Monthly Archives: February 2008
The Proletariat’s Final Night
| February 2, 2008 | Filled under Shorts |
I refuse to lament the closing of the Proletariat. For one, I was never fond of the place, and for two, this town needs proper public transportation more that it needs yet another hangout for insufferable hipsters.
What would Jesús bring?
| February 4, 2008 | Filled under Blog |
I bravely (foolishly) volunteered on the first night of my short story workshop to turn something in by the following evening so that the group might have something to read over the week and critique at the second class. Not having anything actually prepared, I then had to spend all day Friday writing, and was able to get ten pages worth of a story which has been foating in my head for a few years. here’s to deadlines and being accountable to someone else.
I also volunteered Thursday to go first. Getting critiqued consists of sitting silently for 15-20 minutes while the others in the class talk about your writing. It wasn’t as painful as it sounds — I came away with a very good understanding of what works about my story and what needs work, and I drove home feeling validated and refreshed and optimistic and ready to get right back to the grind on it.
The challenge for the evening was to bring a snack that a character in your story would bring if he or she were attending a writer’s workshop. It’s a whole “get inside the heads of your characters” exercise. One of my characters is named Jesús. The other characters are a family of German descent who are meeting in St. Louis for a family reunion. I had grand plans for cooking something, perhaps some kind of family reunion food like deviled eggs or ambrosia salad, but I ran out of time and ended up buying grocery store-made mini strudels. (Because strudels = German? I dunno.)
One small pleasure
| February 5, 2008 | Filled under Shorts |
One day last week the girl working the late night drive thru at Taco Cabana delivered to me this compliment: “I like your hair. It looks real silky.”
At the time, it had been more than 48 hours since my last shower.
I still hate the State of Louisiana
| February 5, 2008 | Filled under Video |
Joyeux Mardi Gras, mes amis.
Here is a video to brighten your day — a brother/sister duo zydeco dancing in their kitchen (via Tiny Lucky Genius).
Yellow is the color of my true love’s hair
| February 9, 2008 | Filled under Internerd |
Discovering some interesting things about my genetics:
Blondes to “die out” in 200 years, (although Snopes seems to think this one’s a fake).
I am not having sex with the guy you broke up with
| February 11, 2008 | Filled under Blog |
It was a long, strange weekend. The fact I have only been sleeping about five hours a night does not help. This weekend had the potential to be either extremely awesome or extremely disastrous and it ended up somewhere in between, so that it is now 11:31 p.m. Monday night and I still do not feel as though I’ve mentally recovered.
The good part was Saturday, driving the four hours to north Dallas to see my little sister for the first time since I’ve been back in Western civilization. During my time away she has apparently morphed into a true-blue adult (instead of a kid 8 years younger than me) to whom I can now easily relate and who shares my extremely cultivated taste in movies. She just got back from a trip to New York which makes me insanely jealous, since I’ve never been there. I also, for the first time, had a full-blown, awesome conversation with her hot-ass Hispanic Adonis and I must now find some way of convincing them to drive to Houston on their motorcycle over Spring Break, or maybe this summer, when we all can hang out on a Matagorda County beach.
The trip to Dallas was to celebrate some familial birthdays, including my father’s, which is actually on Valentine’s Day. Plans Sunday, however, meant that I had to drive back to Houston on the same day and I didn’t end up getting home until 2 a.m.
The bad part happened exactly an hour later, when I was rudely awakened from my much-needed slumber by a phone call. Somebody with mental issues and an extreme lack of maturity is attempting to pull me into her own self-perpetuated drama and I’m not having it. In addition to having my sleep disturbed I was also forced to spend the better part of the next day trying to figure out exactly how I came to be dragged into this whole stupid mess and what I can do about it. The upside, if there is one, is that I now have a new Most Hated Person in Houston, a role that was previously occupied by a former paramour. (Look at me, throwing that word around so generously. An old huckleberry friend just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?)
Only one person is allowed to interrupt my R.E.M. and for only one reason at that, and he’s currently 100 miles offshore.
Thankfully, Sunday I was able to exercise away my confusion and aggression and I no longer want to lurk in a certain someone’s regular bar and write nasty things about them on the bathroom wall. Several rounds of fermented libation purchased by my favorite patron made everything better. Also, watching Amy Winehouse perform on the Grammys, because I love that hot mess more than anyone else in popular music today.
Women, know your limits!
| February 12, 2008 | Filled under Video |
I was thinking today that regardless of one’s political leanings we should all feel an incredible sense of privilege and responsibility this election year in that we have a 50 percent chance of electing a barrier-breaking candidate. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything MaryT says here, I do have to give her credit for this bit:
I like Hillary. Peops call her the ice queen, but I don’t feel that way at all. She is not charismatic in the same way Obama or Clinton the first (ha!) were, but I believe she is warm and cares about this country and ALL its people very deeply. She has been dubbed the ice queen because it is a divisive term meaning she is a successful woman in a suit.
But let’s not talk politics. This relates to my personal life in that I am constantly being told by people (some of whom are very close to me and thus should know better) that I should simmer down, change, be less outgoing, less opinionated, quieter, more discrete. I’m still a bit shaken up by the events of this weekend and I feel guilty for feeling guilty about doing nothing whatsoever wrong.
Times like these sometimes make me question deep down just how happy I am with myself and if I should try harder to please other people instead, or at least to fit into the cupcake mold they have set aside for me. Then I tend to snap out of it pretty quickly and remember the wise words I recently read on the back of a 50-year-old woman’s Vespa: Well-behaved women rarely make history.
Yes, it’s a cliche, but the truth is that the doubting of myself hurts me much worse than criticism from others. What helps most is knowing C and the rest of you out there who know and love me know and love me because of these traits, not in spite of them.
And now, a video:
Chest and Drawers
| February 15, 2008 | Filled under Internerd |
The vixen wants to take seduction up a notch, but she wants to do it in style. She’s comfortable with herself and isn’t afraid of a little leather or something a little daring, so we’ve chosen these luxurious pieces to compliment her sassy attitude. Guys, be warned: don’t buy these picks unless you’re absolutely certain she’s a vixen!
— Knickers: a lingerie blog.
Couplings
| February 15, 2008 | Filled under Internerd |
oo la la how they want me to be blacker and blacker, even Georges, his pipe on the bed stand and his hands all over my naked butt and I just have to make my cheeks tremble there and he will cry out in French as wildly as Genevieve and she will answer from across the room in Monkey, but I keep them both quiet tonight, I am myself quiet inside and I cannot stop my mind, for tonight I danced as I always dance — some Charleston some Black Bottom, some Mess Around and Tack Annie and Shim Sham Break and some things I tell myself are Africa but are St. Louis, for all that, are me just knocking my knees and camel-walking and vibrating my butt and flailing my arms and legs — I danced as always but at the same time I was somewhere up in the balcony with these ravenous French watching me dance, which is something I almost never do, but just because I dance in a trance most of the time don’t mean the dance has anything to do with what I am and what I am driven to want, which is something I got from St. Louis, as well: my hair is conked flat and lacquered, which the French don’t understand the meaning of, and at the end I cross my eyes at them and I flap my arms like a backyard chicken, and they don’t understand that either, but after it’s all over and the night is gone and the sun comes up in Paris, each morning I get into my hotel bathtub and I soak in hot water and goat’s milk and lemon and honey and Eau de Javel that they scour their sinks with and I soak and I soak till my pussy’s on fire just so I can be white
— Josephine Baker, as imagined in Robert Olen Butler’s forthcoming book Intercourse
Valentine’s Day Victory
| February 15, 2008 | Filled under Internerd |
Appeals Court overturns Texas’ ban on sex toys, the government gets the hell out of my bedroom. (And yours.)
The Yellow Scale
| February 16, 2008 | Filled under Photo Album |
I had the most fun job interview of my life yesterday. Pray for mojo, friends.
Photos rescued from captivity
| February 17, 2008 | Filled under Photo Album |
I did not go see Dave Eggers speak tonight, instead satisfying myself with a plate of home-made nachos and general slothiness in the aftermath of a long and eventful weekend.
I did manage to unearth the USB cable from a yet-to-be-unpacked pile of officewares, thus allowing me to free more than two months’ worth of pictures from my omnipresent digicam.
Witness:
I find the Weinermobile to be utterly ridiculous, especially when it is parked in front of the yuppiest granolaist grocery store in all of Houston, salivated over by crowds of numbskulls posing like tourists as though they’ve never seen food-shaped transportation before. Unfortunately, I was one of those numbskulls. I simply couldn’t leave without getting a picture. I hate myself for succumbing to the eccentric and nostalgic charms of some corporate marketing guru’s brainchild, but I am not immune to everything, you know. Besides, I didn’t even get out of my car to take the shot.
Barbed wire
| February 18, 2008 | Filled under Blog |
The idea that a married woman and a single man can not be just friends is fucking sexist patriarchal bullshit tripe. This is the Twenty First Century in the Land of The Free, and shame on all you who think otherwise and perpetuate jealousy and divisions between the sexes.
Clearly I need some buddies of the estrogenal variety, but my experiences as an expat wife have soured me greatly. What to do, what to do? How does one find girlfriends to share my high-falutin’ nerdy interests but who also aren’t outright catty bitches?*
Por ejemplo, I would like to meet someone who will go see “Persepolis” and hold an intelligent (and hilarious) conversation with me afterwards, but who can also compare the merits of various vintage Pyrex patterns. I personally own pieces in Butterfly Gold (1 and 2) but I have an insatiable lust for Moon Deco and Barbed Wire.
*ETA: Actually, blatant catty bitchitude is preferable. It’s concealed catty bitchiness that I find troublesome.
Barack Obama bought me candy
| February 20, 2008 | Filled under Blog |
I just got home from the Barack Obama Houston rally. I live-blogged it on Twitter but you can read a more thorough account written by someone else on the Chronicle’s political blog (with pictures) here.
To sum up my experience — I was hoping for something more along the lines of his New Hampshire primary speech and was a bit disappointed to hear same-ol’ material similar to previous speeches. The event was not well-organized at all and getting into the Toyota Center was a hassle, but it appeared that everyone with a ticket at least was able to get in, as well as some standbys.
A lot of what makes a rally a rally involves cheesiness, and I’m the type to sit with my hands clasped firmly to my hips when The Wave comes around, but it’s hard not to get “fired up” as we say in Texas when everyone else is too. I mean, The Dude pretty much had me at Renew American Diplomacy but also, having been away from American for the better part of nearly three years I am eager to absorb and involve myself in all aspects of American culture, the most fundamental of which is our process of electing representatives. In summation, it was an interesting experience and has piqued my interest in further participate, especially with regards to the Texas Two-Step.
N-E-ways, lest I get all political bloggy, I would also like to express once again how excited and grateful I am about my new job, not just because of the most excellent perks it offers but also because I no longer have to be 100 percent financially dependent on my number one best husband, who returns from his month-long exile tomorrow. The afore-mentioned reunion, as well as on-the-job training and a potential excursion to Austin for the weekend may make it a bit tumbleweedy around these here parts, but don’t you fret, amigos. Rest assured I’m either laid up in bed with the vapors or surrounding myself with the finest of Houston’s arts and culture.
Writing links for your weekend perusal
| February 23, 2008 | Filled under Internerd |
How do you choose to alert people who appear in your books that you are writing about them…?
I have been commiserating about the good bad old days with some former coworkers from the newspapers I worked at in Oklahoma. There is a kind of bond, a camaraderie, between those who have weathered the debilitating hours and humiliating assignments of working as a small-time journalist. It’s been fun, the reminiscing. Anyway, guess which post I wrote at Angry Journalist.
Museum museum
| February 24, 2008 | Filled under Video |
It’s a beautiful day outside. I started the morning with a fantastic longer-than usual run down by the bayou, at which point it was already nearly 80 degrees. Came home, showered, resurrected our former long-standing Sunday tradition of riding the scooters to The Black Lab for brunch, sitting outside, morning cocktails. 
It’s a great day to be outdoors, but now I have to go to work, where, as Cortney said, I’ll be surrounded by beautiful things all day.
Tonight I’m going to a black-tie Oscar party. Day-Lewis or Bardem, either one can have me. The rest of Hollywood I could care less about. CLH and I watched “She Gods of Shark Reef” last night. Roger Corman. He’s a guy who made the movie business fascinating. Unfortunately, “She Gods” is not one of his best, but you can watch it in it’s entirety on Google video.
