I've decided to eat a bowl of oatmeal every day for thirty days.

I better go buy some oatmeal.

My sister is coming home from Spain tomorrow.

When I was little we used to pile into the car every year and visit the cousins in San Francisco. It was always good to see them, but for some reason we always had to travel with WAY TOO MUCH SHIT. We had a VW Jetta, and I sat in the back seat and tried not to cry the whole way.

One time the back seat was so packed, there was no room for me to move, not even around my legs. I'm sure there was something on my lap. I do know that we stopped at the Nut Tree in Northern California and bought some pies. Those went on the floor by my legs.

We hit a rest stop in Shasta. When I got out of the car, I noticed that my legs were covered in pie. I remember being scared of getting yelled at, and I remember my dad was PISSED. He gets especially pissed when he cannot blame me. I remember wanting to cry.

I want to cry now, for letting myself be treated like somebody's fucking cargo. I was just a little kid with pie on my pants.

When the family bought a van, my dad never learned to use the air conditioner. He would blast cold air on himself, and then turn it off. Meanwhile, I was in the back, sweltering, because the a/c never made it past the front seats. It was like being a coffin in hell. To this day I resent sitting in a car.

My father is an expert at causing people to resent him. It is his specialty. Everyone has a special talent; my dad's talent is being inconsiderate. I do not care who knows it. I said, I do not care who knows it. I don't think you heard me; I DO NOT CARE WHO KNOWS IT.

I am not the cause of this situation. I am not responsible for keeping my resentment a secret. Why should I? Who does it serve if I keep it to myself? I think twenty years of keeping it to myself is long enough. You reap what you sew.

He has been nice to me lately on the phone. Maybe he's starting to realize that alienating me is not smart.