Still up. Spent an interesting night...

I got up last night about 18:45, stumbled around a while, read email, drank the pot of coffee Karen had made and made another. Worked on some web projects, then Karen went to bed rather early for her.

Tyler was gone when I got up, and, as I had mentioned, he left with his friend Chris and didn't help JD any with the digging or with anything else.

JD and I and Karen and I have talked extensively about Tyler; we're all kinda worried about him, partly because of his seeming devotion to this friend Chris.

Chris is a very artistically talented kid... and otherwise worthless. He lives with his mother, doesn't have a job and gets what money he has by selling his plasma on a weekly basis. He depends on Tyler for his transportation needs, and spends much time over here playing with the computers and the music equipment.

He's a leech, quite simply. A parasite. In general, I know that people like this exist, but, referring to yesterday's entry, I don't know how. Chris has ADD, which he is being treated minimally for... JD says that the medication doesn't really help his thinking, except for now he thinks it's OK for him to be the way he is.

Anyway, I don't like parasites feeding on my kids. Chris has been around for quite a while, JD went to high school with him, and at one point, I talked him into turning himself in on a warrant... drove him down to the police station, etc.

And he hasn't really changed much since those days.

He lived in Texas with JD for about three months or so a coupla years ago, and that didn't work out very well.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand... JD had gone out and bought a bottle of vodka, and he and I were sitting out on the front deck smoking when Tyler came home. We sat out on the deck and talked for quite a while to him... at this time I didn't know that JD had been drinking. Later, I understood his unusual loquaciousness. But the vodka enabled him to say some things that he thought need to be said.

JD and Tyler have been through this before, I guess, and generally Tyler doesn't say much, just looks at his shoes and nods his head. Last night, however, either JD or I got through to him. I don't expect any immediate changes, but he is willing to think about stuff. And, of course, he knows that we love him and are concerned about him. I felt kinda bad, like we were ganging up on him, but he said that he didn't feel that way about it... I hope that he wasn't just saying that....

Things will work out. Tyler is 20, an age that I remember well and that I don't envy.

Work tonight. Hopefully, sleep today... If I don't I'm a dead duck. I don't like not being able to quack.

More tomorrow...