Andrew Bird, Prom, Field Day

Friday morning I was supposed to go to my middle school's version of field day. They call it the Greek and Roman Games. At the beginning of their career at the school, a child is assigned as either a Greek or a Roman. At the end of the year, the two clans compete in a variety of events. It's also a time for alumni to come and visit and see how things are doing. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was less than ideal, and it was postponed until Monday. I was already in Philadelphia that morning when I found out, since I was going to get a ride with Rachel, so we ended up just going to the art museum.

The art museum is pretty awesome. The last time I was there was with Gabo to see the special Andrew Wyeth exhibit. The last time I went there to just see things was probably over a decade ago, which is rather criminal. It really is a fabulous institution, although we had the misfortune of visiting while the entire museum facade was covered in scaffolding for some reason. The interior remained as fabulous as ever, and it was a great way to spend some time until lunch.

After lunch we went and picked Gabo up from the train station. We wandered around South Street for a while. Gabo hasn't spent that much time on it, and it was fun getting to show her around. It was only recently that I've spent much time there, so I can remember what it was like. Fun stuff. I also got a new watch resized but managed to misjudge it so it's still slightly too big. Frustrating, but that's okay.

That night was the much anticipated Andrew Bird concert. I've been looking forward to it since it was first announced, 2+ months ago. I've also been holding on to my tickets for about the same length of time. I only learned the name of the opening band the day before the concert -- Joan as Police Woman. We briefly checked out her myspace page and found it to be pretty indistinctive.

Finally the time came to go and stand in line for the doors to open. We were around fifteenth in line, we only got there half an hour early. We saw Evan and one of his friends standing in line. After the doors opened and we got standing room (reasonably close to the stage), we gathered into a clump and talked. Joan as Police Woman came on and was pretty unimpressive. People didn't stop talking during her set and she got obviously progressively more upset, until Evan said that she looked like she was going to shoot lasers out of her eyes. She did, too.

Then Andrew Bird came on.

Honestly?

Effing amazing.

He's one of the most attractive men I've ever seen and is a ridiculously talented musician. He played about an equal mix of songs from Armchair Apocrypha and Mysterious Production of Eggs. He also played one cover (not sure what of), Dr. Strings, and one new song that he forgot midway through but was still awesome. The only disappointing part of the concert was when the bass gave out and somehow they were only traveling with one bass. The bassist ended up spending the rest of the concert playing guitar or keyboard. Oh, the lighting was pretty bad too. But everything else? Awesome.

Gabo and I slept over at Rachel's place. The next day we took Gabo to the train station and then got on the train later that day ourselves. We went back to my place, hung around for a while, and got ready for my prom. We missed Rachel's prom to go to the Andrew Bird concert, which I do still feel bad about, but I'd feel worse about if it wasn't tied for most amazing concert ever. After we got ready and it was time to go we discovered my mom lost the car. After half an hour or so of wandering around the parking lot it turned out she had left it at the train station somehow. We ended up getting to prom an hour late.

My school has a pretty relaxed prom, luckily. The theme this year was "Blacklight Fantasy," which was pretty cool. The DJ didn't suck that much, and was reasonable about taking requests. I was even able to get him to hook my iPod up so we could play "Piano Man" and yell along. I was surprised to find out later on that this year had the greatest turn-out for a prom yet, because there were still very few people there. I had a lot of fun, because a bunch of my friends were there and I do better not in huge crowds and all that. I think Rachel was able to enjoy it too, albeit it not as much. The best music was played in the last half-hour or so, apparently because some students over-ran the DJ and I had forgotten my iPod back there. (I had been wondering who had such good taste in music, and apparently it's me, though I suppose I was just an enabler.)

The next day we hung around and went to see Spider-Man 3. My feelings about it can be summed up as: They did the best they could. There were just too many elements for them to work with. Something would happen and then not be followed up on for ten or so minutes. They shouldn't have had that many villains. Also: Emo-Spidey? Ridiculous. Topher Grace's voice for Venom? Also ridiculous. I enjoyed it, but it was no Spider-Man 1.

Monday I went to the Greek and Roman Games. Rachel couldn't go because she had surgery (wisdom teeth). But Ben and Gus and Gabo were there and some other people too. It was pretty fun. The score got tied at 12-12, and then the dirty Romans won the last event. The Greeks had a moral victory, I say. Afterwards I went home with Ben and Gus. I'm crashing at Ben's place for some undefined number of days for undefined reasons.

Tuesday I went with Ben's mom to pick him up from school and so I got a chance to wander around my old high school's campus a little bit. The only student to recognize me was a girl who I never had a class with or really even spoke to for more than 45 seconds, but had a crush on me freshman year. I went to drop in on my old advisor and had a nice talk with him. It was pretty weird being back there and also kind of stressful.

That's about it. I've been writing ridiculously long posts, but it all seems to be necessary. In case you missed it, I did publish my NCACS post.