I wonder what it's like to have a really good relationship with your parents. All the way into high school, I thought I had a really good relaionship with mine, but then something changed. I don't know if I changed or if they changed, or if I was finally old enough/mature enough to see what was going on. I fear the truth lies closest to the last option. I'd love to be one of those people who is excited when his parents come into town, except my parents never come into town. At least not for anything other than an occasion, usually one of David's performances.

I know that Mom wishes we were more normal, but at the same time I know she loves us more than she can say anyway. I just wish I could have more respect for the way she's lived her life, but it's hard. She's never tried to figure out how to make herself happy, and as she quite clearly isn't, she tries all sorts of things, like redecorating the house or switching jobs. Why did she switch jobs? Yes, the new one is more money, but she loved the old job! No person could even be more suited to a work environment than she was to the old office! Damn it! And she didn't even check out the new job like I told her to. Mom, you're so frustrating. I think her life is, in a lot of ways, like her Christmas and birthday wish lists. We go out and buy her earrings and banana hangers and cheesy paperbacks because that's what she asks for. When we press her for what she really wants, she just tells us she'll like whateve we get her. AAAAAARGH! MOM, IT'S FUCKING OKAY TO ASK FOR WHAT YOU REALLY WANT! IT'S FUCKING OKAY TO WANT TO BE HAPPY!

And Dad, there's just no helping a man who loathes himself that much. Do you know what it does to a kid to idolize his father for his whole life, only to find out one day that his father hates himself and thinks of himself as a failure and thinks he's failed in raising his children? I do. It was called being seventeen.