5.6.05

the arcade fire, volume two:

mort, emily, and i took the train into glasgow. we wandered around for awhile, occasionally consulting my gloriously entertaining pop-out map, trying to identify anything that could possibly have made jason schreiber think glasgow was cute. he said it was cute. we clearly missed the cute part. mostly, it is glasgowegian; this is pretty much definitionally not cute.

we did have good, random dinner, though. british burgers (they come with onion rings and pickle; pickle has nothing to do with cucumbers and everything to do with brown sauce) and beer: me getting bamboozled by the lack of belhaven and settling for tennant's velvet, mort winning the day with a flowery, belgian white cask ale. emily got ice water; emily getting ice water is quickly becoming a comfort-event.

mort and emily skipped through the university neighborhood in glasgow, kelvingrove, while i delightedly popped my map on street corners. we walked up and down the length of university avenue before ascertaining that the debating chamber was in the first building we'd seen. we sat on a stone wall, huddled together for warmth, and were promptly approached by a rock and roll disaster in white leather wingtips working for rough trade. his appearance was quickly followed by that of an overly friendly aberdoonian with a lisp who made a later cameo as an exceedingly drunk aberdoonian with a lisp.

shortly thereafter, benjamin botwick was spotted walking up the other side of the street, domino's pizza in hand. he'd come with a quiet scottish boy and the wiry, perpetually late red head from butler/wesleyan who may or may not be named will. mutual enjoyment of prickly verbal sparring ensued.

also spotted was the girl who lives in my building and was in my religion tutorial. dark hair spilling out of her floppy hats, pale skin and pale eyes. from somewhere in england. becky, i think her name is. i don't think she particularly likes me. i also ran into her tear-streaked in the coatroom line at the liquid rooms back in february. this time, on the cold steps of the glasgow university union, we waved, said surprised hellos, and were done with it.

the concert itself was good, but unsurprisingly not as magical as the halloween show. the band's been touring nearly continuously since then; they were still energetic, but not to the same degree. the crowd left a lot to be desired, mostly by dint of being male, drunk, and glasgowegian. i kept getting distracted by their bad behavior and then distracted by my own distraction.

they opened with laika and closed with a bob dylan song segued into wake up and in the back seat. they played their way off the stage. when win worked his way back through, a lady wearing mostly black had some interaction with him and then said to her partner, 'you only shook his hand. i got to cuddle him.' people rushed up to him for his autograph. they're famous now.

we rode back in a steamy cab through a rainy night, catching the eleven o' clock train back to edinburgh. we had good talk, the best talk i've had in awhile. emily and i were glowing with it. eli crashed on my floor and we had a future-talk, one that is likely to be continued during the summer. he poked me awake this morning and was on his way back to st. andrews.

i leave in six days now. it is nearly unfathomable.