Dear Mom, Ireland has been wonderful. No. Dear Mom, Ireland has been delightful. No. Dear Mom, Ireland has been amazing. Oh fuck. I don’t know what to say. Ireland has been shit. We started in Dublin. Then we went to Sligo. Then Galway. Then back to Dublin. It’s all been shit. The second night in Dublin I caught Roger fucking a redhead in the back of a bar. First of all, we wanted to drink with Irish people. It was Ireland after all, but we ended up in a bar with loads of Americans. The redhead was American. Milwaukee! And she wasn’t even Irish. German. Go figure. I didn’t have money to go my own way so I was stuck with Roger. During the day I left the hotel room and photographed doors. Ireland has the best doors in the world. Nearly every door was quaint or artistic or homey. I couldn’t find a single ugly door in Ireland. At night, I went back to the hotel room, ate Taytos, drank gin, and watched RTE or the BBC. I had no idea where Roger was. I supposed he was hanging out with the German redhead. On the night before we were supposed to fly back to Houston, Roger slinked into the hotel room. At first, he didn’t say anything but then he plucked a potato chip remnant out of my hair.
“She doesn’t like the X-Files.” Roger looked sad. We met in 2000 at an X-Files convention. We were standing in line to get an autograph of Scully. Or whatever her actual name was. I couldn’t remember. I saw her on the BBC. She wasn’t even American. Or maybe she was. Anyhow, I started crying.
“I’ve been photographing doors.” I sobbed.
“What?” he looked confused.
“They have the best doors in this fucking country. Our door is ugly.”
He pulled a Tayto bag from my hands. “Let’s go back to Texas and get an awesome door.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. We can’t. I saw her vagina lips.” It was true. I saw the Milwaukee girl’s pale pink vagina lips.
The next day I mailed off the postcard to my mom before the taxi arrived to take me to the airport.
It said simply, Ireland was shit.
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