Williston Lodge

I can't adjust to this place.

Supper: Chicken breast in curry sauce with baked pineapple. Side of wild rice. Tossed salad entree with a dressing I've yet to identify. Two wine glasses of chilled, locally purified water.

Lunch: Eighteen Breton Mini crackers and one slice of Ziggy's Gouda. Side of Yo Go's. One carton Tropicana orange juice.

No breakfast as I didn't crawl out of bed till 2pm, and when I actually did, it was time for another dose of the most sedative herbal pills I've ever taken.

The staff at Williston is composed of ultra-friendly swiss girls, here on work Visas to learn English. The short brunette with the hesitant smile is Andrea. The tall blue-eyed blonde is Sandra. The most proficient English-speaker with the blunt, dark hair is Cybil.

I think so, anyway. The names are right; just probably attached to the wrong faces.

My dad wakes up via alarm clock at 5:30am, and returns to the lodge via large white company van with a dozen coworkers around 6pm. He asks my mom about her day, attempts conversation with me, eventually wanders down to the bar for a beer or two, accompanies us to supper, then falls asleep with his feet hanging over the edge of my bed by 9pm. He'll make his way over to his own bed by 10 or 11.

My mom will wake up around 6 with nothing to do, so she'll handle the bills via Internet until Jess and Sarah wake up, then take them down for breakfast. I imagine it's just cereal, but I've yet to wake up early enough to see. Around 11am or so, my mom will be bored with my younger sisters and will come back up to the room to suggest some activies to me - the only other adult she has for the day. I'll try really hard, I really will, but I just don't want to do anything, and eventually I'll roll over and fall back into a trance, and she'll get sick of being ignored and read on the patio.

One way or another, everyone will end up back in the room, itching to go for a car ride. So it's up and at-'em for me. I'll throw on some clothes and nod off in the passenger seat until my mom starts pointing out the school, the hospital, the trailer park, the library of Hudson's Hope, BC. It's a little bigger than home, and for whatever reason, be it the name or the fact that I'm only semi-concious, I really want to live here. And I really wish I hadn't been dragged along to see it, to wish I could live here only to find out that my dad won't take me. This is more emotions than I've felt all week, so I'll start to sniffle, and my mom will get all awkward because nobody knows how to handle a sixteen year old who tears up like she's five, and the silence will get so thick that I'll curl up under it like a blanket and fall asleep again.

I want this cloud, this depression, this blue period, this sloth, this je ne sais quoi to pass before we leave so I can make a real evaluation. So I can figure out what I want.

Or else somebody just tell me what I want.