Multi-Tracked Mind

Week 4 and things are starting to get a bit more serious.
I need to spend less time chatting in the café of the Arts building, creatively called the 'Arts Café', and more time in the library working (despite the chewing gum offensive).

There are, however, several issues impeding my progress.
One is that my fellow mature students are all so interesting.
Honestly.
No word of a lie.
We have all been on amazing journeys to get to where we are today.
You know some of the sordid details about mine already.
And at our age we feel we have earned the right to talk about it.
We have.
Over an extended lunchtime soup and bread roll package (a bargain at €2.99), you could cut the empathy between us with the standard issue plastic knife.
There have been forearm 'there, there' rubbings.
There have been hugs.
There have even been tears.
It truly is a mutually compassionate environment and I, for one, am keen to keep these valuable bonding sessions in my schedule. 
I'll have to learn to work my study around them.

Another impediment is 'facebook'.
I know what you're thinking.
'Isn't she a bit old for facebook?'
Well no, actually, I'm not.
I drank a bottle of wine on Saturday night
I bought some Ugg boots on Sunday.
And I have 257 facebook 'friends'.
I think that's quite impressive.
Not least the wine consumption.
However, when I have my laptop open in the library and I'm online, it really is quite the distraction.
Admittedly some of my 'friends' are ex-school buddies or ex-colleagues whose names I vaguely remembered when I first received the friend request.
I accepted them on the basis that, with frequent renewed profile pictures and status updates, the penny might eventually drop.
But there are still 3 of them who remain a complete mystery to me.
I retain my optimism for the imminent epiphanic moment.

However, my biggest curriculum interruptus problem is my transatlantic romance.
I have been in a year-long relationship with a San Franciscan divorcé with whom I spend an inordinate amount of time on Skype.
Given the time-zone factors - he is 8 hours behind me - he is often waking up while I'm basking in the educationally supportive silence of the wonderful James Joyce library.
The other complication I face is that he runs his own business and, as such, has no discernible schedule.
Which means he's always eager to chat.
It was fantastic while I was unemployed.
I was at his metaphorical beck and call.
But now the situation has changed somewhat.
I have taken his video calls with my headphones in while typing instant message communications to my beloved.
My beloved has flashed his body parts at me while I'm trying to read my collection of 'Modern French Short Fiction'.
It's hard, if you'll forgive the pun, to concentrate on the critical analysis of a mid-nineteenth century piece of literature while there's a larger than life erection displayed on your screen.
Especially one that you're extremely familiar with.
And the library is a pretty busy place.
It would be would be an unfair irony, after my recent proclaimed good intentions, to be expelled because of my boyfriend's virtual indecent exposure.

I shall have to take him in hand.

©Alacoque Doyle