Listening: a quiet office
Desiring: friendly company
Aches and Complaints: necesito café
Enjoying:
"cause things are gonna change so fast
all the white horses are still in bed
i tell you that i'll always want you near
you say that things change, my dear"
--Winter
--Tori Amos

Wasn't a very restful weekend, but I wasn't expecting much of it. I don't anticipate much rest this month but as long as don't get more stress I should be okey.

Friday I had to get out of work early because they were shutting down the system to move our computers to the new building. So I was out of the office by four although I didn't have to be anywhere for three hours. So I went to my place to take a nap. Molasses joined me around five and eventually we sought out dinner and headed to the gamesite.

I pissed off the Squire of Dimness earlier in the week, but like any good piss-off job, I don't regret it. I was mad at someone else and he got caught in the crossfire. But in my defense he decided to make it his business. *shrug*

So I wasn't entirely surprised that he didn't show to my game. I was a little surprised that his SO emailed me to let me know she was feeling to stressed to game. I don't understand her half of the time, but regardless I hope they at least did something fun....

It was too bad because the primary focus of the game was supposed to be on Squire's character, but since he didn't show and the people who did wouldn't be able to take up the slack, I had to hurriedly rewrite the bulk of the game.

That night we headed to Molasses' place to sleep. I got up ass early and took my car to the shop. I practically sleep-walked back to the apartment and slept for another three hours. They couldn't get all the parts they figured they needed, which saved me nearly a hundred dollars in the short run, but I'll probably have to take it back again. I wish I could get a new car and not have sweat all these breaking parts... The amount that I spend on repairs can easily add up to new car payments. But the credit and the ease of paying new car payments will be a few years off.

Sat. evening we went to a new fastfood Chinese place. It's not really new, it's been there for a while but we haven't been yet. It's called Pickup Stix and it's pretty decent. Then we headed up to another mage game. The ST was way late and we were about ten minutes from leaving when he showed up. It was kinda interesting but made me again wonder why I keep gaming. Which always leads back to the depressing realization that I have shit all to do with my time otherwise.

Seeing people keeps me from being depressed. I'm not the most social person around but in general people being friendly and nice forces me to be friendly and nice in return which keeps me from spending endless hours in the bathroom contemplating a Clorox and Mr Clean cocktail. But sometimes the company that I've arranged for myself makes me desire solitude or at least a different set of friends. Silly restlessness....

Sunday there was a garou game and though I could have probably arranged to spend part of the day at home (it was Mother's Day after all) and part of the day at the game but quickly figured there would likely be nothing for me at the game. I've figured that before and gone anyway but that's always frustrating and/or depressing, but mostly annoying. So I went for the annoying that I could handle and went home.

There's something terribly unfortunate in the realization that only person in my family that doesn't regularly annoy me is the one that can't speak, walk or eat solid food yet. It's horrible of me to be so ungrateful: there is no family ideal anywhere where one of the members walks away without looking back but sometimes I just feel out of options. At least my siblings only annoy me in the way that siblings are annoying - I look at their lives and can't help but think that I would never do things that way. I can't help but feel that they're wasting their time but they make it clear that it's not my place to judge. And it's not. My parents wanted me to set a good example and to date I'm the only one with a fulltime job with benefits and living entirely on my own. But if things work for them, then so be it.

But I don't think I can take listening to them whine about my mom and how irritating it is to live with her. My sister especially talks like I wouldn't know how nuts it is. Newsflash: Been there, done that, got a clue, moved out.

But if the reports are accurate my mom is holding ransom an account that was established for my youngest brother to go to school (my baby brother graduates from high school next month *sniff*). It sorta sounds wacky, but it makes sense when you know my overbearing mother. She wants to keep Juan living at home and won't sponsor him moving to a school where he won't live at home.

I've heard about the empty nest thingie, but what about the neuroses that come with mothers that refuse to let their kids leave? Juan has never had any direction in life, he's never had any discipline, and my God for quite possibly the first time in his life he wants to do something that doesn't gratify an immediate desire, and in fact will better him, and my mom is getting in his way. *sigh*

It's technically her money, but it's still a fairly crappy thing to do. Especially since she's not really encouraging any alternatives except to go to a more local school. I've known families where the kids' interest in higher education is squelched but that's because the family needs immediate financial help and the kid is healthy and has a strong back.

Oh well, Mario at least is coming along nicely, and has been working for over a year now. I would encourage him to get a buss pass, but other than that he's actually learned a lot of valuable things such as how far a paycheck can go....

I'm not going to go into my oldest brother. there's just no point.

My sister remains herself. There isn't too much to add to that.

Then there's my dad. I miss the dear old dad that I grew up with. He's always been intensely religious and he's always been reticent to establish discipline, but he will always be the best teacher I've ever had. So it's depressing to see him pull his religiousity as a priority over his family. I thoroughly resent, on behalf of my mother, how much he looks to his religion over her. He swore to love her and now he gets thoroughly mad at her for whatever.... It's not like he doesn't have reason to get angry or have his feelings be hurt by her casually-flung comments, but a promise is a promise and there has to be a more productive way of explaining his irritation than to hide away all of his feelings.

It's hard to explain this to him though. It's exceedingly bad manners for me to lecture my dad on how to treat my mom. But my other option is to listen quietly to the complaints and keep my thoughts to myself. But I've been listening to it for so long now it's one reason I don't like going home. And it's a MAJOR reason for why I don't want to get married.

So I tried to tell him, gently, that I love hearing what's going on at home. I want to know what he's up to and so on. But I don't like listening to complaints about my mother. He got really quiet and when I was done he walked away slowly and didn't talk to me for the rest of the day.

My mom was fairly copacetic. It was Mother's Day after all. But she still wants me to visit more, come over, hang out, chat.... I pointed out that she could make plans to visit me in LA but she said that I was always busy and hard to reach. I said if she called me ahead of time I could arrange something.... Blah, blah... it's always the same. I have to drop everything to go visit the dirty house, sit around doing nothing, get ignored by the family and basically do nothing. And somehow I'm the bad kid because I find this unappealing. I just told her I'm not interested in just coming over to chat and do nothing. Not a very satisfactory answer but there it is.

My mom has always wanted to pretend that she and I friends, but intrinsic to that is understanding me, my habits and predilictions. Or at least trying. Instead I hide most of my habits and predilictions because she'll just tell me how much she doesn't approve. Then she'll tell how how I *should* live my life and nag me to pursue her ideals. I don't find that so much a bad thing as a very motherly thing to do. NOT something my friends do. But I can't quite get her to see that.

*sigh* I want to stay in touch with my family but the way it's going I'm the one out living on the fringes. Going back means regressing, going back to a version of myself that I totally hated. I'm not entirely happy with this version but I feel I've made some progress. Most of my friends live far away from their families (read: parents), but also their families' situations are far different. I wouldn't say I really prefer the company of my friends to that of my family, only that they ask less of me. I guess the most frustrating thing is that my friends can't understand my family and my family (again: parents) won't understand my friends (and by extension: my life).

Ah well I need to go... have to figure out where everything is in this new building and eventually get to work.

Take care.