JFK->SFO->JFK->DAA.

oh. hey. fancy seeing me here. it's been a seriously long while. 

reader, if you do exist, i'm amazed you're here too. to even for one minute think that anyone would, after this obscene amount of time, ever wistfully type my long-forgotten url into their search bar, hoping for how ever long their internet connection takes to bring them to my small and dusty corner of the internet that perhaps that one girl they used to know or read had written something about what she'd worn that day and maybe posted an amateurishly posed photograph or two, only to have their hopes crushed because, apparently, she continues to be stuck in some sort of limbo where she is perpetually vacationing in l.a., is far, far more than i would expect. or hope. or dare to dream. i am just not that cool.

you do deserve the full story though. but maybe later. it's been six months after all, and a lot has happened. the frame work for the story is that i moved to new york city. well, i moved to yonkers. and although my abode was a scant three miles from the bronx, and it only took me 30 minutes to step out into grand central, yonkers cannot be considered part of the big apple. i did spend an awful lot of time in the city. i loved it mostly. i was frustrated quite a bit too. it struck a note of poetry and adventure within me and a KO to my bank account. it was great. i promise i'll tell the best stories when the moment's right. but i don't really have time right now because i have to take stock of my life and possessions again before i head off to ireland for a few months.

yup. land o' ire here i come.

it happened like this:

shipping your stuff across the country is awful. really. it's so horrible that between that sentence and this one i spent a good five minutes trying to illustrate how horrible it is with a metaphor, but after running through my cache of things that really really really really suck, including writing a twenty page term paper the night before, having the flu on a bright and beautiful saturday, and realizing that you've traveled for an hour in the wrong direction, i still couldn't think of anything that accurately compares. again, i promise, more on how much shipping things sucks and why i'll never do it again later.

also, when you move across the country, without a doubt the u.s. postal service will screw up your forwarding address and end up sending your stuff all over the neighborhood. after a week of not receiving a certain magazine, i decided i'd follow my housemate's suspicion and go next door to see if it had been mailed there by mistake. it had, and while we were chatting up my new neighbor, a slightly frazzled woman comes down the stairs, dragging a large suitcase and looking like she was pretty sure she'd forgotten something but couldn't remember where or what. my neighbor explained that she was a friend and historical fiction writer who was promoting her newest novel in the city. the lady-novelist introduced herself as morag (pen name: kate kerrigan) and explained that she was about to take a research trip to fire island for her next work. what popped out of my mouth next may have been my single most enlightened bit of self-promotion to date:

"wow! you write historical fiction? i'm a history major. do you need an intern?"

and she did!

i helped her out as best i could while she was promoting her novel, Ellis Island, in new york, and started doing research projects for her when she returned to ireland, where she lives with her husband and two sons. we ended up really hitting it off, and she liked the work i was doing for her, and turned out to be a totally fascinating lady, and while i was doing my best to do my best and not be completely ga-ga at the opportunity i had been given, she up and invites me to come and do research for her over in ireland while she finishes her next book. how crazy is that?! 

so that's where i'm going. on monday. and i haven't even begun to pack. again.

and that's why i'm back. my life is a little more interesting since we last saw each other, and working for a novelist has inspired me to start writing a little bit more. i'm excited to catalog my adventures for myself, my family, and my growing network of friends around the world.