Woke up this morning. Got myself a gun.

Or at least, I would have done if there had been one to hand. As I’ve said, the happy-go-lucky gang of wonderful teens who were populating my dorm at the Hostel have sadly moved on (although they left me a lovely goodbye note), and last night a group of Italians arrived late. They unpacked. Not very talkative, but I assumed from the way they’d spread themselves out, that they were going to be here for a little while. Fool that I was…

At 5.00 am, the noise starts. Lockers clang. People stomping around. Suitcases being wheeled. It sounded like a herd of elephants attempting to tapdance and, as you can imagine, it took a while to get back to sleep afterwards. Basically, they were packing everything up, and within half an hour, the room was empty of Italians. Now, I’ve had to leave from a Hostel early myself, but you do sensible things. You pack early. You get everything together. You make the minimum amount of noise. Why the hell they decided to do it that way kind of defeats me, but I guess you can’t have everything. Hopefully, tonight will be a little quieter.

Spent most of this morning working on the George A. Romero interview (he talked tons, which is always a boon), and I’ve got the Thumbsucker press conference this afternoon, followed by A Bittersweet Life. I’m hoping to see something fun soon, as the last couple of movies have been very unrewarding, maudlin stuff (I am hugely looking forward to Serenity, which screens tomorrow). The departure from Edinburgh still feels a great distance away, but I’m not going to get down about this- and I am going to remind myself that doing this as reconnaisance is a good thing. It’s giving me more of an idea of how Festivals work, and I’ve got a party tonight, so I’m actually going to attempt to (SHOCK! HORROR!) socialise, rather than just sitting in a dark room and staring at a screen.

I’m going to be 31 tomorrow. I’m trying not to think about it…