Family reunion hell

Just when I think I've reached the limits of stupid things I could do in this lifetime I one up myself. What was it this time? Have I decided to experiment with drugs? Eaten laxatives like candy? Tried to bungie jump with fabric trim?
Worse, much worse. I've agreed to go to my family reunion.
If this blog had a soundtrack, this would be where the dunh dunh DUNH! sound came in. My family reunions ar the stuff of nightmares. I would actually rather bungie jump with fabric trim, but there seem to be an abundance of people who have their hearts set on seeing me that weekend and if I take the trim plunge they won't see me ever. The things I do for others.
To say that I am a pariah in an already Balkanized family is like saying that Antartica is a spot of ice on a speck of dust. Technically accurate, sure, but one hell of an understatement. Just my luck to be the only kid born into an uptight family that can't lie worth beans or blend to save her life.
Basically the break down is this: my Mother's side of the family hates my Father because his family was what they considered poor white trash. They were thrilled when my folks split up about fifteen years ago. And might I add, assholes to my siblings and I. So that would be strike one. Strike two is that my Mother is a former model, and though I am a dead ringer for her I lack the eating disorder to be that skinny and the patience for that much upkeep. They never tire of pointing out that I am too short/too fat/not polished looking enough. When they find a flaw, like my shortness, they attribute it to "that other side" (ironically Dad's family is tall and rail thin). Strike three is me myself. These people will never like me unless I go through total personality rewrite. In a family where a slight uplift of one eyebrow at a given time is a deadly insult and everything is about controlling the perceptions of others, I am cursed with a certain degree of directness. I've been that way since birth. And I was cursed with a degree of precociousness as well. If I had been a boy they would have found it cute. Unfortunately I was a girl, so there were apparently completely opposite standards that I was supposed to adhere to. I didn't get the memo, not that it would have mattered, because I can't unbe me, not even to fit in with my own family.
The choices I make just because they seem right to me strike these people as open rebellion. I used to major in anthropology. Half of this family is either ministers or their wives and kids; they thought that anthropology meant "heresy". I got a nose peircing because I liked them. They thought that I was "acting out". I drink very little alchohol; most of them are alchoholics who don't realize it yet and are upset that I don't join the noon happy hour.
I'm pretty sure that I'm fine and that there are things wrong with them. I am as certain of that as they are of the opposite.
Ironically my closest in age brother has the opposite problem. Where they think that I am a manish woman they think that he is a girly man. He is, in fact, the reason I am going to the annual family hellcapades. We'll be each other's wing man. I love my brother. If anyone screws with him they will be eternally sorry.
Since I know that regardless of what I do or how I dress I'm in for the weekend from hell as well as total familiar rejection, I'm going to have some fun with these people. I'm cleaning my tiny silver handcuff earrings and reglueing the soles to my dom boots from high school. Let them think I dress like this all the time; I will have the last laugh. Muwhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!