Guess what. I'm gonna be on Road Trip Nation! Thanks to the Unknown Reader who recommended my blog to her friend Camilla. Unknown Reader, I enjoyed meeting your friend!
Sneak preview of upcoming novel.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
eBay SaleYou guys, I'm selling some crafty products on eBay, meaning products I crafted myself, as well as a few other things. Feel free to look at them or to ignore them, as you please. Either way, it won't hurt my feelings. I just have to sell things periodically so I can continue to write off my craft supply purchases on my taxes. It's a sickness, I know.
For sale:
bracelet with dangling pastel beads
carnelian and red agate necklace #1
carnelian and red agate necklace #2
rhodonite and rose quartz necklace
bronze and pink freshwater pearl necklace
pink and gray dangly pearl necklace
pale jade necklace
green wood bead necklace
amber earrings
silver ring
amber ring
garnet ring
silver cuff bracelet
vintage cross pendant
that painting I did a while back, of the woman
There you go. Happy browsing.
Get Rich Quick Scheme
The other day I saw a People magazine, and its cover gave me an idea. So I turned to my son who has Asperger's, and I said, "Hey, Dallas, how would you like it if Mommy wrote a book all about your Asperger's and how tragic it is and how dramatic it's made Mommy's life? And then Mommy could go on book tour and make a lot of money?"
My son said, "More money than you make writing fiction?"
I said, "Way, way more."
He said, "Would you tell heart-rending personal stories about your strength, your struggle, and your survival that would embarrass me, later, when I'm old enough to understand them fully?"
I said, "Maybe. Then again, maybe not, since you do have Asperger's. Maybe you'll never fully understand, or else it simply won't hurt your feelings. We can always hope, but either way, we'll make money. Don't forget the money."
He said, "Will you use the money to buy me a PS3, an XBox 360, and a bigger TV?"
I said, "Of course I will, honey."
He said, "Then sell our story, Mommy. Sell it away!"
Just kidding. That conversation never took place.
[Edited to clarify: Hey, everybody. This segment of the entry is referring to Jenny McCarthy, as featured on the latest cover of People magazine, promoting her book about her personal struggles with her kid's autism, and the power of Jim Carrey's penis helping her through it.
This segment of the entry is not about my long-time fellow blogger and author Rob Rummel-Hudson. For the record, although I've been catty in my time, I'm not catty/lame/rondo enough to hate on Rob on my blog, while linking to him and Facebook-friending him at the same time. If I thought Rob was selling out his kid for money, I wouldn't link him or Facebook friend him. C'mon, people. Y'all should know better than that.]
Inspirational
On the way to work, I pass a company that performs a very specialized service for other companies. It's not a service that I'll ever need, but I always stare at the company and remember its name, because it has an inspirational marquee. Know what I mean? They have one of those LED signs on which the owner has chosen to put a different motivational saying each day.
Weirdly, although I normally ignore crap like that, this marquee frequently inspires me. Like, one day, a while back, it said something like "If you knew you wouldn't fail, what would you attempt?" Something like that -- poorly worded, but it got the point across. What would I try to do if I knew for certain that I wouldn't fail? I thought about it until the end of my commute.
Usually, I end up thinking about the owner of this company and what his motivation is for providing these thoughts. He could use the marquee for advertisements, but instead, he tries to inspire us all. Why? What kind of person does something like that?
It's something to think about on a long, long drive.
Dazed and Confused and Swollen
If none of this makes sense, it's because I'm on drugs, because I recently had surgery, because my teeth are sad and lame, and yet strong and stubborn and constantly having to be messed with by surgical means. I had this jacked-up tooth remnant, under an old crown, and it turned bad, so my dentist (who is the best dentist in the world, fyi) tried to remove it with pliers and such, but it wouldn't come out because the rotten tooth was holding on with all its might to my jawbone, as all my teeth like to do, apparently...
... and so my dentist was forced to give up, sweatily and reluctantly, and he sent me to his friend, the best oral surgeon in the world, and she removed my tooth (and I told y'all before how she looks sort of like Mimi Rogers, but I never told y'all that she studied dance at the same school, at the same time, as Madonna!), and it went as well as possible, but now I'm kind of achy and drugged up. Bleh.
Oh, well, that's life, though. My super power is fast healing. My kryptonite is cavity-prone teeth. If teeth being fused to jawbones were a super power of any use, I'd be bragging that I had that, too. But it hasn't done anything for me yet. We'll see what happens, though. Maybe one day my stubborn teeth will save the world. 10:14 PM # (25) comments
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
LatelyI used to never drink red wine but now I only drink red wine. I've gone from merlot to cabernet and chianti, and next must be shiraz.
We bought our cat a water fountain. She likes to drink the water right from its trickle source. Some people would say it's a waste of energy, to keep it running, but I think it's such a small thing to make a small creature happy, and therefore worth doing. You know?
I think I'm gonna be a fairy for Halloween. Maybe. I'll have to make the costume myself, though, because I don't want to be a slut fairy, and therefore there's no suitable costume in the stores. (All the women's costumes for sale are slut costumes. Remind me to complain about that later.)
This is what I have time to do, between my long commute home and bed time:
1. monitor homework
2. monitor everyone getting fed, one way or another
3. nag about the chores that should've been done before I got home
4. clean up only the very messiest messes, concurrently with one of the tasks above
5. exercise with Gilad
6. nagging the kids to brush their teeth and wash their faces
7. the reading of the bedtime story
and that's about it.
Every single other thing -- dentist bank groceries bills boyfriend oil change tires laundry -- I have to do over the weekend. Or during my lunch hours. Or in my dreams.
I'm glad we got a cat. This one doesn't tear up the furniture or make a big mess, and I feel fleeting joy whenever I see her little cat face. She always has a funny or cute expression. She walks around in a constant state of "Hey guys," or "Am I interrupting?" or "JESUS, A SQUIRREL!!" or "In my fantasies, everyone is chasing me. Look how clever I am, running away from them. Oops, sorry.. smashed into the plant again..."
Back to the Halloween thing.
Not a slutty fairy, and not a pink or purple fairy, and not a gothic fairy, and not an overtly glittery fairy. I want to be a nature-based fairy, in shades of green or aqua with brown, and only a little bit of magic in evidence. In my mind, as I design it, I think the words "pond fairy." I'm a pond fairy, dammit. We're going to a party where I always feel a little insecure. No, strike that -- I always feel insecure at any Halloween party we go to, because I feel like there's this giant expectation that all the women must be dressed promiscuously, and they all must be thin, and the whole purpose of the holiday is to put them on display to the men serving them liquor.
And that's fine -- I'm grown-up enough to ignore any bullshit that I don't want to take part in. But at the same time, I want to get all into it and make a nice costume. Yet I feel there's no use in wasting my creativity on such an event. You know?
I guess I could go to the Ren Fair, because the people who go there are more appreciative of creativity. But we're bored of going there and seeing the same exact stuff year after year. So I tell myself to make whatever costume I want, and then to photograph it and put it on my Flickr, and that'll make it worth the effort. But then I feel silly about that. How vain, to spend money and effort on photos meant to show off, right? (Same way I feel, now, about doing any creative thing for which I don't already have a fee negotiated. :( )
Worst part: I get envious of my boyfriend. He loves to work hard on his costumes and come up with something awesome every single year. And people appreciate it, and they compliment him. Then, they look at me and think, "Not sexy enough," and move on. And I feel... whiny because I haven't received enough attention, I guess. Hate to admit such a weakness, but that's how I feel. Creativity should trump plain nudity, in my mind, but it never will. Will it?
I was looking for inspiration online. (Fairy costumes, I mean.) I found this Flickr set called Convention Costumes Pool. Look at it. What do you think? How many of the women pictured here enjoyed making their costumes? And how many enjoy displaying their bodies to a bunch of convention guys? And how many women here enjoyed making their costumes, but got completely ignored in favor of the convention guys and the women displaying their bodies?
There were some bad-ass costumes among the social experiment, though. Check it:
1. Final Fantasy = awesome piping
2. meshy mer-person
3. Final Fantasy hangover?
4. Awesome Color Scheme Woman
5. I need this woman's wig.
And you know what?
Screw it, while I'm there, I'll just link y'all to some of my favest Flickr faves:
1. shoe fetish
2. If I had to date a non-human, it would be Relax Bear.
3. I want to eat this (then follow Jackie around and eat everything else she eats, too.)
4. Stained glass is always good.
5. So is just about anything that Jagosaurus photographs.
That's all.
Labels: domestic, fantasies, Halloween, lookism, parenting, photos, sexism, vanity, venting
7:57 PM # (9) commentsMonday, September 17, 2007
Disappointing Phoned In PerformanceSo I went to this event Friday night, and the mayor of Houston was supposed to take part in the same "opening ceremony" that I took part in. He showed up very late, first of all. And then...
Did you see Time Bandits? You know how, at the end, the Supreme Being finally shows up, and he's this doddering, distracted old man who is so, so completely underwhelming? That's how I felt when our mayor finally dragged himself up to the stage. Underwhelmed. Short-changed on my climax.
I understand that politicians are busy and have to phone in appearances once in a while. But I've seen politicians show up late, to this very same venue even, and still manage to exude the same charisma that presumably got them elected. In this case, the mayor didn't even do that. He just sort of rambled, without even looking at his audience. People who are more familiar with his public persona tell me that he's always like that, though. Lamest: The stuff he ad-libbed was kind of off-message from the stuff that got said before he showed up. And he said unfactual things that made me look at his assistant, who stood in the audience with a bright smile plastered onto her face, and wonder why she couldn't have bothered to do at least some half-ass Google research in the car on the way over.
So, in short, his "speech" was a complete disconnect. As my boyfriend said, later, there was a steady build-up throughout the evening... and then the mayor showed up and it all came crashing down.
Sorry to go on about an event you guys didn't see, but I felt the need to vent. It was one of those things where I get annoyed and then say, "I ought to blog about it!" in the same way that people used to say, "I ought to write a letter!" And then, in this case, I'm actually doing it. Mayor White, you disappointed me. There: blogged, logged, vented.
If you have a big butt...
... and you need some weight-loss inspiration, and you're tired of flipping through fitness magazines and seeing bodies that could never, ever in a million years be your own... Then you should start reading Spanish.
My boyfriend and I were at the grocery store and, for the hundredth time, our eyes were drawn to the Spanish mags. In this case, it was Mira!, which proclaimed, "Las 30 Bubis y Pompis Mas Sexy!"
"Oh my gosh," I said. "I think this says, The 30 Sexiest Boobs and Butts."
"I love your people," said my boyfriend. He took the magazine off the rack and flipped through the pages. "You should buy this. I get to look at it first, though." He flipped a little more. "I might have to look at it alone, actually. God, I love your people."
I bought it and, later that night, I saw the 30 sexiest boobs and butts. Although, actually, it was 15 pairs of boobs, making 30 breasts total, and then 15 butts added to that. Or, if you're thinking about it in Spanish, it was actually 30 separate nalgas (butt cheeks). I won't spoil it for you guys planning to run out and get your own copy. But I will say that I felt some of the Latina celebrities got cheated in favor of celebrities best known in America. (J.Lo. didn't get number one, though, thankfully.)
The big (literally) 30 aside, the most interesting part of the magazine, to me, was the ads. Imagine if you took an American magazine and replaced every weight-loss-product ad with an ad promising to make your butt rounder, your boobs higher, and your whole torso "como una guitarra!" These ads come with multiple visual aids -- photos of round-bootied women with little arrows echoing their shapes.
I realize, of course, that the old-fashioned hourglass figure is as unattainable for some women as In Touch's 20 Best Beach Bodies is for me. And I don't believe that women should be pressured to conform to any ideal.
However, at the same time, I have to say that it's comforting to be reminded that, in some places on Earth, I can be considered kind of close to the ideal. I smile at the thought of walking down another country's street and not having white frat boys yell "No fat chicks!" out the window.
Okay, I admit that I'm just exaggerating for essay effect, here. Y'all know and I know that there are plenty of Latino men right here in the US who will be glad to ogle big-butted girls as disgustingly as you please. Really, I was just glad to get a magazine with celebrities I could point to and say, "Eight more months of calorie-counting and I'll look just like her!"
Weight Loss update, only for those who care:
I was gonna tell y'all that I've lost 24 pounds since May 15th. But then my scale changed its mind and added back 4 pounds over night. And then it took them away. And then it said I weighed zero. So, let's not rely on the scale. Let's say, instead, that I lost two pant sizes since May 15th. I know that's not as much as I could have lost, but I'm still pleased with myself. Good job, me.
How am I losing the weight? Easy! I'm obsessing over it. But not in the bad way. Or, at least, not in a way that I think is bad. I just count calories, and I think a lot about what I eat, and I think about how many calories I burn. And it's fun, actually.
Fun for me, I mean. The other day, I asked my friend Julio if he'd give me his scientific opinion on something. He said okay, because he likes science and is easily gulled. So I confided in him all my worried about BMI, ideal weight, and frame size.
(According to my elbow bone measurement, my frame is very small. According to my wrist measurement, my frame is very large. According to my brother Erik, I have "a big fucking head for a girl." How can I know which weight range is ideal for me if I don't really know my frame size? Why are there endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs, but no Tyrannasauras-Rex-o-morphs, like me -- people with giant heads, giant legs, and tiny, tiny arms?)
So I was talking to Julio about these things, and after a half-hour or so, he said, "You really are kind of obsessing over this, aren't you?" And I said, "Well, yeah, but that's what I do -- obsess. That's how I get things done. How do you think I have the staying power to write a whole book, huh? I obsess!"
So then another hour passed, and I was still just touching on the finer points of my weight loss ideas and issues, and then Julio interrupted and said, "Be honest with me. You're talking to me about this stuff not because it's scientific, but because your boyfriend got sick of hearing it and told you to talk to someone else."
Wrong! Of course not. Hello -- my boyfriend would never do that! Instead, he'd just stop listening, but then keep nodding his head in the most convincing way.
So, guess what I'm going to do now. I'm going to share my information, so that my fellow constructive obsessives can have something to think about on their breaks.
How to Lose Weight, Slowly but Surely
by Gwen
1. First, calculate the number of calories you need to eat daily in order to maintain your current weight. Here's a calculator for that.
2. Once you have that number -- let's say it's 2600 -- subtract 500 from it if you want to lose one pound a week. Subtract 1000 from it if you want to lose two pounds a week. (Doctors say please don't eat less than 1200 calories per day. It's not safe.) So, let's say you're now dedicated to eating 1600 per day. You're going to have 500 for breakfast, 500 for lunch, 500 for dinner, and one 100-calorie snack, let's say.
3. How do you know how many calories you're eating? Either read the nutritional info, or go find a calorie chart, or go to your fave restaurants' web sites and look up the nutritional info of what you want to eat (and be shocked at how many calories are in restaurant food). Can you just eat three 500-calorie pieces of cake per day, plus one 100-calorie candy? Sure you can, if you want to be all jacked-up and unhealthy, and you want your skin to get scabby and your hair to look all dull and stuff. Alternately, you can eat the proper ratio of protein, fat, and carbs, and turn glossy and awesome like a golden retriever in an expensive dog-food commercial. Your choice.
Tip 1: Vegetables, fruits, and watery foods like soup have fewer calories per ounce than meat, cheese, and dairy foods.
Tip 2: You can cut up zucchini and add it to pretty much anything (chili, casseroles, sandwiches, cake, crack pipes), and then your food will have fewer calories per ounce.
Tip 3: Whenever you go to Starbucks, be sure to say "non-fat" in front of whatever you normally order.
Tip 4: Jelly has fewer calories than butter.
4. Do you also need to exercise in order to lose the weight? No, you do not. However, if you count calories but then lie on your ass watching TV all day, you'll probably lose muscle mass as well as fat, and then you'll become a slender blob, and your flesh will feel like that of a green, hairless caterpillar. So you might want to exercise at least a little. The coolest thing about exercise is that it burns calories, and therefore it either makes you lose the weight faster, or else it helps you out on days when you felt obligated to eat more than your 1600 calories. Here is a mathmatical formula for that:
What you were supposed to eat
+ one donut
+ one glass of wine
- 45 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution
= You still did okay today.
How do you know how many calories your exercising burns? With a calculator like this one.
5. Buy smaller clothes. Don't buy too many at a time, though, unless you hit a plateau. I find that, the minute I break down and buy a bunch of new pants, I immediately lose enough weight to have wasted all that money. So only buy a lot of pants if you believe in Murphy's Law or the Alanis Morrissette brand of irony. You might want to save money for new clothes in advance, since you'll need more than you're imagining right now. I mean, you'll need all new underwear, eventually, and maybe even smaller shoes. You might want to look into finding a good tailor in your neighborhood. They can take in your clothes as you lose, and save you a little money.
6. As you lose weight, you'll need to recalculate the number of calories needed to maintain your new weight, then subtract from that new number accordingly. If you don't do this, you'll hit a plateau and then get all whiny and give up.
7. When you've reached your target weight, recalculate your maintenance calorie number, and then just don't subtract from it anymore. So, hypothetically, you could eat the same thing as before, but with four glazed donuts added, because glazed donuts are about 240 calories each. Just kidding. Don't do the donut thing. Just add 1000 calories of carrots, instead.
And there you have it. It's just that simple. I'm crossing my fingers for you. Good luck!
Labels: pop culture, vanity, venting
6:06 AM # (13) commentsThursday, September 13, 2007
Missed Connections, Missed Socialization LessonsIf you don't already read the Craigslist Missed Connections for your town, you totally should start doing so. For those of you who aren't familiar, Missed Connections are the section of the classifieds in which people post ads to specific strangers. Like, if you met someone at a club last night and she gave you her number, but you lost her number, and you also forgot her name, because you were completely wasted, then you might want to post a Missed Connection ad in search of her.
Or, like, if you saw a handsome stranger at Home Depot, and he smiled at you in an inviting way, but then a meteor hit the earth and everybody died, preventing you from getting his phone number, then you might like to post an ad in the Missed Connections section of the paper in the afterlife, in case he sees it there and wants to hook up.
I periodically read Houston's Missed Connections, not because I suspect that any stranger might have fallen in love with me at a nearby Starbuck's, but because they're pathetically hilarious. The majority of them fall into five main types of sadness, which I will chronicle for you here.
1. Way Overconfident Men
You: Hot blonde, about 5'6" and 114 lbs, wearing a denim skirt that showed off your cute pink and white striped panties when you bent over to pick up your baby's toy. Me: Interested in getting to know you better, possibly for more than just a one-night stand. Contact me ASAP.
2. Women Whose Insecurity Renders Their Ads Pointless
I saw you again last night at Memorial Park. You're the bike cop with the impossibly beautiful eyes. You probably wouldn't be interested in me, since my BMI is 19% and I have cellulite on the underside of my buttocks, and my cup size is only B and I can't yet afford the plastic surgery I so desperately need. And you're probably married, too. Or gay. But I just wanted to post this ad to tell you that you're gorgeous, and seeing you each afternoon is the highlight of my day, and whoever your wife (or partner) is, she (or he) is very, very lucky!
3. The Very Promiscuous
We met briefly last night at MBar. You wore a pale blue American Apparel summer shirt, I wore a white Abercrombie tank and blew you in the second stall. Get in touch with me -- I need to share test results.
4. The Desperate High School Shout-Out
Anybody know Belinda F. from Austin High class of '89? If so, please tell her to call Reynaldo from her 3rd period Fundamentals of Math. It's an emergency. I need to know how you're doing, Belinda. I need to know what you've been doing since graduation.
5. The Unintelligible
To: You Know Who. From: The One You Hurt. My question is, Why? Why did you do it? No one had to know about it but you and me, and her. Why did you have to destroy everything, including my heart? And my credit?
Have you ever posted a Missed Connections ad? Do you know anyone who has? Do you know anyone who actually found love (or sex) through one? Please share.
New Banks = KHAN!
My boyfriend and I get our hearts broken, locally, on a weekly basis. Why? Well, there's a lot of development going on in Houston lately. Lots of new shopping centers are going up like wildfire. We see one going up near work, and what do we do? We dream.
Him: "Maybe it's a new restaurant. Maybe it's something good, like sushi or pho. Or sushi-pho fusion."
Me: "Or bubble tea! Maybe it's sushi and pho with bubble tea!"
Him: "Yeah! And po' boy sandwiches with marinated hot peppers! Or, hey, maybe it's a store."
Me: "Yeah! A shoe store, maybe. Or a wholesale jewelry store. Or a craft supply store! With bubble tea and low-calorie sandwiches! And a wine bar, and free babysitting! And roller-skate rental!"
So we watch the new development, driving slowly around its block each day. And then, finally, the sign goes up. It says:
FIRST NATIONAL TUMBLEWEED BANK.
Or:
WASHKAHATCHIE BANK
Or:
THE PEOPLE'S CREDIT UNION OF UNITED FARM TEACHERS
Because, I swear, nine times out of ten, it's a freaking bank. And my boyfriend and I look at each other, and we sigh. A tear runs down each of our cheeks. We wonder aloud who has such pressing need for so many effing bank branches.
And then we move on to the next development. 6:09 AM # (15) comments
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Five Quick Stories Involving Alice V.I.
When I was young - thirteen, fourteen - I used to sing. I walked down the streets of our neighborhood, amongst the stray dogs and blooming cannas, singing Blondie's "Heart of Glass." In the grocery store, I'd use the Muzak as my own personal karaoke machine. In the parking lot of St. Joseph Church, while waiting for Youth Group to start, I'd raise my hands, spin like Stephen Tyler, and sing Ozzie Osborne or Janis Joplin or whatever came to mind.
To encourage my love of singing, the youth group staff sent me to see Alice V. Or maybe they did it to punish me, I don't know. But either way, they sent me on a Thursday afternoon, across the church parking lot to a tiny orange house done up with a mural of the Virgin Mary. "Go," they said, pointing. "She's waiting for you there."
Skipping up the steps and through the door, humming a merry classic rock tune, I followed the scent of smoke. In the half light, made by dusty windows covered over with photographs and drums, maracas, bells, I saw her. Alice. At the piano bench, in an oaken haze of seriousness. Like a monument on a cliff —- no, like a dragon on a mountain. Unblinking, unsmiling, she waited for me.
I went to her, silently, the hum dead in my throat.
On the well worn piano, she played a scale of five notes, up and down. “Sing that.”
I coughed. My throat had run dry.
“Sing ah,” she said. “with the music.”
She raised her hand to play the scale again, and I knew she meant business, so I opened my mouth and squeaked, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, AH, ah, ah, ah-ah!”
Alice shook her head, then reached over and pressed my body with her left hand, right on my t-shirt and jeans. “Push with your stomach. Sing loud,” she said.
Shocked by her boldness, and totally afraid now, I pushed with my stomach and gave birth to the notes that she played on the keys. She played another scale, higher. And another, and another. And I sang through them all, trembling, but loud and on tune.
“Good,” she said. “Come back on Sunday morning.” I finally saw her eyes. They weren’t mean, like I expected. They were tired, and cynical, and bored, and amused, all at once. But not mean.
I walked out of the little house elated. Glad to be leaving, but also looking forward to coming back.
Sunday morning, back at the orange house across the church parking lot, I met with a motley crew of sopranos, altos, and tenors, all adults, all from completely different walks of life. They were the church choir, and what they had in common was that Alice talked to them all the same way she’d talked to me. For an hour we sang church songs, and she barked commands at us. Louder! Higher! Less vibrato! Take the harmony!
Everyone focused on the music, and I had no time to be shy. All too soon, the hour was up, and the other singers left to prepare for Mass. I found Alice smoking behind the sacristy, and I thanked her for the lesson.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Mass is about to start. Go into the church. Tell them to get you a microphone.”
“But,” I stammered, “this was my first practice ever, and I don’t even go to church. I can’t just go in there and sing!”
Alice blew smoke from her lungs slowly, then said her favorite thing—something I would hear her say many more times in the future. “Baptism by fire. It’s the best way to learn.”
II.
For 30 years now, Alice V. has run a non-profit arts organization near downtown. She gets local poor kids and puts paintbrushes, violins, or microphones in their hands. She writes to local Oil & Gas corporations and demands that they should give these kids money. If she can, she forces these kids to go to college. That’s what she chose to do with her life, and she does it all day long.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, I was one of those kids and Alice V. let me work at her organization after school, as an assistant assistant, so that I could have money to buy clothes. My main duties were organizing the sheet music room, and removing the yellowed leaves from Alice V.’s plants.
The main secretary was Yvonne. I was sixteen, and Yvonne was seventeen, but Yvonne was a whole lot older than me because she was six months pregnant, and I’d never even had a boyfriend yet.
One day, Alice V. needed us to drive her station wagon somewhere. Some kind of emergency—someone needed help. Alice had to drive someone else’s car to the next neighborhood over, and someone had to bring along the station wagon behind her.
“Not me,” said Yvonne. “I can’t drive.”
I quickly added, “I can’t drive, either.”
We were the only ones there. Alice looked at us with the cool glare that, by now, Yvonne was used to, but that still scared me a little bit. She turned it on Yvonne first.
“You’re going to have a baby, but you can’t drive a car?”
Yvonne giggled and shook her head again.
Alice turned to me. I was very afraid to drive the car, but more afraid of pissing her off. She handed me the keys and told me what I’d have to do.
“Come on,” she said. “Baptism by fire.”
The one-mile trip was uneventful, except for when I followed Alice under the Houston Avenue train bridge. Down in its darkness, Yvonne, my copilot, shrieked like a banshee. So I shrieked, too. It was cathartic and helped me focus. We kept it up, screeching like teakettles all the way to our destination, three blocks away. I stepped on the brake. Alice came over and told me to turn off the key. Yvonne and I fell back onto the bench seat, laughing with hysterical relief.
That’s how baptism by fire feels. Scary and thrilling, and then you’re grateful at the end.
III.
People said that Alice never laughed, but they were wrong. One time I said something silly, and accidentally made her laugh. She had a deep, smoky chuckle that came out like a cough, as if she, herself, was surprised to hear it. Then she’d shake her head, as if chuckling was frivolous, and it was time to get back to her mission of saving local poor kids.
After that, I was addicted. I followed her all around like a personal court jester, cracking jokes a mile a minute. Usually, she didn’t laugh. Usually, she just gave me food and told me what to do.
IV.
One evening, Alice called me and her other personal jester, Tania R. “I’m going to a party,” she said. “Do you want to go with me? There’ll be food.” Yes, we did want to go.
Tania’s parents owned a corner store in First Ward, the next neighborhood over from mine. I walked to her house and together, we picked through the pile of clothes that her mother sold to people in Mexico. We found things that were slinky or sparkly enough for a party. When Alice came to pick us up, we were waiting outside with the chickens and liquor crates, very excited.
The party was at a mall. Although the mall was closed for the night, its doors had been unlocked for this event. Black tie. Invitation only.
I looked at the other guests just long enough to see that they were rich, and we were underdressed. Even Alice was. She had on the same kind of skirt and blouse as always, with comfortable shoes.
So I avoided the guests and looked at the food. There were tables and tables of it. Giant shrimp on fancy skewers. Pyramids of the most expensive fruit. Mini quiches. Cheesecakes and brownies with delicate, intricate decorations.
I was in awe. What world was this, where they gave away giant shrimp for free? A world where I would never live, except for brief moments, through flukes like this.
The party had a mime. Tania and I engaged him—mimed with him and danced with him for hours. Meanwhile, Alice did what she’d come to do. One by one, she went around to every rich person there and hit them up for money. Guilt-tripped them into pledging funds. Pointed out me and Tania, happy in our used clothes, and made those people write checks.
At the end, Tania and I rode home in Alice’s station wagon, our faces flushed with pleasure and our purses filled with cheesecake and shrimp. Alice was relaxed now, and I realized that she hadn’t enjoyed the party at all. She’d done what she had to do, and fed a couple of poor kids in the process.
V.
I remember the day I left Alice’s non-profit for poor kids.
It was a Saturday morning, and I was riding in a borrowed pick-up truck, with Alice on one side of me, and my dad on the other. In the bed of the truck was everything I’d ever owned. We were driving to Austin in silence.
I’d been angry with her all week. We’d argued.
My argument had been, “I want to move in to my friend’s apartment and get a job at Dairy Queen.”
Her argument had been, “No.”
She had spent the last four years putting microphones, paintbrushes, food, and paychecks into my hands. She’d convinced a Rice professor to tutor me, to keep me from failing Calculus. She’d convinced a rich board member to pay my fee to take the SATs. She’d convinced everyone she knew to pull strings with everyone they knew, to let me apply to colleges way past the deadline. And I’d been accepted by UT. So she’d called a Representative at the State Capitol and forced him to give me a clerk job. And she’d had him badger his staff to find me a place, for free. And she’d dredged up some grant funding and called it a scholarship, and given it to me keep me afloat until my real, full scholarship came through from the University.
And so, there we were, in the borrowed pick-up truck, on the way to Austin. Alice sitting next to me, driving, silent. And I was so, so angry with her.
The worst part was that I knew, even before we left the city limits, that my anger was wrong. This was another of those situations where, in the future, I’d be laughing about how Alice was stubborn, and annoying, but right. Always right.
By the time we reached La Grange, the palms of my hands soaked the bench seat, and I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t anger I was feeling. It was fear.
It was too late to tell her, too late to apologize. I looked at her, and Alice just sat there silent, driving.
There was only one thing left to say, then, and I’d have to say it to myself, in my mind. “Baptism by fire.”
I said it all the way to Austin. And Alice was right; it was the best way to learn.
That was a true story.
On September 14th, Alice's non-profit for poor kids will celebrate its 30th anniversary. I'm going to the party, and they want me to speak in front of the mayor and everybody about the necessity of community arts organizations and their continued funding.
Although I've read this story for important people before, Alice won't let me read it for the mayor. She says, "MECA's not really just about me, Gwen. A lot of people work really hard to make this place [etc., excessive modesty, etc.]"
If you'd like to help Alice with her mission, click here. 2:28 AM # (6) comments
