Tedium

A day of unrelieved tedium. I rang Jeremy to see if he fancied going for a drink but he said he wanted to watch the US Open men’s tennis final. I also rang Claire but she was working.

Pete and Guy will be in Plotinus at this very moment.

19 years, 348 days

I spent the day on campus, not in the library as intended, but lazing in the sun on the grass outside with Pete. We lingered there until eight thirty, the evening cool and clear, the heat of the afternoon having subsided, blown away on the soft refreshing winds of approaching night.

We talked about America and Pete seems enthusiastic about his year abroad. He plans on reveling in the superiority of being English in America. Occasionally, I get the merest twinges of disappointment and regret. I say the merest twinges, because I ruthlessly crush them before I have time to feel I’ve made a mistake.

Travel seems to be the favourite post-finals option among the few people I’ve spoken to. I talked about this with Mum as we walked back from Forefield when I was in Calverdale, and she said she’s altered her position on traveling rather than settling down. When I used to mention this to her before A-levels she blew her top and made me feel ungrateful for saying I wasn’t going to University just to get a job. Yet now she says if she was in my position she’d travel.

“Robert has always wanted to travel but Carol isn’t keen . . ..” This is all quite a weight off my mind and the more I think about the years after I leave University the more optimistic I am—opening doors, etc. I am only nineteen years, 348 days old, and the thought of this makes me glad . . ..

Invisible man

The sun beats down unremittingly from a heavy, stagnant sky. It’s the beginning of summer.

A tutorial again this morning on Ellison’s Invisible Man. I sat for two hours saying all of a dozen words, staring out of the window at the green of the trees, totally bored. It was only the third tutorial I’ve attended for that course, and I must have missed four or five already this term. I’ve written one essay and I intend writing my extended essay on the Beats.

Gareth, Lee and I have been talking about taking a trip to America in September, hitching from LA to Plotinus to stay with Pete and Guy. We reckon we could do it all for about £500, but now that I’ve agreed to move in to Gareth’s room over the summer I have that rent to pay on top of my other expenses.

It seems I hardly speak properly with Pete or Lee nowadays; they are quite often off together, big friends of late.