It's rather strange, I've noticed--the more time I spend around this happy, cheerful, talks-to-each-other-on-a-regular-basis Cleaver-style family, the bitchier and more sarcastic I become.
But the longer I spend around Dad and Karen, Smartasses Supreme, the cheerier and more hopeful I become.

I wonder what the hell that's all about. I wonder if there's any way I can somehow mix it together and be, all at once, a hopeful sarcastic cheerful bitch. I wonder if that made any sense at all. Anyway, you'd think it'd be the opposite--you'd think I'd be happy around the happy ones and pissy around the pissy ones. I don't know why this is.

I think part of my problem is that, after a year of only visiting here sporadically, I've become used to bitchery and sarcasm, and it gives me a chance to build up my love and hope for the world. It lets me know that every time I manage to make Dad smile or grin or laugh, I can do the same for other such people in the world. But here, at Mom's, everybody's happy all the time. There's no challenge at all. I enjoy being challenged by Dad's and Karen's hardened hearts. It's practice, if you will. Sure, the conversations and discussions aren't the most philosophical and intellectual, but we still talk about fairly deep matters over there.

Nothing here is really that intellectually stimulating. Everything must be kept on the level for ten-year-olds. No matter how hard I try to strike up interesting conversations and discussions about philosophy, spirituality, and things of that sort, I'm always met with "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?" Perhaps I'm only good at melting the hardened hearts of bitchy adults who think in terms of adulthood, instead of everything centering around children. This could be a whole new challenge, I suppose, but every time I try, I end up wanting to tear my hair out. Either they're too dim to get a subtle segue into philosophical discussion or they're too occupied with the CHYULDRUN.

And since there's not much challenging me here, I think that's why I'm so bored these days. Nothing challenges me, and because nothing does, I get bored and spend twelve hours per day sleeping on the couch in front of the television.

God bless Mom for being such a nice person, really, but she isn't that great for stimulating conversation these days. Maybe I'll hit her up for a ride to that damn GED thing, get it, and go on that trip (she said she'd spring for a ticket anywhere I wanted as soon as I graduated).
I think I'll phone up Dad tomorrow and ask if I can come over to the hotel for awhile.
As weird as it sounds, I kind of miss his bitching and I miss Karen's nonstop stupid prattling about office gossip. It's weird. Before the fire, I couldn't wait to just run up to Eckerd so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

Grass is always greener, I suppose.

It's also too LOUD here. Everybody's always talking. About nothing that interests me. Perhaps I feel strangely left out; I feel more intelligent than the CHYULDRUN, and I simply refuse to dumb myself down in order to speak to them. I'm not so desperate for conversation that I want to hear them talk about what they did at school or "UM UM UM UM UM".

Sometimes I suspect that I might be crazy, and babbling entries like this only further my suspicion.