A LIST, THEN:

Fer's leopard-print ear-pops, useful for ogling freezing Dublin on the hop-on hop-off bus;

tea and Moroccan orange almond cake in the basement of a department store where bottles of perfume await use in the lady's loo;

wondering if the erratically coherent, disorganized show on Irish modernism (or, rather, Irish "Moderns") at IMMA is suggestive of the nature of postcolonial modernism;

the Liberties, so-called as it lay tax-free but vulnerable outside the walls of the city of Dublin, now the working-class end, where the tourists never go;

chips and steak sandwiches steeped in pepper sauce, in a diner on the old road between Dublin and Galway;

watching Cheltenham on the telly while a placid blonde dog lies at your feet, and betting on a horse for the color of his coat or the sound of a name in your mouth;

rugby-watching: the barman punches down the volume as the "Tans" begin "God Save the Queen" and everyone cheers, and even more pints and fat burgers, which make me gassy;

a quiet Sunday of roast chicken and wine. We watch Sideways, and a longing for California is stirred in me by its bungalows, Spanish place-names, apartment complexes with sea-themed names, kitsch coastal towns, and rolling golden landscapes. Home? I try not to think of "home", more a mirage than a reality. Two mirages, then, one that is Irish, the other California, and where do the two meet? In me, so.

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