Gone to America

I hadn’t planned on hitting thirty-one. In fact, I seem to remember that I had at some point set twenty-nine as the age beyond which I was not prepared to go. Unfortunately, time has once again taken no heed of my wishes and I had another birthday. Last Sunday.

I didn’t do much about it. A few of my friends are away, in Ethiopia or Ireland or wherever, and it was Superbowl Sunday which would have overshadowed any serious pub going. For the curious, I’m pretty sure one of the teams beat the other. I had a fairly quiet day, although I did get quite a lot drunker than I had planned.

I started by having brunch with Vanessa (I’d link to her blog but she hasn’t updated since August 2005) in the West Village – very pleasant. After the brunch we headed to Magnolia to buy some cupcakes, inspired by the Lazy Sunday Rap. But there was a queue, so we went to the bookshop across the street and browsed.

Vanessa has been very taxed of late what with her job and her education. She has to do a lot of studying and paper writing and such, so her pleasurable reading has suffered. I’ve been suggesting that she get herself some PG Wodehouse, but it’s not as plentiful here as it is back home. They had a couple, but no Jeeves which I would consider an essential starting point. We headed up to The Strand, but they didn’t have any either.

Vanessa went home. I was wondering what to do with myself when I got a call from Hilary Kehoe. She was in Williamsburg and wanted to know if I was about. I was in Union Square which is just a short trip on the L from there, so she came and met me. I told her it was my birthday and she insisted on taking me for a drink. I didn’t protest too much.

I’d only met Hilary once before, but we’d spoken and emailed. She originally contacted me when she arrived over from Dublin – Paul Moore of Ardmore Sound had given her my number. She’s following a similar trajectory to myself: Green Card in the Lottery, abandon career, give New York a whirl. The first time we met she’d literally only been her a few days. I gave her all the benefit of my experience, about how it takes a long time to find your feet, the jobs will come if you’re patient but it can take a long time etc. Of course, she completely turned it all upside-down by almost immediately getting a job on an Uma Thurman film.

We had never met in Ireland, although we had worked on at least one of the same projects. She’s in production and I’m in post so it’s not surprising we had never crossed paths. We know people in common, so she has recent news from home. It’s nice to hear the industry gossip. I’d heard a little while I was home over Christmas but it wasn’t my focus.

So she got me nicely toasted. You can’t beat a bit of drinking in the afternoon. I didn’t drink a lot, but it got me. I actually hadn’t really been drunk since returning from Ireland. I wasn’t too bad, just a little merry. I left her to meet up with Young Min for dinner uptown – a very nice Thai meal. Another couple of beers with dinner, then we went to a bar for a couple more. I guess I got home around 10pm, pleasantly intoxicated. So, a nice day – three dates, I guess, although I didn’t make out with any of them.

I wasn’t too hungover the next morning. There was cake in the afternoon. There’s always cake for employees’ birthdays. They tried to make it a surprise, but everybody knows it’s coming. Coincidentally, Young Min was there – she was helping us out by shouting loudly in Korean for reasons I can’t go into. She got to see my coworkers sing me Happy Birthday and have a slice. There have been a lot of birthdays recently in work – it’s getting positively unhealthy. Just this week there was me on Monday, Ian on Wednesday and Paul on Thursday. I suspect that the R* HR department has a secret policy of favouring Aquarians when jobs come up.

Ian (also 31) didn’t do what I did. There was drinking. This was last night. Before I headed along there I met up with Maeve O’Boyle. I had known Maeve about five or six years ago. She took a Screen Training Ireland course I was co-tutoring in assistant sound editing, and then worked on feature with us in Ardmore Sound. She had lived in NYC before taking the course, and headed back here shortly after the feature was done. She was back in Ireland last year, heard that I was here, found this page and got in touch.

I met with her in Milano’s on Houston. She was meeting a couple of her former employers, Patrick Farrelly and Kate O’Callaghan. We all had a nice Italian dinner (no food poisoning) and then Maeve came with me to Gstaad to join in Ian’s celebrations. It turns out that she knows my boss Eli and m’colleague Paul from way back, from before I met her. She hadn’t seen Eli for about three years so they were able to catch up. Small world.

Today I have done nothing but write this. Tomorrow I will clean my apartment in anticipation of my sister Eleanor and her friend Ellen’s visit. It’s supposed to snow heavily tonight. Actually, I just looked out my window and it’s started. Lightly at the moment, but that will probably change. Is our exceptionally mild spell over?