This book’s release is similar emotionally, for me, to that of the first book I wrote, which was a short prose collection, because:

1. It’s made up of small works, so readers delve into it faster and give feedback faster.

2. Reader feedback contains disclosure of favorite pieces, and so far, everyone has different favorites. That makes me very happy. (Because if everyone liked the same few, I’d assume it’s because those were the only decent ones.)

3. I imagine that other people read collections the way I do – flipping through and stopping on the pieces that resonate with them, skipping the others for “later.”

4. The pieces display comparable levels of horrifying intimacy and therefore vulnerability. So I’m afraid for people to read them. But, because of points one through three above, I can tell myself that people are only thoroughly reading the parts they relate to. And they wouldn’t relate to my intimate thoughts unless they shared them on some level. And realizing that others share your thoughts is the purpose of writing and reading. Therefore, I am safe and should stop worrying.

We are moving.

I sold my house and we bought another one, and we’re moving in three weeks, and we’re very excited about it. We believe that the new house represents a higher level of happiness in our lives. It will usher in a new era for us, basically.

I’m a tiny bit sad because, during the pest inspection, we found out that the new house had carpenter ants. Not termites, but carpenter ants. No, not carpenter bees–carpenter ants. At first I was disgusted by them. But then, as I learned more about carpenter ants in general and our population of them in particular, I came to admire them. Apparently, the ones who live at our house are pretty good at property development. They built a subdivision (in our walls) walking distance from a crape myrtle tree that contains particularly tasty sap and fat aphids. We were joking that they advertised it as “convenient to excellent restaurants.” They also built a little cemetery in a corner of our ceiling, because burying their dead is something they do. Their leader is a queen, and she lives in a tree in our yard.

We’re going to have them all killed. I asked if it was possible to remove them from our house without killing them, but I was told no.

I feel bad about killing them, but that’s real estate. And our new era of happiness requires some sacrifice in order to keep balance in the universe, apparently. So I’m honoring the carpenter ants now, in my mind and on this Internet. Raise your glass to them, if you happen to be drinking. I’ll raise a few later at our bitchin’ new wet bar.

Our Sad Pets

We don’t have babies or toddlers to worry about, but we have these cats, who are almost worse when it comes to a move. They don’t understand anything. They live in constant fear that we’re going to suddenly stop caring for them and turn to murderous sadists. We had to day-board them several times throughout the house-selling process, and that scared them to death. Starbuck, in particular, thought she was in mortal danger and went postal on a teenaged kennel worker.

I can’t explain to them what’s happening. We keep trying. We tell them we’re going to a new house and they’re going to be happy there. But they don’t listen, or they don’t understand English, or something. They won’t be reasonable. They refuse to understand.

There are two more car trips planned for them: one to a new boarding place, near the new house, so that they’ll be safe during the move. Then there’s the trip to their new home. I get stressed just thinking about because I know how they’ll cry in their carriers in the backseat. But then I think about how much they’ll like the new house, and I know it’ll all be worth it.

How many cats do you have? Are they poets, too?

I have two cats, Starbuck and Toby. If they are poets, they haven’t shared that with me. Starbuck enjoys mail and other pieces of paper and protecting our windows from the sight of stray cats. Toby’s hobbies are cool surfaces, hiding, and extreme napping. Starbuck watches a lot of TV, or else watches reflections of the TV in our glasses. Her favorite show is True Blood. Toby doesn’t care for TV much but will listen to Law & Order SVU at a safe distance, as long as there’s a clear path of escape for when the dialogue gets too intense.

Why no mention of the cats since Xmas 2010?

I talk about them on my Facebook page (i.e., my ersatz mini blog), maybe more than people would like.

Have they ever considered having a blog themselves? Why not?

They’ve considered it, yes. But it seems like every time they bring it up, some other cat starts a blog, and then Starbuck and Toby worry about looking like followers. Also, they have concerns that I’m too busy or lazy to type the things they want to tell y’all at the moment they want y’all to know it. Also, they think I’m too free with the camera sometimes, and they can’t physically delete their photos on my Facebook. So we have creative issues to work out. They’ve also talked about doing a graphic novel instead of a blog, and I think that would probably work better, some time in the misty future. I actually have a big, giant plan involving that, and I just need to get them to okay it.

1. I have awesome in-laws. My brother-in-law Teil is my dentist, and my sister-in-law Van is my optometrist, so you know I’ve got the hook-up as far as teeth and eyes go. But I also have to say that my brother-in-law Daniel has saved our lives a million times this year, because he has experience fixing the kind of things that randomly break in houses that were built in the ‘80s, like ours was. He’s helped us fix our shower, our water heater, our dryer, and all kinds of other stuff within this past year alone. For that, I thank him and pledge to continue doing shots and karaoke with him at all Teil and Van’s future parties.

2. I’m so thankful that the Internet exists and that it contains kind people who are willing to share their experiences in order to help others. This year I decided to start riding a bike, after 21 years of not having done so. And I had so much drama trying to find the right bike and the right bicycle seat. Drama and pain, literally. So I took my problems to the Internet, read a bunch of forums, and found out that: a) I probably have a fractured tailbone, and b) I needed a split bike seat.  I bought a cheap split seat and it changed my freaking life, and now I’m enjoying riding my bike so much that it makes me want to cry (almost as much as the tailbone pain made me want to cry before I bought the new seat). So: Thanks, helpful strangers on the Internet.

3. I’m glad I’ve had extra time to spend with my family this year. Particularly with my cousins Andrea and Helen, my brother Erik and his family, and my dad. And my kids, too. I mean, I live with my kids, of course, but I’m grateful that working part-time this year has given me a few extra hours with each of them. And I’m grateful that my family members are generally awesome and value the same things Dat and I do: good food, good drinks, and standing around telling funny stories. Is there anything more important in life?

4. So I’m working from this list I’ve kept on my iPhone throughout the year – a list called “Thankful for” on the Notes app – and one of the items says “Pocket Frogs.” Apparently, at one point, I felt grateful for an iPhone app game about colored frogs hopping around on lily pads. I can’t explain why now, but I’m guessing it has something to do with OCD and stress relief, so let’s just leave it at that. Thanks, little frogs of varying colors and designs.

5. The list also says “Cats,” and I’m guessing I wanted to say something about how Starbuck and Toby, my cats, brighten up my life. I think it’s because they stayed by me (literally, pressed against me on my bed) while I was finishing up my last novel.

6. I’m grateful for my husband, as always. Not least because he spent a really long time very patiently helping me find the right bike and bike seat.

7. You’re always supposed to be thankful for your job, if you have one, and for your good health, if you have that. And so I am.

8. Something not on the list: The other day, my oldest son Paul (not a pseudonym, not anymore) was complaining to me. He was, like, wearing a tie and drinking a cup of coffee, driving his car to work or to the University. (No, he wasn’t, but that’s how you can imagine him with 75% accuracy now.) On this recent day, he was actually in the back seat of the mini van, complaining to the rest of us about the crappiest Christmas he’d ever had. What was so crappy about it? I only gave him three gifts, and they were all books, and one of them was a book he already owned.

I was embarrassed by that story at the time. Also, I was a little annoyed by my son’s spoiled brattiness in bringing it up. He was talking about one of my first years as a single mom, when I had every reason to be frugal and forgetful. But, thinking about his story the next day, I was grateful. You know why? Because, if that’s the worst Christmas he has to complain about, I must be doing a pretty good job as a parent. Right? And thank God I’m able to do that.

Everything is good, which means everything is boring. I mean, too boring for me to describe to y’all here, or to my cousins or my hairdresser when they ask me how everything’s going. Who wants to hear “Hey, another awesome thing happened in my career,” or “Yeah, I’m working on another few projects” all the time? No one. I don’t even want to hear myself say it, you know? So I don’t say anything. I just go home and do work. Or do emails about work. Thankgodfully, I have a lot of projects going on now. I’m working like a mad man and am, in fact, about to go part-time at my day job in order to get more work done. If y’all know me in real life or have read this blog for a long time, you can probably imagine what a big deal that is to me and how happy I secretly am.

All that said… Let’s talk about the next project you’ll see. I have a new, real live novel, Lone Star Legend, coming out in January. Launch party is here in Houston, on January 28 at Brazos Bookstore. With wine -– they said I could bring some wine, and I definitely will.

I’ll also do a signing in Austin (at BookPeople) on February 5, I think the date is. And one in San Antonio, don’t know when yet. And I want to try to go to Dallas and then Los Angeles later in the year. But that’s about it, I think. As you’ve probably read by now, publishers have figured out that book tours don’t make as much money as they cost, and that’s why I never do them. So don’t hold out for signed copies, anybody. Instead, buy my book in January. Then, email me and tell me you bought it. Then, I will email you back, making the email say the words I would have written in your book if I’d flown to your town and met you at a bookstore table. And then you can print that email and Scotch-tape it to the inside cover of your book! Or, you know… you could always order a signed copy from Brazos Bookstore, and they’ll ship it to you. They’re nice like that.)

(It kills me to write all that, all presumptuous about the possibility of people screaming for signed copies. But I kind of obsess over signed copies, myself, so I’m typing all that for my fellow OCD’ers.)

What is the book about? you might ask, because I’ve never yet told you. Is it about lone star legends? A little, yes, but that’s not the only thing.

It’s about a woman named Sandy Saavedra who lives in Austin and is super happy and proud of herself because she’s putting her journalism degree to work for a site called LatinoNow. And she’s scored a handsome grad-school-poet boyfriend. And even though her mom doesn’t understand anything Sandy writes, or even what she does for a living, it’s okay because they still have a pretty decent relationship, considering, relatively, since her mom drove Sandy’s dad away.

And then… bom bom BOM… a gossip-blog conglomerate buys LatinoNow. And they ask Sandy to stay on, but as a gossip blogger of the “bitch, pleeeeease” sort and not a Real Journalist.

All that’s in, like, Chapter One. So what do you think Sandy does, at that moment and for the rest of the book? Oh, and also, what do you think would happen if Sandy had a blog on the side, all along, into which she spilled all her uncharitable, secret, anonymous thoughts? And also, what do you think professional bloggers think of their fans and the people who comment on their sites? And how does it feel to make fun of people online for money? You know that I know, because I used to do that years and years ago, back when people were first learning how. And what happens when people don’t want to expose themselves on the Internet, but suddenly find themselves there, exposed? And what’s up with people who don’t even have Internet connections, or even want them – how do they live? How is that fathomable? That part I had to imagine, since I’ve been on the Internet since cavemen first drew cybersex hieroglyphics on Usenet walls, and now I only eat e-food and drink virtual gin with virtual diet cranberry juice.

That’s what my next novel is about, and Publishers Weekly says Sandy is a smart, funny heroine that y’all will root for. So I hope y’all will consider picking it up in January, maybe with the gift certificates y’all will receive this month from people who love you.

Grackles

Did y’all see how Heidi Klum took my grackle costume idea, before I could even get the chance to implement? My costume was going to be better than that, and I wasn’t going to paint my face black.

I said this on Twitter a while back, so I’m recycling it here, but it’s important and bears repeating. Y’all will be relieved to know that, whenever I get the time, I continue my grackle research on patios throughout Houston. And recent studies at La Madeleine on West Gray have yielded important results:

1. Female grackles will eat butter, not just bread. They dip their beaks into it and it stays on them for a while afterwards.

2. Even if you put the bread near the butter, though, they will not dip the bread into the butter. They do not instinctively know that it tastes best that way, like I do.

3. Some female grackles like La Madeleine’s red jam, and some don’t.

Future research will focus on grackles’ (of both sexes) reactions to La Madeleine purple jam and orange jam. I suspect that they might like the purple, since it contains seeds.

In Lieu of a Christmas Newsletter

My family is doing well, despite my semi-regular bitching at them. Dat is steadily composing music and has about an EP’s worth of synth pop completed now.

Rory is studying multiple musical instruments and has been collaborating with his stepdad (aka “Pep-Pep,” for you fans of Tim and Erik). Rory has also remained on the Almost Honor Roll all year.

Dallas, who still lives with his dad, made First Chair in his instrument, which is pretty good considering that his high school’s band is super hardcore and competitive. They subsequently demoted him to Second Chair as punishment for losing his sheet music, but I’m content to ignore that completely. Dallas is also on Almost Honor Roll, in all advanced-level academic classes, which is pretty freaking good, considering that he spent half of junior high in “alternative” classes because of “distractions” caused by his Asperger’s.

Josh is about to get his first car, y’all. First car! And a nicer one than I’ve ever owned (but not new), due to a rare collaboration of his dad’s campaigning and my fiscal cooperation. Josh is very good and quiet and tall in general, although he did rebel against me mightily this year by shaving his head. I was upset and took to my bed, yes. But, in the end, I came back into the living room with newfound respect for my child. Josh is not on Almost Honor Roll and never really has been, but he passed Physics last year, when he was a junior, and I never even took it, so I’m satisfied with his academic achievements. Send him good vibes for his SATs next month, y’all. He wants to go to the University of Houston or University of Texas.

Toby has moved into his own little apartment. You might think it’s just a bunch of moving-box lids that we brought home from my work, thrown on the floor in my office, but rest assured that it’s his apartment, with different rooms (lids) for different purposes. He has his Resting Room, his Brooding Room, his Watching Room and his Room of Violence. You can tell the difference by the way he’s marked up the corrugated cardboard in each.

Starbuck rapes our Christmas tree and steals its water.

See? Life is good. In the words of the immortal Joe Walsh: “I can’t complain but sometimes I still do.”

I hope y’all have the best December holidays you’ve ever had, peeps. I hope y’all are happy and warm.

I have rigid ideas about what’s right and proper and just and polite. Like I said earlier, the role of daughter-in-law is coming back to me now like riding a bike, and I’m intent on doing it the right/proper/just/polite way. That’s just how I roll.

I’ve been dating Dat for 6 years now and it’s funny to see how marriage changes the roles, in my mind. There are ideas and roles that I never bothered to analyze until now. Like this one:
It’s okay for a bachelor son to tag along on someone else’s Mother’s Day plans.
However, once that son marries, the couple formed must take responsibility for themselves by planning their own Mother’s Day observance.

Do you agree? You know what I mean? I’m wondering now if that’s kind of sexist, if it means that once a son marries a woman, the woman has to be responsible for that stuff.

But no… I’m imagining that bachelorette daughters are also allowed to tag along on coupled siblings plans, aren’t they? And if a son married another man, I think that couple would also have to step up their game, gender notwithstanding.

Really, there’s what’s polite, and then there’s individual family tradition. I think that politeness dictates respecting the traditions of individual families. When in Rome (i.e., your partner’s family), do as the Romans do (i.e., eat or pretend to eat Aunt Lucy’s Jell-O cake and don’t bitch about it).

I like the idea of working within the other family’s traditions and adding positive contributions that reflect your own personality. (Eat the Jell-O cake, plus bring your sage flatbread for everyone to try). I’m always struck by the attitudes of the people who post complaints to Yahoo Answers and such, who say stuff like, “Help me deal with my horribly rude mother-in-law! She is forcing everyone to do a White Elephant gift exchange! My family always does Secret Santa and I told her this and I told her I would not participate in the White Elephant and now she has the nerve not to answer the phone when I call her because I need babysitting!!!” I don’t know how people can live like that. Isn’t it difficult? Isn’t there a simple rule you can follow to get out of those situations… It has a catchy name… Gold… Golden Something? The “Don’t Treat People in Ways That Would Piss You Off” Gold Plated Rule? Google it — it’s a good tool.

(I’m not trying to brag on my own awesomeness here… I’m trying to brag on that of my family, who raised me to be tolerant and appreciative of difference, and to be brave about trying new things. That attitude has helped me in more ways than one.)

So, anyway. I think I’m telling y’all this so you can know what’s up with Capricorn women. Did I ever tell you that every woman in my immediate family sphere, when I was growing up, was a Capricorn? (Capricorn with Taurus moon, to be exact.) You’ll either think that’s fabulous or frightening, or else you’ll disregard it entirely because you don’t believe in astrology.

I don’t know if I really believe it or not, but “Capricorn” is good shorthand for “headstrong, slightly obsessive control freak who likes shit to run right.” And I come by those qualities honestly, through nature and nurture, and I like what they’ve done for me in life.

gross story for you

I woke up last Saturday to find that Toby had thrown up on my bedroom floor. No biggie – he has a sensitive stomach but its results are generally pretty solid and easy to clean.

Armed with a wad of toilet paper, I picked up the catfood-colored mass in one fell swoop. Under it, there were feathers.

“Oh, Toby,” I thought. He’s eaten a cat toy, or part of a pillow. He often eats things he shouldn’t. I felt a little guilty for buying toys that resembled mice with bird tails. Apparently, they were irrestible.

I used the edges of the toilet paper to pick up the bits of feather, which were all brown and wet. They held fast to the carpet, but I was persistent and plucked them out one by one.

The last piece poked my finger through the tissue. Poked it hard. Hurt.

“What the hell kind of feather is this, that stabs your fingers? This isn’t safe for inclusion in cat toys!”

That’s what I thought. Then I bent farther and looked harder to see the feather closer.

It wasn’t a feather.

What do you guess it actually was?

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Did you guess “piece of plastic or metal”?
Wrong.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Did you guess “piece of bone, like maybe from a bird”?
No, but closer.
.
.
.
.
.
It
was
an
em-
effing
ROACH LEG.
A giant, nasty, effed-up roach’s leg. Legs and smashed roach wings, sticking in the carpet. Wet from Toby’s mouth and spit on the floor.

Although I was completely disgusted, I was also glad (feeling glad while shuddering and pouring alcohol over my poked finger) that I can count on Toby to dispose of giant roaches that try to attack me in my sleep.

(Long-time readers know my experiences and fictional nightmares about roaches, and will therefore have even more insight into the role that Toby’s character plays in the story that is this blog. :))

Part of the reason I’m marrying my boyfriend Dat is that we share many of the same values and beliefs. Like “Art is a priority” and “You should never do something just because everyone else does it.” We’re no Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre, but I do enjoy the home life we’ve created for ourselves, in which the dining area can become the crafting area and music practice isn’t considered noise and fake birds can populate any space for no other reason than their cuteness.

Some of our values might make the act of getting married seem like an oxymoron. But, as so many of y’all know, there are jillions of reasons to get married other than “because I want a big day that’s all about me just like everyone else gets to have on TV.” So we’re doing it for those other reasons. Of course, we want the wedding to reflect our values. Meaning, mainly, that we don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a ceremony that has no personal meaning for either of us.

I went through the old dilemmas that braver women than me have lived through before I was even born. Like: Are we getting married for ourselves, or for others? and then: Even if we’re getting married for ourselves, what do we owe our families and the people who care about us and feel invested in our relationship?

Even though other couples have answered these questions admirably and come up with workable solutions, it’s really a case-by-case kind of thing, isn’t it? No two couple and no two families are alike, so you have to work with what you have and not stick your star-shaped block into the octagon-shaped hole.

Here’s the solution we came up with. Here is what our “wedding” will be:

1. On a Saturday morning this May, we will get married at the courthouse downtown. This was going to be just us and the kids, but one of my cousins really, really wants to be there, so we’re opening it to anyone who wants to show up.

2. Right after that, we’ll have dim sum. Because dim sum has great cultural significance in Dat’s family’s culture, of course. No, just kidding. It’s only because we like dim sum a lot and use any excuse – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Ash Wednesday – to eat it. Again, we planned it to be Dat, me, and the kids, but we’re imagining that some of my family might want to attend. So we’ll invite Dat’s family, too. Anyone else who wants to attend is free, as we live in America, to show up. But we’re only paying for ourselves and the kids and our parents.

3. That night, we’ll have a party at our house. At that party, we’ll have wedding cake and champagne. Maybe appetizers, too. Or brisket, if someone wants to bring a brisket. Maybe some potato salad. Or maybe sushi. The food part hasn’t been worked out yet. But we’ll have a cake and champagne, for sure, and a few more people we know will be invited.

4. In June, we’re going to Hawaii. (Not the kids – just me and Dat.) That’s our honeymoon. In Hawaii, we will eat dim sum again, if they have it. If not, we’ll just eat everything else.

And that’s it. That’s what it’s gonna be. Now that that’s settled, we’re actually looking forward to it. You know? I mean, we were always looking forward to our marriage, but now we’re actually excited about the wedding, too. (I don’t want to be a person who looks forward to her wedding and not her marriage. That’s a commonly used recipe for unhappiness, in my opinion.)

Do I sound defensive? Right now, there’s a message in my Inbox from a certain person. I can’t see it until I get home tonight, but I kind of don’t want to look at it, anyway, because it’s undoubtedly in response to my recent Facebook announcement that I’m planning our wedding. Earlier in our engagement, this person was trying to plan our wedding for us. I love her, but she’s one of the people who comes over to our house and says stuff like, “Why the hell do y’all have fake birds on your bookshelf? I don’t get it.” So I don’t really want to get into a discussion about the wedding with her. If I were rich and wanted a big wedding, I’d hire a planner. But first I’d show that planner a bunch of photographs of random things that we think are cool, and I’d watch his/her face. If s/he made a wtf face, I’d know s/he wasn’t right for us. You know?

something else that’s related to the stuff above, but which I’ll discuss in third person

In case anyone’s curious, here’s a list of possible reasons that a married couple might decide to have separate bedrooms:

1. You both want your own space, not just for sleeping but for other things – fashion, hobbies, decorations – that might occur in your bedrooms.

2. You have completely different sleeping preferences. Maybe one of you needs the door open and the other needs it closed. One of you can tolerate the light on the cable box and the other can’t. Both of you like to sleep with your arm under your head, but you face each other and therefore your elbows are at odds. One of you needs cats posted at the foot of the bed throughout the night, and one of you can’t sleep with cat hair in your lungs. And so on, and so forth.

3. You can’t afford separate houses.

4. You see that, often, elderly couples sleep in separate bedrooms, and it’s not only because they’re more comfortable that way, but also because they’re so old that they no longer care what anyone thinks of them. And you think, “Why do I have to wait until I’m older, to stop caring what people think?” And you don’t care what people think, and you want to be comfortable.

5. You realize that sleeping in the same bed is neither proof of romantic love nor a guarantee of a satisfying sex life.

6. You enjoy attention, and therefore you enjoy having people come to your house and say, “Oh my god, WHY do you have separate BEDROOMS? What’s WRONG? Are you guys breaking up? Are you guys secretly gay? I thought you guys liked each other. I don’t understand. What do you mean, you like it better this way? What’s WRONG with you two? That’s not what married people DO. What do you mean, you like your cats to sleep on the bed? That’s DISGUSTING.”

Just kidding on that last one. That one goes on the cons list. But, hey, it’s one of a very few things on the cons list, apart from “can’t yet afford a house with separate bedrooms.”

I’m not telling you guys this because I believe you’re the kind of judgmental that needs an explanation. I’m telling you guys this because maybe some of you want to sleep in separate bedrooms and are going over the rationale, compiling lists of pros and cons. In that case, you’re welcome to my reasons.

Love is…

… feeling like you’ve created your own space in the world — you and your partner — that doesn’t need anyone else’s approval. Or maybe that’s what codependence is? I get those two confused…

Just kidding. Ha. Love is… worth sharing, right? I feel protective of the people and things I really, really care about, which is why you don’t see me posting a lot about my relationships with Dat and my kids. But I know some of y’all have been following this journal for a long, long time, and that some of you identify with the main character in it (heh) in certain ways. So, for the sake of the story and its readers, I’m sharing with y’all that, after careful consideration, I’ve found love worth making into a legal entity, and a relationship that I believe will create long-term, overriding happiness for me, for him, and for our family.

And, in sharing this with y’all, I’m sending out good vibes and hopes that y’all have found or will find the same.

Yesterday we gave the cats a new, expensive scratching post. They weren’t as grateful as you might imagine. But that’s how cats are – it takes a while for them to appreciate new things.

Last night I was petting Toby on my bed and I realized that, not only was his fur kind of oily, but he also stank. He stank like greasy fur and the cat litter lodged between his toes.

“Let’s just give him a bath right now, I guess,” I said to my boyfriend/fiance. My boyfriend was happy because he always wants to give the cats baths, but I’ve been telling him no for the past month because it’s been too cold.

We took Toby into the bathroom and closed the door. My boyfriend turned on the water and began to fill the Cat Bathing Bucket. Suddenly, Toby realized what was happening and began to cry.

“OW,” he said. “OWR!” Really loud and vibrate-y, like a siren. I hate it when he makes that noise. It breaks my heart. But he needed a bath.

He ran and hid behind the toilet while we prepared the water. When I went to retrieve him, he clawed at the tile floor, trying to hold on. “OWR!”

I felt so terrible. We washed him fast, and he cried and tried to scramble out of the tub. Usually he doesn’t hate baths that much, but for some reason, he was scared as hell this time. Clumps of dirty hair rolled off his body. We shampooed twice with Jonathan Frieda’s shampoo for blonde women and rinsed him as quickly and thoroughly as we could. I squeezed him dry. He cried. We rubbed him with two towels and swaddled him with a third. He stopped crying. He didn’t want to admit that he enjoyed the swaddling, but he always does. We let him go and he shook like a dog, then ran to hide in the laundry hamper.

(I’m lying to you. What I’m calling a “laundry hamper” is actually a laundry basket filled with and surrounded by dirty clothes, all mounded under my antique walnut vanity.)

It was Starbuck’s turn, and she knew it, and she wasn’t happy. My boyfriend had to push her from under the bed with our broom. She didn’t make any noise – just stood there looking like the saddest person on Earth while we washed her with the same blonde shampoo. (It was the only shampoo I had without excess fragrance or body-building properties.) She also liked the swaddling but pretended not to. (They make sad faces, but their ears are no longer pressed back.)

No matter how hard they licked themselves, they couldn’t get dry. So my boyfriend and I hauled them back into the bathroom prison and turned on the blow dryer. Last summer, the blow dryer scared the crap out of them. But now, in winter, they liked it. They didn’t want to like it, but they did.

They didn’t speak to us for the rest of the night.

This morning, though, they meowed at me when I woke up. Later, I sat down to put on my tights and they swarmed to get petted.

I swear to you, they had these attitudes like, “Pet us! Feel how soft and not-greasy we are! Feel the difference! We’re clean!”

I want to believe that they understand, in the end, that taking a bath makes them feel better. But I’m a realist, so I know they’re probably too dumb. They probably just think they got clean by licking themselves a lot after all that torture.

Some people celebrate Spring, instead.

A fellow carpooler asked us, “Do y’all celebrate Christmas? Have you got all your shopping done?”

And I thought it was nice of her not to assume that we all did celebrate Christmas – a carful of Caucasians in Texas. It was considerate of her, or at least polite. It probably looks rude or nosy in print, here, but I promise you the way she said it sounded perfectly friendly and polite.

So the other day, I asked a rider the same thing. “Are you celebrating Christmas this year?”

“Yes,” he said pleasantly.

“Have you got all your shopping done, then?” I asked. Just making conversation.

He exhaled audibly. “Actually, I don’t really celebrate Christmas.” He told me his ethnicity and the country where he was born. It was one where they don’t do Christmas. He explained that, as his wife and kids were American, he was obliged to do the secular stuff that everyone else in our neighborhood does. But really, Christmas wasn’t a real holiday for him.

“Oh,” I said. “So… Do you do Ramadan, instead?” I pronounced Ramadan two or three times, all wrong. I’ve seen it written but don’t often hear it aloud.

“No,” he said. “That’s the Saudis. We celebrate….”

He didn’t say the name of what they celebrated, but he explained it. Spring solstice (equinox?), for two weeks. With fire and symbolic colors and baskets of things that start with the letter C. And visiting friends and family. And that was their major holiday for the whole year. It sounded nice, but he sounded sad. Of course, because he can’t really celebrate that holiday here. He can’t take two weeks off work, even though his boss would probably be empathetic. There are always meetings and things that he can’t miss. And even if he could take two weeks off, no one around him could. He said their celebration was supposed to start on a Wednesday and progress with different activities each day. He said, “I try to do most of it, in small ways, on the Saturday nearest the Solstice.”

I said, “That sucks.” I tried to imagine living some place where no one celebrated Christmas. I’m sure I could swing it, if I felt like I was making a better life for my spouse and kids that way. But of course, I’d still be a little sad each December.

Because I’m self-centered, I made him change the subject and tell me about the food of his people. I like food a lot, and I’m always on the look-out for new food to try. He described his cuisine in detail and told me which restaurant in town was his favorite. As he was an educated and well-traveled person, he was able to describe things pretty well and find comparisons within our overlapping experiences. He was polite and candid, and I asked him if it’d be okay for me to show up at his people’s restaurant dressed as I was. He said yes, that all flavors of people went there and no one cared. In exchange, I gave him directions to my favorite Turkish restaurant in town. He’d been to Turkey and loved the food.

You think I’m going to end this section with some smarmy conclusion about people bonding across ethnicities. But I’m not. I just wanted to share with you that I learned about a new kind of food, and that I’m always down with other people who like to eat.

Some people celebrate Santa Claus.

Last night we went to my sister-in-law-to-be’s house for her yearly Thai food dinner and gift opening. (She’s not Thai, but her mother-in-law is, luckily for all of us who love curry.) So we were there, me and my fiance and all of his family and a few family friends, and I was sitting next to someone who happened to be a Catholic, and she turned to me and said, “So what are your boyfriend’s parents doing on Christmas?”

I said, “Nothing. They don’t celebrate Christmas.”

She gasped. “Why not?”

Me: “Because they’re not Christian.”

Her: “Yeah, but they still celebrate Christmas. Right??”

Me: “No.”

Her: “Why not?”

Me: “Because they’re not Christian.”

Her: [blank look]

Me: “You know – they don’t believe in Christ. So they don’t celebrate Christ’s birthday….”

Her: “Yeah, but still… Santa Claus. Hello – SANTA CLAUS.”

Me, quickly, mercifully deciding not to explain that Santa Claus doesn’t exist where they were born: “Okay. This is their Christmas, today. They’re celebrating Santa Claus right now.”

Her, with audible relief: “Oh!”

Really, they’re going to celebrate Santa Claus Day by crossing the state line and gambling. But I didn’t want to confuse the issue any more. She changed the subject, then, to my uterus and how soon she could expect to see a baby pop out of it. That conversation was just like the one portrayed above, but longer and with more in-depth explanations.

My company is going to be sold, no one knows to whom or when, and we already know what our severence packages will be, if applicable, but I have no idea whether it’ll be applicable to me.

I wish that, if I were meant to get laid off, they’d do it RIGHT NOW. But they won’t, of course. They’ll wait until some date in the murky future. Something I can’t control. I’m trying not to want to control it, then.

Last week I wanted to tell you guys a bunch of stuff about my work and all the extreme, literal-national-news-type drama that’s going on, and all the misconceptions and the un-fair-ities, and my giant mission to make people understand what’s really going on, and the media distortions, and how much it hurts to have one’s hard work disregarded and one’s company’s reputation completely trashed without warrant by all that stuff,

but this week I’m just over it. Which is probably for the best, because I don’t need to get in trouble for blogging about my job.

Toby is going to the vet tomorrow.

He has a jacked-up claw on his right hind leg. The jacked-upped-ness of it has a scientific name that I can’t remember how to spell, but you’ve seen it on humans — especially on their pinky toes. It’s when the nail gets all hard and crusty like a rhinocerous horn, and you can’t even cut it with the clippers anymore.

Poor Toby — he’s had it for a long time, it looks like. I only just realized a couple of nights ago. Now I know why he’s been more and more lethargic. His toenail is sticking out way too far, and it probably bugs him to walk. I don’t think it hurts him, but it most definitely probably bugs him.

I trimmed as much of it as I could with the biggest toenail clippers in the house, and that seemed to help a little. Already, he’s been more mobile and lively. (And evil, but that’s probably just because of the full moon. Starbuck’s more evil, too, and her claws are fine.)

So I’m taking him to the vet tomorrow so they can mess with it. I don’t know if he’s going to need surgery or medicine or just regular professional single-claw trimmings or what. Something in the future that I can’t control. We’ll see.

Things in the future that I should be able to control but am finding it hard to because I have, like, zero personal time lately.

Namely: my writing.

Also: I need to redo this Web site.

That’s all I can say without having stress-related stomach stress.

misanthropy

Today I went to a shopping center in my neighborhood and felt like hitting everyone in it with a two-by-four containing a single rusty nail. From the incompetent punk kids who work at every single retail establishment in this zip code, to the punk kids who perambulate in every shopping center because they have nothing better to do, to the shitty, shitty drivers, to the trollish old women who exist only to give strangers unsolicited ugly looks.

I was cranky. I was bothered. Then I realized, I always get this cranky right before Halloween. And I always get a little fatter, too. And stressed about looking fat in my costume. And preemptively background-stressed about eating or not eating on Thanksgivng and Christmas.

I don’t think it’s all about my weight and eating, mind you…. No, that’s only one part of the annual holiday emotional ferris wheel. (Didn’t want to say “roller coaster,” but you know that’s what I actually meant.)

And… yeah. Here it goes again. Whatever. I’m tired of it. Purposefully refrained from tailgaiting the asshole who’d been tailgating me. Tried really, really hard not to hate every single person. Succeeded in only hating half.

Tomorrow is another day. Another phase, another degree in the sun rays’ refraction. Anohter chance to be a better person. Wish me luck.

Rest

I think I should go to sleep now. First I’ll do a few Variety Puzzles from my Dell Variety Puzzle book, and then I’ll go to sleep.

Halloween

I’m going to be a “pirate vixen.” Josh is going to be a pirate. Rory’s going to be the guy from V for Vendetta. The Guy Fawkes guy, I mean. Tad’s going to be Jesus. Toby’s going to be a cat with a refurbished claw. Starbuck’s going to be a little bitch.

It’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna have fun.

Leave a comment telling me what you’re going to be for Halloween, if you want. Put a link to your Flickr when you get back your pix.

This weekend we made (I made) picadillo, rosemary chicken, and a loaf of white bread. And sloppy joes, which I’m not counting because the recipe wasn’t good and they came out too sweet. This weekend we also made tomatillo salsa with tomatillo from the farmer’s market. And it came out awesome. As did the chicken and the picadillo…. The bread came out crustier than we expected, but the inside was still very good.

Remember I told y’all I’m trying to cook more — that I’ve been inspired to cook more. It’s working, actually. One of the biggest lessons I learned this past week, though, was that not every recipe book is trustworthy. And that, when you make a crappy recipe from a crappy recipe book, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad cook. I think I used to get caught up in weird beliefs like that. Now I know I can just tear those recipes out of my binder and move forward.

(I don’t want to get all into this here and now, but I’ve kind of become a disciple of Nigella Lawson in the past couple of weeks. I’ve joined her cult. Some people say her recipes aren’t so great, but I don’t care because her words are insightful and have been helping me get over some old psychological barriers to cooking. It’s helping me to feel better not just about cooking, but about other domestic and womanly spheres.) (I say I don’t want to get all into that right now, and that’s because I think it’d be more proper to write her a fan email, first.)

So anyhow.

The Love That Dare Not (and Is Physically Unable to) Speak Its Name

Toby is having emotional drama lately. Here’s the stuff I wasn’t ready to tell y’all earlier in the season — the stuff I wasn’t sure y’all were ready to hear.

Toby is forlorn because he thinks he’s my boyfriend. He’s my boyfriend, but he can’t have sex with me, and I keep having sex with some guy who comes over every weekend.

That’s about it. That’s the sum of his dilemma.

Every afternoon that I get home from work, I find Toby waiting for me on my bed. He always meows or purrs at me when I come in and take off my work clothes. He often persuades me to pet him, rather aggressively. Sometimes he makes what I can only describe as “sexy eyes” at me.

At night, Toby must sleep on my bed. Usually he sleeps at my feet, like a good boy. And that’s nice. But once in a while — maybe once a month (when the moon is full? when I’m especially fertile?) — Toby will wait til dark and walk up to where my face is and try to… what? I don’t know. I never get it. He gets all up in my face and rubs his face against me and meows and does the sexy eyes and reeks of cat manliness, basically, in general.

And when he does that, I pick him up and say, “Toby, no! I’m not that kind of girl!”

And that’s usually enough to make him quit. But, if he doesn’t, I say very firmly to him, “Toby, you’re a freaking cat, and I’m a human being. It’s not going to work out between us. QUIT.”

And then he quits. And then we’re happy again. And then Starbucks meanders into the bedroom, and then Toby date rapes her. (But not really. She likes it. She even looks at me over her shoulder, like, “Don’t be jealous, you old prude.”) And then I throw a pillow at them and they go rent a hotel room. And everybody’s happy, and life goes on.

Until Tad shows up.

Whenever Tad is here, Toby skulks. He hides in one of the kids’ rooms, or behind the dryer, until Tad leaves. All weeked long, I mean.

Or else, Toby waits until night, when Tad and I are asleep in my bed. Then, he walks into my bedroom and sits there and stares at me in the dark. I wake up sometimes and see him doing it, and he has the most bitter, sad, jealous, and — I’m sorry, but — hilarious look on his face. He’s like, “You bitch. You beautiful, faithless bitch.”

Or else it’s like, “Some day, Tad…. Mark my words. Some day you’ll be sorry you tangled with me and dared to touch my woman.”

And then I reach out a hand to him, and try to coax him to the foot of the bed. But he just turn on his heels in disgust and walks away.

There. My secret is out. Now you know the truth about me and what I am:
I’m a cat tease.

May as well tell the whole truth…

Starbuck is a drug addict. She’s addicted to catnip, and I’m the one who got her hooked.

I grew these stupid catnip plants in the back yard, thinking it’d be fun for the cats to have around, right? And, at first, when the plants were small, I got a kick out of picking the young leaves and garnishing the cat’s food with them. Only Starbuck noticed. She’d arrange the leaves on the floor and sort of roll around in them. How cute, right?

Well, like all domestic pleasures undertaken here, the catnip eventually got forgotten. It got big and bushy, and I noticed that it didn’t smell minty, anymore. It smells like weeds now. So, I figured it was defective (or else actual weeds had overtaken the plants when I wasn’t looking) and I quit using it…

until today. Today, I went out to work on my plants a little, and I cut off all the flowering stalks and put them in a vase, as I am wont to do, and the catnip had started almost-flowering, so I cut a big hunk of it and brought it into the house. And, like the lazy slattern I am, I threw the big hunk on the floor near the cats’ dishes, then walked off and forgot about it.

Five minutes later, I heard Tad yell, “Dammit! Stupid cat!”

As he explained it later, Starbuck was rolling on the catnip with a dazed look on her face, and went he went into the kitchen, she snapped out of her trance, jumped up, and knocked her water bowl onto the floor.

“Oh, man,” I said. Then, ten minutes after that, I was doing laundry or something* in my bedroom. I was standing near my bed, and I suddenly heard Starbuck underneath it. She was meowing in a weird way and thunking against something. Like rolling around or running in circles, bumping against the underside of the bed. And meowing, weirdly. In a possessed way, sort of.

I didn’t even want to look at her. I was kind of scared I’d see her looking creepy, like Ren and Stimpy or Cow and Chicken. So I ignored her, but made a mental note not to give her anymore catnip. It’s too strong now. It’s too pure. Too uncut.

A few minutes after that, she quieted down and I got down on the floor to have a look at her. She was lying there very calmly, but also kind of wary. Seriously, her eyes were saying, “Whoa. That was a bad trip, man.”

Not in a bad, bad way… not bad enough to actually worry or take her to the vet, you understand…. But in a hungover, “I’ve learned my lesson, no more catnip binges” kind of way. You know how that goes, I’m sure.

Poor Starbuck. The teen years are so hard. Hopefully she’ll stay on the wagon and take care of herself.

I think I’ll uproot the catnip and plant regular mint in its place.

*Okay, I wasn’t doing laundry. I lied to you. I was flipping through a cookbook, trying to make last-minute decisions about which recipes to xerox before returning them all to the library.

Domestix!

(And for whoever else can stand to read them or who likes to interpret dreams.)

1. Again and always with the dreams that I’m tricked into living with and/or marrying my ex-husband. KHAN! Last time I had a really involved one, in which I’d won a “dream” wedding from Sears/Macy’s. When I showed up to participate in it — a little late, a little tipsy, feeling celebratory — I found that the department store had misplaced my wedding gown and wanted to offer me a shitty Miss Texas sheath, instead. By the time I got that ironed out with a late-night shoplifting trip at a nearby costume shop and a run-in with the local Mafia, I was getting worried that it was too late to marry my fiance on Sears/Macy’s’ dime.

And then I arrive and see that the groom is my ex-husband. And the preacher is preaching, and I feel like it’s rude, at that point, to interrupt the ceremony and call off the wedding. And yet I’m determined to do it. And then I wake up.

Annoying-o-freaking-rama, as you can imagine. This dream is obviously about my annoyance with my never-ending forced involvement with that person, which always occurs against my wishes.

2. I always, always dream about monster fruit plants. Usually I dream that there are monster fruit stalks growing in my dad’s backyard, or next door to his house, and I’m trying to cultivate or harvest them, but people keep interrupting me and no one seems to value the fruit like I do.

But lately I’ve dreamed that I’m trying to purchase monster fruit plants on sale from various places. The weirdest thing about it, as I already told you on the phone, Ashley, is that, in the dream, I never realize how unusually freaky the fruit plants are. In the dream, they’re just valuable/awesome/beautiful/desired. When I wake up, though, I realize that they were kind of monstrous. They’re like corn stalks covered with bunches and bunches of giant plums that are stuck together like testicles. Or, like, giant brocolli stalks covered with giant, blood red, tumorous peaches. They are fruit plants to be feared, but not when I’m dreaming them. In my dream, they’re something to covet and acquire.

I don’t know if they mean money or artistic acheivement. Maybe both.

3. I used to always dream that I was trying to ride the Metro bus somewhere, and I got on the wrong bus or couldn’t find the right bus stop, and it was getting later and I was getting into more dangerous parts of town…

But lately those dreams have shifted into something else. I ride the Metro bus and get off downtown, before it can carry me somewhere wrong. Because I know that, downtown, I can transfer to the exact right route. So I’m downtown, trying to figure out where to get the right bus, and I try to take a shortcut by going through one of the big buildings that I used to work in or used to walk through when I was a teenager.

And then it turns into some thing where I’m screwing around on the elevators. I don’t know why. Sometimes I need to get on the elevator because it’s one of those buildings where the ground is uneven and can be on G or 1 or P, depending on what side of the block you’re facing. But usually it seems that I want to be wicked and nosy and ride up the elevator to see what I can see. Maybe even to steal something. And then, eventually, the elevators take us someplace weird or scary, like a boiler room. But I don’t care. It kind of thrills me and I keep riding. And the other riders, even though they’re dressed in business casual and I’m not, don’t question my right to be there. Sometimes they even follow me, as if I know what I’m doing.

I don’t know what this dream means. Maybe that I feel like I don’t belong in Corporate America, but I’m doing well there, anyway?

4. Sometimes I dream about stealing the purses of rich old ladies. Their purses are always ugly, but I steal them. And then I feel guilty. But also excited. The goal in those dreams is always to stop someplace safe so I can open the purses and see what I reeled in. But I never do get to stop, and usually I lose the purses while on the run.

I know this dream says something bad about me, like maybe I resent rich people and have a chip on my shoulder and covet other people’s stuff.

5. Three or four times now, I’ve dreamed that we visited New York. Usually it’s by accident, maybe because Houston’s Metro bus took us there without us noticing. Once we get there, we want to make the best of it and have fun, but we don’t know where to go, and the natives aren’t helpful. Or else we’re afraid to ask them because we assume they won’t be helpful, because I read Gawker and Overheard in New York all the time, and they give me the impresssion that native New Yorkers are assholes who take pleasure in being rude to tourists.

So we end up driving/riding/walking around the city, finding our own fun. In one dream we shopped in Chinatown at night. In one we found a carnival in the middle of Manhattan. In the last one, I walked through a Lithuanian apartment complex and looked into everyone’s dining room.

This dream says that I crave adventure but don’t have the means to get it on a grand scale, maybe.

the cats, good and bad

I like it when the cats lie near me like curved slugs, with their arms and legs tucked under them.

I don’t like it when Starbuck scratches the glass patio door because she wants to go outside. Like all cats, she only wants to be outside if we leave the door hanging open so she can come back in at will. But then flies get in. So she can only go out if we close the door behind her. So she only stays out for a few minutes, then scratches at the door so we can open it. Then, of course, as all cat owners can guess, she’s back at the door thirty seconds later, scratching to get out.

And the sound of her claws on the glass is very, very, VERY annoying. So I yell at her to stop. But she seems to think that me wanting her to stop is only a very temporary condition. So she goes back to the scratching again and again, until I take more drastic action.

And that is not one of the highlights of having cats as pets.

Equal opportunity: I don’t like it when Toby acts possessive over me. Sometimes it’s funny, but then sometimes he gets all testosterone-y about it and I have to remind him that I’m a human being and not his conquest, and I have to throw him off my bed or whatever. And then he gets pissy and takes it out on Starbuck. Which is probably why she always wants to go outside all the time?

I just realized that my cats might be living in a Sartre-esque hell of my making. But oh, well. It’s better than living at the county shelter, I’m sure.

the photo thing

I feel like I’ve said this before, but need to say it again and will do so as simply and directly as I can.

1. I only put pictures of myself online if I think I look good in them. So, if there’s a picture of me on this site or on my Flickr, even if it’s not a stereotypically “good” picture, one can rest assured that I like the way I look in that picture. “I’m Gwendolyn Zepeda, and I approve this photo.” Like that. Usually, I only want to share a photo because I like the way it looks.

2. But it’s hard to say that. It’s hard to say, “Hey, y’all, I think I look awesome in this photo. Check it out. Check out this awesome picture, the subject of which happens to be me-e-e-e!” So, I don’t. I skip that part and talk about the more modest other part, like “This is how much I weigh” or “This is an old t-shirt I wear” or “This is a new hair color for me.”

3. And then I always manage to come off like I dislike the way I look, or like I need reassurance. And then people (very nice people) are quick to reassure me and tell me that I look nice/pretty/good/decent.

4. And then I feel guilty and gauche, like I was fishing for compliments. When I wasn’t. Wanting to share a nice picture isn’t the same as fishing for compliments, is it? I don’t think it is. Not for me, at any rate.

5. And then I bury the picture under a lot of other pictures or posts, because I am embarrassed.

Does all that make me crazy? No, I know: It means I over-analyze the shit out of my motivations and the impression I’m making on others.

But that’s okay.

In related news: There’s this person in my life who makes me a little nervous because she’s always commenting on things that I say or do. Like telling me to relax or telling me that it seems like I worry too much. And, when this person does that, it makes me way less relaxed than I’d normally be. And I don’t think this person does it to be annoying — I think this person does it because that’s normally what people want to hear from this person. And, finally, the other day, I had to tell this person that I liked myself the way I was, and that the way I was totally worked for me and made me a success. And this person accepted that, and I was relieved.

There are two people in my life, actually, who are always telling me to chill out and to act more confident and not to let on that I feel worried or insecure…
And I’m starting to think that these two people, who seem super confident and secure, actually aren’t. And that they’re telling me all this in order to remind themselves.

But I’m okay, really. I swear to God, if I didn’t like myself and have self-confidence and feel secure, I wouldn’t be able to talk about myself so much on the Internet, would I? Not for eleven years, I couldn’t. Really, it takes all the false modesty I can muster to keep you guys from realizing how conceited I really am.

Think about it.

Don’t worry about me, people who worry. I’m happy.

the other day

I played Rock Band with my son and his friends who’d come over for a slumber party. I played because no one else wanted to sing, and they needed a singer for extra points. “Want me to sing?” I said.

“Your mom sings on Rock Band?” one of the friends asked my son Josh.

“Uh, yeah. My mom’s, like, a trained singer,” said my son Dallas. But not in an “I’m so proud of my mom” way. It was more like “Duh — why wouldn’t a grown-up who knows how to sing, sing on Rock Band?”

So we played, and it was fun because we stopped being mom and sons and friends of sons, and became a force. A team. A rock band. We had three rotating drummers who I assigned to songs according to their skill level. Aside from that, there was almost no talking. As the evident band leader, I reminded myself to praise each member after particularly difficult songs. But that was it. And we racked up some serious points. And I felt the same feeling I have when my coworkers and I get through a really tough project. (We unlocked “Enter Sandman” by Metallica, and that’s my very best song. I’m going to sing that next time I go to a karaoke bar.)

I went to bed at 2 AM. The next morning, we woke up and went outside and saw one of my neighbors walking over from across the street. “I’m so tired,” she said. “We stayed up all night playing Rock Band.”

I’m telling you, man. The families that Rock together stay together.

I had a lot more to tell y’all but it’s night now and I can’t stay focused well at night. I’m really only worth anything (besides Rock Band) in the mornings. So hopefully I’ll wake up early tomorrow and get some novel-writing done…

Y’all have a good night, okay? Y’all have good dreams.