Twenty-five down

Today is my 25th birthday. A quarter of a century since I reluctantly emerged from my mother with the help of some strategically placed foreceps. I'm told that I was peculiar in that I didn't start crying as soon as I was born - I just sucked my thumb instead. Eager to get to the oral stage I guess...

I spend most of the last week in Denver, well, 10 miles outside it. Denver has, I'm told, two things to recommend it - one being the downtown area which is quite lively, and the other being the proximity of the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to enjoy either of these, as I was stuck in a hotel in suburban, strip-mall, SUV hell, ferried from meeting to meeting by my colleague who lives in Denver, and deposited back at the hotel till the next meeting. Without a car, one is absolutely screwed in suburban (that's to say, 99% of) America. I did try to go for a walk once to see what I could find, but I ran out of pavement and found myself on a freeway that it didn't seem advisable to walk down. So, after a day or so I admitted myself and resigned myself to containment at Marriott's pleasure, thought I did strike up a rapport with a Romanian barmaid and a fellow inmate who was there for the week as well. On the bright side, I played a lot of pool, and got an awful lot of work done in the absence of anything else to do.

Yesterday, after an energetic game of squash (I was very rusty and got my arse whipped, but it was good to get the blood pumping) I gathered togther a motley collection of people I've met in Boston so far at a club in Cambridge. It's always slightly odd bringing together what are usually mutually exclusive groups of friends at things like birthdays, but I'm always fascinated by how friends from different sources interact though the results aren't always positive! In this case things were extra dicey, as I'd only been out before with most of them a couple of times before. It should have been a recipie for disaster, but in fact the handful that turned up got on famously and we had a great time. No presents though - I'm not complaining or anything, but the only presents I've had so far have been two M&S ties from my Mum (you know you're getting old when your Mum buys you ties!) and a bottle of shampoo from a friend who stayed in my flat last week.

And now I'm on the train down to New York - I have a meeting there tomorrow, so I'm meeting a friend this afternoon, and hopefully plenty of debauchery should follow.