Lara I.

I'm kind of between houses right now. Not sure which one to call my house... I'm kind of sitting in my front window right now, and yes, it is fucking cold outside, it has been snowing all morning but it is also sunny. It's kind of nice in a weird cold way. The house is totally empty, but, see, it still has internet connection. I needed my fix. Tomorrow is Friday and my new tenants are moving in, and hopefully by tomorrow internet at the other place should be all ready to go.

Ryan has been a huge help. He just kind of jumped right in and was like, well, this is all the stuff that needs to get done, this needs to be finished, this needs to go over here, if you do this like this it should work, and so on. Ryan is a lot like me - a lot, so much that I find it a little creepy. Of course we've known each other for our entire lives, but being that we didn't live near each other, we saw each other only a few times a year. We always got along famously - my parents and his parents used to joke that I had a crush on him, and, I don't know, maybe I did, that does sound like me, to have a crush on only one boy, and imagine that, he looks just like me. Cause I am that vain, you know.

He's the kind of person who likes to go. I may have traveled Europe, but he's traveled the entire United States and he's still doing it. He's got a job lined up in New England in another couple weeks, where he can snowboard to his heart's content, and then this summer he said his plans are just to "drive out west." I'm not going to lie - I'm mad jealous. Ryan is incredibly smart and very hard working and just not interested in being responsible for any thing in any way. I'm like that - or I want to be like that. I guess I am pretty responsible now, but, honestly, I'd rather just go.

He's also like me in that he's always got this huge plan, and he's always running and running and never stopping - he's working in the pizza shop again while he's home, and he's been doing stuff in the house pretty much non-stop, even all night, it's crazy, and he's doing it because it's there and he wants to do it - like, he never wants to stop, even for a minute. I don't mean he doesn't want to stop working on the house - he just doesn't want to stop. He likes to go.

Maybe the difference is that I'm always tired and chugging some energy drink or another, and he... I dunno how he does it. Maybe he sleeps more than I do or something. But he just goes under his own power. ANYWAY.

Ryan and I are scavenging masterminds and creative geniuses. I was pretty attached to the first house and sad to leave it but I have to say, the other house is gonna be pretty sweet. When it's finished. Who knows when that's actually going to happen - but for now it's not half bad. Any flak I've been getting about how my house is the place refrigerators go to die is totally unfounded. Ryan has done some very cool stuff with them.

The upstairs of the house is totally undone - it's just rooms, and the walls aren't even all up, and that's just completely stalled. I can't get anything else done up there until I have more money. The downstairs is done enough that I can live there but I definitely can't rent any part of it out. I meant it to be three bedrooms and one living room/kitchenette area, with each bedroom having a separate entrance, so that I can rent it out really flexibly, like, someone can just rent a bedroom for a few nights, or a whole family can rent the whole thing, so someone can rent two bedrooms and the kitchen area while someone else rents the other bedroom. Trying to maximize my profits here, see. Then the fourth bedroom, see, is supposed to have a kitchenette in it, and that's where I live, assuming that I'm still living here, and if I'm not, someone else can rent that spot too.

Well... for now I've just got the whole house, and the kitchen in the main room is the only one that's even there, and it's definitely not finished. But it'll do for now. So now... well, now I'm just in between and waiting, I guess. In May, when my tenants move out, I can really finish up the first floor of the first house, and then can definitely rent out both floors all summer. I can't do anything in the second house, except for whatever Ryan has been doing for free, because... yeah. Out of funds. For now.

So... it looks like my Dad is going to be in town for the holiday. That's... kinda cool, I guess. I mean, the whole time I've been here I've been kind of waiting for him to show up eventually, being that his is his hometown and all.

I've been spending a lot of time with the Ps this week, cause all the kids are coming home one by one. Justin's been home all week, Ryan got home this morning, and my other cousin, Marla, is coming Christmas Day, or so everyone has been saying. This will be the first time in several years that all the P kids will be home at one time. Tonight I helped my Aunt Jen bake her famous gumdrop bread, and that was pretty nice, but, man, do I ever wish I could be her kid instead of my mom and dad's. Whenever word gets out that a P is coming home both her and my uncle go all out.

I don't hold it against them for not having much to do with me when I first got here. I wish it hadn't been like that, and I wish it wasn't hanging over all our heads now, but I can't do anything about that now. I spent last Christmas at my house, alone, doing absolutely nothing, and the Ps were only a ten minute drive from me. Whatever. I know my mom called my aunt and told her all kinds of bad stuff about me, and some of it was true besides.

Anyway. I went to a bar with Ryan and his friend Will tonight, and I had a good time. It was pretty cool. I'm distantly related to Will, I'm pretty sure, but I can't remember right this minute exactly how. I saw some people I work with while we were out, and there was this fabulous moment of, "wait a minute, Ryan is your cousin?"

Everyone knows Ryan. Everyone loves Ryan. He's very lovable.

My aunt told me to invite B over for dinner sometime because she hasn't seen him in years and years - I guess, I don't know, maybe I talk about me and him a lot or something, yeah, I probably do. But I'll probably take her up on that some time.

And I found my story that I was looking for.

In one of my other posts I said I wished that I could know that love could change everything, and colorwhirl said it does, in little pieces, bit by bit, and that's another thing that reminded me of that story. I guess I used to believe that, cause it's pretty much the central idea of the story. It was pretty weird reading it again, since I wrote it about four years ago, and I thought it was the epitome of my everything back then, I thought I had crammed everything in there, religion, sexuality, drugs, family, friends, tradition, travel - everything that was a big deal to me at the time went in to the story.

I read it a little differently after not even thinking about it for so long - it's pretty much a little love story about two girls around Christmas time. The one girl I obviously meant to be me, but after re-reading... I think the other girl is me. Or both of them are. Or the third girl is me too. One is who I was, one is who I want to be, and one is who I never wanted to be. I had a professor once who said everything you create is somehow a version of yourself, and I've thought about that off and on ever since, and I'm continually amazed with how true it turns out to be.

I wasn't going to go to my aunt and uncle's for the holiday unless some of my cousins (besides the youngest one) would be home. They weren't going to be, so I was just going to stay home. My aunt and uncle aren't my parents and I'm not their kid and I don't get along that well with my youngest cousin and I'm still kind of mad that they knew I was here last year and alone and didn't invite me over or help me out in any way, not just for the holiday but pretty much ever.

Well, yesterday I called my Aunt Jen and asked her if I could bring a friend if I came, and she said that was okay. So... this is with the friend being Krissy, of course. I think the fact that she actually called me and asked if we could get together made me feel kind of bad for her, and, besides that, I miss her. I've missed her this whole time I've been away from her.

( Cut because I have a whole lot to say. It's been a day like that. )

Krissy, against my better judgement, has gone back to Philly. She's got to be exhausted, but she said it would be easier for her to get the drive over with now and she said she'd try to sleep when she got back before her next shift. I hope she gets home without a problem.

I would really like it if she could be my friend. I've really missed her - I really miss being around people I'm close to, people who know me the way you can only know someone if you've been around them for years. But... I don't really think we can be friends without making it complicated. I, CLEARLY, have no idea how to just be friends with someone I'm close to. OBVIOUSLY. And that hasn't turned out so well for me so far.

Well, tomorrow is my first day of work at my new holiday job, and then a whole night of work at the restaurant. It'll be a blast. I'm sure.

(2 Points) Do I have any siblings?: Yes

(2 Points) How many?: One.

I have a sister. She is two years younger than I am. I have probably never mentioned her except to say that she has a middle name and I don't. I haven't seen her in a few years and I definitely haven't spoken to her in over two - but it's not how it sounds. We didn't have a huge argument and stop speaking to each other or anything - actually, I did something very, very nice for her, and then we just kind of... got pushed apart, I guess.

( My sister and me )

Anyway. In all this mess, I've never contacted my sister, and she's never contacted me. Like I said, we didn't have a fight or anything - shit just happened.

We look alike. She doesn't have pink hair, of course - well, since I haven't seen her in a long time, I assume she doesn't have pink hair. It doesn't seem like something she would do, anyway. But we look a whole lot alike. When we were kids people used to mistake us for twins.

She's taller than me. I don't know, somehow even though I'm the oldest I got the short genes, go figure. She's very smart - like me. And very musical - like me. She's shy - not like me at all, and sweet - also not like me at all :P

If I wanted to call her - I don't have her phone number. I don't know where she works or even where she lives now. So - yeah. That's about that.

I am making a shoofly pie at some point this week. That is decided. Nobody around here seems to know what one is. I called my Aunt Jen. She, of course, knows what a shoofly pie is, cause whenever my family would visit her family we would bring Dutchy stuff like that cause it's good and it's like a novelty to them.

She... said it was ok if I wanted to come over and use her kitchen(!!) if I wanted to and she would come pick me up on Monday and I could have dinner with her and my uncle and my one remaining local cousin (the one who pretended he didn't know me in the coffee shop...)! Imagine that! (I don't have an oven, btw. There is an oven in my upstairs but not down here, and upstairs is rented by the same people for the next three weeks, so I can't go use that oven, even though, you know, it's MINE...)

So... I guess I'm starting to win them over, those Ps. I guess maybe they are starting to believe that I'm not a drug addict who's going to steal their money and jewelry for my next fix and I'm not going to turn up at their house at four am looking for a place to crash and etc. I'd be pissed about the whole thing except for I like them and I miss them, and it's not really their fault or mine so... yeah. Havin' din din with the Ps on Monday and I'm makin' the pie.

I really want to be able to make a voice post. After I fixated a bit on eating a shoofly pie I then began to fixate on making weekly voice posts. I think it's so cool to hear other people I read regularly, and I'd like to do it too. So now I'm debating on whether or not I want to suffer the ads or give up the dollars for a paid account. Dunno yet.

I've been invited to another Phillies game (that's baseball, if you're not from these parts.) A lot of people must have season passes or something, because there are always extra tickets going around with no takers. I would kinda like to go, but I had such a shitty time at the last one. I'm debating on whether or not I should just not go at all (but I want to!) or just assume that the last one I went to was just at a bad time, I was too tired to enjoy it, the weather didn't help at all, and the walk was just way to long, and if I'm just a little more rested and a little more careful, I will enjoy this one.

I'm thinking I could say, "I'm only going to go if we park not only closer to the stadium but also we must park on the same side of the stadium that our seats are!" Although I know the reason for parking far away is so we can tailgate, which is apparently half the fun (I hate tailgating. I do not want to drink in the hot sun, it makes me sick to my stomach. But I'd be perfectly content to just hang around without drinking) But maybe when we're ready to go inside we could pack up and drive closer? Maybe? I do have a parking thingy. ALL the handicap spaces shouldn't be taken, right? They're never ALL taken, are they?

Or I could just suck it up, it really shouldn't be that bad. I don't think it was the walk last time that was really the problem, I can walk pretty far and pretty long provided I'm not already completely exhausted. I think the whole problem was the sun and the heat, really. And mile-long walk through the parking lot and stadium or no, I'd still be sitting out in the heat and the sun watching the game. Blegh. Extreme heat OR extreme cold and I do not get along very well and I HATE being a pain in the ass. I need to live somewhere with perfect temperatures, like the Bay Area in California or something.

I'll put that on my to-do list. Right after FIND ANOTHER JOB.

So. I have an uncle who is a paranoid schizophrenic.

These days, especially here on the internet, severe psychological disorders seem to be the "cool thing" in certain circles. Which bugs me every kind of sideways, but I won't go into that. It's not "cool," though. It's very far from it.

( family shit )

It's like I'm stuck here in this absurd back and forth - if I clean everything up, suddenly I'm my mother. If I leave it like this, suddenly I'm my uncle. Can't I just be myself, without anyone else's faults encroaching on my actions? I let the house get messy. That's all. I'm a busy person, I work two jobs, and try to have a social life. The house got messy. This shouldn't be an indication of my mental state or of anything else other than the fact that I've over-scheduled myself, and THAT'S IT.

Shit, shit, shit, and also shit as well.

Been wanting to write about stuff. BS going on at work. BS going on at bars after work. BS associated with my house and zoning laws and the like. Do some memes. Speculate about the season finale of Doctor Who (I, unlike others, liked the most recent episode, by the way.)

NOT RIGHT NOW.

Right now I have a very, very big problem.

It seems my parents have claimed me as their dependent on their '07 taxes.

So. I filed as a single, independent person for '07. I have never actually done my own taxes before - I've either not kept a job long enough or made enough to have to file, just flat out didn't file when I definitely should have, or my parents did my taxes because they were claiming me as their dependent. I filed this year because I'm trying to be grown up and responsible, and also I have property taxes, and that's a little more hard-core than being taxed on a minimum wage part time job earnings, so I figured I'd better do it.

They can't claim me as their dependent. They used to, when I was in college (and I use the term "in college" loosely - I did exactly two full time semesters in... five, four, six, however many years it was...) because they were calling me a full-time student, even though I usually wasn't really; even if I registered for a full time class load at the beginning of the semester I usually dropped a few classes. But legally you can claim your adult child if they're a full time college student and younger than twenty six.

Being that I'm not a student, they can't claim me.

But, see, I'm thinking they thought they could claim me because I'm disabled. Legally? Yeah, you can claim your adult disabled child as your dependent. BUT TO DO THAT YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY SUPPORT THEM.

My parents do not support me. My parents and I have not spoken one word for the entirety of 2007. Not one. I didn't set foot in their house, and they didn't send me one cent. They didn't support me, and they can't claim me.

Wtf do I do?

I want to just call my mom and scream at her, like, wtf were you thinking? But that would mean, you know, calling my mom. Which would give her my phone number, which she doesn't have right now, and I like it that way. This would be forcing open the door of communication, when I'm perfectly happy with it being shut.

So... they're banking in the fact that I won't contact them about this and will just suck it up and deal with it, because they know I'm not going to be the first one to break this utter silence? Or what?

I can re-do my taxes, re-file, pay the penalty, whatever, and be done with it. BUT I AM SO FUCKING PISSED OFF, how dare they?

This is me shaking my head in disgust. I am so fucking furious right now. Absofuckinglutely furious.

I haven't seen my mother in over a year.

I did not go to my grandmother's funeral purely because I did not want to see my mother there. We spoke twice on the phone in the months following but I have had no contact with her whatsoever since moving out here.

And yet I can still hear her voice in my head any time I try to sit down and sort my life out.

I was thinking today that really, I'm not doing such a bad job. My upstairs is going to be finished by summer, and it is going to bring me income. That's pretty much a fact. Everything is going according to plan, and it would take something pretty major to derail it at this point. I'm not in any kind of weird relationship with anyone - I hang out with the people I work with, and that's while we're at work, and, sometimes, after work, but that's it. I take all the medications I'm supposed to and don't take anything I'm not. I even made an appointment to start physical therapy at the end of May (of course, earliest date I could possibly get.)

This is pretty much a thousand percent improvement in my life. I'm not relying on anyone else to bail me out, and I'm not damaging myself in any way. But all I can hear is her voice, telling me "you'll never be able to do [whatever], [whatever] won't work, [so-and-so] is just making that up, they won't really help you, blah blah blah."

When I look back at my life, I kind of re-realize all over again just how badly my parents did me dirty. And the thing that blows my mind the most is that they think they're fucking saints and that they're so wonderful to have put up with so much shit from me and that they tried so hard but I was just so bad...

Every so often I really work myself into a frenzy about this stuff. It just all makes me so furious. I know parents make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. But to fuck up that badly and not even think you did anything wrong?

I know I'm really stubborn, and I know I'm really proud, to a fault, and I know those aren't positive characteristics. But I was also a fucking kid, and, I swear, I was legitimately disturbed in the head, and, if there's anyone out there in that wide cold world who should have cut me just a little bit of slack, well, I'd say my supposedly-loving parents should have been my best bet.

Of course to hear them tell it I'm sure it's a different story entirely.

But it's my damn story, and right now, I almost hate them both.