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

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

Why no mention of the cats since Xmas 2010?

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

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

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

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.

Hobbies, Interests, and Goals I Have Now, That I Didn’t Have When I Was Young:

1. Trying to take care of this mortal husk before it’s too late and my joints are ground to powder

2. Trying to improve myself or my life, in one way or another, each day

3. Breaking goals into small chunks with ample rest time between, as opposed to plowing through pages of goals and getting upset at the length of time it took me to acheive them

4. Reassessing pending goals and discarding the ones based on outgrown neuroses

5. Thinking about bifocals

6. Doing that thing where you try to click on a word with your mouse, but you click on the word next to it, instead, and then remembering when I used to watch older people do that with their mouses and boggle at their inability to click the intended word and wonder what their deal was — Did they need glasses? Had they not played enough video games in their lives to develop normal eye/hand coordination? — and trying to forgive myself for my past lack of empathy as well as my current inability to click the damn word that’s right there on the screen in front of my face

7. Avoiding the emotional dramas presented to me by family and friends, without feeling guilty about it

8. Letting my kids make their own mistakes, instead of acting like a truck that drives ahead of them and salts the icy roads in order to keep them from ever slipping

9. Letting go of responsibility for situations that have nothing to do with me, like a volunteer fireman who only puts out fires at his own house

10. Trying to react to adversity with forthrightness instead of surpressed anger or uncontrolled anger

11. Buying good quality shoes that won’t hurt my feet

12. Ignoring lists about what women should do when they’re forty

Guys, I’m getting older. I’m slowing down. Thinking maybe it’s time to wind things up. Finish the book I’m working on now and then start work on the last book I’ll ever write, and then I’m done.

(I say that every year. Ha, ha.)

I’ve been watching TV like it’s my religion, lately. I watched Breaking Bad and True Blood and I’m still watching Louie and So You Think You Can Dance. I’m waiting for New Girl and Mad Men and Game of Thrones and Girls to come back.

I’ve been reading a little and now that it’s fall, I’ll start reading a lot. Right now I’m reading the books my youngest son was required to read for school this year, plus a book about a video game he plays. I always read what my kids are reading.

I haven’t been knitting at all. I’ve been making jewelry, instead.

I’ve been looking at the Internet while sitting on my bed with my cats sitting next to me.

I’ve been buying some new music, but mostly old music that I used to have on record or cassette 20 years ago, because I was inspired by Yacht Rock on YouTube. I love Yacht Rock, and I love Steely Dan.

That’s about it. I hope y’all are doing fun stuff and absorbing lots of good pop culture.

I was told, more than once, that I shouldn’t talk about the surgery. Shouldn’t tell people my business. And I already knew that to be one of life’s rules, because I’d learned it from my late family members. You don’t talk to people about your surgery. Especially your surgery for ladies.

But why? When it came down to it, I couldn’t figure out the reason. “I’m going to be out for six weeks, so Tiffany will handle your case,” I said to people. They said, “Six weeks? You’re not leaving us, are you?” I said, “No, I’m having surgery.” They said, very kindly and with genuine-seeming concern, “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

And I said…

The rule isn’t true, is it? You know what I always hear people talk about? Rotator cuff surgery. “It’s my rotator cuff,” you hear people say. Then there’s a long conversation about the basketball that got played in college. I never play sports, but I know that rotator cuff surgery is something that happens.

I said (whispered), “I’m having a hysterectomy.” If I was talking to a man, I whispered, “I’m having… surgery for ladies,” then felt stupid and added, “I mean, a hysterectomy.”

You know who has hysterectomies? Everybody. I swear to you, 50% of the people I told (meaning, like, six people) immediately said, “OMG, I just had a hysterectomy, too!” Some of the men said their wives had recently had one. And then I was glad that I’d told them, because they shared their stories with me and it made me feel less alone.

I guess the don’t-tell rule is left over from the era when we were supposed to pretend that half the population didn’t menstruate. I never cared for that era and its rules.

I wasn’t able to have the laser surgery, like I did for my gall bladder removal a few years ago. I had to have the old fashioned gut cut, which is very similar to giving birth by caesarian section.

While I’m sitting here recovering, feeling slightly pained but grateful and relieved, I’m going to tell you the most memorable thing anyone said to me about the surgery I wasn’t supposed to mention. A woman at my work named R, about the same age as me, who also had the cut and not the laser, told me, “I’m not going to lie — the first two or three days are going to suck really bad. But after that, it’ll be worth it.”

I thought of her words every day of the last week, and they helped me get through the hard part. I’m glad I broke the rule, and that’s why I’m breaking it here again now.

Fear and Loathing

In preparation for this, I kept thinking about all the elderly people I’d known who had way more serious surgery than a hysterectomy. In particular, I thought of a friend’s very elderly relative who had issues with her mouth that required… tubes. The inability to speak. Way back before I knew I’d have to have the hysterectomy, my friend had told me about the tubes down this woman’s throat, and just imagining it made me uncomfortable as hell.

So I kept telling myself, “If that woman could live through that (for a while, at least), then you can live through this, you big freaking baby.” I’m pretty stern with myself about things like this. I have little tolerance for whining.

Some day when I’m older, I might have to have a more serious surgery. Maybe more than one. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Count your blessings. Etc., etc. There are lots of cliches that serve in situations like this. Also, I’m lucky enough to live in the age of Web MD. Whenever I’m having health problems, I like to look them up on Web MD and meditate on the worst possible scenario. Because, when you’re mentally prepared for the worst, the second worst is easy.

I’m afraid of what will happen to my body as I get older. I don’t mind admitting that to you. The older I get, the more I admire and respect everyone who’s older than me.

The Coping Mechanisms of Others

Before I had the hysterectomy, I had a hysteroscopy, which is like an exploratory mission. It’s like minor surgery, although it doesn’t always involve being cut.

Everyone has their own least favorite part of surgery. Mine is the time immediately after waking up. (Second least favorite is going under.) A lot people told me they hate the prep time most. And I can totally see why. It’s sort of dreadful. You show up at the hospital more than an hour early so they can make you strip yourself naked and lie under thin bits of cotton. They tether you to IVs and electronic leg warmers. Worst of all, they wheel you around like that and strangers can see you. You stop being a human being and become merely a human body. You’re like a piece of meat on a conveyor belt, rolling through the nurses’ factory.

Although I’m a control freak in normal life, I can handle the prep time. I can force myself to let go of my own autonomy and put my faith in the nurses. It’s self-induced Stockholm Syndrome, what I actually do. I try to exert good will in the nurses’ direction so they won’t forget about me — won’t let me get too cold, won’t let my IV fill my bladder too quickly.

My coworker T said about this part of it: “And they don’t even let you wear makeup.”

Yes! They don’t even let you wear makeup, or jewelry, or false eyelashes or perfume or anything!

I told her, “I hate that because it makes me realize how much I rely on cuteness to get by.”

She didn’t know what I meant. I said, “You know… I’m freezing to death, so I look at one of the nurses like this [smile, almost wink] so he’ll come over and help me. But he doesn’t. And then I realize, ‘Oh, shit. That doesn’t work without my mascara!’”

T looked at me askance and I thought, “Okay, maybe that’s something I’m not supposed to talk about.”

But, like I said, I’m okay with the prep time. I can’t be cute without makeup, but I can be pitiable if I have to. I can get extra blankets when I need them, using a certain voice. (God, that poor woman with the tube down her throat. Don’t think about it.)

Before my hysteroscopy, I had extended prep time. I was in a tiny hospital and my surgery room wasn’t ready at the scheduled hour, so my doctor ran off to do a pending caesarian and I had to wait on my stretcher for an extra hour. Next to me, on the other side of a nylon curtain, was another stretcher containing the woman who’d ridden up on the elevator with me 90 minutes before.

This woman was apprehensive. She had a lot of concerns, and she told them loudly to her nurses, her anesthesiologist, and everyone else in the room. Her doctor came by and she asked him in-depth questions, like how he’d done in his classes at Baylor and how he was going to avoid severing her nerves by mistake. She gave orders for specific drugs during the surgery and after. Eventually, she mentioned that she was a nurse, and I was glad because listening to her was making me feel like I hadn’t done enough research, myself.

This woman said, “I just can’t… I just can’t…” and then she stopped talking for the first time in a long while. Having received their fill of orders from this woman, apparently, all the doctors and nurses left the prep room. Then a new patient was wheeled into the room and deposited into the bay on the other side of my neighbor. The new patient started to snore. I remember feeling envious. I would’ve slept through those hours if I could.

Nurses and doctors filed back into our room and went to check on my neighbor. She told them, “The lady to my right was snoring really loud. I bet the lady to my left, who came up on the elevator with me, thought it was me snoring like that.” She said that two or three times, seemingly begging me to confirm or deny. So I called through the curtain, “I didn’t think it was you snoring.” She said, “Oh, good.” Then she told us all, “I had a panic attack, a little while ago. When I stopped talking? I couldn’t talk anymore, because I was having a panic attack.” She seemed proud that she’d been able to keep that from us.

Overall, she seemed desperate to cling to any invulnerability she had left. She may have been indisposed, but at least she wasn’t snoring. She may have been panicked, but at least she’d kept it to herself.

I couldn’t help but feel love for her, in a sisterly way, and wish her well. But silently, and not until I’d gotten the extra blanket.

My Worst Part

I’ve had about five surgeries now, throughout my life, and hands-down, the worst part is always when I first wake up. Every time, I’ve been in pain and very thirsty. Every time, I said so to the nurses standing near. Every fucking time, they gave me pain killers but not water. Not even ice.

After the gall bladder surgery, I couldn’t open my eyes but I could hear a young male nurse beside me. I asked him for water. Instead of answering me, he said, “She’s asking for water.” A female nurse, farther away, said, “She can’t have any. She’ll throw it up.”

I asked for ice. He said, “She’s asking for ice.” I heard no response but got no ice, either. I kept asking and he kept relaying my words with a slight tone of surprise, as if I was a cockatoo saying sentences that almost made sense. I got the impression that he was new at his job. Eventually, I said to him, “I can hear you. I can hear you ignoring me.” He shuffled away from me then and never came back.

After the hysteroscopy, there was only a female nurse seated on a stool ten feet away. I know because I was able to peek this time. I said, “Thirsty.” She said, “You’re thirsty? Okay. I’ll bring you some ice.”

I waited. No feet shuffling. I used all my strength to open one eye. I saw her sitting on the stool, writing in a file folder.

“I’m thirsty,” I said. She said, “Okay. I’ll bring you some ice.”

I passed out. I woke up again. I told her I was thirsty and she said she’d bring me ice. She lied. Again and again. I passed out two or three times, and every time I woke up, she was a liar. When I opened my eyes enough for them to wheel me out of that section, I told her — that liar, that Nazi — I said, “I remember all the times you said you’d bring ice and you didn’t.”

I bet she didn’t even care, though. I couldn’t turn around to catch her reaction because my neck was hurting like hell from the tube they’d apparently shoved down my throat when I was knocked out and couldn’t stop them. So I stayed still and imagined that Nazi Nurse looked chagrinned. And I made myself look pitiable again, and they rolled me to the room where the honest nurses feed you ice with a spoon and cranberry juice in little foil-topped containers.

It wasn’t until I got home that someone remembered to tell me that the hysteroscopy was unsuccessful. Because I’d read Web MD, I knew then that I’d have to go back to the hospital to have a hysterectomy. I didn’t cry when I realized this. I was disappointed, but mentally prepared.

My Neighbor in Everyday Life

Today is Tuesday. My hysterectomy was the Friday before last. I’m not supposed to drive until this Friday. But I drove a little bit this morning, and it felt so good. I can’t tell you why I like driving so much (or, if I could, it’d take another really long blog entry), but it felt so, so good to drive my car this beautiful spring morning with my MP3 player on. I will admit to you that I cried. Even when I went too far and my stomach began to hurt, I cried from happiness and not pain.

That’s very dramatic, isn’t it? It’s only been a week and a half since the surgery, and the recovery wasn’t that bad. What was it, but a few days of chanting, “It’s gonna suck real bad, but it’s gonna be worth it”? Easy breezy Cover Girl. I’m wearing tons and tons of mascara right now. I have nothing to complain about.

One of the places I forbidden-ly drove this morning was my neighborhood Starbucks. Yes — the Starbucks that I complain about on Facebook, because I prefer the more urban Starbuckses inside the Loop, in the neighborhoods I haven’t sold enough books to afford.

Our neighborhood Starbucks is a stage for a certain cast of characters. My neighborhood used to be classy in the ’80s, and now it’s far away enough, old enough, and cheap enough to host a certain demographic. That is, people my age who manage to work from home or retire early. I myself work part-time right now, so I can tell the difference between these people and the mere unemployed. These people hang out all morning at the Starbucks, chatting and leisurely fingering their laptops. They’re not feverishly searching Monster.com like the people at the cheaper independent coffee shop down the street.

There’s one guy who hangs out at our Starbucks every day, and he knows every single person there. He’s an older guy, and I think his name is D. Every time I go there for an Americano to go, D is carrying his latte from table to table, conversing with every single person in the place. If he hasn’t yet met them, he introduces himself and then finds out everything he wants to know from his newfound friends. I imagine that he’s a retired cop, but it’s hard to say for sure since I grew up in a neighborhood where the cops never stopped to chat.

I’m kind of a bitch. I mean, I’m not a very social person and my facial expression — when I’m not hoping for extra blankets — is a ghetto-wise, off-putting scowl. I’m an introvert, to put it kindly. If you’ve seen me do a reading out in public somewhere, you’re saying, “No, you’re not, Gwen! I know you. You love people and you always smile and you’re very, very, very nice!” (People say that. My own friends say that to me.) But no, performances don’t count. Ask my husband – I do not invite friendly overtures in public.

I hadn’t been to my neighborhood Starbucks in a good long while — not since I bought a fancy new coffee machine a few months ago. But, being out of heavy cream this morning, I drove there against my doctor’s orders and stood in line with my bitch face, lost in my world of MP3-fueled thoughts. I placed my order and then waited in the corner where you wait while the suburban barista misunderstands or messes up your drink.

In walked D. I recognized him right off the bat, even though his face looked a little different — swollen? more lined? — and he was leaning on one of those roll-y wheelchair-y walker things. Why was he walking with that thing? It startled me so much, I looked him directly in the face and smiled.

While I waited, D greeted everyone else in the Starbucks. For one guy, he bought a drink. When my drink was ready, I turned to leave but D’s wheel-y walker blocked me. He’d rolled all the way through to me by then, and he asked me how I was doing. He didn’t know my name because he’d only spoken to me once and I’d been standoffish enough not to give it to him. But this morning, when he greeted me, I pointed to his walker wheeler and said, “How are you doing? What happened to you?”

He said he’d had leg surgery following heart surgery, and both of those had been followed by surgery on the other leg due to infection. “Oh, no,” I said. In a more labored voice than I’d known him to use before, he described waking up in the hospital and finding his leg tied up like a pork roast. “Oh, no,” I said again, meaning it sincerely. He said he was in pain but was holding up as well as could be expected.

He looked at me as if something had changed and he couldn’t figure out what. Maybe, I thought, he could tell that I’d had surgery recently, too. Like we were fellow veterans in a way (but he a lieutenant and me no more than a private or corporal at the most).

He pointed at my wedding ring. “You’ve done well here.” I shook my head. “I’ve been married, but sometimes I forget to wear it.” I remember the lady beside me made a face when I said that. A lady doesn’t forget to wear her wedding ring! That’s almost as bad as talking about a surgery in her lady parts!

I told D that I hoped he’d recover soon. And I really, really meant it, so I went so far as to touch him on the arm. Then I left.

I know there is way more suffering in the world than I will ever feel. Way more than anyone in America will ever feel. But I hope that, if you have to have a hysterectomy in the future (knock on wood!), having read this will prepare you, mentally, a little bit more.

I Can’t Take the Time to Tell You These Things

… or write this site off on my taxes unless I say “Hey, guys, my next book is coming out in July. Don’t forget to buy it if you’re so inclined.”

Duty done. Until next time, peeps. Cheers.

Sometimes (a lot of times) I want to stop writing. Never write another book, I mean. And I never feel that as strongly as right before I start a new book. There are so many reasons not to do it: It takes up so much of my time, it stresses me out, it doesn’t pay enough, there are already enough books in the world, I’d rather finish knitting this scarf or sewing that dress. It makes me fat. It’s not going to make me rich or famous or even able to quit my day job. It won’t come out as good as I want it to. It never can.

I went through all those thoughts the other day. Even though I felt them sincerely as hell, I simultaneously knew that I’m about to start the next book. Because I always have those thoughts right before starting the next book.

What are the reasons to start a new book? Surely I have a list of reasons that’s the same length as the list of reasons not to. For symmetry, right? Or maybe the list of positives has one extra item that tips the scale. It must, right?

No, there’s only one reason, and it’s that I’m crazy. (Neurotic, to be precise. I have a horrible need to try to top whatever success I achieved before, always.) That’s the only reason I can think of.

I do have a symmetry-creating list, though. It’s a list of “this times.” This time, this book will be better than anything I’ve ever written, because I’ll try extra hard. This time, I’ll win the award I covet. This time, I’ll have fun writing and won’t be stressed out. This time, I’ll be more free as an artist. This time, I won’t let thoughts of money or sales ruin the experience. This time will be the last time I do something I think will sell or win awards, and next time will be when I take three years to write what I really, really want to write. This time I won’t obsess. This time, I’ll knuckle down and finish faster than all the other times. This time, I’ll try a new technique. This time, I’ll buy a lottery ticket while I’m writing, just in case.

I know that the “this times” are contradictory and don’t make sense. I’m telling y’all, it’s crazy.

Is that depressing? Okay, here’s something funny for the end, then. Every time I go through all this shit and then start writing a new book, I tell my husband, “I don’t know why I waited so long to do this. I’m always happiest when I’m working on a new book.”

Right now I can’t think of why I’d say that, because it sounds like a big freaking lie. But I do remember saying it, more than once. So I’m going to entrust Past Gwen with Future Gwen’s happiness and continue moving forward.

Every time I write a novel, I gain ten pounds, like a bear in a cave. So I’m trying to lose that now. I’m trying to have a lot of fun and relaxation, real fast, before I start writing my next book. Because I do have a next book in mind, and I already promised to write it. So I’m torturing myself now. Every day, I’m like, “No, don’t start writing it yet. First you have to relax some more and have more fun.” It’s difficult, living like this. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on, relaxing and having fun and not writing. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Some stuff is happening later in the year that I’m not supposed to tell y’all yet, so pretend I didn’t say anything. Right now I’m teaching a class at Houston arts organization MECA, and that’s really fun. Once a week, I hang out with 20-25 kids ages 10 through 14, and I nag them to make their own graphic novels and chapbooks. Or, actually, I nag them to slow down and not make their books too quickly. Because they’re all clever and have good ideas, and it’s my job to make sure they get through the whole project successfully. Local comic store Bedrock Comics donated books to our class for the kids to use as inspiration. Poets & Writers is underwriting part of the course, making it possible for me to be there. Someone else is chipping in for art supplies, I think. Maybe it’s the City of Houston. I have some really nice college kids coming in and volunteering, sitting with the kids and helping out. Local artist Diana Muniz co-teaches the class, coming up with applicable lessons and reminding me that the kids need occasional restroom breaks and such. Like I said — it’s lots of fun. I’m hoping everyone finishes their books and we can have a little reading/reception at the end. The whole purpose of the class is to teach kids project management skills — to get them to do something from conception to completion, and to feel the sense of accomplishment one earns from stuff like that. And if they manage to sell their books and make a few bucks afterwards, even better. We’re focusing on “sense of accomplishment” more than profit, because we don’t want them to come away with unrealistic expectations about careers in the arts. Heh.

I guess I was lying when I titled this “Not Working.” I’m always working, but right now it’s only for 8 or 10 hours a day. But soon, like I said, things will have to return to normal. I’ll quit being lazy and start writing again.

Y’all save your pennies for the novel (and kids’ book) in May. You’ll read through them really fast — in less than 100th of the time that it took me to write them. And i’ll already be running behind on the next book for you to gobble up. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Also, I’m noticing that people don’t read blogs like they used to. Everything’s Facebook, Facebook, Facebook now, isn’t it? (Or Twitter, Twitter.)

I don’t want to give up this blog, because it’s like a really long-standing crack habit for me, even though I don’t have as much time to smoke it anymore. (That’s not the best metaphor, but this has no editor. Or royalties. Or deadline.)

Y’all feel free to follow me on Facebook, unless you’re a bad person. I only have one FB identity — no fan pages, book pages, or whatnot — so you’ll have to excuse the constant back-and-forth with my cousins about what and where we’re going to drink that weekend.

I’m disabling comments on this post (and probably on future ones, too) because I’ve received my lifetime quota of spam comments from people selling knock-off watches and bags.

See y’all around the ‘net.

Xoxox,

Gwen

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.

On the way to excitement, we texted one of my fave cousins (Andrea – not an alias) to see if she was down for some culinary adventure. As usual, she was, so we picked her up and then headed to the nearest farmers’ market.

At the farmers’ market, I was happy to find someone selling Texas persimmons, just like the ones I used to have on a tree in my yard when I lived in Austin. You can’t get those at the grocery store here. They only sell Asian persimmons, which are hard like apples or bell peppers. Texas persimmons are soft like overripe tomatoes. We shared one in the street on the way back to our car.

After that we took Andrea to this restaurant called Feast, because she hadn’t yet tried it. You can google Feast if you want, and you’ll find a lot of glowing reviews if you do, but suffice it to say that the owners are mainly British and they cook “snout to tail,” meaning they cook the cuts of meat that most Americans wouldn’t think to eat, but in an awesome gourmet way. They also do various British and French stuff. So we had cock-a-leekie and Bath chaps and crispy pork belly and Welsh rarebit and French onion soup and grouper on ratatouille-esque vegetables, and it was all very good.

After that we wanted frozen yogurt, because we’re all frozen yogurt addicts. We drove to the new frou-frou froyo place everyone’s been raving about, and it wasn’t as good as you’d think it would be, but they had a nice patio so we sat there and people-watched and discussed in great detail what was wrong with the frou-frou frozen yogurt. And my friend Ashley was supposed to meet us, but we finished our yogurt before she could get there so we told her we’d meet her at a bar, instead. Then my son Josh called and told me a really effed-up story about how his job interview with a reputable retailer turned out to be a multi-level-marketing scam with a disreputable bullshit firm. So I told everyone what happened and we all vowed to get vengeance on whoever was responsible for doing that to my child.

We drove to Boheme and were happy to see that Christopher was the bartender that day, because he makes their red sangria the best. So we drank red sangria and beer while Rory looked on, a little annoyed that we intended to sit on couches and do more talking. We wondered if it was strange that we were drinking at 2:30 PM, but decided it was okay as long as we drank a bunch of water at the same time. When Ashley got there, she ordered some quiche. She let Rory try it and that made him feel better.

We talked and talked, and then we decided to go to the zoo. It was Ashley who convinced us to do it, and then she said she had to go home. So we left her and went to the zoo, and it was hot as hell but we said we’d only see our fave animals and then leave before we died of dehydration. Andrea hadn’t been to the zoo in 19 years, she said. We showed her the aquarium and the bird house and then the primates. I showed her my very favorite monkeys, who will climb up the side of their giant chain-link enclosure and take tree stems from your hand. (I’m not telling you to feed the monkeys at the zoo, because that would be wrong.) Then we went to the goat petting zoo and petted the goats, which is always basically my main goal in visiting the zoo, meaning I basically pay $11 to pet a bunch of goats and my friends say Dat should just buy me a goat to keep in our back yard and it’d probably save us money in the long run. But half the fun of the petting zoo is watching little kids interact with the animals, so he’d have to buy me a little kid to keep in the back yard, too, and I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Before we pet the goats, I actually got to pet the brahma cows for the first time ever in my life, which was nice. (Usually they’re haters and don’t come near enough for petting.) After the cows and the goats, we looked at the one sad deer in the Houston Children’s Zoo, and we probably did not feed it stems from trees it couldn’t reach, because feeding animals at the zoo is wrong. And it wasn’t even grateful for the tree stems, anyway. The monkeys at least look you in the eye.

After that we were going to leave, but then we went to see the Small Cats, instead, and then we went ahead and saw some big cats, too, and one of the leopards peed right in front of us. And then Rory realized that it was 6:15 and we needed to get the hell out of Dodge if we were going to make it to our concert on time.

So we dropped off Andrea and peeled out to the Woodlands (some suburb) where Rush was playing at 7:30. And we got there just in time, and Rory saw Rush play for the first time in his life, and so did I, actually. I never got to go to concerts when I was young, but this was Rory’s second concert. (His first was Depeche Mode, just this past year. His third will be the Gorillaz, in October.) Rory plays percussion at school and bass at home, so he of course admires Neil Peart very much. I thought the show was okay… until the encore, when it suddenly turned awesome. It ended at 11:00 and Rory fell asleep in the back seat on the way home. I texted Josh and ascertained that he was at his friend’s house, being just as good and responsible as college kids always are.

The cats got into bed with me while I checked on my Pocket Frogs and played my turn in eleven games of Words with Friends. Then I went to sleep and probably had pretty decent dreams.