I'm going to Ireland! For four days! Leaving a week from today, spending Friday/Sunday/Monday in Dublin, Saturday in Waterford.

Long story short: some very nice people I met at a fan event in London guessed that I would really really like to go with them to see this play in Waterford. It turns out they had some money left over from the London thing, and because they are very nice people, they decided to put it towards my airfare. I still didn't think I'd be able to go, because I'd sent in my passport renewal very recently without using the rush form... but the feds had a strange fit of efficiency and the passport arrived three weeks sooner than they said it would. Well okay then.

I've never been to Ireland at all so this is kind of a silly way to do it, but I'll be in good company, and an old friend from New York who lives in London is trying to come down to meet me too. I'm just sad that I don't get to bring Becka.

[The Internet is so strange. There's this one tiny area, just around this one author and book, where I have a noticeable presence because I put up a totally unofficial reference website. Press people in a hurry will seize on that kind of thing and run with it... so in the last 2 years I've had the dubious thrill of being mentioned by name in The Scotsman and The Irish Times, in hilariously error-filled articles that portrayed me as (a) some kind of scholarly authority and (b) a woman.]