May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.
June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!
June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.
My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.
Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Win free books!In celebration of
Look at these sexy titles:
Zumba by Beto Perez , Maggie Greenwood-Robinson
Evenings at the Argentine Club by Julia Amante
Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz by Belinda Acosta
Tell Me Something True by Leila Cobo
Amigoland by Oscar Casares
I haven't read any of them yet, but I've heard good things about all of them, and they share my publisher, who hires good editors, and I'm doing a reading with Oscar Casares in May, so I'd love to send them to y'all and hear what you think.
Here are the contest rules:
1. You must have a non-P.O.-box mailing address in the US or Canada that you're willing to send me if/when you win.
2. You must post, in the comments on this post, the name of your favorite Latino author.
You must post your email address as well so I have some way of getting your address from you. If you don't want to comment, you can also email me your response at gwendolyn.zepeda@gmail.com.
3. If you have a preference as to which of the books listed you'd like to win, go ahead and type that, too.
4. I will put y'all's names in a Franco Sarto shoe box and have my cats draw the winners. Then I will give your addresses to Hachette (my publisher) and they will send y'all the books.
Deadline for entry is October 31.
Ready?
Go!
Monday, October 19, 2009
LatelyI’ve been working like crazy, trying to write decent stuff and not hacky stuff. Like every other fall and every other time I’m under deadline to write a book, I have a lot of good ideas for other projects but NO TIME to do them.
Here’s my deal right now… let’s get it straight real quick, because it gets so confusing that not even my husband knows what’s going on:
1. You have seen, so far, in print in real life, my first short-story collection, my first novel, and two children’s books.
2. You will see, in January, my second novel. Also, pretty soon you’ll see my third children’s book. Both of these books, I wrote almost a year ago.
3. Right now I’m working on my third novel and my fourth and fifth children’s books. You will see those a little over a year from now.
See how it goes? Everything takes a year (at least) to get from me to you. So it’s like I’m working in a time machine, here. Kind of. People ask what I’m working on and I say “My next novel” and they say, “The one coming out in January?” and I say, “Um... what year is it right now?”
And I’m not high or drunk, either.
So it’s come to pass that, also, that next month, on November 20, you can see me on PBS in an interview I did a year ago. I can’t wait to see it, myself, because I remember enjoying the interview at the time, and it’ll be interesting to see what parts the editors and producers thought y’all might like.
Stuff keeps coming up like that: Time-machine stuff I do now that pays off later, or stuff I did a long time ago that’s showing results right about now. And all that is good. It’s like planting seeds.
Right now, between bouts of writing the books that you’ll see a year and a half from now, I’m trying to think up what I want to create for the year after that. Assuming, of course, that anyone wants to pay me to do anything by then. Because that’s always an assumption or a hope, but not a guarantee. I’m super glad, so far, that people are still paying me to do stuff for the future.
Do you like art? Do you like artists?
If you do... If you live in Houston and want to:
- See local artists and listen to them detail their artist processes in a laid-back setting
- Network with artists and arts community peeps in a decidedly non-network-y atmosphere
- Eat pizza and drink beer,
then you should come to the Spacetaker Speakeasy on Wednesday, October 21st, at around 6:30 PM.
Telling y’all this because Spacetaker is a local arts org that’s near/dear to my heart for the reasons described in the bulleted list above. I’m telling y’all this quietly, though, because the Speakeasy events are still kind of secret and cozy, and I’d hate for them to get too big too fast. So only show up if you really like art and artists, and only invite people you consider special and awesome, okay?
Admission is free and I don’t get paid to shill for Spacetaker. (I am a member of the Artist Advisory Board, though, so I want to see it achieve its mission, because that’s how I roll. There -- full disclosure made.)
Work Days
I’m supposed to be the “Events Coordinator” for our department at work, which means, basically, that I’m in charge of thinking up reasons for people to bring cake to the office.
So we’re having a floor-wide, multi-department “trick-or-treat potluck” on October 30. No, it is not related to Halloween and therefore it cannot be deemed insensitive to hardcore Christians. It’s treating ourselves in celebration of coping with all the tricks we’ve been dealt during the last quarter. Get it? Trick, treat? See?
Anyway, so I made the invitation for this event, along with a sign-up sheet that contains a lot of cheesy industry-related puns. (“It’s a mutual food platform!” HA!!)
After I sent the invitation, this guy Tom from one of our neighboring departments told me, "Thanks for doing that. It's been so dreary here lately." And that made me happy, that I could help lift dreariness a little, for one person at least.
And it’s kind of pathetic, maybe... kind of Office Space... that something like that could make me momentarily happy. But it did. I make fun of Corporate America a lot, y'all know, but I’d rather work for Corporate America than, say, Privately Owned Firm America, or Retail America, or Food Service America, or Construction Work America...
So, life is good. That’s what I’m trying to tell y’all. Hey, maybe I can just repost pertinent bits of this entry on Thanksgiving Day…
Later, taters. Talk to y’all again soon.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
writing stuffRight now I'm working on my third novel, which doesn't have a title yet. It's Saturday night and I'm writing the seventh or eight chapter, out of order, because I haven't written Chapters 2 through 6 yet. But I have a good feeling about this one, already. I'm excited, and I think y'all are gonna like it.
In January, y'all will be able to buy my second novel, Lone Star Legend. Actually, I have ARCs (Advance Reading Copies, for reviewers) right now, so email me if you're any sort of book reviewer and would like a copy to review sometime in December or January. Just know that the ARCs have some wonky formatting issues that affect my OCD, but will be fixed in the real books, in January. :)
Aside from the very temporary wonky formatting issues, I think y'all are gonna like that one, too. Especially y'all who are familiar with the Internets and the things that go on there.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting for someone to re-design my author site so I can update with the events I'll be doing later this year.
And, um... Also, I have another kids' book coming out, called I Kick the Ball, but I'm not sure when, exactly. They said 2011 but I think it's actually going to be 2010. I'm super-excited about that one, because it has a little boy for a protagonist, and as y'all can imagine, I have an affinity for little boys, seeing as how I gave birth to three of them. Also, they hired a really awesome illustrator for it, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes out.
There are also a zillion other things going on, all good, that I'm not supposed to talk about yet. So I feel like I can't ever really update y'all in a real way.
But... there is a moral to the story. The moral = hard work pays off. Hard work snowballs and makes you glad you started it.
knitting stuff
I've taken a few knitting classes over the past three or four weeks, so now I know how to knit, and I'm super-glad because I've wanted to knit all my adult life but never managed to teach myself....
and now I know how, and I'm making a scarf out of cheap acrylic, and next I'm going to make a more complex scarf out of expensive acrylic, and after that we'll see what happens, but I have dreams, y'all.
I'm on this knitting social networky thing called Ravelry.com, and my name there is Gwentown, in case you want to friend me so I can look through your projects and steal your ideas.
other stuff
Other stuff is going really well, all considered. I have no complaints, y'all.
I started to type a big old status report on my three kids, but then I felt weird and deleted it. I always feel weird telling details of their lives, but especially so now that they're teenagers. I mean, I have the mom blog on the Houston Chronicle, now, too... So I'll angst about the privacy issues there, and tell y'all here that my kids are doing really well. :)
I keep saying "my husband this" and "my husband that," and people think I'm trying to remind everyone that I'm a newlywed, but really it's just that I'm used to saying "my boyfriend" and I'm trying to train myself out of it.
My husband is out at a concert with his friend right now. I'm at home working. Well, I'm supposed to be working, but instead I'm typing this blog entry. Shhhh....
this little girl
Today I was knitting in public (which I've heard people say is tacky, but I don't understand how it's tackier than, say, shopping for clothes in public, but I think it's mostly British people who say it's tacky, and I'm in America, so whatever). I was knitting in public -- at the hair salon, actually, while my husband got his hair trimmed -- and there was this little girl.
Not to be judgmental, but then again why not, so this little girl and her brother were getting simultaneously bitched at and ignored by their parents, if you can imagine that. You know how I mean? Their dad was feverishly typing on his phone, but keeping up a steady stream of "Chloe*, be good. Steven*, be quiet. Chloe, shut up. Steven, I'm gonna spank you if you don't behave." (*Not their real names.) He wasn't even making eye contact with them -- just telling them to shut up and behave. Then he'd haul them outside and buy them ice cream, then haul them back in and bitch at them, without looking at them, for eating the ice cream like children instead of like adults. All while reading his phone.
So I was thinking, "Wow, this dude really doesn't enjoy having kids." But I kept my eyes on my knitting.
At one point, the discontent dad hauled little Steven outside to spank him or buy him a candy, and little Chloe started circling me like a hawk, staring at my knitting. It cracked me up on the inside, the way she literally circled me to see the process from all angles, then walked up really, really close. She was maybe seven or eight years old.
"You ever seen anyone knit before?" I asked her, finally, when I could feel her breath on my hands.
She shook her head.
"That's what I'm doing. Knitting," I told her.
She ran around to my other side and sat next to me on the salon's sofa. She said, "Are you sewing a blanket?"
I told her I was knitting a scarf. I unrolled the scarf for her to see, and showed her the knitting needles.
Her dad came back in and bitched at her to sit on the other side of the room.
Later, little Steven won his dad's attention by emptying the water cooler onto the floor, and Chloe took the opportunity to squeeze onto the sofa between her dad and me.
"Knitting a scarf," she said slowly, to no one.
I smiled in her direction.
She sidled over and asked, "Does the yarn break?"
"Chloe," her dad said warningly. But I ignored him and answered her question. Tried to. It took a while to figure out that she thought the width of the scarf was due to me secretly cutting the yarn. So I showed her how the yarn folded into rows. While I did this, her dad took Steven and left again, apparently deciding I couldn't kidnap a kid with knitting needles in my hands.
Chloe asked more questions and I tried to answer. I wished, then, that I had one of those little knitting kits for children, because she was so fascinated and so clever, I felt like she'd be a natural at it. You know? But I didn't have one, and I stopped short of telling her to ask her father for one.
Then my husband's hair was done and we got up to go. I turned to say goodbye to Chloe, but she was busy getting nagged at by her dad.
Maybe it'll occur to him to buy her a knitting kit on his own. She can knit, then, while he plays with his phone.
Or maybe she'll take a knitting class when she grows up.
fish in hot bean sauce
When I first met my husband, I didn't think that people ate fish fins.
Now I know that it's the best part of the fish to eat.
We went looking for this restaurant that my coworker Jennifer Y recommended. It didn't have an English name, she'd told me. The Mandarin name was, phonetically in my mind, "Lao Di Fun." She wrote down the characters for me and I put the piece of paper in my purse.
But today, after the haircut, I realized that I was carrying a different purse and had neglected to transfer the Mandarin-inscribed paper to it.
We decided to look for the restaurant, anyway. We went to the shopping center where we knew it to be. It was full of restaurants with Chinese characters all over the windows and glass doors. We found parking near the most likely looking one and went in. My husband, who is Chinese but doesn't speak Mandarin, made me do the talking. (I'm not Chinese, and I don't speak Mandarin, either, but I was the one who'd gotten the name first-hand from Jennifer Y.)
"What's the name of y'all's restaurant?" I asked the hostesses.
"Spicy Szechwuan," they said, in heavily accented English.
"Um... What's the real name, though? Does it have a Mandarin name?" I asked.
They told me. It wasn't Lao Di Fun. A waiter joined them. He asked what I was looking for. I said, "Lao Di Fun?"
They said, "What?"
I said, more carefully, "Lao... Di... Fun."
They couldn't understand me. Then, after like fifteen minutes, one of them goes, "Wait -- do you mean Lao Di Fun?"
I said yes. They said, "Oh, it's next door."
Next door, the same basic thing happened.
What's the name of this place?
Classic Kitchen.
The real name?
[Something in Chinese.]
Do you know where Lao Di Fun is?
What? What'd you call my mama?
Lao... Di... Fun?
Oh! Lao Di Fun! It's over there.
Next restaurant over, same thing happened.
Hello. Bamboo Dumpling House.
Lao Di Fun?
What in God's name did you just say, Caucasian Woman?
Lao... Di... Fun?
Oh! Lao Di Fun is over there.
And again, and again, and by now y'all are realizing that Jennifer Y must have given this place a very strong recommendation, and that we must trust her opinion. Well, yes. That, plus my husband believed that a place without an American name on the door must be very authentic and therefore worth trying.
We went in a big circle, with the last waitress pointing back across the parking lot to the first restaurant we'd entered, before giving up and deciding to eat at Alias Spicy Szechwuan.
(I suspect that Alias Classic Kitchen was the real Lao Di Fun, but that they literally could not recognize their own restaurant's name coming from my mouth.)
We got menus with several pages, but my husband suggested we focus on the House Specialties section. In that way, we ordered "Fish in hot bean sauce," (but one-star mild, please), plus fried string beans with ground pork. The waitress directed us to the "appetizer bar," where we selected marinated cucumber, marinated seaweed, and pan-fried pork rind for our three-appetizer plate.
While we waited, I ate all the seaweed and most of the cucumber. We each tried a piece of pork rind but didn't try more than that. I looked around at the restaurant's decor. It was nicer than the average hole-in-the-wall in that neighborhood, with a semi-typical red and black color scheme. They also had the requisite aquarium full of fish, all of them flat and pinkish and happy-looking. A group of Chinese women came in with one white guy, who talked very loudly about the girl among them who was his girlfriend and the fact that she spoke Chinese and Vietnamese and therefore "spied" for him at Vietnamese restaurants, and then said loud Cantonese words to the waitress, who smiled very politely as she walked away. Behind us, a baby ate rice from a yellow baby bowl her parents had presumably brought from home. When she was done, she proudly flung the bowl on the floor.
Then, finally, they brought our fish to us. Whole, on a giant plate, in a pool of spicy, oily red sauce. Damn, y'all, it looked good.
"Look at his little head," I said. "It's so round." His face was all covered with sauce, and they'd been good enough to remove his eye, so I didn't feel as bad as I otherwise might have.
My husband, who is very gentlemanly, filled my rice bowl with rice and put a piece of fish on top. I tasted it. "This is really freaking good," I said.
"Yeah. It's fresh," my husband said.
"Yeah, it tastes fresh," I said. "It's all like, soft and stuff. Like it was never frozen."
"It's one of the ones from that tank, baby," he told me.
I looked over at the tank full of pinkish fish. "Aw."
I felt bad for, like, three seconds. Then I remembered that all those fish were going to die, anyway, so they could at least die making people happy. Right?
First we ate the flesh that didn't have bones. Then we ate the flesh that did have bones, putting it in our mouths whole, eating around the bones and removing them with chopsticks. Then, we sucked the fins. Then, we spooned the fish-speckled sauce onto rice and ate that.
This is gonna sound crass, maybe, but one of the things I like about eating at Asian places is that I can relax my table manners a little and no one minds.
At one point, I was sucking on my fish fin and staring into space, experiencing the chili flakes and oil and vinegar and something mysteriously sweet, and the waitress walked by and caught my eye. "Good?" she asked.
I nodded. "It's very good."
We'll find Lao Di Fun next time, maybe. I was glad we found this place this time, though, whatever its real name is.
Labels: culture, gluttony, Houston, i believe that children are our future, married life, writing
11:06 PM # (5) commentsMonday, June 29, 2009
Partners inLest you think my honeymoon was nothing but the drama surrounding the Epic SCUBA Fail described below, I will assure you now that Hawaii is every bit as awesome as everyone says. I kind of already figured, in fact, before we even set off, that it would be futile to try to describe such a well known travel destination, or even to photograph what’s been photographed so many, many times by professionals.
What was unique about our trip to Oahu, then, was something Dat-and-Gwen-centric: the additional evidence that we make a good team.
WARNING: FRUITY, SMURFY, SACCHARINE WORDS AHEAD.
Part of the reason my
Late one night, a couple of years back, the Houston freeway known as 290 was closed for repairs. That’s our normal route home. Our alternative was a long, parallel, four-lane road called Hempstead.
Hempstead is one of those industrial roads that’s mainly frequented by 18-wheelers. So it’s not only lined with giant metal buildings full of giant hunks of metal, but also the occasional pancake house and strip club.
When you drive down Hempstead in the wee hours of the night, you’ll see that a few of the buildings are lit up and full of moving machinery, and so presumably full of men who eat pancake specials and give parts of their paychecks to strippers. If you like, you can peer into the buildings, analyze the vehicles in their parking lots, and imagine all sorts of stories.
From the middle of Houston to the edge, it’s a long ride down Hempstead. We rode slow and silent for quite a few minutes before Dat pointed out, “We’re on an adventure.”
“I was just about to tell you that!” I said. Because I really was. Because we’re always on adventures, me and Dat.
So imagine us as those two people, but riding down a freeway under mimosas the size of mainland oaks and trees that dangle mangoes, in our rental car that was upgraded to a convertible for cheap. Imagine us walking down beaches full of tourists from all over the world, as well as locals of every flavor. Every other person there has a story – some that they told us and some that we had to construct on our own. And everyone has cameras, and you get to see what they think is important to capture with them. And then you trade cameras with strangers and hope for the best. Even when they can’t frame a shot for crap, it’s a memory preserved for you.
Memories preserved in me, all jumbled on a page:
Oahu = very beautiful plants, mountains and shoreline surrounding thousands of structures from the ‘70s and older, all peppered with tiny slivers of new-new expensive stores and rentals.
Every single person there is mixed or in a mixed couple, and it’s the only place I’ve ever been where absolutely no one gave us a second glance for being a Caucasian chick with an Asian guy. We were even mistaken for locals, once by an irate tourist seeking King’s Hawaiian bread and once by a snooty salesman in the Ala Moana shopping mall. I felt like I was in the idealized future of my fantasies, where everyone is mixed and no one can hate people based on ethnicity. And it really seemed that no one in Oahu did. But it was more than just that – all the locals were well versed in multiple cultures. And they were all obviously proud of their fellow peeps. It was beautiful.
Everyone asks how the sushi was, and we never even tried it. We didn’t get the chance. Mostly we ate in Chinatown, where the merchants were having a contest to see who could offer the cheapest dim sum. Everyone there spoke Cantonese (even the Vietnamese people) but told us they were learning Mandarin. They have “bubble tea” there, but it’s mostly bubble slushies. Our cha siu = their char siu. Our dried plums = their li hing. Chow fun = look fun. Red bean = “black sugar” or azuki bean. Yellow bean = non-existent. But everything was good and fresh – especially the plates including ginger. A lot of the restaurants used noodles from the one noodle factory that still made them by hand. And they were so, so good. I never appreciated chow fun until I ate it in Honolulu, y’all.
The way all signs in Houston are in both English and Spanish? Is the way all signs in Honolulu are in English and Japanese. All the employees at the mall spoke Japanese. All the Japanese people carried LeSportsac bags, and you could get the knock-offs of them in Chinatown.
Locals in Oahu seemed to come in two sizes: manapua-eating size, and surfing-all-day size. Guess which size I’d be if I lived there? Yeah. :) Hawaiian food is sweet and rich. I normally love sweet/rich food, but the Hawaiians had me beat with their sweet fried chicken and their two-starch plate lunches and the buttery, buttery fried sandwich bread. No, we didn’t try poi, because we didn’t go to any luaus. The McDonalds in Hawaii Kai advertised fried taro pie, but no, I didn’t try one. I was too stuffed with coconut manapuas (kinda like round kolaches or baked bao) and the hole-less Portuguese donuts called malasadas. No, we didn’t try the shrimp trucks. I feel like we disappointed everyone back home with the fact that we skipped the tour-book stuff and mostly ate Chinese food. But it was good, so I don’t care.
The groceries and gasoline weren’t much more expensive than in Houston. Only a few random things, like orange juice, were expensive. They sold hard liquor in the grocery stores. They sold Japanese candy at every drugstore. The Wal-Mart was a little more expensive and had less selection than Texas Wal-Marts. (Yes, we went to the Wal-Mart just to see if it was different from our Wal-Mart.) The Old Navy, however, was exactly the same. Stores with only Japanese stuff were 3,000 times more expensive than the other stores. The sales tax was, like, 0.0001%.
That’s all. I’ll stop here because it sounds like I’m obsessed with food and ethnicity and money, I know. But I don’t know how else to describe what we did there. I mean, we spent most of the time driving around the edges of the island in our rented convertible, saying “Oooooh!” and “What if we lived there? Or what if we lived there?” and “OMG, can you imagine if that was your elementary school?” and clicking zillions of pics of everything that’s been photographed a million times before.
And being on the beaches, beaches, beaches that, no matter how much better or worse they are in relation to each other, were all five gazillion times better than our Gulf of Mexico’s. Hours and hours just staring at the clarity of the water and wanting to cry over it. Marveling over the rocks and the vicious undertow. Holding up handfuls of sand to each other and picking out our favorite individual grains.
And, you know. Having adventures together. Incidentally being in love. I can’t describe it better than that. I can only say that I can’t wait until we do it again.
Because we will, some day.
Labels: culture, gluttony, Hawaii, married life
6:08 PM # (10) commentsTuesday, May 26, 2009
[I got married on Saturday. This post is about my wedding.]the flowers
I couldn’t find fake or real flowers for my hair, and I was running out of time to do so. I asked my oldest son to go with me to pick up lemons and limes and goi, five hours before the wedding. As we rode from the grocery store to the restaurant making the goi, I thought aloud. I said, “You know what would work? Oleanders. But those peach-colored ones. If only I could find some of those. But I probably won’t… they’re usually fuschia or white….”
And then we were passing Home Depot on the right, and their parking lot was bordered by ubitiquous oleander hedges. But not the fuschia ones or the white ones – the peach ones!
I pulled over. I parked in the corner past the wheelbarrows. I left the engine running and my son watching from the shotgun seat as I disembarked and snagged several sprigs of oleander flowers.
An hour after that, I walked into the salon with a small bouquet tucked into the outside pocket of my purse.
“Ooh, what beautiful flowers!” the receptionist cooed.
“I got them from the Home Depot parking lot,” I said.
I don’t know if they believed me, but what does it matter?
the rice
The rice came out bad. Or wrong. Or something. It tasted okay to me, but as my new father-in-law painstakingly explained, “It tastes good now, but in one, two hours, it’ll be bad.”
So we threw it all away. Dumped it all into a trash bag. The early guests gasped.
My new brother-in-law sped to the restaurant where we’d gotten the goi, to pick up replacement fried rice.
Everyone looked at me, as if it had been my decision. I looked at my in-laws. My mother-in-law was upset. Disappointed. Embarrassed? My father-in-law, though, had the impassive face of a man who cold-bloodedly performs sacrifices for the greater good.
He will serve no rice before its time. Not after its time, either.
cakes
We had two cakes. The main cake (“wife’s cake,” as Dat explained it to his parents) was supposed to be Italian cream with raspberry filling, but I think it was just yellow cake, and the raspberry was combined with cream cheese. It had simple off-white buttercream frosting and edible candy pearls that surprised everyone who encountered them.
I’d wanted pineapple filling, but changed the order at the last minute out of deference to my mother-in-law, who was getting us an Asian cake (groom’s cake, “man’s cake”) so that the elder Asian palates in attendance wouldn’t go into sugar shock. I was told that the classic Asian wedding cake was pineapple flavored.
I was relieved, because I’d been afraid they’d order taro root cake. I don’t care for taro cake, but I was ready for anything.
We cut the bride’s cake first, then the groom’s. We fed each other bride’s cake. Then my sister-in-law Van very graciously took the cake server from me so that I wouldn’t be stuck serving cake for the rest of the night. Someone else manned the groom’s cake, and everyone was served sweets tout de suite.
“Oh my God, the cake is so good!” said a friend of the Caucasian persuasian, later.
“You think?” I said. “I’m kind of annoyed because I told her Italian cream, but I think she used yellow, instead.”
“What do you mean? I thought it was mocha or something.”
She meant the Asian cake. I went and tasted it. It was very moist yellow cake with whipped cream icing and mocha filling. It was very, very good. Immediately, I cut a slab of it for my dad, who’d eaten the first slice of bride cake. “Eat this one – you’ll like it,” I told him. (All dads love mocha, don’t they?)
Later, one of my Asian friends said, “Your cake was so good.”
“Wasn’t it? It was mocha.”
“What? I thought it was raspberry filling.”
She’d eaten the bride’s cake. Someone else told her, “You should have tried the Asian cake.” She said, “I never eat Asian cake. I don’t like pineapple and taro.” But we made her try it and she was happily proven wrong.
Everyone liked the cake, whichever one they tried. I was glad.
Dat and I didn’t shove cake into each other’s faces. We’ve always said that we don’t believe in that sort of thing. If you look at the pictures that got posted on Facebook, though, it does sort of look like we’re shoving. But we’re not. We were just hungry by then, I think.
Labels: culture, wedding stuff
5:29 AM # (19) commentsFriday, October 05, 2007
Something AnnoyingRecently, on the Facebook of a friend's Facebook friend, I read something annoying.
This person had a question posted under the picture of face. Something like, "Why is it okay to talk about your belief in yoga or vegetarianism, but it's not okay for me to talk about my love for Jesus Christ?"
I'm going to pretend that this person meant that question seriously, and that he wasn't just pulling the red herring victim routine that is so fabulously common amongst combative conservatives. And I'm going to answer this person's question.
One: It's okay for you to talk about your love for Jesus Christ. You have that right.
Two: It is exactly as annoying for you to talk about your love for Jesus Christ as it is for anyone else to talk about their belief in yoga.
Here is where you Jesus evangelists go wrong -- you don't know how to have normal, interesting, polite conversations. Also, you missed that part of 7th Grade Language Arts where we learned about "persuasive essays."
Here is how you could have an interesting conversation about your beliefs:
Example 1:
Joe Blow: Wanna have breakfast?
You: No, thanks. I'm on the way to church.
Joe: Aw, dude. You go to church?
You: Yeah.
Joe: I can't go for that. That's a waste of my Sunday, you know?
You: I like going. It takes an hour, but it makes me feel better after I've gone.
Joe: For real?
You: Yeah. Let me know if you ever wanna check it out, and you can go with me.
[Joe: No, thanks.
or
Joe: Okay, I will.]
Example 2:
Joe Blow: ... and she said she was gonna start doing yoga. Can you believe that?
You: Oh, cool.
Joe: No, dude, she said yoga. That's lame.
You: You think so? I like yoga.
Joe: You do yoga? Uh, why?
You: I like it. It makes me feel better.
Joe: For real.
You: Yeah. Let me know if you wanna check it out some time, and you can go with me.
See that? Okay, now, here's how to be an asshole.
Example 1:
Joe: ... and then I went to Banana Republic, and they were having a sale.
You: Joe, when's the last time you went to church?
Joe: What?
You: I used to be like you, but then I found Jesus Christ, and my life has improved 100%.
Joe: What? What do you mean, like me?
You: Come to church, Joe. Come change your life. Make your life awesome in the light of Jesus's love, like mine is.
Example 2:
Joe: Wanna go to Jack in the Box?
You: No, because I don't eat meat, because eating meat is wrong.
Joe: Oh, uh... sorry.
You: You should stop eating meat. When I was eating meat, I was fat, lazy, and a sexist, capitalist fascist. Now that I'm vegan, I have a clarity on life that meat-eaters can't begin to understand. You should stop eating meat, Joe. It's disgusting.
Joe: Uh... I just remembered that I have to run errands at lunch. See ya.
There you go, buddy. You can talk about your love for Jesus all you want, but you can't make me enjoy a rude, annoying conversationalist. Because that's what it's always about, isn't it? You don't just want to talk about Jesus. You want to talk about Jesus and have everyone on earth agree with whatever you say. You can't always have what you want, though. (Especially not if you're annoying.)
Now you know, Facebook friend of my Facebook friend. I hope my answer to your question is helpful. You're welcome. 9:15 AM # (16) comments
Thursday, 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
Monday, July 23, 2007
Ominous?Today my horoscope says, "You hard-working Capricorns are faced with a dilemma this midsummer. The Sun is now moving through your mysterious 8th House, encouraging you to delve into the mysteries of the occult, death and sex. Although these are deliciously juicy issues, it's summer and the beautiful outside beckons. Strike a balance now between the inner and the outer worlds you wish to explore."
At first, that freaked me out. The occult? Death? What in the world was supposed to happen to me today?
Then, I realized what it actually meant. See, this evening, I'll be torn between going outside and enjoying the break from the rain, and staying inside to finish reading Harry Potter.
The balance will be achieved if I take a walk to get the mail, first. Or maybe I can finish the book in the car, in the sun, as my boyfriend drives us around.
Weekend Adventure
"I wish," I told my boyfriend, Tad, "we could have some kind of adventure this weekend."
That was Thursday night. The weekend before, we'd gone into the heart of Houston's New Chinatown (aka Bellaire) and tried a new banh mi place that was straight out of Saigon. And that was exciting. This weekend, since we can't afford to travel outside of Texas, I thought we might again find something new within our own town. "Okay," said Tad. "We'll go somewhere new."
Friday night, Tad's brother-in-law called to invite us to a very impromptu celebration of his birthday. He picked a nightclub out in the satellite town of Katy, Texas, so as to make the party accessible to multiple suburbanite friends.
I'm going to call the club Bikini Bottom, because it did have the word bikini in it, and I can't remember the rest. Why did it have the word bikini in it? Because the female servers wore bikini tops, and there were girls in bikinis dancing atop the bars. The decor was darkness, disco lights, and plastic palm trees. Old (not old school, but just old and stale) hip hop blared from every corner. Upon being ushered in, we joined Tad's sister and b-i-l, their neighbor, and our friends Mike and Claudia in an alcove, where we hurried to catch up to their blood-alchohol levels while surveying the scene.
The first bikini'd girl, just inside the entrance, danced on a table near a giant bucket of beers. Her job was to dance, sell the bottles, and periodically squat down to rubber-band the ones in her register. This girl was rather attractive. At least, she seemed to be under all her makeup, there in the dim light. Every man who walked into the club stopped in front of her station to ogle. Some of them bought beers, and some just gave her dollar bills for nothing. They put them into a cut-open milk jug at her feet, and in return got... a smile. No extra movement, no chance to touch. But the men seemed okay with that, because they were in love with her. It was obvious, from the looks in their eyes and the clumsy way they tried to initiate small talk that she couldn't hear. She danced like a stripper. I wondered if she was trying to work her way back into more legitimate means of tip-garnering. Maybe she'd move up (down?) from go-go dancer to cocktail waitress, then to diner waitress, then to executive assistant, then Avon saleswoman, then animal shelter volunteer, then old lady arranging flowers at the local Baptist church.
The other go-go dancers, deeper inside the bowels of the club, had nothing but their youth to recommend them. Their youth, their lower-back tattoos, and occasional bouts of Sapphic display. While we waited for a bartender to take our order (and then admit that she didn't know what a kamikaze shot was), a tiny, roped-off stage lit up inside the bar. An emcee appeared there and called up two doughy teens in sagging, dully colored bikinis. "Shanna and Allison, are you ready for the showers?!?" he bellowed into the mike. Yes, they were. They were so ready, they shimmied against each other and kissed each other's lips. The emcee pulled the cord that activated the shower head above them. (He himself was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and jeans.) The girls got wet, did more shimmying, then shook their lank hair at the crowd. Water splatted across my face as I took my apple-pucker-flavored kamikaze from the bartender. Somehow, it didn't feel as sexy as they seemed to intend it.
The doorman hadn't hassled us at all on the way in. He wasn't hassling anybody -- an ID and five bucks got you in, and that was that. The crowd at Bikini Bottom looked like a complete cross-section of Katy, Texas, itself. There were twenty-somethings in a range of demographics, from the Ford F250 drivers, to the Camaro drivers, to the pimped-out Scion crews. There were older men in Hawaiian shirts, and older women in lacy black suits. As our friend Mike put it, "This is like Wal-Mart with hip hop." (That was before we knew that one out of every ten songs would be Latin music.)
It was Spank's birthday, and not that many of the gang had shown up with such short notice, so those of us there did our duty. We drank, and we danced. Well, Susan and Claudia danced, while the rest of us drank. That's how our set rolls sometimes -- the women dance and the men watch.
I don't like to dance when it's only women, so much, because I'm the tallest one by far and it always makes me feel kind of weird, like I'm a substitute boy. You know -- like I'm the one who has to do all the humping once everyone gets drunk enough to do the silly hump dances. Sometimes I don't want to hump, you know? Sometimes I want to be humped, dammit. But, eventually, Susan and Claudia dragged me out onto the floor and made me form a hump sandwich with them. Okay, fine, I thought, putting my hand in the air. Hump, hump, hump.
Like a magnet, a man who was not my type slid up to our threesome. "Hello," he said. Claudia said hi and turned away, Susan ignored him completely, and I did a polite but dismissive not-smile. He hovered around us for a while, air-humping but not infiltrating our boundaries. Then he went away.
I tried to disengage from the dance then, but only got a sip of beer and an ice cube stolen from the stripper's cooler before the other women dragged me back out. "Come ON, Gwen!" Hump, hump, hump. Woo!
Like a migratory bird, the stranger guy came back. "Ladies, my friend over there in the white shirt thinks y'all are fine." He pointed out his friend, who gave us a cool nod and a beer-bottle salute.
"Our boyfriends are right there," said Claudia, pointing to Mike with her drink. Susan said nothing, just shook her hair. I don't think she even saw the guy -- she was in her own little flashdance world.
"And where's yours?" he said to me. "I didn't see you with anybody." Annoyed that I had to prove my eligibility for love, I pointed out Tad, who was sitting at a little table, leaning back and drinking a Corona as if it were a nice day on the beach. He didn't even wave to me. Our interloper looked skeptical, as if I had randomly pointed out this bespectacled Asian man, shorter than me (horrors!), in order to play hard to get. He walked away to confer with his friends. I grimaced at Tad, who only laughed.
Claudia whispered in my ear, "Girl, that man wants you! He wants your healthy booty!"
"I am," I thought, "too old for this."
I was about to leave the floor again, when the guy came back again. He tapped my shoulder. I turned around and said "what" or "huh" or "uh," don't remember what, exactly. Something in my face, though, scared him away. (My natural expression, at rest, is quite bitchy.) "Okay, fine," he said. "Golly." He looked very hurt and backed away. I felt kind of bad, but not bad enough to call him back.
"God," I said to Tad, who'd never once moved from his chair. "What was up with that?"
"That guy's been watching you all night," he told me. "The minute you started dancing, he ran up."
"What?" I said. "Why didn't you do something, then?"
"Because," Tad said, "that shit was hilarious."
Two hours and one "booty-shaking" contest later (Susan and Claudia entered but I refused, as I was still just sober enough to deduce that it was rigged), Spank said he'd had enough festivities and it was time to go. And so, we bid Bikini Bottom farewell.
As Tad and I crossed the muddy embankment and the Whataburger parking lot on the way to our car, the hip hop faded behind us. A block away, in another parking lot, a group of high school kids passed us. One boy noted our clasped hands and called out, "Are y'all gonna have sex tonight?"
"Maybe," I said. Tad nodded. Disarmed by our candor, he moved on, and we whispered shared hopes for his future, and for the future of all Katy youth.
As Ford trucks zoomed around us like fireflies, we finally made it to the tranquility of Tad's car.
"Well, that was an adventure, wasn't it?" I said.
"Yes," said Tad. And then we went home.
Labels: culture, my sex life, stories
6:52 AM # (10) commentsFriday, April 13, 2007
Racist Houston, Racist AmericaFor a good long while now, it's been freaking me out that Houston's Craigslist Rants & Raves seem way, WAY more racist than those of other American cities. Also, our Houston Chronicle is littered with more racist/conservative/hateful commentary than other online papers I've read.
And I wonder why, and I come up with various theories (uh... Houston is a port town and more of a melting pot than other cities and therefore on the cutting edge of race-relationships exploration... uh...) but, in the end, it just makes me sad and ashamed, and I wonder if I should go live somewhere else.
Racism fascinates me, though. Maybe because I'm of mixed ethnicity and have seen a lot of it from alternate sides, it always has amused and interested me. I like to read honest, anonymous, insane racist commentary and use it to draw thumbnail pics of what's going on in the world.
Here is a recent, racist rant on Houston Craigslist that's stuck in my head lately. If you're too tired to click, I'll summarize and say that it's about a white person who is upset that Rucci's (a taqueria in a trendy neighborhood) is full of Mexican employees and patrons who don't give white people preferential treatment.
This post touches my heart because it reveals what's going on a lot lately around these parts. That is: Racist white people are afraid, because the Latino population is growing so quickly. Racist white people know that they're the minority here, now, and they don't want to be treated the way they've always treated non-whites.
Sob.
I mean, that's a dynamic that's been happening in America for a long time, anyway, but now I see the very specific, anti-Mexican manifestation of it here in my hometown. It's pathetic, but kind of amusing, too. Especially in the case of that post. My friends and I don't go to Rucci's anymore because, last time we were there, some stupid-ass white people tried to start a fight with us. There were ten of us and three of them--one guy and two blondes with implants--and the reason for the argument was very stupid. The blondes kept parading around our table in their skimpy outfits, and one of the women at our table made a disparaging remark about them, so the two blondes went to their male friend and demanded that he defend their honor. And the lone guy walked up to our table and randomly picked the lightest-skinned of our men to start shit with, and our light-skinned friend didn't know what the issue was, but he was willing to beat this guy's ass just for the fun of it. And some of us tried to reason with the guy and send him back to his blondes, but he was hell-bent on impressing them by getting his ass beat, I guess. And the (Mexican) security guards eventually came over and made everybody chill.
And it was funny, and pathetic, and we often reminisce about it and wonder if the guy ever got any sex for his foolish trouble. But, at the same time, we don't go to Rucci's anymore because, obviously, trashy people eat there. Trashy white people who start fights, over nothing but the hope of rutting with each other at 2 AM.
I guess it's probably difficult to go from being the majority culture to the minority one. Well, I know it is, because I'm expected to go back and forth between cultures all the time. When in Rome, you do as Romans, and sometimes conflicts arise. It gets stressful.
But that's the thing, isn't it? You do as the Romans if you want to go to Rome, don't you? You don't walk into Rome wearing your "Grecian and Proud!" t-shirt and screaming rants about how non-Grecian these effing Romans are. Unless, of course, you're stupid.
Yes, I know, racist white people: You didn't ask to go to Rome. Your city is becoming Rome all around you, without your permission. I know, I know. Hush, little babies. You might have to move away. Or, you might have to learn to get along with Romans. Poor racist white people, I know it's hard.
So, anyway--from the specific to the general, now:
Don Imus deserves to get fired. You know why? Not because he exercised his right to racist free speech. No. He needed to get fired because he's behind the times. His show is no longer entertaining to the masses. It's outdated, old-fashioned, not funny anymore.
You know why no one says wop or dago or spic on the radio anymore? Because it's boring. It's lame.
You know why ads got pulled from Don's show? Because there's nothing interesting about a racist old white men. It's old. It's stale. Move on.
And you can complain all you want that Dave Chappelle gets away with it, or that non-Mexican Mexican-disparager Carlos Mencia gets away with it. And you're right, they do. But I promise you that when they get stale, they won't be able to sell ads anymore, and then we'll all move on to the next big (offensive, stupid, lowest-common-denominator-serving) thing.
If you want to succeed, you have to sell to the masses, even when they aren't the same color as you. That's how it works in America. That's how you live in Rome.
Labels: culture, pop culture, venting
9:28 AM # (30) commentsTuesday, February 20, 2007
I spoke too soon.Moms do get sick. I guess I have the flu now. Or its nephew, 24-Hour Flu-Like Virus. I didn't stop feeling beat up this morning, in fact, it only got worse, so I drove home at lunch time and have been in bed since then. Now I'm awake, eating soup. I hope to God I don't start puking my guts up. But I don't think I will, because I feel voraciously hungry instead. I think my body knows what to do. Eat the virus out.* Ache it out. Sleep it off.
Random Stuff
I admire people who make things.
I keep wanting to take extra pics for my own Flickr page, but I haven't done so yet. Haven't remembered to take my camera around. I could use the cell phone, but actually, no, I had to stop that because I get charged, like, 5 cents a photo, and last time it added $20 to my bill.
I'm waiting for a university to pay me. I'm waiting, waiting for good news. Waiting for a star to fall... Can't remember who sings that song. Also, there is a song about waiting by John Bon Jovi that I couldn't stop thinking about in the workplace cafeteria today. Sometimes I think about lyrics that mean what's going on in my life.
How do you say hot dog in Spanish? I tried to say it today but the words wouldn't come to me. My boyfriend thought it might have literally been perros calientes, but I don't think so. Try it and see:
Me: Tienen perros calientes hoy?
Hamburger lady: No, pero [points to Vietnamese food station next door.]
My boyfriend: No, they only have cat today.
Speaking of racist stereotype humor... I'm gonna try to tell y'all a funny conversation we had the other day. Background: My boyfriend was born in Vietnam, so it's okay for him to say stuff about Vietnamese people. I am Latina and White, so it's okay for me to say stuff about my own peoples, too. Also, when we are together, it's okay for us to make observations about each other's people... as long as they're funny. Okay.
So we were in Houston's VietnamTown area, eating at this place we always eat at. And, next to that place is a place called Cyborg Tax. And, as it often does, the mere existence of Cyborg Tax got on my boyfriend's nerves.
Tad: That's so stupid. Who the hell would name their tax place that shit?
Me: I think that's a bad-ass name for a tax place. Anyway, it was probably an old Asian couple, and they didn't speak English too great, so they asked one of their kids to pick a name. They were like, [poorly mimicking Vietnamese accent] "Jimmy, what good name for our store?" And Jimmy was like [miming kid playing on Playstation], "I don't know. How about cyborg?" And they were like, "What's that?" and he was like, "It's something really cool."
Tad, shaking head in disgust: No. That's not how it happened. Here's how it happened. [Re-does my skit with brilliant, spot-on Vietnamese accent and Americanized teen voice:]
"Jimmy, you help with store. What we name it?"
"Uh... How about Cyborg Tax?"
"Cybog? What that?"
"You know... Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator."
"Oh, I like that! He a Republican!"
See how my boyfriend's funnier than me? But, actually, I bet I'm funnier than him when it comes to making fun of my own people. Someday we'll have to have a big, racist Joke Off* and see.
* Ha, ha, that sounds dirty. 6:19 PM # (7) comments
Friday, August 25, 2006
Welcome, Bitter Asian MenA while back, my boyfriend and I met an Asian author and bought the book he was selling, which dealt with his issues with ethnicity. Afterwards, the author and I emailed a few times, and he asked me questions about how I came to be dating an Asian man, and if I found Asian men in general attractive, and other stuff along those lines. So I wrote him a pretty long response, via email. And then he posted it on his blog.
I wasn't sharing state secrets or anything. But, at the same time, if I had known my words were going to be public, I would have organized them more coherently, and written a little less informally, probably. But, oh well. No harm, no foul.
Now, however, I see that my words are being reproduced on other sites. Specifically, sites dedicated to Asian men seeking sex with Caucasian women.
So, because of that, and for all new visitors who may come to this site seeking hot, slutty Caucasian blondes to sleep with, I now present:
Gwen's Advice for Asian Men Who Want to Date Caucasian Women
Woo hoo! Interracial dating! Ow!!!
Disclaimer: I have no business speaking for anyone but myself. I can't tell you what people of other races, or even other people of my own race, are thinking. However, I have a tiny bit of experience, and keenly honed observational powers, not to mention opinions I have no problem expressing in a very loud voice. So take everything I say with a grain of salt. Take it, bitch! Just kidding. Okay.
If we're being honest with ourselves, we Americans know that there are certain inter-ethnic dating combinations that are less common than others here in our US of A. First, Asian men with Caucasian women. You don't see that often, do you? Yes, you do see Asian women with white men all the time, but not the other way around. Hmm. Another atypical combo, for example, is African-American women with white men, even though you often see the opposite. Hmm. And, if you really think about it, I'm sure you can come up with other combos that you hardly ever see.
I'm not going to attempt to discuss why these combinations are atypical. because I'm a lover, not a sociologist. However, from people I've talked to and things I've read, I've realized that there are many Caucasian women who would really like to date Asian men, and vice versa. And yet, somehow, they aren't hooking up as much as it seems like they could be. So my purpose in this blog entry is to facilitate romance between these groups. If you can apply my advice to other inter-ethnic dating dilemmas, even better.
1. Keep your blue-eyed, big-breasted blonde fetish to yourself.
If you came to me and said, "Gwen, I find Caucasian women attractive, and I've met some I'd like to date, but I'm afraid deeply ingrained American social biases are against me," then I would be willing to help you.
But if you came to me and said, "Gwen, I want to date a blonde, blue-eyed woman with big tits, because I drive a Mercedes and therefore I deserve it," then I would tell you to get the hell out of my face. I would tell you to keep your shallow, objectifying thoughts inside your own head, preferably while it's out of my sight. No one wants to hear anyone objectifying people and then whining about it.
"Why can't I date a blonde with big boobs?"
"Why can't I meet a handsome man who makes a hundred thousand dollars a year?"
"Why can't I attract thin, pasty vampires with green eyes?"
Because you're a shallow dumb ass who doesn't see other people as human beings. That's why.
2. Remember that you can't read other people's minds.
(Unless you can, in which case you don't need my advice.)
Do you try to read other people's minds? Do you tell yourself their side of the conversation before you even have a conversation? Example: There's a nice-looking person of another ethnicity standing at a bar. You think, "I want to talk to that person, but I already know that pop culture has convinced her that a person of my ethnicity isn't worth dating. So I'm not even going to try."
Even sadder example: You're standing at a bar and a nice-looking person of another ethnicity walks up and starts a conversation with you. You think, "If this person were of my ethnicity, I'd think she was hitting on me. But I know, through years of conditioning by pop culture, that people of her ethnicity never hit on people of my ethnicity. Therefore, I will stand here looking uncomfortable until Ashton Kutcher pops out and yells 'Punked!'"
How do you know what other people are thinking, before you even meet them? You don't. If you won't even try to hit on people, and you won't even give them a chance to try to hit on you, then you are missing opportunities and you have no one to blame for it but yourself.
3. Some people are traumatized by interracial experiences. (Or shy.)
Let's say you've been hanging out with a person of another ethnicity for a while, and you want to date him/her. Let's say he/she doesn't seem to be attracted to you, but is friendly. So you suspect (hope?) that he/she wants you but is reluctant to say so because of interracial trauma and trepidation.
That's when you have to be brave and say something. Not hint something, not allude to something - but say what you want.
"So... would you like to go out some time?"
"I like you. In that way. Do you like me, too? Circle one." [Hand him/her the paper that says YES and NO.]
"Can we have sex? Because I would really like to."
"Can we get involved in a long-term relationship that ends up in me emotionally blackmailing you into buying me an engagement ring you can't afford? Because I think that would be fun."
Be honest. Come right out with it. If they say yes, awesome! If they say no - ouch. Man, that's going to hurt your feelings. It's going to be humiliating. But you know what? That's how it is with your own ethnicity too, right? No one likes getting rejected, but don't let race stop you from even trying.
4. Some people are racist.
Some people, unfortunately, won't want to date you, even if you're smart, funny, sexy, and awesome, because of the color of your skin. And you know what? Fuck them.
Not literally, though. I mean, forget them. They're losers. Or, you know, they're just not into people with your skin color. Just like other people aren't into people who make as much money as you, or who wear the clothing size that you do, or whatever. And, hey, that's their loss, isn't it? Move on. Find someone better. Some day we'll all be mixed except for the racist people, and our genes will be stronger than theirs, and they will die off and be forgotten. Or not. But, either way, don't waste your time with people who aren't into you, and don't let those experiences make you feel bad about yourself.
5. Hang out with cool people who hang out with cool people.
You say you want to date outside your own ethnicity, but do you socialize with people outside your own ethnicity? If I'm purple and you're green, and you only hang out with green people, why would I think you'd want to date me? (I'd think it's because you have a weird purple sex fetish, actually.)
People who are already of mixed ethnicity are more likely to date outside their own ethnicity, I'd imagine. Ethnically mixed groups of friends are more likely to introduce you to lots of different kinds of people. And then, best of all, when you do hook up with someone outside your own ethnicity, your multicultural friends will be less likely to bat an eye at it.
6. Actually...
Now that I'm looking back over this advice, I'm seeing that a lot of it could also apply to non-interracial dating. So, there you go. Just treat everyone like a human being, and you should be okay.
Go find love. Or sex. Good luck. You're welcome.
Labels: culture, my sex life
9:29 PM # (20) 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) commentsWednesday, June 21, 2006
I'll say it...I thought Nacho Libre was funny and endearing. I liked the Mexico setting and all the St. Franceses of Assisi. I liked the little kids. I liked the luchadores and the nun and the skinny guy and the explanation for Jack Black looking so white. It made me laugh and, I'll admit it, one part made me cry.
And it's getting a lot of bad reviews. This reminds me of when I saw Napoleon Dynamite and liked it, and not only did it get a lot of bad reviews, but people said it was full of racial stereotyping. That annoyed me. I guess they meant racial stereotypes of white people? Like "White people like FFA"? Because, as a Latina, I don't know any stereotypes about Mexicans running for class president or shaving their heads.
I was expecting Nacho Libre to get the same accusations, since it's set in Mexico. But I thought a lot of it looked really authentic. I liked that they used real Mexicans (except for Jack Black) and didn't do the asinine Spanish phrase translation that anyone else would have done.
Mostly, though, I liked the little kids. I think Jack Black has realized just what people will take from him: he needs to balance himself with cute kids, and he can be paired with a pretty romantic interest, as long as we don't have to see him kiss her. (See: School of Rock.)
Maybe I'm just lowbrow. But if y'all see Nacho Libre and like it, let me know.
Labels: culture, pop culture
1:11 PM # (13) commentsFriday, 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. 1:21 PM # (10) comments
Thursday, May 11, 2006
IssuesOf 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.) 8:30 AM # (6) comments
Sunday, April 30, 2006
I'm in LoveNear our favorite pho place is a dry cleaner or tailor who has a bird. I think it's a myna bird. Sometimes this person sets the bird's enormous cage outside the shop, and we stop to look at the bird. He/she/it is very pretty - iridescent black with yellow and orange markings on the face.
Today, for the first time, the bird spoke to us. "I am MPO," he said, in a rusty little vocoder-sounding voice. Like a little robot.
Maybe he didn't say "I am MPO." Maybe he actually said something in Vietnamese. Still - it was cute as hell. And then he would whistle very, very loudly, with his little head turned way over. Then, he'd whistle quieter, with different notes. Then he'd say something else, in Vietnamese. Then he'd make a whistle like a video game.
"I love you, little bird. I love you!" I told him. And I wasn't lying. Man, I wish I could afford a bird like that.
When we crossed the street to our car, the myna bird did his loudest whistle. "I love you!" he called in his husky robot voice.
Aw.
Ethnically Conflicted Authors, Unite!
Today we went to the Asian Pacific Heritage Festival in hopes of finding cute trinkets and something good to eat. Instead, we saw a lion dance. And then I met this guy named Irwin Tang, who wrote a book called How I Became a Black Man and Other Metamorphoses. He seemed nice and his book was a short-story collection with a long title - my fave kind - so I bought a copy and let him sign it.
Irwin Tang gestured towards my boyfriend, Tad, and asked, "Is this your friend? Or boyfriend?"
I thought that was kind of funny that he just came right out and asked, but then again, I knew why. It's not common for Caucasion women to date Asian men, they say. Asian men mention it on their blogs rather often. Indeed, Mr. Tang brings it up in his book.
However, people don't usually come right out and ask me, "Oh, my gosh, are you, a Caucasion woman, dating him, an Asian man?!?" Even the local old Vietnamese ladies refrain from asking. (They make do with glowering at us disapprovingly, instead.) Everyone else, I assume, can see the love shining from Tad's eyes and mine, and they just know.
Maybe Tad's contacts were dirty at that moment. Or... maybe Irwin Tang asked because he was hoping I was romantically available.
Just kidding. Ha. So... On the way home, I read the first story in the book aloud, and everyone in the car laughed. So, if you see Irwin Tang at a festival in your town, you should pick up his book, show him your boyfriend, and give his stories a try.
Sighs
Now, in addition to annoying asshole neighbors who are making noises downstairs as we speak, my apartment complex features giant, flying tree roaches. Yay, right? God damn it, I don't know how it's possible for me to be readier to leave this place than I already am.
::wish::wish::wish::
[I'm not going to say anything about you-know-what (as mentioned below) until there's something worth saying. In the meantime, please continue to wish, wish, wish for me, okay?.] 12:19 AM # (4) comments
Monday, March 13, 2006
My Weekend Adventures in a Numbered List1. Friday my new work buddy and I had drinks and then dinner. Then, I think I went home and played World of Warcraft until my boyfriend got off work. While my kids are out of town, I'll have drinks with coworkers more often. I think it helps unburden your soul.
2. Saturday morning my boyfriend Tad and I went to eat spinach bacon paninis for breakfast. Then I had to get an emergency pedicure at an unfamiliar place, in preparation for the soiree we were about to attend. All the while, I worried about the whirlpool and the possibility that it would give me a deadly staph infection, like what happened to that woman in Fort Worth. But it didn't (that I know of), luckily. Tad was excited by the sign that said "Man $10", but I had to explain that that meant manicure, not that males got pedicures for half price. The lady seemed upset when I told her we didn't have time for a manicure, after all. Oh, well, too bad. What's she gonna do - give me a deadly staph infection? Ha, ha. Okay, no, that wasn't funny.
3. At 11 AM we went to one of those fancy Asian engagement parties, with a tea ceremony and a whole roasted pig. Also, this one had a chocolate fountain. Last time we went to one of these, a young half-white, half-Columbian woman attended, wearing a traditional Asian dress. I told Tad that if she could do that, I would do it next time, then. He said she could do it because she was married into the family. I asked him if he would pretend to marry me so I could wear one of those outfits. He said no. I told him that was fine - that I would just marry some other Chinese guy and then show up in the outfit next time. They kind of sprung this engagement party on us, so I didn't have time to find another Asian guy to marry, much less to have a dress made. So I just wore a dress from Target, instead. We had fun. Congratulations, Le and Adym.
4. Later we went to see Felix da Housecat at the Meridian. It was a very good show. A few people showed up in '80s clothing, which was cute. But Mr. da Housecat fooled them by mixing mostly '70s and '90s music, instead. He mixed Metallica, y'all. He mixed Nirvana and Marilyn Manson. Our respect for him grew immensely that night, because he was very creative and good. Also, these two girls kept falling on the floor drunk, to the point that the cops had to haul them out. One of them threw up what looked like cat food. They made me lose my buzz. Then, I regained it. Then, some stupid effing beeotch spilled a beer on me on the dance floor, and I lost my buzz again. Then, I regained it. Then, we went home at around 4 AM.
5. The next day we went to our favorite pho place for breakfast/lunch. I had #53 and a Diet Coke. That's what I always get. The waitress says it with me when I order. #53 is rice with chargrilled pork and one eggroll. And fish sauce. Everything tastes better with fish sauce, as you know.
6. For the first time in our lives, we went to Bayou Bend, the historical 15-acre estate of famed local philanthropist Ms. Ima Hogg. It was very crowded, because the azaleas were in bloom. But we saw enough of the mansion to make us want to return. I can't describe how beautiful the rooms were, because when I'd read about them before, I'd assumed they'd be boring. They weren't, but I'm not sure "Rococco revival" and "gas chandeliers" and "gold leaf canvas wall paper" and "Margaret Thatcher ate here during the Economic Summit" will make you understand. And the pictures don't really do it justice. So you just have to imagine it. Or not.
7. And then we went to Joann Fabrics, which I will probably call Clothworld until I die. Among other things, I purchased two small fake birds to put into my flowerpots. I won't launch into a long story about how nice it is not to be married to someone who makes a big stinking deal about something as innocuous as wanting to put a tiny fake bird into a flowerpot. Also, I won't launch into a flowery description of how awesome it is to date someone who sits next to you at the patternbooks, as opposed to waiting outside in a truck, honking its horn. Okay, I've said enough.
8. We went to Rice Epicurean to pick up our contributions to a group dinner. Tad felt sad for that grocery store because it was so dead, because it's across the street from the newer, way more popular Central Market. I didn't mind the deadness, though. Sometimes you just want to get in and get out of the grocery store with your bottle of wine and sugar-free cookies in hand.
9. We had spaghetti with our friends, and then some of us made beaded jewelry while others of us lay on the couch. We all watched Trading Places and lamented the fall of Eddie Murphy's genius. (Al Franken was in that movie. Funny, huh?) Also, we drank sparkling dessert wine, because we're cheap and trashy like that.
10. At night we went to sleep. This morning Tad started his new job. I'm waiting to hear from him now. I hope he's doing okay. 12:37 PM # (3) comments
Friday, February 24, 2006
How to Survive White Trash Hell on New Year's Evean illustrated story by Gwen
When Tad told me that the gang wanted to attend a New Year's Eve event sponsored by a particular local radio station, I was skeptical.
"I don't know," I said. "I'm worried that, if it's sponsored by that radio station, it might not be... you know. Nice."
"No, baby, it'll be fine," he assured me. "It's black tie optional." Then he coughed, and muttered under his breath, "Or you can wear togas, or lingerie, but the guys want to go because it's open bar."
"What's that, sweetie? I didn't catch that last part," I said.
"I said, we should go to the mall this weekend and buy you a nice dress." And the subject was promptly changed.
This was the picture I wanted to use to show y'all how I looked on New Year's Eve.
But my boyfriend said not to, so I'm using this one, instead:
I think I look nice.
When our group met up in the line for the event, all our female members immediately shared with each other the fear that, being sponsored by this particular local radio station, the party might not be quite as... elegant... as we were hoping. As we were dressed for, I should say.
All too soon, we discovered that our fears were well founded. Because, while our group had chosen to dress like this:
... other attendees had chosen to dress like this:
Let me rephrase. While we had chosen to dress like this:
... other people had gone with the option of dressing like this:
No, seriously. I don't think you're getting it. I'm trying to tell you that there were people there dressed like this:
You see the situation clearly now, do you not? Yes, not, I'm sure that you do.
And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with dressing like that. In public, on New Year's Eve. No, because I don't judge. All I'm saying is that, if I had known that 70% of the attendees would be dressed like that, I might have left my good rhinestones at home.
The women in our group felt many emotions at that point. Now that it was too late to get a refund for our tickets... Now that we'd spent several hours getting ready for the evening... Now that we had not yet gotten our money's worth from this beer-sponsored, Linkin-Park-cover-band-ridden event... I'm not going to say that the main emotion was disappointment, and I'm not going to say that the chief sentiment was "Mike is never, ever picking the place for New Year's Eve again." I'm just going to let you imagine how you would have felt at that point, if you were us. And I bet you can imagine it well.
Obviously, there was only one thing to do.
And once we did that, we thought of a few other ways to pass the time until the 1 AM buffet.
Such as, for instance, cursing our fates...
Catching up with friends...
Coming up with new variations on the classic devil-horn photographic pose...
Dancing our troubles away...
Getting to know young ladies seated near our party...
In more than one sense...
Or, in my case, stealing Cyra's camera and using it to photograph myself with strangers.
It's easier than you'd imagine. Especially after everyone involved has had a beer. Here's the key: Don't ask the strangers to pose with you.
Just put your arm around their shoulders, and hold up the camera.
And, instinctively, they will look into it and smile. Voila! (Or else, they'll look down at your boobs.) (Voila!)
Sometimes, they will kiss you. Whether you realize it or not. Whether you're absorbed with doing your "Sailor Moon fingers plus prominent tongue" pose or not, and whether you remember it the next morning or not. But don't worry - you'll have the photo, so you can treasure the moment forever, either way.
One guy's group of friends caught on to what I was doing, and they gathered around me. "He thinks you're hot," one of them screamed, pointing at the one guy and then at me, in order to facilitate his point.
"I am hot," I agreed.
"No... He thinks you're hot!" the guy's friend screamed. A little louder, so I'd understand.
"I am hot," I screamed back, in case he'd missed my point.
"No... Our friend thinks..."
Finally, I realized what they were trying to tell me. They wanted me to take a picture of myself with their friend, and then post it on my blog. Okie dokie, guys. Here you go:
I have to admit that, in that photo, their friend was totally right. And so, although I'd felt insecure earlier in the evening, with this man's approval of my appearance, my life had suddenly become complete.
All too soon, however, the new-found fun was over. As the clock struck midnight, like magic, heated misunderstandings broke out in the ladies' room. Like a beautiful rainbow, some guy didn't appreciate Richard trying to make out with his wife. Like fairy dust sparkling on gurgling streams, vomit emerged from partygoers' mouths.
It was time to go home. And so we did, with designated driver intact. And as we rode down the city streets, with Richard lying wrapped in a tablecloth across the laps of everyone in the back seat, our hearts welcomed all the potential of 2006. And we promised ourselves, through laughter mingled with tears, that next New Year's Eve, we'd stay home. 11:29 PM # (19) comments
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Linkelodeon!Alert reader Tanya C. writes:
Hi Gwen,
I was goofing off and went to the Fritos site, and there is a recipe section you must see:
http://www.ilovechilipie.com/Recipes.aspx
Swear to god, most of them are the same thing with a tiny bit of variation, like add some onions, etc. But my favorite is the Fritos Chili Pie in a Bag*, which is the same as the Walk Around Fritos Chili Pie, except it seems to call for chipped onions.... For some reason it all struck me as hilarious.
*"Perfect when you are in a convenience store and want a mini-meal on the go." Like, say if you're robbing the store or like, kidnapping someone and you're on the go!
Of course I wrote back to Tanya and informed her that Frito Pie in the Frito Bag is popular school-carnival fare here, and that maybe we should consider mailing emptied Frito bags to impoverished countries that are bereft of waterproof materials. Good job, Tanya, on finding snack resources for criminals and lazy single moms alike.
In other "Found While Goofing Off" news...
What are heirloom vegetables? Besides my latest mini-obsession, you mean? They're non-hybrid vegetables - meaning ones that have been planted since forever ago. Meaning not the ones at most grocery stores, which, if you plant their seeds, will degenerate into inferior-DNA-ed species. My newest fantasy is to convince my boyfriend's retired, hobby-less father to start a garden. Then, I will buy him seeds from the heirloom seed catalogue I couldn't resist having mailed to my gardenless apartment. Then, I will reap the harvest. My boyfriend is supposed to talk to his dad about this tonight. I'll keep you updated.
Author and heirloom vegetable enthusiast Amy Goldman creates art from really sexy squashes and melons, which are, incidentally, my favorite sections of the seed catalogue.
Is Monsanto evil? Monsanto is a big ol' corporation that genetically engineers plants and seeds. And bovine growth hormones and Agent Orange, from what I'm reading. I like Old Hippie's Monsanto Site, which tells you who on Bush's cabinet is an ex-Monsanto exec. (Clarence Thomas is one. Who knew he liked gardening, too?) If you want to know more, all you have to do is Google "monsanto evil." Want a personal perspective? Read Queen of the Harpies' take on ex-cops visiting old men to make sure they don't save and plant their Monsanto seeds. There's some scary stuff going on in the world.
But heirloom seeds are not scary. And they're not created by Monsanto. No, they're created by Mother Nature, with help from people who were into plant breeding back in Victorian times. Okay, well... I take that back. Some of the tomatoes are a little scary. But in a cool way, you know?
The Project Runway contestants showed their collections at NYC Fashion Week.
Here is Santino's collection.
Here is Chloe's collection.
Here is Daniel's collection.
Here is Kara's collection.
I was surprised to find that I didn't like Chloe's much at all, given that she's been my steadfast pick for winner. For all the talk of Santino not designing with women's bodies in mind, I have to say that his collection contained the most items that I could imagine my chunk-style body wearing. Lastly: I wish people weren't so lookist. Daniel's designs aren't that good, but people love him because he's handsome, so his clothes benefit from that. Would I sleep with Daniel if he were hetero? Sure. Would I buy his clothes? Probably not.
Labels: culture, domestic, links, pop culture
2:39 PM # (8) commentsThursday, January 26, 2006
If I get fired this week, it'll be becauseI keep spacing out for half-hours at a time, deeply involved in cutting off my hairs' split ends. The sunlight catches one of the tiny forked strands in the corner of my eye, and that's it. I'm off, desk scissors in hand.
I keep asking my stylist to trim it all off, but then she says, "You wanna keep the length, right?" and leaves most of them on. Either that or the ends of my hair are very dry and just keep breaking. That's the more likely explanation, I guess. I need to cut off an inch of hard-earned length, then. I can't stop thinking about it. That need runs along the bottom of my mind like a dumb Top 40 song. (This morning it's "Confessions" by Usher. Hate the song, can't stop thinking about it. But at least it's not "My Hump" anymore. Oh, no... Why did I type that?)
So my boss walks by, and I'm holding up the tips of my hair in the window, squinting at them cross-eyes, scissors held up like a sword. Mumbling, "Just when I thought I was something... Something, something, got one on the way... These are my confessions..." He looks askance. I can't blame him.
In other vanity-related news,
I'm running a little contest to see how long I can go without buying new work clothes. All my pants (which are all black or gray) feel too short. I only have six or seven tops, 90% of which are pink or green. I need new clothes, but the stores don't have any good ones in my size. Plus, I don't really see the light of day here. So I'm rebelling, and saving money, by buying nothing. I only buy weekend wear. Screw the rest.
Now I know why the women here dress the way they do (which is to say, shabbily). Because, seriously, who cares? We don't see clients, and no one looks at us. No one to impress but each other. Everyone here compliments my purses, but they don't buy new purses for themselves. What's the point, right? All we need to do is count the minutes...
Oh, man, that's getting depressing.
I've been wanting to bust out my sewing machine and make perfectly fitted clothes that I'd like, but that really is a hobby I don't have time for. As the Peanuts kids would say: *sigh*. I should quit whining and lose some weight. But it's so much easier to write books, instead. That's how hard losing weight is - so hard that you'd rather write books. Easier than both of those, however, is playing World of Warcraft and filling virtual shopping carts with things I'll never buy. That's the easiest thing of all, especially if you eat snacks while you're doing it.
Happy Chinese New Year.
That is to say, "Kung hey fat choi." I memorized that so I can say it to my boyfriend's parents as I hand them a bag of oranges or tangerines this weekend. Rest assured that I will forget it when the time comes. I'm getting to where I can understand lots of little words and sentences in their language. But I can't ever pronounce them with the right tone.
So I thought I would learn Vietnamese, instead. His parents speak about 37 languages, English and Spanish being the ones in which they're least fluent. Vietnamese is the Asian language I'm exposed to most, being that I have a medical condition that causes me to frequently crave Vietnamese food. So I'm learning the words. Com means rice. Pho is the beef soup. Bun is the vermicelli noodles. Except picture all those words with little punctuation marks all over them. Thit nuong is the most important phrase in the Vietnamese language. It means beautful, lean, vinegar-y sweet barbecued pork. Gah-(oi) (don't know the spelling) means my favorite vinegar-y salad. Meh-(ee) means Latino.
So... I can't pronounce any of those right, either. So many long dipthongs and tripthongs. But the waitresses are willing to understand me when I try. "Pho! Tai! Lung!" I gulp at them like a tertiary character in a bad Kung Fu movie. They smile and write down the real words that mean "beef soup, large." Not even my boyfriend pronounces it all correctly. But they don't smile when he gets it wrong. "Sell-out," they think, mistaking him for Vietnamese, instead of the one-of-a-myriad-million-types-of-Chinese that he is.
"That's good," Hoa tells me. She's one our Vietnamese friends. "You almost know how to say it. I can't get this idiot to remember anything," she adds, lightly punching her boyfriend Rick. He's Salvadoran. I smile sympathetically. Rick says he's looking into language courses at a local community center. He and I may not ever speak Vietnamese for shit but, as Latinos, we share the innate desire to show respect for the parents of our significant others.
I found a "Learn to speak Vietnamese" CD-Rom, but I haven't had time to get into it yet. It promises to have me speaking the language within a week.
That'll be nice. It'll be a relief to be able to say "Hello, how are you" to my boyfriend's parents, without them turning to him and saying, "What did your girlfriend just call us?" Also, I'll be able to order all the barbecued pork I want, however far I roam. Also, I'll be able to get even more gossip from the women at my pedicure place.
I'll let y'all know how it goes. I'll make a graphic that indicates our progress. Rick's avatar will be a tortoise, and mine will be a hare.
Just kidding, Rick. Kung hey fat choi, y'all. Happy Tet. Prospero ano nuevo, tambien. 11:10 AM # (13) comments
