Indivar Herron

Having been eighteen for over a week now, I can firmly state that it doesn't feel vastly different from seventeen. Mum sent a card and called, all apologies for not being here--but she'll be visiting in a few weeks, so really that's all right. She also wants me to come stay with her for a long visit--a month or two, or more. I didn't want to fight with her on my birthday so I said I'd think about it. My desire to leave the States just now is practically nil, and I doubt I'd be able to keep my job at the bookstore; and Papa would have to take care of the cat, and a dozen other nagging reasons make me want to avoid living in Kolkata for a month. But I have a PINpoint now, so it needn't mean not seeing Nick for all that time and missing classes at PrIME. I don't know. We can argue about it when she visits.

It would be easier if I could tell myself she's just being controlling and trying to arrange my life and push me to care about the same things she does. I can't really do that. Nick's family are all busy expecting a baby: I mentioned it to Mum and she went very quiet, and when I asked if she was all right she just said something about missing me, and it's rather hard to maintain a level of snide resentment when your mum has gone tearful on your birthday.

And...for something completely different: Njoki appears to be all grown up now, seven years in the future, and teaching English at PrIME. Uncomfortable email exchange. Distinct lack of "so how have you been, how nice that we're at the same school again." Is it nice? I don't know; I suppose it could be--one likes the flattery of social convention at any rate. Generally hard not to feel that one is being condescended to, but that may be my own preoccupation and at any rate I dare say I'd be condescending too in her place.

Hmm! Well, that's an emo sort of an entry, isn't it. In brighter news, Mr. Casey's given me a rise (sorry, sorry, back to American English, that's a raise) and has me ordering books. Anything that keeps me away from the café part of the store is a godsend, yes?

I'm trying to tell myself that there's nothing alarming about attending classes in a Nexus-based school.

Um, not that I really ever have celebrated it, but Happy Diwali!


edit: Thank God for e-cards. >_> Succeeded in sending Mum one before she sends me something.

Lei, here's a picture for you.

In other news, dear god but being grounded is dull.

Well, lovely, now I'm grounded.

Er, what does one do at Parent/Teacher night?

Indivar Herron was born to Oxford professors, May 24th, 1989. His mother is a terrifyingly politically-aware and elegant teacher of English literature; his father is a Standard Academic Sort. They scraped together the money to send him to Eton. All was rosy.

Except his parents didn't much get along. They had a messy and unexpected (to Indivar, anyway, but he's really really good at denial) divorce that coincided with his father's loss of his job. Mum went to teach at a new girls' school in India. Papa dragged Indivar grumbling and sulking to America--to the White Oaks apartment complex in Middle Area, PA. He hated it. Then, the way you do, he started picking up a few friends and a cool boyfriend, and started to forget that he Deeply Resents Being In America.

He has now graduated from high school. His original life plan involved successful brilliant authorship/teaching at Oxford. Now he doesn't entirely know; he's taking a year off before applying to universities. He shares an apartment with his father--not in Middle Area any more; they've found a place in East Area, where the rent is higher but the supernatural nearly non-existent--and works part-time in a book store.

Indivar has finally stopped getting taller, thank god. He continues to wear button-down shirts, blazers, and ties to school; he's all pointy elbows and knees and tends to trip over things and bump into people with said elbows and knees. When he isn't doing work things or boyfriend things, he likes to cook or to go out in boats.

Received email from my mum: ostensibly about immigration laws in some Pennsylvania town, and the discovery of a new species of bird in India; but ending with a so-subtle note that an old family friend (you remember Bobby Lawrence, Indivar, he works in admissions) asked after me and wondered what I was up to these days and hopes I'm considering Oxford.

I think "contemplating" would be a more accurate term.

This has been a fabulously awful week. "Fabulous" in the sense of "fabulous monsters," i.e. "resembling or suggesting a fable: of an incredible, astonishing, or exaggerated nature."

I took Utnapishtim (né Sparky) to the vet yesterday, for shots and such. He weighs nineteen pounds.

I think that's about twice as much cat as I'm supposed to have.




Edit: My mum's coming to visit.

I've got a cat!

I feel like I should have more to say about work. I don't know. I've been busy? And working on Saturdays is a pain. Having Tuesday off does not make up for it.

So. Starting work at the bookshop.

Ow.


Edit: Oh..

I am bored. Also hungry.

Thought you all should know.


((Braaiiiins?))

Damn, I think I just turned into part of the Middle Area Welcoming Group.

Everyone was going on about the boiler room; I don't know what's so bad about it.

The new Home Ec teacher might teach some summer classes with cooking. I wonder how much they'll cost?

Oh, Nick, if you're interested, I picked up some extra applications for the bookshop and library jobs, and those "Summer Job For The Environment" things--is that going door-to-door for money? Probably don't want it, then, but I picked it up anyway.


((Also, you probably saw, but here))

MAUNDY THURSDAY

Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(They kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)


good old wilfred owen.

good old papa. let me sit up with him and drink guinnesseses for my birthday.

christ, Nick.

Nick, I wish I could go ten minutes without talking about my damn family. Sorry, man. I'm sorry.