I attended a family meeting yesterday. Parents. A one-on-one with my mum. Dad just sat there reading the newspaper while mum dictated her heart out.

Money issue. Health issue. Familial ties issue. Me.

I sleep too late, spend too much, and interact too little with the family for my own good. They feel that I’m married to the PC in my room. That I have intercourse with it till early in the morning. Not too happy that I showered around 1 to 3 am thrice.

I told them that I’m a Midnight. That I finish most of my best pieces during such ungodly hours.

The job of a writer is an antisocial one. They can’t write when others are mucking about in their room. Especially when their brothers want to talk about Rakion, Gunbound, Ragnarok Online/Offline, and Spongebob Squarepants all the time. Especially when their mum wants to gossip about their friends’ dysfunctional love/family lives. Or when their mum wants to compare them with their goody two shoes cousins all the time.

They can’t afford to have somebody distorting the perfect scenes in their mind.

And so the writer shut themselves up in their room. Sometimes locking the door.

Because some people just don’t know how to knock before entering.

Sometimes, I write better in my blog. Doesn’t matter if I’ll publish it or not. I just like to type in the entry area. I like the feel of it and its default font.

And in order to do that, I have to be online.

–

I love online chats. They stimulate me sometimes. Because I’m a fan of discussions and not debates. And my discussions are known to start from early in the night until I’m sleepy.

I’m never sleepy when stimulated.

Albert protested a couple of times when I approached him after one or two MSN chats.

–

E.g.:

.——————————————————————–.
| Session Start: Monday, July 31, 2006 |
| Participants: |
| (b) Bodicea (d) (youhavetoaskformypermissiontostalkmethanks@hotmail.com) |
| Second And Third (askhimyourselfifyouwannastalkhim@hotmail.com) |
.——————————————————————–.
[12:46:42 AM] (b) Bodicea : albert.
[12:46:49 AM] Albert Ng: j.
[12:46:51 AM] Albert Ng: NOOOO
[12:46:56 AM] Albert Ng: i gotta wake up tomorrow early
[12:47:03 AM] Albert Ng: to go bank a cheque for my domain renewal
[12:47:07 AM] Albert Ng: what is it lol

–

They think that online chats are all about gossips and “useless idle chit chats”.

–

Inspiration can be a bitch. She sometimes doesn’t let you sleep when you need to.

And she has to be trapped in black and white while she’s still there.

They didn’t get it. Mum told me that I could tell my friends to chat with me in the day instead. That I could just save my works by 11pm before they shut down the router (held hostage in the master bedroom) and then continue when I wake up early in the morning.

All creative expressionists know that Inspiration never works that way.

Dad is an artist. He’s a language lover. He applies art to his science of engineering.

He’s the one who first empathised with me about the drive of inspiration and had bitched to me about mum’s opposition towards his somewhat irregular meal times because of that.

And he just sat there reading the newspaper.

Moments like this make me feel that I’m living with strangers. As if they’re not my parents but housemates who brought me up.

Just people that I happen to know for 19 years.

I know that they care for me. But not enough to want to know me. To want to share my views and beliefs. Not as much as I tried to empathise with theirs.

Because I’m living a life they never had.

Not many people want to compromise their lifelong beliefs with another’s.

–

It was annoyingly amusing when my family noted how a Mass Communication major can be so horrible in communicating with the biggest characters of her life.

I doubt that they understand that the family and non-family are two entirely different groups of people. Familiarity sometimes breeds contempt.

All habits start young. Old habits die hard.

Don’t worry. I’m working on it.