My family is weird

[substitute]

Sometimes a series of things about us goes through my head and I just start giggling. This morning very early, lying awake and looking at the bookshelf of books signed by their authors, it was:

My father wrote a novel about an opera singer in the 1900s who could switch genders. Gender reversal or sudden gender-related surprises occur in two other novels of his.

When I was a kid, my brother made improbably huge kites out of PVC pipe and trash bags. They flew.

Because of my dad's weird job my associations for literary figures are things like: I had to jump-start that guy's car twice! Oh yeah, his wife called us at 3 am sobbing in Arabic about the water heater! That dude fed us lobster and played too much Eubie Blake at us! It's not like name-dropping exactly because with a few exceptions the general public hasn't heard of these people. But it makes me feel weird looking at book spines.

Our front door knocker is a bronze woman's hand.

My father wrote a novel in which the love interest is a blowup doll.

My great aunt Zelda didn't marry until retirement and was a doctor instead. She may well have been the first person to administer penicillin in Los Angeles.

My father wrote a novel in which someone is trying to complete the unfinished tenth symphony of the character in someone else's novel.

Okay that's enough for now. We're weird.

Comments

[frozenrhino.livejournal.com]

One of my best buddies has a brass boob as a knocker.

I mean like c-cup sized. And when they cast it, it was apparently colder than the proverbial witch's tit.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Interesting! :-)

[eyeteeth.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember an unfinished tenth symphony in Atlas Shrugged, is that the one?

I think Screenplay is also as the kids say a little genderfuck, unless that's one of the ones you were thinking of in the first place. Also I didn't know you had a great-aunt Zelda and she sounds neat!

[kasheri.livejournal.com]

My mom taught at the local Jr. High and hosted the annual Christmas party for the faculty. They'd have a White Elephant gift game, and there were always at least a few sexually explicit items in the mix. A lot of booze flowed. So when I finally got to Jr. High, I'd sit in a classroom and think, "Oh, you're the guy who went home with the anatomically correct gingerbread cookie cutters. Didn't you get really drunk and make out with the drama teacher in my backyard?" As you say, it's not name-dropping. It just makes aspects of life weird.

[tea-cantata.livejournal.com]

Am intrigued about your father's novels - -v please?

your father's novels

[poncif.livejournal.com]

me too. they sound like just my cup of tea.

[wholesomedick.livejournal.com]

You inherited your father's prolific gene.

[dreamyshade.livejournal.com]

hehe, your family sounds excellent.

mine has written a bunch of books over the years that are a little unremarkable, like "how to sew toys" and "american literature and politics from year xx to year xx" and "technical proceedings of significant but dull research", but i am still rather proud of them.

[jakeinhartsel.livejournal.com]

Eubie Blake not a household word. Well may not with my wife and dog, but then she listens to th Kingston Trio and the dog mostly is interested in treats.

Can you imagine how boring a normal life would be?

Jake