my family tree: the Strangler Fig?

i have a very complicated family tree. wait, i take that back. i know that more and more people have much more complicated family trees.

instead of the simple little oak tree image we were made to draw in elementary school, the Millennium family trees have got to include some wacky shapes, Umbrellas... Bonsai...  shoot... Artificial Silk.

all those divorces and remarriages, half- and step- siblings are blase now. now we've got same-sex marriages, scientifically grown babies, heck i've even got my own gender jumping branch (hmmm, that's gotta make my brother some kind of really cool fruit or flower)




like the bonsai, you can just snip away. pick and choose what who you want. shaping at will--just remember, your roots stay the same no matter how you use the shears. 

and of course i love carrie fisher's "inbred family tree" as she diagrams in her show.

if i was a kindergarten teacher, i think it'd be an awesome assignment for the class. first, get all the names of the family. then see how you should connect them. then imagine what kind of plant they look like. maybe yours began as a Pine but then a Dogwood got grafted on. or maybe it looks like something altogether brand new. that's right. awesomeness.

you'd think with all these changes people would have a better understanding of family relationships. maybe i don't mean a "better understanding" but an appreciation for the complicatedness. i wonder if kids do.

what i'm saying is that all the "studies" of birth position and family dynamics needs to be thrown out. they certainly don't apply to mine. i'm tired of people assuming they know the "truth" about me, my feelings, my relationships. the era of armchair psychology and self-diagnosis, has created a demeaning  know-it-all attitude of -- "you can't see yourself, but i see straight through you" that pisses me off. i can say something straight to somebody's face and they will get that little gleam in their eye as they smirk.


i psychoanalyze with the best of them, and i am old enough to not give a shit. i may not go tell my business to the world, but i'll speak straight to my true friends. so live with it, buddy. you psychoanalyze me, and i'll deconstruct you right back. i've got an ivy league degree earned bull shitting with the best of them.
more, i grew up with a pimp-fighting, drug-repurposing social worker.

if i wanted to, i could take you.

on that note, all good Ms. Chow vibes to my sis today