Wednesday
It’s Wednesday night in Philadelphia and I’m heading to the venue with my friend Flo, whose place I’ve been staying at since arriving. We met years ago through World of Warcraft and, the night before, got to have our first in-person TTRPG session thanks to her girlfriend offering to run a game! It was a lot of fun.
I’m working merch tonight, and about fifteen minutes after arriving at the venue my phone finally decides to start working properly and delivers all the messages I’ve missed. Including the one with instructions on how merch works. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to listen to a video off your phone’s speaker when the bar’s music is blaring, but it’s an exercise in rapidly becoming familiar with the word “futile”. But there I was, valiantly trying to switch between watching the video, listening to the instructions, and doing neither effectively.
I won’t know this until later, but of the shows I’m at this is the one where the most people are wearing masks. I even saw someone with an Airgami mask, and it took a lot for me not to gush about how cool I thought it was (Airgami owner, if ever you see this, I was eyeing your mask with delight, and regret not having picked one up while they were available). It was really nice to see, not just at the show but everywhere we went, that a decent number of people were still masking and that some shops required a mask to enter.
Despite being told that during the set it’s fine to leave the merch table, I still hung out there for most of it. My exceptions were “City Lights,” “Seven Safe Places,” and “Like This.” I managed to find Flo in the crowd for one of them and hang out at the back for the others – it’s easier, I don’t want to disturb people, and there’s a lot more room for dancing.
Night’s end sees us helping bring some equipment down a narrow and tightly cornered staircase, and then parting ways! The Taco Bell around the corner calls our name and while waiting for our food a loud, but otherwise chill man insistently tells everyone in the area “Jesus loves you.” This is a first for me, I have no idea what to do with this.
I don’t know if that was a Philly experience, but it definitely felt like a US experience. Like, if someone is going to get on their bike and cycle a lazy circle or two around me – specifically – and in the friendliest and most genuine voice tell me that a figure in their faith loves me? Well, yeah it’s going to be Christianity, but it’s also going to happen in the States.
The next night I very nearly miss the train to New York, through fault of “I had absolutely no idea where to go once I walked in the train station and damn you could all use some extra signage on these gorgeous pillars making up this beautiful building.” That’s two transit mishaps for anyone counting, and maybe I should have clued into the fact that transport was going to be an ongoing complication this trip!
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That’s all for this week! Until next time, stay cozy, and if you want to join your companions around the cauldron, signup for email updates below!
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