You were never at rest; you were always Somewhere-bound.

I've been listening to the album "The Family Tree - The Roots" by Radical Face (which is always going to be a strange name for a band, no matter how much I like them). It's pretty much been on repeat on my ipod all week. It's such a melancholy-sounding album, but it's so well done, and I love their lyrics. So much to do with traveling, in every sense of the word.

I forget if I wrote this yesterday, but I'm sick again. Not as bad as last time, but it's pretty lousy anyway. I'm starting to think that I ought to get my tonsils out when I get home - I get sore throats way too much. Thankfully there's no fever this time, though. In any case, it did stop me from going out again today; my alarm went off every half hour after eight o'clock, but I couldn't get out of bed until after 12. I felt pretty lousy. But get out of bed I did, and I spent the afternoon writing and reading and, well, not really doing much. I DID clean around the house, though - I've been taking over the nit-picky jobs that Carole wants done but doesn't have time for herself. (Which I totally get. When you have two young boys that you have to cart around all day and cook for, you don't really have time to dust every leaf of the massive plant in the living room.) So today I dusted and polished all the doors and banisters of the house. Well, all except two. I had to leave something for another day.

I'd hoped to go on another day-tour at Newgrange tomorrow (an massive and ancient passage tomb north of Dublin that's older than the pyramids), but I don't think I booked the tour in time. So I think I'll just ride a train for awhile and get off when it looks interesting. I've always wanted to do that.

(Okay, so it won't be quite that carefree... I've actually got a general idea of where I want to go. But it sounds cooler the other way. Artistic license and all that.)

So yeah, not much to report on the happenings of today. I was telling Mom this morning, I think the reason I'm having a hard time adjusting to life here is that I'm staying so actively in touch with life back at home. It's kind of like I'm splitting myself in half. It would be a lot easier to just commit to one or the other - I mean, to go home or else cut all ties for the time that I'm here and focus on actually being here. But I like writing too much; I like receiving emails; I like involving people in what's going on here and I like being involved in what's going on at home. Plus, if I can master doing both - being involved and present at home AND in Ireland - it'll be like I'm in two places at once. Which is kind of snazzy.

I'm not sure what made me think of that just now. But there you go.