This weekend old friends from my college days are coming to London. I've not seen them, or really talked to them, in more than eight years. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but I'm fairly terrified. I keep reflecting on it and realise I'm upset with myself for not doing with my life what I was planning to do. No art, no music, nothing published, no advanced degree, no outrageous romance, no big contribution to the world.



I'm feeling this way because it's a defined period of time to look back upon and say, "did I do what I planned?" The next question is then "what would I have done if I were braver?



Not that I look back and see nothing. I'm in London. That's an amazing thing. I climbed a company ladder and made a quiet reputation in a volatile business. I know some brilliant people. But is it any of it stuff that I can stand and say to the world, "for all I got I gave you back this..."?

As I write this I'm speeding through the French countryside on a train tilting periously to the right trying not to spill tea on the keyboard. Vive l'Eurostar! And the good sense I've got to use it often. Spent an overindulgent weekend in Paris eating too much bread and cheese, drinking too much wine, spending too much money. It rained, everything I own is wet or stinking of galoises, and I've had about three hours of sleep, but I'm feeling fine. Even if I stink of camembert .



I accidentially stumbled onto the end of the Tour de France and watched as the stream of nylon-clad bodies whizzed past. Wish I had had my camera, but was going to meet a friend for coffee and didn't bring it with me. Coffee turned into dinner turned into drinks turned into dancing turned into very restless sleep where I dreamt an entire episode of a sitcom that starred Lucille Ball and Scott Baio (no, I don't understand either.)



Going home tonight to watch the lovely Guillaume Depardieu in Peau d'ange and the hard-to-find Guesch Patti movie.

Lighten up already Thanks for your messages. In looking back, these entries seem fairly dark, but still important to get off my chest. I spent the weekend sleeping, exhausted by both work which is mad and a bit of depression. Part of me wanted to feel guilty about wasting a weekend, but part of me was enjoying laying about, napping, making a mess out of my flat, feeling dramatic. Unfortunately, a pallid lethargy has set in and I'm barely able to concentrate on work and snapping at the constant interruptions I get. But don't worry yourselves. Things are bound to cheer up.



So, let's do a roundup. The BBC and British government are embroiled in the Kelly scandal. The short of it is: the BBC did a report claiming the government "sexed up" the dossier with claims about Iraq's weapons to move the country into war. The PM's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell hit back viciously attacking the BBC and asking them to reveal their source. It rages back and forth until the name of Dr. Kelley is leaked into the press. A week later, after a rather brutal day in front of a parliamentary commitee, Dr. Kelley is found dead near his home. Was it suicide? Did the government push him to it with veiled threats? Did the BBC co-erce him to break his confidentiality agreement? No one will come out clean from this. It appears there are guilty parties. But the truth is, regardless of No. 10's role in this, it may deserve to come down. The country's a mess. We've been involved in a scandalous war. And Blair seems much more loyal to his spin doctors than he does to his country.

Ok. So I write this. This was the response I got: "Hi, I've got a sling and am into fisting (active or passive)."



Now, I didn't necessarily say that I wasn't into slings or fisting (I'm not) and I'm not usually judgmental about other people's sex life, but I really didn't say that balling up my fist and exploring someone's colon was my idea of a great evening in. I should know better with this whole online dating thing, but I thought someone it was clear I was going after a slightly more sophisticated (read: vanilla, actually read: smart, cute, normal) crowd with my ad.



Be real, any sling I was stupid enough to climb into would come crashing down with most of the ceiling.

To seek solace in a bottle and possibly a friend. Occasionally my iPod goes through phase where the random songs it chooses has a theme or mood to fit mine. Yesterday it was a very new folk scene kind of a mood and I spent most of the day listening to the Indigo Girls. How fantastically underrated are they? Why aren't they superstars (besides their unfashionable activism, enthusiasm for life, introspection?) I remember the first time I heard Closer to Fine. I was in college and highly susceptible to the how to find your way through the world message. And I've been an avid fan ever since.



But then, I've been victim to a lot of soul-searching lately. Why the drinking? Why the loneliness? Why the feeling that somehow I'm letting the darkness creep in because it's better than feeling nothing. I told someone I shop as an emotional substitute, but in reality I drink. It's an escape. It doesn't feel out of hand, I'm not missing work or drinking all the time, but I've started to realise I'm not drinking because it's fun, I'm drinking because the rest of it isn't.



I was meant to be a smash here. I was meant to have a whirling social circle of friends, a man to share my life with, an exotic European career. It was meant to have been worthwhile to give up my life, my family, my friends.



Instead my address book is full of clients and co-workers, some people I'm losing touch with, some others who've shunned me for whatever unspoken reasons, and still more whose lives are understandably too rich and people-filled to understand what it's like. Maybe that's why I drink to get drunk, or rather, drink to be able to escape into that fantasy where I'm surrounded by a circle of friends, where I have a special person, where I can feel confident and vibrant and worthwhile. Which I know makes that less and less likely to happen. It's a bit vicious, and I'm feeling the sting.

Saturday I went with Kirsten and her husband to a Bbq in suburban Bexleyheath. It was meant to be in celebration of 4th of July, but it was a grey 5th of July, it was a drive through some of the grimest parts of South London, and was out of time and place. The few English people there were clearly bored by the talk of childhood firework disasters, horrified by the Budweiser and cornbread, and unwilling to play along that I found the whole thing terribly depressing. I'm more and more ambivalent about being an American anyway (I feel fully transatlantic; meaning I'm willing to ignore the worse of both countries and to claim the best), and certainly didn't find any type of pride in the hot dogs, cole slaw, or company. Plus, I felt absolutely ill afterwards. I blame the mud pie.



It's the half-yearly sales so I would have much rather have been in London shopping anyway.

Some other topic. Time to talk about something other than me. Henman's out of Wimbledon. The Metro (a free digest of news that's handed out on the Tube) showed a picture of Henman's wife for each year he's been in the semi-finals. In 1998 it's all supportive optimism. By 2001 it's a painful crushing grimace. Now, it's resignation. Face it Britain, he's unlikely to go all the way. There's still hope for Andy Roddick, who's much more fun to watch.



Every six months a country's leader is chosen as president of the European Union, a largely ceremonial but highly public role. It is Italy's turn which means that Italy's prime minister, the highly irreputable Silvio Berlusconi, is EU pres. Italy's richest person, he was also the defendant in several bribery investigations until the Italian parliament passed a law giving blanket protection to its senior leaders. He's also America's biggest advocate in the EU. So, underneath the weight of public scrutiny what does he do? He kicks off his very first speech by comparing a questioning German mp to a Nazi concentration camp leader. Then refuses to withdrawal the comment. The Germany government asked, and begrudgingly got, an apology, but this has clearly tarred Berlusconi's tenure. It's would be a farce if it didn't so clearly outline EU's problems.



Watched Scorcese's Gangs of New York last night. I normally love Daniel Day-Lewis, but what was it with the Dustin Hoffman accent? I'm curious to know more about Five Points and that period of New York's history and the accompanying documentary was interesting, but unless you have a preoccupation with ax warfare and bad wigs, I'd skip it.

Poor lad Whilst recently cleaning out my email inbox, I counted more than 100 email messages and replies from Tim in two months. We email each other most days. Sometimes in long, threaded exchanges. Poor Tim's read through tens of messages about my insecurities, my boredoms, my frustrations and responded to each with a level-headed sense of humour. And all this with never actually hanging out. I've only met him three times, and not once in the last six months. hmmmm.

Whiny baby Ok, that's off my chest. I felt much better after I wrote it. Went home, made dinner, cleaned up, did laundry, sorted out my gaydar.co.uk profile. Sometimes a little drama is helpful.

So, Henman's through to the next round. Not a hope he'll make it, but the country's in a fit all the same. Wimbledon hasn't been won by a Brit since 1950s.



I'm in a fit. But it's a combination of stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, inactivity, indecision. Sick of where I am, where I am not, sick of being sick of myself. Where I am, where I am not. Who I was. Who I wasn't. Where I am not. I thought here would make me interesting. It didn't. Not really. Where I am. And it made me here, not there, where people who weren't sick of me were. Are? No were. Were they? Possibly. I was. Never back to before, but maybe back to how it was. Or rather, how it should have been. Or rather still, how I'd like to think it was. Where I am not. I had a dream last night. So perfectly lovely, but so perfectly implausible that I woke up hugging my pillow, feeling warm and glowy until I realise where I was. No, really, where someone else wasn't. Where there is never someone else.



It's an enormous fucking bed for one person.



Where I am. And smack in the middle of, but not really anywhere near, where I thought I was heading. Or want to head. Or no, really where I want to head but won't let myself go. To that place and time where I can say I'm finally here. Or, better, we're here. We. I don't think in the plural, except when I'm talking about them. The things they do. The things they say. Or don't. Wherever they are. Clearly where they're not. I have no we. It's only I that am here.



You can italicise what you want in that. Whether you're you or them. Because you probably never thought you'd be alone at 35. And if you did, you certainly never said it to yourself. Never admitted it. Never made yourself reflect on the reality of it. Never thought your pillow was going to be a big fucking source of affection. Not in any smutty sort of way, but just in that you need to hold on to something at the end of the day when you know there are only more races to face tomorrow.