The Flight Out

One of my roommates recently read me a diary entry of his from a bus trip. He was struck by the way our uniqueness could just as easily bring us together as it does separate us, and for some reason the current of interaction leans toward the latter. I could help but think about that today on the airplane. Brodsky wrote somewhere that the formula for prison is a deficit of space with a surplus of time, and if that's the case, I just got a mini dose of conviction.

I didn't talk to anyone during the whole flight besides an occasional "excuse me," "thank you," or "sorry." This struck me as totally strange. After all, as far as I could tell, we had three significant things in common. Firstly, we were human. It's somewhat cliche, but still, it's true. Being a linguistic descendent of Whitman, I can hardly ignore that. The second is that we, all of us on the flight, had been brought to the same place at the same time. There's a lot of space in the world, and time certainly is still in a surplus, even outside of prison. There's something seemingly significant in that; perhaps there's something that we all share in causality to arrive there. Perhaps not. Lastly, though somewhat redundant, is that all of us were going to the same place from a common location. There has to be some commonality between a group of people sharing something that specific. Still, conversation was kept to a minimum among the passengers.

On the leg from JFK to Dublin, I was next to a couple. They seemed nice, very conservative. They struck me as being probably very Catholic. She was a timid, large and somewhat sharp looking woman. He was a large man with a tucked in shirt and faded jeans. He had classy looking glasses and side burns; it was a very hypermasculine appearance. There were little personal screens in front of every seat, and almost everyone on the plane was watching something. They had about 10 movies to choose from, and 1-2 episodes of about 20 different popular TV shows. The people with money paid to watch HBO specials, but most of us just watched the free features. This couple watched seperate movies for a few hours, and hardly interacted. I was way too tired to get any reading done, especially since the only novel that I brought with me is stream of consciousness, so I was watching TV too. I dozed off for a while, and when I woke up, the man had curled himself into the woman's lap, with her arm around him. It was one of the most loving things that I've seen in a long time.

The first sign that I notice in the airport said "Mind Your Buggy," which I found pretty ammusing. The first ad that I saw was a billboard over a staircase that said "Smooth Landing?" advertising some Irish whiskey. Going through customs was kind of anticlimactic. I sort of half expected an interrogation of some kind, as opposed to just a stamp and and a very mundane attitude.

I'm staying with one of Vladimir's (Jane's Dad) coworkers here, named Dave. Being in the passenger seat on the drive here was terrifying. For some reason (despite Jane's warning), I hadn't expected Ireland to drive on the left side of the road. It's so counter-instinctive. I kept feeling like I should have been in control of the car, but I wasn't, and making any kind of turn was just horrible.

Now I'm here in Dave's flat. There's some kind of strange lock on the door, and I can't figure out how to leave the house--embarrassing, I know. Dave's gone back to sleep after picking me up, and I can't really do anything until he's up. Not only is the door an issue, but I have not the slightest clue how to work the public transit here. Right now, I'm just doing my best to not go to sleep. I'll try and get to a tourist information center sometime today, but if I just relax, that's okay too. I've got more time in Dublin that I really need, so some down time is always nice.

Goofy little differences:
1) The light switches. They're really strange. In America, there are those large rectangular switches that you palm, as opposed to the ones that stick out. The light switches here are like little tiny mini rectangular switches. They're funny.
2) The toilet handle is a little different. I'm not sure that I know how to use it... It's kind of a similar shape, but longer and wider. It doesn't feel the same when you press it either. I haven't figured out how to get it to flush yet...
3) I just had some Earl Gray tea made in England... and I don't know if I can ever go back to American made tea...

That's it for today... more soon.