Because everyone updates on Mondays!

I know, I'm still not great at the whole updating regularly thing. Sorry. But things are Busy! and Crazy! With an emphasis on the crazy.

Okay, here's the part where Lauren admits to being from a totally fucked up extended family and further confirms the white-trash roots that the whole art nerdery are just a ruse, a RUUUUSE intended to hide the roots, the ROOOOOTS.

Anyway. My cousin, for the purposes of this story let's call him Charles, he is crazy. Like agitated, diagnosed by amatuer psychiatrist/art nerd me as bipolar. He dreams very big. for example, he has two inventions in the works right now. But he's just annoying nuts, not the rip the heads off small animals, eating children kind of nuts. Anyway, my aunt, who is nuts as well, has decided to have him committed.

The problem? That he's not THAT KIND OF CRAZY. He is annoying, for sure. He gets very agitated and talks and talks and talks. He stutters and yells and screams, he runs his mouth like no one else. But really, he isn't the sort of crazy that he needs to be committed. Now, I've looked into it, and he doesn't meet any of the criteria. He hasn't threatened himself or anyone else, as I said, not that kind of crazy. Also, my aunt? I am 100% convinced that she killed my mom-mom. (That is a story for another day, but it involves one sick mom-mom in hospice care for lung cancer and more than one shot of morphine and sleeping pills.) It should also be noted that the story is at least a third-hand account of my aunt's side of the story.

My mom tells me this, and in turn, I tell Kev. Both of our reactions contained a lot of false-start sentences, But? wha? how? huh? And my mom is upset because, without getting into it too much, Charles used to be a cop and was fired and has some sort of civil suit against them or something, and my mom thinks that the cops have it in for him. I think all that was a long time ago, and the cops who would theoretically take him to a hospital if he magically fit any sort of criteria for an involutary committment, which of course, he doesn't, but if he did, well then the cops would be extra rough with him and hurt him or something.

But this is all beside the point, because you can't commit someone for being annoying!! And can I just say that this aunt has tried this before, when my other cousin, her daughter dated a black guy?! Yes, she thought that the fact that her daughter was dating someone not of her race was grounds for her committment! THE HELL?

Yes, people, welcome to my life. I have precious little culture in my life, and it was all learned in school. I feel like I should point out that my own family, my nuclear family, my mom, dad and sister, are quite normal. Kev and his side, even moreso. And this says nothing of the cousin who is 40 and has to hide the fact that he lives with his girlfriend, the one who doesn't work, boyfriend doesn't work, and somehow still owns a house, or the one who is shockingly normal just with kinda bratty kids.

Oh that's right, people. The floodgates have opened, you will now hear about the trashiness that is my extended family. Sit back on the sofa on your porch and grab a beer from the outdoor refrigerator. This'll be better than NASCAR!!