Gwen's blog

Current Events

May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.

June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!

June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.

My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.

Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)

Wednesday, July 21, 2004
I Can Shoot Fire From My Eyes

Wanna see me do it? It only happens if I'm very hungry or if my plans have been ruined. If you want to make me extemely upset, first tell me we're having lunch early. Then, at the last minute, tell me we're having lunch late. I'll be a little upset, but still willing to wait. As I wait, I'll get hungrier. My blood sugar will fall. My temperature will rise. Then comes your coup de grace. Yes. That's when you call - it's about 1 or 2 PM by now - and say, "Sorry - I can't have lunch with you after all."

I will become so very upset. I'll call you inconsiderate. I'll bitterly fantasize aloud about the food I would have brought from home if I'd known you were going to flake on me. I'll plot your murder.

But, then, at the last minute, I'll run down to the cafeteria and get something to eat. After I eat it, I'll be fine.

I like it when women get angry in pop culture. We hardly ever see it, you know? I think that's why I love movies like Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - because I get to see women being violent and it's NOT because they're crazy in love. That's why I love Liz Phair. Her old stuff, I mean. And PJ Harvey.

Women get angry all the time, in real life. But people want us to hide it. I want to see it. Feel it. Share it. I'm tired of seeing TV/movie women cry and whine. That's why the Kill Bill movies mainly sucked. Too much whiny Uma.

I always say I'm going to get mad enough to throw my phone at the wall and break it some day. But, no - phones cost money.

I'll be glad when I'm rich enough to throw all kinds of things. Right now, instead, I just yell and write in this blog.

Here's an angry woman:
"Last night my fiancé and I had a three-hour fight over the phone.  It was probably better that he was out of town because the fight would have gotten a lot nastier had it happened in person."
And this is her wedding blog. Awesome.


 

2:19 PM #

Comments:

 I'm so glad you put your tornado picture back up on your website! I missed it when it was gone.

I totally agree with you about the whole angry woman thing. I know this is a total cliche, but why is it that when men get angry, society tends to see them as powerful/people who refuse to be pushed around, whereas when women get angry, society tends to see them as hysterical or, my favourite, "overreacting"? I'm going to punch the next person who tells me to "calm down" or "relax, don't get hysterical."

Whew, I feel better.

-polarcanuck


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 2:59 PM  

 My boss at my first job out of college once threw her phone across her office hard enough to break it. She also sat down on the floor in front of my desk and cried because a FedEx package was late. Not to mention making me cry on my first day of work and several times thereafter because I wasn't photocopying fast enough. But on the plus side, I now have fantastic "boss from hell" stories that top almost anyone else I know. Ah, the joys of working at a major book publisher. I can't think why I ever quit.


# posted by Blogger Ms Molly : 3:15 PM  

 What I really love is when someone does do something totally inconsiderate and I get angry and then they ask me if I'm PMSing. Because the only explanation for me being visibly angry is if I'm on my rag. Nice.


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 3:45 PM  

 That MAD wedding blogger has some tough sledding ahead - I hope her mother in law ends up at the wedding in one piece!


# posted by Blogger pinky pinkerson : 5:52 PM  

 Oh, my gosh. Polarcanuck: WORD. Don't you just want to look them right in the eye and say "Fuck you"?

Molly: I wish you could tell us which publisher. Can you?

Anon: YES. Goddammit. When people do that, it makes me want to... I don't know what. Say fuck you, I guess. I'm not very original. You're right - it's like women aren't supposed to have the biological capacity to be angry unless blood is oozing out of our wombs. Or something.

Pinky: "tough sledding ahead". I'm stealing that from you. And I keep wanting to give MADweddingBlogger the benefit of my experience, but evil MILs are something women must learn on their own, aren't they?

Lastly, I have to add that I hate it when someone at work - a man - purposely does something to piss me off because he gets off on it or whatever, and then I finally say something he deserves to hear (no, not "fuck you" - I only said "shut up"), and then all my female coworkers totally freak out, like I broke one of the Commandments of Feminity or something. Christ, it's annoying.

Okay. That's all. Jeez. This should have just been another post. Did I tell y'all that I'm gonna make another site very soon and it's gonna have a forum? When that happens, y'all have to post on it sometimes so I can post back and, in that way, GET THROUGH THE HELL THAT IS MY WORK DAY.


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 10:14 PM  

 If you have another site with a forum, let me know pronto. I feel abandoned online, somehow. I'm looking for a new home. Not to give you any pressure, of course :-)


# posted by Blogger pinky pinkerson : 3:23 AM  

 No... I know what you mean. Lately I've been wanting to get back into a forum, but they're all either talking about stuff that doesn't interest me, or else they're all firmly embedded in their community - all meeting for happy hours in their respective towns - and I'm overwhelmed by the thought of trying to break in to a new group. Like going to a new high school or something... So, why shouldn't I just start my own forum and talk to the people I already email with, right? And listen to them talk to each other.

The new forum/site will be based on the Quinceanera show I'm doing in October. I.e., the grant that's paying for that show is paying for the site. But the general theme of the site is "art fueled by deprivation". So I think that opens it up to... well, just about everybody.


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 9:46 AM  

 Nice site revamping! It looks all swell.

I’m a pretty angry person, but I figure there’re lots to get good and angry about. Maybe we don’t like it when women get angry in the mainstream pop culture because it’s just depressing. Women still aren’t allowed to have any power, so when they get angry, they have the impotent rage of tiny children.

I mean, seriously: That protagonist guy in a dramatic movie who witnesses an injustice gets pissed off, but then it leads to action. Women are allowed to get angry, they just aren’t allowed to have that anger propel them into action that changes the thing that made them angry in the first place. We seem to like our ladies as victims or saints. The victims rage against the thing that everyone can see isn’t going to change anyway and the saints smile their nutty smiles and just accept that their actions are futile.

Fuck that though. I know plenty of real life women who get angry about stuff and force change all around them to the point where they can achieve calm without giving up their righteousness. So there you go.


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10:42 AM  

 Oh damn, that was me, above.

- saskatchewan


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10:56 AM  

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