Conversations with my mother
So, my mother is having a conversation with my aunt about the giftedness of their respective children, and the topic of the troubled writerly-child comes up. (Auntie Cathy's troubled writerly child is a thirty-two year old unemployed PhD-holding pot smoker who stil lives at home and still manages to never see his mother)
Script format!
MOTHER: Oh, we think Em's a great writer, but we wouldn't know. She never lets us read any of her stuff.
ME: thinking: Oh HELL no you can't see my porn what I wrote. Aloud: It's fanfiction mum, you wouldn't like it.
MOTHER, carelessly: Oh, well, how about you let your father read it? He loves fanfiction.
A silence follows.
ME: What? He does not.
MOTHER: Yes he does! He's always reading fanfiction. You've got half his fanfiction books!
The lightbulb goes on.
ME: You mean fantasy? Swords and sorcery? Lord of the Rings?
MOTHER: Yes, fanfiction! Fantasy fiction!
ME: You mean to say, that all these years, when I've talked about reading and writing fanfiction, you've thought I meant fantasy?
MOTHER: You mean that's not what it means?