Current Ramblings
Saturday, October 18, 2003
I'm back.
I didn't post much from Alabama not because I never had time, but because I was informed after the first day that my father's cheap-ass step-father who owns the lakehouse we were staying at had the phone set up to charge by the minute, because then he got a cheaper base rate. So I didn't get to use the internet much, even though I had a good bit of down-time. I'm glad I went, though. The lakehouse was a 45-minute drive from town, so I spent a lot of time in the back of X-Brawn spending quality time with my GBASP. But all told, I'm really glad I went. It wasn't as bad as I feared. There was a lot of family drama, primarily revolving around my aforementioned cousin, but we all got along really well. I felt like the crazy aunt to all my cousins' children - I'm the only one from that generation who doesn't have any, I think. I guess the problem was that living in Michigan's U.P. gave me a really bad impression of people. I was used to people who had children early using it as an excuse to just live off the government the rest of their lives, like so many of the people up there seemed to do. It was just kind of disgusting, how many people you'd see who hadn't bathed for days spending as much on beer as they were on the stuff their food stamps covered. But Alabama wasn't like that. You got yourself a job and some land and a house and just had a family, no matter what age you started it at. I'm happy to see how well my cousin Bubba's doing, considering his immediate family was pretty screwed up. His sister is the one with the horrid husband, but unlike her he realized at some point that his immediate family wasn't normal and proceeded to do things the way he thought was right. He's got a great family and drives a logging truck, which I'm sure pays more than what I'm doing right now and, much like what I'm doing right now, gives him experience to do something better down the line. And he just seems really happy. He sees the problems his parents had growing up and sees them AS problems. There are a whole lot of people in this world who don't have the sense to do that, and I think that just goes back to my old rant on self-help books. He's really got his shit together. Hopefully his sister can get her own shit together, since she's looking to my mother a lot these days. I think I feel a lot better in a way I didn't realize by going down there and seeing everybody again. And it was fun being the crazy aunt to all my cousins' kids. Every kid needs a crazy aunt.
I'm gonna go hit some Wal-Marts now. I had a fun trip to the zoo today that was cut tragically short by a major sinus headache, so I need to get some fresh air again. Whee!
posted@11:44 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments