julian has come, and has gone. i saw him for all of one hour! of course you'll come and stay with me, i say, but it turns out they're driving back to durham tonight, which was hugely disappointing. i caught him 5mins before the performance, and he said we'll have to get out during the intermission, so we did. we sat in a corner of the nursing school lobby and looked at each other. i'm sorry you have to go rightaway, i got you attap chee. (i went to the thai restaurant down the road and got two cups of it, because instead of going out to find something to do i thought we'd just come home and eat attap chee!) lightbulb. how far away is your place. 8mins by bus and 20 walking, though the bus might take 20mins to come. he had to be back by 10, and it was 9.15 then. we ran for it. nothing like attap chee to get a singaporean abroad moving. julian asks me how i move in when he sees the endless stairs at my place. everybody asks me that when they visit. those who don't assume i have a lift, which i don't have. endless suffering every year is what it is. we burst into the warmth of my room and julian says i have a lot of books and that my room looks like a second hand bookshop. i consider that a compliment! there weren't even that many when joel was here. and since then my available shelfspace has been contracting readily. there wasn't time for a cup of tea or even to eat the attapchee. julian had to go immediately. he says it is a little like one of those strange in-transit stories. i thought it was rather like a wartime soldier-on-leave stories. (dorothy parker has one of those, called the lovely leave, it's one of my favourite stories. i always think of that one together with peter taylor's rain in the heart, as an opposite.) so i urge him not to get shot by the germans and to send "messages from the forces" you are very nearby, why don't you come and visit me more often? i sternly ask. he said he was hoping to get a car, and asked me why i didn't go to duke more often. because durham is worse than charlottesville, is what, i retorted. julian thought walking back was best, and we had gone 40 metres from the bus stop when we saw the bus coming and we raced back to the bus stop. you have too little faith in the public transport system, which exists for the public good, i admonished him. was julian one of those people who looked very sedentary but turn out to lead the class in 2.4 or something? i'm glad i went to the concert, afterall. quite honestly, at 5.30, i was prepared to stay home the rest of the night. i was extremely tired and unhappy, and i soon discovered the reason for it too, that i had just got my period. it looked too cold to go out, and when i was on the bus the cramp had spread to my lower back. and then at the entrance i found i had lost my ticket, i don't know how, although on-my-honour they let me in. but julian's group was very very good! i thought they were much better than the virginia group. the uva ppl had better soloists but everything else was rather bland. i didn't think the duke group had any especially great soloists, but the whole group was more stylish by far. there was much more texture in the arrangement, much more humour in the performance. i would love to go hear them at a full concert! and julian sang his celine dion song! heehee, it was just as good as yen promised and everyone in the auditorium was laughing, especially when he got to the part about seeing her house from his van. afterwards some guy went up to him and asked how they composed the song. (they didn't) i told him i'd better stand next to him so that i'll be famous tomorrow for being the celion dion guy's friend. i warned him too that i'd give his telephone number away to anyone who asks, for a small sum. he in turn complained about typecasting, he gets all the goofy love songs! but julian does have that mournful, singleminded face for it! the concert had ended and people were spilling out of the auditorium. julian had to leave, and i walked home singing danny boy. and my back didn't even hurt anymore.