I'll be reading Growing Up with Tamales for story time at Blue Willow Bookshop, in Houston, on Thursday morning, May 15. Tell everyone you know with kids in the Houston area. How do you find and support local indie book stores like Blue Willow? By going to Booksense.
On Saturday, May 17, I'll be in Dallas, reading and signing at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, for the 13th Dallas Children’s Book Fair & Literary Festival.
On June 22, here in Houston, I'm going to do a poetry workshop. It's free and open to the public, y'all, and they're having one every Sunday in June, taught by local poets I love and respect. So come on down.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Toby updateToby spent the night in my oldest son's room. Starbuck spent the night in the living room, instead of on my bed like she normally does. Was she guarding the whole house from Toby? I don't know. After I woke up, she went into my room, I guess. Moments later, Toby bounded in to say good morning. I petted him. Then I heard this ominous, "Er-r-r-r-r... ERR-R-R-R!" from under the bed. "Starbuck! Be nice!" I yelled.
Poor Toby, after apparently holding it all night, finally went to the bathroom... in one of our houseplants. "No-o-o!" I cried, scaring him across the house. But then he let me carry him back into the hall and show him the real litter box. I'd shown it to him yesterday, but neglected to scratch his paws in it, like you're supposed to. So I did his paws, and he made this face like, "Oh. That's why you showed me this box yesterday. Okay."
Poor thing.
I hope that, once the house is emptied of humans, Starbuck will get bored enough to be a good hostess. Maybe she'll give Toby a tour and let him share a seat next to her at the Bastard-Squirrel-Watching Window.
Avon: What's up with it?
At my work, in the room called Ladies, there's a new Avon catalog with something weird on the back. It says, "Rich, creamy goodness! Moisturizing body yogurt!" And it shows pastel, fruit-scented lotions in yogurt-carton-like containers, with a spoon dipping into one of them.
Isn't that kind of disgusting? Body yogurt? Not only does it sound like smearing food on your body, which is a practice best left to seventies porn, in my opinion, but it also carries the vague connotation of... I don't know. A cure for yeast infections or something? Okay, I'm sorry I said that. But I had to. It was there, in the back of my mind. I'm just not turned on to the body yogurt idea.
Plus, the ad copy: "Rich, creamy goodness." Doesn't that sound like early 2000s blogspeak? Like a phrase a blogger would use facetiously, on a blog called something like, "A Blog of One's Own" or "Randomized Thoughts," to describe Josh Hartnett in a shirtless scene?
You'll be glad to know that I finally found a pair of brown boots.
And I got them on outrageous discount, 65% off. I want to wear them every day. I'm wearing them today, in fact, with a dress they probably don't go with. They look sort of like galoshes with this dress. But I don't care.
Here they are. They look just like that, but darker. That picture is way bright/reddish on my monitor, for some reason.
And, normally I wouldn't link to something I bought in that way, but I really wanted you to see the boots, because I've been talking about looking for brown boots on this blog for, what? Nine thousand years now? And I know y'all have probably been worried about it. It's probably kept y'all up at night, your concern regarding my boot search... So I just wanted you to know you can lay the matter to rest now.
rich people annoyingness
There are certain web sites in this world on which the commenters annoy me with their snobbery. It's usually on sites about fashion or New York that a certain breed of blogsnob will show up and hate on people who buy cheap clothing. They'll be like, "Oh my god, I wouldn't be caught dead in Old Navy. People who shop at Kohl's should kill themselves. I use Banana Republic silk blouses to wipe my nose. I can't touch, share oxygen with, or live in the bourrough of anyone who browses the Barney's clearance racks."
And I always think, "Yeah, right." Who are these people, who brag about their wealth and discriminating taste anonymously, in someone else's blog comments? Who are they supposed to be fooling? Who would care, besides the other faux rich people commenting anonymously?
Then again, maybe they aren't fake. Unfortunately, I've met some rich people in real life who really do believe that either:
a) they're smart for being rich and everyone else is stupid for not being rich, or
b) they're better than everyone else, as evidenced by the fact that they were born rich.
Maybe people who were born rich are better than everyone else (or at least they were, in a past life). But I don't think so. And I'm not just saying that because I was born poor.
Some people think that we're all the same -- that no one is better than anyone else. I don't believe that, either.
I think that being a good person (good person, better person, best person) is based on your behavior. We can't all be born rich, smart, or attractive, but most of us can make the choice to be good -- to treat others as we'd like to be treated -- or to be assholes. And that's the basis on which I set a person's value, in my mind.
All that sounds super elementary and not worth discussing, I know. But I swear to gosh, I really do talk to people on a daily basis who believe that being born with money makes someone a more valuable person. Or that pretty people are more valuable. Or that smart people are. To each their own, I guess. But I hate it when people apply that value system to me. I hate it when someone quite obviously decides that I'm good enough to talk to because they find me attractive enough, or because I've published a book, or because I've pulled myself up by the bootstraps. Don't talk to me if that's why you're talking to me. Don't talk to me if you're an asshole.
(I know some of y'all reading this blog are rich, and some of you are Republicans, and that it sometimes seems like I hate rich people and Republicans. I know this because y'all write to me and say, "I know you hate rich Republicans, but I am one and I still like your blog." I don't hate rich people or Republicans! I know a lot of decent people of both persuasions, and I wouldn't judge y'all on that, alone. :) )
And that ends my rant for today. Come back next time for another petty, judgmental, evil rant.
overtraining
A while back, I was on this here blog pretending that I might take up jogging, and my e-buddy Mike gave me some advice. He said, "Don't overtrain." And he cited an example of his own overzealous exercise and self-injury.
I thought of Mike the other day when I was trying to break through my weight-loss plateau. I'd already walked a couple of miles that day and done a half-hour routine with Gilad. And I was so annoyed at not having lost any more weight, I decided to do some cardio an hour before bed.
And I pulled a muscle in my lower back, and Mike's words floated above my head like the Ghost of Overzealous Workouts Past.
And now my back hurts, and I can hardly exercise at all. And I've only lost 2 lbs this month, when I should have lost 5. And now I just have to eat less, I guess, if I want to meet my goal, which is to lose 20 pounds total by May 1.
If I can't meet that goal, I won't hate myself or anything. But it will be a little disappointing, and it'll set back my plans and my time table for deciding on a Halloween costume. And etc.
But, if all that turns out to be the least of my problems, then I'll be doing pretty well and I'll be relieved. :)
Labels: cats, materialism, vanity, venting
5:30 AM # (7) commentsThursday, January 17, 2008
Oh, here's a good cliched post topic -- New Year's resolutions!1. Write a bunch of stuff.
I have so much stuff to write, I feel guilty sitting here writing this blog entry. I have so much stuff I'm contractually obliged to write this year, I'm probably going to use up all my vacation time and floating holiday writing it. And having so much stuff to write? Is a good thing. Don't think I'm forgetting that.
2. Make a bunch of money. Or, if that's not possible, save a bunch of money.
I'm not going to say anything bitter about the fact that all the money I would have made this year is already allotted to making up for lost child support. I mean, I already made a lot of money for the year, but it wasn't enough. Bad Luck seems to follow me around, watching my mailbox for checks.
Then again -- better to have bad luck when you have the checks than when you don't, right? Right. In the mean time, I am in the midst of a budgetary resolution to never eat out again. As you might imagine, it's making me sad.
O O
___
3. Lose 20 more pounds. (WARNING: Boring weight talk to follow.)
Science has left me upon a plateau. Now that I've lost 35 pounds through the magic of physics, I can no longer lose weight at the same rate (2 lbs per week) unless I subsist on 1100 calories per day. Which is 100 fewer than the recommended allowance for anyone, fat or thin. And about 300 fewer than a hypoglycemic chick who really loves to eat would recommend for herself.
Subsisting on 1100 calories a day would be doable if I ate 1400 per day, then burned off 300 of that with exercise. Burning off 300 would take about an hour and a half. Maybe less if I did it via DDR. ("Difficult" level = hardcore cardio.) And all that would be incredibly plausible if I didn't spend most of my day sitting, either at a desk or in my car. I spend about 11 hours a day sitting down, if you include my long-ass commute. Sad, huh?
I'm trying to eat as few calories as I can stand, and burn as many calories as I can squeeze into my sedentary day. But I might have to resign myself to losing the weight more slowly than 2 lbs per week. My goal is to lose five pounds a month, totalling 20 pounds by May 1. Guess how much weight I've lost so far!
Half a pound. Bleh.
If I do meet this goal, I might give myself two or three months to rest, then lose 20 more. Why not? That would make me only 10 pounds overweight, by Dept of Health standards, and yet thinner than I've been since I was 18 years old. (Current goal would make me thinner than I've been since 19 years old. Freshman Fifty much? :) ) (<-- That emoticon has a double chin.)
4. Try not to equate money or career success with happiness.
Despite resolutions numbers 1 and 2. No, seriously. I mean, I want to write more and make more money, but without letting my happiness depend on those goals. Should be easy! Right? Right??
5. Work on that whole self-promotion... bleh
Promote myself as an author without feeling like a show-off or a sell-out. Yeah. I remember. I'm gonna do that. Okay.
6. Do more art.
That goes with being happy.
And that's it. Okay. Aren't you glad you asked? What? You didn't ask? Oh. Well... Don't read this entry, then.
Doh. Too late! Too bad for you.
:)
Labels: materialism, vanity, writing
12:11 PM # (5) commentsWednesday, December 26, 2007
afterwardsI went to Flickr, was disappointed that no one's posted many xmas photos, then reminded myself that I haven't posted any, either.
Our Christmas went really well. Hope yours did, too. We baked. A while back, my youngest son Rory, now 10, had found some retro recipe for cookies shaped like mice. He became obsessed with the idea of baking them for Christmas, no matter how many times we told him that a) they'd be a pain in the butt to make, and b) mice have nothing to do with Christmas. But he wouldn't relent, so we did. We took him on a special last-minute drugstore trip to purchase strawberry flavored licorice for mouse tails. We puzzled out how to get the tails into the cookies -- Tad thought of putting toothpicks into the mouse bodies to keep a hole in place while they baked. But we had no toothpicks, so I thought of rolling up tiny bits of foil. The mice had chocolate-chip eyes and peanut ears. While baking, they each doubled or tripled in weight. We decided they were mice preparing for hibernation. Or else, simply very fat mice. The aluminum tails popped out and the licorice tails popped in (with minimal inappropriate innuendo, heh), and the end result was awesome. Rory's cookies got their own display plate, and he enjoyed showing them to everyone who showed up at our party. And I hope I haven't created a baking monster now. Just kidding. We also made other cookies, and mini rum cakes, and white chocolate popcorn as gifts. And if I had known before how easy it was to work with white chocolate bark coating, everything in my house would have been dipped in it by now...
We didn't do a lot of gifts this year because, like a lot of people who drive cars in America, I'm pretty freaking broke right now, and there aren't any Black Friday sales worth the credit card interest, as far as I'm concerned. So we traded very small, inexpensive things, or else things that we'd made for each other. And, honestly, I think it came out just as well. The kids said it did. Maybe they were just being gracious, though. They're so gracious. My dad came over and gave them all Best Buy gift certificates. Rory asked him the amount they contained. My dad said, in the dry tone I know as his joking voice, "I'm pretty broke this year, so they're $8 each." All three kids thanked him. Then, my dad said, "Either 8 or [way bigger amount], I forget." And I understood that they were of course for the bigger amount. The kids thanked him again.
Then, the next day, Rory told me, "Grandpa gave us $8 each for Best Buy, so that's $24. Maybe we can get a game with that." And he seemed so excited. His brother Dallas somberly agreed that they should pool their $8 cards. I said, "No, babies. He gave y'all [much bigger amount] each. Not $8." And they go, "Oh-h-h-h..." Fifteen-year-old Josh rolled his eyes and laughed. He'd gotten the joke.
Okay, enough bragging about my kids. They're going to their dad's today, for his part of the holiday. It's kind of unfair, because our school district rearranged their calendar again, so I'm getting the kids for almost no time at all. But at least I got them for Christmas. Next year I won't, and that'll be sad. We'll have to bake for Thanksgiving, instead. Because I think we finally started the tradition of it.
I was glad that my boyfriend Tad liked both the inexpensive gifts I got him. Y'all know how mens can be hard to shop for. So it was a relief, to see him look sincerely pleased. He got me three very inexpensive gifts, one of which was the wrong size. ("Oh. I didn't see the sizes on them. I just picked the color.") But that's okay, because I already know what I'm getting for my birthday, which is tomorrow. I found out by accident. I'm excited. (But I hope it's the right size.) More on that later, after I come back a year older and hopefully wiser, too.
sad media agenda
This morning, on our local news, the newscasters were at the malls telling us that all the stores had extra, special, super, duper, slashed-prices after-xmas sales today. Because -- surprise! -- no one sold very much before xmas.
And I'm thinking, if people couldn't afford to buy gifts before xmas, why do the malls think they'll suddenly have money afterwards? And why is the news pushing the idea? Is media conglomeration that bad now? Does Time Warner own Wal-Mart now? I mean, I know you can no longer read magazines without fully expecting them to push the books/movies/music umbrella'ed by their parent companies, but dude. What's up with the newspeople encouraging me to shop today? Give me a freaking break.
It reminded me of the days after 9/11, when George W. Bush told us the best thing we could do for our country would be to shop our brains out for xmas.
Honestly? I like shopping as much as anyone. I'm a straight-up consumerist and it gives me the DTs not to shop on any given weekend, and the signs that say 70% Off call to me like sirens with long, well conditioned hair. But still. Even I have my limits. Don't ask me to shop when every not-rich person in America is broke. Tell Halliburton to shop. Tell Texaco to shop. Tell George W. Bush to shop. I'm not listening.
consumerism!
However.
I do have a couple of gift certificates to spend, so I will do that. First stop: Barnes and Noble. Also, I would like to have my nails done in the trendy style -- short ovals with nearly-black polish. We'll see. I have to count my pennies first.
Last night we caught the tail end of Bad Santa, and I watched Billy Bob ask his fellow criminals why they needed all the crap they were stealing from the department store. Why, indeed? They were stealing tacky trash. I would've stolen way better.
The other day, as I told y'all, my boyfriend Tad and I went to Neiman Marcus, which is an expensive department store, as some of y'all might know. I don't go there often, because their target market seems a little older than me. When I do go, it's to purchase the occasional Bobbi Brown product, and their cosmetics sales peeps are always very cordial.
But we went there the other day to look at the clothing, as I told y'all, and ever since then I keep dreaming about it. I dreamed we were suddenly rich and my boyfriend went to the office of the CEO to speak to him about merchandise. Meanwhile, I waited in the wood-panelled waiting room, and South American women struck up conversations with me in rapid Spanish. I thought, "They think I speak Spanish, and they think I'm rich." Then, I thought, "Oh, but I do, and I am." And then we talked about how much we liked shopping at Neiman Marcus. It was funny.
Tad's brother and s-i-l are rich, and they shop there often. So Neiman Marcus sends them beautiful Vogue-mag-sized catalogs, which they flip through and discard. Tad asks if he can have the catalogs. Then he takes them to my house, where he and my youngest son and I peruse each page and laugh or sigh at the insanely expensive stuff. Tad wants a mink dinner jacket. Rory wants a diamond skull-faced watch. I want a python bag, but I feel sorry for the pythons, that they spend their lives growing so thick, only to end up a bag for some lady. So I'll take a diamond Hello Kitty watch, instead. The one with the white ceramic band. Even though it has Kimora Lee Simmons' name on it, and she's not my type.
Wanna hear a dirty secret? Even though I'm not a teenager anymore, I do still cherish a fantasy that I was meant to be rich. That I'm destined for it, sheerly by virtue of my impeccable taste.
The longer I live, though, the more I suspect that I'm not meant to be rich, because it wouldn't be as much fun. If I were rich, I wouldn't have a reason to shop the most run-down thrift stores anymore. I'd have to do "vintage boutiques," instead. If I were rich, I'd miss the obscene joy of rescuing someone else's Neiman Marcus catalogs from the dumpster.
Labels: Christmas, dreams, fantasies, materialism
12:00 PM # (9) commentsWednesday, December 05, 2007
Sad NewsMy middle son is going to live with his father for a semester.
I'm sad about it. But it's not about me. It's about him, trying something new and hoping for certain improvements in his life. So I support his choice, like any parent would.
It's apparently a more common occurence than I'd previously thought -- kids wanting to try living with the other parent; courts allowing siblings to live apart. It's all been arranged better than I could have hoped, and all three brothers will still spend most weekends together, happily.
And that's it on this topic for now. Even if I felt like saying more about this, I wouldn't because I've agreed not to. In advance, I'd like to thank anyone who wishes to express concern. And I'll ask that they instead just send my son good vibes. Thanks.
Good News
We also got some good news recently, concerning my writing.
Annoyingly, I can't disclose the details of that, either. Yet. Sorry! I just wanted to tell y'all there was good news, too, so the more sensitive among you wouldn't worry too much.
:)
(This is me keeping my chin up. I'm like a British soldier in a Vonnegut novel, that way. Keep your chin up, keep your dignity intact, keep your stoicism fresh, etc.)
something different on which to conclude
I found a really exciting magazine. It's called Shop Smart. I'd seen it before, but assumed it was a knock-off of Lucky. Then, the other day, its cover caught my eye, and I flipped through and realized it was actually Consumer Reports, but for smaller things.
Are you like me, in that you've always loved the idea of Consumer Reports, but don't buy enough cars, trucks, washing machine, or bagless vacuum cleaners to make a subscription worth it? If so, I'm thinking they made Shop Smart for us. This month's issue rates hot cocoa mix. (Nestle's got hated on.) It calls out department store "sale" prices, comparing them to MSRPs. (Sears got burned.) It shows you which Barbies are worth money and gives you tips on decorating for the holidays. In short, it's awesome, and it's all I can do not to call in sick so I can read it cover to cover instead of going to work.
Labels: domestic, materialism, parenting, writing
6:06 AM # (12) commentsTuesday, October 16, 2007
Possible Reasons to Get Into ShapeNot my reasons, necessarily. Just hypothetical ones.
1. To fit into better clothing.
2. To wear a certain Halloween costume that you didn't feel comfortable wearing before.
3. To participate in activities you were physically unable to do before.
4. To improve your health.
I know we're not supposed to say that fat people are less healthy, but I have to tell y'all that my hypoglycemia has improved dramatically since I've lost a little weight.
5. To look sexier.
Cheekbones, high waist-to-hip ratio. Human biology says these are sexy.
6. To be able to try new... um... yoga positions.
7. To get more clothing on sale.
Smaller clothes always seem to go on sale more often. To be able to find better stuff at thrift stores.
8. To go up the parking garage stairs without breathing all hard and making your lunch dates worry that you're going to have a heart attack.
Reasons to Lose Weight that May End in Heartbreak
1. So that people will love you.
2. So that people will treat you better.
3. For revenge.
4. So that your life will go from miserable to awesome.
Thrift Store Shopping
I don't mind telling y'all that I'm kind of broke right now. This mortgage and all the expenses that houses incur are kind of killing me. But it's all right -- I have a house. I have equity.
So, in the meantime, I've been losing some weight, right? Remember I told y'all that? And, I'm glad to be losing it, but at the same time, I can't afford to buy new pants as fast as I've been needing them.
Enter: Thrift store shopping.
I have tons of fluctuating issues with thrift store shopping. Sometimes I think it's cool, and fun, and good for the environment. I know lots of people who shop exclusively at thrift stores, and they find really awesome clothes to wear, and I admire them for it. I like vintage clothing, in general. I like the idea of wearing something creative, and something you won't find at every single mall on earth.
But then, sometimes, it gives me PTSD over growing up poor. The smell of the Goodwill will depress me, I mean, and I'll have to turn around and leave.
Other times -- times when I'm fatter -- I hate thrift store shopping because, apparently, fat people never give good clothes away. I don't blame them. When you're fat, it's hard enough to find good-looking clothes. Why would you give your good stuff away without knowing if you'd be able to replace it? No, fat people have to hold on to their good stuff. I know, because I've been fat. More than once.
I'm still pretty fat, but less fat than I was before. Less fat than the pants in my closet, in fact. So, over the weekend, my boyfriend and my youngest son and I went thrift-store shopping. And, oh my god, I am going to shop at thrift stores for the rest of my life, y'all. I mean, at least for as long as I'm less-fat and I have a mortgage I can barely afford.
We went to this one by my house -- one of those gigantic ones with a name like Value Village or Thrift Town or Used Universe or whatever. One of those ones where all the aisles are organized by color, and all the signs are in Spanish, then English, and the staff who sets the prices has NO IDEA what's valuable and what's not.
I mean, granted, what's valuable to me doesn't have to be what's valuable to them. It's good when everyone likes different stuff, right? But still -- it doesn't cease to amaze me how you can go into a thrift store and buy either a polyester jewel-toned skirt suit with big gold buttons for $11.97, or else a wool sweater for $1.93.
Luckily, this thrift store didn't have Depressing Smell. It just had the normal, slightly musty thrift-store smell that fades from your nostrils within a few moments.
I found two sweaters, one top, one skirt, a pair of work pants, and two pairs of jeans, for $30! Dude! And they were nice, too. Some of the stuff even seemed new. I've noticed, lately, that the Goodwill carries new clearance merchandise from Target, Mervyn's, and Wal-Mart. So maybe this Value Thrift World store does, too.
One of the pairs of jeans was from the Gap, and it was good to know that I can wear pants from the Gap now, because I haven't had the guts to try on Gap pants in an actual Gap store yet.
I probably would've bought more stuff, but I was tired of looking through the racks. You have to be in the mood for it, and we were pressed for time. My boyfriend didn't find anything because he wasn't in the mood. My son, however, found a $6 men's blazer that he simply needed to own. He needed it, y'all. For formal wear. For cool weather. For the simple fact that it was six dollars and it looked good on him. Never mind that he's only 10 years old. He needed it, so I bought it. I can't deny him. I know how it feels, to need cool clothes like that.
So we raked it in, and I was glad we went. Just like, for the second year in a row, I was glad we went thrifting for our Halloween costumes, too. A while back, we went to a smaller local thrift store -- our costume-luckiest, and my boyfriend bought a suit and a shirt to use in his costume, totalling about $9. I bought a bee-oo-tiful ladies' full slip (the kind of thing you'd only find in the lingerie section of the thrift store, these days) for $2.32, that will, with a few yards of tulle, become my fairy costume.
I know a photographer who uses thrift store lingerie for photoshoots. I know several bloggers -- including some of y'all reading this, maybe -- who regular post their thrifting finds on their Flickrs. I know artists who scout thrift stores for art supplies. During the summer, I bought a bunch of Barbies from the thrift store to use in my own project. It was, like, twelve barbies for six dollars. Something ridiculous like that. Beautiful Barbies in all colors and vintages. And then a big-headed Filipino Bratz boy, for good measure, for 75 cents.
Anyway. I'm happy. I'm broke but I'm happy. You know? I'm realizing lately that it's totally possible to be both, as long as you have people to love and a little bit of creativity.
Tell me about your thrift store finds, your reasons to get into shape or not, or whatever you want to tell me.
Labels: Halloween, materialism, parenting, vanity
6:25 AM # (24) comments
