Jasmine: my fish hasn't been fed in a few days

September 7… eleven days later… September 18… seven days later… September 25… ten days later… October 5… seven days later… October 12…fifteen days later… October 29… and now… eighteen days later… November 16… yeah, I don’t write a lot, but this is the longest it’s been between writings. I just sort of found that amusing and thought I would comment. I toyed with the idea of putting all of yours up here, but frankly Doug ruined that for all of you, I’m not going to even try to document his posts or the rest of your posts except to say that Doug has 25, Meghan has 16, Sarah has 12, Abe has 8, and I have 6, 7 if you count this one, I didn’t count the few odd tech and welcome posts, but if I missed one, I’m not all that sorry, HTFU. Yes I was bored this morning, bored and trapped.

I’m writing this from my parents house, I like them now, but this is the longest period of time I’ve spent in this house since… when did school start again, a few months ago? And even then I didn’t spend all that much time here, I was always out with you guys or some other set of people that I also refer to as “you guys.” But I’ve been here since four o’clock Friday afternoon. And I will be here till this afternoon. I have this screaming urge to run for the hills before their tension infects me, but I know that it already has and that I would just carry the disease to the hills. The hills don’t deserve that kind of shit.

All of you know, or at least most of you know, that my house is just a screaming mess. My aunt and my cousin at each other’s throats. My cousin does it supposedly because she doesn’t know any better, but in my opinion she knows very well what she’s doing and is one of the most skilled manipulators I have yet to meet. My aunt does it out of habit, a habit built out of years of giving in to my cousin. My uncle is constantly trying to help my aunt in any way. He recognizes that the solution to the problem is out of reach, so he does his best. When I’m here we talk about the solutions and bemoan the fact that they are unattainable. Me and him, we’re a melancholy pair.

Anyways it seems that when I’m only here a night or a few hours I get placed beneath the guest umbrella of protection. Everyone is on their best behaviors. And that makes my house wonderful. It’s clean, it has a washer and dryer, it has home cooked food, and mostly pleasant people. But since I’ve been here for so long I’ve been placed back into the family, the fruitless, fighting, want to destroy parts of them, family. And I need out. One of the many reasons I need to live in the dorms over winter break. It’s just a few hours, just a few hours, I can hold out. I will.

… time passes…

It’s afternoon now. And while my family is still frustrating I’m reminded of one of the reasons I put up with them. My aunt has made ribs, delicious amazing ribs smothered in barbecue sauce, the meat falling off the bone. And a chocolate cream pie. I ooze happiness on the floor so thick that it covers up my cousin and I can forget she’s there. Only a strangely shaped mound of happiness lay twitching in the corner of the room.

I probably won’t spend this long in my house again, not if I can help it. My parents are interesting people, or at least my aunt is, my uncle used to be, but he doesn’t talk very much anymore, and I do enjoy their company. Thinking about them and what they’ve become makes me feel tired, so I don’t do it very often, just as I don’t visit for very long.

But they’re my family, my blood. And fight as I will against it I share much more with them than a common genetic ancestor. They raised me. They tried to instill a sense of morals in me, failed entertainingly. It’s odd, my aunt and uncle are both very moral, they’ve cared for me since I was five, and yet I have mostly my mother’s morals. There are some serious deviations from her, but we are similar. Nature verses nurture, always interesting.

Hmmm, I can’t tell if I strayed from my original topic or not. I’d have to read through this again and I’m too lazy to do that so oh well. If I did, I did.

“When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.”
~George Bernard Shaw

“Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.”
~Marsha Norman

“Blood's thicker than water, and when one's in trouble
Best to seek out a relative's open arms.”
~Author Unknown