Dar Williams at Borderline; assorted other things

Things we ought to know by now, children: in the grand scheme of things one does before one leaves the house in the morning, "breakfast" comes before "favourite purple lipstick". Otherwise coffee mugs end up looking like decorative arthouse props.

Anyway. Things and stuff, and all of that. Last week shimgray and I went to London one dark evening to see Dar Williams play in a little underground bar on Charing Cross Road. And, oh, it was so lovely; we had a very nice dinner beforehand, and then the support was... interesting. (Basically, Canadian singer-songwriter with lovely, lovely voice and vilely anodyne lyrics; she ought to have a successful career doing covers.) And then there was a break, and I was just beginning to realise what a fabulous venue it was - low ceilings, mellifluous lighting, and the stage was just a raised platform and we could stand, happily, a metre from it without getting squashed. There were middle-aged women twittering in front of us and leaving their shopping on the stage.

And then she came on, and oh my god I love her. I mean... obviously I love her music, which is thoughtful and delicate and beautiful, but there are so few musicians I just love for themselves. She came on and sang "Easy Way Out" off her latest album, twisted the pegs on her guitar, looked up and said, "Oh, hey, guys, I didn't mean to, like, tune in your faces, there", and grinned this amazing grin and I have a crush thiiiiiiiiis big. Yeah, big as that. Oh, I love her. She played "Mercy of the Fallen" and made fun of the inhabitants of the Wirral, and she played "The Hudson" and talked about being interested in renewable energy ("And one day that's going to bleed into my music, and you're all never coming back!"), and she made lots of fun of the US Department of Homeland Security, and then she talked a bit about the background of "Spring Street" and "Are You Out There", and played them and made me so happy.

I started to wail somewhere in the middle of "When I Was a Boy". Seriously, if you have never heard it, do yourself a favour and take it and listen to it now. It, and "After All", are the two of hers that really get to me - the two that make me sit up and say, very quietly, yes, I was there, too. (She did not play "The Ocean", which is not a surprise - it seems to be an obscure song off a long-ago album that I love partly for its clear-eyed vision of sand and sky and partly because I grew up there, I had that in my bones from the beginning - but I indulged in a few moments of disappointment, nevertheless.)

She finished the set with "Iowa", which was also lovely, and then I took my slightly-make-up-streaked self outside into the night, and was happy. Shim and I made it to Oxford for about one in the morning and I spent the next day dead, but it was totally, totally worth it.

And then on Saturday I had an exam. The less said about that, the better. And also, it was Shim's birthday earlier in the week, and on Saturday evening we had a party, and that was very much marvellous. lizzip came up from Cambridge, and lots of other lovely lovely people were there, too, and we made pizzas and baked strudel. teh_elb and vampire_kitten told jokes, we ate lots of food and talked about feminism and law and language and also maybe, drank some whisky. Until it was two in the morning, which is my kind of party, when everyone slopes cheerily into the night and you look upon the debris with a happy satisfaction.

I really, really need to do some work right now. (Yes, all of my entries end like this, but it's always true.) And also, yay, I am Doing A Convention for the first time in years this weekend, with hathy_col and maybe also emerald_embers and yay, it will be like (very) old times. Except maybe with less eleven-am drunkenness and accosting of strangers in fifteen-foot scarves.

Or... maybe not.