Parents

This entry is incomplete, so if you read it, just make sure to come back later and read the completed version. Thanks... :-)

Stan: "If parents spent less time worrying about what their kids watch on tv and more time worrying about what was going on in their kids' lives, this world would be a much better place."

Kyle(?): "I think parents only get so offended by tv because they rely on it as a babysitter and the sole educator of their kids."

Parents seem to have become the theme of the lives of everyone around me...and not in a good way. In fact, the only reason my own haven't been too horrible lately is because I've avoided them as much as possible. I work 40+ hours a week and go out most nights. But on the nights where I'm forced to be on the same floor of the house as them for more than an hour are agonizing.

I suppose this needs more backstory. I'm still living at home with my mom and dad. My younger brother has moved out and is living in D.C. And to just complete the picture, we've got three cats and two German Shepherds. And starting this past February, my parents started charging me rent.

Yup, I'm paying them $320 a month to live in my own house and it's breaking me. It's caused me more pain and suffering than just about anything.

And what I love more than anything is that despite that $320 check I write them every month so that I can live here, they still expect me to do chores, as if I'm trying to earn my keep. I don't mind the little things so much, but on my day off, when I've worked until at least midnight, I really have no desire to mow the lawn. (For those of you who haven't seen our lawn...it's not small. We've got a riding mower and it'll still take 2 hours to do.) And this is a prime example of why I try very hard not to be home on my days off, or I sleep as much of the day away as possible.

My parents don't seem to understand why I don't want to hang around with them anymore. They actually still get this confused look on their faces everytime I come home and leave within an hour. Yet, I never see them. It's not like this is something new. In fact, this is how things have been since February. They've been somewhat like this for quite awile longer than that, but it got much, much worse when I started trying to live on the modified income. They don't seem to realize that they can't be friendly parents and landlords at the same time. It's one or the other.

I'm sure you all remember the summers between graduation and the fall of freshman year, as well as the summer between freshman and sophomore years. I need to go back and find some journal entries or something on them, to properly explain my father's logic for why he grounded me both summers. All I remember is that when I came home from college after sophomore year, I brought my boyfriend (the homophobe) with whom my father knew I was having sex. Plus, I worked two jobs and an internship so I had no time to get grounded. 'Cause I spent 9am-5pm Mondays through Fridays in Waltham working on Sen. Fargo's re-election campaign, various weeknights working at the Big Party in Chelmsford, and weekends at Lynn's Hallmark at the Pheasant Lane Mall. So this was the summer that finally ended the annual grounding.

There's more that I wanted to talk about, but I'm just too exhausted to do it now.