My brother recently bought a house. So now, Bellan and I get to sit around listening to my parents chatter excitedly about this house, and how well my brother's doing with everything, and how he'll need spatulas and rugs and furniture. They seem to be oblivious to the silent thoughts left suspended above us, to the things I'm tired of reading between the lines. My inedequacies stacked up against the wall, in neatly labeled boxes. No job, complains, angry, resentful.

I'm tired of being the lesser child. I'm tired of my mother walking around the house, bitching and moaning about how inconvient it is to have me living here. I'm tired of my brother being treated like the prodigal son, placed on a pedestal and admired. I'm tired of being blamed for things he does.

Tina Fey said it best on this week's rerun of SNL: "a new patch for the treatment of depression has been approved...just remove backing a stick over your mother's mouth."