Gone to America

I apologise if there’s anybody out there who objects being referred to as “baby”, but I am back. I missed my connection in Paris, thanks to the combination of a ten minute delay leaving JFK and a particularly mean spirited Frenchman who wouldn’t allow me to walk the short distance between the gates, insisting that I follow the proper passenger flow, which involved waiting ages for a shuttle bus that went all around the place before delivering me only a little way from where I started. But late. This seems to be a common problem in Charles De Gaulle. I wasn’t the only one venting my frustration at missing my flight due to an impossibly short connection.

Anyway (kill them! Kill them all! Sorry), I was pretty tired when I arrived in Dublin airport at about 5pm on Tuesday, so I probably didn’t react at all appropriately to running into Doug Murray at passport control. I think I seemed about as unsurprised as Ruairi when I bumped into him in Times Square. I’ll probably see him again at the In The Dark Party anyway. I didn’t have any money on me at all, so my Dad came out and got me on the Aircoach. I tried to stay awake when I got home, so as to realign my circadian rhythyms and try and avoid jet-lag as much as possible. But I’d been awake for over thirty hours, so it just wasn’t happening.

Yesterday was mostly quiet, so I took the opportunity to sabotage my parent’s internet access. It’s working again now, but only on my computer, not theirs, so that’s OK. They must love it when I’m home! Went with Mum to get the Christmas tree, then went to meet Deirdre Green (she got priority because we were only overlapping in Dublin by one day). She was on her way to the Film Ball. I had no intention of going, because I don’t have any money, and I was still a bit lagged, but she persuaded me to go for cocktails at Kirsten’s house. A slippery slope… Of course I had a few too many cocktails and allowed myself to be persuaded to accept a free ticket.
It was great, actually. Met up with a lot of people I would otherwise have had to meet slowly over the period of a couple of weeks. Almost all of Ardmore Sound were there, Conor McMahon, Hugh O’Conor, Alan Maher, Audrey O’Reilly, Sinead Walsh, Greg Magee, Peter McCanney and many others I was either too drunk to remember or too hungover to bother trying to find links for.

Today was spent recuperating and having long and ultimately fruitless conversations with the Netsource support staff, and it looks like tomorrow will be more of the same. I was just trying to make it better…

And for God’s sake would yiz sign the guestbook. I met so many people last night who’ve been following the blog and not bothering. I need some feedback, people!