I left work early today and walked across campus, in 90 degree weather, in order to sit outside in the sun for two hours, waiting for Motion City Soundtrack tickets to go on sale. It’s been a long time since I waited in line for tickets - possibly since the Backstreet Boys show in 1999? - but, it’s their hometown pre-album release show, and tickets were only available via the box office, so I figured it was worth sitting my ass down for. It was hot, though, hot enough that I was shaking by the time I made it to the Varsity, and was damned glad that I remembered to buy a bottle of water before I left work.

Once I was sitting, though, it was a remarkably pleasant experience. I chatted with the man in line behind me, a gray-haired man from Stillwater who was buying tickets as a surprise for his 16-year-old son. I told him he won a metric ton of cool parent points for that one. Occasionally, we exchanged pleasantries with the college-age kid in line in front of us. At one point, the kid asked a guy jokingly if he could get him a Coke from the bar across the street. The man - who turned out to be the owner of one of the shops we were sitting in front of - smiled, and actually walked across the street to fetch the soda. When the incredulous kid tried to give him $2 to cover it, he waved it off. “It’s good business advertisement,” he said. Obviously, because the kid and his friends were plotting whether they had enough money to go buy a t-shirt from the guy, last I heard.

Two hours later, tickets were purchased, and I was ready to get in out of the heat. Took a brief turn around Sara Cura’s new store - which I saw her advertising at CONvergence, and to which I need to go back when I haven’t just spent all my cash, as she has a collection of the BEST Putamayo compilations! - before heading into Vescio’s for dinner. Vescio’s is the very definition of hole-in-the-wall Italian, where they serve you simple bread and a plate of pasta smothered in red sauce, just like your mother used to make, and only charge you $10 for the whole meal. I sat in a dark booth and continued to read Coyote Dreams while the man in the booth behind me apparently hacked up his entire lung. I began to wonder if I should turn around and ask if I could help, as it sounded like he emptied the entire liquid content of his body onto the table, when the waitress walked up and said “hey, Mr. X, can I get you anything else?” I suppose he always sounds like that. It was a good thing I was engrossed in the book.

When I was done with dinner, I fished my car out of hock (Dude, $12 to park for a day, no matter what. Let’s not talk about how much I hate the new Gopher football stadium, because NATURALLY the rich football backers matter more than the hundreds of us who actually have to work on the damned campus year round …) and headed downtown. The path through Northeast and downtown looks different every time I go - a new condo building here, a new store there, two more new condo buildings to the side. Still, even the new parts feel familiar. I forget how much like home downtown Minneapolis feels. I don’t miss paying through the nose to live close, but I miss the feeling of community I get every time I drive across the river. St. Paul is a lot more … individual. People keep closer to their own families, their own groups. In Minneapolis, it feels like everyone is networking. I feel connected in downtown Minneapolis.

I had a post I wanted to make about the differences between Dinkytown and downtown, and how odd it is that I feel at home in both. How much of a chameleon I am, how that might be my strength. But, tonight is not the night to make that post, it seems. So, just impressions of a day, of a city. I’m very aware of a sense of place today.