rinue | Bio 1: Geneaology

Several months ago,

hipgunslinger implored me to write some kind of autobiography so that he could place me in a context. Any number of things have gotten in my way since then, but I am finally prepared to post at least what I have, and leave it at that.

This thing is going to be in four sections. The first, (this one,) is geneaology and it talks about my family. The second is the dramatis personae, which is more useful for reference than anything else. The third is a timeline, short and very dry.

The fourth and final is also the best one -- certainly the one I'm most interested in seeing -- because it is written by

valancy, and it is her perspective on what one needs to know about me. You could probably get away with just reading hers, but the reason we did it this way was so we could go in double-blind -- not read what the other was writing. So if two of us hit on the same things, you can know that we're being fairly reliable.

At the same time, I've noticed that my focus is on what surrounds me, and her focus is on who I am.

I'm also pestering Patrick to get him to guest entry. Maybe even Chad. Hell, anybody who wants to is welcome, and I'd likely return the favor.

In any case, here we go.

Most of my personality, and likewise most of my angst, can be extrapolated from the polarity of my upbringing. On the one side, you have the Rasors, my mother's people. On the other, you have the Stotts, my father's family. First, I will explain them seperately, and then I will explain them as a unit.

The Rasors

The Rasors are your quintessential gypsy bohemians. Toulouse and his gang in Moulin Rouge? That's them. Rasors are artists first and foremost -- painters, sculptors, comedians, hypnotists, musicians, dancers, photographers, costumers, actors, writers, poets, puppeteers . . . they are each all of these things, although some specialize. They are also moody, depressive, procrastinatory, narcissistic, perfectionist alcoholics with a wry wit and a taste for decadence. Equal pride is taken in the ability to create something beautiful and the ability to destroy something beautiful. A typical dinner at Clinton House involves gourmet food, Boggle, a major argument, hypnotism, the Marx Brothers, a musical interlude, wine, and a stand-up comedy routine which devolves into a discussion of Emmanuel Kant's personal life.

They've been in Oak Cliff for four generations now, and before that things get a bit muddy. Supposedly, they're Irish royalty (the Kirwans); there are also vague speculations about African, Jewish, and Romani blood. The upshot is that they're highly clannish, with the firm belief that they're more talented than everyone else -- which proves accurate a surprising amount of the time. Genius entertainers, stimulating company, determined iconoclasts, and the first people you want to invite to a party -- provided you're up for some drama and can trust them not to scam your other guests. They would all be famous if they weren't such slackers.

The Stotts

The Stotts are as white bread as you can get. TV dinners, the same restauraunts with the same meals from the same server at the same time every week, everything folded and neatly put away, tic tacs in the purse and greeting cards for every holiday. Visiting my grandparents is like stepping back into an early 1960s sitcom, including the clothes and the furniture. These people are accountants, engineers, scientists, and auditors -- and most of them are quite well off. Some own private jets and condos scattered around the globe. They are corporate, honest, dilligent, hard-working, and not particularly attached to any one location. A typical dinner with the Stotts is served on a tray and eaten while discussing the movements of the stock market.

Stott genealogy is painstakingly well charted. They take pride in having served on both sides of the Civil War, both sides of the Seven Years War, and both sides of the American Revolution. What happened before that is considered largely irrelevant, beyond a distant relation to Sir Walter Raleigh.

My Immediate Family. . .

. . . is hard to explain all at once. My parents met in college, got married, and have been happy pretty much ever since. They're both highly intelligent and extremely well educated; they like travelling, eating well, talking about history, and going to the symphony. Among other things, they're good friends; when I was a kid, I thought this was primarily what they were. It wasn't until three years ago that I noticed that Dad still pulls out Mom's chair and Mom meets him at the door whenever he comes home. (So does the cat, but that's another story.) They really love each other.

The other thing that I didn't realize until I took a lot of economics is that we're quite wealthy. Our house has a music room, a library, a conservatory, and a billiard room. The Parents wanted a dumbwaiter, but they couldn't work out a way around a particular load-bearing beam. I've never had a regular job, but I am expected to know everything about opera, ettiquette, wines, architecture, needlework, art, history, literature, philosophy and any other subject appropriate to a lady of my standing. If it isn't immediately apparent, we don't really exist in the present day; we make more sense in a Jane Austen novel.

As far as employment goes, Dad's Vice President of Information Security and Operations Analysis with Fidelity Investments. Nobody is entirely sure what this means other than me, and that is only through painstaking observation and research. When it comes down to it, I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you much other than that he works with computers, and so we'll leave it something of a mystery. Before working at Fidelity, he had a similar job with Mobil, and it is due to this job that we moved a lot when I was a kid.

Dad is exceptionally analytical. He always takes public transit to work instead of driving, because he can use the time to think. It's not zoning out – it's making connections, Ascent of Man style. On the highway, he drives at exactly 76 mph. In his free time, he edits text books, as a kind of community service. Because he's tall and quiet, people either don't notice him (which he likes) or find him surpassingly intimidating (which he also likes). He's every spy you've ever imagined. Most of my friends find him terrifying. I think part of it is that people don't realize how much of the time he's joking; his delivery is very dry. Most of the jokes are pun-based. For esoteric reasons, I think of him in connection with The Secret of Nimh, either as the owl or as one of the genius rats. Politically, he identifies himself as a Whig.

As for Mom, she was trained as a deaf educator, and taught up until the time when I was born. At this point, she decided to stay home to take care of me full time. This sounds wonderfully self-sacrificing, and in some senses it was, but I was a bit like a science experiment. I was reading "I Can Read!" books at age two, formulating complex historical analogies at three, and writing and illustrating my own stories by the time I was four. Algebra was not far behind. Although it sounds like my mother was one of those pushy "showbiz mom"s, she wasn't; most of my friends still want to steal her. She sings, she makes costumes, she bakes cookies, and she's just generally happy and friendly. Uber-mom.

In point of fact, she's perpetually jolly. There's no other word for it – she's just jolly. Wacky, happy, singing and dancing all the time. Because of her jollity, she is sometimes mistaken for less intelligent than she is – but she had full scholarships all the way through college, tends to run the organizations she's a part of, and reads dictionaries in her spare moments. She's short and brassy, and her Texan accent becomes much more pronounced the further she gets from Texas, as a kind of compensatory factor. Politically, she calls her self a Know-Nothing.

The final relevant aspect of my parents is that they are both Christian, in the absolute best sense of the word. As far as I can tell, they don't really believe in all the miracles and the virgin birth stuff -- they just like the "hey, love everyone!" message. Mom would also say that she is a secular humanist, and Dad that he's Taoist. In any case, I was raised in the Presbyterian church but also taught the Talmud and some of the more anthropological studies of the religion.

I'm pretty close to both of my parents, and am also very obviously their child. I don't think I've really explained them that well, but trust that if you split me down the middle you'd come up with Mom and Dad. I can't think of a single trait that doesn't belong to one or the other.

The fourth member of my immediate family is my sister Arielle, who is four years younger than I am. I strongly suspect we share more genes than most siblings; we are commonly mistaken for twins. As far as categorization goes, she tends to be thought of as the "fun" one, whereas I am the "smart" one. She's prettier, funnier, crueler, more outgoing, a better artist, and a better dancer. She's dyslexic, so she can't spell, can't learn to read other languages, can't read books very quickly, and can't read music. Otherwise, we're more similar than different. She calls me "Romani."

The final immediate family member is Pippin the cat. Pippin is about 6 years old, and she hates me. Passionately. I have scars. She feels very threatened by my presence, because she suspects that Dad likes me more than her. She also believes that I steal her room, take her chair, and eat her food. (Pippin has a fairly complicated inner life.) She spends most of her free time talking to insects in a language she has invented for this specific purpose.

As a family, we are known for behaving as though we live in a musical. They live in Boston.

And then there's the Rasors again.

Uncle Rex, my mother's younger brother, is basically a third parent. I'm not going to talk about him here, because I've already done so in other parts of my journal. His kids are Max and Scarlett, who I have also talked about, and his wife is Stretch, who merited an entire entry in which I compared her to James Madison.

They live in Dallas.