Fame, Family and Friends

The head cold must be going now, or the Nyquil's kicking in. I'm feeling - Inspired!

So I've got this famous relative in the Main family, that no one's ever met or talks about. Except her mother, and I'm sure her mother wouldn't make things like having a famous daughter up or anything like that. The problem is, we share the same name, Oleander Main, and boy is she going to be pissed off when someone figures out that we're related.

It's not like I haven't tried to contact her before. Her mother gave me her address and I wrote some years ago. I even found a way to email her just recently. But I doubt she's going to contact me. She's probably thinking I want money or something like that. I'm sure all the Main's hit her up for money, or "Can you get an autograph from Castro for me next time you're in Cuba?" or "Can we just stay a few weeks with you at your chalet in Harlem?" Sure, I know just how pesky family can be, but really now, I'd think she'd want to know that her second cousin twice removed was staking a claim to fame in self-publishing this crazy novel. But most likely she thinks, "Oh damn, it's Oleander again, probably going to go on about us flying around like hawks in the day and wanting me to send my spit to Utah again."

Actually this time, I just want to warn her. I'm thinking the fame of a blockbuster like The Summer of Pomba Gira will be too much for her. She's the refined sort, you know the kind, eats with a fork and knife? I picture her at the posh, jet-setting parties she's known to frequent, having fans (my fans) coming up to her with a pen (or pen knife, depending on how they take the novel) and asking for an autograph (or thier money back) and her not really knowing what to make of it.

We've actually never met, but we've likely both got a certain level of popularity (piles of hate mail) due to our charm (ability to offend large masses of people). So I'd like her to know that this is coming so that she can be prepared (duck and cover). Particularly, I'd like to warn her so that when she sets foot in Brazil again, she's well aware that her distant cousin namesake has achieved fame in a way unique to our family.

It doesn't help that we somewhat resemble one another, or that her photo on her book (Managing Your Proctology Exam - 1st edition) would do equally well as the face to launch a thousand dartboards. I'm quite sure, like the readers of this blog, she has no idea of who or what Pomba Gira is. Frankly, I believe that being the namesake of possibly the first American author to publish a fictional novel with Pomba Gira in it would be lost on her.

Failing in my stalking attempts on my famed cousin, I've proceeded to stalk my less famous family on Facebook. I'm sure they've reached the point of thinking "If I just friend her, will she go away?" This comes after having emailed them 600 times to ask them to buy the book. Some have come up with clever ways to hide, but to no avail, I find them anyway. However, owing to the previous family history of having a published author embarrass the family, they aren't going to touch me with a 10 foot pole. you certainly won' find any Mains on my list of friends in Facebook. The nerve!

Friends, on the other hand, are a wonderful thing. Most of my friends haven't read my book, and let's face it, my cousin's hasn't made the New York Times best seller list. So they're blissfully unaware of being associated with me being anything more thana good time with a Sea Monkey-ish kind of gal. Besides, they've been advertising my name for years, on the bathroom walls of only the finest establishments. It probably accounts for my cousin's fame. So now, they have a different kind of wall: The Facebook Wall.

This is the place for each and every one of us to make our mark on the virtual world. We can all be famous on Facebook, at least, among our ever-widening circle of friends. I like my Facebook friends, and enjoy reading their posts. They can use my name as often as they like, because really, if somebody gets offended, I'll just blame it all on my erstwhile cousin.