I don't like to make sweeping generalizations. But last night it was hard not to, as I swore and muttered to myself while biking to the IFI. Mark and I had not been on our bikes for two minutes when we turned the corner and came upon two boys, aged ten or eleven, swinging a PUPPY (it looked only a few weeks old) from it's leash. When I say swinging, I mean, swinging it around, in the air, by it's leash, and then dangling it, above the ground. This puppy didn't even look like it should be separated from its mother, let alone put on a lead in freezing cold weather. It was honestly not much smaller than my hand, and it looked terrified. Actually, it looked traumatized. It didn't make a sound, and just hung there, hopelessly.

I stopped my bike and asked the kids what the hell they were doing. They looked scared for a second because I think they thought from our lights that we were bike cops. Once they realized that we were just regular people, they just continued to hang the puppy from the leash. I told them that someone ought to do that to them to see how they liked it, and one of them replied that he would like it -- he thought it would be fun.

So here's my sweeping generalization. Sometimes it feels like the children in this country are wild animals. Boys, roaming the streets, doing whatever the hell they feel like. And you can't say anything to them, especially in your own neighborhood, where they can terrorize you, or else you're going to wish you hadn't. They throw snowballs into people's faces. They call you names. They look into your letterbox and try to spy on you in your own house. They set things on fire. They try to play chicken with you when you're cycling. I could go on and on. It fucking enrages me. When I was a child, I wouldn't have dreamed of acting that way towards strangers. But so many of the kids here have no fear, no fear at all, of adults or strangers. I just don't get it. I really don't. Back in the US, I only had an issue with one teenage kid, and he was clearly mentally ill.

And they travel in packs as well, for extra intimidation. It's not that I'm walking around, being actively scared of the children and teenagers in my neighborhood, but at the same time, I realize that they are in total control, and cannot be reasoned with. I've lived in crappy neighborhoods all over Boston and I've never experienced anything like it. Even in Brooklyn I didn't see kids acting this way. It's annoying. Most days it's just "one of them things" but yesterday, when I watched helplessly as an animal was being tortured, I just really wanted to leave it all behind me.

On Friday, Mark and I agreed to stay in (well, sort of - we wanted to see the author Pat McCabe spin records, but we didn't realize it was happening so early and we missed it). I looked forward to a relaxing night of sloth.

We live in a part of town called Drumcondra on the upper third of a long street called Richmond Road. If you head up one end of our street, toward Drumcondra Road, where our little grocery store is, a few pubs, and where we catch the bus to town, it's quite nice. But if you head in the other direction, it gets a little shady -- not so much during the day, but later at night. If you're on the bike, you zip through without a care, but walking, I just wouldn't recommend it. For our night in, we decided to check out a liquor store at the shady end of the street to see if they had a better beer selection than Tesco (the supermarket) and the not-so-great Off-License store (aka Liquor Store) nearer to our place. It was still early, before nine I think. We walked there, no problem, went in, made our selection quite happily (they did have a better selection as we suspected!) and then on our way out, there was this group of 4 or 5 teenage boys standing just outside the door. One of them sort of stood almost as if he was going to get in Mark's way and he said, "YAW RYE?" in that lovely Irish way of not enunciating words. I have no idea what would possess any kid, especially a scrappy one about five foot nine in height, to mess with Mark, who towered over him at six foot four. But my theory is that maybe they heard us talking on the way in and thought we were some dumb Americans. Mark replied in as Dublin an accent as he could muster as one of the boys made a farting noise.

There's just really nothing worse than a gang of teenage boys. But you can't give an inch. So Mark and I walked along and instinctively gave a bounce to our walk, the way gorillas do in the wild when they feel intimidated. Having taken self-defense classes, and having been in a position of defending myself against assaults, I know that what they say about the "fight or flight" syndrome really is true. You've got to either run or fight. Anyways, they were just a bunch of stupid kids, the likes of which I have passed tens of times before, but it was annoying to be so blatantly sized up in that way and then have to ready myself in my mind to stick my fingers in someone's eye sockets if need be. Gee. I hope I'm not freaking anyone out. It's safe here, I swear! Just typical life in any city! But I'm writing this because it's leading up to a theme of personal space that you'll see over my next two posts...