Bread and Bread

Things I’m worrying about today: The fact that my cell phone is going to give me a brain tumor. No, really . The fact that I’m too lazy and/or addicted to modern life to return to the way of the landline. The fact that really amazing poets and healthcare workers are getting abducted and tortured by the Philippine military . I mean, it would be bad if the Philippine military were torturing awful poets too. Although it’s sometimes described as such, awful poetry is not actually torturous. But Melissa Roxas writes incredible raw stuff that will haunt you for days, about how torture is not a metaphor for some people, about how she is a black dog in a sea of black dogs, and that is a metaphor. Arizona . Planning my vacations. ‘Cause, you know, not getting the best possible deal on airfare is right up there with racial profiling and torture and brain tumors. The fact that OC has taken to barfing up his special food, substituting one health issue for another. The fact that I forgot to call t...

I just made a bunch of sandwiches to take to the L.A. Times Festival of Books . Unlike some outdoor events, which are all about the food (funnel cake! that corn dripping with mayo that always looks so tasty but way too messy for an OCD girl like myself to even attempt!), LATFOB has apparently contracted with only the most corporate and boring food vendors. So instead of waiting in line forty minutes for a Panda Bowl, AK and I will be eating PB&J on the slightly odd bread I made a few days ago. I substituted almonds for walnuts, currants for raisins and, for oatmeal…Cheerios. Trader Joe’s O’s, technically. Even though the bread machine recipe book is plastered with warnings about substitutions—it’s like they knew I was coming—it all turned out surprisingly well. So, yeah, I’m starting to feel summery and outdoorsy. I’m wanting to pack lunches and wear sundresses paint my toenails (which I also just did, an Orange Crush orange). But I actually logged in to recommend an ind...

Next time I blow $50 at Forever 21 , remind me that there are sites like this out there. In my head, this is how I dress. So if you’ve never met me in person, picture me wearing something like this . Even though in reality I’m wearing a plain gray T-shirt and jeans that I suspect may be too hip hop for my age and personality. I mean, I like the cut and color, but the back pockets have this dark blue embroidery on them—basically the same color as the jeans, but if you look closely, you can see that they’re fakey Chinese symbols which for some reason translates to, like, Baby Phat in my mind. ModCloth is pricier than Forever 21 (I got like six items for my $50), but it’s not outrageous (well, not on the sale page) and they apparently buy from indie designers, which seems less oppressive than your average Banana Republic shopping spree, although technically indie designers are still capable of outsourcing to 12-year-olds in Indonesia. I found the site by clicking on an ad on Go Fug Yours...

I read Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days a bunch of years ago, but I still remember how he described the main character, a hacky junket journalist, as accustomed to being a passenger on the road of life. (I think VW used this phrase in their “Drivers Wanted” campaign too, but Whitehead did it with more poetic flair.) The notion struck me as uncomfortably familiar. But lately I think I’ve passed my driver’s test—even if I took out a few orange cones along the way—so I feel like I’ve earned some passenger time. This weekend I didn’t teach anyone or moderate anything or coordinate a trip to the airport or even drag anyone along to a social event where I felt responsible for them having a good time. Friday night I showed up during the third hour of a three-hour work event of AK’s. When I arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion—already a disconcerting place with its 1970s Bob Mackie-esque interior—kids were parading down the staircase in lace gowns and painted calavera faces. A ...

A long time ago, B and I rented Ice Age and thought it was cute that the DVD cover said, “Rated PG for mild peril.” Then we proceeded to grip the arms of our futon frame for 81 minutes as adorable Pleistocene creature after adorable Pleistocene creature faced peril that DID NOT SEEM MILD AT ALL. So while my usual M.O. is to fall asleep when I watch movies on weeknights, when AK and I saw How to Train Your Dragon at the $3 Highland Park theater (“Not in 3-D!” announced the sign at the box office), I practically had a heart attack instead. Not only were dozens of adorable mythic creatures in significant peril, but the main one, a Night Fury dragon named Toothless, bore a striking resemblance to our cat Ferdinand. Ferd even has a broken tail just like Toothless, so maybe that’s what’s kept him from flying all these years (though it hasn’t kept him from leaping on the kitchen counter or getting stuck on a roof or two). It was like seeing Ferd in peril. The movie centers on a gawky Viking...

To quote my friend Amy , "' Single Ladies ' is the song that just keeps giving."

I just got back from the AWP conference in Denver—my second trip this week, which makes me worry that I’ll turn into a road-weary comedian who can only make jokes about airline food. And they don’t even have airline food anymore. (See, there’s one.) AWP is creative writing’s big annual conference. I’d only been once before, when it was in Vancouver, but I think my coworker Sara summed it up well: “The first time I went, I was just starting my MFA and I was all bright-eyed, like, Oh my god! So many books! So many writers! And the second time I went, I was kind of in a dark place. I was like, Oh god…so many books…so many writers. ” Everyone you know is there, meaning you don’t have time to see any of them, plus a lot of people you don’t know but should, but are too shy/tired/drunk to talk to. At one point I met a tipsy friend of Colin’s at the Hyatt bar. He told me his first name and extended his hand, and I was like, “Oh, hi. You’re my boss.” This can happen if you teach ...

Last night I read in the RADAR series at the SF Public Library, which was a huge honor because I’ve admired curator Michelle Tea since I first read Valencia almost ten years ago. But the lineup was a little odd: Matilda Bickers (creative nonfiction writer and sometime stripper), Cyd Nova (creative nonfiction writer and sometime prostitute), Melissa Febos (former dominatrix whose memoir, Whip Smart , is all over the place right now)…and me (author of a novel about shy girls living in a ghost town). One of these things was not like the others. I mean, I kissed Stephanie in a play once, but I didn’t get paid, so it probably still doesn’t count as sex work. Nevertheless, the reading went pretty well and I didn’t feel like the sore thumb I might have. Mattilda read a story about shoplifting strippers that was funny and surprisingly innocent, and Cyd sort of generally kicked ass in both his reading and the Q&A by saying stuff about AIDS, gender, tricks and dirty apartments t...

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: This is the first book about writing I've ever read--and then only because it was the required text for a class I was teaching. Luckily it's not really about the mechanics of writing, since I believe that those, like the mechanics of car repair, are best learned by trial, error and apprenticeship. Instead Bird by Bird is a warm, comforting and funny book about creating a writing life: about not getting bogged down by the myth that publication will solve all your problems, etc. Even though I sometimes had a skeptical dialogue going with Lamott ("You published your first book in your mid-twenties and you pretty much never didn't have an agent"), her point is that writing is a great equalizer: Even privileged geniuses have to wring words from their computers one at a time. And I especially appreciated her discussions of envy and pettiness. If someone as spiritual and smart as Anne Lamott starts thinking mean things about her critics...

1. in which i anthropomorphize both my birthday and my brain I almost forgot my own birthday this year. Which I think is rude. My birthday was like, “Hey, remember me?” And I was like, “Sorry, gotta grade student portfolios. Maybe I’ll catch you next year when you turn 34?” Then, lo and behold, I finished grading a day early. Workaholism has its perks. AK colluded with my birthday, and together they made a tasty pasta dinner (with bread crumbs, onions, sardines and parsley, which sounds a little odd but is in fact amazing) and took me to see Greenberg . I was so happy that day that I put Cold War Kids ’ “Santa Ana Winds” on repeat and alternately rocked out and cried. It just felt so good to have my brain back—to be able to devote my thoughts to something other than my to-do list. Driving down Avenue 50, I could gaze at people on the sidewalk and make up little stories about them. I could contemplate the characters in my circus novel. I could theorize about whether skinny jeans were...

I first met Nerissa when I was an assistant A&E editor at the UCLA Daily Bruin and she was a new writer. She was also in one of my American lit classes, which should have been a tipoff that we had a lot in common. But her clothes were so cute and trendy that I decided she must be a sorority girl. I believed sorority girls and publicists were at the worst end of the respectability spectrum (at the top: Stephen Sondheim, my gay RA, my radicalized American lit professor). But soon Nerissa and I were making study dates to work on our senior theses (these took the form of eating chocolate cake at Anastasia’s Asylum and complaining) and doing a lot of shopping on Melrose. She gravitated toward size two outfits suitable for hip hop clubs. I gravitated toward clothes that the chorus of homeless people in Rent might wear. On Melrose, both were widely available. Once our friend Stan came with us and convinced some trashy shop to give us a big discount. I can’t remember what his hustle...

Friday night I read at the Ideal Art Event, also known as the Interstates exhibit at TempoRoyale, a gallery on the first floor of a MacArthur Park-adjacent apartment building. “We’re not really sure what goes on in this building,” said curator Miah. But I can testify that the building holds at least one other art gallery (AK and I saw Sergio ’s work there a few months ago) and one very drunk/high girl (she put her arms around us and told us we were beautiful). Okay, so maybe it’s not sounding ideal so far. But Miah had this brilliant idea to ask all his writer friends to send him a story/poem/essay directly or indirectly about L.A. He distributed the writings among his art students, who produced photos/paintings/sculptures in response. Presto: a multimedia exhibit that proves L.A. is more intertwined than isolating. Jeff Weber, the photographer who was given my not-so-short story, was not only kind enough to read all twenty pages, but he produced five uncannily beautiful photos: warpe...

Because then, when you take the day off work to take your car to the mechanic, and you diligently spend the first part of your wait writing at the coffee shop across the street, you still have another half hour to kill* before the library opens so you can go there to grade student work and pick up a new audio book. So you go to Fashion 21, the apparent Forever 21 knockoff/outlet (all the clothes it carries are Forever 21 brand) on Figueroa. You buy a pair of blue pants that are a sort of a hybrid between jeans and slacks, but not as god-awful as that sounds. And a camel-colored sweater that was made from the softest synthetic rabbit ever. And a slouchy gray T-shirt and a blue-and-white baseball shirt. NONE of which you need. Except maybe the pants, because it’s hard for you to buy non-jeans, and this was a step in a grownup direction. But in general, free books are better than not-free clothes. See what’s happening to our city? *Note: This post is sort of a lie. I actua...

Since my plane landed on Friday, I’ve managed to: Catch some kind of bug that I mistook as motion sickness, but I guess motion sickness doesn’t usually last five days, does it? Whine a lot about how big New York publishers will never love me the way I clearly deserve to be loved. Simultaneously be all “Who do they think they are, publishing select works of excellent literary fiction? Sistas/Californians/grassroots presses are doin’ for themselves, okay?” Conclude that the world is full of parental surrogates that you simultaneously long to please and try to rebel against. Critique fifty student critiques. Scream as if being stabbed slowly in the eye when, post grading of fifty critiques, I read some complicated (yet legit) question from a student re: our ever-confounding syllabus. Didn’t he know I COULD NOT DEAL WITH LOGISTICS RIGHT NOW? Go to bed—when AK marched into the kitchen, snapped my laptop shut and declared, “You have a fever. You’re going to bed.”

It's St. Patrick's Day, which in New York means green-frosted donuts, redheaded babies on the subway and "I [shamrock] New York" T-shirts. Back home, it's the birthday of my grandma (1911-1982) and AK's mom, who decks her halls with more Irish flair than any Mexican woman you're likely to meet. (AK's sister and my dad also have the same birthday. Does this mean we're somehow astrologically connected?) Here's my grandma, courtesy of my cousin and Facebook historian, Maria. She's a knockout, no?

We just finished the super busy part of our New York week, during which I ate farro porridge, citrus-cured anchovies, wheat puffs with yogurt and tamarind sauce, and an Oreo donut; and felt alternately inspired and intimidated by the publishing industry. I did have some free time on Saturday, which gave me plenty of opportunity to get rained on. On every corner there were mangled umbrellas apparently abandoned in fits of angry futility: Umbrellas don’t help when it’s raining sideways. But a quick fix for anyone feeling sorry for herself because she’s soggy and under-published is a trip to the Tenement Museum on the Lower Eastside. An actual pre-building-codes-of-any-sort tenement building from 1863, the museum offers tours of several apartments restored to the way they looked when specific families lived there: German immigrants in the 1870s, Italian immigrants in the 1930s, etc. The apartments are cute and not so small by New York standards. But then you look around and thi...

I’m in New York for work right now, and so far every meeting we’ve had has begun with someone saying, “You just missed the great weather!” It’s rainy and windy, and the weekend is supposed to be worse. I’m spending my days working and my evenings working some more (teaching my online class). So I’m not exactly living the Sex and the City life, or, more lamentably, the Cheryl and AK Fall 2009 life. (Although I have eaten some delicious and fascinating food at some of our meetings—I have new-found respect for snow fungus, ginko nuts, quinoa and winter squash. Not that it ever occurred to me to disrespect ginko nuts previously.) But if I’m going to be trapped inside, I’m trapped inside the right place: Our Chelsea “guest house” is the cutest, queeniest place ever. (So much so that they have a completely different pricing and cancellation policy during Pride season.) The theme is classic movies, and every room has a different star’s name. I’m in the Sheree North room. ...

In my perpetual attempt to Be A Good Citizen, I did my taxes today. And by “did my taxes,” I mean, “sat in the waiting room reading Details Magazine and watching CNN while Erick Caro, licensed tax preparer, did my taxes.” The top story of the day was a 33-year-old female teacher * who had sex with one of her male students. The newscaster shook his head and talked about how speechless he was. Then he read emails from insightful viewers who said things like, “What is the world coming to? Can we even send our kids to school anymore?” And not to discount the teacher’s seriously bad behavior, but I kind of thought the world was coming to the exact same place it’s always been. Judging by the incredibly bored looks on the faces of my fellow Good Citizens in the waiting room, they agreed. I can think of at least two girls from my high school who (allegedly) slept with teachers. Teachers: bad. Students: victims, but probably not innocent ones. Sixteen-year-olds aren’t eight-year-olds...

What I read today in my inbox was a form rejection email from an agent I queried. Hardly the first, but the first in a while. I’ve been out of the rejection biz not because it’s all two-book deals or anything but because I haven’t been submitting much. So my skin had time to get all pasty and thin again, and I felt really bummed out. But, I thought, I’ll always have reading. My recent escapes: Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: This novel looks at the strata of slave society from nearly every angle: What, exactly, is the rank of a child born to a plantation owner and a house slave? When a girl is bumped up to the status of master's mistress, what sorts of favors does she owe her friends back in the slave quarters? Lizzie, the "privileged" "wench" of a "kind" master (this story necessitates many quotation marks as it problematizes many notions), has to ask herself these questions and more when she stays at an Ohio resort that caters to Sou...

AK and I saw Shutter Island Friday night at the Landmark Westwood , partly as an excuse to eat sugar donuts with lemon custard* at the Westside Tavern downstairs afterward. It was a great old-fashioned melodrama, complete with weather that mirrored Leonardo DiCaprio’s character arc, Patricia Clarkson as a fugitive in a cave (I’m happy to see her wherever she’s hanging out) and some Hitchcockian twists. Well, one Hitchcockian twist, which required you to completely suspend any contemporary knowledge of how psychology actually works. Apparently people sometimes just snap out of mental illness? And apparently mental illness amounts to one generic brand of crazy, which can involve hallucinations, amnesia, violent outbursts and whatever else is necessary to support the plot? Whatever. I loved it. It reminded me a little of Changeling , another retro mystery. But Shutter Island also enabled me to put my finger on a new movie pet peeve I have, which is that whenever the story revolves arou...