she told me I could have however many stamps I wanted. She was just going to print them out. I have yet to actually get it together to mail the card, but it was the most pleasant post office experience of my life.

Hopeless Botanics

I walk past this plant shop all the time on my way to Trinity, but I’ve never stopped in. I know I have low impulse control for cute things, and what was I, my temporary, transient self, going to do with a plant. But then Zoie and I were having a day wandering my neighborhood, so we went inside to browse. They sell gorgeous bouquets with snapdragons and roses, but then we found the baby plants in the back that could fit in the palm of your hand and the tiny ceramic pots. So we got matching baby plants, and then on the way out, I picked up a glass vial of dried flowers because they were called Wish Bottles, and I’m hopeless when it comes to resisting wishes.

Raven Books

I wanted to see a print copy of The Paris Review in real life, so I did some googling and discovered that while the bookstores here all carry a wide variety of lit mags, Raven Books is the only place that carries The Paris Review. So on the way home from Fable, I got off in Blackrock to check it out. The bookstore is an adorable, windy maze. The tiny fiction section is shoved right at the front door. The lit mags are on a thin shelf in the back, and they had a whole tiny cube shelf dedicated to back issues of The Paris Review. I flipped around until I found a copy that intrigued me—I didn’t realize they had such interesting covers. They also had quite a few different issues of Granta, Banshee, Pig’s Back, and a few other Irish and international magazines. It was the only shop I’d been in that offered more than just the most current issue as well.

Things

New Glasses / Ace and Tate Eye Appointments

When you’re as blind as I am, I promise this is exciting stuff. I booked an eye appointment at Ace and Tate the same day I landed in Dublin. I’d gotten a year’s worth of contacts through the dubious “online eye appointment” offered by 1-800 Contacts while I was in the states, but I still needed an updated glasses prescription. I walk past Ace and Tate all the time, and I was shocked to learn that an eye exam is free with the purchase of glasses (and only $15 otherwise, which, do you know how expensive those are in the states?), and it turned out to be the most thorough, thoughtful eye exam of my life. He even quarter stepped back my prescription so that it would be easier to adjust to my new glasses, saving me weeks of irritation as my brain adapts to the stronger lenses. I went back later with Zoie to pick the frames, and while my mom said they reminded her of Harry Potter, they’re super comfortable, and, I think, fall into the ugly-cute zone. Not that I wear them out of the house anyway.

Collecting Art Prints

from top corner: love my Mary Poppins umbrellas taking me to the sky from my typewriter; writing to me feels like climbing that ladder to the house in the clouds; a little collage, a little barbie, a necessary energy; it’s hard to see, but this is the Baily Lighthouse in black and white line art; this one made Zoie and I laugh cause it’s just like a short story I wrote; I want to grab the stars in my hands; my most grown-up wish is for a townhouse with a brightly colored door; and then in the other photo, there’s a much bigger print of a stag in a rainbow of colors

The art prints randomly became a theme of January for me. I walked home through Temple Bar one day and was randomly sucked into the Library Collective and walked out with a print of a pair of hands holding a collection of colorful stars. This was before I even moved. I’d just felt sad at how anonymous and impersonal my space was. And then I decided to go into Jam Art. I bought another print there and then one for Adri because it reminded me of a project she’s working on. Then Zoie and I went back, and I walked out with an armful, enough to build out a collage on the wall from a number of different artists. Buy art! Prints aren’t super expensive and they make your space feel more personal, brighter, happier, and you’re supporting small, local artists and shops!

“Spoils” by Kurt Vonnegut also Hemingway short stories

In early January, I decided I should get more acquainted with the classics. So I got some recommendations and dove in. While The Sun Also Rises was well worth reading, I think I’m more of a fan of Hemingway’s short stories. I didn’t expect him to have such a sense of humor, especially about himself. I was sufficiently charmed. It’s funny how many of them are constructed in a sort of “punchline” style where you wonder what the whole thing is building to for the last line to just flip it all on its head.

“Spoils” on the other hand had me spontaneously crying on the couch, holding my Kindle in my hand. The story can’t be more than five pages. It takes a lot to make me cry with a book. I cry more often over movies because seeing someone else cry usually is enough to trigger my own tears. But I never thought a short, short story would illicit that kind of emotional reaction, even though it was prefaced to me by warning of emotional devastation.

Clear Plastic Organizing Cubes

This is going to sound so silly, but the clear plastic cubes from Boots have changed my life. I originally got a three pack of a large, medium, and small compact nested into itself, and then that went so well, I went back and got another medium kit that happens to have pink stripes. With limited storage space, these have been invaluable for rounding up all the loose odds and ends. And, because they’re clear, my out of sight, out of mind brain is way more on top of what I actually have, and they’re much easier to dig through to find what I need. I now have a pouch for my extra shower/lotion/eye solution supplies, a large one for my make-up, one that holds my crafting/journaling supplies together, an emergency kit for my bag with Advil, bandaids, pads, Kleenex, and the like, a cube of hair products and brushes. I’ve also expanded this out to use two small make-up pouches to hold my contact lenses and another bag to hold my daily use make-up. Everything is finally off my thin lip of sink counter space, tucked away, but still easy to find. I’m way better at not being messy when I have a system, so this has been a revolutionary discovery.

My First Reading!

You’ll have to grant me the ability to turn away from Dublin for half a second to talk about what I did the night before I flew back—attend the launch party and reading for Granite Vol. 1, a lit mag, edited by Tea Obreht, that is my first ever fiction publication in print! I got the chance to stand on stage with a blinding spotlight and a microphone and read the opening of my short story, and to hold it in my hands. It’s pretty surreal to have a journal that I’m in sitting in my lit mag stack in my apartment. While it was just a local thing, it’ll always be my first ever—and hopefully not last—literary reading, and I’m so grateful to Tea and Matt Daly and Andrew Munz for putting together the journal and the celebration. If nothing else, my name was first on a giant poster by the town square.