This'll be a brief entry as I'm really all talked out... It feels like I've done nothing but write today. I spent literal hours trying to carve out some decent essays for scholarships. I wrote at least four pages single-spaced, not including the general personal information and brief questions. Writey writey writey.

Sunday I fly back to Maryland for a week to stay with my parents, bring back some more of Crystal's and my things, and say goodbye to everyone back there. It'll be the first time I've slept at my parents' in a year... Weird to think, huh?

It's already been weird enough staying at Crystal's mom's house, completely dependent on her for transportation and food and all. Gotta tell ya: extremely uncomfortable. There seems to be something about having a grown child come back into the parent's house that makes hi/r feel compelled to treat the child like a child again. And the girlfriend apparently gets automatically drafted into that equation, despite being two years older and having lived on her own almost as long. The fact that it isn't even my own parent treating me like a thirteen-year-old makes it all the worse.

I haven't felt this like a rebellious, petulant teenager in years.

Here are my biggest issues: car, internet, event coordinating, bedtime.

The car is obviously a touchy subject, since it belongs to Jody and we really don't have some inherent right to it. However, she did say that provided we assist with gas and maintenance she would allow us to use it as we had need. I didn't anticipate that this would translate to "if I don't want to drive you and it's somewhere I really need you to go, you may use the car." Somehow I didn't figure 'if you need' meant 'if I want you to do something'. God I will be relieved to get my own damn car. The public transportation system is a little easier here than in DC, but it's also more time-consuming and more expensive. Aside from that, I already hated having to use it in DC.

Internet. ....I don't want to even think about my peeves with Amber and her whiny possessiveness. Sometime in the next month we should be getting wireless, if Jody keeps her word.

Event coordinating. I am no longer a kid who needs her mother to plan out her day!!! Neither is Crystal! We don't need to have our appointments made for us and then get yelled at if we already had plans and can't make the appointments we didn't schedule! I resent that our days must be carefully arranged around any potential errand, chore or activity Jody decides to throw at us. Today, for instance, when Crystal and I decided not to take the hour and a half trip to Denver by bus and light rail when neither of us were feeling well... We got yelled at. Jody kept insisting that if she hadn't set up this or that nothing would have happened and Crystal wouldn't be ready to attend school. ... How is Crystal supposed to do anything if her mom does it first? We shouldn't have to feel guilty for something she chose to do when not even asked. ...I ramble, digress, and rant.

Haha, and bedtime. Let us not forget. Okay. First, you must understand that Jody and we are on totally different schedules. She does not like this. She gets up at like five every morning and is in bed asleep by eight at night. We tend to be more the up at ten in bed at two types. And, in my opinion, when we have no significant outside obligations there is nothing wrong with this. (With me so far?) Jody does not like this. Every night around... Hm, now, usually, she'll come out and lecture us for not being in bed.

Adoifgheaogh.

I'm done! I mean, there's nothing wrong with her schedules and policies and all - I'd just like to be treated a little more like a boarder than a juvenile. I want the courtesy to command my own comings and goings, my own schedule, my own leisure time and bed time and waking. I want to have my own liiiiiiife!