One of my favorite memoir titles of all time.
Sorry I’ve been posting less frequently these past couple weeks, folks. My day job has been eating up an inordinate amount of my time, as has various personal stuff, including the reactivation of my dating life (which took off way better and faster than I’d expected).
Since the rather odd and ignominious end of my most recent relationship, I’ve joked with friends that if I were to write a memoir about that multi-year, on-again, off-again romance, it would be titled It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time. Fell in love with someone who lives 5,000 miles away? It seemed like a good idea at the time! Gave him another chance? It seemed like a good idea at the time! Loaned him money? It seemed like a good idea at the time! Got tired of the emotional fuckwittery and cut my losses? Seemed like a good idea at the time! (Actually, that part still does).
Still, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time will be just a chapter instead of the whole book. When brainstorming memoir titles at a recent dinner with friends, one announced her autobiography will be called It’s All About Me and the other wanted to call hers Massive Overshare. I thought those are both spot-on. I proposed that when the entire leather-bound Modern Library multi-volume set of my memoirs and pensées is published—yeah, that’s, like, totally going to happen—it should be called The Unbearable Fabulousness of Being. Because despite the occasional bad plot twist, my life is pretty awesome, and I want to celebrate that.
What would your memoir be called? Are there any featured chapters whose title you can already predict?
I recently suggested to my parents — liberal-radical folks in socially conservative West Michigan — that they could title their joint memoir: Alone In Their Sanity.
I’ve always said that my epitaph will probably be “Here Lies Jess. She was tired.” That would also probably work for a memoir.
Or, if I were writing about my professional life, it would be “headdesk.”
I am shite at coming up with this sort of stuff; it just ends up being depressing, like:
She Knew What She Wanted…But Didn’t Get It
or
If I Knew I Was Going to Fall Short, I Would Have Wished For Something Bigger
or
My Own Worst Enemy
See? Depressing.
I’ve played this game before! I always liked “One Damned Thing After Another” until I found out it was taken (curses!). But to be honest, my life is not really memoir material — despite a number of obvious bumps in the road, my existence has been shaped by privilege (that I try to be aware of) and the ease it brings.
I guess “The Tattooed Librarian” is descriptive and interesting… yes? Or maybe “She Blinded Me With Library Science” which is funny but not entirely original.
I’ve always loved the name of Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. I probably couldn’t think of anything more witty or depressing.
@Kari,
You could always tweak the quote as an homage to Rudge (The History Boys): “One Bloody Thing After Another” … doubt that would be copyright infringement!
Oh man, now I’m going to have to think about this! My immediate thought was
You’ve Got to be Shitting Me, but I know I can come up with something better.
@Kari: there’s no rule that memoirs can only be written by the marginalized and underprivileged. All you need is a good story and an authentic voice.
My memoir would be titled “Well……Fuck….” and chapters would include:
Thanks God, But I’d Like My Pepère Back.
Be Myself But Do Everything You Say? WTF Parents?!
Fuck You Bruce (And Other Ex Boyfriends)
OMG You’re Way Too Sexy: How I Met The Love of My Life
OFFS, K! Put That Down!
I always say that after I’m dead my tombstone (and my memoir) will say
“I Told You I Was Sick!”
Because kids and spouse expect you to keep going even when you are practically dead from the flu. Because I am sick a lot my family gets acclimated to it.
My memoirs can also be titled:
“A Lifetime of Chronic Illness…It Sucks”
“A Lifelong Attempt To Read All the Books in the World….Failed”
“The Life and Times of a Part-Time Fabriholic”
Endora: A Life. or maybe Endora: A Journey.
I keeed.
Actually, I have no idea. Maybe I’d steal a line from the band Wir Sind Helden and call it ‘The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth’? Or from Elvis Costello, ‘Accidents Will Happen’?
Although the most accurate would probably be ‘Just Muddling Through’…
Ideally I would like someone to write a comic book about my life, posthumously, entitled The Adventures of Chemistry Cat, about how I solved the problem of climate change and somehow in doing so ended all oppressions. Also, I would be portrayed as a cat, since it has seemed to me since childhood that the life of a house cat is superior in every way to that of a human.
“I Was Hoping You Wouldn’t Bring That Up”
or possibly,
“She Said What?!?!” in honor of my ability to unfailingly put my foot in my mouth.
The Lipstick Liberal.
“I Am A Tremendous Bitch.”
Of course.
“1001 Ways to Kick Your Own Ass.”
It was decided a long time ago that “What’s Clean and What’s Cast Iron,” coming from a time when I was in HS and at wilderness camp. The cast iron was in poor condition and so I just kept cleaning it up, usually ending up with many, many black marks on my person. Around that time I started becoming more aware of both the goodness and troubles in the world and in me. Maybe the symbolism is how kitchen experts think of cast iron as a primitive cooking source in that it’s never really “clean:” trapping previous food and tastes in the iron and the seasoning itself. Scour that away and you’ve lost the usefulness of that piece. And isn’t that the way with people?
Although, if we were naming chapters, one would be entitled, “Sorry, what? I was thinking about trees.”
Mine would have to be: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
The Handmaids Tale was one of those books that broke into my life at the right time with the right messages that I needed to pole vault into my true, adult, assertive identity. I read my copy until the cover literally fell off. Don’t let the bastards grind you down has truly been the theme of my life. I’m fortunate in that I have not had to survive a disease, illness, or even an inordinate amount of heart ache but I have had to survive other people, cruel people, violent people, and a lot of bigots. Don’t let the bastards grind you down is really how I survived, by sheer will and a lot of luck.
Passive-Aggressive: How Awkward People Throw a Hissy Fit
and
My Cat Rules My Life
The more I think about it, I think mine would be called “Laws of physics don’t apply”, largely because many people I know and love have expressed sentiments to the effect that given my small stature that I have managed to do some pretty cool physical related stuff.
Though one of the chapters will need to be: the laws of physics DO apply, in part documenting my experiences playing various sports, especially football/soccer when I have injured myself, largely because I don’t believe the laws of physics apply to me on the football pitch.
There would also be other physics themed chapters like:
“Standing on the shoulders of giants”
“The Copernican revolution: realising the earth revolved around the sun”
“Working as a third tier ‘patents officer’”
“The bigger the force the bigger the bump”
“Entropy”
“My religious upbringing or on the revolution of the celestial spheres and how I defied the gravitational pull”
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vyckie D. Garrison, Pursuit of Harpyness. Pursuit of Harpyness said: Friday Fun Thread: Name Your Memoir! http://bit.ly/f2iPsq [...]
If I were to write it tomorrow, mine would probably be And When She Was Bad in reference to the nursery rhyme about the little girl who had a little curl. My mother has always said that it describes me perfectly because on the rare occasion that I make myself heard I tend to do it in explosive, disruptive, and otherwise amusing-to-me ways. Possible chapters:
“Happy face”
“Sibling rivalry and other contact sports”
“How they learned to stop worrying and love my karate class”
“Grandma got run over by a pharmacy”
“Reclaiming crazy”
“12 ways to scare your loved ones”
“You want to date me? My condolences”
“Vet school and other dumb ideas”
This is fun! Yes, I am a strange person. Why do you ask?
“Drying Paint: Reflections on a Quiet Life.” It would be about 3 pages long.
‘Just Another Boring Story’
My life is boring, I wouldn’t want to read about it if I wasn’t me, and I think most autobiographies are boring too. I could just blend in with another load of boring stories.
My memoir will be called Things I’ve Changed My Mind About.
and related, if my daughter buries me, my tombstone will say: “one time she made this really bad dinner”
My memoir: I Did It My Way Even Though You Tried To Stop Me With Stupid Sexist/Ageist/Classist Arguments or Nyah Nyah I Win
“High Maintenance”
Brennan, I love yours and I want to read it.
Mine would have to be something serious and heartwarming because I’m not a very funny writer and my story is a lot of sad with a major dose of overcoming-the-obstacles followed by a happily-ever-after-(still-dealing-with-a-lot-of-residual-crap).
So maybe Happily Ever After: Still Dealing With A Lot of Residual Crap.
_Always an Optimist: The Life and Times of A Happy Klutz_
Chapters would include:
“Tales of a Pre-Teen Punching Bag, or, The Best Revenge is Living Well”
“What Does This Button Do? or, How To Break Expensive New Things in Less Than Three Days”
“Eee-yargh!! Or, Interesting Ways I Have Injured Myself”
“Returning to Graduate School, Or, Why I Am Not A Career Counselor”
“Remarried at 30, not Divorced at 25, Because I Am an Optimist”
“Reworking My Rubric, or, Realizing I Am Not As Dumb As I Think I Am”
“Ya Gotta Have Friends! or, Strategies for Survivng Life”
I’m sure I could come up with more but I have to get going! This was FUN!
And I really want to read some of these!
“Where? What? Oh. Ah!”
Although I’m hoping by the time comes, it’ll be a bit more solid.
“The Broken Compass”