This week’s highlights
This week I bought a cool and slightly deadly birthday present for my friend Mike. He turns thirty on Christmas Eve. Another friend, Marcus, turns thirty in March next year. I don’t know if I have any other friends approaching thirty. There must be some, as they’re mostly around the same age. So, for all friends of mine either thirty-plus or approaching thirty, well done. Life begins at fourty, so you’re nearly there.
Abi and I went to the cinema to see Harry Potter on Wednesday but it was sold out. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ we thought. We sat in the chairs at the cinema into which you are supposed to insert fifty p and they vibrate. We did not insert fifty p. We just sat and wondered what to do, and then we returned home. We watched The Apprentice instead of Harry Potter and to be honest I was pleased with that result.
Because I thought it might be a good idea to read about a youngish couple with lofty ambitions which are stymied by the unstoppable force of a suburban life, this week I started to read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I know how it ends, I’ve read it before and I’ve seen the excellent film. It doesn’t end well. Still, it is a quite brilliant book, coloured with the minutiae of everyday life. The opening, which tells of the Laurel Players’ disastrous performance of The Petrified Forest, followed by April and Frank Wheeler’s near-violent argument at the side of a road, is one of the most exquisite things in modern literature, I think.
Last night, Abi made me watch a Twilight film. I say she made me but I wanted to watch it, truth be told. I like the Twilight films. There, I said it. I like them. I know they’re terrible in every way but still. I like them. I also read half a Twilight book while on holiday this summer, and God damn it I liked that too.
Our daughter has started to make herself known. Every so often Abi twinges, twitches and looks at me and says, ‘She’s moving.’ I press my hand to Abi’s stomach but feel nothing. Last night, I thought I felt her move but, on reflection, I didn’t. She isn’t strong enough to be felt outside the body yet. I can hear her thoughts though. She’s thinking, ‘Release me from this prison. Release me.’ Or words to that effect. ‘No,’ I think back to her. ‘You are not ready. Your skin is still translucent and you are too small. Wait until April.’
