I don’t like self-promotion. I’m fine standing up in front of a hundred people and telling them that they are racists if they smoke (sadly, this actually happened), but really, I don’t like drawing attention to myself (note to reader: see the first half of this sentence). I don’t know if these two ideas are reconcilable, but it leaves me with this conundrum: I always wanted to be a writer. But, I don’t want to have to tell people to go read my stuff. It seems pushy. Presumptuous. Arrogant.
For a very brief time, I had website to sell my crafty stuff. No, not a shop on Etsy; that’s too easy. An honest-to-god website, and I even made business cards. But, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about it, or hand out my card. Surprisingly, there was a lack of traffic on the website, except for my friend, Teresa (“T-Bird” supports all my enterprises with the same enthusiasm and emotion as, well, as me). So, I gave up, let the name lapse, and closed the Google account.
Business Lesson #1: don’t forget to tell people you have a business
Which brings us here: NCIS. First, how can there be that much crime in the Navy? And second, did you see the episode where McGee had to confess to using his coworkers as characters in a book he wrote? Abby became Amy. Ziva became Lisa (not to give away too much insider-knowledge, but I also employ the “just make it rhyme” naming convention). Anyhow, everyone was pissed at McGee, which made sense because someone was killing the real-life people behind the characters in his book. Well, it never occurred to me to hide the names of the people in my stories. I just figured, the only people who will read this are family (and T-Bird), so what good would changing the name do? But one of my sisters was surprised by this. She feared that future potential employers would Google her name and some crazy-ass story would pop up, so could I please change her name? And actually, that is totally fair, because I myself have Facebooked and Googled job applicants and subsequently excluded them from the interview pool if they were too much like “Girls Gone Wild” on Facebook or whatever. So, good point, Hattie.
Hattie was also surprised that I didn’t hide my name. Okay, this is good, too, because I do have tons of fear that my father will “Do the Google” and find my blogs. Unlike him, I’m not comfortable hurting someone’s feelings, which is why I try really, really hard to do it behind his back. So, when on Facebook and about to promote a new blog entry, I do a quick “hide” for him, his wife, my mother, and so on. And then, in time, “unhide” them, assuming that they will lack the skill, knowledge, or interest to go back through my page and accidentally discover something hurtful (although I think it’s still hidden from them). It’s a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.
I also risk being disowned (the older my father gets, the less this happens, but he is not above disowning me via email) which would limit my access to new writing material. The good news is that I have saved every email from my father, beginning in April 2005, so if my family-access ever were shut down, I’ve got a ways to go before that well runs dry. Okay, and also, dis-owned? Holy fuck, I just now see that. Owned versus dis-owned. Goddamnit, family is complicated.
Okay, anyway, keeping the emails was my friend Geoff’s suggestion. See, my dad and me and The Sisters email on a (nearly) daily basis (although my father has recently taken to texting us videos of his apartment, panning left and right, ghostly silent. I’m slightly concerned that this maybe a coded message that we just aren’t getting: should I call 911? Is someone forcing you to visually catalog your furniture?). Given the frequency of our emails, someone is bound to say something crazy at some point.
And why would Geoff know about the content of our family emails? First, Geoff is family, if family is determined by longevity and proximity. My father, like Charles Manson, has a bit of a cult following. The Sisters, we tell our stories, and people want more. CLAMOR for more. At Hattie’s wedding, our friend Mandy insisted on meeting dad. Alice walked her over to my father, who was hosting his own personal receiving line. His first comment, FIRST COMMENT I’M NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING, was about him driving over a sapling in the front yard of one of Alice’s high school boyfriend’s during a late night retrieval of Alice. Alice backed away, smirking. Mandy was ecstatic! She spent the rest of the evening glued to my father’s side, even parking herself next to him at the family table during the meal so as not to miss a moment (Mandy now considers herself one of The Sisters and at a recent BBQ asked me if I could feel myself ovulating, because she could, and she wondered if it were genetic;) (Side note: same BBQ, Mandy had admittedly been waterboarding her baby like an Al Qaeda hostage with her breast milk. “He was gurgling, and I thought that meant he was still hungry.” She’s so awesome).
So, ANYWAY, Geoff, who has been around the family long enough to know the good and bad (like, he could tell you stories about when Hattie would dance in cow-themed boxer shorts and cowboy boots, or the time when I was Native American and an alcoholic and could often be found in my apartment wearing a “Santa Fe” bathrobe listening to the Smoke Signals soundtrack), was the original fan, and he was often the recipient of forwarded crazy emails.
“Just because you are an alcoholic doesn’t mean you are native” -Geoff
“Save. Those. Emails. Publish them when your father dies.”
I pondered the suggestion, but didn’t actually follow through until I received this gem, April 2005:
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
Babes Girls,
I walked Greenlake today.
Many fine chicks on the walk.
I made love to all of them (in my mind, of course).
Love Dad
Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be a response from any of us.
This collection of emails I’ve saved, it’s like a Magic Eight Ball. Example: After my recent coup at the ear-nose-throat doctor’s office, in which I successfully negotiated a tonsillectomy (I thought there’d be more of a fight, but even though it is elective surgery (per my doctor, “Yes, this is elective. As in you won’t die if we leave your tonsils in”), the doc agreed that they needed to be removed), I started to panic about pain, and then regretted ever going in. Oh wise email, give me the answers: how painful is surgery ? (label: dad surgery, search). This didn’t produce the answer I sought (“Reply hazy; try again”), so I nudged it along and used the search term “dying.” A much more fruitful outcome.
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
January 27, 2008
Tuesday
Dear Daughters,
When I wake up each morning, I feel awful. (I think I am dying!)
Earlier this year, I did cancel two small life insurance policies.
Much love,
Dad
First, please note that Dad UNNECESSARILY adds the date in the body of the email. He is technologically savvy(-ish), so it’s not like he doesn’t know that the date is already noted in the address of the email. Is it just a habit? From writing real-life-snail-mail letters all day? Second, I love that his emails are structured with
breaks
and paragraphs.
His emails are
like poetry. Haikus.
Okay, so this didn’t give me too much insight into the upcoming tonsillectomy, but holy papayas, it’s a fun bunch of crazy. Alice, the least hypochondriac-ky of us all, but also the only one to have a degree in medicine, emails my father back: “But, why do you feel so awful? Is this that same cold that you’ve had for awhile now? Have you been to the doctor? Did you get an x-ray? It could be pneumonia!”
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
Hello Babe Alice,
No chest x ray yet.
My chest cold is still lingering but it is better.
This morning I woke up with sharp pains in my left side. It has subsided now … but I feel that I am slipping away … life expectancy is in doubt … my mother died in her 60’s and I am 65.5 … We shall see
Love Dad
PS
If I were to die in an accident, I have accidental death insurance
I love the liberal use of ellipsis… coincidentally, I am also a high-utilizer of the ellipsis…
Later that day:
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
To my darling precious daughters,
I am going over to the Pho to get a bowl of chicken soup
No help
I am dying
Love Dad
According to Dad, chicken soup is Jewish penicillin. Also,
no punctuation
how Japanese
The Pho
Hattie, whose primary care physician at one time was 911, was simultaneously recovering from some sort of leg-surgery (I recommend that no one ski, ever) and not to be outdone by dad sends us this:
From: Hattie
To: Dad, Alice, Lee
Dad, you should go see a doctor if it gets worse tonight.
I took my first bus ride today since the surgery, the bus driver complained when I asked for the lift, so I took my crutch and banged it on the step and shouted, LIFT PLEASE!
As a former bus driver, I encouraged Hattie to sue, citing the Americans with Disabilities Act, to which my father agrees, “Lee is correct…. those crippled people have powerful laws…love Dad”
Six months later, a birthday party for my father is in the works:
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
Dear Precious Daughters, Yes … I am now officially 66. Everyone who hates me is dying of cancer. I am like a weed in a stony desert … you can’t kill me! See you all Sunday at 3.
I WANT TO BE THIS PERSON. I mean, why can’t I send an email like that? “My enemies are dying, I am victorious. See you Sunday!!!!!”
Only weeks later:
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
Subject: I’ve got a real bad sore throat
Not feeling well.
I think I am dying
A little bit in the bronchial area too.
Love Dad
Okay, but the thing is, I have no memories of my father being sick, ever. He worked six days a week, exercised regularly to the sweet sounds of Elvis and Neil Diamond (in his boxers and custom-sleep-shirt, sewn by mom). He went through a chubby phase, but come on, who hasn’t? Of course he has turned that chub around, walking Greenlake on a daily basis for the last 20 years. Daily basis, as in, leaves Thanksgiving dinner to go walk Greenlake before heading home. It’s about a 3 mile path, so good for him, right? (Side note: my husband, having grown up by the Great Lakes, is not impressed and I swear that even when we were living 10 blocks from the lake, he REFUSED to go because “it’s not a lake.” I wonder if it were named “Greenpond” if he would have gone?). So, if dad is walking Greenlake daily, then what the fuck? Can death really be knocking at the door?
From: Dad
To: Hattie, Alice, Lee
Dear Babe Girls,
I walked GL again tonight, Wednesday night, and it is good for me to do that.
Work is busy and demanding.
It is hard for a dying man to put in so much stressful time.
Oh well, at least I am not in Iraq getting my limbs shot off.
Love to all.
Dad
So, I guess to bring this full circle, I’ll just say that maybe letting people know about another online reading option is at least a little bit less awkward than getting my limbs shot off, but I’m not 100% sure about that.