Quick change here on the name of the blog... it's been a couple of weeks. I've been busy. Crazed with work, then relaxing for vacation. Didn't make much progress on the manuscript or the blog, but I did review some of the project with my family. They didn't love it - but they did give me some good feedback. I also made my way through some of our family journals. Turns out, my great grandfather on my father's, mother's side was a pretty regular letter-writer and vanity publisher. He printed up at least eight volumes of these letter, from trips to Europe and Scandinavia.
They are nice snapshots of the trips - and the family chatter. They saw Hitler in Berlin in the mid '30's. The boys climbed the Jungfrau. Yet, I kept finding myself wanting to know exactly the things he didn't write about. How could they afford to rent these Chateaus in Europe each year? How could they be away from home for three months each year? Why so obsessed with Europe? Who did they leave behind? What was this paper box company he seemed to run, and that seemed to generate an endless stream of visitors, guests and travel companions?
Clearly, my great grandfather worked, traveled and wrote long before the age of blogs, twitter and all the rest - but given his prolific self-published record, I bet he'd be a supporter of my ideas today.
Which brings me to the title of this post - and of the blog overall. My mother didn't like the blog name, "Completely Self-Indulgent Adolescent Drivel" and so we brainstormed a bit and came up with something much more likely to be at least a chapter in the book - if not the title of the whole thing. Naturally Keeping the Arsonist at Bay has many levels of meaning for me. Ranging from the obvious: I am terrified of fire in our 1865 brownstone. To the less so: my father set a field on fire when he was 11, and is now convinced that my son will share his pyrotechnic obsession. To the personal/cerebral: overcoming self sabotage.
Not sure the title will cover all that I want to say or the themes I plan to explore... but it's a bit more intriguing and, oddly, less negative that the last. This is the fun part about a blog. I can keep on editing as often and as much as I like...
