Kathy Griffin and I share maternal issues

Kathy Griffin and I have two things in common:

1. She's a D-list celebrity. I'm a D-list writer.
2. Without much effort, her mother steals Kathy's limelight. My mother has snapped a bite of my career.

You may remember, my mother's success with her book presented her with appearances, paid speaking engagements, and radio interviews. Sure, my book is still selling copies even ten years after it was first published, but she's gotten much more mileage out of hers. After all, I was invited, just once, to speak to a group of graduating theatre students, back in 2000, or 2003, I think. I haven't had an invitation since. She's turned her book into a second career. Now, she's launching a website. Oh, those Zoomers.

Until Friday night, I hadn't seen Kathy's show My Life on the D-List, but I watched it and laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes, Kathy did something and hilarity ensued. That's pretty much the premise of the show.

I used to think she was kind of mean, until she was a guest on Larry King Live.

It was Griffin's ability to crack up Larry that changed my mind. Then she did that New Year's Eve thing with Anderson Cooper, where restraint in saying what she was thinking was obvious at times. She was forced to hold her tongue and that too, was funny. She was as gentle with AC as she is with her own mother, whose sense of humour seems quieter than her daughter's.

And so, I follow Kathy's lead. I'll make a better effort to support my mother as she returns to my old high school (this time to talk to students, not to accompany me on one of several slow, painful walks to the principal's office), and to offer suggestions for launching her website, and make time to visit when she's in Toronto next year to for another speaking engagement for a government agency.

And just as when the elder Griffen "stole" the younger Griffen's "gays," I'll quietly walk away. Because like Kathleen, I know when to surrender.

I know when I've been beat.

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*In reference to freelance writing career because if technical writers had such lists, they would use numbers, not letters, meaning I would be on a list numbered 3.1.1.7, or some such humourless-ness.