Lost in Sofia

We’ve just returned from a Sofia Coppola (or Giovanni Ribisi, depending on your poison) double bill at the Prince Charles. The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. I wasn’t sure whether to go or not, because I’m a bit low and watching those films could, I figured, push me either way. I’ve never seen The Virgin Suicides on a big screen before – I bought the music before I ever saw the film (by Air – check it out), love the book, love the film. I had forgotten or blocked out the more upsetting bits.

I always thought it was quite a voyeuristic story, and never really understood the point of the voyeurism except as a plot device. Now, I recognise it as the close examination of a traumatised narrator. Lost in Translation – I remember loving at the cinema, but I hadn’t seen it since. Funnier and more nostalgic than I remember it being, and more romantic and tragic. Always with the tragedy, Sofia! It was a nice evening, but I’ve been left with the vague feeling that if Bill Murray doesn’t come along and rescue me, something drastic might happen – which isn’t entirely what I was hoping to get out of it. I was hoping for less ambivalence, for a start.

I’m rambling, being very tired and forcing myself to write just so that the weekly entry is done. Routine is important sometimes.

Dear weather, please stop raining/snowing/being grey, and give us some sun so I can shake this pitch-black mood.

Anyway, training update:

After a weekend of training that crashed and burned quite badly, rest day feels like a total copout this week. I think maybe the weekend went so awry because I was unexpectedly successful on the ballot front and managed to get places in the inaugural Ride100 London-Surrey and in the Royal Parks half marathon. They aren’t for months, but suddenly having them in place meant I put extra pressure on myself, which is really not needed at the moment. It’s worse, somehow, when it’s a ballot entry, because I’m horribly aware that a lot of other people wanted the place I got.

Almost every biggish event in London these days is ballot entry only, so I resign myself to not doing a lot of them. Getting places in two events in quick succession was a nice surprise (and, yes, I entered the lottery on Saturday, just in case my luck carried on). The London ITU Dextro-energy triathlon – the first I ever entered – is ballot entry only this year, because it runs along the Olympic route and is expected to be massively popular following the Brownlees and Stuart Hayes – who may not have won a medal, but worked hard making sure the Brownlees would – showing in 2012. This makes me sad because, again, I don’t expect to get a place, and I was really, really looking forward to doing it again.

Extra sport tenseness in the house – Coffee Monster has screwed up his ankle and the earliest doctor’s appointment he’s managed to get is Friday. So he’s two weeks behind on training and the Paris marathon is in about eight weeks. I haven’t really talked to him about it, because everything I’m thinking regarding whether or not he’ll be able to do it is, I’m pretty sure, already very much on his mind and I don’t think he’d appreciate me yakking about it to him.

Anyway – I gather from twitter that it’s basically been one of those weekends. Everyone I know has had a similarly bad time of it, has thought about quitting, then given themselves a swift mental kick and reminded themselves why they do it. Ask any of us why, though, and we probably couldn’t give you a straight answer. An email discussion of this topic led to a dangerously philosophical/burbling inspirational postcard style of chat. So I made this:

 Good night.