Well, I've spent worse evenings.

Here is how the eight hours from getting off work til now were occupied:
1) Left work; got cake for sustanance in making decision about whether to go to concert. Had spent previous three hours dithering, calling craig's list posters (no luck) etc.
2) Got home exhausted as per usual, lay on couch & read magazines, decided best course of action was really to stay home considering price of ticket, work in the morning, etc.
3) This lasted for about twenty minutes, until my flagging energy revived and I started lecturing myself about sleeping only when dead, not acting as if age 50 prematurely, etc. Considered fact that this was likely the only chance I'd have to see B&S for at least a couple of years. Felt guilty about how proximity of San Francisco was major reason for moving here, and here I was not taking advantage of it.
4) Talked myself into it, got in car (late, of course), told myself wouldn't mind the 3-hour round-trip drive even if no tickets available, and drove like madwoman into city. (There was only a slight pause when I had to call CA Highway patrol (aka 911) - cracked out car driving in the fast lane with no headlights & weaving. Scary). Got into city with no real traffic, found venue (!) and even more mind-bogglingly, found parking only four blocks away.
5) Grabbed my bag & ran, along with herd of other people, towards venue. Was exactly on time. V. proud of self. Started looking for scalpers.
6) Scalper found me. Offered single ticket. Huzzah! Went digging for money. Please note that scalping is illegal in California and so was semi-nervous about the whole venture anyway. Realized, with sinking feeling, had no wallet. Must have fallen out in car. Damn damn damn.
7) Ran back to car, grabbed wallet, ran back to venue (hey! exercise!) bought ticket, filed inside.
8) Stood, semi-footsore, in crowd of people and listened to enjoyable program of The New Pornographers, and then Belle & Sebastian.

There were a couple interesting things about the crowd tonight. For one thing, the hipster crowd in SF seems to be slightly cleaner (and wealthier, perhaps?) than the equivalent hipster crowd in Seattle, where you would likely see some grungy hoodies and torn jeans and a much higher punk aesthetic than I saw here. Rather, every single person in the crowd tonight -- and I mean every single person -- was rocking librarian chic. This is likely a function of the band that was playing, but still. The entire venue - an airplane hanger sized place - looked like it was made up of clones of my library school cohort. Seriously, I thought I saw former colleagues about a dozen times, despite the statistical unlikeliness of such a thing. Anyway, everyone seemed to be perfectly well-positioned in their mid-to-latish twenties, perhaps early thirties; everyone wore librarian glasses; everyone was well-coordinated in a Gap-meets-thrift stores-meets the occasional Macy's piece kind of way; and everyone both had and knew how to use their text messaging. I suspect the total techy brain power in that room would be enough to keep the world's websites up and running for the next few millenia. There was also an overabundance of cute boys -- aww, with the right age range and the skinnyness & the glasses! There's nothing like a boy in glasses. There was a curly redhead who stood behind me for a while that I was particularly smitten with.

The show - the actual music - was also fine. I liked the New Pornographers. B&S were good, though as someone said behind me as we were leaving, everything they played sounded like the album versions of the same songs; not much improv. The lads in the band are adorable, particularly the frontman. I am glad I went, though it was probably not the absolute best show I've ever seen. Fun to actually go out for once though!

9)After all this, I found my car again - hurrah! - and discovered that in my haste to get the wallet I'd failed to lock my door. Bear in mind that said car was parked on a dark street under a freeway overpass in a semi-industrial part of town. Oh well, it was untouched.
10) Took off & promptly got lost in San Francisco. This happens every time I try & go anywhere in the city. I think the only time I've been & haven't gotten lost is when echoree was with me and navigating. It's just very... confusing. I can never find the right freeway, and all the streets wind around in complicated ways.
11) And here is the major bad part of the evening: my car is decidedly making funky noises again, which it's been semi-threatening for the last few trips & now is definite. It sounds horrid at low speeds, like the transmission is slipping, or the wheel bearing is going again (I hope it's this) or something else dreadful. Anyway am taking to mechanic in morning as am afraid to drive. This is rather exceptionally bad timing - I'm suppose to make 3 trips to the airport soon to pick up various people, one of which is Thursday night and involves going to SFO - and the person is coming in from an international flight (co-worker). Argh.
12) Aside from that crap, though, the good sides include:
a) have now seen Boy with the Arab Strap performed live, with the adorable gay boys of San Francisco jumping up and down in time
b) No longer feel like am prematurely 50
c) Have seen another favorite band
d) Have good story to tell, what with the wallet (who would be so dumb, that they would go somewhere intentionally to scalp tickets and leave their wallet in the car?) and all. Huzzah!

Sleep now.