I knew ita would come to my rescue!

Raq, sorry about the family craziness. I always prefer to stay in a hotel. The only family member who I would assume I could stay with without asking would be Mom, and I still always ask.

I just picked up a one day pass for a gym for Monday! I've been putting this off for years. If there are enough machines that I can do to make it worth my money, I'll be joining on Monday. My goals are to ease pain, gain some strength, and lose some weight in that order.

Every mosquito bite I have - and I count 12 just around one ankle - has just started to itch like crazy.

imustnotscratchimustnotscratchimustnotscratch

The only family member who I would assume I could stay with without asking would be Mom, and I still always ask.

I was going to say the same thing - I do assume that my old room is still MY ROOM when I'm in town, but I still don't think I'd just show up uninvited.

Raq, I am repeating the good on you for sticking to your guns. It's always hard to do with family and even harder when they throw in the emotional bullshit manipulation.

You would think they had no concept of offence to begin with.

My sister is really horrible at seeing the consequences of her actions.

I didn't shut down all lines of communication, but she'll be so offended that it will be as if I had. Whatever. She's 21 years older than me, and yet I've always had to be the competent capable one - when our mother was sick, 7 years of deteriorating ALS, and my sister lived about 2 miles away, did we ever see her? No. Not until after Mom died and she wanted most of Mom's stuff.

Anyway. Off to take Mal to the doctor for antibiotics.

I am also going to incorporate "assclowns" into my vocabulary. It's more acceptable at work than "cocksuckers" I think.

I am also going to incorporate "assclowns" into my vocabulary.

My stepdad will be SO proud!

Also agreeing that Raq makes healthy emotional decisions. All of a sudden, I feel like I'm back editing the Glencoe/McGraw-Hill junior high health text. I kinda miss those days.

Teppy, that bar thing is just weird. What do they think you're going to do?

Seriously! Plus, as pointed out multiple times, it's a fuckin' BAR. How family-friendly does it have to be?

If I lived in Cincy, I'd be happy to stir up shit there on your behalf. Possibly get together with some likeminded folks from my church or something and gather for an evening of friendly drinks and very loud conversation, in excruciating detail, about all the sweaty details of exactly how our (entirely legitimate, created within the bounds of a legal and sacramental monogamous heterosexual union) children were conceived, and exactly what vanilla but sweaty monogamous hijinks we were planning when we went back to our respective family homes.

Because, really, what could be more family friendly than that? And on my way out the door, I'd be sure to pull one of the new owners aside and say brightly and very loudly, "Thank you so much for kicking out those dirty perverts! Now that they and their disturbing tech talk are gone, I feel so much more at ease bringing my friends in here to talk about our vanilla vaginas and our husbands' juicy cocks and how we like to fit them together! All under the watchful loving eye of God, of course! Bless you and your vagina and your husband's cock! Bless you all so very much!"

The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. I've done much more humiliating things at Faire; this'd be a snap.

My mother would kill me if I didn't stay with her when I go out there. Then she would reanimate me and rekill me, just so I got the message, although I am sure she would do it in a loving way. We've stayed with my brother in the Netherlands, but it's because he invited us.. I like having family around, but that's because no one I am related to or any in-laws would ever presume or stay longer than a few days. They all have their own lives, yo.