May I Have Your Attention Please?: Bonnie Scotland.

It has been awhile. Right now there is sunshine outside my window, and the voices of men doing construction next door lack the expected Glasgow lilt. California is nice, we have vegetables and recycling, and markedly less rain. Back for a month, and I miss Scotland, but the pangs are bearable as I am still pretty thrilled to be in the beautiful, beautiful bay. I suppose I should finish my travelogue, before getting back to the normal swing of things; not because I think anyone will read it but because I think it will come in handy. What with my very shoddy recording habits and a million blank journals stashed under my bed. So lets see, the remaining Glasgow highlights before the Christmas travel extravaganza began. I got to see Girls. Yes, another American band. It was wondrous. November in Glasgow was freezing, and I wrote this after an incident with a stapler that left me disturbed and more in love than ever.

Untitled

It’s never bright enough that I don’t need the light on

Even at Midday

This may be a real November

My hair only curls when it rains

Lately it’s been so curly the mirror has forgotten I have ears

When I staple my finger

It's so cold it doesn’t bleed

Friends visited from Spain and France, they grimaced over Scottish breakfast and ooohed over chips and curry. Thanksgiving was celebrated with an American feast and British companionship, as well as an impromptu fiddle session by a lovely girl from Skye. Christmas came to George's Square and many a night was spent shivering and smiling at the Christmas market. Birthdays were celebrated nicely and sleazily at Nice n' Sleazy, and we got our first snowfall which was magic. There was a midnight pajama walk to campus with a bunch of wide-eyed California kids, as pure white feathers fell from the sky, and we laughed in disbelief. Eden and I took a trip to the Highlands in the middle of a hurricane and made it home safely by the grace of god and Billy the tour guide. There were of course more Stuart Murdoch sightings, and even a trip to the Blair Estate, the ancestral seat of my Scottish predecessors. I have been dreaming of that trip since the silliest days of girlhood, and actually making it with Eden and a dusting of snow on the ground was kind of the best thing ever. After that it was off to London, Prague, Berlin, and Christmas in Heidenau before a few messy and mournful last days in Glasgow. Here is some (read: far too much) photographic proof to substantiate the last paragraph.