Krapp's Last Tape

So woke up as a 26 year old for the first time this morning.

This is probably the first June 8th overly permeated with thoughts on getting old: great high school buddies starting to get married (or on the verge of that great leap) with increasing frequency, and news that some younger cousins are in the process of getting their driver's license (I mean, I remember when they were born!).

Last summer, the big 2-5 birthday weekend was celebrated heroically in the mountains Banff and Jasper - with all the promise of the new year abroad ahead and a seemingly unlimited line of credit. And what a magical year it was. Now, however, the money spent, I find myself confined to the Bodelian Law Library, firmly resigned to a month or so of constant cramming for the final exams of the career and wondering (as I do every year at this time) why I didn't do just a *little* more school work during the past months.

But the future still holds infinite promise. First up, a two day study break jaunt to Belgium next week, Canada Day in Covent Garden, and a European swansong appearance at the British Open in St. Andrews before the flight home from Glasgow International. And just yesterday an apartment in downtown Halifax for the year of articles fell into my lap, and I do find myself really looking forward to evenings of copious Harvey Wallbangers [that fabulous drink of summer] overlooking my Atlantic ocean again. A year with "professional responsibilities" might just do me good. After all, we all need time to reflect and recharge, to stare at the map on the wall and dream and scheme and mutter under the breath "someday... soon..."

So cue a more relaxed celebration than usual tonight [though expect Ahab's trio to light it up on July 1 at the Maple Leaf]. Instead, in another classic, fortuitous coincidence that has marked life thus far, I have tickets tonight for the Beckett play, Krapp's Last Tape. The premise?

...the play takes place on Krapp’s sixty-ninth birthday. Every year since he was twenty-four, Krapp a would-be writer who has failed as such has recorded his impressions of the previous year and then catalogued the resulting tape’s number and contents in a ledger, which he keeps locked in his desk. The play depicts Krapp listening to a tape from thirty years ago (recorded when he was thirty-nine) and then recording this year’s tape.

I have never read the great work, but it has loomed over the travels ever since I saw the Irish Writers poster in the Kilkenney Hostel on a hungover March 18th those 5 years ago, and copied down my favorite quote of all time. I will be listening for it tonight.

[oh - and I have been dragging my feet terribly on the so-called "blogger book tag", partly due to work and partly since it is damn difficult. Cooper, consider yourself tagged as well. Hopefully I'll have the final draft up tomorrow]