Why life isn't as good as Star Trek

Life continues apace. My in box is crammed full of bloggable news and tidbits, but sadly I am still seeking the warp in the time-space continuum. (This together with the shoemakers' elves being the two cruelest myths in my adult life--the two things that I fantasize about regularly.) I leave for a work trip to Hawaii in three weeks and all hands are on deck here prepping. It's beginning to feel excessively surreal in my life--an if-it's-Tuesday-this-must-be-Berlin kind of feeling. Two weeks ago Sunday, for instance, I was in Dublin and said to a British friend there, "I'll see you Thursday in LA," which I did. This morning, I emailed a Dubliner friend to see if he'd left for LA yet. Saturday I ran across an old friend visiting from Minneapolis and said to her, "I'll see you in a few weeks in Hawaii."

Last night Andrea and I were talking about her plans to come here (from Albuquerque) in ten days. She said she was leaving for DC as soon as she gets back. "Does that mean you won't be able to go to Greece with me in October?" I whined. "No, I'll just leave from JFK if I need to. We can meet up in NY."

It's like that. Someone, I can't remember who, identified the feeling perfectly for me. She said it feels like you're on Star Trek, coming back to the Enterprise but you're not all the way beamed back. Like you're there, but your particles are still fuzzing around. That's exactly how I feel lately.

(Update: as soon as I wrote this, I sent an email responding to a new Russian friend I met in Dublin last month and ended it with "See you in Hawaii." Life is strange.)

(Update number two: Conor's response to the Star Trek metaphor: "Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what it's like--walking back from a stroll this evening I thought 'Tomorrow week I'm going to the Aran Islands to finally wind down' and then had the sub-thought 'and between now and then I'll be to LA and back...' at this stage my soul is, I think, rather than traveling at the pace of a walking camel, huddling somewhere near Newfoundland, hoping to find a less ballistic host...")