Yeehaw, that's what I'm talking about. I'm not dead.

I've been cheating on you all with my Xanga. Actually it's really just full of stuff about my upcoming wedding and a little bit of stuff about my relationship with my fiance, Wayne-bow. I figured I'd spare the general journal reading public the pain of reading about the smooshy goodness by making it a separate journal, like my garden journal.

Mom is insane but that's not anything new. She's been yakking on about raising our rent. I'm not sure why because she can't raise it for another year since Wayne prepaid rent through next May with the agreement that the rent would not be raised until then. We knew when we moved in that after I graduated our rent would double (to 600) but because of the prepayment I don't have to start paying until it expires. Anyway, this all started with the TV.

Wayne loves TVs, I'm not sure why but he's always looking at them, plotting how he can get a newer bigger one. So anyway, we just got a new TV, a 32 inch. Our latest before this was the 27" and we started with the 20". We got the new tv which was a little pricey but not really. My mom is some kind of money sniffing pro or something. Like those pigs who find truffles. So she figures that if people have money, they should be giving it to her. She sees the TV and then all of the sudden there's all this crap flying around.

The grandparents were visiting and it seems that g-ma took some offense to the TV. She thinks that Wayne should be saving money for a down payment on a house. Well, isn't that nice. Let me tell you about Wayne's down payment. When I met him he had about half a nice down payment saved. Actually I was looking in the real estate section yesterday and it was actually larger than some down payments for the houses on the other side of the island (Kunia, etc). So Wayne had this money in a CD which was going to expire. Usually he moves them into another 12 month CD. While we were researching them for the best deal, my mom comes up with this need for tons of money. Mind you, she knew about Wayne's money.

So she comes up with this scheme to have Wayne pay his rent about 18 months in advanced. As "interest" she threw in two extra months for free and that clause about not having to raise rent and stuff. So because Wayne is a nice generous person, he agrees to forgo his CD and gives her a large hunk of cash. Then the car blew up and we needed to get a new one. Wayne's grandpa offered him some cash to get another car but Wayne didn't want to get the cars he was suggesting so he just paid for it himself. Then we had to get me a car because I had to start working eventually and would need to drive myself there. My car was pretty expensive and took about 1/3 of his original sum.

So because we're going to have to start paying rent again in May of next year and then my rent payments will go into effect. So I was upstairs defending Wayne and his spending habits. I made some comment about Wayne saved money for his eye surgery and he had extra money to spend so if he wanted to buy a new TV, that was his business. The very next day (I shit you not) I go upstairs and find a note that says not only will our rent increase next May, but we will have to start paying half of all the utilities as well. Well, how about those coincidences.

This really irks me for numerous reasons which I don't feel like going into here. I'll just say these few words: It's beginning to feel like we are roommates, splitting everything down the middle. In fact, if our rent gets much higher, we will be paying half of the mortgage. Parents are not supposed to profit off of their kids. I totally am in agreement with giving them some money to offset the cost of the higher utilities that come from having more people in the house. However, I don't think we should actually have to pay real rent. A trivial amount as a matter of principle maybe, but not more than 600, even though that is pretty low for rent. Having to pay half the utilities really pisses me off. Now I find myself looking at how much water we are using versus them (they use more), how much power they are using (they use more) and how much gas they are using (not sure about this one, depends if our dryer is electric or gas). The worst part of all this was that my mom actually blamed the increase in the electric bill on Wayne and his large TVs and video games. Whatever.

It's all about the Benjamins.

Ok I just got off the phone with Brother Dave. That was a really long conversation. That's what happens when you don't talk to people for a long time. Ok so now I have to go paint because I was supposed to do it a few hours ago and mom's going to get salty at me. More on that later.