Give me strength!

I'm off to northern Iowa with my family. Hopefully no blood will be spilled, but I'm not fool enough to make promises like that.

  posted by Matthew @ 2:41 PM

 
Okay, news in reverse chronological order:

Reason number eighty million, six hundred fourty two thousand, nine hundred and eight to dislike my father. My mother was sanding the hardwood floors today, which turned out to be a much bigger job than she anticipated, and was making her stressed today. My sister stops at my father's (and stepmother's) house before heading over to help my mother. Upon hearing of my mother's predicament, my stepmother decides the best way to comfort her would be to call and annoy my mother with her endless, focusless gossipy blather. When my sister suggests that this may not be in my mother's best interest, my stepmother hangs up the phone, storms off, and tells my father who then proceeds to give my sister a "talking to." My sister is 23 years old, by the way. Which is worse? My stepmother being such a bitch as to react like that, or my father being so fucking pussywhipped?

On a lighter note, the majority of my day today was spent interestingly. I tutored in the morning, spent the better part of the day at two museums, and then saw two movies for the price of none, since I had a free pass for the first and snuck right on into the second. Since my mother was doing this work, I thought it'd be best to be out of the house. Then I stopped by the video store, called some friends, and met up at a buddy's house for more movies. In the end, I saw Finding Nemo, Sinbad (it was aquatic adventure day at the theaters, arrr!) The Dangerous Lives of Altarboys and Punch Drunk Love. Quite a day.

Night before, I went out to sing kareoke at a bar with my sister. Side note - its probably not a good idea for me to so thoroughly enjoy being mistaken for being 21, but I do. I sand "Only the good die young" by Billy Joel, "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Melloncamp, and "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" by Cake. I rocked the house.

Funny that my distaste for my paternal relations gets as much magnetic ink (so to speak) as everything else combined. Have a complex much?

At least I'm aware of it.

  posted by Matthew @ 2:53 AM

 
I'm in a much better mood now. After some early stress over last-minute changes of plans, the party I had worked quite hard to set up for gradually started up and built into a rather well-attended and enjoyable affair, I must say. I am feeling much better now than I was earlier yesterday, because I got to see a lot of my friends again that I hadn't seen in a logn time and - more importantly - I got a lot of other people to see their friends that they hadn't seen in a long time. I think everyone was just waiting for somebody to get the whole group together, but didn't want to do it themselves.

And I did, and I can't help but be a little smug about it. I feel good that we had this mini-reunion/party. About 25 or 30 people showed up, in the final count, I think. We had a really good time and were relatively well-behaved. After stressing about it and working quite a bit to get ready, I'm glad to see it go off so well, without any kind of major hitch. I feel contented, for the time being.


  posted by Matthew @ 2:33 AM

 
Goddam weather. On thursday, I got the idea to have a big party with all my theater friends from high school, making use of the new deck my parents installed and improved over the past year. At that point, all the weather forecasts I could find had it that saturday night would be stormy, but sunday night would be clear. So I set everything up for tonight. This morning, they said 40% chance of storms. Half an hour ago, they said 60%. Those fuckers don't know anything. I don't know why I even bothered to check.

And now its sprinkling outside, with thunder in the distance. I am pissed.

  posted by Matthew @ 5:39 PM