normal service...

note: normal service will hopefully be resumed soon, but in the meantime (while blogger's posting is on the fritz) I've found a third party app called Kung-Log to post with - it doesn't seem to be too good with titles though :/

anyway Belfast has been great fun in a relaxed sort of way. In a rare fit of activity last night Pete and I sampled the delights of the city's gay scene in the shape of a club called the Kremlin. I'm not much for the scene as a whole but the Kremlin turned out to be a really enjoyable bit of escapism: the place itself was fun and (generally) so were the people, although I did once find myself being addressed with that most infuriating of gay club clichés: "go on, smile!" which always seems to come from someone with no apparent smile-worthy characteristics, and which frankly, pissed me off more than it usually does because I was smiling at the time!

Pete got tired by about midnight and left (after checking that I did in fact know how to get home without him) I wasn't remotely tired however and stayed on, dancing and chatting with complete strangers in that strange top-of-your-lungs way you have to in a club. I couldn't honestly say I met anyone but I enjoyed myself nonetheless.

I left at the end of the night (shortly after 3am) feeling a curious mixture of relaxed satisfaction and sadness: satisfaction at having spent the evening enjoying myself on my own terms as well as a sort of drunken self-satisfied smugness at being able to do that these days: I remember distinctly, being the younger me who used to go to clubs in Aberdeen looking for something I felt was missing... and I remember even more distinctly the Morrisey-esque feeling of coming home at the end of the night not having found it.

I couldn't quite put my finger on the source of this faint edge of sadness as I walked through empty night time Belfast trying to find a cab (all of which it transpires leave their lights on whether they have a fare or not here, frustratingly) but with my head cleared and the help of hindsight I think what made me a little sad was that, even though I can now go out to a club and just enjoy it for the uncomplicated distraction that it is, there's still a small part of me that would like to prove myself wrong by stumbling into whatever it was I was looking for back at University.