Wednesday, 18 June 2003

Yesterday was a most excellent birthday. I opened presents in the early morning and received much birthday loot. As good as all the loot put together, I was over my cold. I was well enough to go for a run in the evening (as well as lifting weights this morning) and did it all without cough syrup or nose drugs.

I had to work, but did meet Jackie for a birthday lunch. In the evening we had a light supper and then went to see "Bend it Like Beckham," as we'd planned. What a great film! Rather like Indian films, it had a bit of everything. At its core it's a sports story, and hits all the necessary bits of a sports story. But it's also a love story, and a coming-of-age story, and a clash-of-cultures story. Plus, it had singing and dancing. And the soccer tryout and workout scenes played like sports-bra commercials--lots of young, fit women in revealing costumes running and jumping and sweating and hugging one another. From beginning to end it has all the good stuff anyone could want in a movie.

I'm nearly ready for my trip. I solved the last of the problems I was worried about. Jackie is packing for me. (She's a sweety. Plus, she packs for me rather better than I do, although I can still do it myself if I have to.)

At lunch yesterday we were talking about things we might do and were having trouble making a definite plan. So, I said, "Well, we can do whatever we want. Because we're grown-ups." Maybe if we'd had kids I'd have gotten beyond this a long time ago. Maybe having to make decisions for infants, having to watch little children make their own foolish decisions out of immaturity, would have given me a visceral sense that I really was a grown-up. But, as it has come to pass, I haven't. Even after being married for eleven years, after supporting myself for twice that, I still feel much the way I did twenty, twenty-five years ago--like I'm getting away with something. Like I can be foolish or reckless or naughty or immature in any of a hundred different ways, and nobody can do anything about it, because I'm a grown-up. Ha!