No rest for the wicked

It's great to see everyone - well, almost everyone - but it's not particularly relaxing. Everyone seems to be stressed out, and it is contagious. I always forget how different from home it is. My home is well-lit, silent and messy, my parents' is dark, noisy and fairly clean. The TV is always on as a background noise, and the phone rings all the time, and people are screaming all the time (not at each other in a hostile way, just "you have a phone call!", "where the hell are you?", " did anybody see the plunger?!", etc.) Benka in particular has a habit of screaming just to summon somebody just in order to ask the summonned person where they were and what they were doing at the moment. It's quite annoying to have to jump out of the toilet upon hearing horrible screaming just to hear "hey, what are you doing right now?".

I have given up the struggle against noise and am concentrating on the struggle for light. For whatever reason, I find well-lit rooms pleasant, and dark rooms somewhat tiring to be in. My parents apparently do not share the feeling. Oska is trying to keep the minimal lighting for reason of having no need for more; I tried to explain to him that I do, in fact, have need for more; Oska generously informed me that I may indeed keep the lights on if I am such a depressive psycho who is obviously in need of professional help. Oska has an unfortunate tendency to consider any emotion that is alien to him to be a sign of mental disease, and himself the shining standard of psychological health.

But enough of parent-bashing for today. I like the buggers anyway; and they probably have even worse stories to tell about me, but I have a blog and they don't, so there.