Gone to America

A suit always makes me feel like a liar. I don’t recognise myself when I’m wearing one. But it seems that it is my destiny to wear one on at least two occasions in the coming months. I am hopeful that these occasions will each be pleasurable in other ways.

In less than two weeks I’m heading off Tucson, Arizona to the wedding of Jeremy and Melanie, which I’m looking forward to. That was Jeremy’s bachelor party I was at a couple of weekends ago. I’m a little concerned about not having a car – I’m given to understand that this is generally a problem in the States outside New York. But I think it’ll be fine. It’ll be good to see another part of country. The desert! The South!

And then in June I’ll be back in Dublin, but for three days only. I’ll arrive on a Thursday morning, attend Maeve and Jordan’s wedding on the Friday, hang out on the Saturday and leave on Sunday. Back in work on Monday! It’ll be good to see my parent’s new house all done up – last time I was there it was still pretty much a building site.

I was actually reluctant to go to this wedding. Not because I don’t want to see Jordan and Maeve tie the knot – a chuppah in Booterstown! And not because of the inconvenience of international travel – in fact the Arizona trip will take longer and cost more. There’s just a lot of baggage in returning to Dublin. It seems strange to head back there for a non-me centered reason.

I won’t be doing the things that I normally would do. Just in and out – I doubt I’ll see anybody other than family. Instead I’ll be spending time with Maeve and Jordan’s friends. Some of them I know – I even dated one of them briefly – but Maeve’s Irish friends will be complete strangers to me. It’ll be the normal wedding-of-friends thing; you know some people well, and are otherwise surrounded by strangers and other people’s families. That’s all fine, but I’ll be in Dublin! There will be good friends of mine that I never get to hang out with in the same city! And they probably won’t even know I’m there!

But I’ll get over it.

I had to get up at 6am yesterday morning to be in Brooklyn for 8am. 8am! On a Saturday! I was having the apartment I intend to buy inspected to make sure the ceiling isn’t going to cave in or anything (it isn’t). It’s actually just around the corner from Maeve and Jordan so Maeve came around to have a look as well – it’s always good to get a second opinion. Jordan couldn’t get out of bed. I envied him.

Maeve seemed to like it. It’s really the view that’s the killer. Looking at the two apartments that I’ve bid on the common element seems to be just that – light and views. I wouldn’t have thought that these things would be that important to me, but apparently they are. I’ve seen bigger, cheaper apartments in locations as good or better, but without big windows looking at something I just don’t seem to get enthusiastic. The things we learn about ourselves!

Unlike a lot of the apartments I’ve looked at this one hasn’t had any work done to it for a while (most people seem to renovate to sell), so I’ll probably need to spend a bit before I move in. It isn’t decrepit or anything, but there are some things I’d like done and if I don’t get them done before I move in inertia will set in and I never will.

Tomorrow I’ll probably sign the contract. Then it gets difficult!

I’ve made the first change to this site for a while – broadening the sidebar to fit in my Xbox Live Gamertag. I just haven’t played Battlefield 2 for a while, so I thought I’d better update it. Of course, there are other things I could update – I took a video walkthrough of the apartment which would make a perfect Little Vid, but I don’t want to jinx it.

Oh, and there was an ad that ran for a few days for GTA IV on british TV – just the logo announcing the release of the trailer with a ticking clock sound. Did anybody see it? I did the sound design on it, which is to say I picked the tick! It’s off the air now – the first bit of new sound work I’ve had on TV since RTE got new music for the news. Ah, the memories.