Depressed, repressed, unimpressed, and permanent-pressed

Depression is a nasty little bugger. It's all over both sides of my extended family, and while I'm doing pretty well these days, I hate watching people I love going through it all. My brother in particular. Being 16 sucks to begin with, much because of other 16-year-olds. They tend to be too self-involved to make good, supportive friends, though good supportive friends is what every 16-year-old needs. My brother is lucky to have an amazingly mature best friend who came over last night and sat with him while he sobbed until he fell asleep. She's been one of his best friends since elementary school and is practically part of the family. I always wanted one of those, but what can you do. He's doing better today and will probably do better tomorrow and the next day, but it sucks watching somebody you love hurt.
My parents were understandably upset by his meltdown and he wouldn't let them anywhere near him last night and they didn't know what to do. Luckily they knew enough to get out of the way, but besides that they just felt impotent and lost. I felt the total helplessness, too, but having been in my brother's shoes plenty of times before it was less scary for me. I could at least understand what he was going through and know that it gets better. I also realized that the reason I hid my depression for so long was that I didn't have the kind of friends I could sit with and sob until college. (Those of you who've spent large quantities of time watching me sob, you know who you are and I thank you. I love you guys.)
Maybe the reason I always needed to be the friend who takes care of my other friends was that it's what I wanted someone to be for me. Hero complex. I'm always standing up for people, even when they'd rather I just shut up, probably because I wish someone had stood up for me in grade school when the other kids were such shitheads. It's the problem with the "do onto others" thing: others may not actually want what you want. Still, we're forced to interpret others' wants using our own observations which are in turn clouded by our own experiences, so I guess it's inescapable.

In less weighty news, yesterday was my half-birthday. My family still celebrates half-birthdays as sort of a quirky little just us thing. It's an excuse to eat cake and get silly little presents. Among other things, I got a memory card for my phone. I already downloaded off the internet and Penelope (my computer)'s hard drive pictures for when I call or am called by most of my friends and relatives, as well as the Sesame Lounge mp3s. I tried downloading a bunch of my other mp3s, but they seem to be in the wrong format and won't get play on my phone. I'll have to work on that.

I needed more red meat tonight for dinner so I decided to try Boston Market's steak. Their commercial gets stuck in my head with some regularity and there's a drive-through not far from my apartment. After screwing up and giving my order to the car in front of me, they took forever to get my food to me and when I got home I noticed they didn't even give me cornbread. The new potatoes, mac & cheese, and sirloin steak (which came with a nice big cup of au jus) were all very tasty, but considering it cost $8.73 after taxes, there wasn't that much food. I suppose it's still cheap for a steak dinner, but expensive for fast-food. I don't think I'll buy it again.

I need to do laundry again. I just did it a few weeks ago. Yeesh.