Things I Don't Write About

    They say you should write what you know, and what I know is mostly teaching, and kids, parenting and all the other odds and ends that make a life.  I try pretty hard, though, to not write about marriage.  I know Erma Bombeck and Judith Viorst made a good living writing about the trials and tribulations of marriage, but I think I'm better off not doing so.  For one thing, it would sorta be dirty pool, since I have this great place I could do all sorts of venting, and J does not.  Yes, yes, I know, he could start his own blog and tell everyone about how bad I am at remembering to close cabinet doors, and how often I forget to do things I said I would do, but he won't.  Not because he doesn't want to air our dirty laundry, but because writing isn't his thing.  And, he isn't into airing dirty laundry, either.  And neither am I, really.
     So if I wrote about our marriage then all I'd be writing is the good stuff, and people would think that we were some sort of Stepford couple with no problems at all, and frankly I don't think anybody wants to read about that, either.  (Well, I will say that J is really good at buying anniversary presents, and thinks of clever ones every year, and goes way out of his way to find something that fits into the "traditional" gift for that year and everything.  It's wonderfully cute and endearing and I get some marvelous gifts out of it.  I'll write about them sometime.)  And if I wrote about just marriage in general people would think I was writing about J and me, and we'd have people looking at us funny at parties because they'd think they knew stuff about us that they really didn't.
    Speaking of, that little story I wrote about the boy and the pancakes?  Entirely fiction.  J can cook when he wants to.  Just so you know.
    And when Bombeck and Viorst wrote about their families, and pretty much everything else, they were funny.  Really, really gut-bustingly funny.  I have discovered that I am mostly funny when I'm not trying to be.  When I try too hard, I am not funny at all.  I've played characters on stage and every time I've tried to give my funniest delivery of any line...nothing.  You could hear crickets chirp.  So it's probably best that I stick to other topics and not try to be funny about my dear ones' foibles.
   I'll just have to write about my own.