January 18, 2006 – 11:45 pm

Sitting here at a job that I’m quitting in two days, and looking for an iPod I know I’ll never find, I just watched as the countdown rolled over from 13 days to 12 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds. Something dropped. It felt like some internal organ or another, but it was in fact my idle detachment from reality. I saw the number 12, and it fell away…

I saw (quite vividly) the plane ride, the packed bags, the blankets of hostel beds… loitering near notice boards written in unfamiliar slang, careful squinting over encoded maps… I saw the teethy smiles of unfound friends. It was a frightening and exilarating sensory experience—like you’re eight and standing on the high board, looking down.

It’s one I should have been prepared for. But, as a human animal I think knowledge is kept in lots of convenient packages. One is the intellectual, cerebral “oh yes, I know that” box. Another is the big-eyed, visceral, gutsy gut-punching parcel that always seems to arrive late and of a sudden. Like right now. Better now than at the airport, I spose. But consider this:

In two weeks I’ll be writing this in Australia.

Damn, look at that sentence! Look at it! Phew. I think I’ll go home now and not sleep for a long time.