Daria.

We sat down for a birthday dinner tonight. I'll be twenty Wednesday but I'm headed back to the city tomorrow morning. We broke every single rule of proper family time I think. I drank wine, scandalous. We talked politics. We talked religion. We talked about the bailouts and real estate. We even aired some old dirty laundry of the family. It all ended in silence and clanking forks and forcefully shoved in chairs.

Until Mom tried to gather us around the chocolate cake she had made me, with m&m's on top. We lit twenty candles, dripped wax everywhere and burned our fingers. They tried to sing Happy Birthday but my sister refused and two people singing was more awkward than the previous silence.

This is family. Thirty minutes later Mel shoved a wrapped parcel in my lap and said Happy Birthday. A journal, with a note that says, "Write your heart out and don't be afraid of truth."

This is family.
Headed to the airport at six am to try to catch the 10:20 flight standby. If all goes accordingly, I'll be back in NYC around 5. Something feels uneasy.

And the History channel thinks my YHWH is an alien.