My favorite photo from Christmas. My sister in law introduces Boots to Big Bird.

The other day I ran into Jackie, who was looking at a Time magazine and when he saw me, made voices for the people in the magazine asking each other if they'd heard the new B&S. Oh Jackie!

the ole grey mare is given a fright

Saturday night I went out for a friend's birthday, and someone in a leather jacket with a Misfits skull on the back was standing behind me, and when I turned around and saw it, I just saw the skull and not the whole jacket, and I gasped! I make myself laff and laff sometimes. Really trying to live up to my sometime username I guess. Like the next night at the tamale party when a small child tore through my sister's house screaming, blood dripping from his finger leaving a red blot trail behind him, I had to leave and stand outside in the rain just to get away from all the (shudder) blood. Now when I think to myself that I should've gone to nursing school, I will then tell myself No you should not have. Nightmare professions for me: flight attendant, nurse, what else...

So Boots is now one year old, I can't believe it. He has so many new toys that are scattered all over the living room. I like the phone that says lines from Toy Story. I'll miss my Bootsy if my brother's new job is in another country again. But maybe I could move to Holland with them. I wonder what I could do in Holland.

peppermint mocha coffee and sunshine

Of course I get sick the week that I have a ton of papers to grade! That's what I get for giving my sick nephew so many smoochies.

Oh, we did not see Jens Lekman last weekend on account of terrible freeway traffic and an unexpected wait to be seated at Palermo. I was a little bummed. We went to the Big Foot Lodge instead, which is kind of like going to Frontierland at Disneyland, but with drinks and usually cool tunes.

That was the night before my birthday. My actual birthday was disappointing, to say the least. I've always loved having my birthday close to Christmas because it's my favorite time of year, until now. It seems like there are holiday parties or other things happening on my birthday, or everyone just had other things to worry about. Maybe I'm just too old for people to make a fuss over me. It was a very Sixteen Candles birthday.

I show Boots my passport, what I look like

This morning I was a little sad because my little Pickles is sick, but he's back from the doctor now with some baby medicine.




And now I can get excited about seeing Jens Lekman tonight! I hope he plays Shirin.

we are secret celebrities!

If your sister ever asks you to watch a movie called Gretchen, just don't do it. It was NOT Sixteen Candles meets Napoleon Dynamite like the introduction says. It's more like misery meets Napoleon Dynamite. Halfway through (and I thought it would never end) I started feeling sick, is it real or not? Maybe I'll find out tomorrow.

My birthday is almost here and for once I don't feel like doing anything. If I had a party, who would come? It would be a scene out of a children's book with different kinds of little animals sitting around a big tree stump having a tea party. I don't know why I thought that - my friends aren't little critters!

I have a good feeling about this new lead. I sound like my dad. It was sunny and I drove with the windows down, and ABBA came on right after The Beach Boys. All good signs! When I got home I watched Boots walk around the house and throw balls everywhere. We have a baby gate for the stairs now and I can just see myself forgetting that it's there, running to go down the stairs and flipping head first over it and down the stairs. I don't know how mothers do it. Bertita told my sister she is always tired. I'm always tired to begin with. If I had a baby I'd probably die. Or pass out, with my baby pouring syrup on my hair as I sleep. And then my husband would walk through the door and be like, WTF, and my eyes would have dark circles around them and I'd still be on the floor and I'd look up with blank eyes and say I NEED A VACATION.

the non competitive inhibitor gooses the enzyme (ew!), or the tutor gets tutored

I sang her praises too soon. She cut off part of my eyebrow while trimming my bangs. Oh well! I still love her.

This week has flown by with baby-sitting, tutoring, and also, I've been grading papers for my sister. She had to give me a tutorial on what I was grading and I think I can say that I never could've been a science major.

I'm worried about my abuelos. I think they're trying to leave the party early. Then who will take care of the dads?

"Ok, I am not giving you blunt bangs because you'll look like you're four" - Jimmy

I can't wait to get my hair cut tomorrow. I always feel better after a haircut. Unless it's a bad one. But I've found the perfect stylist who does exactly what I want every time. In Baltimore, I had a very sassy stylist named Jimmy. Actually, I shouldn't say he was mine because he seemed to not remember me every time, and I never bothered to remind him that we'd met before. Am I really that invisible to people, or is it because I'm good at looking different all the time? The other day a library worker pushed his cart of books right into me like I wasn't even there. Oh, but back to Jimmy. Even though he did not know my name and he would not always give me exactly what I wanted, I do miss his fingertips brushing against my neck while he cut my hair. Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps! Once, Meg came with me to a hair appointment and watched, and read my thoughts.

One of my favorite Jens songs is about his hairstylist.

I'm home.

New York was so fun. I was glad I got to see Danit as much as I did, and it was especially great to see my nephew and dress him as a lion for Halloween.

I came home from the chilly New York weather just in time for another southern California heat wave! Yesterday I went for a bike ride at the beach and you could see the brown smog sitting perfectly on the horizon, and at the other end of the beach was the fog. Or maybe more smog? Maybe I was riding right through it.

together but not together

Yes, nice old lady at the bakery. Exactly.

Tonight,

sitting at the beach eating now n laters and listening to the waves, I felt that if I'd gotten out of the car and walked down the path to the water, I would've found out where Sumire went. I did find out for sure that people run at the beach at 10:30 at night in very little clothing, no matter the fog.

How bout I send you a book on nutrition?

I had just watched The Lovely Bones on tv. I was lying in bed with my eyes closed thinking about the creepy man with the mustache and the underground murder room he built when my phone rang. In my half asleep state, I think I answered it just to make it stop ringing. I think I hung up right after saying hello.

Oh I knew it. First the Brazilians hack into my gmail account and send weirdo pharmacy emails to all my contacts. Then they screw around with my analytics to make me think no one reads this anymore. They think they're so clever with their words that almost sound like Spanish. I'll show you guys!

fall

It's been getting as autumn-like as it can get in southern California. The leaves still change colors here, but some days are hot enough to make you want to go to the beach. I'm remembering driving down Fredrick Road in Ellicott City in the fall and watching the yellow leaves blow around in the wind and the cows grazing on the side of the hill across from the antique shop, where I once stopped and bought celery salt and pepper shakers, and an owl pillow for a friend. Tuesday night I saw Belle & Sebastian play in a cemetery and it was just cold enough for a dress with leggings and I probably didn't need my parka. They were amazing, of course, but I did think the Sunday night show was the best. I was so happy when they played There's Too Much Love I teared up a little, what a weenie. They are just so magical.

bye, favorite shirt with the flowers.

These days I feel like I have very little control over anything. My job, where I live, the way I look, being interrupted by LOUD people. It infuriates me when someone ruins my things, especially since I have spent years asking them to stay away from my clothes. I know clothes are just clothes and I shouldn't be attached to them, but I would like to have something that I can hold that no one can ruin for me. Please?

I wonder why I never listened to Iron & Wine before.

I've been listening to this song lately.

bits and pieces

It's fun finding things you forgot you wrote, started and never finished. I found a few tonight:

To put you in the cemetery or keep you with me. Leave you there with all the others I pretend I’ve forgotten, I’ll call them onesies and twosies and the in betweensies who wait in a line under the burch tree for a permanent spotsie. But the problem with onesies is they dig their way out beneath the gates and are soon floating down the streets you told them to stay off of. The twosies are no better, they come around, just not as often. They appear in the morning in your closet while picking an outfit for the day, when you’re starting the car,



This is the morning, when the fog hovers over the roads
and a man on his way to work smears his finger across the
foggy window as he sits in his car at a red light. He tells
himself today will be a good day. He will have coffee in his
new mug, and he will talk about nice things with everyone,
like the weather. He will be patient and gracious, and he
will sign all his emails with a friendly salutation. “All the
best” or “Have a lovely day,” he can’t decide which.
When he gets to the office, he folds his sweater neatly over
the back of his chair and fills his new coffee mug in the
kitchenette. On his way back to his desk, he greets
everyone he passes warmly and compliments someone
on their new haircut. He begins his work, proofreading a
twenty page informational booklet about sexually
transmitted diseases. As he reads over the symptoms of
Chlamydia, he tells himself he is lucky-




Last Summer in Baltimore

Wondering why steam rose from the sewers,
why everyone here wanted me to run
them over with my car, why I seemed to be
a finalist for lots of things but not quite right,
why I had to jump over a metal pipe every time I crossed the street
to the supermarket, why nothing here stayed fresh
between June and August, and where I should go –

Nights I sat in bed until the sun came up,
eating yogurt for old people with digestive problems,
wondering if my stomach pains were real or not, whether
I would ever leave this room again, reading Sylvia Plath’s
journal checked out from the public library, where the man
with the big curly hair who always sat by himself at bars
pushed his cart through the stacks, watching me in the next
aisle over the tops of books.
I was hoping for advice or signs somewhere in the pages.
The book was old and poorly cared for, pages separating
from the spine. Nights when I did sleep, I woke up with
loose pages crushed beneath me, like
August 9, at the beach house, Sylvia makes tunafish salad
for the children she nannies,
and
January 10, 1953 Sylvia breaks her leg skiing.

Every day a huge beetle flies into my window screen.

More pictures from Mammoth last week, and there will probably be more because I'm going again next week.

good girls and lots of cheese

Lately I've been overdosing on late 50s/early 60s summer romance at the beach type movies with Gidget, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, and A Summer Place. They're all very cringeworthy but cute. Well, A Summer Place isn't so cute but more dramatic. If you can get past all the camp, it's really interesting to see how much America has changed since then in terms of sexuality, and how some countries haven't changed at all. I still haven't watched Gidget Goes to Rome, but I really don't think it could be any better than the original or any cheesier than the second. I also don't know why they recast Gidget twice, I think Sandra Dee is perfect in the first one.


The song in this video is from the movie, but somehow they found a way to redo it and make it even cheesier. Ack.

at the mountains

hair cut

Goodbye, sea hag nation. Hello, Matilda + Ramona Quimby + Eve Ensler!

why do I dream of Chuck Bass?

Seriously, seriously, I thought I would stop writing about the fog. I heard it was bright and sunny last week while I was in Portland. I guess I brought the gloom back with me. In the mornings it feels like winter in July. This should really be a blog dedicated to fog and Camera Obscura. Here is the next song I'm learning. I am the slowest guitar player ever.




I've felt so gross and uncomfortable lately, like a pregnant hillbilly sea hag with a ponytail and glasses. I don't want to talk to anyone. I feel like I'll never work again.

It was a strange week in Portland.

Orange county is like puberty.

Makes you feel weird and uncomfortable.

shedding tears for affairs in a man voice

Michael is teaching me how to play Tears for Affairs on the gee-tar right now. I think my fingers remember all the chords, but my brain doesn't! It's hard.

The other day I played a song for my nephew Vincent, aka Boots, who's visiting from Egypt.

Hey Boots we're going to the shore
don't forget to bring your door
we're gonna meet a fish named Bill
and his friend named Gill
you and me and your cousin named Phil (and then it just turns into the song from Thunder Ant)

boring to-do list from 2007 found inside book

March 12
1) buy groceries
2) MD car inspection
3) exchange shoes
4) work on design homework

I also found a 443 phone number that I used to hide from myself sometimes, both written on funny toilet paper stationary from Y Que?

Something did happen.

Spoiler alert! If you don't want to know what happens at the end of Anagrams, stop reading now.




















Gerard dies. And then you've forgotten that not only is Georgianne imaginary, but so is Eleanor, and Benna really is all alone. Sad.

Today was feeling guilty about waking up late in the fog, thinking and rethinking going to the Tin House workshop next month. I had almost made up my mind to not go. $1500 is a lot of money, especially for someone who doesn't have a job. But then I read those two definite words on my acceptance letter - no refunds - and that was that. With some help from my generous family, I will go to Portland and talk about writing poetry and I'll stay with Tali and her critters, and hopefully I can see Anita and Yael, too.

it's that hour

Time to see what Benna and Gerard are up to. Something, I hope. I'm not feelin' Anagrams as much as I was Self-Help and Birds of America.

still fog

Foggy mornings turn into foggy afternoon bike rides at the beach. It didn't keep the crowds away, though. Now I remember why I don't like to ride my bike there on the weekends. Too much people dodging. Hello, there is a lane for people who want to walk. So don't walk in the bike lane. Please!

The job hunt grows dire. I actually considered applying for a job in Baltimore. I was invited to come for an interview in DC last week, but turned it down after deciding I really don't want to live in that part of the country again. (Or do I? I don't know. But I know that Meg would never come visit me if I moved back.) But now I'm getting desperate! Will you see me mopping the floors at In N Out soon? Maybe. I wonder how many young writers are currently working on memoirs about how much debt they're in from getting MFAs and can't even find a job as an animal cage washer? That's not true. I still have not applied for the animal cage washer job at Hopkins, or the pot washer job at UCSB. What are my chances of getting one of these jobs?

"I was just looking for my contact lens! Haaa"

Foggy mornings have been making it harder to get up at a decent hour. Reminds me of when I was a summer camp counselor in PV, where mornings are foggiest, and a little third grader Olivia throwing her hands up and yelling, "IT'S JUNE GLOOM!"

Today I went swimming-I'm trying to build up my endurance so that when I go to another swim team workout with my sister, I don't die afterwards. A man in the jacuzzi near the main pool started serenading the other women in the jacuzzi, in Spanish. Then the lifeguard started harmonizing with him. I felt like I should've started doing some synchronized swim routine along with the song, like Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper.



Seriously, why can't that whole sequence happen every time I jump into the water at the Y?? I would go every day.

Something on my bookshelf is rattling. Maybe it's another earthquake.

I am not a good companion for all day festivals or shows. My feet always hurt after not very much standing/walking, and it doesn't seem to matter what kind of shoes I wear! I thought maybe if I wore my new Simple sneakers, which I was so excited to get in the mail this week, to Silver Lake Jubilee, my feet would be ok. But they weren't. The shoes are very cute, and comfortable for awhile, but I guess I just have bad feet. Maybe I can get a wheelchair for the next summer fun event, and some sympathy from strangers.

cleaning out storage boxes

Things I found:
old blue notebook Meg and I wrote in together in Baltimore one summer containing many illegible poems within - was I stumbling around the monument at night when I wrote them?
bag full of letters from Danit
Chachi chihuahua coin purse
picture of Marisa setting type at CCS
five old bikinis
Sanrio bonus cards from Ventura, Salinas, Corpus Christi, San Francisco
Under Achievers Please Try Harder poster

My ipod shuffle just found Saint Etienne, reminds me of lazy pen pals in tiny sweaters.

yes!

Finally, someone has posted a video of Camera Obscura singing my favorite song from their new album. I have a video from when I saw them play it at Emo's in Austin, but this is better.



(It makes me want to cut my hair, too.)

Um hellooo,

why am I not on the list of women chosen to serve on a submarine??

Hola, estoy enamorado de tu libro.

starstruck!

What do you say to people from your favorite bands when you come across them in public? I almost feel embarrassed in front of them because I feel like I know secrets about them. I imagine it might be like running into a stranger who has read my book from grad school and them asking me about certain parts from it. Or maybe I'm embarrassed by my own fan-ness and don't want to talk to them because I know I'll gush about how much I love their music. When I was a pop punk teenager I used to meet people from my favorite bands all the time and I can't imagine what I used to talk to them about. Probably stupid stuff. But now when I see them, at least out in public and not at a show, I just feel silly trying to start a normal conversation with them. Which is how I saw Tracyanne and Carey from Camera Obscura shopping on South Congress in Austin and Kevin Barnes from of Montreal at the Echo and could not say anything to any of them. Ack!

happy Easter and goodbye social relativism

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

coma baby

Being sick on sunny days is the worst. I've been laying around watching 80s movies on TV (The Great Outdoors and Bright Lights, Big City) and videos on youtube. I hope my voice comes back soon and my nasal passages get normal.

busted book

For Christmas, my dear mother gave me a book I’d been wanting since I heard about it on NPR: Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction. The cover is beautiful, and I like all the stories so far, but I have to be very careful when I read it because none of the signatures inside the book have been sewn in. Can you believe that? The pages at the spine have perforations where it seems like the stitching would be, but there is none, and every time I open the book widely or at all, a group of pages slips out. I want to send an email to the publishers (Dalkey Archive) saying HELLO, you forgot to finish making this book, and now I can’t read it outside on windy days!

Yes Girl,

starring me as myself saying yes to everyone on the street. Since being laid off from the factory, I've had a lot of free time. Time that lets me go for leisurely walks, stop and talk to people about anything - their dog, the weather, environmental concerns. I don't know if it's because I've been watching Yes Man a lot on TV lately, but I feel like I just can't say no to strangers in need anymore. Before, if anyone would ask me if I had time to sign a petition or take a survey, I would say Sorry! and leave them and their clipboard in the dust. But now I stop and listen.

Last week outside Amoeba, someone asked me if I cared about the ocean and five minutes later I became a member of some kind of California environmental group that is trying to ban styrofoam use in California. (By the way, styrofoam is a large part of a Texas-sized formation of trash bobbing in the Pacific Ocean that is only growing. Disgusting.)

This morning I was awakened by two nice Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door, telling me that the end is near. I know, I said. But I stood leaning against the door frame anyway, listening to the woman with glasses, who then showed me passages in the Bible about signs of the last days. If I hadn't been only half awake and in my big Holland t-shirt and pajama pants, I would've told her that we've been in the last days for over 2,000 years now, and that trying to figure out when exactly Jesus is coming back is pointless because we are supposed to always be ready in case He comes today. Maybe I'll tell her when she comes back in a month.

Later today, while riding my bike at the beach and stopping at the pier to drink some water, I took a survey from a girl with big sunglasses and tribal earrings about an ad. "Do you agree with the statement that children are our future?" Uh, yes? Who doesn't?

I just hope no one asks me to eat sushi or go on roller coasters all day.

Sorry for ignoring you, little blog.

I've been hard on myself lately. Some days I'm happy to have most of the day to do whatever I want. But others I feel useless and stagnant like an old swamp, all mossy and dark and where nothing really happens. And then I start to compare myself to other writing friends who are working on new projects, and I can't even remember the last time I made a book. (That's not true, it was in 2008.) And I sat down to write the other day, hoping to find that Lorrie Moore's Self-Help really was helping me, and absolutely nothing came to mind besides tired old themes that I've exhausted. Maybe it's time to leave poetry behind, or aside, for awhile and go back to fiction. Seeing and holding the little chapbook in Echo Park today with the little poems written by children reminded me that not everything you write will be a hit. What's more important is that you do write, and I have to remember that.