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[09 Sep 2006|02:36pm] |
Barring two Visigothic kings and two probably unknown British authors (one of which has been dead for the last hundred years), he doesn’t think that there is anyone else in the free world with the name Alaric (Ah-lore-ick). While this makes it quite simple for him to get passwords and such composed of his first name only (when he’d been in college, that particular perk had popped up), some things are made that much more difficult; buying personalized license plates, key chains, etc. Most of all, his problem comes of having to explain what his name means (or worse yet, how to pronounce it).
His mother is still in love with it, adores its unusual origins and the funny feeling it leaves on the roof of your mouth when you say it properly. What it means, essentially, is ‘ruler of everyone’, in some strange language that no one ever uses these days ...or possibly German. Before he’d hit kindergarten, his mother’s enthusiasm has rubbed off on him, but after getting blank looks from each and every person he’s ever tried to get to a first name basis with since then, he’s learned to introduce himself as simply ‘Ali’.
He assumes that the ‘weirder is better’ belief came from his mother’s whole hippy background, that it diffused across her skin when she lived in those Southern California communes. It probably went into recession while she was married to his father - even she consented to calling him by his simplified moniker - but after their divorce, she started working with crystals and reading star charts again. From the time he was fifteen until he left home, he’d lived on a vegetarian diet and spent a lot of time in rooms with hooked mats and incense burners.
Ali thanks his blessings that his dad is still normal, even though he himself has evolved into a yoga enthusiast with a passion for reading palms and all that kooky, Phoebe-From-Friends stuff. Being normal means that his dad pulls in a regular salary and sends him a tidy sum each month; not enough to live off of without the shifts he works at one of those trendy coffee shops, but just about what is needed to pay the rent on his humble flat. His mother, even, is okay with his place of residence - she’d mentioned something about good karma and hung a dream catcher in one of the windows the first time he’d brought her over to visit - which strikes him as a good omen, as she hates everything that comes with a contract.
He hasn’t met any of his neighbors yet, which comes from a combination of unusual mellowness and the number of extra shifts he’s picked up at Starbucks since moving into his new building. But each day, he clips the nametag that says Ali to his shirt in lieu of sticking it into his bag with the green apron/smock and a couple of rolls of Mentos, vainly hoping that someone’ll take an interest in talking to him - even hitting on him, at this point he’d accept that. Someone who could appreciate the weirdness that now seems to envelope him, the little odd habits that he’d gotten from his mother, or his aptitude for complicated math problems (his father’s genetic contribution). Hell, he’s an optimist; maybe he’ll even find someone who’ll want to hear about his name.
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