Family Time

I got my mom to see Juno. She really liked it, thank goodness. I thought the abortion humor might have put her off. It made me mildly uncomfortable so there was about a fifty-fifty shot of it making her head explode. I was also concerned about the hype. I know that when I hear eighty thousand people telling me how great a movie is, it totally kills it for me when I finally do see it. I'm sure I would have liked Donnie Darko if I hadn't seen it after my friends had been having moviegasms about it for over a year. Luckily, I saw Juno before the bulk of the over-adulation started, so I actually got to enjoy it.
Now I'm over at my grandparents' house. I know that visiting one's grandparents is the right thing to do, since I, too, one day will be old and boring and will want my bitchy, emo grandchildren to visit me, but I still spend most of my time on the computer. Or reading, if there are enough people here so that I can actually get away with it. On holidays, when everyone comes to our house, my mother is fond of coming into my room and yelling at me to put down my book and socialize with my relatives, but the crystal-clear subtext here is "If I have to be out here with them, then you have to be out here with them."
I do have some relatives that are kind of cool, but I can still only spend quality time up to a certain point. My coolest relatives, my much older second cousin and his wife, live in Dallas, and we never see them. They shun us, as they have every right to. Maybe one day, I, too, will become cool enough to shun my relatives.