the family historian

Sometimes I think about giving my parents the URL to this Web site. What the hell. These days I mostly write movie reviews anyway, and when I don’t, I am very careful about what I write. I tend to assume that my coworkers might be reading (some are … hi!), and that various family members might be reading. I don’t assume my grandparents are reading, because that’s going a bit too far, but you never know when my brothers or sister might run a Google search on something and stumble onto this site. For all I know, they did find the site, skimmed a boring movie-related entry, didn’t realize it was me, and left without remembering anything about the experience.
But then I think about it some more, and I imagine my mother calling me up after reading an entry about family conversations and saying, “I thought it was very funny, but would you please take out the part about farting? People will think we’re crude.” I am sure I would hear, “Do you have to use that kind of language?” And I can bet she’d tell me that “It’s a very nice page but I think that story about your grandmother was a little too personal. If she died tomorrow, you’d feel really sorry that you wrote that about her.”

My parents would probably print out the funniest stories and send or give them to friends and relatives, amid much discussion. I don’t want to be the story, I want to tell the story. Or am I being too egotistical? Maybe they would find the whole site boring? I doubt it. My family is all egotistical and they would love reading stories about themselves, although there might be some complaints about posting “that very personal thing we don’t discuss” on the Web where strangers could read it. My sister might fear stalkers, even.
And naturally any time I wrote about some event from childhood, I would hear all about the bits I left out, or got slightly wrong. “I never said anything like that. I think you’re employing revisionist history.” Or “That didn’t happen until after your little brother was born. And your aunt was out of town then.” And so forth. The comments section would probably be full of suggested corrections and denials and … yeah, I can see where that might add to the overall entertainment value of this site for the readers, but I don’t think it would improve my general state of mental health.
I thought about all of this the other night while having dinner with my parents. My dad was in an odd but amusing mood, inclined to be somewhat cynical and blunt. Any time my mom mentioned some acquaintance or relative who had done something rude or annoying, my dad would say, “Aw, tell them to shove it up their ass.” My mom would then feign shock, and my dad would repeat the phrase.
“You know, someone ought to write down some of these stories,” my mom remarked after awhile. “Your brother used to say he was planning to write a book about the family. He even had a title.” (I am not repeating the title here because that would be a total giveaway on a Google search. Also because I might steal it and use it myself someday.)
“I’ll have to tell him that he needs to assume the post of the family historian,” my mom said. “Just like Uncle P. is the Lastname family historian.”
“Oh, P. and his family historian crap. He can shove it up his ass,” my dad said. “Besides, Jette is the oldest child. She should get to be our family historian.”
“Fine with me,” my mom said. (Notice that I get no say in the matter.)
“Now when you write about the family,” my dad told me, “you have to include a chapter on the family meetings. Do you remember how I used to summon everyone for a family meeting?”
“How could I possibly forget?” I said. Although I have to admit that the family meetings were so chaotic and silly that I am not sure they could be reproduced in print.
“I keep telling you that you could write all the family stories and they would make a great novel,” my mom said. “Although, I don’t know, I can think of a few stories I would rather you left out.”
“And I think you should include a chapter called ‘Shove it up the ass’,” my father added.
“You see? That is just the kind of thing I mean. No one wants to hear about that.”
“Aw, shove it up your ass.”
Besides that conversation, my mom suggested at least once more during my visit that I should write up family stories into a novel. She seems to think that publishing the family anecdotes is a fine idea, so I don’t feel at all guilty for writing some of them down here.
She wasn’t the only one to suggest writing the family stories in a publishable format, and that was just during the recent trip. Everyone seems to think that there is great material here waiting to turn me into another David Sedaris. Is anyone from NPR reading this? Email me and we’ll talk.
Sometimes I read a David Sedaris story about his family, or listen to a song like Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family,” and I feel like my relatives aren’t quite colorful enough. Why can’t I turn family stories and characters into wonderful bits of writing like those? Is it the family’s fault for not being sufficiently interesting, or is it mine?
In the meantime, I don’t think I’m going to share this URL with the family. Not yet. They can wait for the novel, or the NPR appearance, or even the movie.