I have had a rocky couple of days, and was convinced for about a 24-hour period that it might be better to illegally pitch a tent in Fairview Park than live at home this summer. I have about $200 to my name right now, most of which is going toward a tattoo I'm getting in less than a week, for which I've already put down a $20 deposit. I owe my dad whatever is left after that plus what I get paid Thursday next. Apparently the check I mailed almost a month ago never got where it was supposed to go, and another VISA bill arrived.

I've decided that I'm no longer going to attempt to explain anything to my dad, because he seems so fond of voicing his own assumptions before the fact; I'd hate to take away his fun. Seriously, the guy's a scientist -- all he ever does is prove himself wrong or maybe possibly right until someone else proves him wrong. Upon constructive thought, it makes sense that he'd like to indulge in carelessly worded, violently voiced assumptions in his personal life.

I still don't want to live at home if I can find a way around it. I'm thinking very hard, but nothing seems to be coming to mind. The problem isn't money per se; I'd be fine if I didn't have to put down first month's rent right away. I was thinking maybe Section 8 housing would be okay at least for the summer, but I was talking to Ryan about it and he told me one of his friends had his wall shot out last year over there. Thank you, Chicago, for attempting to foist all of your poor and desperate people on a white-bread town like Blo-No. Damn Patriot Act.

I'm thinking about offering my dad some sort of nominal monthly fee if he and Anne will just leave me the fuck alone this summer and pretend I'm just a boarder for the season instead of someone they can freely take great pleasure in regularly driving to tears. I'll have three jobs this summer; I doubt I'll want to spend my free time bashing myself against the impenetrable, new and improved, unified parent wall of cold, calculated logic.

I'm not attending ISU in the fall. It's something I haven't yet told my dad, and I hope I won't have to until he outright asks. I'm dropping out, getting my own place in the fall with the money I save up this summer, and taking a couple classes at Heartland (seeing as they're $50 $74 [thanks John] per credit hour instead of, say, $750). I'm so tired of being manipulated by my dad's purse strings that abject poverty sounds like heaven to me right now. I wish I could grit my teeth and take it for another couple of years, but I'm just not designed to hold up under that kind of duress. Careful reflection over the past few months has revealed to me that my dad has his whole life motivated me to achieve life goals he views as required for some sort of Child of S.K.S. major purely through guilt, mostly financial. And while he's pissing and moaning about how much of his money I'm wasting, he still seems to have no trouble financing Anne's yoga classes and Hannah's piano lessons and seasonal overseas trips to Germany. If my two siblings can achieve and be proud of their progress under such subtle tyranny, then I say: let them have the goddamn money.

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