Diablevert

Idle Hands

Was talking to my brother today, and he said: "So, are you really going to Ireland?"

To which I replied, "Yes."

"When?"

"In June, after Sull graduates."

"Oh."

I realized as I ws saying it that it sounds rather unbelievable, spoken aloud. On the one hand, I often wonder why no one believes me when I say I'm moving to another country; you'd think that'd be a piece of information that sticks in your brain, right? I imagine it'd be right on the top of the Temrinator-style display we all have when navigating parties, the little pieces of information that front-load in the corner of your mind when you're scanning the room:

"DANA.
Friend of ERIC.
Work: PUBLISHING.
Dating: Tall Blond Guy."

('Course, my mental display often has a blinking red box around the empty slot for NAME, even when things like, "Interests: HIMSELF, the GREEN PARTY, JAPANESE PORN" are filled in.)

When random acquaintences ask me what's up with me, I tell them I'm planning to move to Ireland. Then months later I run into them again, they ask me again, I tell them again, and they get this look on their face that starts out, "Oh, right! Major life change of which you have informed me previously, and which I had completly and utterly forgotten, making me look like an ass," and then fades into a raised-eyebrow, very slight lip curl, "But, you're still here, aren't you." Before they politely ask me when, again.

I can't blame them, really; talking to my brother I felt the same sense of unreality, the same sense of mouthing a patently unprovable assertion with a look of conviction on my face that they seemed to see when they spoke to me. (Note to self: If the writing thing doesn't work out, try for Press Secretary?) I don't think I quite believe myself yet; that I'm really going, abandoing my comforts and my lassitude for whimsy, chance, and ambition...

I don't think I will believe it until I do something truly concrete, which is why I've taken to crusing for airfares. AerLingus (robbed of context, "AerLingus" sounds less like an airline and more like something involving a sex swing, at least to my cold-medicine-addled brain) runs its deals three months ahead at the max; which means at the moment, I can only scope out until May. Sigh. Maybe I'll just go shopping for footlockers.