Gwen's blog

The Latest

Check out this interview I did with Eric Ladau of Houston's NPR station, KUHF. (Warning: It has either bad words or bleeped-out bad words in it.)

I'll be reading Growing Up with Tamales for story time at Blue Willow Bookshop, in Houston, on Thursday morning, May 15. Tell everyone you know with kids in the Houston area. How do you find and support local indie book stores like Blue Willow? By going to Booksense.

On Saturday, May 17, I'll be in Dallas, reading and signing at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, for the 13th Dallas Children’s Book Fair & Literary Festival.

On June 22, here in Houston, I'm going to do a poetry workshop. It's free and open to the public, y'all, and they're having one every Sunday in June, taught by local poets I love and respect. So come on down.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006
This might be wrong, but

I like that Gwen Stefani song, "Harajuku Girls".*

Also, I don't understand why people were calling Britney the new Madonna, when Gwen has obviously been the new Madonna for a while now. Not that I have strong feelings about any of the three of them. I'm just saying - people need to give proper credit.

*Not the real video, but that is the song.

My Latest Very Strong Opinion

Men should carry purses.

Seriously. I'm not trying to be funny.

I don't care if they have to call them something other than purses. I know "man bags" didn't work. Call them messenger bags, then. Or just bags. Or whatever. Shit - call them purses. What's wrong with it?

But men should carry purses. It's time. Here is what y'all need a purse for:
1. your phone
2. your wallet
3. your keys
4. your PSP
5. snacks
6. a comb
7. a pen
8. everything else you're always asking me to carry in my purse for you


Stop saying it's gay. It's not gay. How the hell can carrying things in a bag make you a homosexual? That doesn't even make sense. Guys in the army have backpacks. Do you want a backpack? No fanny packs - right. I get that. But, dude, come on. The warriors on the video games carry bags.

If you disagree, give me your reasons for being a man and not wanting to carry a bag. And don't say it's because it'll make you gay.

I swear, I wish that every time a straight man admonished another man for being "gay," someone would slap that straight man across the face and tell him to quit being such a stupid bitch.

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10:35 PM #
(18) comments

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Reader Survey

What would y'all be more interested in: a few carefully chosen photos posted on this site, or a Flickr page with a lot more photos of many things? Or some combo of both?

I ask because I have a bunch of pictures I've been wanting to post (of the Art Car Parade, necklaces I made, and other stuff) but they're kind of pain in the butt to size up for this blog. I'm thinking if I had a Flickr page, I could upload them all real fast and Flickr would size them for me. But would y'all go to the Flickr page, or would it be one of many Flickr pages that no one ever sees? Do y'all even want to see pictures, or am I fretting over nothing?
 

9:40 AM #
(15) comments

Friday, May 26, 2006

I like to write a lot on Fridays before holidays, when I'm the only one stupid enough to have used up all her vacation days.

I almost had a panic attack an hour ago, in my car, while driving to Jack in the Box. On the one hand, I've had some minor-to-not-so-minor stresses going on lately. On the other hand, I was very hungry, and I'm on my way to fulfilling the promise of my heritage by becoming diabetic any freaking second now, so I knew in the rational corner of my mind that this panic attack was only the result of a blood sugar fluctuation and not (as the rest of my mind wanted me to believe) a sign of doom from God.

One Ultimate Cheeseburger later, everything is okay. Except for the fact that I still have to renew the (April) registration sticker on my car. And, you know, that there's a big fucking rat walking around our apartment whenever the fuck it feels like, and our rat traps haven't yet caught him.

This is the second rodent this month, in case anybody wants to start a tally.

On the bright side of the silver lining of the cup of lemonade that I'm making from these lemons: This should make it easier for me to break my lease and move into our new house this summer.

I feel a level-up coming on. You know what I mean? When you're playing a role-playing game, as a warrior or a sorceror or whatever, and you do enough work to go to the next level? And you do, and a blue light surrounds your body, shooting up into the air, as the number next to your name increases by one?

That's gonna be me in a second - as soon as I kill three more monsters. But, for some reason, the moment right before the level-up always makes me a little nervous. The moment right after it, too. But that's okay. I'll buy some new armor and get over it.

The Mexican in Me

makes me superstitious. Makes me respect my elders for fear that, otherwise, my grandmother will fly down from heaven to slap my face. Makes me talk really loud when I'm excited or mad. Makes me get mad whenever I feel like it, like it's a perfectly healthy thing. Makes my butt big. Makes my lips big. Makes my eyes big. Makes me pale green in certain lights. Makes me want to wear shiny, pretty things. Makes me love babies and animals. Keeps me from getting my ass kicked. Makes me mean, but only because I love you. Puts moles on my skin.

(Makes me diabetic, some day soon, maybe. That's what put my grandma in heaven, along with other things.)

It makes you say I'm using the Race Card to get by.

It makes me a little bit magic.

The White in Me

makes me love elves and dwarves. Makes me want to hang cross-stitched samplers in my house, with letters and symbols that mean things. Makes me money-hungry. Makes it okay for me to wear nothing shiny, sometimes. Lets me think I'm so smart so school, even while I might be stupid at home. Makes the cops listen to my side of the story. Makes you trust me at garage sales. Gives me stretch marks and makes me burn in the sun. Makes me sweet to strangers, even when I want to hate them.

It makes you say I'm using White Privilege to get by.

It makes me a little bit magic.

Did that offend anyone?

Too bad, too bad. That's my right as a mixed-up person - to love and hate everything.

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1:21 PM #
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I STEAL: Marigoldie's Meme

I AM: wearing a tiger-print top that I bought from TJ Maxx, even though I knew my boyfriend would wrinkle his nose at it. And he did. But I didn't care, because the color is flattering (beige/black not yellow/black) and it makes me feel hungry like the wolf. If anyone comments on it, I plan to say, "I skinned it myself!"

I WANT: to have fun, and to do good things.

I WISH: I had some way of knowing that all my work will pay off, or that I'm on the right track, or at least that my children will have good lives.

I HATE: plagiarists.

I MISS: my children on the Christmases that they go to their dad's. I miss them so much, it's like I don't have a Christmas at all. Also, I will miss them very much starting tomorrow, when they go to their dad's for the summer. Every summer, I think I should get a cat or something so I won't be alone... but then I realize that the cat would freak out when the kids returned, and therefore wouldn't play with them. Also, pets are a pain in the ass. So are my kids, sometimes, but that doesn't mean I don't love them more than anything else in the world.

I HEAR: Portland's KIJZ FM, via HD Radio.

I WONDER: how my life will turn out.

I REGRET: not going to Vassar when I had the chance.

I AM NOT: as melodramatic as people may think. I simply prefer to express my emotions in hour-long bursts, and then revert to my normal apathy/stoicism/bored state. It's easiest that way, I find. Otherwise, I'd simmer and seethe and be sad all year long.

I DANCE: in a very inhibited way, unless I'm drunk. I'm bigger than most people on the dance floor, most times. I don't want to attract a lot of attention by moving too much. Unless I'm drunk.

I SING: pretty well, and it makes me happy to sing. I sing in my car when I drive to Austin alone. Some songs make me cry, and then, if I sing along to them, it gives me goosebumps along my arms and legs, and an electric feeling in my chest. I like to sing along with Bjork, Liz Phair, and Veruca Salt best. But I will sing anything that comes on the radio, too, no matter what genre or station. I like to sing along with that Toadies song "Possum King," even though the lead singer of the Toadies was a massive prick to me when I met him in Dallas six or seven years ago. That's a testament to how much I like to sing in the car alone. Even the songs of a prick are worth singing.

I CRY: during Sense and Sensibility, Spider-Man 2, and Bjork's "All Neon Like".

I AM NOT ALWAYS: as nice as I like to be.

I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: beads on strings.

I WRITE: books, blog entries, emails, poems, and outlines... and yet, somehow, I don't write one quarter as much as I think I should be writing.

I CONFUSE: all the old white guys at my day job (if they have gray hair and don't wear glasses, they all blend together in my mind), and several of the actresses in the magazines. Sienna Miller, Victoria Beckham, Chloe Sevigny, Alexis Bledel, Alexis Stewart... their faces slip out of my mind and I would never recognize them on the street.

I NEED: furniture. Since leaving my marriage six years ago, I haven't quite managed to buy a proper household's worth of furniture. Our apartment is filled with cast-offs and too-small dressers, supplemented by laundry baskets. My mattress and boxspring are still on the floor. I'm about to buy a house, but I have no furniture. I'll probably have to buy some on credit, just so we won't look freshly robbed.

I SHOULD: write more stuff and sell it so I can have more money.

I START: thinking up ideas for stuff to write, and then worrying that they aren't good enough, or won't sell, or that they'll be a profitless waste of a year if I sit down to write them. It makes my stomach hurt.

I FINISH: things, once I sit down to do them. Books, necklaces, and arguments. I get them done.

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8:44 AM #
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Thursday, May 25, 2006

It's YAM

Or, Yet Another Meme, stolen from vampire artist Danielaphant, along with the acronym.

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Breyer's low carb ice cream sandwich rounds
2. Breyer's low carb Eskimo-pie-like things
3. low-carb fake chocolate bars (This is getting depressing, isn't it?)
4. sugar-free whatever
5. Mt. Olive baby dill pickles

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Buy a really nice house.
2. Start a foundation.
3. Visit Tokyo.
4. Start a really cool, freaky magazine that would make no profit.
5. Buy a bunch of art.

5 bad habits:
1. Cursing.
2. Shit-talking.
3. Interrupting others.
4. Talking too loud.
5. Throwing the finger at other drivers, even if they're Texas State Troopers who subsequently give me tickets, oops.

5 things I like doing:
1. Singing in my car alone.
2. Reading cheesy magazines.
3. Buying beads and other small, pretty things.
4. Forcing my children to watch old movies with me.
5. Grocery shopping with my boyfriend.

5 things I would never wear, buy or get new again:
1. High, pointy heels.
2. Pantyhose that weren't at least 2 sizes too big.
3. Skirts above the knee.
4. Shoes with slippery bottoms.
5. Any top with which I couldn't wear a bra.

5 favorite toys:
1. These little Lego-esque people - a princess and a cowboy - I stole from my kids.
2. A little sand-filled satin frog I stole from my kids.
3. A paddle with a hanging wooden egg, the swinging of which makes this little wooden chicken peck on the paddle. (I stole it from my kids.)
4. My Chinese Fashions coloring book.
5. My kids' collection of luchador masks, which they never play with and which I will therefore steal.

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3:51 PM #
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Monday, May 22, 2006

Monday - Barely Alive

My boyfriend and I spent the weekend in Austin and now I'm so very tired. I'm always tired, anyway, on the Mondays after I have to go to Austin to get my kids. But this Monday I'm recuperating from days spent between hot cement and cedar trees, in air that was so very, very dry. I was like Alice, when they made her run. And then she said, "I'm so hot and thirsty," and the Queen said good-naturedly, "I know what you'd like," and gave her a dry, crumbly biscuit. That's me. I'm filled up with dry, crumbly biscuits and I've gained about a hundred pence, I know I have, Kitty, so there's no use arguing about it.

Speaking of. There was a hot, sad, dehydrated little pregnant cat in the parking lot of the Cedar Park Schlotsky's. We tried to give it water but it ran away, and then a mockingbird attacked it. Very sad. (But not a metaphor for my previous life as a trailer-trash housewife in the hot, dry hills. No. I was glad to find that being there doesn't affect me like that, anymore. No more melancholy. But I still can't stand the heat.) I hope that cat's doing okay now. We left a plastic cup of spring water under a bush.

I haven't been watching American Idol this year, but I know that one of the contestants sang that song by Styx - "Renegade" or "Wanted Man" or "Oh Mama, Domo Arigato" or whatever it's called. And now they're playing it on the radio. All the time, pal. It reminds me of when Wayne's World brought "Bohemian Rhapsody" back into vogue. I bet the members of Styx are kind of happy about it. I wonder what they're doing now. Probably on ranches, producing songs for younger people. Or playing sessions for car commercials...

I tried to wear my contacts to work today and I can tell already that I'm gonna regret it. No matter how low the mold count outside, the air still burns in my "office" (read: plywood corral). Because the air here is poison. It's poison, dammit, baby. You know how that little boy sees dead people? Well, I see flakes of asbestos floating through the air.

I want to make a lot of necklaces and earrings, but I hardly have the time. I didn't want to buy new clothes this weekend, but I had to buy a few, because I only had six work shirts, and three of those were stained with grease or oyster sauce. So I bought a few new shirts. And I'm glad to report that my latest diet has pushed me past the line - from "fat" to "big." Or, actually, "very, very big." Sort of like, "Those guys with fetishes for the 50-Foot Woman? Could possibly make do with me, instead." Yeah.

Last thing is a public service announcement. If you like good food, do not go to Kerbey Lane Cafe on 183 in Austin, Texas. No. Only go there if you like to wait for a table for 45 minutes with a bunch of people who think they're awesome for being at Kerbey Lane Cafe.

Dear Kerbey Lane Cafe: It's all well and good that you offer vegetarian selections, that your chicken is free range, and that your beef is Banderas-grass fed. But that doesn't mean you can't at least offer some mayonnaise or mustard for your dry-ass, overcooked, Banderas-grass-fed hamburger patties, does it? And have you ever considered repainting your walls? Or, at least, wiping the coffee stains off the molding?

Banderas-grass-fed cows crouch under the bushes behind Schlotsky's, begging to be cooked right.

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8:18 AM #
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Thursday, May 18, 2006

Two Fat Piggies

I.

Houston pigeons are getting fatter and fatter. I used to say that they crapped on my boyfriend's car and not on mine because they know that I'm an animal lover and he's the opposite of an animal lover. But then, this morning, outside Einstein Brothers Bagels, my son Josh was dismayed to see pigeon poop splash onto our Altima's windshield. We looked up. Curled in the C of a nail salon's sign was a fat, fat pigeon, beaking his mites and dripping poop on my car.

"You fat, fat pigeon!" I cried.

I don't like to talk to pigeons like that, normally, but this one was just pathetic. I just know his bowels were running from the remnants of a bucket of KFC that he probably cannibalistically scarfed down. And bleached white flour. And refined sugar. And high fructose corn syrup. And maltitose, and that stuff in the fat-free potato chips that causes diarrhea.

Fat pigeons! Save yourselves! Fly away to France!

II.

We went to my latest fave restaurant for lunch. They have a bowl of fruit by the door and encourage you to take a piece as you leave.

I took a pear, meaning to save it for a 3 PM snack.

I ate it as soon as I got back to my desk.

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1:31 PM #
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Monday, May 15, 2006

The Feeling

Sometimes I'll write something and, when I'm done, I feel sick. Trembly and weak, with chills. Like I'm coming down with the flu. Or like I might throw up.

That feeling used to make me feel like I should delete whatever it was that I just wrote. Then, that same feeling would keep me from deleting it.

Everything I ever wrote that gave me that feeling turned out to be something good - something other people could really connect with.

I just thought of an idea for something to write. An old idea - something I've been considering and mentally outlining for a while - but with a twist that I just thought of half an hour ago.

Suddenly, my hands are trembling. Chills are speeding through me. Vomit seems imminent.

I haven't felt that in a while.

I think I know what I'm going to write next.

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1:33 PM #

Friday, May 12, 2006

Reasons I'm Happy Today

1. For the first time in my life, I have the financial wherewithal to consider buying my own house. (And I didn't need a man to help me get there.)

2. We have a fun weekend planned. We're celebrating my youngest son's ninth birthday, partially by having lunch at a place where I can get the awesomest seafood curry in the world. My boyfriend is taking us out for Mothers' Day, and I'm going to pick the place that makes the best hamburgers in town. (I love to eat, dang it.)We're celebrating the fact that it's the weekend, just like we do every week. Starting with tonight, when we will finish the LOTR movie marathon we've been conducting all week.

3. By the end of the summer, I will have a house. Most likely, that house will have a garden. My oldest son will have his own room. My bathroom will have a garden tub! We'll have a backyard with a fence. I've never had a fenced backyard before! If we're lucky, we'll have a... No, I can't say it. Saying it might jinx it. So I won't say anything.

(Gameroom!)

4. My kids are smart and funny. Also, they're beautiful and tall.

5. I have a boyfriend who's a good person. And I love him very much.

6. I have three books. Three books that I wrote. Even if I never sell another book again and have to be a Corporate American Peon for the rest of my life in order to pay my mortgage, I can be proud of what I've done.

7. I will be able to control the flow of tree roaches and mice into and out of my house. No more calling the landlord who never comes. I will be my own landlord, dang it. And I will be a good, responsible one, too. I am not a slumlord! Something to be proud of!

8. I usually do go to lunch with friends, and they always make me laugh and listen to my whining with stalwart patience while we're there. Thank God for my friends, especially when they're being my friends over good-tasting food.

(I'm home. I'm eating. Everything's gonna be okay.)

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12:38 PM #
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Reasons I'm a Little Bit Sad Today

1. I was seriously craving the Fantasy sandwich from Baba Yega today, but none of my friends wanted to go out to lunch, and I don't have the emotional fortitude to go by myself. So, no sandwich for me.

2. I have to save up as much money as humanly possible for the house I hope to buy. That means: no shopping for new clothes or other unnecessary crap that I would normally buy. So, my normal Lunch Plan B of going to TJ Maxx and buying a bunch of discounted imperfect honey-scented shower gel? No longer viable.

3. Not that I'm a hardcore clotheshorse or anything (anymore), but it is nice to update one's wardrobe for spring. And, for the reason mentioned in Number 2 above, I will not be doing that. So - I am dowdy.

4. I'm not sad about my plan to get a house, but I am a little saddened by the prosect of maybe paying a really high escrow and thereby having to refrain from shopping for quite a while longer. Having to get used to not buying fun things. Having, like some of my coworkers with big mortgaes, to eat Cup O'Soup for lunch on a daily basis, maybe. It'll all be worth it if I get a nice house (and eventually make more money), but still. The prospect is a tiny bit grim.

5. I haven't written anything new and good yet. I can't think of anything new and good enough. It makes me feel constipated. It makes me feel lazy.

6. I am, maybe, sort of, a tiny bit sad about having to leave Houston's Inner Loop. I know - no one cares. Only other people born and rasied in the Inner Loop know what I mean, and they've tried to share sadness with me, but I brush them away. Must remain stoic. It won't do to be sad, when I am obviously making the best choice I can make, seeing as how my kids did not make it into the schools I'd hoped to get them into, and are instead obliged to go to the same middle and high school that I myself went to, if we remain at our current residence inside the Loop.

Actually, in all honesty, I'm a little more angry than sad. In my secret, paper journal that I keep in a drawer at home, someone wrote, "FUCK YOU, INNER LOOP. FUCK YOU AND THE RICH, GENTRIFYING FUCKS WHO INHABIT YOUR WOMB!!!"

Maybe that someone was me. Maybe I feel a little betrayed by the fact that I can't afford to live in the neighborhoods that I loved and defended for so long. Maybe I'm obsessively haunted by the fantasy that my straight-A, gifted-and-talented kid got waiting-listed at number 245 for the same school his older brother went to because there were 245 golf-playing, school-boardmember-nepostizing Republicans who decided they felt like moving from the suburbs into the Loop this year.

Or maybe I'm just bitter that, despite all my hard work, I have not made and maybe never will make enough money to do what I want. It isn't the gentrifying rich people's fault that they have more money than me and that they finally realize how beautiful the Inner Loop is, is it? It's not their fault that their kids had better waiting-list luck than mine, or that my oldest kid didn't do as well in his auditions as theirs did. No. And, hey - if I were those people, I'd move here, too.

The suburb I'm planning to move to is very nice. I'm sure our lives there will be very nice. Everything will be nice, and we will be happy, or I will wear myself to a bloody stump trying to make it so. :)

7. It's lunch time now, and I'm sitting at my desk typing sad thoughts instead of eating the Fantasy Sandwich at Baba Yega.

That's it. I'm getting up. I'm driving to my (tree-roach-and-mouse-inhabited) Inner Loop apartment, just two minutes away, to get something to eat and snap the hell out of it.

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12:15 PM #
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Thursday, May 11, 2006

Issues

Of course I have big ol' opinions on all the current issues of the day... I just can't always write about them, for fear that I'll get so pissed off, I'll hurt someone or myself. But the time has come to briefly vent about everything that no one can stop talking about. So...

Those Illegal Aliens

Don't talk to me about Those Illegal Aliens, unless you're going to address the real issue. Here is the real issue: Those Illegal Aliens need jobs now, and plenty of employers here are willing to hire them for less than a living wage.

That's all there is to it. Should we make it easier for foreigners to come in and do the jobs no one else will do for so cheap? Should those foreigners be rewarded for their service by being allowed to become citizens faster? Should laws be adjusted so that companies can hire whoever they want, for as little as they want? Or should companies be forced to hire people for min wage or more? Or would that totally destroy our economy and standard of living?

Those are the issues that need to be discussed. I don't know the answers. Do you?

If you have other issues you'd like to share with me, such as, "I don't like Mexicans because all Mexicans steal and I think we should build a big wall to separate us from the Mexicans, and I don't like it when people speak a language that I don't speak because it makes me worry that they're talking about me," then please just shut the fuck up.

Seriously, shut up and go away. You hate Mexicans, and I hate ignorant assholes. I tried to build a wall around myself to keep them away, but they just talk louder. If I have to live with ignorant assholes, then you have to live with Mexicans and everyone else. Shut up and get over it. Try their food, actually. It's good.

Scientists Have Finally Proven That Men Are Biologically Compelled to be Sleep Around

Here we go with this one again. Jesus. Here's what I already said about it, a long time ago.

Here's all I'm going to say about it now:
If I'm sleeping with you, I would prefer it if you didn't act like an asshole.
If I'm sleeping with you and you start acting like an asshole (i.e., lying to me, treating me poorly, sleeping with other people while giving me the impression that you aren't), then I will stop sleeping with you. You can pull out all the scientific evidence you want, but there is no blueprint of anyone's DNA that will make me want to sleep with an asshole.

The Mommy Wars

You know why I hardly ever talk about my kids on this blog? Because I don't want to hear anyone's opinion of how I'm raising them.

You know why I don't give out unsolicited parenting advice? Because, unless you're abusing your kids, I don't really care how choose to parent them.

Personally, I think that parents who feel the need to criticize the parenting techniques of others - be they Ferberizing or attachment, breast or bottle, working mommy or stay-at-home mommy or anything else - must be unhappy, insecure people who are secretly scared that their way really isn't the right one, after all. But that, if they scream really loudly that their way is the only right way, that will somehow make it true and thereby magically make their kids safe, well-adjusted, and successful.

Mind your own business, people. If you know what's best for kids, do it for your kids and leave everyone else alone.

Oh, and the so-called Child Free people? The ones who go around talking about how all "breeders" are assholes and the world is overpopulated and how they enjoy pinching babies at the grocery store and making them cry? Those are the most miserable people of all. Luckily, though, they only say that stuff online, so I've never had to tell one to shut up and mind her own business in the real world. (Or ask Congress to build a really big wall to keep them out of my life.)

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8:30 AM #
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Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Last Five Emails I Sent From Work

I.

i need to get coffee so i don't fall asleep, hit my head on desk, and bleed to death.

II.

Fwd: FW: This is why there are no Asian Superheroes

III.

On the captioned excess policy, the term is listed as 9/15/05-9/16/06.
It should be 9/15/05-9/15/06. Can you please issue a correction? Thanks.

IV.

Here are some pretty good writing prompt ideas for you guys.
http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/5/4wiencek.html

V.

my head itches. i think i have lice.

Just kidding. I didn't really send any of those. Except for Number III.

(Oh, wait - no. That one was accidentally deleted.)
 

3:25 PM #
(3) comments

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Big Old Weekend

I don't have a new book out right now because I'm lazy and I write a book every other year instead of every year. However, because Houston's Latino Book Fair was this weekend, and it's the biggest book fair in Texas, and I live here in Houston... I helped promote.

Corrupting Our Youth with Nostalgia and Hope

Thursday night I visited two classes at the community college, and that was fun. Although, I swear... Every time I read to college kids, I realize how very, very old I'm getting and how very, very fast the world is evolving and how very, very little sense some parts of my book must make to the childrens of today. So I'll interrupt my own reading to explain to them what a mimeograph is, or who the Bionic Woman is, even though the Bionic Woman isn't in my book. But I'll end up talking about her for quite a while, and trying to get the kids to make the noise that her bionic legs make, since some of them will claim to have seen the show on the Sci Fi network.

(It goes "chuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh!" Right?)

The best part of the college classes is when their professors let me give the kids writing assignments. No - the best part of that is forcing the kids to read the assignments out loud. A lot of times, they have good little stories to tell. "Do you want to be a writer?" I'll ask one of them, and he'll say, "No."

And then I'll say, "Too late, you little brat. You ARE a writer. Congratulations! You're doomed to a life of self-doubt and procrastination! Ha, ha, ha!"

Just kidding, of course. Just kidding, Dr. Ainsworth.

The Mexicanz and Me

Friday morning I got to be on the Mexicanz show on Houston's Mega 101 FM. That was fun - way more fun than I was scared it would be. See, it's Chico, Rascal, and Liz. I always thought Liz was really young, right? So when she does the Chismes (gossip) and stutters over the name of Eva Longoria's new perfume or something, Chico and Rascal rag on her a little and say she shouldn't get to do the Chismes anymore. And then I worry about her, and get mad at them, and say to my car radio, "Why don't y'all do the gossip, then? Why do y'all make Liz do the gossip and then make fun of her while she's doing it? She's doing it bilingual! That's not easy!"

Then I was scared that I would go on the show and try to say "Edward James Olmos 4th Annual Latino Book Fair and Family Festival and Whatnot" and stutter while saying it, and they'd make fun of me. Or else a caller would call in while I was talking and say, "Shut that chick up and play more reggaeton!"

But none of that happened. Chico, Liz, Rascal, and Chile were very nice, and we talked about a ton of stuff and cracked each other up... and I can't wait to go back. Seriously - I love to be on the radio with real DJs, because they're so quick with funny words and it's such an adrenaline rush to keep up with them between the commercials and the songs.

Every time I drive away from a radio station, I turn it on in my car so I can still hear the DJ's voices. A lot of times - most times - I do these gigs and no one I know gets to hear them, because everyone's at work or at home watching TV. And it's weird, knowing that someone heard the show, but no one that knows me. And I don't get to hear the show... So it makes me feel like maybe the show didn't really happen. Maybe we talked into the mics, but it never went on the air. Maybe we were all in that box with that cat, or maybe we weren't, you know?

This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised. When I got into my car, I had a voice mail from one of my cousins who likes reggaeton. I listened. She said, "Hey, hooker. I heard you on the radio trying to pick up men. Call me." (I love my cousin Ezette. She's just like me, but even more sailor-mouthed, if such a thing is possible.)

Then, when I got to my computer, I had an email from one of my long-time blog readers. He'd heard the show on his computer, all the way over in Denver.

Even though he's never seen me and I've never seen him, it made me happy that he'd heard. It made me feel safely connected to the tech-spider's web of the world.

I Am Secretly an Introvert. No, Seriously.

I love, love, love promoting my writing or promoting events because I love to do readings. And I love talking on the radio. I love performing, I guess you could say. I always have. Even back in high school, when I was a somewhat gothic child who kept to herself in the corner of the chemistry classroom, people could find me, on weekends, smiling from a stage somewhere in town, singing a song from West Side Story or dancing a little indigenous tribal dance. At first, I used to get heinous, bladder-aching stage fright before these performances. After a year, the heroin that was the audience's applause got me over it.

And now... Now, I will talk for hours on stage or in front of a classroom. I will do karaoke, even when sober. I will stand in the middle of any party, or any Starbucks in the world, and talk really, really loud about my sex life.

However... I find it difficult to go to networking events.

I don't know why. I think it's the word "networking" that makes me nervous. It implies so much pressure - not to perform, but to impress. It makes me think of people with more money than me, judging me not by my talent or my human decency, but by my lack of aptitude at the skill I never learned - the skill of Looking Important. I just look normal and plebeian.

Normally, at these things, I end huddled in the corner, milking life stories from the catering staff. Friday night, however, I decided to put on a performance and act like I didn't feel like vomiting or running out the door, and I managed to meet the legendary Esmeralda Santiago, as well as the new-fangled Jackie Guerra. And they were very nice.

And then a bunch of little kids came out and did ballet folklorico for us, and they were so awesome, they made me want to cry. They didn't network. All they did was dance. And there's nothing more beautiful than little kids dancing or doing some other kind of art, as far as I'm concerned. The little boy who did the Yaqui deer dance wasn't worried about making money, or projecting his brand, or impressing anybody. All he was worried about was looking like a deer while he danced. And he did a really good job. He made me cry.

And then I left. On the way home, I listened to the radio and resolved to worry more about art and less about everything else.

The Big Show

The big show was yesterday, and I read at 3:30 or 3:45 (aka, 3 PM Mexican Time - the whole thing was running late) and, of course, it was a very awesome experience. I met a lot of nice people and had my picture taken with a Lucha Libre Guy.

And then my friends wanted to leave and start the drinking, but I begged them to wait, and they very graciously waited until Alisa Valdes Rodriguez showed up so I could meet her. Because it would've been very lame to leave without doing that, I felt. And she did show up, and I was shocked by how she looked nothing like her picture. She was way younger, way prettier than the headshot of her on the poster, and she had a very pleasant speaking voice. She did not talk like a sailor.

So I babbled at her in my sailor voice a little, and then my friends dragged me out the door, because there was drinking to be done.

Now

Now it's Sunday and I can't even go back for the second day of the Book Fair, even though I really want to, because I have to drive to Austin in a little bit to pick up my kids.

The best part of driving to Austin is that, sometimes, I sing along to the radio all the way there.

The best part of driving back home from Austin is that me and the kids talk our brains out, about all kinds of little things. We play guessing games or "would you rather" games, or we compile our short- and long-range plans, or I tell them about how Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is supposed to match up with The Wizard of Oz, and we resolve to borrow them both and find out for ourselves.

So, that's what I'm looking forward to now - a long drive home with my kids.

The book fair was fun. Now, on with real life.

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9:08 AM #
(3) comments

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

I forgot to tell y'all

that Jonathan Rhys Meyers is, as of right now, the handsomest boy in the world.

Now you know.

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11:56 AM #
(14) comments