Well, I have to say I'm glad to be home.  I told my therapist to remind me never to let me go anywhere with my family ever again.  What was I thinking??  I was pissed to start with because of the whole Hawaii jerking me around thing.  Then we get there, and everybody else is a mom and a dad and little kids, and so two old people, their grown son and their grown daughter with her girlfriend didn't exactly fit in.

Then the barracuda kept trying to have "talks" alone with me and alone with Janet.  She's unbelievable--she'll just say anything.  She asked Janet if she felt guilty for dating me when her "girlfriend" is in trouble somewhere.  She asked what she was going to do when Rochelle turns up.  She told me I wasn't ready for an adult relationship, because I wasn't acting like an adult.  I'd say she tried pretty hard to break us up.  Fortunately Janet is amazing, and didn't listen to her crap.  I think it actually made us closer, but for awhile, we were kind of looking at each other suspiciously.  We got irritated by stupid things about each other, but it was really the barracuda under our skin--like ringworm or something.  We finally figured that out, and then just stuck together like siamese twins on a battlefield.

I was trying to make jokes about it all with my therapist--just being sarcastic, and exaggerating and all to make her laugh.  She saw right through it though, and looked all sad and sympathetic, and I couldn't help crying.  The barracuda really was horrible--I feel bruised and bloody all over.  I guess it's a good thing my therapist can tell when I'm bullshitting her, and doesn't let me do it.  She's really gentle about it, though--I don't know how she points right to the truth I'm trying to avoid and still seems kind and understanding.  I wonder if that's how other people's mothers are.