Big Old Weekend
I don’t have a new book out right now because I’m lazy and I write a book every other year instead of every year. However, because Houston’s Latino Book Fair was this weekend, and it’s the biggest book fair in Texas, and I live here in Houston… I helped promote.
Corrupting Our Youth with Nostalgia and Hope
Thursday night I visited two classes at the community college, and that was fun. Although, I swear… Every time I read to college kids, I realize how very, very old I’m getting and how very, very fast the world is evolving and how very, very little sense some parts of my book must make to the childrens of today. So I’ll interrupt my own reading to explain to them what a mimeograph is, or who the Bionic Woman is, even though the Bionic Woman isn’t in my book. But I’ll end up talking about her for quite a while, and trying to get the kids to make the noise that her bionic legs make, since some of them will claim to have seen the show on the Sci Fi network.
(It goes “chuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh!” Right?)
The best part of the college classes is when their professors let me give the kids writing assignments. No – the best part of that is forcing the kids to read the assignments out loud. A lot of times, they have good little stories to tell. “Do you want to be a writer?” I’ll ask one of them, and he’ll say, “No.”
And then I’ll say, “Too late, you little brat. You ARE a writer. Congratulations! You’re doomed to a life of self-doubt and procrastination! Ha, ha, ha!”
Just kidding, of course. Just kidding, Dr. Ainsworth.
The Mexicanz and Me
Friday morning I got to be on the Mexicanz show on Houston’s Mega 101 FM. That was fun – way more fun than I was scared it would be. See, it’s Chico, Rascal, and Liz. I always thought Liz was really young, right? So when she does the Chismes (gossip) and stutters over the name of Eva Longoria’s new perfume or something, Chico and Rascal rag on her a little and say she shouldn’t get to do the Chismes anymore. And then I worry about her, and get mad at them, and say to my car radio, “Why don’t y’all do the gossip, then? Why do y’all make Liz do the gossip and then make fun of her while she’s doing it? She’s doing it bilingual! That’s not easy!”
Then I was scared that I would go on the show and try to say “Edward James Olmos 4th Annual Latino Book Fair and Family Festival and Whatnot” and stutter while saying it, and they’d make fun of me. Or else a caller would call in while I was talking and say, “Shut that chick up and play more reggaeton!”
But none of that happened. Chico, Liz, Rascal, and Chile were very nice, and we talked about a ton of stuff and cracked each other up… and I can’t wait to go back. Seriously – I love to be on the radio with real DJs, because they’re so quick with funny words and it’s such an adrenaline rush to keep up with them between the commercials and the songs.
Every time I drive away from a radio station, I turn it on in my car so I can still hear the DJ’s voices. A lot of times – most times – I do these gigs and no one I know gets to hear them, because everyone’s at work or at home watching TV. And it’s weird, knowing that someone heard the show, but no one that knows me. And I don’t get to hear the show… So it makes me feel like maybe the show didn’t really happen. Maybe we talked into the mics, but it never went on the air. Maybe we were all in that box with that cat, or maybe we weren’t, you know?
This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised. When I got into my car, I had a voice mail from one of my cousins who likes reggaeton. I listened. She said, “Hey, hooker. I heard you on the radio trying to pick up men. Call me.” (I love my cousin Ezette. She’s just like me, but even more sailor-mouthed, if such a thing is possible.)
Then, when I got to my computer, I had an email from one of my long-time blog readers. He’d heard the show on his computer, all the way over in Denver.
Even though he’s never seen me and I’ve never seen him, it made me happy that he’d heard. It made me feel safely connected to the tech-spider’s web of the world.
I Am Secretly an Introvert. No, Seriously.
I love, love, love promoting my writing or promoting events because I love to do readings. And I love talking on the radio. I love performing, I guess you could say. I always have. Even back in high school, when I was a somewhat gothic child who kept to herself in the corner of the chemistry classroom, people could find me, on weekends, smiling from a stage somewhere in town, singing a song from West Side Story or dancing a little indigenous tribal dance. At first, I used to get heinous, bladder-aching stage fright before these performances. After a year, the heroin that was the audience’s applause got me over it.
And now… Now, I will talk for hours on stage or in front of a classroom. I will do karaoke, even when sober. I will stand in the middle of any party, or any Starbucks in the world, and talk really, really loud about my sex life.
However… I find it difficult to go to networking events.
I don’t know why. I think it’s the word “networking” that makes me nervous. It implies so much pressure – not to perform, but to impress. It makes me think of people with more money than me, judging me not by my talent or my human decency, but by my lack of aptitude at the skill I never learned – the skill of Looking Important. I just look normal and plebeian.
Normally, at these things, I end huddled in the corner, milking life stories from the catering staff. Friday night, however, I decided to put on a performance and act like I didn’t feel like vomiting or running out the door, and I managed to meet the legendary Esmeralda Santiago, as well as the new-fangled Jackie Guerra. And they were very nice.
And then a bunch of little kids came out and did ballet folklorico for us, and they were so awesome, they made me want to cry. They didn’t network. All they did was dance. And there’s nothing more beautiful than little kids dancing or doing some other kind of art, as far as I’m concerned. The little boy who did the Yaqui deer dance wasn’t worried about making money, or projecting his brand, or impressing anybody. All he was worried about was looking like a deer while he danced. And he did a really good job. He made me cry.
And then I left. On the way home, I listened to the radio and resolved to worry more about art and less about everything else.
The Big Show
The big show was yesterday, and I read at 3:30 or 3:45 (aka, 3 PM Mexican Time – the whole thing was running late) and, of course, it was a very awesome experience. I met a lot of nice people and had my picture taken with a Lucha Libre Guy.
And then my friends wanted to leave and start the drinking, but I begged them to wait, and they very graciously waited until Alisa Valdes Rodriguez showed up so I could meet her. Because it would’ve been very lame to leave without doing that, I felt. And she did show up, and I was shocked by how she looked nothing like her picture. She was way younger, way prettier than the headshot of her on the poster, and she had a very pleasant speaking voice. She did not talk like a sailor.
So I babbled at her in my sailor voice a little, and then my friends dragged me out the door, because there was drinking to be done.
Now
Now it’s Sunday and I can’t even go back for the second day of the Book Fair, even though I really want to, because I have to drive to Austin in a little bit to pick up my kids.
The best part of driving to Austin is that, sometimes, I sing along to the radio all the way there.
The best part of driving back home from Austin is that me and the kids talk our brains out, about all kinds of little things. We play guessing games or “would you rather” games, or we compile our short- and long-range plans, or I tell them about how Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is supposed to match up with The Wizard of Oz, and we resolve to borrow them both and find out for ourselves.
So, that’s what I’m looking forward to now – a long drive home with my kids.
The book fair was fun. Now, on with real life.
