Okay. I was going to tell y’all about the frisbee tournament I went to this past weekend, but that’ll have to wait. I was also going to tell you about how last week I learned to tie a half Windsor, but that’ll have to wait as well. Because now… it’s time to talk about Aunt Joanne.
Roughly a year ago, when I decided to finally leave New York City and move out to New Mexico, I got an email via my blog entirely in caps lock, demanding to know if I’d decided to move.
SO DID YOU MAKE A DECISION???” it said. No signature. Just that. But I deduced from the sender’s address that this seemingly angry email came from my Aunt Joanne.
“Who is this, Joanne? Yes, I did, I’m going! I leave next month,” I wrote back.
The response: “OK IT WAS ME AND I AM GLAD YOU ARE LEAVING THE NEST—WE NEED TO SEE YOU!!!” [She actually used a few little dashes in lieu of the emdash, but that's against the Mydogischelsea Stylebook so I changed it. The same goes for all future Aunt Joanne uses of the emdash.]
“How about next weekend, maybe Saturday? Why do you type all in capital letters?” I asked.
I TYPE ALL IN CAPITAL BECAUSE THAT WAY I DON’T HAVE TO USE THE SHIFT KEY—I AM LAZY.”
I spent enough time in chatrooms during my teens (specifically, I should disclose, the X-Files Fan Forum Chatroom) to know a little bit of Internet decorum. I explained, “In cyberspace, capital letters generally indicate shouting, but hey, I guess they work if you don’t want to use the shift key.”
reason I’m telling you all of this is because it explains the tone of the following email, which I received in early January, with the subject line “YOUR INTERESTING AUNT”:
I LOVE YR BLOG BUT I THINK YOU NEED TO SPICE IT UP WITH SOMETHING ABOUT ME—AND BY THE WAY HOW DID YOU GET COOKBOOKS [for Christmas]? YOUR BROTHER DIDNT REGIFT MY XMAS GIFT TO YOU? HOW IS THAT FOR PARANOIA? (AND NO I AM NOT SHOUTING!!!)”
I assured my interesting aunt that my brother had not regifted the cookbooks she had given him, he had just randomly given me two entirely different ones, and then I wrote, “Hmm… I’ll cook up some way to get a story about you in there. Why do you use all caps if you’re not shouting?
So now we’re all up to speed. She’s not shouting, okay? She’s just lazy.
Thing is, though, Aunt Joanne is anything but lazy. She’s actually a whirlwind of energy. Don’t tell my mother I said this, but she’s the younger, hipper, louder, more laid back version of my mother. In fourth grade, I was given an assignment to write a biography about someone in my life who was a) alive and b) a role model. Most kids in my class wrote about one of their parents; since my recently deceased father was not a viable option, I chose Aunt Joanne.
My mother was not thrilled. “You know, you could always write about your mother,” she said.
“Yeah, but Aunt Joanne’s… cooler.” At age nine, I had not yet learned the art of subtlety.
Don’t get me wrong. My mother is a role model. And she’s cooler than most people’s mothers. Her strength and ability to deal with an unfair amount of shittiness are remarkable. And she has many other fine qualities about her. But preteens do not always recognize such things, and besides, aunts always get away with seeming cooler because they’re not in the unfortunate position of having to administer discipline.
It was missing for a reason—she told me not to print it. It was an off-the-record comment to a fledgling reporter, and I demanded a reason why this gem of a fact—undeniable proof that my aunt was hipper and cooler than my mother—could not go into the final report.
“I don’t want Russell and Rachel to get any ideas,” she said.
Russell and Rachel are my cousins, who were aged 5 and 1 at the time, respectively. Too young, then, for this little piece of biographical history about their mother.
But now—well, now Russell is a freshman in college and Rachel a freshman in high school. Well-adjusted young adults, my cousins may finally be old enough for this little tidbit of information. In fact, they may have heard it already.
And since I have no reason to believe that neither Russell nor Rachel have actually ever been to my blog, I think it may be safe to reveal the following piece of information…
[to be continued...]
21 responses so far ↓
1 visitamanda // Apr 11, 2006 at 1:50 pm
ooo, you got my hopes up! tell us!
2 kierplablo // Apr 11, 2006 at 2:32 pm
I agree with your story morals except for the last one. I think I’d like to go the way of Johnny Cash- he set a state forest on fire when his car burst into flames. I’m not going to do that, but I need an equally clever and biting way to shiow the man that I don’t give a rats ass!
As for walking, I did plenty of that when I was released. I walked six miles that morning- 3 to get home, and 3 more to get back to the car.
My dad’s a cop. How shameful is that?
3 TimsHead // Apr 11, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Tease!I love that you have your own Stylebook. I think many writer types do, but we just don’t think to mention it.At one point, I was trying to avoid the whole Shift Key thing by writing all my emails in lowercase. It seemed like the cool thing to do. But at times this caused confusion (i.e. with proper nouns) and reinforced that there is a reason behind capitalizing some words.
4 rabookie // Apr 11, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Oh, this is going to be good!
5 ARboiWundr23 // Apr 11, 2006 at 5:25 pm
What?!! A “My Dog Is Chelsea Mini-Series?” This tidbit of information better be good!!
At least your aunt used punctuation…I hate it when people time continual run-on sentences. It is like they completely forgot everything pertaining to grammar?
6 ARboiWundr23 // Apr 11, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Okay, the word “time” should be “type.” I must have had a brain fart while I was typing?!!
7 geekgoddiss // Apr 11, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Uh, don’t leave me hanging!! By the way, this one made me laugh too…I don’t know why…you just make me laugh. Thank you
8 sweety8315 // Apr 12, 2006 at 4:24 am
Nooo! Tell us!! Hehe
~Hilary~
9 TrinityOne // Apr 12, 2006 at 5:08 am
Ahhh! I can’t believe you left us hanging like that! I demand that you tell us all at once that juicy bit of information!!
10 JeffPescador // Apr 12, 2006 at 7:14 am
Totally disappointing. One of the longest posts in awhile and you start it off by telling us about the delayed topics you AREN’T going to tell us and you wrap it up with a to-be-continued?!?!
11 rabookie // Apr 12, 2006 at 11:58 am
ryc: Cycling. I am an addict in the warmer months. 20 on Monday, 17 on Tuesday. Tonight I have grad class. But tomorrow the day is free. I’m going to go for 30. I dopn’t expect to stand much after!
12 redhotslippergirl // Apr 12, 2006 at 12:12 pm
noooooo..!!!!!! that’s not fair!
13 aropeofsand // Apr 12, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Well played, mydogischelsea…. well played.
14 JeffPescador // Apr 12, 2006 at 12:31 pm
RYC: Thanks for the heads up. I lowered my security level so one of my friends could see what features sitemeter had to offer and I forgot to hike it back up after he was done. Sorry for the scare.
15 MaximaBella // Apr 12, 2006 at 4:47 pm
that pic of you and chelsea is just darling
16 fern_forest // Apr 12, 2006 at 5:29 pm
hahahaha. i’m surprised she doesn’t feel like she’s screaming at herself when she reads her own text. what’s a Stylebook?
17 Shahrazad1973 // Apr 12, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Oh no, a cliff hanger! Damn you Chelsea! (And welcome!)
Oh, and you just met my big Flaw of Written Communication: I use too many exclamation points, so everyone always thinks I’m really excited! Yay!
18 rubyblue123 // Apr 13, 2006 at 4:20 am
I certainly hope you’ll be updating soon.
19 chelseaguest // Apr 14, 2006 at 12:18 am
Laura,
your mother certainly does have a lot of good qualities and loves you dearly…
20 Jay_Galk26 // Jun 13, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Gotta love teasers….
Jay {Brad Pitt…in a robe} “Rawr”
21 My Dog is Chelsea » Blog Archive » Wearing a dress and girl-shoes all in one day // Dec 14, 2006 at 12:10 pm
[...] • Saturday night, we went out to dinner (some of us got lost, despite help from Mapquest and a GPS system) and then on to salsa dancing. My cousin Rachel and her mother, my Aunt Joanne, were grooving on the dance floor when two young men asked them each to dance. One of the men said to Rachel, “Is that your sister?” and Joanne was so thrilled that she proceeded to tell everyone she knew (and probably a few she didn’t) about the comment that, she said, “made my year.” [...]