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.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
MovingNo matter how many boxes you get, you never, ever end up with enough boxes.
You start putting your stuff in beach bags and trash bags. You start tying up stuff in sheets. You put stuff in laundry baskets and set it in the backseat of your car, too embarrassed to let the movers see your laundry baskets full of coathangers, blank CDs, toilet paper, and the morning's bills.
You tell yourself those laundry baskets and trash bags full of socks will not stay in your car for more than one day.
Why do you lie? Why do you lie to yourself like that?
Labels: domestic
9:14 AM # (7) commentsThursday, July 27, 2006
FeelingsI miss my kids a lot. I'm ready for them to come home from their summer visitation with their dad. I miss my kids so much, it makes my uterus hurt. (Either that or it's just normal periodical cramping.) (But still.)
I'm in Flexible Mode. That means I'm taking a break from getting pissed off when other people mess up my plans. See, normally, I have tons of plans and lists and timelines. I have to, or else nothing in my life would get done. Now, however, I'm at the mercy of contractors, movers, utility companies, and the weather. If I let myself, I could break down and cry in frustration over the sheer number of tentative plans that have been ruined so far this week. But I'm not letting myself. Because I'm in Flexible Mode, and that means that I constantly tell myself that all plans made are highly likely to change.
I can't wait until everything gets done and I can exit Flexible Mode, and get back into Highly Controlled Mode, and therefore back into normal life.
I think Flexible Mode makes me uncomfortable because it reminds me of being a child, or a housewife. I don't want to feel like that. I've been a Head of Household for six years now, and I will be for the rest of my life.
Lately, I have no Internet access at home. As you can imagine, it's frustrating. I miss my World of Warcraft character, Xora. I wonder how she's doing out there in that other world. Sometimes, when one of my newest plans gets changed (like when I found out yesterday that no one in Houston can move my stuff until Sunday), I think about Xora flying over the ocean on her rented hippogriff. And I wish I was her for a moment. But I can't be. Because I have no Internet connection at home. And no cable, either. And no TV.
I kind of wish I had a cat. Sometimes I hate to be alone at night. But, then again, sometimes I like it.
I can't wait for my kids to come home and see the new house. I miss those brats. I can't wait for them to be here with me, riding in the car, arguing and calling each other names while we run around town. Unpacking. Cleaning. Making Jell-O. Having fun. Being a family.
Labels: parenting, psychobabble
8:28 AM # (7) commentsMonday, July 24, 2006
So TiredI closed on my house at 4 PM today, and then I had dinner with people, all while wracking my brains over the logistics of getting moved in before August 1. And now I'm so tired I could cry, but in a good way.
I just bought a house today. How many days of one's life can one say that?
I JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE TODAY! I AM THE WINNER!! HOORAY!!! HOO-O-O-RAY-Y-Y!!!!!
Now we probably won't get the puppies. Now I will probably move in by Wednesday. Now I want to paint more than I first thought I needed to.
Oh - the awesomest part of today was that my closing costs came out to be $2000 less than expected. Yay! Yay, yay. Now all my scrimping and saving will pay off, in furniture, repairs, and school clothes for the kids. Hooray!
I feel like a Dr. Suess character, saying hooray so much. A yellow one, with a weird hairdo and a star on its chest. Hooray!
More tomorrow, when I can make sense again.
Labels: domestic
9:12 PM # (21) commentsSunday, July 23, 2006
Up in the AirWe were supposed to close on my house on Friday, but then it didn't happen. We should close Monday. At first I was upset about it, but now I'm okay. These things happen, people tell me.
People need to tell the sellers, too, though, because they're freaking out. They actually put their house (my house, that is) on the market for the weekend. How petty is that? Especially when some of my mail has already gone to the house, and I'm paying for their electricity as of today. For some reason, they're scared I might not buy the house, after all. I'm suspecting it has something to do with cultural differences. They are hardcore Christians with the nuclear family thing going on. I'm a not-overtly-Christian single mom with an ethnic last name. Maybe, based on their myriad life experiences, they can't help but see me as a person who can't afford a house.
Either way, I need to get everything packed up today because it looks like I'll be moving some weekday this week.
I'm saying this to you, and yet I'm sitting here typing in the same dress I put on at 8 PM last night, because I just got home two hours ago, and my boyfriend/co-packer is asleep in my bed, and nothing is packed but books (26 boxes and counting) and my boyfriend was planning to install the car speakers he bought me sometime this afternoon, and we wanted to see Scanner Darkly, too. (And I want to buy the score to it, if I can find it for sale in Houston.)
So... Yes, I'm sure it'll get done somehow.
Yesterday we did a walk through with the paint chips I've been carrying in my purse for a while. They looked beautiful against the walls, and I'm very excited and proud of myself for picking such awesome colors. I based the entire house scheme on the terracotta floors in the kitchen, and the fact that I like green. So, after I saw the house for the first time and put a bid on it that very day, I went to Home Depot and found a chip that looked like the terracotta tile. (I'm very good at matching colors from memory, and very glad to have that skill.) Then I picked the pale green I most liked that looked good with the terracotta. Then I picked a brick red and a couple of salmon pinks that looked good in between.
It sounds weird, probably, but don't worry. I'm going to do a whole before-and-after photo shoot. And then I'm going to be one of those obnoxious people who's constantly obsessing over home renovations. I'm already fantasizing about the way I'll redo the kitchen counters. I'm planning on tile, either mosaic blend or vitreous glass or some such thing.
Okay. No more. Slipped into a reverie for a second, there.
It's time to wake up my boyfriend, I think.
I have to schedule movers, but I hate to do it til I know for sure.
I had final, final revisions on my novel due Monday, but I finished them Friday evening, so that was a load off my mind. Then I went and had a photo session with a soon-to-be-world-reknowned photographer, Rose, (catch her stuff on Nerve.com and Brazilian photography mags near you) (link not safe for work, prolly) at a local grocery store, in hopes of creating my new author photo, which Warner wants by September. Eek. (I won't be nude in the photo, though. Most likely.)
I ate the same breakfast this morning, driving home from the house that contained the couch on which we spent the last hours of the night, as I ate for dinner before this all started. My breakfast of champions is:
"Hi. Can I get a medium iced latte with sugar-free hazelnut syrup, and a no-sugar-added banana nut cake, please?"
That's what it's called. You call it that in the drive-through window. The people on the other end of the speaker try to correct you, by saying "grande" and "nut coffee cake," sometimes, but just say what I said and they'll know what you mean, and they'll make it taste good.
No more. To work now. 10:46 AM # (3) comments
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
PuppiesHere are the puppies I told y'all about. One of them's going to be mine.
1:22 PM #
(23) comments
How to Be Happy
Some people think you can be happy if you take anti-depressants. Some people think you can be happy if you read enough of the right books about how to do it. Some people think it's impossible to be happy because the world is a really crappy place.
I think it's possible to be happy, but only if you're honest with yourself about what you want. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and here's what I've decided it would take for me to be happy for more than 50% of the time.
1. If I had a little fur stole to wear. It doesn't have to be authentic, but it should be white, and very furry. And warm. And I should be able to wear it whenever I feel like it, whether I'm at work or in the mall or on the beach, without people commenting on its possible inappropriateness. Also, it might be nice if I could sometimes wear long gloves or some kind of animal ears with my stole.
2. If I could eat a lot of donuts without getting fat. I never eat donuts, even when they have really nice ones in the break room for free... and I'm still fat, anyway. But I can't ever eat donuts, or else I'll get even fatter, really fast. It would be nice if, for every donut I ate, I would lose one quarter of a pound, net. I think about that a lot, and I've decided that a quarter of a pound is the exact amount of weight I'd need to lose per donut in order to eat as many donuts as I want, but without losing so much weight that my skin gets loose. So... yeah. Donuts.
3. If I didn't have to work a day job.
4. Failing #3, if the music I play on my computer at my day job wouldn't cut out during my favorite songs.
Thank you. That's all. As you can see, it wouldn't take much.
Labels: fantasies, psychobabble
8:41 AM # (11) commentsMonday, July 17, 2006
Miss Universe 2006I haven't watched a pageant in years and years, but the new Miss Universe site makes it look all exciting. Kind of like America's Next Top Model, except with women who are actually very pretty.
I wrote down my faves, then realized that they all look the same, except Miss Argentina because she's blonde and Miss Lebanon who looks more like a cross between Anne Hathaway and a little doll.
Miss Argentina!
Miss Columbia!
Miss Croatia!
Miss Lebanon!
Miss Sri Lanka! (Why is she Latina? I guess maybe she's ethnically Filipina? Or... whatever.)
In Other Shallow, Women-Objectifying News...
What the hell happened to the Fantanas? Why did they get rid of the original Fantanas?!?
Who in the hell are these people calling themselves the Fantanas now? Hell, no. NO!
Okay... I took a breath. Apparently, there have been 3 incarnations of the Fantanas and the ones I liked weren't even the first. Oh, and my fave one, Lola, was also the chick from Overhaulin'. Dude.
Labels: lookism, pop culture
5:43 PM # (5) commentsNumbered List
1. I love my kids. I had a good weekend with them. (This was my allotted weekend in the midst of their 8-week summer visitation with their dad.) We had fun.
2. Austin is so very hot and dry. Houston is hot, too... but Austin is hot and dry. When people say, "but it's a dry heat," I understand them to mean, "but you will be in hell."
3. I am a little bit psychic. A year ago, my boyfriend took me canoeing on Town Lake in Austin, Texas. We had fun. On the canoe, he said to me, "You should do this with your kids." At that moment, I had a vision of myself with one kid in one canoe, and my other two kids in another canoe. In my vision, the other two kids argued and caused their canoe to flip over. I told my boyfriend of this vision and he refused to see it as any kind of portent. So... it's a year later, and that's exactly what happened Saturday. I took my kids canoeing, and the ones who weren't in my canoe argued. They decided to switch places, then flipped their canoe over, ruining a watch and a cell phone in the process. They were okay, thank gosh. They had life jackets and swim way better than me. Plus, maybe they learned a lesson about arguing while on canoes.
4. At a Fuddruckers*, on Sunday afternoon, I realized that I was happy.
(*Fuddruckers is the name of a hamburger place. Of course everyone renames it nasty things.)
5. Last Saturday I wrote the best poem I've ever written in my life, and that was nice.
6. I'm very excited about buying paint this week. I am going to buy paint for my new house this week! And then, on Sunday, my house's living room and kitchen will get painted!!!
7. I'm very, very, very excited about the tile I will buy for my kitchen counter sometime soon. But not quite as excited about finding out what's under the current veneer/particleboard that is my kitchen counter. Still - finding out will be an adventure, and tiling the counter will be the adventure's reward. 11:38 AM # (12) comments
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Time to Whine!I'm slightly stressed because tonight is the last night I have to finish up my novel revisions. Deadline is tomorrow at 1 PM, which is also the time I need to be on the road, on the way to Austin to spend the weekend with my kids. Oh, and I haven't packed for that trip, yet.
When I come back, I need to hurry the hell up and pack everything in my apartment, then arrange times for all my post-closing house repairs and renovations. Then, on Friday, I close.
I have until August 1 (that means one and a half weekends) to get out of my apartment and get as much unpacked and set up as possible. Because, on August 1, I have to drive to Austin to pick up my kids and bring them home from their summer baby-daddy visitation.
Then, three days after that, they go to Austin for a normal baby-daddy-visitation weekend. Meaning that I get to drive to Austin again that Sunday to pick them up. Then, after that, we have one weekend to get all their school clothes before school starts on August 16.
Did I mention that my work commute will increase from 2 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour? Oh, and I still don't yet know where I'll be putting my kids after school.
But first, before I worry about any of that... I need to finish my novel revisions. Tonight.
I think I can do it. It should be easy. Ain't I a woman? Ain't I, to be precise, a single mom and novelist with a full-time job? Am I not Devo?
Okay, that didn't make sense, I know. Probably a symptom of very slight stress. (Or PCOS. That reminds me - I also have to go to the doctor next week and let her know that my PCOS treatment has stopped working. If you don't know what PCOS means, don't worry. I can sum it up for you very simply: I'm eggless, I probably have diabetes, and I must carry emergency feminine hygiene products in my purse at all times. And I'm fat, but no one knows if the fat is the symptom or the underlying cause.)
I have nightmares every night, but they no longer bother me. This week's have included lost babies, mean bosses, car crashes, and cannabalistic puppies. The puppies were due to the fact that the kids' dad just informed them that he's getting rid of all their puppies. Unless, of course, their mother would like to take the beloved puppies to her new house on August 1.
Really, now that I've typed all this out, it doesn't sound like much. I'm pretty sure I can handle it.
I'm looking forward to our housewarming party, actually. 3:31 PM # (13) comments
(This will only make sense to people who listen to Houston FM radio.)
Oh, my gosh. I can't believe 104 fired Atom and Maria and is replacing them with Roula and Ryan. Jeez.
On the one hand, it doesn't bother me too much because I won't miss Atom at all. I won't miss him screaming into his microphone, and I won't miss his constant cycle of "say I'm not gay, joke that maybe I am gay, force Johnny Bravo to dress like a woman for my pleasure, apologize to my wife."
On the other hand, I didn't miss Roula. I didn't miss her complete ignorance of news and pop culture, I didn't miss her blind loyalty to President Bush, and I don't miss her whiny voice.
But I will miss Maria Todd a lot. She's been my favorite radio DJ in Houston for a long, long time.
They should have combined Maria with Ryan. And then told Ryan not to discuss homosexuality. (What is with Houston's male DJs that they're constantly discussing their own sexuality and their suspicions of other men's?)
I hope Maria gets a better job soon. Does anyone even listen to Sam Malone on 96.5? Only straight-up brown shirts and people who really care about how often he eats chicken parmesan with his wife, right?
Labels: Houston, pop culture
7:05 AM # (6) commentsTuesday, July 11, 2006
I'm going on strike.From now on, whenever I'm with a woman and she starts whining about the way she looks, I'm just going to say, "Stop it."
I'm not talking about general discussions on hair color and pretty things to wear. I'm talking about the self-hate. You know what I mean.
Don't tell me about how fat you are, or how you're trying to lose the fat. Stop it.
Don't tell me that your hair didn't come out right, or what you did to try to make it right. Stop it.
Don't show me every piece of evidence that you're getting old, and then tell me every single thing you're doing to make it look like you aren't. Stop it!
I don't need to hear the run down of all your unfavorite body parts.
I don't need every single detail of how unsatisfied and unhappy you are every single time you look in the mirror.
Don't just stop talking about it. For the love of God, please stop thinking about it. Please, please. Otherwise, what are you going to talk about when you really do get old? What would you talk about if you were in an accident (knock on wood) and lost all your limbs? And your face? And your boobs?
If you believe in immortal souls, what will your soul talk about after it's left your body? The fact that it has a saggier butt than the other souls? The fact that it wished it'd had more time to style its soul-hair?
Stop making yourself miserable. And stop boring me, please. Because I love you and I want you to worry about better things. 8:33 AM # (12) comments
Monday, July 10, 2006
The Devil Whines at His GirlfriendWe saw The Devil Wears Prada over the weekend and enjoyed it. I'm not going to get into a discussion over whether or not the movie was a distortion of the book's mesage, because I didn't read the book and I don't think it matters, anyway. But I will say that the movie inspired me to give a multiple-part Public Service Announcement. Here it is:
1. If you find yourself passing up an opportunity to meet someone who could give you the job of your dreams because it's your boyfriend's birthday, then you should consider realigning your priorities, or else dumping your boyfriend.
2. If you pass up an opportunity to get the job of your dreams in order to make it home on your boyfriend's birthday, and then your boyfriend passive-aggressively whines at you, then you should dump him.
3. If you take a job you aren't sure you'll like, but then end up liking it, and your friends rag on you for changing your mind, then you should get new friends.
4. If, during the course of a difficult entry-level job, you end up meeting people who get you the job of your dreams, and then your boyfriend accuses you of selling out for "purses and shoes"... then, hello - what the hell are you still doing with this asshole? Dump his birthday-cake-bitchy ass.
5. If, after everything else, your boyfriend smugly tells you that he's moving to another city to pursue the job of his dreams? Then I guess you got what you deserved and, hopefully, you've learned your lesson.
Through every scene of the protagonist and her boyfriend, my boyfriend and I were simultaneously whispering, "Dump him. Dump his ass!" Afterwards, we had a long talk about how annoying the movie was for pretending that a birthday was more important than a career.
Then, the next day, we rented Fever Pitch. I wasn't enthused about seeing it but, in contrast, Drew Barrymore gave us such a mature take on how to handle relationships and careers.
Moviemakers: It isn't 1972 anymore. Stop showing us bitchy boyfriends who expect their girlfriends to leave work early and bake cakes. Stop showing us women who get punished for working hard. We all know that the opposite is true - hard work is awesome. People who don't work hard are lazy or, worse, on their way to being divorced and left with nothing.
Labels: pop culture
4:52 PM # (9) commentsFriday, July 07, 2006
Things I Have Eaten for the Love of AsiansMeaning, things I have eaten at the urging of my Asian boyfriend's family and friends.
1. Fish heads.
2. Fish fins. Fish toes, fish brains, fish beaks. Fish cartilage.
3. Fried blood.
4. Chicken feet.
5. Green soy milk.
6. Stuff that looked like delicious custard but turned out to be weird eggy stuff.
7. Crawfish that I had seen alive, trying to escape the sink.
No, I'm really just kidding, because I am a half-Mexican who grew up with Mexicans and therefore I'll eat just about anything, anyway. Except eyes. But intestines, pig heads, and cow tongues are all fair game.
On Father's Day, we had pizza and Shiner Bock with my dad for lunch. Then, for dinner, we went with my boyfriend's parents and had duck, whole fish, and an awesome $200 Alaskan King crab. The crab had been alive in a tank when we ordered it. It was about two or two-and-a-half feet across. They cooked half of it with black pepper flavor and half was ginger scallion. My favorite was the black pepper. But the best part of all was when my boyfriend's parents found out it cost $200. Their dentist son (not my boyfriend, but his brother) told them. The dad said, "I don't know why you spent $200 on this when it tastes the same as a $35 dungeoness crab would have." The mom said, "$200? Oh, no. See if they will take it back!"
(Asians reading this are nodding or rolling their eyes, but I'm always delighted by my boyfriend's parents and their crazy ways. I love other people's parents when they do things that annoy their kids.)
Speaking of Food
My boyfriend and I divide our friends in two categories: those who will eat at Chili's, and those who will not. We will not. We won't eat at Chili's, TGI Friday's, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday's, or that other one. Unless we're starving, and even then we'll still snottily critique the entire meal.
We are not food snobs, who only eat the best food. We're worse - we're food bitches. (That means we like the best food but also eat Jack in the Box tacos.)
Trashy Phase
I'm back in my trashy/slutty phase, which seems to happen every summer. That means I wear full makeup and big earrings, and my hair turns blonder. I explained this to a natural blonde friend who was visiting from small-town Louisiana. She sort of wrinkled her nose as I said, "And then more highlights, and then blonde roots, and blonder, and blonder and blonder! Until I look completely trashy and awesome like Kirstie Alley, or like that waitress over there."
Also, I cut my hair shorter again. But not because the long hair was too trashy. On the contrary - the long hair got heavy and wouldn't stay big. I like big, Texas hair, as my British coworker enjoys pointing out. Hell, yeah, I do. What's the use of being born in Texas if you're not going to have big, bleached hair? Dude.
Labels: culture, domestic, my sex life, vanity
8:33 AM # (21) commentsThursday, July 06, 2006
All My Vitamin D Comes from CoffeeBack 13 or 14 years ago, when I lactated for the first time, I decided to stop drinking milk. It seemed illogical to me, suddenly, that a grown mammal who is not a cow would drink breastmilk meant for baby cows. Why not sell gallons of human breastmilk in the grocery stores, I wondered. That would be no less ridiculous.
I still eat cheese and yogurt, but that's different. Meaning, that's hypocrisy. I admit it. I provide no explanation.
Lately, however, I've been drinking lots and lots of lattes. Or else I'll drink coffee with enough half & half to turn it a very pale beige. And I'm wondering if maybe this is my body's way of crying out for milk. "We'll get her to think she needs caffeine," my organs say. "Then, we'll get whole milk and/or half & half! Then, all our base will be belong to us!!!"
I would just take calcium supplements, but those cause kidney stones, you know.
Labels: health
2:32 PM # (9) commentsWednesday, July 05, 2006
I don't care what anybody says...Superman Returns was not good. Aside from Superman being smoking hot (although not as hot as Clark Kent, somehow), nothing in that movie was worth it.
I was especially disappointed by the lameness of Lois Lane.
That's all I'm going to say. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
(Did you say that I already did? Sorry!)
Labels: pop culture
8:46 PM # (11) commentsMonday, July 03, 2006
Multiple Choice1. How do you decide what colors to paint your new house?
a. You walk into the house and let it speak to you, like a canvas would.
b. You drive to Home Depot and tell the man the names of the colors you've had planned since you were twelve years old.
c. You don't. It's already painted blue and beige, with matching floral borders and plaid valances.
2. What are contractors, inspectors, and termite men asking when they ask you if you're married?
a. They're asking if there'll be a man around to help you maintain the work they do.
b. They're asking if they can get away with overcharging you.
c. They're asking you for a date.
3. In what kind of lesbianism do you prefer to engage?
a. Heartfelt relationships in the privacy of my own home.
b. If a hot friend at a club offers me lesbian make-out sessions, I'll briefly indulge, just like others might accept a drink or a hit from a marijuana pipe.
c. I like to kiss girls in public because it makes boys look at me.
4. What is your newest, favoritest song?
a. "Waiting For The Sirens’ Call (Planet Funk Remix)" on Ultra Electro Disc 1.
b. "Easy" on Ultra Electro Disc 2.
c. I can't discuss these matters until after I buy decent speakers for my car.
5. What is most likely to keep a friend from being invited to one of your soirees?
a. Poor sense of humor.
b. Incompatible age.
c. Uncontrollable public horniness.
6. What is easier to do than revise your upcoming novel in time for your editor's deadline?
a. Write multiple-choice questions for my blog.
b. Write poems for an possible chapbook.
c. Do insurance work.
7. What are the subjects of the poems you're writing for your upcoming chapbook?
a. My coworkers and their bathroom habits.
b. The belated, beloved Mr. Rogers.
c. Love.
Eyes on your own papers. No need to post your answers in the comments, as we'll be grading our own work. 3:11 PM # (8) comments
