It's just that your parents are the ones who dole out the money, and if you had been on any other kind of scholarship it would have been rescinded due to your lack of performance.

Apparently you think your friends and older sibling have a better position than you do, but they don't, and that has nothing to do with you currently being a fuckup.

There is this passive-aggressive battle between you and your parents. They have the pursestrings, and instead of just moving out and getting a job you take their money but make sure you don't do what they want. What you really want is to have all the freedoms of adulthood with none of the responsibility. Nothing new there, but if you want to get on with your life you need to either suck it up for a year and graduate or get a full time job and move out.

But he is obviously not in the same relationship you're in.

Actually, LW, you seem to be in more of a fantasyland than he is.

He seems to be doing his thing as a completely unattached grown man with no financial or emotional responsibilities to anyone but himself.

The only problem I can see here is that you seem to think you're engaged to him.

It would be intersting to read how he describes his relationship with you.

From your letter it seems that you are merely someone he dates.

I'll buck the tide here and say you should go. If your neighborhood is as nice as you say you should be able to lease your house for a year and move to a rental in that idyllic beach side, artistic and intelligent community.

Of course, the company should pay relocation expenses, because if they are not offering that, they don't really value your work. And if there is no increase in pay to offset the higher cost of living, it's a no-brainer that this is not a good offer.

That said, if these are all things that have been worked out, you need to broaden your horizons. If you decide to return to your Southern town, you will be all the more marketable for having the other Coast work and life experience.

And as a Californian who has lived in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest, there is nothing soul-sucking about a state. It's the people you associate with and attract who suck your soul dry.

If you do make the move, try to meet some actual natives who have not tried to escape from some other part of the US to reinvent themselves.

And you know this, otherwise you wouldn't be writing to ask anyone about it.

Think about when you were 16. Would you have wanted to go from your home to a more cramped space where you would have had even less privacy?

The whole houseboat idea is such a bachelor's thing, and you are not a bachelor anymore. You may have been able to get away with more of a single guy's life with just one child, but FOUR people on a houseboat? Maybe if it's 3000 square feet.

Which Stephanie obviously didn't see. However, when I was dragged by a friend to see the musical (ABBA never moved me musically), I actually liked the storyline, despite its implausability.

It IS a musical and a comedy, and I have yet to see a musical comedy that is truly realistic.

In short, all the complaints she has made about the movie apply also to the stage version, so what's the point?

Burn Notice in my opinion has great acting, and the amoral and ruthless Fiona is a great character. The writing is great and the casting is superb.

The Closer has really good ensemble acting, but Brenda's poor treatment of Fritz is getting a little tiresome. I think the best episode, one that should become a TV classic, is the one in the second season when Provenza and Finn find a dead body in Finn's garage, but don't call it in right away because they are late for the Dodgers baseball game, and when they come back later (having not made it to the stadium) the body is gone. It was hysterically funny but also believable.

I watched In Plain Sight because I like Mary McCormack, but I really like her partner and his philosophical musings. Her family situation is also a real one, cliched only because it is such a reality. Overachieving caretaker oldest child of alcoholic mother and ne'er do well father, drifting and immature younger sibling. They all seem believable to me.