Is it weird that I’m starting to know all the paint counter employees at Lowe’s-es and Home Depots in a ten-mile radius? Today I got my least fave. I brought in actual paint chips (chips of paint I scraped off our peeling baseboards) and asked them to please match. This dude (the manager) calls me to look at their computer monitor while his underling stands slack-jawed and listens to this conversation:

Him: We can’t create a perfect match. It’s .56 off.

Me: Point five six? How off is that?

Him: [Very obviously refraining from rolling his eyes at my stupidity] It’s point five six. So there’s point one, point two, point three, point four, and then point five six.

(Also, he has extreme halitosis. This is how I remember I’ve had unsatisfactory dealings with him before–I remember not his face, but the smell of his breath at three feet away.)

Me: [Considering the fact that, in his mind, these fractions represent something–something he can see in his mind very clearly. And he’s the kind of person who thinks, because he can clearly see the thing that was beaten into his brain during Lowe’s Paint Manager training, I should be able to see it, too. But I can’t, because I’m stupid, and probably because I’m a woman. This is all sort of interesting to me, but not uncommon and not surprising and not worth getting into right now, so I’m not going to say “You’re just telling me numbers. I understand that point five is bigger than point one,” etc., etc.]
So… Is point five six like half a shade, or a whole shade? Is it visible to the naked eye?

Him: Oh, yeah. Are you trying to match something? People will be able to see the difference.

Me: And that’s the best you can do? You can’t make a match at all?

Him: No. UNLESS….

Me: ?

Him: Unless you want to go [waves at paint chips all around us] look at these paint chips and try to find one that matches.

Me: You’re saying you can’t match it from this sample, but if I find a paint chip that matches the sample, you can match that?

Him: [Obviously satisfied he’s finally gotten through to my stupid brain] Yes.

It takes me five seconds to look at the various Glidden whites and see that mine is a violet white. It takes me five more seconds to decide between the closest two violet whites. It takes me ten seconds to walk around with a bit of the sample on top of the paint chip, checking it in various lights afforded by Lowe’s and imagining the paint chip in semi-gloss form. I like doing this. I love colors and paint chips and matching and imagining. I think about the guy who worked at the Home Depot near my old house, who is the only person I’ve ever met who’s more obsessed with paint colors than me. He seemed like he had Asperger’s, the one time I worked with him. I couldn’t tell if he got pleasure from deciding on colors or not. But I had the impression he respected me. I wonder how he’s doing. I miss him.

I take my selected paint chip (“Pegasus”) to the counter and Halitosis Point Five says, “Did you find one?” in a supercilious tone that indicates he knows I picked the wrong color. It occurs to me that it’s probably a liability issue for him. He doesn’t want to make me a color and have me come back later, bitching and wanting to return the custom-made and therefore un-name-able and therefore probably un-re-sell-able paint. Maybe that’s happened to him a few times in the past and he’s learned it’s easier to force the customer to pick a paint chip. He’s probably not a bad person. He has no way of knowing I’m not a bad person, who would ask for custom paint and then return it and try to get him in trouble. I guess I can’t blame him.

As I’m waiting for my quart of semi-gloss Pegasus, another customer walks up and asks the Paint Underling, “If I bring in a paint chip, can y’all match it?”

She says, “Uh huh. We can match anything.”

I refrain from commenting. I focus on the poster board this paint department has prepared with handwritten labels. It’s the four exact colors of the Texans’ logo. (Or is it? Within how many tenths of a mystery unit are these reds and blue a match?)

I receive my paint can and walk to the cash registers, happy I had an excuse to look at paint chips today.

Duality of Dog Ownership

I am either the best dog owner, because I walk my dog three times a day, or I’m the worst dog owner, because I can’t train him to go to the bathroom in our backyard, and I yell at him about it.

I’m either a responsible dog owner, because I carefully monitor my dog during our walks, baggie in pocket, to ensure he only pees/poops on mailbox stems and plants no one would touch with their hands… or I’m an abusive dog owner, because when my tiny but wiry and willful terrier pulls very hard on his leash, I sometimes tug the leash hard enough to yank him off balance, making him flip in the grass. And then I sigh angrily and move on (now that I know for certain the flipping in the grass doesn’t hurt him). (Because it’s happened often enough, horribly.)

Likewise, I worry about him running, half blind and half deaf, into the street and getting hit by a car. I worry about it so much, it makes me angry when he tries to do so, and I spank him. And he can tell, the few times he still tries to dart into the street, that I’m about to spank him for it, and he throws himself on the ground and makes a sad, abused, beseeching face that shows me what a monster I am. And I feel ashamed of it. But I spank him, usually, anyway.

I know a lot of people who think pets are like children. Once you get a pet, they say, you’ve made a commitment for life. Only evil, horrible assholes get tired of pets or give pets away or euthanize pets for biting their children.

I know a lot of people (who came here from other countries, usually) who believe animals are either food or employees/slaves. It’s almost immoral and certainly ridiculous to keep animals in one’s home for the purpose of decoration or affection, buying them food and getting nothing useful in return.

Between these two perspectives, I have a reasonably clear (?) vision of myself as a middle-class American woman who’s lucky enough to have time and money for indoor, full-time, named/registered/immunized pets. I’m very lucky to have the luxury, emotionally, to angst over my relationship with these pets and their emotions. “If that’s the worst thing you have to worry about…” my dad would say.

I grew up making pets out of strays and feeding them table scraps. Watching them give birth to litters on piles of dirty clothing in my closet.

I’ve lived in houses whose owners didn’t allow animals inside, from whose back doors I’d venture, out into fields, with bones in my hands, to buy a little wordless companionship.

I’m a good person because I sleep with my dog curled against me all night.

I’m a bad person because I typed a blog entry trying to excuse my sins. Used my writing skills not to make money, but to persuade you certain parts of me outweigh the others.
…
…
…

One day Ray (that was his name) noted that I was having a tragic childhood. He wasn’t being mean—it was obvious. Everyone at the non-profit organization could see that I was poverty-stricken, angsty, and vitamin-deficient. It wasn’t a secret and a lot of my childhood neighbors could be described the same way. So Ray noted my “bad” childhood, said it would likely lead to a bad young adulthood, and then I’d be destined to have a good second half to my life.

I laughed. How did he figure that?

It was a theory he’d developed. He’d observed that people who had inordinately bad childhoods usually went on to have very good lives later. And the reverse was true, as well, he said. He gave me examples. Most were successful people who’d grown up poor and child actors gone wrong. He listed James Dean. I pointed out that James Dean had died young. He said that was the ultimate example: good half was fame and fortune, bad half was being dead.

I thought his theory was silly. I didn’t say so but he could tell, and he kept reassuring me that it was true, especially in my case. He invoked his ethnicity. He was some kind of American Indian—I forget which tribe—and he had a special feeling (which, as a Chicana, I had to respect), therefore his words were actually a premonition. He saw my future by looking into my eyes. Click!

I’m not a dumb-dumb. Even then I knew he was trying to be nice. Cheer up the girl and get her to smile. Guys tended to do that, some more creatively than others. His method fed into my secret hopes and made for a better photograph.

When the ‘80s ended, I embarked on an unhappy young adulthood. Of course I did—with the life I’d lived until then, it was practically my destiny.

But now I’m happy. (Like the Russian man said, every happy family is happy in the same way, so you can imagine it without details.) Everything around me is different, to the point that people who meet me now have a hard time imagining the hungry, sad child I tell them I used to be.

Problems arise in my life, yes. But they aren’t part of an unlucky existence—that unstoppable series of unfortunate events, one after another—like they used to be. They’re only temporary obstacles. Like plots on a sitcom, they’re resolved with happy endings, week after week.

I know, rationally, that my life changed because I’ve gained experience, worked hard, gone to therapy, and aligned myself with trustworthy people. But I think about Ray’s theory more and more lately, and it gives me extra confidence. Even though it’s silly, I find myself thinking, “Remember, this is the good half of my life.” That means problems are temporary. That means it’ll all work out in the end.

It’s a comforting mantra, like shorthand for everything I’ve learned. Basically, it was the modeling fee Ray paid me for my smile. #can’tstayseriousforonewholepage

Poetry Book as Personality Test?

Read my latest book, Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners and tell me what you think of it, and you’ll be telling me something about yourself.

Someone said it’s all about sex and women striving to dominate men.

Someone said it’s about hope and being a mom.

A lot of Houstonians said it’s about urban loneliness.

College students are my favorite readers because they bravely tell me their interpretations and demand that I confirm or deny. Some students thought the poem “Girlfriend” was about a girl lamenting to a boy. Some thought it was a boy having his heart broken by a girl. All the students in the class knew “Eula in the Bathroom Stall” was about feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable… but why? Because the speaker was defecating? Masturbating? Having a really bad day at school?

A young woman asked if the catcaller’s words in “Omega Wolf” were things that had actually been said to me. I told them the actual comments that had inspired it—way less graphic but every bit as invasive—and they were shocked. Could easily imagine the fear/loathing/fascination I felt and then tried to convey in the piece.

Someone thought the poem about a spinal headache was about miscarriage. His mistake made me imagine his fears.

I hate opaque poetry and I try to keep mine plain and comprehensible. But I love hearing people’s interpretations, even when they’re totally different from my intent. All I want is to make you feel what I felt, or let you know that I feel what you felt, so we’ll feel less alone.

So, over the past year or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging and its evolution and about “online brands” (for want of a not-annoying phrase). For various reasons, I decided to pull back on how much personal writing I put online, such as on this blog. Not so much because of privacy concerns, but concerns about putting information into inappropriate venues and maybe accidentally boring strangers. But lately I’ve been asked about my long-time blogging and have given this URL to interested parties, and I feel guilty when they come here and see nothing new. So I’m going to try to write something aimed at the people who asked, without alienating the people who’ve read everything up until now.

(Did you know that I put this much thought into my blog entries? Well, I do.)

(Sometimes.)

I Am Houston’s First Poet Laureate

which is a supreme honor, and which actually made me cry a little bit when they told me. And which, apparently, surprised a few people because they hadn’t previously known about me, despite my ardent yet maybe inferior attempts to promote my work.

No more intro. Time for random anecdotes.

1.
When I was a teenager, my best friend worked at a bail bonding firm in our neighborhood. On Friday nights, I’d go visit her at work because they had air conditioning, phones that didn’t cost a quarter, and sometimes pizza. Usually I’d sit in the chairs meant for clients, but once in a while I’d get to sit at the desk next to my friend’s. They had typewriters, and I’d type away, pretending to be a bailbondsperson. I typed letters to another friend who’d moved to Baytown, and I typed poems.

I remember feeling very free and sort of wicked when typing those poems. I was getting away with something, one. (Fooling people into thinking I was a business lady while banging out a long column of couplets about some boy.) And, two, the things I typed would be thrown away, so they could be anything. However dirty or sad or mad, however inane, however “You think you’re better than me because you’re in AP English?” they emerged? Would not matter, because I was going to get rid of them. Immediately.

But I never did. I couldn’t bear to. I folded each one and put it into my purse or between the pages of whatever book I was carrying around. One poem became a school assignment, eventually. One became a song in a short-lived rock band. One accidentally made its way into an ex-boyfriend’s hand and confused the hell out of him. Most went on to father children that now live in the deep reaches of my hard drive.

Today, I can’t use Capital Bail Bonds as a writer’s getaway. Instead, I use the parking lot of JC Penney’s. You think I’m sitting in my car feeling buyer’s remorse, but instead, I’m writing. I’m fooling you.

2.
As a published author, I’ve visited a few writing groups and fielded questions from more than a few aspiring novelists. They always ask the same questions and I get tired of giving the same advice, so I become blunter and more succinct with each visit, until they stop inviting me.

The most common question is “How do you find time to write?” and my blunt answer is “Stop cleaning your house.” (Corollary: If your house is already dirty, then stop playing video games.) That answer widens eyes. I don’t know if anyone follows my advice, or if they go home and think, “Well, I may never finish my novel, but at least I’m not a slob!” (“I may never finish my novel, but at least I’m a Level 138 Paladin!”)

The second most common question is “I want to be a writer, so what should I do?” And my curt, mean, brutal answer is “Instead of going to parties and telling people that you’re going to be a writer, you have to go home and write.” The second-to-last time I said that to a group – let’s call them the Southwest Dilettantes – we had a little reception afterwards, and several members of the group walked up to me with wineglasses in hand and told me all about their writerly networking activities and how they were going to finish their novels some day soon.

Exactly one year later, I visited Southwest Dilettantes again. They asked the same questions and I gave the same answers, and I saw in their eyes that I wouldn’t be invited the following year. But this time, during the reception, a young man came up and told me in whispers that he’d heard me speak the year before and had spent the interval sitting alone nights, writing instead of talking about writing. I said, “Oh, okay.” (What do you do when someone actually takes your advice and comes to report to you? Do you feel pride, trepidation, both?) He told me that sitting home writing, while others were having fun at parties bragging about their potential accomplishments, was very difficult. I said, “Yeah.” He said, “So I just wanted to thank you.” And then he slipped away, I guess to his apartment, where he presumably had a blue IBM Selectric all raring to go, just like me twenty years before.

3.
I told part of this on the radio the other day, so sorry if you’ve already heard it, but actually I’m only sorry if you heard it and it sounded different because I change it a little each telling, and if realizing that upset you. But actually, even if that happens, I don’t mind. Stories change. We edit our memories and add special effects.

After I sold my first book (a short prose collection) and finished the requested edits, back in the year 2002 or whenever it was, I was told that it’d be more than a year before anything else happened with it. At *least* a year and a half before the book was a physical thing. That made me sad. Today I’m experienced enough to inform people snottily, as if everyone should already know, that books take a year or more to get made. But back in 2002, I assumed that publishers were ON FIRE to get my work out into the world and hence would print my pages overnight and sew on covers by hand. So finding out that wasn’t the case pretty much devastated me. I cried a little. And what did I do next? I’ll tell you. I cleaned my apartment.

No, I’m kidding.

(Of course I didn’t clean my apartment. Why would I do that? Cleaning one’s home is only appropriate when one has a deadline looming. Nothing makes you finish a book like taking a break to clean your entire domicile, using a toothbrush to scrub each baseboard. You clean, you let the adrenaline from the panicked cleaning flow into your blood, you stay up all night, and then you turn in your finished book one week late, which is one week earlier than your editor wrote on her secret timeline. Hurray!)

So back in 2002, I had the year to wait, so I decided to write a chapbook. And I may have been a little angry when I put that first one together, like “Eff! This! I. Am. A. WRITER! and people-are-going-to-see-my-writing-right-now!!!#%!” I went through all my hoarded work that hadn’t gone into the book, wrote some new work to supplement my chosen themes, picked illustrations, figured out the puzzling process of turning 8.5-by-11-inch paper into a 5.5-by-8.5-inch booklet, emailed my finished file to the copy center, printed with help from the judicious yet emotionally distant man behind the copy center counter, and invited my blog readers to buy my work. “Buy my work!” I said. “Encourage my ego! Condone my bad habits! At the very least, satisfy your curiosity.”

The rest is history (depending on who’s telling it. Some archivists would care and some would recommend that Wikipedia delete the whole page).

4.
So, for me, nine books and twenty-something years after those bail bond days, there are two kinds of book-writing: 1) the kind where you sell your book-to-be on a promise to finish it, then sweat and clean your house until you somehow turn it in one week past deadline, and 2) the kind where you think, “I am a WRITER and I am firm in my belief that people are dying to read my work RIGHT NOW!” and you pull it together in a blaze of industry and inspiration and your house is still dirty and you don’t even care and you email the file to your publisher… and then spend the next few weeks thinking, “Oh my god, why did I put that one thing and then that other thing into the book? People are going to think I’m [crazy/awful/arrogant/a man/a slob]!” And then you pour a glass of tequila with diet tamarind soda and you get over it.

Both of these book types are made up of long strings of bead-like moments of sitting in my car or in a dentist’s office, writing things that maybe no one will ever see.

I wanted to tell you that being chosen as Houston’s poet laureate made me feel justified in doing the latter, this last time. My first book of poems will physically exist in October of 2013. It’s called Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners. If you’re curious, that book should satisfy.

Additionally, being chosen as Houston’s poet laureate gets me invited to parties. If I meet you with a wineglass, tell me something true.

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.

If you follow me on FaceBook or Twitter or SocialMediaConstruct#8792, you know that I’m still slaving away on my third novel and am therefore in self-imposed social exile for the next week or two. I look forward to the day I finish this novel and can resume:

• knitting
• dancing, particularly the two-step as recently taught to me by friend Ashley
• reading other people’s books
• coloring my gray hairs
• exercising at least a little
• talking to real people in real life and not talking about fictional people in my mind
• obsessing over a wider variety of stuff
• writing to you guys on this here blog

That’s all I can say right now. But don’t forget that y’all can see me at Poison Girl, here in Houston, a week from Thursday.

(Do you like the blog redesign? Those are grackles on the front page, of course. I took that photo myself. )

1. Lost weight but then gained weight, trying to lose weight, yo-yo-dieting is not good, Gilad, Sharon Mann, CathE, Shimmy, I mean I still like myself no matter what size I am so don’t worry, but I don’t wanna buy new pants, blah blah blah. Carrot cake.

2. Something happened and then I felt sorry for myself and then I told myself not to and now I’m moving on.

3. Publicity. Writing. Day job. Stress. Pause for gratitude and acknowledgment of good fortune. Publicity. Writing. Day job. Stress.

We went to the book store today.

My boyfriend (fiance) was really excited and he took a picture of my novel on the Noteworthy Paperbacks table. But I wasn’t excited about the books on the table, because I had a lot on my mind. I’m finishing up my second novel right now. My editor sent my agent and me a mock-up of the cover for this second novel, and it looks way more beautiful than I could have imagined it. Whoever does my covers and picks the fonts — I love y’all. Thanks for being awesome.

So I was thinking about that and thinking about sales figures and thinking about scheduling. And then we got home and guess what came in the mail. An advanced copy of my next children’s book! So now I’m thinking about that, too.

We might get laid off soon.

And it’ll be okay, as long as they hurry up and let us know, as soon as they know. The not-knowing is worse than the knowing, I always feel.

I get to read some poems tomorrow.

And I’m kind of excited about that. I haven’t read poems out loud in a while, and it’s a slightly different mindset from the fiction or the prose.

Thinking about it makes me want to make another chapbook. This time, I want to make one in Kindle format, because

Oh, my god, forget whatever else I was saying…

I got a Kindle for Christmas! A Kindle!

My boyfriend, Tad, said he had a lot of trouble acquiring my gift this year. And I was puzzled, and hoped he hadn’t gone through too much trouble.

And then I called Tad’s friend Mark (psuedonym) to see if Mark thought that Tad would like the gift that I bought him. (Nintendo DS Lite, Pokemon edition.) And Mark said yes, that he, oops he means Tad would like that very much.

Then Mark said, “It’s so funny that you called about that, because Tad asked me if I thought you’d like your gift, too.”

And I was like, “Really?” And then I realized that Mark was being an info-hoarder and a tease, and potentially a spoiler, too, so I said, “Mark, don’t tell me what Tad got me, or I’ll drive to your house and kill you.”

And he promised not to tell me and ruin my surprise. Then, right before he hung up, he blurted, “I just have to tell you that all my friends who have what Tad got you, play it all the time!!!”

And I yelled “Damn youuuuuu!!!!!” but he’d already hung up, so I had nothing left to do but spend the next 52 hours wondering what in god’s name Tad could have bought. Something to play. Something that Mark’s friends would play all the time. Hmm. A Rock Band thing? No, because we have all that. A Nintendo DS Lite, Pokemon edition? No, because I’d spent weeks pretending I didn’t even know what that was (to throw Tad off track).

An electric guitar? No.
A PSP? No.
A… board game? Maybe.

Tad got me a board game. But a board game that was hard to get. Hmm. An old Parker Brothers ouija board? A special-edition Trivial Pursuit?

I couldn’t guess. I gave up trying.

And then, Christmas morning (Okay, I’m lying, it was Christmas Eve, well before midnight, but), Tad handed me my gift and said, “This is something you’ve been deserving for a long time, baby.”

A vacation? No.
A vacation day that I don’t spend working? No.
A set of 800-thread-count sheets?

No! I opened my gift and it was a freaking Kindle!

Seriously, I almost cried. I think I did cry, a little. Because that’s the kind of thing that, if Jay Leno walked up on the street and said, “Would you like a Kindle?” I would of course accept, but that, at the same time, I’d never ever expect someone to buy me, or ever imagine buying for myself.

So he gave it to me, and I won’t get into a long explanation of how it works, because you can just click the link or google it and find out, but, long story short, it worked so beautifully that I immediately downloaded and read 5 books. Within, like, 3 days. It was so insane. I was taking it everywhere and just tearing up the reading. And the only reason I’m not reading more books on it right now is because I’m supposed to be finishing my own book, so I forceably took the Kindle away from myself. I mean, I took it out of my purse. But, as soon as I finish this book I’m writing, the Kindle goes back into my purse and I’ll read 8,000 more books on it.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “OMG, Tad is the nicest boyfriend in the world.” Either that, or you’re thinking, “Buffalo wings would taste so sexy right now, I’d even eat them cold.” But, either way, you’re only partially right.

A week after Christmas, we were commuting to work. Tad was driving, and I was reading the hell out of my Kindle. After 40 minutes of that, I turned to Tad and said, “Baby, do you mind that I’m reading instead of talking to you while you drive?”

He said, “Baby, why do you think I bought you the Kindle?”

Rim shot, people yelling “BURN!” But then he said just kidding. But I knew he was only mostly just kidding.

But, best of all? I didn’t even care. I went back to reading my YA sci-fi novel, and I was happy.

I’m going to be at the Edward James Olmos 6th Annual Houston Latino Book and Family Festival on Sunday, at noon, on their children’s stage in the George R. Brown Convention Center, reading my first book for kids, Growing Up with Tamales. Last chance to get a signed copy before Christmas. It’s a free event. Not only will I be there, but they’ll most likely have lowriders, food samples, and people dressed as Clifford, the Poky Puppy, or other characters. You should check it out. It’s Saturday and Sunday, and it’s fun. Oh, and sometimes Edward James Olmos, AKA Commander Adama, shows up, too. I’ve met him three times now, at various points in my life, but he never remembers me. However, I like that, every time I meet him, I’m more successful than I was the time before. Hopefully I’ll see him Sunday, then, and I’ll be like, “Hi, Commander Adama! I have five books now! Last time you met me I only had one! The time before that, I had zero but I was playing Anita in West Side Story! I loved you in Blade Runner!” and he’ll be like “Hello, nice to see you,” and he’ll smile while my boyfriend snaps a photo of us, and the photo will come out with me in mid-blink, so that I look high or developmentally delayed, and I won’t be able to post the photo on my Flickr and no one will believe that I ever met Edward James Olmos at all, much less three times.

So you should come to the festival and see me. This Sunday.

Welcome to the (Publicity) Machine.

I had a meeting with my publishing peeps the other day and we wrote a bunch of dates on a bunch of pieces of paper, and now I have to do a lot of work to make the dates come true. I have to research stuff and email people and ask my publisher to mail books to people and write press releases and coordinate schedules. It doesn’t sound like hard work, and it’s not, but it is a lot of little details to manage.

Doing publicity for yourself is like a whole other job, in addition to your writing and to your day job, if you have one. And in addition to your parenting and your household-running and your girlfriend-being.

Most writers don’t like that part of the job very much. (I think it’s because most writers are introverts. Do you agree?) I’m not complaining, because I’d rather have something to publicize than not. But the publicizing isn’t my fave part, either.

Things I like about publicizing my work:

• Doing readings, making people laugh during the readings
• Meeting readers
• Traveling
• Exercising my creativity by thinking up new ways to describe my own work
• When they have free cheese and wine

Things I don’t like about publicizing my work:

• Needing to remind people about my work constantly, which makes me feel gauche
• Feeling like I’m bragging about myself
• Feeling frustrated that I could do more/better if I had more time
• Receptions where I feel pressured to “mingle,” instead of just eating free cheese and drinking free wine and chilling
• Putting my work and myself out there (like, say, on a Web application for sharing and rating books), inviting random strangers to criticize my stuff at will, as opposed to simply writing my stuff (like, say, on a blog) and letting interested people read or ignore it as they choose

But I’m getting over those petty peeves, with the help of self-directed cognitive therapy and the daily horoscopes of Mr. Rick Levine. Like I said, I’m not complaining. I’m just telling y’all how I feel so that you authors can empathize, and you aspiring authors can know what you’re in for. Some of you are reading my list of publicity dislikes and saying “What? That sounds like fun!” And to y’all I say, boogie on, reggae extroverts.

(That’s a take on a song by Stevie Wonder. “Boogie on, reggae woman.” Sorry – I’m kind of obsessed with that song ever since I saw a drunk guy try and fail to sing it at karaoke three or four years ago. So he danced, instead. Drunkenly and heartfelt. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I wrote about it, here on this blog, back when it happened, but I think that entry’s been deleted. But I still think about that guy and that song all the time, especially when I think about people doing what they want to do, despite the laughter of friends and strangers.)

(The subtitle of these paragraphs is my take on a Pink Floyd song. Yes, half my blog entries are actually just classic rock song lyrics, altered slightly.)

the birds

There are these birds migrating through Houston right now. I researched last year, and I think they’re indigo buntings. That’s what someone from the Houston Audobon society told me They’re grackles. That’s what Andrew at the Houston Audobon Society told me. We always have grackles in Houston (those are my fave birds), and then we get extra ones coming down for the winter, and then they all hang out together on the trees and electric lines.

Andrew told me that the grackles are very smart, for birds, which I already knew. I know this because they steal sugar packets from local restaurant patios, forcing restaurants to think harder. They take the Sweet n Low first, a waitress told me. The pink packets are their faves, basically. Even if they’re generic, I imagine.

Andrew told me that grackles go under parked cars and climb into the radiators to eat the bugs that gather there. Can you imagine?

People here have been commenting on how awesome the birds are for lining up on the electric lines, all spaced two bird-widths apart. I agree that it’s beautiful, and not just because I wish humans would keep two people-widths from me at all times, either.

Male grackles are iridescent black, kind of like black Infiniti G35s in the sun. Female grackles are dark dove-brown and always defer to the male grackles when it comes to food. No matter how many times you throw ciabatta pieces at female crackles, they’ll have to let the male grackle have them, if he shows up and wants them. Even if you yell at the male grackle, “Hey, you get out of here! Those are for her!” They have entrenched patriarchal inequality. But, besides that, they’re awesome.

One of my winning-the-lottery fantasies is that I’ll throw a masquerade ball on New Year’s Eve. For my costume, I’ll fly to Venice and have them custom sew me a (male) grackle costume. It sounds weird, but I have it all planned out, and it’ll be better than you’re thinking.

Don’t tell anyone I told y’all that, though. It’s kind of private, my grackle masquerade fantasy.

I wish PBS would do a show about city birds and their behavior. Maybe there’s one already? I wish someone would do a whole documentary about city birds in Houston. No, I wish someone would fund me and a team of ornithologists to do a documentary about the birds at three or four Houston establishments. Probably Empire, La Madeleine on Shepherd and West Gray, the zoo, and any random Jack in the Box. I wish it was my job, to make that documentary.

I’ve never understood elderly bird-watching hobbyists, but now I’m obsessed with grackles. I still don’t understand them, though, because they travel around, seeking out various species in the wild. I wouldn’t do that. When I’m too old to do anything else, I’ll totally go to different restaurants and name the grackles, pigeons and wrens. I’ll be like, “Here, Julio and Veronica, I bought you an almond croissant. But you have to share it.” And people will be like, “Oh, that’s so sad. Look at that old lady with ‘90s hair. She thinks those animals are people.”

I wonder if I’d even like grackles so much if they weren’t named grackles. If they were just crows or ravens or blackbirds.

Yes. I would.

Okay, don’t tell anybody anything I said about birds today. I’m starting to think it’s a little crazier than I knew.

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!

Hello Gwendolyn
Wow- I am so disappointed and embarrassed to hear your story! This behavior is completely unacceptable and I am shocked to hear that one of my department heads would react in this manner.

Please accept my deepest apologies. We pride ourselves on offering our guests the finest hospitality in town and in the nation. To have one of my team leaders respond in such an inappropriate way has not only damaged our relationship with you but set a poor example for the rest of his team. I read your email last night before bed and could only think about how many other times this may have shown up on the sales floor without my knowing.

Rest assured that I will be following up with [the offending manager’s name, spelled correctly] as soon as he gets in today. I will also find about about the recipe that you requested and make sure we get it slotted in the production schedule for you.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart that you took the time to contact us yesterday. I know that most people who had been treated in this manner would have walked out and never looked back. Your feedback will give me the opportunity to address this issue immediately and ensure that no other guest has an experience similar to yours.

I would love the opportunity to leave you a gift card at the service desk. I completely understand if you would prefer to pick up the card at one of our other locations, but would like the opportunity to meet with you in person and reassure you of the level of service that our team is capable of.

I will have a card waiting for you at guest service as soon as we open- just let me know if you would prefer to pick up elsewhere and I will arrange that for you.

I will be back in touch on the recipe, and please don’t hesitate to contact me directly if I can be of further assistance

[store manager’s sig]

Response from Central Market

I’ll send your idea off to our Food Service folks and see what happens – [Selling Manager’s name]

Sighing with Relief

(I really did send both those emails, right before I posted them on the blog.)

I’m glad Whole Foods wrote me back and was nice about it, because I really do like then for more than just that chicken. But I couldn’t say so, because my feelings were hurt and I was temporarily blinded by that. I felt like they were a boyfriend that did me wrong — I didn’t actually want to break up with them, but I was prepared to do so if they couldn’t respect my feelings.

I’m glad I can go back, because I’m currently obsessed with this stuff they have called Green Gazpacho, which I guess you’re supposed to eat like soup, but which I only eat with naan, as nature seems to have intended.

See, kids? What does this teach us?

WRITING:
Helping customers get what they need, since [the year the Egyptians or whoever invented it].

It’s Sunday night and I have to go to work tomorrow, just like most of everybody else.

And I like my new job, but I always feel now like I get home so late that weekend evenings don’t even count as free time… there’s only barely enough time there to, like, go to the bathroom and change out of my work clothes and feed myself and ask the kids if they fed themselves and make sure there’s a work outfit for the next day at work…

that I feel really pressured, each weekend now, to get as much personal stuff done as possible…

and by Friday at 6 PM, I’m already overwhelmed by the futility of it. I already know there’s no way I can get it all done.

Then, Sunday night, I’m kind of crying. Or would be, if I weren’t so dehydrated from running around like a maniac in the 105-heat-index heat, trying to get stuff done.

At least I got the kids haircuts, and got one of them new shoes. And did half a birthday for the other.

Just typing that out makes me realize, anew, how much I didn’t get done.

:I

Long Division

I can’t remember what else I wanted to tell y’all.

There was stuff — semi-clever observations of life sorta stuff — but I can’t remember while I’m sitting here stressing over how little time I have.

I just taught someone long division, because he didn’t learn it in school. This person told me today, “Mom… Can you teach me long division today? I still don’t understand it, and I don’t want to go back to school in two weeks not knowing it.”

So I taught him, with much empathy, because I remember not being able to get that shit straight when I learned it in fourth grade. And then the 5th grade teacher pairing me up with some dude I didn’t like so that he could teach me, because she didn’t have time to teach me while the rest of the class was moving on to something else.

So it’s apparently genetic, this hard-time-with-long-division gene. So now I can expect my son to have the same trouble with calculus, because I didn’t understand calculus at all until the end of the year, when a kindly Rice professor volunteered to teach it to me the weekend before finals.

My son said, after I taught him, “They taught me, but with a bunch of little stories that just made it more confusing. Like, there was something about Santa Claus going up on the roof and dropping remainders down the chimney. I couldn’t understand.”

Me: “Oh my God. How can anyone learn math from crappy, unseasonable metaphors?”

My son: “Right.”

And, in teaching my son long division, I noted other math skills he needed to learn. So now, some time during a break at work tomorrow, I need to find some teaching tools online and print them out, then take them home with me and hurry up and teach my kid more math skills tomorrow, in the 2.5 hours between my rush hour commute and bed time.

Oh, yeah… and then I have to finish writing a novel.

Dude

My oldest son, meanwhile, just turned 16. So, of course, 9 billion people have told me this week, “I can’t believe you have a 16-year-old son.”

Really? I can. I’ve been living with this kid for 16 years now. I can totally believe it.

I guess it’s supposed to be a compliment — that I look too young to have a kid that old. Unless, of course, you take it as shock and the dawning realization “OMG, this was a teen mom! “

Or, unless you take it as people telling you that you don’t seem mature enough to parent a teen?

Some time after that, I was at a social function where more than one person made witty remarks about the fact that I drink and say curse words in front of said 16-year-old son. Like, “Nice parenting skills, Gwen,” said with sarcasm-dripping voices.

These were all people my age who had toddlers or babies only, mind you.

So I just didn’t say anything. Well, eventually, I did say, “He’s on the honor roll. Is your kid on the honor roll?”

But even that was too much. In the same way that I used to ignore criticism from kidless people, I’m now having to ignore criticism from people who only have babies and toddlers. I don’t know what these people are thinking — that they’re awesome for cursing and drinking only when their babies are tucked away safely with their babysitters?

And what happens after that, when the babies get older? What am I doing wrong — being myself in front of my kids? Failing to lie to them about how grown-ups have a good time? Failing to shelter them from reality? Failing to put on an alternate persona whenever they’re not at the babysitter’s? Or failing to leave them at the babysitter’s in the first place? (That last item is probably the real answer.)

I’m so far removed from the conformist social mindset, as far as parenting goes these days, that I don’t even know what that mindset is anymore. And, as far as I’m concerned, that’s nothing to lament.

A while back, someone had a party and I was there with my kids, and someone else was there with her toddler. And people drank, and the toddler got sleepy. So the toddler went to sleep on the couch.

And, of course, someone who only had a baby had to make a remark about that. “I feel sorry for Toddler,” she said.

“Why?” I said.

“That’s so terrible that she has to live like that,” NewBabyMomma said. She pointed to the toddler, asleep on the couch, then pointed to the toddlers’ parents, who were having a good time. Then, noble point made, she walked away.

A guy next to me said, “What is she talking about? When I was a kid, I fell asleep at grown-up parties all the time.”

“So did I,” I said.

And then, silently, we both felt sorry for NewBabyMomma’s baby, who we assumed won’t be getting to go to grown-up parties.

I see parenting I don’t approve of, but I keep those opinions to myself.

I don’t approve of the style of parenting that ends up with teenagers putting on a big phony innocent show for their parents, then getting drunk on the weekends with their friends, God knows where, without their parents’ knowledge.

I don’t approve of the style of parenting that involves telling your kids phony words about yourself, then proving yourself a liar with your behavior. If I tell my kids I don’t drink and I don’t curse, and then they stay up late one night and see me doing it when I think they’re asleep, aren’t I only teaching my children that they’re supposed to grow up and lie?

I see other parents do this shit, and I just think, “Better them than me.” You know? Because I’m taking care of my family, and I don’t have time to monitor anyone else’s.

I had a duel with an old man.

One of my neighbors, an elderly gentleman, came to my yard the other day and started lecturing me about my lawn.

I don’t like to be rude to old people, but I also don’t like strangers telling me what to do. So he and I argued, as heatedly and yet as politely as possible.

In the end, we reached understanding. I think we even acheived mutual respect. We were very much alike, this know-it-all old man and me.

The funniest part is that, while we were having it out in my front yard, one of our other neighbors (one who hasn’t spoken to me since asking me what church I attended and hearing the answer “none”) was standing in his yard, gawking and eavesdropping like old Mrs. Kravitz from the Bewitched TV show. I would have pointed at him and laughed, if I hadn’t been busy making my points to the old man who was trying to make his points to me.

The old man was trying to convince me that:
1. I have chinch bugs, not fertilizer burn.
2. I should have known that I had chinch bugs, not fertilizer burn.
3. If I had no way of knowing the difference between chinch bugs and fertilizer burn, I should have preempted their existence by seeking the advice of neighbors with nice lawns.
4. Since I failed at numbers 1, 2 and 3 listed above, I had proven myself an uncaring lawn mistress who was unworthy of neighbors coming by with friendly advice.

I tried to convince the old man that:
1. I obviously had fertilizer burn, not chinch bugs.
2. The knowledgeable, helpful neighbors were obviously the ones who had already helped me determine that I had fertilizer burn, and were not the ones who avoided me until this day.
3. I was not uncaring — I was busting my butt at a job all day and had already spent a considerable amount of my paychecks trying to fix the fertilizer burn, and therefore needed no unneighborly old men lecturing me this late in the game.

In the end, cold logic won out. I have chinch bugs, and so do my two friendly neighbors. The old man does not, and therefore we all should have applied to him for advice.

Also, the old man was not in the wrong for avoiding us all. Because, seriously, how could you expect him to visit people who don’t seem to care about their lawns?

Today I met up with my two friendly neighbors and informed them that they had chinch bugs. Then, I told them how to fix it, just like the old man told me. They told me that they’d seen me having it out with the old man, but weren’t sure whether or not to intervene, since our arguing was so polite that they couldn’t be sure that’s what we had actually been doing.

I like the old man now. He’s pretty awesome. I’m going to buy him a plant and write him a thank-you note, I think.

The hardcore Christian guy across the street, though? I have to say I’ve lost a little respect for him. A little more, I guess.

>:)

That’s all.

Time for bed now. I’ll spend a few minutes at my new hobby, first, though.

My new hobby is so terrible and borderline OCD-ish, I’m not even sure I should tell it to y’all.

Should I?

My new hobby: Checking out cookbooks from the library, marking the recipes I like, then xeroxing them and putting them into a Recipe Binder I made.

Why am I doing that? I don’t know. I don’t even like to cook. Everybody knows this. My kids are like, “Uh…” and then they’re thinking, “Don’t say anything aloud about mom’s new OCD-ish hobby, which is totally nonsensical since she totally hates to cook.”

And yet, this new hobby soothes me. So I do it, when I can, for a minute or two before I sleep at night.

I hope y’all’s OCD-ish hobbies are soothing, that your lawns are chinch-bug-free, and that you all sleep well tonight.