Bread and Bread

No make-up Rainbow Brite glasses selfie as temporary author photo  I've never fully understood the phrase "No news is good news." I think it means that if you haven't gotten any updates, things are probably proceeding as planned. I was raised to believe in plans and routine and the supremacy of consistency.  But at some point—maybe when I was 14 and didn't see my name on the list of girls chosen for drill team, posted at the entrance to the locker room, maybe when I got my first negative pregnancy test—I started to feel like "All news is bad news." It's silly, because I've actually gotten a lot more good news than bad news in my life, yet every time I'm waiting to hear back about something, even when the possible outcomes are only "good" and "neutral," my stomach twists and the apocalypse twinkles on the horizon.  I wrote a book about my annoying brain's apocalyptic flirtations, and about some other things: wanting a b...

I just got back from seeing a read/sing-through of Embers , a “jazz opera in poems” based on Terry Wolverton’s novel in poems , at the L.A. Central Library . It was fun to see one art form morph into another, to hear words I’d read take wing against a background of black-and-white cityscapes. But it was just as cool to look through the program and read people’s bios, many of which said things like, “So-and-so has been collaborating with Terry for 30 years.” Thirty years! I feel like I’ve only been working with (as opposed to against) myself for about ten. Suddenly I found myself itching with inspiration, wanting to inhabit one of those loose Bohemian worlds where artistic projects flow together and apart, and you all grab drinks after play rehearsal. The problem is, I suck at collaboration. I never liked group work in school, and I pretty much always try to wedge an “I” into “team.” Myers-Briggs puts me somewhere between introvert and extrovert*, but closer to the former. This means I...

I’ve come to realize that a little bit of what I want out of all authority figures in my life is for them to act like my mom. Which is terrible: Imagine the worst employee/writer/underling/volunteer you can. Pretend you’re the authority figure complaining to your friend about said needy underling. You’d probably say something like, “Good lord, does she think I’m her mom?” People say things like this all the time: “Please clean up the conference room. The office manager is not your mom.” “You’re going to need to be better about deadlines. I’m not your mom.” It’s not that I want anyone to clean up my messes, literal or figurative, but I do want the leaders in my life to be nurturing and organized, two qualities that defined my particular mom. I realized how strong this desire was when it was fulfilled this weekend by the folks at City Works Press , publishers of the beautiful and comprehensive new anthology Hunger and Thirst .* I’ve got a short story in there, so I read along with a hand...

1. that’s tight Yesterday I visited three freshman creative writing classes at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale , where my sister Cathy teaches math (“Don’t tell fifth period you’re my sister,” she wa rn ed me. “Most of those kids have me for fourth period math and they hate me”). I decided I would read a little bit of The Commuters , lead them in a writing exercise, then answer questions about being a writer. The excerpt I chose was from a story about a 16-year-old gay kid who lives in South L.A., works as a dishwasher in West Hollywood and gets called a fag at school. “Is it okay if I read a story where a kid gets called a fag?” I asked Jen, their incredibly nice teacher, in our 30-second pre-class conference. “Definitely—but I’ll wa rn you, you will get a reaction. Nothing overt, but a lot of snickers and stuff. I hate to say it, but they’re pretty homophobic,” said Jen. I wanted to read the piece to challenge them, and to challenge myself—I’m way too used...

R emember how I said that talking about The Commuters was starting to feel like resting on my laurels ? Well, I’m not above resting on my laurels. In fact, I will do so this Saturday at noon and Sunday at 8 p.m. on KPCC’s Off-Ramp , an awesome little show that is sort of like an L.A.-centric This American Life . Tune in (89.3 on your FM dial, ladies and gentlemen) and listen to me gripe about traffic in the most eloquent way I know how. P.S. Speaking of self-promotion, Tracy tagged me to link to three of my favorite Bread and Bread posts (at least I think that’s what the meme was—the instructions were kind of tech-speak-y). It has something to do with search engines, I think. So if you’d like to take a walk down memory lane—going back no earlier than 2005—read these posts on Target , cheerleaders and how I spent my summer vacation .

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while now about how sending out my novel Calla Boulevard is slowly chipping away at my self-esteem. Except I don’t really have anything profound to say on the subject: I want someone to publish my novel. So far no one does. Not getting what I want makes me sad. What a fascinating insight into the mind of a writer. “It’s hard for me to get excited about stuff related to The Commuters lately because I’m starting to feel like a one-hit wonder,” I told AK recently. “Except the ‘hit’ was a song that was played on college radio a couple of times at 2 a.m.” Back when I was sending out The Commuters, I got a few “encouraging rejections,” which only sounds like an oxymoron. It’s the publishing world equivalent of someone you went on a first date with calling you up and politely saying they think you’re awesome, but they just want to be friends—as opposed to just never calling you again. Well, back in the day, a handful of agents and publishers ...

Currently on my bedside table: Susan Choi ’s finely etched page-tu rn er American Woman , loosely based on the true story of one of Patty Hearst’s accomplices. The beginning was unnecessarily confusing, but now I can’t put it down. Although I feel highly uncreative quoting a critic who is quoted on the book’s cover, the Chicago Tribune did put it nicely: “Weaving past and present, hunters and hunted, Choi’s taut, surprising structure keeps us off-balance…. This is a rare thing, a book both big and fine-grained.” What I’m doing Saturday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m.: Catching my City Works Press editor Jim Miller’s reading of his new novel, Drift , at Skylight Books . I just bought my copy this weekend, so I haven’t read it yet (also, see above), but the cover by Perry Vasquez is pretty kick-ass, and I like to think of myself as someone who judges books by, well, you know. What I’m doing Sunday, Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.: Reading from some new-ish work at the Ba rn sdall Gallery Theatre as p...

Although the recording studio was a converted garage in Steph’s backyard, it was actually very professional inside, with fancy-looking equipment and original sketches by animators from some of the shows she’d recorded there. The first thing I thought when I put on my headphones and sat down in front of the mic to record one of my stories was, I feel like Ashlee Simpson. “I feel like I’m on This American Life , ” I told Stephanie, because TAL is a spoken word show and I wasn’t doing any singing. Also, it sounded like a smarter reference. Also , I have a sort of sinus-y voice (“I can hear your nose whistling like the wind,” Steph observed upon playback) that could only ever hope to find a home on NPR. Stephanie had me read various lines over and over in different ways—she’s a good acting coach as well as a person who understands what the Richter-like lines on her sound-engineer software mean. Then she showed me how she could splice everything together to make it sound like I re...

My aforementioned college roommate Amber once told me that I had a habit of interrupting people to tell stories about myself. For example, when she reported, “My dad almost cut his finger off,” I said, “My dad’s always injuring himself in some kind of shop accident.” I was trying to be empathetic, but I guess I see her point. I’ve tried to curb this tendency, but I haven’t been very successful. So it’s nice when someone asks to interview me, because then I know I’m supposed to talk about myself and that I won’t get in trouble for doing so. This weekend, poet Carlye Archibeque was kind enough to interview Jamie and I about our day jobs and our writerly lives on her Blog Talk Radio show Inspired by. Visit http://blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=42266 to hear: 1) Carlye muse on what color she’ll dye her hair next as she battles technical difficulties (I was on the phone this whole time, shouting, “Carlye! Carlye! I’m here!” but blog radio is in its scrappy, unpredic...

Saturday night Meehan hosted what all involved hope will be the first of many FROG salons (that's Furnished Room Over Garage for the uninitiated). It's a simple and brilliant concept: invite your arty friends to perform at your awesome studio apartment (Captain's Quarters wet bar complete with gold-trimmed, clipper ship-adorned mirror is a plus, but not required), add booze, door prizes, poodle lights and guacamole. Repeat. Some highlights: Our hostess and her modest (or drunk) singer-songwriter friend Emily J. Wood . Nicole and Mike read from their book The Bisexual's Guide to the Universe . Anything you need to know about bisexuals on Jupiter, just ask them. I apparently laughed a lot at my own story. Emily said, "Just in case playing acoustic folk music at a house party isn't gay enough, now I'm going to play a song with an alternative tuning arrangement." (Is that uber gay? I don't know enough about music to know.) Oh, wait, this isn't a ma...

I’ve been so busy lately that even fun things have become chores, from parties to writing to painting my nails. Not to mention working with the very kind Sally Shore to prepare my stories to be read aloud by actors tomorrow at the New Short Fiction series. She called regularly to see if it was okay to tighten this sentence, skip this paragraph, etc. And each time, after giving her the go-ahead to chop, I thought, Wow, that’s really nice of her to ask. But why is she even asking? It’s her show. Ladies and gentlemen, the opposite of diva is laaazy. And so when Sally informed me that there was a rehearsal Thursday night, I said, “That’s cool. Do I need to be there?” I did—and here’s another thing about being tired and stretched too thin: Although it wears you out, it also makes you more vulnerable to all sorts of magic you haven’t noticed because your head was buried in your day planner. You’re just a thin, distracted wafer, and the magic cracks you in half. I showed up at the library e...

Last night we were supposed to go to the Dodgers/Giants game, but it was sold out unless we wanted to pay $35 or more. We did not, so AK and I found a not-too-shabby plan B in the form of a reading by Felicia Luna Lemus , Raquel Gutierrez and Claudia Rodriguez at IMIX in Eagle Rock. Claudia is my friend from CalArts, and she and Raquel both read beautifully descriptive, funny prose about genderqueer youngsters. Felicia also went to CalArts, although we didn’t have any classes together, so I never got to know her. But I definitely knew of her—as the superstar who went out and nabbed Sandra Cisneros’ agent right after graduation, published her first book with FSG and wore gorgeous, bright-colored vintage dresses while doing it. Am I jealous? A little. A lot. I used to be really ashamed of my envious tendencies—maybe because of the Why can’t you just be nice ? look my ex would give me whenever I wrestled with someone else’s success. These days I stop short of embracing this particular...

This is me. This is me reading at UC Riverside earlier today. This is the flyer that was posted on campus to promote the reading. I’ve Googled my name enough times to know that this Cheryl Klein is a children’s book editor. I’ve always wanted to email her and say, “So, we’re both named Cheryl Klein and we both do stuff with books. Crazy, huh? Want to hook me up with a publishing deal or something?” This may be my in.

If you’re a regular but reluctant KROQ listener like myself, you know that Kevin and Bean have nothing good to say about the 909 (or gay folks or uppity people of color or women who have the audacity not to be hot, but that’s another blog post). The 909 (a.k.a. the Inland Empire, a.k.a. Inlandia , a.k.a. Riverside and San Be rn ardino Counties ) has an unfortunate reputation for being home to meth labs and dirt and not much else. For 30 years now, the good folks in the creative writing department of UC Riverside have been making the 909 an increasingly important cultural region with a fabulous little event called Writers Week . This year’s lineup includes Califo rn ia Poet Laureate Al Young , performance artist Tim Miller (one of the NEA Four !) and, um, up-and-coming LA writer Cheryl Klein , among others. I hope you’ll make the trek on the 10 East (but if you can’t, or if you, like my dad, are all about Cheryl and not so much about the NEA Four, I’ll be reading in LA...

On Friday I made two delightful discoveries. 1) The Pinkberry frozen yogurt that people are clogging the streets of West Hollywood for totally lives up to the hype. Isn’t it nice when something does that? Actually, I have to admit that I tried a knockoff version, the Big Chill’s Chillberry flavor, which has thus far only clogged a small strip mall parking lot. But it’s damn good stuff. A frozen yogurt version of plain yogurt, basically—tart with just a little sweetness. When I returned from lunch, I reported my findings to Jamie and Cait, our intern. “It’s so good,” I said. “It totally lives up to the hype. The only bad part was that I got a chocolate peanut butter cup topping—it was like putting a really ornate Victorian chair in the middle of a sleek, modern apartment.” Cait, being a 19-year-old USC student who is already over trends I’ve never even heard of, was familiar with Pinkberry, but Jamie hadn’t heard of it. When I described it to her, she said, “That’s like the original ...