Mein Kampfs

I've been thinking for a long time that I want to write a book. This thought has come to me in various forms throughout the years. Sometimes I'm inspired by events happening in my life, sometimes I'm inspired by reading through my old Facebook statuses and basking in how funny I am, and sometimes (most of the time) when I realize that my family has an insane amount really ridiculous stories that I think the world ought to hear. This last bit is confirmed for me constantly when I casually mention to people that, for instance, my maternal grandfather was adopted by his own mother, or that my last name is Mosbarger due solely to a step-parent adoption situation and that my actual lineage last name would have been DeJesus, but we really don't talk about it due to family secrets (that involve, of all things, the Portuguese Olympic soccer team and tenuous mob ties). Naturally people are quite intrigued.

The beauty of putting these stories in a book as opposed to a blog is that while a blog gives you more instant gratification, it also enables the subjects of the stories to read them fairly immediately and then they can do things like complain and demand that you take unflattering portrayals of them (that you painstakingly crafted) off the internet. And you pretty much have to, or you run the risk of your mom calling and telling you that maybe you went a bit too far. Speaking of my mom, the other really great part of book writing versus blog writing is that mostly everything I know about either side of my family I've gotten out of her, which means the truth is dubious at best. I mean, I'm sure that everything she's told me is mostly true, but how can she possibly know with certainty the truth about things that happened on my dad's side of the family before either of us were born? Even if they are hilarious? With a book, no one except your editor knows what you've written until the unsavory details have been published and by then it's way too late for anyone to protest. Unless they sue, I guess.

Unrelated to this post, really. But who could sue these cutie patooties?!

Unfortunately, in this day and age, in order to get a book deal you basically either have to have a really successful blog and/or twitter feed, or be a Real Housewife of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (or whatever most recent godawful creation Andy Cohen has drunkenly concocted). And so, I'm recommitting to Blatheration. Again. But for real this time. BOOK DEAL, HERE I COME. WATCH OUT, OPRAH!

Addendum: Perhaps you were wondering about the title? No, relax, I'm not a closet Nazi. I started using this phrase when I was choreographing high school musicals a few years ago because I'm morbid and I thought it was funny. Por ejemplo, I would stop a number and announce to my students:

"STOP. You guys! ERGH. Okay. Here is mein kampf. You all look like you're dancing with Urinary Tract Infections. Please be better."

Usually I would throw out the "Mein Kampf" part so casually that no one would catch it, or if they did catch it they wouldn't have time to get the reference because they were high schoolers and their brains weren't fully formed yet. But eventually, after one or two times of doing this, my Oldest Child Responsibility Guilt would kick in and I would get really afraid that I was going to offend someone. So I stopped doing it unless I was in the comfort of my own home, because it's only Ricky there and he's seen into the depths of my soul and already knows I'm going to hell. Except for then that bastard stole my joke and started using it in public and now everyone thinks he thought of it - and I won't stand for that. So I'm using it as the title of this post both because it is a post detailing my current struggles and as a way to reclaim my morbid turn-of-phrase from my joke stealing fiance. I'm the culturally insensitive person in this relationship and don't any of you forget it.