AWOL Ambitions

I had three things in the diary today. After a late start we headed to Greenwich for brunch (a very good one in the Organic Café opposite the Picture House!) before going on to watch Frost/Nixon. A compelling docu-drama that I’d not been able to get tickets for at the Film Festival last year. It’s well worth watching. I knew that the Nixon interviews made David Frost’s name, but I hadn’t realised quite what a lightweight he was back then. Strangely, I also felt myself identifying with Nixon; the man who doesn’t enjoy people much but ended up choosing a job where he had to be popular. I may not be President of the USA, but my job is much more about people than it is about computers these days and I can’t help looking at my life and wondering if I missed some opportunities to make it more what I wanted it to be when I was young.

The rest of the afternoon was spent roughing-out an itinerary and budget for our Sri Lanka trip in March and then sending it on to Ping (who’s coming with us) and Mark G (who’s our host and man on the ground.)

This evening we had tickets to see A Little Night Music at the Menier Chocolate Factory. I didn’t know the plot and Brett couldn’t remember it from the couple of times he’d seen it in AmDram, so we went along knowing only that it provided the world with the songs Send In The Clowns and You Must Meet My Wife. It turned out to be an excellent farce with some great music and razor-sharp timing from a solid cast… it also included a couple of pieces that I knew from YDFN; A Night Waltz and Perpetual Anticipation. A lot of ironic emotional resonance too.

In other news, I’m a bit of a headcase at the moment.

I’m hoping it’s just the winter blues, but of late I’m finding myself on an emotional rollercoaster. Being friends with a teenager is reminding me of a lot of the joys of youth and making me wonder how so many of them slipped my grasp. When I look at my life today and think back to the dreams and ambitions I had as a teenager I am horrified to realise how much I’ve become the man I always said I would never be. I have Brett to save me from insanity; the one thing that I can point to and say is a good thing in my life, but we have so little to talk about these days because we are both so settled in our respective ruts; there’s nothing new to say.

I can’t even remember what my ambitions were.

I feel the urge to escape from where I am but have no idea of where I want to go or what I want to do. Religious types can accept this kind of thing because they are certain if they are just nice people they'll get all the reward they could hope for in an afterlife. Atheists know that this is their only chance for fulfillment, so you've got to make the best effort you can.

Anyway it’s 1am and I’m tired – I have woken up in the small hours the last few nights, which I’m sure is another aggravating factor for my mood swings – so I’m just going to publish this whine to the blogosphere for those of you who, for reasons passing understanding, enjoy reading about my endlessly repetitious existence, then go to bed and hope that I can sleep well tonight.