Notes Of An Uninteresting Event

Last week, we called round to some friends house whom we collectively as a group all hadn’t caught up with each other for almost three years, although we would have seen each separately in passing here and there in that time. They’ve been super busy with their growing family, and we’ve been doing our own thing too, so it was great that we finally got to meet after so long. During our long conversation about everything and anything, our friend mentioned he was going to Riyadh in a few weeks, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for two weeks to work. Knowing that I lived in Al Khobar, a city on the eastern coast, over twenty years ago, he asked what I thought of the place. I didn’t have much to say because it’s been so long, and the place is probably unrecognisable from when I was there all those years ago. But it did get me thinking about me sitting in the old terminal at Cork Airport with my family in the very early morning around the end of October back in 2001, waiting to board a flight to Gatwick and on to Dammam International Airport in Al Khobar to begin work experience with an Irish-Saudi engineering company as a junior engineer. It feels like it was a different life, and in some ways it was because it was so long ago.

For context, I had finished my second year in an engineering course at a local college, and my third year required work experience. Through my mum’s friend, who was acquainted with a couple they had met while working in Saudi Arabia, I was introduced to a manager at an Irish engineering company that operated over there. Following an interview in their Irish office, I was offered the placement as part of my work experience abroad in Al Khobar. Then 9/11 happened, and I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks until the middle of October when I received my travel details. So, I, a twenty-year-old, moved from my parents' house to what I described at the time as “it’s like Ireland but the opposite; there’s sand instead of grass, sun instead of rain,” and so on. Thus started my experience and adventure of living far from home in a foreign country.

Day-to-day life was incredibly different from what I was used to back home, and living in an apartment with a roommate who was an alcoholic and recently divorced wasn’t something I was capable of understanding at that time. It was always hot and working in a fast-paced office environment with an Irish ‘expat’ boss who would regularly shout at his multinational staff definitely taught me a lesson on how not to engage with people. The majority of the food, from what I remember, was imported from America due to the presence of a large compound in the city with thousands of Americans working at the major oil company, Saudi Aramco. My food palate wasn’t as developed as it is now, so none of the local food from the region—dates, hummus, falafel, and spicy curries—appealed to me. Looking back, it is my one regret because I’d eat it all now. Big American burgers with fries, Domino’s pizzas, and heavy caloric foods were what I ate, and my twenty-year-old body’s metabolism could only work for so long to keep me skinny.

Having not lived away from home during college and being very sheltered up until that point in my life, the freedom of living on my own was amazing, albeit accompanied by bouts of loneliness. A few journal entries that I’ve kept were about missing home and trying to fit in with the way of life there. Visits to downtown Al Khobar and the Souk helped me better experience the Saudi culture instead of the typical American-style shopping experience at the Al Rashid Mall. As the months went by and into 2002, I became more confident and began enjoying my life there. The company I worked for had moved me into a new compound, where I lived with two guys around my age. I have photos of the many parties where we got to meet other migrants from all across the world who came to Saudi Arabia to work. It was great, but unfortunately it changed for me following the tragic death in a horrific car accident of my friend and roommate. He and the front seat passenger died in a head on collision, and the back seat passenger lived. It was the scariest thing to ever experienced and pushed me to want to go back home. I didn’t want to be there anymore and being back in Ireland for his funeral in his home village so soon after he died, I knew I wasn’t going to stay.

Looking back at my time living as an Irishman in Al Khobar, I know that I wasn’t ready for it. The tragedy of my friend’s death had a lasting effect, and even if it hadn’t happened, I still think I wasn’t ready to live on my own. I was too young, naive, and sheltered. Would I go back now? No. It’s not a place I would ever want to return to, but during my time there, I did have my first experience of freedom within the bubble created for me by the confines of where I lived and who I worked for, so I’m not too regretful about my time there.

I was on a walk with my husband the other night, and we started a conversation about school debs. As we were chatting, it dawned on me that this month marked 25 years since my own secondary school debs back in 1999. Besides the rapid passing of time and saying, “Jesus, that’s not twenty-five years, is it?” when we got home, I rifled through my phone to find any photos and discovered some that I had scanned years ago. Looking through the photos, I can remember bits of the day and night—probably more than others, I’d say—because I didn’t consume alcohol at the time (I was a teetotaller well into my thirties). The vast majority of the people I haven’t seen or heard from to this day; one is a friend I keep in touch with via Instagram, two I see on TV (a news correspondent and a sitting senator), and one woman is the editor-in-chief at a multinational online women’s magazine. I don’t really know much about where the rest of them ended up, except for those few.

Anyway, it was held in the old Jury’s Hotel on the Western Road; the River Lee Hotel and adjacent apartments are in its place today. The whole lead-up to it, days before, was very much like an American high school prom: who you were going to ask, what suit to wear, etc. Being a very closeted gay teen at the time, and with my school, let alone the entire country, not being as progressive as it is these days, I asked my friend, whom I had known since we were four years old, to be my date. She was incredibly awesome to say yes and looked amazing on the day. The suit I rented was from either Morley’s by the Queen’s Old Castle or Black Tie at the other end of Patrick’s Street. I had never worn a three-piece suit in my life, and as a skinny just turned 18-year-old with no shoulders, it fit fine.

It was such an event that all our family, friends, and neighbours gathered to see us off. When we arrived at the venue, there was a photo booth in the reception for couple photos, which I think I still have in a box somewhere. We were then ushered into one of the big ballrooms of the hotel to take our seats, but before any food was served, we had a big group photo taken of around 130 people from our year. I think it was one of the larger years to come through the school at the time, and still, a few people were missing from the debs. Mushroom soup was the starter, I remember that and still cannot understand why it would ever be served as the only option on the evening.

I was telling Harry when we were talking about it that, following the dancing and “Rock the Boat” at the hotel, a group of us went to the Coliseum for some bowling well into the early morning, and then we all grabbed a taxi to the airport to have breakfast in the old terminal. I had forgotten about that last bit, and he said you can’t do that anymore with the restaurant being after security. It’s nice to talk about and look back on that time in my life, wondering where everyone might be and funnily when I told my parents about it yesterday, the first thing my mother said was, “Jesus, that’s not twenty-five years, is it?” ^^

A job rotation I’ve been doing for the past few months is coming to an end this Friday. It’s been a total departure from what I had been doing for the previous fourteen years, and I’m really sad to be finishing up. The team has been so supportive, and it’s given me an opportunity to show the business what I am capable of, which is what I set out to do. I hope it will result in some upward movement, as I feel confident shouldering more responsibility.

I was standing outside Cypress Avenue on Caroline Street with my husband, brothers, and friend after our exit from a gig we had all attended when my friend commented on how nice it was that my brothers and I all liked the band we had seen. Adam, the brother, said to her that all the music he and our younger brother listen to had been influenced by me. He had mentioned this to me before and added how our mutual friend had brought up how, as teenagers, they would all listen to the music I discovered and how I epitomized the ‘cool older brother’. Back in those early days, I was into alt-rock and nu-metal, and we would sit through afternoons watching music videos on MTV2, Kerrang, and Scuzz in our parents' TV room. It felt really good to know that my brothers' and others' musical tastes were influenced by me in some way, and that I have continued to seek new music even today. We no longer hang out in our parents' tv room watching music videos, but whenever I see them, I share what I am listening to or post it on an Instagram story.

Today, I reminisced about the time I decided to get a tattoo following what I think was me realising that I’d wasted a lot of time procrastinating / doing fuck all. Looking back at it now, it was a sort of turning point.

It was around 2009, before ‘doomscrolling’ on Instagram or TikTok and before the word entered the lexicon, I would endlessly scroll through Tumblr, looking at anything from art and design to porn and photography. I lost a good chunk of my evenings and nights from that time through to 2013, a time which epitomizes ‘Peak Procrastination’ in my life.

Anyways, I’d spend excessive time online scrolling through photos of tattoo’s I really liked, super detailed snake skin designs, and full arm tattoos. I started to lean toward scripted tattoos, though, with some meaningful word or phrase. A guy I followed on Tumblr at the time had a really nice tattoo across his upper chest, just below his clavicle, and I liked how subtle it is (not on show on my arms or legs).

Around the same time that I was browsing for inspiration, I kept discovering some great new music, like I still do today. One band was a Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine side project called ‘One Day As A Lion’ that had emerged around 2009. Super funky sound, with amazing drum tracks and I was really into them for a few years up to that point. The band’s name coming from a quote by none other than Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” So, as a call to action, I thought it would be good for my tattoo to read “Live Every Day As A Lion.” I’m a Leo star sign, so at the time, it felt as if I was telling my subconscious that I didn’t want to be the way I was and that I needed to change, to be more like a lion.

Holy Cow, a tattoo place in Midleton that my brother had recommended, was where I got it done, and the rest is history. I got another tattoo a year later but none since, and I won’t rule out getting more in the future.

Last week, my husband and I went on holiday to Croatia for the first time, flying from Cork to Zadar. Our Croatian hairdresser had been recommending that we go, and upon disembarking the return flight plane last Monday into Cork Airport, we wished we had stayed longer. Zadar, a city on the coast, has a wonderful old quarter with narrow streets, Roman remnants, many churches, and the “Sea Organ,” where the waves flowing through compose a constantly changing melody. We traveled down the coast by car as far as the city of Split, the second-largest city in Croatia, and the amazing Plitvice Lakes National Park. All in all, it was a wonderful trip—very hot, but a place we’ll hopefully go back to in a few years.

A friend of mine recently got braces for his “gapped teeth,” and it got me thinking about my own experience with having correction done for my mal-positioned gnashers. I would’ve been put on a waiting list in primary school, as was the case for many receiving orthodontic treatment publicly back in the nineties. And when I eventually got my referral to the Cork Dental Hospital, located on the grounds of the then Cork Regional Hospital, I had just finished secondary school.

Due to overcrowding in my mouth, which caused my overlapping teeth, four molars had to be removed to accommodate the orthodontic appliance. In a follow-up session, I vividly remember sitting in the dentist’s chair, looking out at the car park opposite the entrance to the dental hospital, mouth held open with some sort of appliance, as the dentist applied adhesive to my crooked teeth and the bonding of the brackets. I can recall the feeling as the wire was being attached to each bracket, the metal taste in my mouth, and when all was complete, it being anchored on the four stainless steel molar bands wrapped around my four back teeth. The feeling of pressure on my teeth and the scratching of the inside of my cheek by the molar bands, using wax strips alleviated the latter but the former lasted for days / weeks afterward.

Regular visits to adjust the braces occurred for about eighteen months or so until they were removed just before I moved to Saudi Arabia for a year. A new mold was taken to create a retainer that I used at night for an additional year to ensure my teeth stayed in their new position. All in all, it took about three years for my teeth to get realigned, staying where they are to this day, and I enjoyed listening to my friend talk about his experience. By all accounts, not much has changed in the twenty-plus years since I had mine.