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. :)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A Nurturing Kind of LoveAs I mentioned the other day, I've been losing weight, via the magic process of burning more calories than I take in (TM physics).
My boyfriend Tad hasn't said much about my weight loss, either because he wants to maintain the illusion that he's just as happy when I'm fatter, or else because he's actually a little happier when I'm fatter. Either way, he's been sending me little Yahoo news articles about weight loss lately. The last one was about how reducing stress and anger helps you burn more calories. Reading that finally got on my last nerve, and I wrote to Tad thusly:
I feel like, now that I'm losing weight, you're sending me all this information on how to lose weight. Or telling me to exercise more. Hello - I have been exercising more. That's why I'm losing weight!
Also, I've been trying to reduce my stress/temper a lot in the last couple of years, but you don't seem to notice that, either. I know you're telling me this stuff because you care, but when you give me "advice" or "reminders" on stuff I'm already trying to do, it just makes it seem like you don't notice my accomplishments.
[Omitted: Three paragraphs of analogies and examples illustrating my point.]
Do you want me to nag you to run at the park more? Maybe you feel like I don't care, since I don't tell you stuff like you tell me?
Jesus - diarrhea again...
What can we learn from this?
One: All the stuff I said to Tad -- that is what he's been doing lately.
Two: If you ever become my significant other, this is how you can expect that I will argue with you: via email, with many, many, many words. (But then, there will usually be makeup sex, provided you pass the pop quiz that proves you actually read the email.)
Three: If you ever become my significant other, I can promise that you will be continually updated on the state of my digestive system, as well as the latest theories on what causes me to be ill. (Very latest theory: My job itself turns my bowels to water.)
So... back to Tad and his transgressions.
"Yes," he eventually said, when we revisited this subject post-makeup-sex. "I would like it if you nagged me to run more."
"Why?" I said. "Why do you want to be nagged? I don't want to be nagged!"
"Because..." he said. Then, his cell phone rang. "Hello?" he said. Then, he started speaking the Chinese dialect of his people, which happens to sound almost exactly like when grown-ups talk on Charlie Brown. "Haw bwa, wa bwa," he said. "Bwa haw... Okay, Dad! Okay!" Then he hung up, then turned back to me. "Because if you nag me to run, it lets me know that you care. That's the only reason I sent you that weight-loss article, baby. Because I care about you."
"What did your dad want?"
"Oh, nothing. He just asked if I ate any fruit today."
"???"
"He's been nagging me lately about eating fruit. He says I don't eat enough. He bought a melon and wanted to see if I felt like coming over to get some."
And that's when I remembered that my boyfriend and his dad are crazy, and that they really do prove their love by nagging the shit out of people about their health.
(The next day, we were in the car, and Tad's dad called and just said one sentence. "Bwa haw baw wah BWA HAW BAW!" Tad said "okay Dad" and hung up. Translation: "Don't forget to EXERCISE!")
OMFG, my bloggi-freaking-versary!
Tomorrow this web site turns ten years old. Here is your proof.
Incidentally, this is the first time in that ten years that I've remembered to mark my blog's anniversary.
The ten-year gift is paper, btw. Feel free to send your surplus notebooks and cute Japanese stationery my way.
The Daily Quest
Every day at my job, in my department, some time after lunch, someone starts looking for a file.
Do you do this at your job? Do you have old-school paper files? If you do, you know how they go missing, right? And then someone will look for them and, depending on the standing of the person searching (hierarchical and social, both), one or more coworkers will aid in the search.
Usually when people look for files, I just check my desk and then yell, "Nope," across the department.
Sometimes, however, I'm in the mood to be helpful, so I get up and walk around, searching other people's desks and file cabinets, too. Whenever I do this, I like to get into the real spirit of it. I'll say, "Didn't Thomas Johnson come downstairs last week and ask us for that file?" or "I thought I heard Sharon asking Rhonda about that one." And people will say, "Yeah, that's right. I remember that," even if I was just lying and remembered no such thing.
I like to see how far I can take it. "Jim Smith came downstairs yesterday, right after you left, Joanna. He looked really pissed off, and he was sort of sweating, and he twirled his mustache and said, 'Is Joanna here?' I said no and thought nothing of it, and went back to working really hard at my desk. I heard a bunch of scratching noises coming from the file room, and then I smelled smoke. You don't think he..."
Then someone says, "Oh my gosh. Jim's assistant, Brianna, was down here Monday. She looked really sneaky and had blood on her jacket!"
I say, "I've always hated Brianna. I told y'all she slept with my ex-boyfriend, right? Plus, I think she's secretly bald."
Then, right about then, someone will say, "Here it is. Found it. Here's the file."
Most embarrassing? Is when they find it on my desk.
Labels: domestic, meta, my sex life, parenting, vanity, work
5:42 PM #Comments:
Happy 10 years!!!I am pleased to say I've been reading your blog since it was just a mere website. :) Since 1998 in fact. And you still rock my socks.
# posted by
That Chick Over There : 8:34 PM
WOO! I get to be the first to wish you a Happy Blogversary! Although I still call them "journals".
Gwen thank you for 10 years of good writing! You have always felt like a friend.
:)
Becky
http://chasingforever.vox.com
# posted by
: 7:09 AM
Heheh, yeah, me too-- it's a journal to me. Happy 10 years! I guess I've been reading it for about that long, too. Wow. 10 years.
Even though I'm one of those evil conservative types that you comment on once in awhile, I love you anyway!
Keep on writing!
# posted by
: 9:27 AM
Happy Anniversary! And now I've discovered your archives from way back when, before I read your site, so I've found another way not to work. Yay!
# posted by
kate : 10:18 AM
Ten years! congratulations!
and UGH, missing files. They were the bane of my existence for much of my dozen years of state service. I once had a job where people used to call up for their files from the long-ago past, and I used to have to drive out to giant scary warehouse to get them, crossing my fingers the entire time that they were even there. They weren't, always.
# posted by
pinky pinkerson : 12:17 PM
Happy Anniversary Gwen!
I LOVE your work stories.
Do you remember a few years ago when you posted that you used to keep your windows down when waving your parking card thingy to get into the garage to show that you aren't another mindless drone, but now you scurry into the garage?
I thought of that this week. I recently got a new stereo that I can plug my iPod into, and as I rolled down my window to swipe my parking card, Marky Mark's Take a Walk on the Wild Side came up in the shuffle. It was the part about being a "Valevictorian" (which makes me picture Marky Mark in a high collar) and I was in full car groove mode. In front of my co-workers, who were in the adjacent card swiping lane.
So, yeah, the swipe & scurry - I'm starting to think is a very good thing.
# posted by
: 6:38 PM
I have loved your site since 1999!
And btw, the ten year gift is tin, or if you want to get contemporary, a diamond.
I can't think of anything made of tin that I would especially want, can you? I'm not crazy into diamonds either. Hmmm.
# posted by
Pacer : 9:07 AM
I have been reading, and adoring, you since the beginning. I hope we get to meet up again one day.
# posted by
Chiara : 3:28 AM
Wow 10 years! Delurking to mention that I've been religiously reading your stuff since BH90210. Keep up the good work!
# posted by
Mr. Bean : 10:45 AM
Happy Anniversary!
# posted by
RandomRanter : 3:01 PM
A decade? Impressive! Congratulations, blogmaster.
# posted by
Jody Reale : 11:41 PM
Thanks for all the congrats, you guys. And thanks, especially, for reading. I love y'all.
Pinky: I feel you. At our company, the archived files are stacked up all randomly in the moldy basement, and we'll do anything to avoid going there.
Keri: I don't hate the player, I only hate the game. Some of my best friends are Republicans. :)
Anon Marky Mark fan: I don't know that song, but I get what you're saying. I'm glad the secret-groove-shame feeling resonates between us.
Pacer: Thank you. Duh - paper is one year, isn't it? Okay, tin gift. I would like a tin yard ornament, preferably in the shape of a frog or dragonfly. Or a lady bending over, with polka-dotted underwear.
Mr. Bean: Are you, then, a former Mediaraman?
# posted by
Gwen : 10:16 AM
Just wanted to say I have also been reading your site since '97, which is the first year I had a computer with internet!
It says a lot for you as a person and a writer that in ten years, I've never started hating you or forgotten about you, two things I do frequently with internet sites/people. Ten years, that's crazy! I was 19!
# posted by
: 9:54 PM
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