I have the best family in the world.

Things are not doing very well in regard to my finances. I'm not working, and Will, though making a fairly good salary, doesn't really bring home enough money to comfortably pay for two. The bills are, not to put too fine a point on it, piling up.

My father told me today that his wife Debbie, who he met when I was 17 and married three years later, was paying bills yesterday and turned to him and asked, "What does Annika need?" She apparently has remarkable hearing, because she was practicing her clarinet when he and I were discussing money stuff the other day. She went on to tell him that I am the closest she will ever have to a daughter. I, of course, started to cry when he repeated this to me.

After I got off the line with my father, my mum called. (They've been divorced for almost 16 years, but still have a weird telepathy when it comes to talking to me.) I'd asked her for some help paying my student loans (I cannot justify Will paying them), and she asked me to get the exact amounts so that she can just pay them off.

It took a while for me to comprehend that. Pay them off? Like, one payment, all gone? Inconceivable!

Not only that, but they've both offered to help with the deposit for a new apartment (whenever I find one), as well as my absurd balance on my old cell phone. (Note to my stalkers: Sprint PCS - not good.)

Some of my guilt is alleviated when I remember that my younger sister is currently studying abroad in Paris. But then I become extremely tense because her living conditions there are terrible. Her professor is apparently a complete space cadet, and poor K didn't even know for certain until she arrived in France whether she had a place to stay. Well, she does, but I think she might be better off without. For two people, there is a flat with a crawl-space loft (for one) and a couch (for one), nowhere to hang clothing, and no phone. Now, the phone might not be a big deal if it weren't for the fact that we're talking about two young girls in a strange city in a foreign country. Not to mention that the school promised they would be staying with actual French people, not on their own. (If K is anything like me, she won't mind that aspect. Alone time is of the good, and easier with only one flatmate.)

The good news is that K had her first encounter with a rude French waiter on her first day there. (She may not consider it good news, and was in fact very distraught, but I am amused.)

So, are there any millionaires and/or Parisians out there who want to help my sister or I out a bit? We're both very pretty.