I'm so bored. I had the cable turned off so that I could have a better chance at scraping together the house payment every month. Some asshole installed Boss EveryWare on my computer and screwed up my Windows XP installation, so now I can't play Everquest II (and can barely get my computer to run at all). I had planned to write tonight, but I got up really early and am just zonked. I was kind of hoping some of my lame-ass online friends would show up and entertain me, but they're apparently all out having lives or something. Bastids and biznitches.

Well, the Lovelace reunion went off without a hitch. I enjoyed myself. As much as I dreaded going (because Epes has stolen another weekend from me and I'll be leaving in the morning), I had fun. At first the Chaney contingent parked at a table and wasn't willing to get out and move around at all. I stuck with them for a few minutes and then decided I was going to wander around and annoy some people. I think I was supposed to anyway. Me stumbling across my uncle Allen was one of the things that got these reunions started to begin with. And I think the stiffness of the first reunion is drifting away. We're all getting to know one another better and be more comfortable around each other.

I enjoyed myself. I thought it was funny that my mother told me she was proud of me because I “mingled,” because I usually stay off to myself and am kind of quiet, etc. That's her assessment, anyway. I thought that was hilarious. Geez. Mama has really not been paying attention. That shy, quiet kid she remembered pretty much went away once I became a truck driver. I am my father's son, and can talk shit with the best of them when I'm in the mood.

I had a good time. I talked so much that a couple of people started avoiding me, which I thought was funny. But the core people that I was there to see, the main family, talked just as much as I did. By the end, Mama and the Chaney bunch (meaning my Aunt Sue and her daughter, Debbie) were sitting in the kitchen talking up a storm. So it turned out well for all of us.

I'm as grateful as ever for these wonderful people. There aren't many families who would open up their hearts and homes to some stranger who showed up and said “Oh, by the way, I'm the son of the half-brother that you never met.” From the moment I met them, they've treated me just like I'm a part of the family and was raised with all the other kids. That takes a special kind of people. I'm fortunate to have, in a sense, found my way home.

I just wish my father could have lived long enough to get to know them, as well. Somehow I think that's the one thing he searched for his entire life. Just somewhere he could feel like he belonged.