Off the Record

There's a reason I've been bogged down with a bit of writer's block lately. People keep forbidding me to write!

One of my favorite authors is David Sedaris. He writes with outstanding wit and humor about his life and the people in it. His stories about his parents and siblings are hilarious. But in his recent Live at Carnegie Hall audio book, he laments the fact that his family has started going off the record. They're sick of being the butt of his jokes.

Mr. Sedaris may be in an entirely different league than me, a league I can only dream of, but I understand how he feels.

My husband has started saying, "Oh, great, you're going to write about me, aren't you?" whenever he does something blog-worthy. Then I feel bad writing about him. That's not fair. I have to get my material from somewhere!

My friends have started saying, "Oh! I better not end up on your blog!" whenever they do something funny or interesting. Do they think I can come up with all of this stuff on my own?

Just this weekend, an opposing soccer coach at our son's game saw me sitting on the sidelines and yelled over, "Hey, you. You better not write about this!" (Hi, C!) What am I suppose to write if I can't make fun of people I know?

But my kids have pulled the last straw. They used to feel proud that their mom was writing about them. "I'm in a magazine," my son tells everyone. But the more people talk about what I've written, the more my kids have started to worry.

My daughter asked, "You're not writing anything embarrassing about me, are you Mom?" and I told her "no" with a straight face.

I may have to block RedRiverMoms on her computer.

If my kids ever learn the phrase off the record, I'm going to be in big trouble.