do what now?

It seems the more time I have on my hands, the less time I find to blog. Peculiar.

I still don't have time to blog at the moment. Works almost through and I'll be damned if I waste a single minute getting out of here as quickly as possible. It makes me nostalgic for high school. I also just had a dramatified conversation with my grandmother on the phone. I don't know if you know this, but I am an awful person. Because I am not a victim and lack sympathy for other victims, I am the scum of the earth. This is, I should add, as far as my grandmother is concerned. Where I once was a treasured favorite, now that I am no longer a helpless child, I am all tarnished and icky and no one knows if they should touch me or not. No, I have not been to visit my sick aunt thus I am the worst person ever. Nevermind anything I had to do. Nevermind the last time I did. No, it is black and white, friends. You visit her and you're good; you do not visit her so you're terrible. Bonus points if you make Grandma cry when you tell her that you didn't have time.

Thank goodness I have my mother or I may never have avoided the tears that threatened to rear their ugly heads in the worst possible venue. They're just her crazy in-laws. Family can be just as terrible as it is wonderful. And for the same reason, no less. They'll always be there for you no matter what. But what about all the times you have to be there for them? And the lovely way that the people who get what they want are the people that are the worst. "We want to go on vacation, but the vacation that you took all the time to carefully plan and are paying for SUCKS! No, I don't want to plan it myself. I want you to plan and purchase a vacation that specifically I will enjoy and forget about everyone else!" That situation is happening on my mother's side of the family right now and its going to cost us going on a vacation at all because the Cleveland-ers have decided that the cruise my fake grandmother planned out with her travel agent and is eating the cost of (she's not even related to us!!) is not something they are interested in. So do we say, "Ok, have a good summer, we'll send you a postcard"? No, apparently we say, "Alright, where do you want to go?"

Families have got to be the most complex, messy, awful, terrible things in the world. A bunch of people who don't necessarily have the same values or beliefs or feelings all stuck together for life. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But I have had a very rude awakening over the past few years. I learned that not everyone is there for you when you really need it. More importantly, I've learned that my mother, absolutely, 100%, without fail, is.

Sometimes a person isn't there for you when you need it and you can't seem to find the time to visit them when they're sick.

Sometimes explaining all that to Grandma would be telling her a year's worth of things that she doesn't want to hear.

Sometimes not being a doormat makes you the bad guy.

Sometimes you're much worse off because of your family.

Sometimes you have to watch people you love do horrible, awful things but you aren't allowed to stop loving them.

Well, this is one of those specials blogs that's rendered me unable to think of any sort of conclusion that isn't the most depressing thing you've ever heard. I'll just leave it at that. Coming soon---Eclipse book review, Twilight movie review (find out where I laughed inappropriately!) and my experience with salvia.