Writing about boys
Rohan, Liz (2009-03-24)
>>INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now it is going. You go across there and ask her to tell me your name and say "My literacy story is about..."
>>LIZ ROHAN: Okay. 
>>INTERVIEWER: And go from there. Tell me your name and then say "My literacy story is about…"
>>LIZ ROHAN: Okay. My name is Liz Rohan and I guess my literacy story, although it seems kind of like a boring story; it is something that I have told over and over. It was how I became interested in writing and that was from being a diarist. I actually have just written a memoir about this so I don't know why I am tongue tied about the topic. I began writing a diary -- my grandma gave me a diary for Christmas when I was in seventh grade. I remember it was blue and had gold on it and engraving. That same period when I got the diary was also when I had my very first boyfriend, David Fleming. He was a year older than me and he chose me as his girlfriend on the way back from this trip to Toronto. Am I supposed to be looking at you or the camera? Does it matter? 
>>LIZ ROHAN: The seventh and eighth grade advanced math class took this trip to Toronto and I was kind of popular that day for some reason. I was kind of fooling around with this kid named Charlie Tazia*. Dave's friend Ernie, who I knew, tapped my on the shoulder and said this guy wanted my phone number. Probably later on I got a call from Dave; it was like 10:30 at night when he called me so my dad the whole time was hanging over the shoulder, screaming at me to get off the phone. Anyway, he became my topic; Dave became my topic in my journal. For good or ill, guys became my topic in my diary.  So, whether or not that is feminist or not.  I am trying to argue in this memoir I wrote that it is a little more complicated than not being feminist, but that is kind of how it all started. Dave ended up being my topic. 
>>LIZ ROHAN: He was an exciting boyfriend in many ways but most of it was just because he was older, he was cute. Probably my first kiss. And then also there was a lot of drama because he was popular and then his girlfriend who had broken up with Davie got all these eighth grade girls to be angry at me. So there was drama in that first diary; there was lots of drama. If I really think about how Dave influenced my writing, he also influenced my high school career. Coincidentally enough, he was also a writer. Since my dad was a newspaper reporter, being attracted to a writer was a little bit Freudian but also I think that we were similar in the sense that we lived in a wealthy community but we didn't necessarily have a lot of money. We both sort of knew that if we were going to make it out, quote unquote, we would have to work hard. We lived with people who basically their dad owned car dealerships or [unintelligible]. So he became my role model, in that sense. But it was also painful too, because he also -- my best friend actually ended up dating him, so there is a lot of pain. But, in any case, this is what was in these diaries, okay? The story of dates. 
>>LIZ ROHAN: I think -- maybe that is the only way to kind of wrap up this story, but -- years later, so this is in 2006, I was at the Detroit Lions -- no, the Super Bowl was in Detroit, and I was walking around; they had this winter fest. I thought "Wow, who would I know who would have tickets to the game?" and I thought Dave because he is a writer for ESPN. He has these columns called the Flem File which basically is -- now I am getting, see how unfeminist is this? -- I am giving you Dave's literacy narrative. 
[Laughs]
>>LIZ ROHAN: So he ended up having this column in high school called the Flem File -- oh, no -- the Ramblings of Flem. Now, he has a column for ESPN called the Flem File. So, basically it is just taking his high school career and just writing about football. So I ended up -- now this is my literacy narrative. It is going to be getting a little more serious. So, I thought about him and his column, I went and composed his column in my head because I know him so well I know what he is going to say. I went home and I read the column and I emailed it to our friend bill. I said "Oh, look at Dave talking about Detroit." 
>>LIZ ROHAN: I went to sleep and I had a dream, a nightmare actually, about these baby boys. They were dying, one by one, on this operating table. So it was this nightmare. I got up and I went and I just happened to check my email just for something to do. Bill had sent me "Isn't that too bad about Dave's son?" Dave's son had died and he had written a memoir about how his son died when he was in the womb, basically right before he was supposed to be born. So, that kind of freaked me out because I almost had a high school flashback, literally, it was almost like as much as I wrote about it I didn't remember the feeling of what it was like to have this connection with him. It just was strong. So fast forward about maybe four months later, I was going through my notebooks from graduate school. When I was in graduate school I didn't keep a diary. I had jotted off a dream that I had had about Dave. In the dream he ran up to me with his son and his son was very sick and I offered my condolences. I had the dream in 2001 and that is exactly when his son died. So that was another one of those sort of experiences in remembering this connection that I had. 
>>LIZ ROHAN: I ended up reading Dave's memoir and it was very emotional to read that. I mean, I know that we are in academe we know people who write books but not people we kind of grew up with. It was a weird experience of reading this sequel. I do feel like since we are both writers there is still that competitive spirit because I really like he beat me by writing his book first. So, I've got to write my book. But his book was literally kind of structured as a rainbow of basically when his son died and then when his daughter was born. It was very well written; he is a very good writer. So, basically in the memoir I wrote recently that I completed, I tried to get to the bottom of that relationship between my diaries and writing about guys, and also my intuitiveness. And how all of those things were sources of strength but then also a source of pain. I am not really necessarily sure about the gender implications of it, but you know these were my topics. This was the world that I grew up in. We write about boys. So.
>>INTERVIEWER: Push the button.