1. It’s okay if you can’t attend your friend or relative’s book launch party. You don’t have to write the author a long email explaining your excuse for not attending. “Hey, I can’t go to your thing because I have to clean the gutters on my house that day. But good luck with the whole writing business!” See, if you’re close enough to an author to receive free copies of all her books, and she sends you an invitation to her reading, it’s not because she actually expects you to go there and buy more books and act like she’s some kind of celebrity. It’s because she’s hoping you’ll pass the invitation to 50 of your own friends in an email that says, “Hey, this is my cousin I was telling you about – the author who writes super awesome books. You should totally go to this event and buy 20 copies of her book and tell all your friends to do the same.” Because, that way, she makes more money and springs for the better tequila at family get-togethers. Get it?

2. It’s okay if you can’t attend your author friend’s reading or don’t want to help publicize her books or don’t even like her work. But it would be nice if, after all that, you refrain from telling your author friend how much you love the Twilight books and how you’ve bought two copies of each one and how you’re telling 50 of your friends to buy them, too.

You know what I mean? It’s okay to like Twilight and not your friend’s work, but try to be sensitive about it, is all I’m saying.

For example: If you were an insurance salesman, your author friend wouldn’t email you and say “OMG, I just met the AWESOMEST insurance agent and I bought 6 policies from him and then I told my friends and now we’re gonna have a little insurance party where we all meet up with this guy and buy his policies! I thought you’d like to know that, since you do something involved with insurance, don’t you? Hey, maybe you could meet this guy and learn how to sell policies like he does! Then you could have a corner office downtown and drive a BMW convertible like he does!”

At least, I hope your author friend wouldn’t do that to you. I know it’s not exactly the same thing, since you can own books by more than one author but you generally only have one insurance guy. But I’m just saying: sensitivity, people. Your author friend has feelings that can be hurt by book-related comments, so be careful.

3. You know what? Don’t worry about it. Go ahead and do everything in the two items above. Your author friend is just a crybaby who needs to toughen up if she wants to make it. But, if you are going to do the stuff described above, please don’t follow it up by referring the aspiring writers you meet to your author friend for free advice, free editing, and free co-authoring… not unless you plan to start giving your author friend free insurance policies.

Thanks, guys.

Right now I’m doing 3 things.

1. Publicity for my new novel, Lone Star Legend, in stores any second so buy your copy now (or next weekend, probably). I’m happy to report that it’s getting enthusiastic reviews from professionals and real people, alike, so you’ll probably enjoy it. Download it on your book reader. Show up at one of my upcoming readings and get a real copy.

2. Working like a crazy person on my next novel. What? No, I didn’t say “sitting here avoiding working on my next novel because I’m terrified about the way it’s coming out and that it won’t come out well and that all the success I’ve ever had has been a complete fluke.” Why would you think I’d said that? Jeez, guys.

3. Being happy that I’m meeting a lot of awesome people in Houston, now that I have a tiny bit of time to do so. Because Houston has so many freaking awesome people, as some of y’all might be starting to suspect now that we’ve got our gay mayor and a special Web site boycotting our whole city and all. The combo of going part-time at my day job and my kids being old enough to completely ignore me means that I’m attending a lot more local events lately, and I love that shit. But I probably need to buy more dresses. But that’s okay… don’t think about that right now.

Important Job Tools

I bought a giant paper calendar for my home office. It happens to be the same as the giant paper calendar they ordered me at my day job office, except that I drove to Office Max myself for this one so it cost half as much as the one Office Max shipped to my job.

I have my Outlook calendar at work, my iCalendar at home, my calendar app on my phone, and my brain. But none of those work as well as paper calendars on a wall. Don’t know why that is.

All right. Back to work, peeps. Talk to y’all later.

I’ve been working like crazy, trying to write decent stuff and not hacky stuff. Like every other fall and every other time I’m under deadline to write a book, I have a lot of good ideas for other projects but NO TIME to do them.

Here’s my deal right now… let’s get it straight real quick, because it gets so confusing that not even my husband knows what’s going on:

1. You have seen, so far, in print in real life, my first short-story collection, my first novel, and two children’s books.

2. You will see, in January, my second novel. Also, pretty soon you’ll see my third children’s book. Both of these books, I wrote almost a year ago.

3. Right now I’m working on my third novel and my fourth and fifth children’s books. You will see those a little over a year from now.

See how it goes? Everything takes a year (at least) to get from me to you. So it’s like I’m working in a time machine, here. Kind of. People ask what I’m working on and I say “My next novel” and they say, “The one coming out in January?” and I say, “Um… what year is it right now?”

And I’m not high or drunk, either.

So it’s come to pass that, also, that next month, on November 20, you can see me on PBS in an interview I did a year ago. I can’t wait to see it, myself, because I remember enjoying the interview at the time, and it’ll be interesting to see what parts the editors and producers thought y’all might like.

Stuff keeps coming up like that: Time-machine stuff I do now that pays off later, or stuff I did a long time ago that’s showing results right about now. And all that is good. It’s like planting seeds.

Right now, between bouts of writing the books that you’ll see a year and a half from now, I’m trying to think up what I want to create for the year after that. Assuming, of course, that anyone wants to pay me to do anything by then. Because that’s always an assumption or a hope, but not a guarantee. I’m super glad, so far, that people are still paying me to do stuff for the future.

Do you like art? Do you like artists?

If you do… If you live in Houston and want to:

• See local artists and listen to them detail their artist processes in a laid-back setting
• Network with artists and arts community peeps in a decidedly non-network-y atmosphere
• Eat pizza and drink beer,

then you should come to the Spacetaker Speakeasy on Wednesday, October 21st, at around 6:30 PM.

Telling y’all this because Spacetaker is a local arts org that’s near/dear to my heart for the reasons described in the bulleted list above. I’m telling y’all this quietly, though, because the Speakeasy events are still kind of secret and cozy, and I’d hate for them to get too big too fast. So only show up if you really like art and artists, and only invite people you consider special and awesome, okay?

Admission is free and I don’t get paid to shill for Spacetaker. (I am a member of the Artist Advisory Board, though, so I want to see it achieve its mission, because that’s how I roll. There — full disclosure made.)

Work Days

I’m supposed to be the “Events Coordinator” for our department at work, which means, basically, that I’m in charge of thinking up reasons for people to bring cake to the office.

So we’re having a floor-wide, multi-department “trick-or-treat potluck” on October 30. No, it is not related to Halloween and therefore it cannot be deemed insensitive to hardcore Christians. It’s treating ourselves in celebration of coping with all the tricks we’ve been dealt during the last quarter. Get it? Trick, treat? See?

Anyway, so I made the invitation for this event, along with a sign-up sheet that contains a lot of cheesy industry-related puns. (“It’s a mutual food platform!” HA!!)

After I sent the invitation, this guy Tom from one of our neighboring departments told me, “Thanks for doing that. It’s been so dreary here lately.” And that made me happy, that I could help lift dreariness a little, for one person at least.

And it’s kind of pathetic, maybe… kind of Office Space… that something like that could make me momentarily happy. But it did. I make fun of Corporate America a lot, y’all know, but I’d rather work for Corporate America than, say, Privately Owned Firm America, or Retail America, or Food Service America, or Construction Work America…

So, life is good. That’s what I’m trying to tell y’all. Hey, maybe I can just repost pertinent bits of this entry on Thanksgiving Day…

Later, taters. Talk to y’all again soon.

You know? I want to live in a house that I built and cook food that I gathered or raised myself. I want to sew my own clothes and knit my own blankets. I want to take care of myself and my family, and only occasionally have to weave baskets to trade for the things I don’t know how to make. That’s just a different way to live… a way that isn’t based on spending 8 to 5, every week day, dealing with other people’s egos. I don’t like working with or around other people’s egos. Not so often, you know?

The problem with being Amish is that you have to conform to their ideas about good taste, and you can’t use electricity. Maybe I want to be a Mennonite.

Or maybe I just want to be a farmer. In the movies, when times get tough, farmers always say “Well, we’re fine here — we have enough to feed ourselves for the rest of our lives. It’s the other people [their neighbors or love interests] I’m worried about.”

I want to be like that — where I rely on myself, and I’m completely reliable.

Really, I think all of that just means that I want to start my own business. Because I don’t really know how to slaughter anything, and I’m too finicky to sew whole wardrobes out of calico.

Or else I’d be happy working in a room by myself, maybe. Making widgets according to written specifications. It’s not the working that bothers me — it’s everything else.

It’s not even about people being jerks. I could be in a building where every single person is competent and nice, and it’d still exhaust me mentally. I’m an introvert, okay? (People who know me in real life, stop telling me I’m not. I am! I want to live on a farm or work in a room alone!)

spring time

Every spring I feel restless. I want to get up and run out the door.

Last night, though, me and Dat and the kids put together one of those patio structures that Target calls a gazebo, but which is actually more like a canopy with mosquito netting on the sides. Dat and the boys put it together, actually, while I trimmed the pear tree above them. We got a new lopper (is that what it’s called?) a while back and this was my first time to really use it, and it lops off the branches very beautifully. I did the pear tree so it’d be out of the canopy’s way, then started on the oak tree on the other side of the back yard.

Tonight I want to finish those and then do every tree and bush in the front yard. I’d been planning to do that anyway, but now that I’ve felt the power of the new … loppers… I’m excited. I love trimming the trees — giving them little haircuts and making them feel lighter.

We have a bunny living in our front yard, randomly. When he was smaller, he fit through a gap in the garage door and so spent his nights there. Now he’s bigger and we’re guessing he just lives in the nandinas. We get home from work and he’s there in the flower patch, eating weeds. He just watches us. We watch him. We say “He’s growing.” Then we go inside.

It’s okay with me that this entry might be boring.

Sometimes it has to go down that way.

Life’s just plugging along. Like the bunny, our wedding is growing. It’s still an informal wedding in our house, but now Dat’s parents are getting even more into it, and so they’re inviting extra people. Which is fine — I want them to be comfortable and stay the whole evening, and having their peeps next to them will make that possible. I’m starting to think the wedding might spill over into the front yard, though. We still have physics in which we have to work, you know.

We’re gonna… transform the back yard into a fairyland or something. You know how people do that for weddings, sometimes. It involves Christmas lights, mostly. It’s not difficult, I don’t think. I feel confident in my fairyland transforming abilities.

At first I didn’t think we were going to buy flowers, but then my cousin said she wanted to buy them for us, and now I’m thinking of many ways in which flowers will be called into service. See? It’s a tumor. Weddings grow faster than rabbits.

That’s all. Back to work! Happy spring.

Oh, one last thing, just to annoy my kids….

My kids didn’t know that Ozzy Osborne was the lead singer of Black Sabbath. Really, now that I think about it, how would they have known?

They found out the other day because they wanted me to look for MP3s of Black Sabbath songs, and I searched for Ozzy’s name. And the kids were like “No, Mom….” and then I told them, and then they were like “What? Oh. But…. I thought he was just a guy on TV.” And I was like “That’s why that World of Warcraft commercial shows him as the Prince of Darkness. Right? Get it?” and they were like “Oh-h-h-h….” and I saw their minds reconfigure around the world.

They’re also learning which musicians are dead from ODs and which are dead from suicide, and which were ever called “the best [guitarist or drummer] in the world” and which dabbled in black magic or were rumored to have done so. That’s important history, I think. Kids should know these things. Don’t you agree?

Two jobs ago, I worked at the Houston branch of a big ol’ global insurance corporation, nestled in the top floors of the second-highest skyscraper in our downtown. Within the very center of that organization, we had a laminating machine.

The laminating machine was easy to use. You tucked a piece of paper – letter or legal size – into the correspondingly sized clear plastic folder (that was a little longer and wider than the paper), then fed the plastic/paper sandwich into the machine. And it would melt the plastic around the paper, coating and sealing it to form an un-rip-able, un-water-damage-able document.

I’m not talking about the kind of item you could buy at Hobby Lobby or Michael’s, though. This machine was industrial strength – all metal. You could burn your fingers on it, if you weren’t careful. I mean, it cost more than $49.95, for sure.

The laminator was on a counter in the corner of a break room, accessible to anyone. Above it, in a cabinet, there was a seemingly bottomless supply of laminating plastic. I don’t know whose job it was to order that plastic. Maybe it was done by angels.

I don’t remember ever having one work-related document that needed laminating, and I don’t remember seeing anyone else need to laminate something for work. Unless you counted the wallet-sized cards one of the department heads had her assistant make, with the cell numbers of everyone in their department printed on them in painstaking WordPerfect table format. And yet, we used that laminator like there was no tomorrow.

The woman who trained me at that company showed me the laminator on my first day and confided that she’d used it to make her daughter place mats and flashcards, all with Tweety Bird motifs. Because her daughter liked Tweety Bird, you see. One of my friends at that company, the best Exec Assis they ever had, used it to make decorations for her department. Along with the GBC binder, the laminator helped her make activity books for the children of all her friends, too. My fiance (who I met at that company, but who I hadn’t met yet, at this point in the story,) tells me that he and his coworkers laminated everything they had, just for the hell of it. Just because it was fun to use the machine. The melting plastic had a particular smell, like chemical grilled cheese. When your document came out, there was a short window of time during which the OCD-inclined could press at the plastic with improvised squeegees or the backs of their fingernails, to press out any air bubbles lingering under the clear lava. Watch it turn from matte to shiny. Then it dries, shiny to matte.

One slow work day, I used PowerPoint to create a restaurant menu on a legal-sized sheet of paper. It was for a fictional café, named after my son, that served easy-to-pronounce dishes at easy-to-add-and-subtract prices. I modified a piece of livestock clip art to give Rory’s Café a down-home, yet contemporary logo, and did the menu front and back in coordinating color scheme and font set. I made four menus – one for each member of our family – then laminated them. It only took an hour or two, altogether. As I fed the menus to the laminator, coworkers passing the break room waved at me. One or two came in to see what I was laminating, to be impressed and make note of the idea as a future project for their own kids. Something to do on a slow work day, maybe with grapevine or fish clip art, an Italian or seafood restaurant, Taylor’s Bistro or Zachary’s Fish Shack…

I took my menus home and presented them to my youngest son, then five (who was fascinated with restaurants from an early age and is only more so now, six years later). He was rendered speechless. See, they weren’t just pretend menus. They were laminated, and that pretty much made them real.

For the rest of that evening and week, we played restaurant, with my youngest son serving as waiter, host, chef and owner of Rory’s Cafe. It was gratifying to see him play this way, with such confidence and authority. And reading and math skills! (He’d been so shy since the events surrounding the separation.) One of my best friends at the time said, about the changes I’d noted in my son, “Well, he’s the proprietor of a small business now. That gives a man confidence.”

Because of the laminator, you see. Laminating documents makes an impact.

Back to the point I’d intended to make when starting this story: I didn’t know, at the time, why the corporation kept the laminator around and kept it so well stocked with supplies. As I said, there was nothing work-related, really, that needed coating in plastic.

But now, looking back, I like to imagine that the management there saw what people were doing with the machine, and had enough snap to see how happy it made us. The laminator was our toy/tool for exercising creativity. Someone with power realized that, thought it was a good thing, and gave the order to keep it in the budget.

To whoever that person was, if you existed: thanks.

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.

I only got Internet access back, full-fledged, last night. Hence, I haven’t updated. We were out of power for a few days, lost a couple of bits of the back yard fence… found a cracked window yesterday, but that’s about it. Nothing worth complaining about.

A lot of people still don’t have electricity. HOV lanes all over town are closed, effing up the traffic. Fallen trees everywhere. Grocery stores still not fully stocked. Some fave restaurants still not open.

But no one here’s complaining (much) because they actually have it bad in Galveston.

Someone on the radio said Galveston’s like Houstonians’ summer home. But really, they’re our sister city. We love them and wish for them to get better soon. We love you, Galveston. My fingers are crossed for you, and for everyone else on the coast, to be well soon.

blehhhh

I got home so, so late today because of the closed HOV and crowded buses. And I’m supposed to go in super early tomorrow to get some important work done. Basically, I’ll be home nine hours before heading back. Blehhhhhhhh.

You know what would suck?

If your mom married some new guy, making him your stepfather, and he insisted that you change your name to his surname. So you did.

And then, shortly after that, he would do something very embarrassing. So embarrassing that it’d be on the front page of the paper. And everyone would read about it, and then they’d point at you and make fun of you, because you have the same name as your stepdad. Even though he’s not your real dad and you never really even liked him that much.

What if that happened, and then none of the kids in your neighborhood would play with you anymore, and none of your teachers would treat you politely, and no one would give you a job, even?

And you’re a nice person, but they don’t care. Years and years of you being a nice person no longer matter, because you have the same last name as this guy who did something embarrassing and got it in the paper.

Wouldn’t that suck?

Yes, it would. And it would also suck if what I just described was actually a metaphor for your company and the company it had to merge with and the fact that your company is losing business now because of something that isn’t its fault. Because, only, of its new name.

I’m just saying. I’m sure you can imagine.

Good news, though.

See my first novel — the one that’s coming out in January? The one over there, linked on the right, that says Houston, We Have a Problema?

Today, my editor forwarded me the first review of my new novel. It was a very good review.

I read it and was like, “Oh, my gosh. That’s so nice. That makes me feel so SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!! OMG OMG OMFG!!!!!!! JEEEEEEEEZZZZZUSSSSS!!!! HURRAY! HURRAY! YAY! HURRAY! HELL EFFING YES! HELL EFFING YES!“

And then I was like, “Sob…! sob…! sob…! sniff”

And then I was like “squee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee….” sort of like a happy dolphin, but with hands instead of flippers, and jumping in my seat instead of in the water, and wearing quilted patent leather peep-toe pumps from Target, which dolphins don’t wear.

And then I felt silly, so I put away the review and went back to work.

(But I’m still happy. Hurray! Yay! Sob!!!)

Today I did one of those things that Houston park’n’ride bus riders sometimes do: I hitched a ride with a strangers so we could take the HOV lane. Hurray!

(Don’t worry. There’s a complex social structure in place. I follow the structure and refrain from getting killed.)

I like to do the Spontaneous Stranger Carpool because I have the most interesting conversations that way. Today, it turned out that none of the three of us strangers had our degrees. And, I’m not saying this because I want to encourage you youngsters not to get your degrees, but…

…but, um, why the hell am I worried about encouraging kids to get their degrees? That’s what we talked about today. Why are kids, lately, made to feel like getting a degree is the only was on Earth they’ll ever get jobs? It’s just not true.

I feel almost hypocritical for saying this, because many people have heard me say in real life that inner city schools sucked for not exposing poor students to the idea of college.

I do still believe that all school counselors should talk to all students about college. But I don’t believe that’s the only thing they should talk about.

The facts are that not everyone is cut out to go to college, not everyone wants a white collar job, and even if everyone did, there wouldn’t be enough white collar jobs to go around. There are gazillions of jobs that don’t require degrees, but you wouldn’t know that to hear the way Generation Y (or whatever they’re called) is getting indoctrinated.

One of my fellow ‘poolers said she thinks that not only are kids brainwashed into college at any cost these days, but they’re also made to believe that if they don’t get promoted every two years, they should quit their jobs. She cited the college-or-loser mentality as the reason behind increases in high turnover and low morale in Corporate America.

I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it was interesting to hear her opinion.

I have to say that it took a while before each of us in the car admitted that we didn’t have degrees. But once one of us did, the others quickly followed suit. It was funny that we didn’t feel comfortable saying it — that we were all obviously used to keeping that fact on the down low.

And yet we each had good, long-time careers in profitable industries.

We talked about the Air Force and the Navy. We talked about vocational and trade schools and how you just don’t hear as much about them anymore.

And… that’s all. That’s all I wanted to tell y’all about that. That, and I like talking to strangers in the HOV lane — connecting with them without learning their names. It’s fun.

Workplace Magazine Centerfold

I hate it when you work at a big company and other people who work there think they’re celebrities because they work on a certain floor or in a certain department.

Like, the other day, Jane Doe’s assistant called me and told me to come pick up something Jane Doe had for me. I said, “Okay. Where do you sit?”

She made an audible throat emission of scorn and said, “In front of Jane Doe’s office.”

And I had to laugh, and I said, “Okay. Would you mind telling me where Jane Doe sits?”

And she acted like I had just fallen off a turnip truck full of lobotomized people or something. Because I didn’t know where Jane Doe’s office was. Because…. Why? I don’t know. Who the hell is Jane Doe? Do you know where she sits? No, why would you? Why would anyone? I’m sure Jane’s a really nice person, but she’s not famous, as far as I know. Or else, as I said later to a coworker, “Is there some celebrity magazine about the celebrities who work here that I forgot to subscribe to?”

I think, if you get all your life’s importance from the belief that you sit in front of an office that everyone in your company should know the location of, then maybe you should look at a globe or something and remind yourself how big the effing world is.

Same day, some person got angry to the point of rudeness because I didn’t know she was the boss of some other person. And she made reference to her department’s org chart and the copy of it she was certain I must have (but that I didn’t). And I thought, “That org chart must be in every issue of the magazine that I’m not getting that is specially designed for people who have nothing in their lives other than this job and their perceived positions on the hierarchies that exist in the lower echelons here from 8 to 5.” Because, otherwise, I can’t imagine why I would have another department’s org chart, or why anyone would expect me to know her place on it, unless she was really insecure and solipsistic. (Or just stupid.) (Or all three.)

If I found out there was such a magazine about my workplace, I’d read a few issues, but only in my dentist’s office, for free, and only to laugh at it.

Except that it probably wouldn’t even be funny.

Part of me wants to pity these people. But most of me hates them because they’re rude. I hate rudeness. It’s hard for me to care about people who don’t have manners. Especially when they’re also miserable people who spend their time trying to make others miserable, too. You know?

But it won’t work on me, because I don’t want to be miserable. And my happiness isn’t based on who I’m allowed to boss around from 8 to 5.

Thank God for that.

(Some day a real rain will come, and I won’t have to work a day job anymore.)

flotsam

1. It’s hard to feel it in Houston — you have to wake up early in the morning to feel it, or else you have to pay attention to the refraction of the sun’s rays — but fall is in the air.

I’m happy just for that, because fall (“Autumn”) is my absolute favorite season.

2. I had the flu on Monday and Tuesday. I might still have it now, but only Monday and Tuesday were bad enough to stay home. And they were pretty bad. I only get sick once a year, and it’s always the flu. And I always get very, very sick for two days, and then I’m good enough to go back to work after that.

I like to do things quickly like that. I like to get sick quick and get well quick. Get drunk quick and get sober quick. Get emotional quick and get over it quick. I like that kind of efficiency. That’s what fits into my schedule best.

3. I had to rent a marimba today. This weekend, I have to shell out a gazillion dollars for percussion instruments and percussion instrument accessories for one of my brats. I hope he enjoys learning percussion and that he sticks with it for life. He might. It’s worth the cost, that possibility.

4. My brother-in-law and I pledged to start a cover band. (He’s actually my future brother-in-law, but it’s easier just to say it like it’s already happening. It may as well be, for all intents and purposes.) (Not the dentist brother-in-law — the other one. Let’s call the other one… the wise-ass, drunken-ass, half-breed-ass, cold-blooded-ass, funny one. No…. Let’s just call him the other one.)

So, okay, we were drinking when we made our plan. But we were also singing karaoke (my in-laws are Asian, so they have a karaoke system in every room of all their houses), so that makes it much more serious.

And…. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah — we share an appreciation of Everclear in which my fiance does not indulge. That right there is practically an obligation to start a band, as far as I’m concerned.

5. I keep telling people I’ll give them copies of my kids’ book, or sell them copies, or sign their copies, but then I never get around to it. Okay, you know how we can fix that, people? If everyone comes to my Official Book Party for Growing Up with Tamales, in October, at MECA, which is in Houston’s neartown west-end inner loop whatever-o region. More details on that when I look them up in my gmail and then post them in that section at the top of this page.

Oh, and also, I’ll be at Houston’s Latino Book Fair in September, of course. On Sunday, not Saturday. September 21, I think. So there you go.

6. I’m not very good at promoting my art.

7. That’s all. I hope y’all are doing well. I miss y’all and wish I had more time to post more meaningful, insightful, whateverful things. Maybe some day soon, when the real rain comes, if you wish real hard and light those candles.

Thanks, if you do. Thanks if you’re reading. Thanks, especially, if you’re buying my books. Hate to be crass, but I have to say that sometimes. Otherwise, this site can’t be a write-off. I think y’all understand that. I mean, I don’t want you to feel guilty if you read this site for free and never buy any of my books… but, then again, I’m actually okay with you feeling guilty under those circumstances.

It’s good for women who care about their image to be friends with women who also care about their image and who have a similar taste level.

Because you know how shallow people ask if women dress for men or for other women? I dress for myself, but having a female peer inspires me to greater heights in that regard.

Hence, I bought the silver sandals.

actually learning at a training thing

At my job today, my dept was forced to take a time management seminar. Basically, it was punishment for the actions of one or two disorganized people. I was super, duper annoyed with the situation, because I had a lot of work to get done today and I’m normally very efficient at work, but it’s hard to be efficient when you’re taking a four hour course about time management.

So I went in as a hostile witness, basically. I was determined to learn nothing. I admit it.

But then, of course, I did learn a little. I learned tips for managing my personal time, and also several things about myself. Here they are:

1. I manage my time super efficiently at work.
2. I don’t manage my time as well at home.
3. I have a Type A personality, relatively, for a girl.
4. My job takes up too much of my time now.
5. Instead of trying to help people by trying to figure out the answers to questions I don’t already know, I should totally send them to the person who knows and save us both the time.
6. I would probably make a benevolent dictator of a manager.
7. I hate the word veggies a lot and need to add it to my list of words and phrases that annoy the living shit out of me, such as comfy, hubby, baby bump, sweet spot, and tongue bath.*

You want to know the tip they taught me that’s going to help my personal life? You make a Master List. You put on it all the stuff that you have to do in the conceivable future. (I already do that, but here’s the key:)

Then you use that to make Daily Lists each day. You only fill the Daily Lists with stuff you really need to do that day, or stuff you could reasonably accomplish in one day.

See, the Master List is to clear your mind. The Daily List is the real to-do list.

See? Up til now, I’ve been making periodic, mile-long Master Lists and then getting disheartened when they take more than a week to finish. But this way, you don’t put unrealistic pressure on yourself to complete everything in an unrealistic time frame. You see??

Maybe you already knew that. Maybe you took the same seminar. I’m pretty sure one of my friends has taken it, because she talks about “eating [her] veggies” at work (meaning, getting least pleasant tasks out of the way) and

R-R-RE-E-E-E-E-ETCH

Sorry. I really hate that word.

The older I get,

the more I like to hang around with secure and successful people. I especially like to talk to super successful people and ask them nosy questions about their lives. The most successful ones are always willing to tell you everything, I find. I think they get lonely, successful people. I think they don’t often meet people who want to know what they really do and who’ll understand the answers. Because, unfortunately, a lot of people are insecure haters. Insecure haters don’t seek to understand — they just make assumptions and then hate.

You know what I mean?

Like, you’ll meet a rich real estate guy, and people will say, “Oh, he’s just rich because he’s a sell-out” or “because he’s good looking” or “because he plays the race card” or “because he kisses ass.”

But then, if you walk up to that guy and say, “So how’d you make your money?” he will straight-up tell you, “I heard that the Indians wanted in on our hotel market, but they didn’t know our business culture well enough to approach it yet. So I researched their culture and then offered my services as a liaison for a decent-sized cut.”

And you’re like, “Sweet.”

Because how can you hate on somebody for being smart/successful/awesome, unless you’re just someone who hates anyone who’s doing better than you?

You can’t. Come on. Seriously.

something else I learned today

If you are my fan, then you like what I create. You might think that means that you like me, but you could be wrong. Because you don’t really know me. You might assume that you’d like me, then see or read something that makes you realize that you really, really don’t. And it’s okay if you only like what I make and not who I am. That happens to me all the time… I like music made by people who are assholes.

If you are my friend, then you like who I am. Because you know me in real life, so to speak.

I guess it’s okay if you’re my friend and you don’t like what I create. I guess.

I talk/think about that with my arty friends sometimes, actually — what it means if we like each other, but not each others’ work.

I think I need to have both kinds of people in my life. Not “fans,” per se, with all those connotations… but people who like me, and also people who like my work, whether or not those groups overlap very much.

It’s bed time now.

I’m sad/pissed/resigned because I wanted to play World of Warcraft for a little bit, but, instead, I spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with AT&T and then with Yahoo, trying to get my remote DVR function straight.

And now I’m gonna go to bed, then wake up and go back to work and work my butt off. And… I like my new job a lot, actually, but I don’t like that it feels like I’m always there now. (Or else always in my van or on the bus, on the way there or on the way back.) I feel like my free time can’t live up to my hopes anymore, and like my life is rushing by, week by week.

Then again, tomorrow is Jeans Day. Yay! Jeans Day!

That’s all, for real.

I’m not going to play WoW. I’m going to bed. Seriously.

Talk to y’all later. I have more to tell you, but it’s time for bed.

* Typing those made me grind my teeth.

Sometimes I’m in the mood to show y’all stuff instead of telling y’all stuff, and sometimes pictures are worth at least a paragraph or two.

See the empanadas I just destroyed, the fetish-y shoes I found at Ross, and exactly how fat/thin I am now.

Know that I’m reading all your comments and agreeing with them/ being educated with them/ appreciating them/ loving them. I just haven’t had time to comment back lately.

(It’s one thing when you have a job that you learn to do very well in the first year, and your boss refuses to promote you because you’re just a silly girl and not a good old boy in a suit, and so you spend 4 years working for 2 hours per day and then goofing off online for the other 6 hours, every week day of your life. However, it’s a whole other thing when you have a demanding job with a boss who respects you and people who appreciate your abilities. On the one hand, I no longer have as much time to respond to each of your comments. On the other hand, I no longer feel like calling in sick every other day for no reason at all. )

The other day I did like 2002 and posted an IM chat here for y’all to read. It was between me and my friend “Olivia,” and we were being very silly and clever in it. I deleted all the most personal parts.

But then I looked at it online, all visible to the world, and imagined the world seeing it. Specifically, people who might come to this site because of my children’s book. This is what they would have seen: badword badword hating sex badword children badword cats hate drama sex vanity badword.

So I deleted it. Not so much of the badwords, but because I realized that posting that chat session was a little like saying, “Check it out: Me and my friends are so witty that strangers should feel privileged to read our chat-distorted ramblings!”

Maybe I’ll re-post it later, though, next time I haven’t updated in a while.

the job

I realize, now, how people become hardcore workaholics who never leave the office. I realize, because I’ve been fantasizing about going into work on the weekends, or going in at 5:00 AM, just so I can get some stuff done without having to answer the phone or stop what I’m doing to go to a meeting.

You hear that? I’m fantasizing about doing work. It’s a sickness. I’m sick.

There is an imaginary end in sight. Right now, our particular workplace is particularly busy because of a certain law that recently got passed. (403(b) compliance. Do you feel a tingle of excitement running down your spine?) Soon (in two months? six months?) things will slow down.

I’m looking forward to that time, not because I’m lazy, but because just about everyone I work with is pretty freaking cool, and we keep promising ourselves that we’ll do more team-building (AKA eating and drinking) as soon as things slow down.)

So, there it is. Busy but not bad. Things could be less busy and not at all as good. You know?

the cats

People keep asking about the cats. Starbuck and Toby are doing well. Are they still having romantic relations? Yes, but only at night. Starbuck is a good Catholic wife and she only does it when the lights are off. If Toby tries to get romantic during the day (and he does try, often), then Starbuck yells at him and hits him in the head with her paws.

“I’m not that kind of girl!” she says.

“But last night…” he says.

“Unhand me, you cad!” she says.

“Um… How about now?” he says.

“NO MEANS NO!” Starbuck yells.

And then she kicks Toby in the face, and he walks away, dejected. And then she runs back up to him, inserts herself under his body, and strikes a provocative pose.

“Now?!?” says Toby, immediately Don Juan again.

“No, stupid!” Starbuck yells, and bites him on the leg.

It’s beautiful. It’s so poignant.

Besides that, they like to practice martial cat arts, and they really like their new cat food, which is the Purina in the white bag with the extra special flavoring added. It’s, like, chicken and orso with balsamic reduction. Or something. Can’t remember the name of it.

We just gave them each a bath, so they temporarily hate us. However, even they saw the amount of loose hair that went down the drain, and they were at least a little relieved.

More later, when I get the chance. PS, my hair now looks like Katie Holmes’ hair, but in auburn. With less severe bangs. And only because my stylist straightened it — tomorrow, after I wash it, it’ll be a wavy, wavy mess again.