Irish Itinerant

OK, so I am Irish, but not exactly an itinerant. It’d be fairly tough to consistently write a blog (err, a weblog, if you must) without somewhere to hang my hat. I’m talking about itinerancy as a state of mind rather than a physical reality. Kind of a “man without a country” syndrome, of sorts, in a way, if ya know what I’m sayin’.

So, my name is Mark, and I moved from Ireland when I was 15 years old. Of course, I did bring my parents and siblings with me (wasn’t that nice of me…), so it was not exactly like the scenario of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Titanic. As a result, I did not hook up with Kate Winslett (not that I’d want to, just sayin’ like), but I also did not drown in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Anyway, I sailed we flew to Canada for the start of a new life. Australia was the other choice, but was voted down for three main reasons:

1) Distance from Ireland
2) Number of occurrences of people being bitten from poisonous creatures
3) There are a lot of Australians there and they can be hard to understand

Like I said, the family vote resulted in Canada as the first choice. Nice choice, eh? eh? All Canadians are born with the innate ability to turn every statement into a question. Nice day, eh? I heard Wayne Gretzky used to be a woman, eh? That was a good doughnut, eh? Yeah, I’ve got a million of ‘em.

After a 6 year stint at shovelling snow out of the driveway in winter, we moved to the good ol’ USA. Siberacuse Syracuse, NY to be exact, where there was more snow than you could shake a snow shovel at. Snow is nice and all, but 120 freakin’ inches a year? A few years later, I did move away from the pack to Atlanta. For better or for worse, the rest of the clan followed suit, so now we are all together again. All, of course, except for the siblings that did not move here, or that moved away later.

I’m married now, and have been for all eternity some time now. Kidding aside, I’m amazed how one woman can actually put up with me. Together, we have a beautiful three year old daughter, who is really the light of my life (but anyone who has had a three year old, or who has ever met a three year old, knows that you can also be highly tempted to sell him/her to passing gypsy folks).

So, now I live here in the Deep South. A place where the term “Did you eat yet?” is actually one word – “Jeetyet?” A place where there are more churches than pubs, an unholy land, if you will. It’s a far cry from old Ireland, I can tell you that!

My likes include most of my family, good whiskey, the majority of dairy-based meals, and vegetables (but only taken in moderation). My dislikes mainly revolve around assholes mean people and reality television of any sort.