March 19-20, 2001 — Welcome to the Empire State

I woke up this morning on a bus to see the silhouette of the CN Tower against a pink sky. It felt like home. Especially after a rather bizarre fourteen hours of traveling and of feeling vaguely threatened most of the time. I'm not sure how I feel about associating a large, phallic building with home, though. Or even how I feel about considering Toronto to be my home. There's something that doesn't feel quite right about any of it.

The excursion to Buffalo began at 4:15PM at the Toronto bus terminal. Our bus was late, and a threatening looking ex-vet was at the wheel. Nathan dubbed him Road Rash, and we were trying to work ourselves up to asking about his tattoos. He had us to the border a bit after 7:00PM and gave us a nice view of the Niagara Falls on the way there, so he managed to work himself back into our favour after being slightly tardy.

Speaking of the border: it seems that I've discovered the secret to smuggling backpacks containing questionable goods across the border without having them go through inspection. It should be no surprise to anyone that it involves bad hair.

After being informed that maybe it would be a good idea to bring some proof that we were born in Canada next time we were crossing the border, we moved on to have our bags inspected. But we had to show them our ID cards first.

When people see my ID, I normally get a smirk at worst. I mean, it's pretty bad, but people will generally keep to themselves about it. We all had bad hair at one point in our lives. Or at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself of. Anyway, once the first inspector saw my ID, he laughed and said, "Is that you?" He then waved another inspector over, still grinning, and showed him the ID. Inspector number two arched an eyebrow, started laughing, and said, "Stick with the short hair, buddy." They then waved us through without so much as glancing at our bags.

By the time we made it to Buffalo, it was getting late enough that we were worried about not seeing Dashboard Confessional at all. We were surprised to learn that driving on Main Street, which is where the club is located, isn't allowed. Not that we didn't try; it was just difficult trying to convince a local taxi driver that the road looked fine for driving to us on the Internet maps we'd seen. So what if it's covered in rails and if it goes underground halfway to the club? These are details that should be worked out on the way there.

We ended up taking the pseudo-subway system and we made it there in time to only miss one Dashboard Confessional song.

Unfortunately, we weren't very close to the stage at all, and we were far enough back that it was a lot easier to hear people talking to one another than it was to hear the music. And they had already run out of copies of the new album at the merchandise stand by the time we arrived.

That Chris Carrabba fellow did play a good show, though. If I'd only been close enough to swoon, life would've been that much better.

After Dashboard Confessional had played, we met up with Andrew, who'd driven from Toronto with Mel at the last minute. I was also introduced (or re-introduced, depending on who you ask) to two of Mel's friends, whose names I promptly forgot. I'm a terrible, terrible person, and I apologize for it.

Meanwhile, I thought Hey Mercedes played a very impressive set. Johnston bought their EP and I've been listening to it a lot since we arrived home. The lead singer claims that they'll be playing a show in Ottawa this summer, and I'd be all for that. It was fun to watch their drummer throughout the show, too -- he's awesome at drumming and looks so happy to be out playing shows. It's wonderful to see people who seem to honestly enjoy what they're doing to that extent.

The Anniversary seemed exhausted. They played a decent set, but were my least favourite band of the night.

After the show, we returned to downtown buffalo to try to find something to eat. And because no trip to a US city would be complete without feeling extremely unsafe and expecting someone to pull a gun, we managed that, too. The pseudo-mugger kept saying, "Yeah, I'm black, but it's cool," and telling us that he'd just gotten out of prison. He claimed that he needed money to buy gas for his car. And then he later claimed that it was to pay for parking. Even after getting $5.00 from Gavin, he was quite upset that we hadn't given him a twenty-dollar bill yet. We later saw him again at the bus station and said hi.

We rode a bus home with a pair of Amish people. Nathan seemed oddly opposed to the concept of Amish people in general. He sat close to them before we switched seats at Canadian customs, and I sat next to the guy from the former-USSR who didn't have a Canadian visa and who wasn't allowed to enter the country. After customs (at which we were basically just asked how the show was and sent on through without paying any duty), we were able to get seats together and sleep most of the way back to Toronto.

I went to my physics lab on an hour and a half of sleep. It wasn't much fun.

Then I slept from 6:00PM to 9:00PM. At which point I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep in spite of my best efforts.

Since then, Jeff visited, and he finished the "Welcome to the land of backyard stills and shotgun justice" sign that we now have on the door by drawing a wonderfully skid-like individual on the front. Cuff The Duke has been recording since Monday, hence Jeff's absence prior to now. Apparently things are going very well, which is good to hear.

Little else has happened since the weekend. Erika has school again and emails are a bit less common, but we're still talking in spite of the potential for emotional stress.

It's now approaching 4:00AM and I've only had two naps totaling four hours since Sunday night. And on Sunday night, I only managed around five hours of sleep. Given that my alarm is set for 10:00AM, I won't soon be getting caught up tonight, either.

I need to stop doing this to myself. But I don't regret a thing.