anticipation

It had to happen eventually, but it took a bottle of mead and a late night and finally signing off of work to realize it.  I am going. I am really going. I have this sleep, the one that’s coming for me fast even as I type this entry, and one abbreviated one more, and that is it. A little over twenty-four hours and I am gone.

I am lying on the guest bed next to a surprisingly small pile of items that must go with me. Is this all I need of life for two weeks?  Really?

I’ve turned off all the lights except the lava lamp, whose glow is strangely soothing, and put away my books.  (Wizards of Earthsea is for the plane, so quit dipping into it already, Amy.) I need to wind down, and sleep, and yet suddenly it is all too real and all too soon and all too horribly far away.

Almost.

I am in placeholder time, the time between fully here and fully there in which one’s thoughts are distractedly trying to root in both places at once and — usually — failing miserably.

The twitter repost script is turned on, so you’ll see my increasingly nervous natterings as the trip inches ever closer. it feels real now, real like the fine layer of cat fur Tenzing deigned to place on my bags tonight.

Jeff is gone to Seattle already; words sneak back east of his doings and his travels. The stories await my arrival for the telling; all I have right now are Adam’s snapshots of Jeff, so familiar and yet so far away.

Here we are. The clock on my computer says we have exactly a week to go, and the scary thing is, I think we’re more ready than we’ve been in years past. Jeff brought the Ops server up last night, and I started testing it to make sure the basic functions were ready to go.

I’ve found a few oddities, and it’s not fully functional yet, but I’ve got a list of fixes and tweaks, and everything looks manageable.

We are nearly prepared. Yes, PHE 2006 is just about to land on us, and land on us with this sickening, alcoholic *thump*.The RSVP list currently stands somewhere around 40. There will be thirteen people staying in our house alone. I have a fridge full of food, and I’m not done yet.

I have a sweater to finish knitting for Saturday—if I’m diligent, I will finish tonight.

Between dim sum tomorrow afternoon and my flight home on Thursday, I have no plans. No real plans, anyway, the kind with dates and times and directions. I have a list - a list of places I think I might enjoy seeing, and a guidebook that seems to have solid recommendations so far.

I know I’d like to have a drink with Matthew’s brother Daniel, since we haven’t seen each other since we were teenagers, and I’m curious to see how much we think we’ve changed.

I know that I’d like to see Crutcher and Theresa, but I don’t know if our schedules will coincide.