#9: home is where the homies is - i went back to glasgow

29.11.23 - Vienna

After a few weeks on hiatus - one which was as unexpected and unplanned as it was necessary - I’m back with some notes from a trip I took back to Glasgow last weekend.

I moved from Glasgow to Malta early in September 2022. Over a year later - which is far too long - I returned to see my friends, make ghostly noises at some of my old haunts, and remind myself of the city which was so central to my development over the half decade I lived there.

The most important thing I could do, upon returning, was spend time with the people who consistently managed to keep me happy through all the turmoil I put myself through.

After lying to a friend at the beginning of November, by telling her that I would very likely be going to Scotland at some point this month - whilst having no real faith in my ability to hold a thought long enough to book tickets - I proceeded to do nothing resembling booking tickets or planning a trip.

Thankfully, she is blessed with focus, and after receiving no updates from me for a couple of weeks, she followed up. Her message caught me in a moment of mania (what some people might refer to as ‘a normal amount of concentration and motivation’) and in seconds, I had booked time off work and a set of flights!

I then proceeded not to bother figuring out where I’d be lodging until two days prior to my departure. Because of course I did.

When I did eventually book accommodation, it would be so last minute that the only affordable option was one I’d have been wise to avoid. I survived, though. I always seem to. Maybe I’m immortal. Yeah, that makes sense.

On that note, I shall conclude this rambling preamble, and we can dive right in to a play by play composed of snippets written impulsively between moments.

It was a truly great long weekend, and one I want to remember.

Thursday 12:30

The pilot - that’s right, I’m flying. I wish was taking the train, but I’m a bit of a povo, so I’ll just live with the guilt - just told us we’re halfway across Germany, at an altitude of around 38,000 feet. I’m not sure what they want me to do with that information, but now you have it too. So maybe you have some use for it. If you do, I’m glad to be of service.

We should be arriving on time.

Thursday 15:24

I’m in Edinburgh, ready to roll through to Glasgow, and I still haven’t eaten anything today. Whooops.

I’m hoping to grab a chocolate brownie and a coffee (health) as soon as I’m there. I’ll be meeting my best buddy first, then meeting another wonderful friend to munch down on a whole lot of pizza, before heading back to watch the first friend perform with a choir.

Very exciting stuff, though I’ll be honest, I’ll be able to get more excited about the music once I’ve eaten pizza (which is, as we all know, the music of food).

Thursday 19:41

Caught up and chowed down, now I’m sat in a bustling theatre, waiting for the show to start.

Paesano’s remains as good as it was when I left. The UK as a whole seems to be continuing to spiral downwards, but that, at least, is encouraging.

Seeing my friend was great, but she’s being given a lot more work than is fair. Because they’re competent, and because they’re extremely hard-working, and because the company they’re working for struggles to find people like them, they’re being leaned on hard. I know they’ll be okay, but they are struggling, and that sucks.

When you meet someone you care about for just a couple short hours, trying to catch up on a year of life’s ups and downs can be hard.

So what do you do? Listen, express your hope that things will get better soon and remind yourself that any unsolicited piece of advice which occurs to you - like the fact that you think she’s able to do what is best for her even if it means no longer being able to help quite as many people in quite the same way - has already crossed their mind.

It was wonderful to see them, but it was also difficult. I can’t help, and I wish I could. And I haven’t been there, and in this moment, I really wish I had.

Thursday 20:40

Intermission. I’m loving the show. Something about multitudinous voices in euphoric harmony that makes my spine tingle. Have you ever cried at a disco song? Well, that makes two of us.

Makes me want to create, and makes me wish my voice would one day contribute, in some capacity, to making someone cry when they didn’t expect to.

(If you listened to blue hands, maybe that already happened. More likely to be because I struggle to hit high notes than anything else, but that still counts.)

It’s a strange ambition, hoping to make people cry.

Anyway, I love me some show tunes. In another life, maybe I’d have been a starlet. Maybe my gut is wrong, but for some reason, all my instincts point toward the likelihood that I will never be the type to join a group and learn to collaborate.

Even if I could join, am I too dysfunctional to be able to sustain being a part of that group without somehow blowing up my own spot?

If nothing else, I can at least take some comfort in a very particular skillset which is apparent to me as I sit here pondering. I’m very good at turning a performance I’m not involved in, taking place in front of hundreds of people being entertained, thrilled and comforted, into something else entirely.

What these people don’t know, and what they may never know, is that actually, this is all about me.

Thursday 20:51

People move without you when you love to move away

A place can stay the same but have no place for you to stay

So stay or leave

You’d best believe

the tight tail ends to the tales we weave

...

unfurl and keep going

Thursday 20:56

I just wrote a poem (and now I’m writing about writing a poem) because I felt (feel) the need to look busy, so the worst wouldn’t (doesn’t) happen.

What is this ‘worst’ I speak of? The stranger sat beside me talking to me, of course.

Thursday 20:57

I have issues.

Friday 10:32

I’ve been blessed with glorious Glasgow weather. I’ve already gone for a long walk, the quest towards a towel I can use and keep.

The alternative would be to rent one from a hostel doing its darnedest to turn a profit. After all, at some point in the 1800s, the proprietors clearly had to spend upwards of £8 to purchase the thinnest possible single glazed window panes in existence.

Considering that they also spend no money on heating because they figure that by cramming several dozen people into very small rooms, body heat alone can undo the effects of Glaswegian winter, how could they possibly offer towels for free?

After a night of choppy sleep in a 14 bed dormitory, though, my spirits are genuinely very high. Fortunately, there was only one snorer. Less fortunately, that snorer was located in the bed directly adjacent to my own.

As I write this, I’m in Kelvingrove park. I just spoke to a friend who got some bad news about a colleague this week. The world can be an exceedingly tough place to be, but I’ve no evidence that the alternative is any easier. Stay strong, whoever you are.

You matter, and people care.

And with that thought in mind, I’m heading to my favourite breakfast place in Glasgow for a sandwich and a coffee. Scrumptious.

Friday 11:33

I fixed a sticker someone broke.

Friday 12:03

Not bragging, just reporting.

I just helped save a Dachshund’s life. The lowrider beastie gave an exemplary impression of being the wurst by exploiting a moment of distraction to sprint excitedly into the path of fast moving traffic.

I stepped into that path but got juked - I’ve never been the best at predicting a well practiced sidestep. I’m good in a pinch, though, so I chucked my bag into the pup’s new path. That motion was confusing enough to make them stop, turn, and run back into the botanic gardens, and their owner’s open arms.

What ensued was (I’m assuming, because I didn’t feel I could rightly approach and listen to the chastising), was the talking to of a lifetime.

Friday 13:58

I just left one friend, and I’m on the way to meet another. Gonna get some cauliflower wings, a beer, and catch up.

What goes without saying doesn’t hurt to have said. I love my friends very much.

I’m happy with myself to be making the effort to see them. Sometimes I worry that I’ve never really had that many people, but that isn’t true. My people are just scattered, just like my existence.

Friday 18:20

Tell ya what, it’s fuckin cold. I’m rushin on to the hostel to grab at least of two more layers. If it’s cold out here, I can’t imagine what its like in there.

Might treat myself to a movie if anything decent is on. Might also treat myself to a movie if nothing decent is on.

Friday 19:50

On my way to watch Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon. I had some time to kill at the hostel, and fell into a conversation with a dude who’s been hitchhiking his way across the European continent, after a stint in Northern Africa and the Middle East.

I find it inspiring to talk to people who up and go - particularly those who do so because ‘all jobs suck’ as he so eloquently put it. I like to listen to people who don’t feel so burdened by the weight of their privilege that they prevent themselves from using it to experience the world.

Friday 23:49

My review of Napoleon: Meh. Maybe I’m bad at watching movies, but the whole Malta of it all distracted me constantly. Joaquin is great, because when is he not? But that cinema charges far too much for tickets. So I stole a glass from them. 

Justice?

Saturday 17:50

A full day of meeting friends, eating food, shooting pool and loving life. Glasgow has been so kind to me that I forgot I was writing this, if I’m honest with you.

Saturday 21:03

Bout to ride a Ferris wheel at a truly terrible Christmas market in George Square. What a weird life.

Sunday 10:33

It’s a cloudy one this morning, which is a much fairer representation of the majority of the time I spent living here.

I don’t mind it, but this cold is biting.

Sunday 11:32

Scratch that, I’m starting to mind a little bit.

I’m definitely remembering what it felt like to be in this city in the grey, and in the cold.

Thems is easy conditions for the ol’ depression to take hold of me. I don’t mean to devalue the term, so I should acknowledge that maybe I’m worn out right now. This has been a dense couple of days. But I’ve got a really good day ahead.

Friends, pasta, fun, and a lil trip through to Edinburgh for more friends, beer, ramen, and a derisive look at what more people should regard as Scotland’s second city

Sunday 13:58

I returned to the hostel to pack up and clear out but actually ended up speaking to the snorer.

In the light of day, the desire to smother him with his own pillow dissipated, and I really enjoyed hearing about his life. For that reason (and that reason alone) I need to remember to talk to people and let them humanise themselves in my (hypothetically) homicidal eyes.

He told me that if I want to establish myself as a journalist in Mumbai, I can contact him and he knows a few people who could help get me set up. Not sure I’ll take him up on that, but it was very nice of him.

He spun a few good yarns about the Scottish women he’s enjoying meeting.

He also surprised me when he explained that he is currently married to his second wife. This is because he divorced the first after realising that she wasn’t being loyal to him.

Mixed reviews on his ability to interpret blatant hypocrisy, but still a pleasant chat. He’ll be at the hostel for a few more weeks, so I hope nobody else (most likely, his current wife) smothers him in his sleep.

Sunday 14:05

Drinking a coffee from one of them places that asks you to write your name down for them to call out when they’ve prepared your order. When I used to come here, (which was often, my dissertation wouldn’t have been completed without this establishment’s ‘quadruple shot’ option) I’d toss them an underarm softball: ‘Paul’.

If my time in Scotland taught me anything its that I will never be able to do a Scottish accent, and that many of the natives simply cannot compute the complexity of my name.

This time, I gave them the hardball option. Call it cultural pride, if you’d like. I call it comedy.

‘Batch brew for Paula?’

Monday 06:03

I’m still a little bit drunk, as I head to the airport. It’s a good feeling.

Yesterday, I met a friend for pasta (yummy), went through to Edinburgh and met more friends (yay), felt a lot of feelings about friendship, love, ramen (yaymy) and Guinness. Quite a lot of Guinness. I also experienced the intrusion of a deeply jarring thought.

Is…. is Edinburgh actually nice?

It is safe to say that my loyalty is questionable enough for a snoring hypocrite to serve me with divorce papers.

Monday 06:17

I just got through airport security so easily that I almost went back and told them to check again. The key, it seems, is alcohol. Alhamdulillah.

Monday 09:12

I’m in the sky right now. Weird that you can be drunk and on the floor and then drunk and in the sky and nobody says boo.

A lot of me feels like it’s strewn about various parts of Scotland. I love it here in more ways than I can easily describe.

But I’m excited to get back to where my heart is.

blog the ninth signing off