Bread and Bread

1. then For most of my childhood, my Aunt Vanessa lived in Ferndale, a charming Victorian town in Humboldt County. It was damp and everything there smelled like mold, but in a comforting sort of way. At the center of town was an old-timey general store called the Mercantile. Downstairs you could buy jeans or cowboy boots. Upstairs was a museum where you could see the tiny satin slippers of Chinese women with bound feet. On an unreachable mezzanine was a display of antique rocking horses with tangled hair and haunted eyes. When Cathy and I rented The Ring in the haunted days after my mom died, we looked at each other when a lonely rocking horse appeared in a barn loft onscreen and said, “The Mercantile.” How did the filmmakers know? There was a Mexican restaurant called, for some reason, the Ivanhoe. The upstairs was roped off because there’d been a fire. This idea—of a place half occupied, half ruined—delighted me and found its way into Lilac Mines. Ferndale: adorable, a liiiii...

The other day I fell into the wonderful black hole that is Regretsy —a blog that makes fun of Etsy ’s wackiest shit. There are crazy ideas, executed beautifully (and, in the case of the Star Trek Enterprise coffee table , photographed against unflattering backgrounds). There are regular ideas, executed terribly . And then there are those magical items that are the holy grail of poor/insane concept and execution, such as the Eva Peron butt plug , featuring a portrait of Santa Evita that is only recognizable as such only because EVA PERON is written in big gold letters at the plug’s base. Regretsy’s approach is mostly celebratory, and if you make Eva Peron butt plugs and sell them on the internet, you’re pretty much asking for it. But…(pun intended?), I found myself thinking, Helen Killer [as Ms. Regretsy calls herself] is totally hilarious, but it’s really hard to make an Enterprise coffee table! The product description even mentioned how the maker had gone through a couple of sheets ...

Last night AK and I caught The Airborne Toxic Event at the Troubadour. It was a transcendent show—and I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to live music. I like comfy seating, discernible lyrics, good visuals. In other words, I want all concert experiences to be Rent . The Airborne Toxic Event comes pretty damn close. Their new song “All At Once,” with its sweet howling chorus and violin, is a meditation on life and death that made me cry like “Seasons of Love” (don’t laugh or I will show you a season of hate). The last lines: And we all had just one hope, there was someone looking down to return our bodies to each other and the ground Simple, but so is grief, right? I used to dismiss writers who wrote about love and loss as kind of dumb and apolitical. But that’s all life boils down to, and politics are just about powerful people trying to outsource all the loss to less powerful people. Even though I feel like my mid-thirties have brought on some kind of radical if obvious paradi...

Driving into work this morning, I was dismayed to see that Pitfire Pizza had been replaced by Al-Abba’s Chicken. Restaurants come and go in Westwood all the time, but Pitfire was one of the good ones—hello, artisanal butternut squash pizza. The weird thing was that Pitfire’s neighbor, a preschool, had also closed overnight, a Goldblatt’s Delicatessen sprouting in its place. Well, I thought, it would be nice to have a deli nearby, and maybe it won’t have that disturbing smell that Junior’s always does. The weirder thing was that, by lunchtime, two crowds of protestors had gathered in the parking lot between Al-Abba’s and Goldblatt’s. One side waved an Israeli flag, the other held up a poster of the Palestinian flag. But all their signs were chicken puns: No piece, no justice! Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a thigh! This was, I concluded, a very strange and not that funny promotional stunt by the two new restaurants. But then one of the many onlookers who’d clustered across the street po...

God, my last post was so unbelievably long—like a serial novel but not in serial. And not really a novel, actually. Okay, never mind. But I’ll keep this one short: just a quick reiteration of how much I love college students. Terry and I visited Antioch last night on the last (for now) stop on our unofficial two feminists/two generations tour. It was a little different from the usual read-and-sign gig, and that much more fun for it. We were guests in the psychology department’s LGBT concentration’s lecture series (got all that?). Meaning we were there to talk about feminism, activism and social movements more than our literary inspirations. I was into that because big social ideas are what inspires me to write, and I’d almost always rather talk about ideas than about the writing of ideas. At the same time, I hardly felt qualified to speak as a representative of the younger generation of activists, seeing as how I’m neither young nor an activist, unless you count that form letter abou...

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...

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...

Texts between me and AK: Me: The queer theorist was at the gym again! i’m starting to feel like i should hand her* my manuscript or something. AK: You should ask somebody else if they see her. Maybe she’s an angel. On that note, I’m off to San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and San Mateo, where I’ll get to do worky stuff, visit the friendly neighborhood dyke bar , hang out with our favorite healthy-living family of four , give a reading with Terry ( Diesel Bookstore, Jan. 31, 3 p.m. —see you there?) and get to meet the Erins’ new baby(!). Back in early Feb! *Still unsure of QT’s preferred pronoun. But she was in the women’s locker room, so at least in the eyes of 24 Hour Fitness , she’s a woman. I’m not sure we should grant such identity-defining power to an institution that cannot even name itself accurately—some locations close as early as 8 p.m.—but then again, maybe no one understands better than 24 Hour Fitness how inadequate all language ultimately is.

1. even oprah writers get the blues “Bookstore readings are not what they used to be,” said Susan as we schlepped copies of The Commuters from the parking lot to her classroom. “I had a friend who was one of Oprah’s picks. But once even he showed up at a Barnes & Noble for a reading and there was only one person there. She asked him to hold her dog while she went to the bathroom, and when she came out, she bought a book on pets instead of his novel.” Even though the bookstore readings I’ve done have been quite lovely, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who has trouble filling a house sometimes. This is why it’s cathartic to talk to other writers. It’s equally good for the soul, I’ve decided, to visit colleges, which is how I spent the past day and a half. My first stop was San Diego City College, home of City Works Press , which has basically been my fairy godpublisher. Usually the most writers ask for is an audience of more than three and not too much espresso-machine noise. ...

I am all over the West Hollywood Book Fair this coming Sunday. Good thing I hear the snacks in the green room are going to be extra tasty this year. But seriously, there’s so much to like about this event—some of my favorite writers will be there, like Noel Alumit, Francesca Lia Block, Brendan Constantine, Peter Gadol, Nina Revoyr, Sarah Schulman, Lynne Thompson…. Okay, before this turns into some kind of Oscar-type speech where I leave out important names, I’ll just let you know where I’ll be: West Hollywood Book Fair Sunday, Oct. 4 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069 http://www.westhollywoodbookfair.org/ 1 p.m.: Panel, “Take Back the Night: Feminism and Powerful Women in Fiction” ; in the Fact, Fiction & Future Pavilion. With Sophie Littlefield, Pam Ward and Terry Wolverton (moderated by Lindsey Hovarth). 2 p.m.: Signing books at the Manic D Press booth. Come say hi! 3:15 p.m.: Panel, “The Future of Publishing” ; in the Fact, Fiction & Future Pavilion. With Te...

I just flew back from New York (pictures forthcoming), meaning that technically my body is still three hours ahead. But in reality, I stayed on Pacific time while I was there and called it vacation: Wake up at 10, go to bed at 2, don’t think about anything more serious than what subway to take uptown (usually the 6). It’s a good life, and I miss it already. But it’s always nice to come home to my nice firm mattress, Team Gato and friendly SoCal literary audiences. If you count yourself among the latter, I hope I’ll get to see you at one of the following. Sept. 27, 3 p.m. June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives 625 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069 http://mazerlesbianarchives.org Reading and discussion with Terry Wolverton Sept. 30, 7 p.m. San Diego City College International Book Fair San Diego City College 1313 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92101 http://www.sdcitybookfair.com

It’s a little known fact that September and October are second only to April (a.k.a. National Poetry Month ) when it comes to literary events. This fall, I’m jumping on that bandwagon full force, hoping I don’t get too banged up in the process. I may be hanging around Bread and Bread a bit less. Here’s where I’ll be instead: September: Sept. 18, 7 p.m. Bluestockings 127 Allen St., New York , NY 10002 http://bluestockings.com/ Reading with Terry Wolverton Sept. 27, 3 p.m. June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives 625 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood , CA 90069 http://mazerlesbianarchives.org/ Reading and discussion with Terry Wolverton Sept. 30, 7 p.m. San Diego City College International Book Fair San Diego City College 1313 Park Blvd., San Diego , CA 92101 http://www.sdcitybookfair.com/ October: Oct. 4, 1 p.m. West Hollywood Book Fair 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood , CA 90069 http://www.westhollywoodbookfair.org/ Panel: “Take Back the Night: Feminism and Powerful Women in Fiction” wi...

If you know my complicated history with baking , you know it probably wasn’t a good idea to make muffins the night before my Seattle reading. I heard that Michelle Tea sometimes hands out cookies to people who ask questions at her readings, and Andrea Seigel once performed a sort of hip hop/cheerleading dance at a reading I went to. And I would be quite happy to be either of them when I grow up. But coming from me, baking for my attendees might be more like value-subtracted than -added. Still, there is a crucial muffin-related chapter in the second part of the book . So I compromised and made banana muffins from a Trader Joe’s mix. But I added dried cherries because I can’t resist bedazzling my recipes a little. They turned out pretty good, as did the reading, which was small but mighty. When you realize how hard it is to get strangers to show up for a reading by a relatively unknown author, you become that much more appreciative of your friends. And your girlfriend’s friends . And y...

Whenever Prince throws a post up on Bamboo Nation saying, “Check out my guest post on The Bilerico Project today,” I’m always kind of envious. He is a blog playa . (I put that in italics for emphasis, but now it looks like I’m trying to say “beach” in Spanish. My point is that Prince is a promiscuous blogger, okay?) My guest blogging cherry was initially popped by Tracy of Kaply, Inc. , but a one-night-stand around the holidays does not a playa make. So I was happy when Prince hit up the editor of The Bilerico Project, a roundup of queer news and opinion, to let Terry Wolverton and I interview each other about being gay writers of different generations. My interview with her is up now; hers with me runs tomorrow. I’m curious whether you folks think there is a gay generation gap. Or perhaps many. Or maybe there are plenty of gay gaps (does that sound dirty? I thought I’d abandoned my sluttiness metaphor), but they’re not primarily along generational lines. Please discuss amongst your...

I've always maintained that other people can describe my books much better than I can. I get all self-conscious and bogged down by details. Thank goodness for people like Heather Aimee O'Neill at AfterEllen.com , who wrote a lovely description and review of Lilac Mines . And thank goodness for people like Jen over at Run Jen Run , who scan the internet and alert me to such things.

1) AK checked the half marathon website, and her actual time was 2:16, not 2:19 as previously reported . They (the people who organize races) do this thing now where they attach a little tag to your shoe and scan you like a carton of milk when you cross the start and finish lines. That way, if you’re trapped behind thousands of runners and it takes you three minutes just to get to the starting line, your official time doesn’t suffer. This means AK met her goal and now rocks more than ever. 2) I will be reading in Seattle at Elliott Bay Book Co. on Tuesday, Aug. 18, at 7:30 p.m. It’s my first out-of-state reading ever and I’m excited and nervous. If even your second cousin’s ex-wife lives in a distant suburb of Seattle and you can convince her to come out for this event, I will be forever grateful to you. 3) My attempt at healthy living a la Laura and Mikko has already been derailed by an iced mocha at 7-Eleven and a low fat (but high everything else) cinnamon swirl coffee cake at St...

Ironically,* I sat in traffic for a long time in order to get to the studio to record the show that would combat traffic and patriarchy. I was nervous about getting a rogue coughing fit or sudden amnesia on the air, but it all went fine, thanks to Terry and to Lynn and Celina, the hosts. There are few things more wonderful than warm and welcoming hosts when you're feeling jumpy and under-prepared. But now I'm exhausted, the way that talking to people frequently makes me. And it was a weird week at work, and I have to get up in four hours and forty minutes to get on a plane. THEN, though, I will be on vacation. AK has to run a half marathon, but I will be there for the wine (it's in Napa) and the seeing of friends. Cheers! *Maybe. I've been a bit confused about the definition of irony since that Alanis song, when it became cool to point out how she misused the word "ironic." Now I second guess myself every time I try to use it.

The 7 to 8 p.m. block on weeknights usually finds me on the eastbound 10 freeway. I’m pretty sure that’s where all of you are too, because despite altering my work hours precisely so I could avoid the so-called rush hour at 5 p.m., when I look out my window at 7, there are many, many cars on the road. So I don’t feel at all bad asking you to tune your car radio* to KPFK 90.7 FM this Wednesday, July 15 at 7 p.m. to listen to Terry Wolverton and I on Feminist Magazine . What else do you have to do besides try to decipher the specialty license plate on the car in front of you? Both Terry and I have new novels that cover the women’s movement of the ‘70s from an intergenerational perspective. I just started reading hers, The Labrys Reunion , which opens with a bunch of Baby Boomer feminists simultaneously despairing that the younger generation has abandoned the cause and—when confronted with the reunion of the title—sort of thinking, Oh god[dess], I REALLY don’t want to relive all that i...

1. the mark of zorro I just started reading Isabel Allende’s version of the Zorro story —I don’t know the original version, or even the Antonio Banderas version, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it’s a great book so far, set in L.A. when it was just barely L.A. (Her Zorro is the swashbuckling kid of a Spanish soldier-turned-ranchero and a mestiza female-warrior-turned-ranchero’s-wife.) Most of the Spanish characters are pretty nice people, even though they make a living oppressing natives. Father Mendoza is secretly impressed by Jesuit theories and is more into teaching his neophytes than whipping them; Zorro’s father is not exactly a deep thinker, but when he’s attacked by a band of rebellious Indians, he decides to marry their leader (she likes him too) instead of executing her. Somehow this story got me thinking about slavery and how the south was so economically dependent on it. When it stopped, the whole region was devastated for at least a few decades. I had this we...

I'm still on a high from Friday night, thanks to all of you folks who came or encouraged me in myriad ways. I think you're even responsible for the fact that links to me and my site actually come up when you Google "Cheryl Klein." Take that, Harry Potter book editor Cheryl Klein ! As loyal Bread and Bread readers know, the path to Lilac Mines becoming an actual book has been as rocky as the mountains it's set it. (Um, it's not actually set in the Rocky Mountains, but the Sierras are rocky too, right?) And as of Friday at 6:45 p.m., I had yet to physically see a copy of the book. But there it was waiting for me at Skylight , looking quite lovely--no upside-down cover, no obvious typos on the back or the first few pages (I have yet to check beyond that). And, just as importantly, there was Noel , corralling the four of us writers and performers into the upstairs office at the bookstore and reminding us that we were there to have fun and support our communi...