Life is not as dramatic as I thought it'd be.

Here I am. Sitting in my parents' kitchen. Checking email and procrastinating on the web. There have been no major fights or family squabbles. There have been no life-changing, tear-jerking epiphanies for me. Only the day-to-day routine of watching old home videos and logging them on a little sheet for my upcoming family documentary. Of course, it's been just me and my father hanging around here since I got home from London-- my mother left for her own European excursion the day I returned-- so maybe now that she's home the fireworks will start. Just in time for the Fourth of July.

I have to say, though, that watching the videos, while mostly tedious, has been somewhat enlightening as well. The ones I'm watching now are from 1986. Commercially-available video cameras were a new thing at the time so my father was in love with the idea that you could just let the tape run (and run and run) with relatively little cost compared to film. My Dad taped many family scenes (the dinner table, opening presents at Xmas) with the camera on a tripod, left to run for a good half-an-hour or 45 minutes. This extended exposure gives future viewers such as myself what I would consider a fairly true slice-of-life look into the past. The nostalgia one usually feels for "the good old days" and the jealousy of the past's greener grass is replaced by some fantastic schadenfreude. That is, joy in the pain of others. Although, here, it is joy in the pain of one's past self. It's not that I feel superior to my past self so much as I feel that the past was really no better than the present. There were fantastic moments of love, but also bickering and pettiness. There was a great deal of fun, but plenty of frustrating monotony as well. I suddenly have a much better memory of my middle school years than most people. Yikes. But really it's amazing to be able to relive one's past accurately, with all the bumps and bruises (or, more appropriately, the greasy hair and acne). Of course, everyone remembers their awkward years in varying degrees of abstraction, but there's not much room to distance yourself when you sit through two straight hours of your strange hyperactivity and even stranger cartoon voices and impressions. Thank goodness I don't do that anymore.

I am old and fat

I know this sounds self-pitying, but I don't mean it that way. It's really just how I feel these days. Well, the fat thing is objective-- I have gained a lot of weight and am now heavier than I've ever been in my life. A circumstance I mean to change this summer. Today my brother took pictures of me and my nephew at the Phillies game-- a lot of profile shots-- and my jawline is obscured by fat. It's not by any means a double chin, but on its way in that direction. Like I say, though, I don't feel too bad about this, just determined to fix it.

As for the old thing, I cannot reverse time. Of course I'm not really old. I know that. But I am at an age where I start evaluating what I've done with my time on this earth so far. And I feel like I should have accomplished more. I also feel like I am going to be old very soon. Time seems to have sped up greatly. I really believe what they say about time being an illusion. It is all in the perception. A year to me goes by so fast, but for my four-year-old nephew it probably feels like an eternity. I wish I knew how to change my perception so as to slow time down, but alas I do not and, at age 33, the big 4-0 seems so much closer than the big 3-0 felt when I was 23. Furthermore, I imagine that when I'm 43, the big 5-0 will seem like the day after tomorrow. Each year gets smaller and smaller as I go through my life. It's like, when you're a kid, someone shows you the birds-eye floor plan of a corridor and you see that it is 500 feet long. You think "Wow, that is one long-ass corridor! I have so much room!" But then as you actually walk down the real thing, you discover the ceiling gets lower and lower the farther you go. This is clearly an imperfect metaphor, but it is very accurate in describing how claustrophobic I feel. My birth thirty-three years ago seems much farther away than my old age thirty-three years ahead. I can see all too clearly how it will all play out and so I've already played it out in my head. This is what makes me feel old. Really old. This is what threatens my sanity. I know I need to resist the idea that my life has already been lived, but I'm struggling. The sensation that my life has sped up and will continue to do so can either destroy my motivation or enhance it.

Is this what they call "mid-life crisis"? Then why don't I have the desire to buy a sportscar or date a much younger woman? Maybe that's only for men who have a wife, a mortgage, and two and a half kids. For someone like me, who has none of these responsibilities, maybe instead I crave some structure.

Alright, now it's late and I'm carrying on incoherently. Good night.

Day of Amusement

I spent the day today at Dorney Park with a Los Angeles friend. This was my first time at this old amusement park since 6th grade. Boy, has it changed. Now it has tripled in size. A good thing too since there were so many obese hicks in attendance. There were also many high school kids. I think I was the oldest person in the park without a child in tow. Sigh.

I've found that as I'm getting older, the thrill is gone. The rollercoasters don't intimidate me as much, but they also do not excite me as much. Don't get me wrong. I had a lot of fun, but it was kind of a muted fun. It sort of felt like when you first eat McDonald's again as an adult after years away from it. You remember it as you experienced it as a child: with lots of excitement and a sense you were getting a treat. But now the McBloom is off the McRose. The initial thrill when you enter the place returns nostalgically, but seconds after you've eaten the food, you just feel dirty. That's how Dorney Park felt at times today-- like empty calories.

You can never go home again.

How poignant.

Roger really does stink... at blogging

Wow, I apologize. I have let you down, dear reader, by not blogging much at all from London.

All I can do is try to be better about it now that I'm back stateside. Or at least try to try.

So here I am in Philadelphia. I spent my day doing mundane tasks and being annoyed by my father. My father is a big reason I am spending this summer closer to my family, but he can be a pain in the ass. There was no major drama today. Just trying to help out with numerous errands and my dad was crotchety.

What a great word. Crotchety. It's got those hard nasty consonants that make "grouchy" a perfect sound for what it means. Only this has that extra syllable. Taking grouchy to that next level. Here's a sample of my day:

Me (on the phone with my father): Dad, I have to pick Matt & Maggie up from the airport now so I can't wait for mom's instruction email from Sweden any longer [she needed some documents sent]. Are you still at work?

Dad: Yes. I'm going to be here for a long time.

Me: Well, then maybe you could check my email and call me on the road if mom sends something.

Dad (yelling): What?!?! No! I can't check YOUR email at MY work!!!

Me: Don't you have internet access there?

Dad: I can't just-- oh, wait. Yes. Oh. Yes I can. How do I do it?

...

The long summer begins.

no pics, but a maudlin post

I am posting this, against my better judgment, at 4 in the morning. I have been having a lot of fun here in London (and will post pictures, I swear, I'm just not savvy enough to do it yet-- but i will get help), but yesterday I saw an amazing production of Major Barbara by Shaw at the National Theatre. The play is very political and philosophical and this particular staging of it was incredible-- the acting, the directing, the design. The amazing production makes me wish I was in the show, makes me wonder what the hell I think I'm doing in law school right now. All I really wanna do is act, perform, or otherwise connect with people in an artistic fashion. There is a lot of interesting stuff in law school, but on a day-to-day level being a lawyer seems like a shitty day job. Just like all the shitty day jobs I've ever had, just much much better paying.

Also, this trip has reminded me who I am when i'm not around theatre folks. It has been a long long long time since I've hung out with non-theatre types on a regular basis. Observing my own behavior and how much more relaxed I am around them has given me perspective on how much of a front I've put up for my theatre friends for years. Not that I've been false exactly, but I think I've tried too hard to be something I'm not. I've been very self-conscious for years that I'm not artsy enough to be accepted by the theatre world. I come across as such a conservative guy and I think I've spent far too much time and energy fighting that image. Not that I want to embrace that image either, but just ignore that image and not let it get in my way. Just because I'm juvenile and do not entirely understand the human condition does not make me lesser, right? I need to stop trying to be perfect for whatever group I'm around. I think this effort has compromised my integrity somewhat. I have been sucking in my artistic gut for a long time and I'm exhausted. Time to let it all hang out. Time to raise my freak flag and not worry if it's not freaky enough to be in the vanguard of the outcasts.

Okay, this feels like a long rambling post. I knew writing this at such a ridiculous hour was a bad idea. The sun will be up soon. I apologize for my incoherence.

A more lucid post soon.