Amtrak: Westbound

It's good to be heading home. The train isn't as full as it was eastbound, so I have a full seat to myself.

This has been a wonderful time to spend with Doña LeOra and Don Fon.

I put the final stitches on the colcha embroidery I made of El Rincon mountain in Ledoux, NM.

Let me tell you the story of how that came about.

When L* and I were visiting in December of 2004, L* used the time to paint. She made her first retablo (de San Jose, whom Don Fon commented looked Chicano), and then started a portrait of me. She'd taken a bunch of fotos of me in my Frida costume, and photoshopped them to play with color, detail, and contrast, and then was using that as the model for a new painting. She'd outlined the face and features: the eyes were still blank, and Don Fon thought that she was painting a classical statue of Caesar. The painting is totally fabulous--maybe when i publish a book of creative writing I can use it as my author foto.

When we got back home, L* painted a retablo de San Francisco, which was a central part of our altar dedicated to santos and orishas, petitioning that we would be in the SF bay area.

While L* was painting, Don Fon brought out a polaroid foto of where mi familia lived in Ledoux. I believe that Don Fon was born there, and that it is also the site of the "fire story" and the "altagracia story."

L* doesn't paint landscapes. It turns out Don Fon had also asked Doña LeOra to paint it, her landscapes are more imaginary and fantastic.

So I decided that I can't paint, but I can do things with yarn and thread, and so I would make the picture for him, and what's more, I would do it by teaching myself the colcha stitch, so that it would be holistic.

So I started in January. I thought I would get it finished right away, but it took a lot longer than I anticipated.

At one point I was going to depict the house where Don Fon was born. That didn't work. My adobe casita looked more like a log cabin, and the perspective was skewed, so I picked it out, stitch by stitch. Another time, I was going to depict the "altagracia story," where the little girl saves her brother's life.
the scale was all out of whack (the goat was gonna be as big as the mountain) and besides it was macabre and not what Don Fon had specifically requested. so i picked it out, stitch by stitch.

Then I decided I would finish it for Don Fon's birthday in May. or Father's Day in June. Or their anniversary in July. So, next thing I knew, Christmas was creeping up, and the only thing I knew I wanted to give Don Fon was this colcha that I still hadn't finished.

Plus I hated everything I'd done in the foreground and picked it out, stitch by stitch.

I delayed sending the christmas presents to the familia in the hopes that I would get Don Fon's present ready in time. Didn't make it. Brought it with me to Nuevo Mexico and HURRAY, it's done. I spent my first day walking from room to room looking at Doña LeOra's paintings to see what I could do about the foreground. Turned out I needed to ground the picture, instead of letting it just trail of wimpily. Plus, I learned that I can intersperse different colors to add texture and depth. and I can even embroider with a needle threaded with two or three different colors.

Don Fon loved it. I mean he loved it. He kissed it.

On the road, 9am.between Vaughn & pasturas. My dad & I see herds of goats & berrendo (pronghorn)

Amtrak, 3 pm. Lamy, NM. Bald tattooed guy has a lot 2 say.

Roswell, NM (Day 3)

Scary, scary Christians in this town.

Me and my lovely mom went to a performance tonight by a wonderful pianist.

He spoke a little introduction to each piece, some of which were very educational.

It was delightful, really. I especially like that he finished with several pieces by Chopin, because, of course, I just finished Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, and Chopin is all over that book. (and i don't really know anything about music, so it was great listening to this master pianist playing and thinking about Agnes, the little nun utterly corrupted.

There was an intermission and then the pianist played the organ and he and the singers did selections from Phantom of the Opera.

The singing was good, the organ was fabulous.

Except the auditorium was at the military academy, and the crowd was overwhelmingly (well nigh exclusively) Anglo, Christian, and Republican.

These are not, mind you, the ordinary, everyday Christians. The folks who are happy and secure in their faith and are perfectly happy to let you have your own whatever it might be or none at all. These are the ones who wear crucifixes and angel pins and meet in big churches to pray for the confirmation of scary Alito to the Supreme Court. And ask Have you Found Jesus. scary scary scary. In my head, of course, I am working on arguments, such as the fact that homofobia is no part of the good rabbi Jesus's teaching, and that, on the contrary, the texts referring to the disciple beloved by Christ would indicate a benevolent view toward same-sex relations. But outside my head, my mouth is dry, and my eyes are scanning from one to another and wondering if I can leap over the old lady's cane that's blocking the aisle to make my escape.

Yes, folks, there's a reason that I don't live in Roswell. In fact, during my absolute worst visit here twelve years ago, I was constantly either enraged or terrified by this very white conservative West Texas town in New Mexico territory.

(pinches gabachos stole our land and now they're praying for Alito. And singing along to the Music of the Night!)

Machete Poem

Enough about me: On to the machete.

Pomegranate Queen has this fierce machete poem

Roswell, New Mexico (Day 2)

The sunshine is so bright my eyeballs throb.

I went for a brief walk today. Mostly I'm trying to keep myself hydrated.

Roswell, New Mexico

I spotted a UFO as soon as we got into town. It was the new McDonalds, which has been made over into a spaceship.

We have thai take-out for dinner and watch some movies. I finally see Shall We Dance, with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez, and realize that it is the American remake of the Japanese film. Very different, of course, with JLo sultry and lots of bootie action. All the men are really perfect in this film. The ending is so Hollywood.

I talk to my sister on the phone. I hadn't told her I was coming to NM, because it's tax season and I know I won't be coming to her town. She tells me my nephew and his wife are due to have their baby the first week of February!

I hadn't realized it was so soon. NOW I know who I made that baby blanket for. glad i didn't end up giving it away to any of those boys on the train.

Amtrak: Gallup, NM

I went to sleep early, on L*'s advice. I've been texting her the whole trip, but have to cut back, because Tuesday is a teaching day.

The ipod battery is dead this morning, and I am so pokey that Jose, our snack bar attendant has already begun his break by the time I get moving. Instead, I continue on to the dining car, where I have a pretty good breakfast and several cups of coffee. They make their omelet like little packages, all wrapped up. I share a table with a LA Chicano relocating to New Mexico to be with his dad, and a Kansas rancher with a whole lotta twang. Of course I am tempted to ask him if he's seen Brokeback Mountain but of course I resist this impulse.

Even though I'm the last one to join the table and the last one to finish eating, I am the first to excuse myself from the table.

I take my craft bag with me to the observation car, where I am almost through with a beanie that I've been knitting for the little guy. He comes by and he tries it on. He says he doesn't really like the kind with the holes in them (open pattern--I shoulda made it bigger and used smaller needles), but the other guys he's with are very admiring. Instead he wants to know could I make him a wristband. I crochet it, because I'm faster at crochet, and the next thing I know, I'm making crochet for the whole crew. There's the little guy, whose name I think is Lxas but who's being called several nicknames involving short, since he's the youngest at 7. There's Xris and his younger brother a.k.a. Mini-Me, both moving to Michigan from Fresno. There's D-on, who has just been visiting with his moms and is now travelling back to DC. (he and his dad are seated right next to me in my assigned seat). I think I produce a total of five wristbands about 4 rows wide, and then make several chain bracelets. All the boys want to learn to crochet, but only Mini-Me picks it up. he makes his own chain bracelet. One of the boys wants to keep the unfinished hat. I talk to L* on my cell-phone, and our conversation includes a summary of "Cariboo Cafe" and when she says she loves me I do that "me too, you" thing that people do in public. She can hear the boys and how funny it all is. I tell her "they're traviesos" and they vehemently deny it. Immediately afterward i am called to account by the young posse who want to know who this "friend" is, if she also lives in Oakland, if I'm married, if I've ever been married, how come, don't I like boys, et cetera. I barely escape that one. A short while later, Mini-Me is telling me about an episode of South Park and how the boys don't like their teacher because he's g-a-y. Xris tells me they read the story "Cariboo Cafe" in school, but he's really playing, just repeating back everything I said to L* about the story (His brother calls him on this and he admits it). We also have an extensive discussion on La Llorona, and a short one on the Chupacabra. Mini-Me's mom comes and takes him back to his seat because he hasn't eaten any breakfast yet.

They finally point at that we're coming into Albuquerque, so I make quick back to my seat to finish packing back up, after doling out balls of yarn and one crochet hook, which they're supposed to share. They try to talk me out of the baby blanket I completed on yesterday's train trip, but I decide to hang onto it. As I'm leaving the train they're all out on the platform. Shortie gives me back one of my knitting needles and begs another ball of yarn, and Mini-Me asks if he can have his own crochet hook, since the other is not being shared. I give him my good G-hook and tell him to take care of it.

My lovely mom awaits me in the train station. The train is in quite a bit early. It's bright and nippy in Albuquerque. We load up and hit the road for Roswell.

Amtrak: Somewhere in Arizona

I finally finished THE LAST REPORT ON THE MIRACLES AT LITTLE NO HORSE.


According to my records, it took me 16 weeks to finish this book. It was too long for commuting, but perfect for long road trips.

I didn't like the book so much at first, because the Agnes I was introduced to was not who I imagined she would be when I read the book description. but by the end, my expectations were fully realized. And then some, of course. That Louise Erdrich: she can be quite the trickster when she wants to.

Still haven't spoken a word to the woman in the seat right next to me. Her stuff is definitely over on my side.

Amtrak: Union Station. All Aboard.

The train is full and this young white woman and her man are kissing goodbye right next to my seat. Oh joy. She proceeds to take out that book on La virgen de Guadalupe called THE AZTEC GODDESS. She keeps flipping back and forth through it, so I think it must be for a class. (she does have a very nice morral with La Virgen on it, but her stuff is all spread at and crosses the invisible line into my space.) I speak not a word to her.

Amtrak: Union Station

I have a two hour layover in Los Angeles. I wish I'd checked more of my luggage, so that instead of lugging around all these bags, I could trot off to Olvera street for some mole burritos. Okay, that will be my plan for the return trip.

I feel like a country bumpkin in the big city, because two jovial men come up and ask me where I bought my coffee (actually a smoothie) and then the other says hey it looks like a piña colada (in a "hey, baby, let's go have a drink tone of voice") and then they ask me if I'm taking the train, and finally stroll off after patting me on the arm. I quickly check to reassure myself that I have my wallet and my train ticket. Whew, I do!

I meet an older couple who has recently moved to San Diego, from Belen, New Mexico. They're tired but very friendly, and in good spirits.

I meet a little guy, about seven, and his little sister, maybe four, and their mom. The little guy is wearing a t-shirt that's in memorium to someone 1967-2005. I believe the someone is his dad. I pay him a little attention and he just blossoms. He likes my crocheting and mentions that he likes those beanies.

His family is relocating to Pennsylvania. He's thrilled that we'll be on the same train and wants me to come sit with them, but it's assigned seating and I'm way at the other end of the car.

Amtrak: Wasco?

The lady in red is definitely M2F

Amtrak: Turlock

Cows, lemons, palms.

Amtrak: Fresno

"Stay at home mother"

She neither stays at home, nor mothers.
Today she has left the nanny behind for the train trip,
and inflicts her kids on every older she lady she meets.
And never stops talking.

I truly believe that in the future (provided this isn't the End of Times)
someone will diagnose the neuroses of our decade as
Stay-A-Home-Mom-itis
the way we talk about the abusive "rest cure" of the past.

I can't hear my audiobook over her big mouth.
So it's time for Jesus Christ, Superstar

Amtrak: Modesto?

Billboards recruiting for the military. A park devoted to retired military planes.

Amtrak: Stockton

I've seen 2 goats & sheep & horses

A Radical Women of Color Blog Carnival

~~~a call out for submissions~~~

Because Women of Color recognize that real world structural inequalities such as poverty, violence, imprisonment, and community neglect, have restricted our access to the resources the internet has to offer our communities,

Because Women of Color recognize that computer literacy is a right that has long been denied to our communities,

Because the internet has been used as a tool to further racist, sexist, and anti-queer fantasies/representations of Women of Color,

Because Women of Color recognize that these racist, sexist, and anti-queer fantasies/representations have very real world consequences for our communities and us,

Because Women of Color demand that the resources the internet has to offer be available to our communities,

Because Women of Color demand that computer literacy be restructured as to include those of us who must learn the computer in restricted settings (libraries, prisons, institutions, etc)

Because Women of Color demand a powerful, healthy, intelligent and WHOLE representation of themselves on the internet,

the Radical Woman of Color Blog Carnival has been created!! More...

Starship & Haiku, WOW

I've been reading my brains out lately, and want to send a big thank you out to W-M, for her recommendation of Starship & Haiku. I just started it.  I've been working my way through the journey that is Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart (and it is work!) and so "conventional" s/f is a total delight.

I'm finally looking at the question that has been brewing since 1984: How do you teach science fiction of a previous generation when their "future" is our past.  Maybe I need to follow Karen Tei Yamashita and come up with the appropriate equation Where the end of the world (E) can be predicted with absolute accuracy as the end of ten cycles of fifty-two years. E=520+T   The only problem being the correct identification of the beginning of the end (T).  

Do I subtract the copyright date of the book from the date of the fictional future to get x, and then add x to our current date (2006) to get a foreseeable future? Or do we just move on from the premise that the millenial war happened within the last ten years, changing life forever on our planet. 

1997 - 1981 = 16 years, so the millenial war will actually begin in 2022? 

Anyway, I'm lovin' this book. It's got everything: a giant sheet of fused glass, headhunters on the fiftieth floor of the Hilo Hilton, whales, and a broken moon.

Here's a taste: Hawaiian survivors and contemplate stowing away to Japan:

"You know, millions of people going to Japan every year, you know they have no plague there, they have cities, they have electricity, they have McDonalds, even, remember those?" (40)

Mobile Blogging

Ok, I just set up my cellphone so that I'll be able to blog during next week's Amtrak journey. Don't expect great things, since a cell is not conducive to long messages. Maybe it's time for me to work on minimalist poems. No pictures, though: Remember, camera cellphone got runover by a reindeer.

PostColonial Dream

In my dream last night, I had great insight into the Postcolonial. It was like beautiful chaotic science fiction sculpture.

Do you have a word for 2006?

I don't yet have a word for 2006, unless it is "rebuilding"--

But I've been noticing that other people are choosing particular words for a new year's resolution. Cracked Chancla's is Health, and she explains how the word for 2005 was Courage, which she totally showed! Calzonzillo's is Generous, and he has re-named his blog "The Year of Living Generously." I especially like that, given how mean-spirited the national identity is.

I fear the word for New Orleans may be Palimpsest, although, as Kirk v. The City of New Orleans shows, it won't be without a fight. See Katrina Roundup @ Hysterical Blackness

And the answer to Friday's Question...

...is, of course, PMS

What three letters best describe my day?

Well, it seemed like it started off well. I got our black-cherry cajita to the car dealership on time for her appointment (tune-up and smog-check), got a shuttle ride back home. L* and I had a plan: she would take BART to school. I would pick up the car. She would call me when she was done with her meeting and I would pick her up.

Only, where did I leave my cell phone?

We call it from L*s cell phone, but we don't hear it ringing.

Could I have dropped it in the car dealership's shuttle?

So I call them. They check all three shuttles, but no phone.

(I call it again, just in case it's really there and they need the audible stimulus to find it)

I go out to the street across from our house.

Sitting on the curb, i find the neatly placed remainder of my cell phone, now in two parts.

This blows my day.

I have to go get a new cell phone. L* and I walk to BART together. She goes South (East) and I go North (West). My plan is to buy the phone in Downtown Oakland, then call the dealership to check on my cajita Then go home, and when the cajita is ready, I can have the dealership come pick me up.

Even with the cheapest available model, it's still more than I wanna spend on a new cell phone. Oh well, at least now we have that extra charger we've been wanting.

Only...the phone wouldn't be operative for 3-4 hours. Ummm, and what about all my plans involving cell phones? I can't even text L* to tell her what's up.

After more of the same, I'm sitting in the dealership, waiting to pay to get my car (which has NOT been smog-checked), and the hitherto uncooperative cell phone springs into life and tells me I have a text message from Luz.

Cut to the chase: it all works out.

Next task: to program in cell phone numbers, none of which made it through the reincarnation. I'm going through my address book on my computer and seeing what a lousy job i've done keeping track of phone numbers. I'm also humming "Cell Phone Got Runover By a Reindeer" beneath my breath.

San Francisco Public Library

If you get off at the Civic Center Bart station, go upstairs and cross the street, you'll be at the San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch.

It's so fabulous! I love it! It's beautiful. And they gave me a card even though I live in Oakland.

They had the books I wanted, and even really helpful people to find them (after I looked three times and failed).

I was able to find Vizenor's Bearheart, but failed at Starship & Haiku. Since I had mentioned it here on the blog, I did harbor the fear that one of my readers had beat me to it. But no, dear readers, I done you wrong. The guy at the the Page desk made two trips and found it for me.

Now I am rich in library books.

Reading James Welch and Sherman Alexie and Louis Owens has me thinking New Mexico thoughts and wanting to wear my jeans and boots. I really wanted to take my Leatherman with me today but finally decided against it. I need a belt so I can use my fabulous leather belt sheath. I wonder if I'm allowed to take my Leatherman on Amtrak? Prob'ly only in checked baggage.

An expedition to the city

Today I'm off to SF, for my first visit to the Public Library, Main Branch. Because they have the books I want. Gerald Vizenor's Bearheart, for one, and a book that the other geekgrrl on campus recommended, Starship & Haiku.

I love having access to the public libraries of Oakland and (now) San Francisco. They have all these books that my university library doesn't. And many copies, usually. The Dimond branch of the Oakland library has the Native American collection. The Cesar Chavez branch has the Chicano collection (it's a very sad little branch, though. Newer but poorer in books.)

I also plan a quick run up to campus to pick up my laptop and some letterhead. I want to bring my laptop home as a backup for L*'s which has been crashing.

I am also delighted to now have a current California Driver's License. I think I look like "a lady" in my picture, but L* says I look like Frida.

Library books are making me sneeze

I've started my second library book of the day, and it has me sneezing.

After years of being free from sinus infections, now that I'm back in California, my old friend is dropping in on my nose and saying "hey!"

I'm working on my s/f class, but I keep getting distracted. That is, I was distracted by Fools Crow and now I'm distracted by Bone Game. Bone Game is a novel I have put off reading for a long time. (9 or 10 or 11 years?) Shame on me, denying myself this way. Wickedly funny.

Sad to be reading it after Louis Owen's death. Because on the one hand, you're laughing with the main character, "you see what academia does to us?" and on the other hand, you look over to where Louis Owens isn't, and say yeah, I see.

Puffy dream

In Fools Crow the main character wears a capote made out of blackhorn [buffalo] robes.

capote |kəˈpōt| |kəˌpoʊt| |kəˌpəʊt|
noun. historical.a long cloak or coat with a hood, typically part of an army or company uniform.

I dreamt last night about a little boy who liked fluffy puffy things: clothes, stuffed animals, quilts.

He was a sweet an loving little boy. He was madly in love with an older male figure (his dad? his brother? his uncle?).

The guy hated that the little boy wasn't more tough, "hard."
Kept discouraging him from the puffy things, trying to ignore them on the one hand, disparaging them on the other.

The little boy was especially excited by his newest present: it was like a little puffy quilt that the boy could wear. a capote. He put on some plain pyjamas and ran off to to wake up his (uncle?) to show him his new puffy capote. The uncle complimented the boy on his plain pyjamas and ignored the capote, carrying the little boy off without his capote.

Now the little boy is like twelve, and he's no longer the sweet loving child, because all the softness has been stripped away from him. His uncle finally understands. The dream ends with the uncle bringing a puffy capote to wrap the boy in, to bring the softness back.

Wedding Dream

I dreamt the other night that my sister staged her own fake wedding.

And I missed it!

She was marrying husband #1 and it was a big affair, and my parents were both misty, and I, of course, had scheduled things wrong and I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing. She was really going over the top with the wedding, and I saw husband #1 once--he seemed like the nineteen year-old he was twenty-five years ago.

So there I am, explaining to my sister that I'm going to have to leave before the ceremony because I mis-scheduled, but that I had still wanted to drop by. And she was in a great mood--not stressed out by any churlish spouses (as she frequently is in real life).

So I leave, and then later I'm at the airport when some other relatives come by and tell me that the whole thing was just a build-up but that she had never intended to get married. husband #1 wasn't even there, and my sister did some performance piece with the white dress and fake blood.

and my parents were very very mad at her, because she had played them.

And I woke up very unhappy with myself for having missed it, especially since--if I was at the airport at the same time as the relatives who had attended--I could just as well have stayed.

Fools Crow

I just finished re-reading James Welch's novel Fools Crow. I first read it about ten years ago, and am sure I must have rushed through it. I remember having it explained to me. Now I'm struck again by its richness, as a text that teaches you how to read it.

And since I'm preparing for my science fiction class, I'm also thinking of Nalo Hopkinson:

It’s non-fiction 
and we are on the wrong side of the strange-looking ship that appears out of nowhere

A resolution for 2006: Speak truth to power

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country
now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime
of blood, wounds and fire.
I thought of the clean linens at your table,
the shining knives and the flames of the candles,
and I could not stomach it.

Sharon Olds, in an open letter to Laura Bush, declining the latter's invitation to present at the National Book Festival.

Thanks to Poetaxingon for the timely reminde

Sayonara, 2005

Things we did in 2005:

Got two jobs
Resigned two jobs
Painted a pink dining room beige
Sold a house
Drove across country with two cats
Started two jobs
Taught eight courses
High Tea at the Fairmont
Painted a white bathroom lilac
Crocheted six ponchos and three shawls,
Knit four caps, and some scarves
Put together a composter

teaching and technology...

I'm thinking maybe I should use Blackboard instead of Moodle this semester. The gradebook in Moodle--or lack thereof--drove me absolutely insane. It's challenging using a system the first time and with a class that you're teaching for the first time.

WebCT and D2L both had gradebooks you could set up ahead of time, where you could weight all items appropriately. Moodle doesn't appear to have a gradebook. When you set up assignments you can specify how many points each assignment is worth but I have yet to find the meta-level where you can deal with the grades, weight them, et cetera.

So at the beginning of the semester, I thought Moodle was perfect, because I was able to upload readings, organize the course either by topics or by weeks in the semester, look up individual students and see whether and how often they were visiting the class site. Grading was not something I worried about until midterms.

Now that I'm in the thick of grading, I actually gave up entirely on Moodle. I exported the data to Excel, downloaded a standard gradebook spreadsheet and tweaked it to fit my class. It's beautiful, it's easy, it's transparent. I still have to manually enter my grades into the university's system, but I'm not spending my time cursing software.

Although, they're currently installing the most recent update of Moodle in the schools system...maybe I should wait till it's operational to see what the gradebook looks like?

The thing is, L* has been mastering Blackboard in the Fall, and she never had any trouble with it. (apart from the standard mac browser problem, which I had with both D2L and Mozilla: For some reason, they want us to use MOZILLA as the web browser. I don't much like Mozilla, but I'm stuck with it. The education technology people are not particularly responsive on this issue: it's like telling them "I'm a vegetarian" and they say "okay, so just don't eat the meat.")

okay, i'm being geeky. i know i am...

SEVEN

Seven things I plan to do before I kick the can:
1. Buy a casita with L*
2. Cook something in a solar oven
3. Write a novel
4. Take in a kid
5. Read a book written by a former student
6. Speak Spanish well enough to assist una viejita
7. Teach a creative writing class

Seven things I can do:
1. Crochet
2. Knit
3. Bake Bread
4. Pigeon Pose
5. Racewalk
6. French braid my own hair
7. Finish a project

Seven things I can't do:
1. Color coordinate (without help)
2. Realistically assess how long a project will take
3. Keep my mouth shut
4. Shop without a list
5. Make everything alright
6. Move back to the midwest
7. Work a room

Seven things that attract me to another person:
1. Intelligence
2. Humor
3. Strength in own identity
4. Silliness
5. Ability to love another creature
6. Kindness
7. Knows how to lead

Seven things I say most often:
1. Good maluchi! (or, alternately, Poor Maluchi!)
2. I'm filled with love for you!
3. Lovely!
4. Sleepytime thoughts
5. Ouch!
6. I love Oakland
7. Pinches gabachos stole our land


Seven people to do this little blogger game:
1. Wily Filipino
2. La Brown Girl
3. Lorca Loca
4. Artichoke Heart
5. Hysterical Blackness (though i don't think she does these, plus she's at MLA)
6. La Bloguerrera
7. And La Poeta en San Francisco

Familia, Pope Rat, and Practical Saints

Don Fon likes to give me "assignments" when I talk to him: something for me to research and then get back to him. So my assignment from our X-mas day conversation was Los Santos Inocentes.

Look, it wasn't for nothing that I won more holy cards than any other kid at St. Gertrude's (1970-1978). I know the Santos Inocentes are the children killed by Herod to prevent the coming of the Christ child. But I think what Don Fon wants me to look up are traditional Latino celebrations of this day.

But instead, I am thinking about los Santos Inocentes in the age of Pope Rat, the "election" of a man who was instrumental in the coverup of child sexual abuse by the [one Holy and Apostolic] Catholic Church.

And all those "inspiring stories" we were told in Catholic school. You know, like of Saint Dominic Savio eating nuts in bed so he could leave the shells and suffer mortification of the flesh. What did stories like that do to the true Holy Innocents--the children molested by Catholic priests, the children who found a way to speak out, only for the multi-national corporation that is the church to play a shell game of their own to shuffle around the players.

(Sadly, New Mexico was ahead of the curve in the church-sexual-abuse scandals, because, as a largely Catholic region with a majority-minority population, it was a convenient place to send priests who were child molesters).

Inspired by Pat Mora's poetry, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints, I've been imagining my own queer book of practical saints. (I promised Xolo an entry on San Pancracio)

So, for el Día de los Santos Inocentes, I offer you Coyolxauhqui, who died in her attempt to stop the god of war from coming into her world.

santos inocentes

Geez, what does a girl have to say to be a Sprightly Elfin Femme?

I actually got a tie-breaker question, where I had to choose between Betty Paige and knitting. (sigh) You can see which way I went.

You scored as The Granola Dyke. Your love for the environment and passion for your beliefs can be a bit overwhelming at times, but your friends and family know you mean well.

The Femme Fatale		70%
The Granola Dyke		70%
The Sprightly Elfin Femme		65%
The Surprise! Dyke		65%
The Student Dyke		55%
The Stud		35%
The Vaginal-Reference-Making Dyke		35%
The Bohemian Dyke		35%
The Magic Earring Ken Dyke		30%
The Quasi-Gothic Femme		30%
The Pretty-Boi Dyke		10%
The Hipster Dyke		10%
The Little-Boy Dyke		10%

What Type of Lesbian Are You? (Inspired by Curve Mag.)
created with QuizFarm.com

Ooh, if I'd gone the other way on Bettie Paige, i would have been a Femme Fatale!

KPFA

KPFA really knows how to put you in a good mood when you're driving through heavy traffic. They played Cheech & Chong's Santa Claus and His Old Lady and Adam Sandler's The Hanukkah Song. I haven't been so amused since they played "Homeland, Homeland, Uberalis" for the 4th of July. (Can't find those lyrics online, so no link)

For those trekkie's out there:

You don't need "Deck The Halls" or "Jingle Bell Rock"
'Cause you can spin a dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (both Jewish!)

Toys, Holidays, and White Supremacy...

On Sunday L* and I rushed off to a Target (store++), to get groovy girls for the four little sobrinitas. Alas, there appeared to have been a run on groovy-girls-de-color: There was one Bindi, with warm brown skin, dark brown hair with purple-red streaks in it, and all the rest were blonde. We decided to buy the one Bindi for the sobrinita who's far away and try again for the threesome.

I did look online, for groovy girls, but the shipping would've cost more than the dolls.

(See, the whole idea is that I crocheted ponchos for the sobrinitas, and I wanted to give each one a groovy girl with a matching crocheted poncho. It took me several failed ponchos, but I finally invented the right groovy-girl-poncho-pattern. And so I went looking for more dolls)

I tried the Toys R Us in Emeryville (practically Oakland), where I discovered they don't carry groovy girls. No biggie, right? there's got to be other dolls for people of color. Well, there may be, but they weren't there. Maybe 5% of their dolls were African American and all the rest were blonde haired, blue eyed....What's the deal? Is every Anglo child in this nation blonde-haired- blue-eyed? NO! So why this racial hegemony at the toy store? I look around at all the people of color around me who don't want to buy this peach-skinned flaxen haired plastic babies for their children to hug. I'm roaring inside. Oh, right. That's the point. We're supposed to see that the world is made for blonde barbies and blonde baby-dolls, and we're not in the picture. That's right. It's supposed to be an alienating experience.

There were quite a few African American baby dolls in the "Lots to Love Babies" line, which I guess were extra-plump? the baby dolls all had those little old man pechos.

(I was walking along muttering to myself "All I want is a doll that's not all about breeding or blondeness)

(There was one intriguing doll named Maya, who seems to be part of a Maya and Miguel team. She was the right size, but I can't get all three sisters the same doll. Plus her ponytail bobbles were supposed to light up, and only one of the three dolls in stock still worked)

(I'm also not counting all the Bratz dolls, because, while they come in multiethnic variety, the Toys R Us seemed to have blondes, blondes, and more blondes. Only a couple purple-haired Latinas and African Americans)

This evening I was at the Walgreen's at Foothills and Fruitvale Avenue. Now, their toy section is just a couple of half-aisles--less than the greeting card section**. But they had several "11.5 inch fashion dolls" of Jayna an alternative line, Integrity Toys. They also had something akin to a Cabbage Patch kid. Now it looked like their stock was about 50% white dolls and 50% brown dolls, but that a lot more of the brown dolls had been purchased. Maybe Toys R Us deals strictly with Mattel.

++I felt the need to clarify that we were running off to the store, because to say we ran off to a target makes us sound like professional assassins.

**Speaking of the greeting card section, they have a Mahogany line and a Latino line of greeting cards. I especially liked all the Virgen de Guadalupe christmas cards designed for Mamas and Abuelitas.

Students are blogging up a storm!

In my Queer of Color class, one of the requirements was that the students blog regularly. The last ten days have seen a mad flurry of writing over on the class blog. Check 'em out!

When things go serious

L* has checked in a couple of times from the southland. Things are serious and intense. The familia is holding together the best they can. It's hard for them not to do too much, I think.

It's too hard to blog at times like these. The inanities of everyday life are so overshadowed. All old behaviours and reactions are right here, right now. Gotta do what we gotta do.

Familia

My beloved L* is on her way to LA today to deal with a family crisis. It's pretty complex sorting through histories and feelings and necessary actions and plans for the future. I light my candle and pray for the emotional and mental well-being of my L* and of her familia.

It's Here!

A big box of books arrived today from UT Press.

Wow!

40

Hurray! I'm alive! I'm with my true love!

My fortieth birthday was a wonderful day! I now have a fabulous pink turkish bath robe from my sister, two great wardrobe-builder pieces from my mom (a black with red and white geo-design sleeveless top, and a beautiful black swirly skirt with a couture hemline). L* took me on a What-Not-To-Wear shopping spree. She played Clinton and I played dress up and we went through an amazing number of clothes.



I can't wait to show off my new outfits, and girls, my boots! We stayed at the Triton hotel off of Union Square in San Francisco, and were in the Woody Harrelson room, where i learned all about his environmental activism. We ate dinner at Ponzu which has most amazing dishes (the chile calimari! the tamarind prawns!), and we had a little tasting lesson in sake. This morning, more shopping. I am blessed with a loving partner and loving family. My dad, Don Fon sent me a really sweet message which I will post. (please note that I am not 50!)

From Don Fon

Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Comments:
40 years ago today was the first, or second, or third, most wonderful day of my life.

aunt tina and i were at kaiser permanente hospital in paramount, california. lunch hour had just past, but neither of us could eat at a time like this. we were waiting for my baby daughter to be born, (pre-arranged) by cesarean delivery.

i was fasinated that tina was the one waiting with me, at first, then i remembered that aunt tina is our,([Leora] and i) godmother, as a wedding madrina.

the next thing that i remembered is that [Leora] was very busy, and that is why tina and i were alone.

[ktrion] was late, (as usual), cause she was scheduled before noon, and boy were we concerned.

finally, welcome home ktrion!!!!!!!!!!!today, 50 years later, you are still my baby!!!!!!!!!!! welcome home!!!!!!!

with all my love, thank you [Leora],

signed

don Fon

Oh, fooey

You are Woodstock!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


I was aiming for Lucy, which is what Lorna Dee is. It woulda been way easier for me to get Marcie.

DMV days

I have just discovered the secret to the DMV: knitting. If you've got plenty of knitting to do, then, rather than fuming over the wasted time, you can sit in chairs la-la-la working on a foofy hat.

Actually, I think the whole DMV situation has improved dramatically, since they got the whole chairs-and-numbers routine set up. I clearly remember standing in a line at the SF DMV, sweating and counting how many lines were open and how many people were ahead of me, and my head would just start to pound.

Most of the other people in chairs with me today seemed to be pretty mellow as well. Though none had the "I hope I finish this row before they call me" attitude of mine.

The lady who graded my test was in a really good mood, too. She complimented me on my Frida Kahlo earrings, and we talked about Frida. I almost failed my exam, because the alcohol-level law is .08, not .1

But now, I am once again a licensed California driver, and I even got my same driver's license number, since my old California ID only expired 2 years ago.

Even our car--la caja de amor-- is now registered. Well, interim-registered. Still need the smog check.

But What About Mxi?

Whenever L* and I are carrying on a conversation which doesn't include her, our younger, plumper cat Mxi cries out "Mrrrunh!" which we interpret as "But what about Mxi?"

Older sister Nxi gets all the attention because she has us once again living "under the cat's paw," which is an archaic and more refined way of saying "pussy-whipped." Yes, Nxi and her litter woes once again have us trying to grasp the concept of serenity and trying to take it "one day at a time." Today is the day that Nxi gets her 7-day chip.


"Mrrrunh!"

Positive Reinforcement

I walked again this morning, again, too late to join the Lake Merritt racewalkers. Accidentally-on-Purpose, since meeting new people is scary for me when I'm at my best, much less when I'm not made up and sleepy. And given that it takes me an hour and a half just to wake up, if I went for the make up it would add another hour to my start time. (L* doesn't call me "La Pokey" for nothing).

Perhaps next time I'll have a beer instead of a mixed drink the night before.

X-mas xnitting

I was designing my own deep rib skully hat last night, but decreased way too quickly for the crown and ended up with a very warm baby hat. Which is a good thing to produce. but not when you're trying to get out those presents for nephews teenage and pre-teen, and niece who is all-that foofy. (I have in mind for her this knit cap with an attached tiara).

i spent a fair amount of time last night whining about the fact that it was a baby cap. thought about it while falling asleep. Sure enough, in less than a minute I was able to cut the ombligo, unravel the crown and now it's ready for a second try.

Apologies to L* for the whining. She's my design consultant on what-not-to-knit.

Felicidades to La Doctora 8a!

Last night we went to El Rio in the City to celebrate the newly minted Ph.D. of La 8a! It was a cold night, but she was full of that warm and happy gleam that says "I am done" and "No one can take that away from me!" What a glorious space to be in! (It doesn't hurt that she's on her way to DF)

Translations, Part I

After meeting the director and cinematographer for Pura Lengua describe their phone conversation with folks in Colombia, L* and I have decided we'll stop referring to our Pocha Spanish and start calling it Fucked Up Spanish



We all come from the la Diosa
and to her we regresar
Just like a drop of rain
flowing to the m-a-r

Thanks, Lotería Chicana

Read this Open Letter to Gwen who ripped a Picture of La Virgen in half.

Still in Process...

L* and I have been talking more about the peregrinación. We both really liked it, but also would have liked it to be more visibly queer. even a little less orthodox.

In the Visibly Queer department, I think we needed the kinds of banners that you hold up on poles. You know, the kinds that say "Legion de Maria #347, Peñasco" or something like that. Maybe with a photoshopped image of La Virgen de Guadalupe wearing a PFLAG t-shirt that says "Yo [heart] mis hijas lesbianas." (Note: check with IM to see if her Mexicana digital divide workshop could play with this).

In the less orthodox, the Letanía should have included,

Nuestra Señora Tonantizín
Nuestra Señora Coyolxauhqui
Nuestra Señora Coatlicue
Nuestra Señora Yemayá


Madre de Ambiente
Madre de los Otros
Madre de los Vestidos
Madre de los Desmadres

Madre Cariñosa
Madre de Amor
Madre sin Prejuicios


Finally, I think that it would be good to have something at the end where our queer community raises its hands and gives the blessing to the gay priests, (there was a gay priest at the ceremony at the end). To acknowledge the pain and emotional violence they experience in their place of work and place of worship. To acknowledge their efforts to work against the messages of hate [that come from Pope Rat, etc.] I understand the impetus to have a gay priest officiating, and at the same time, I think what we who are reconstructing our spirituality envision a community-based (not hiearchically structured) model.

More on the Death Penalty in the US

Read about Ruben Cantú executed in Texas.

Thanks to La Bloguerrera for this one!

Other songs we could have sung, but didn't...

Note to Ktrion and L*: Translate these into Spanish before our next queer peregrinación

We all come from the goddess
and to her we shall return
Just like a drop of rain
flowing to the ocean







Dear friends, Queer friends
You have given me such pleasure
Let me tell you how I feel:
I love you so!

Letanía

Madre de la Jotería
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de los Maricones
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de las Marimachas
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre Soltera
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre Desgraciada
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre SinVergüenza
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de los Indígenas
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre del Condenado
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de un Prisioneros Politico
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de un criminal ejecutado
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre de la Comunidad
        Ampáranos, Señora

Madre deshogada
        Ampáranos, Señora

Refugiada Political
        Ampáranos, Señora

Mujer Marginalizada
        Ampáranos, Señora

Torre de la Esperanza
        Ampáranos, Señora

Rosa de Merced
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Neo-Colonización
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Injusticia
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Violencia
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Homofobia
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra el Movimiento AngloAmericano Supremecia
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra el Asesinato ordenado por el Gobierno
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra el Femicidio de la Frontera
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Violencia en la Calle
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Violencia en la Casa
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la Guerra del Imperialismo
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra la impunidad de los Criminales de la Guerra
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra el Acuso Sexual
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra el Acuso del Género
        Ampáranos, Señora

Contra ellos que no nos quieren
        Ampáranos, Señora

En la oscuridad desesperada
        Sé nuestra guía

En la oscuridad intolorente
        Sé nuestra guía

En la oscuridad del odio
        Sé nuestra guía

Modelo de riesgo:
        Sé nuestra guía

Modelo de apertura:
        Sé nuestra guía

Modelo de la perseverancia:
        Sé nuestra guía

Modelo de la confianza
        Sé nuestra guía

Nuestra Señora de Altagracia
        Ruega por Nostoros

Nuestra Señora de Caridad del Cobre
        Ruega por Nostoros

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe
        Ruega por Nostoros


[Liberal borrowing from La Letanía de Maria de Nazaret por Juan Wolbert, OSB, Pax Christi, USA. Reprinted on the website of the Misioneros de la Preciosa Sangre]

El Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe

Schwarzenegger denies clemency

Arnold is making a statement right now about how he has denied clemency to Stan "Tookie" Williams.

CNN last night had a poll: "Should Stan Williams live or die?"

Could anything better represent the callousness of the state-ordered killing?

I oppose the death penalty primarily because it has never been "fairly" applied, but is a lethal renactment of the race and class disparities in this country. It is wrong. It is horrible, and it continues the devaluation of life--particularly the lives of people of color.

By solely focusing on Williams, the Governor and others are ignoring the fact that the system under which Williams was convicted is so broken and flawed that it calls into question his conviction...

More...

I read some of the letters for clemency that were sent to Arnold, saying things like "I'm not a pansy-ass liberal. I believe in the death penalty. But Williams should be granted clemency because..." Those letters made me really mad (on the one hand) and on the other hand I thought "maybe that's the way it needs to be put to Arnold."

The news media started circulating reports of "threats of gang violence if Williams is executed." I don't believe them. Or rather, I believe that these reports circulated to give Arnold an ultimatum which would push him to prove his machismo by ordering this state-murder.

Tonight we're going to a peregrinacion, a pilgrimage to La Virgen de Guadalupe, to protect LGBTQ communities against hate crimes.

Afterwards some folks plan to go to the vigil at San Quentin.

Reading

I've just finished the first third of Alejandro Morales's The Rag Doll Plagues. Set in the Nueva España of the late eighteenth century, Morales's book brings back to me the pleasure of Graciela Limón's Erased Faces. Both novels deal with the repetition of events and people (I think) and with what we'll call "the supernatural." Rag Doll Plagues might also include alternative futures or time-travel (too soon to say).

Krafty Xicanas and their Kats

Sonrisa Moreno knit a scarf for her kitty, Kachito. I told L* about this, and she asked me to make one for Mxi. The exact same day she said this, I saw that Cracked Chancla has also crocheted a sweater for her gata, Mina! [Sorry, no picture there]. If it happens, you'll be the first to know.

A Fruitvale Day

After my walk yesterday, I came home and hung out with my cute and sleepy L*. I told Mxi about the cat sitting with a guy on a park bench. (note to self: most guys on park benches are not runners taking a break)

I headed back out to scope out some yarn stores, because L* admired an angora scarf in the second Stitch 'N Bitch book. Remember that I have tried and failed on my previous yarn expeditions. The first store, YARN, in Alameda was cool (pricey!), and full of ladies looking for this or that gift or taking lessons. I didn't like any of the colors of angora yarn they had (I'm worried about were they find those rose and navy bunnies!--not to mention the variegated). I noticed a definite preference for that "Irish" yarn that comes from Chile (ahem) in the stock, and none of what I consider the basics: Brown Sheep in zillions of colors.

So I decide to pass on a purchase and zoom all the way back up Fruitvale to Park to Montclair (and, by the way, realized that Yahoo directions to Montclair are totally whacked, since they have you go way (east? south?) and then go way (west? north?)

I felt like I was seeing all of Oakland's "little villages" which are o so much whiter and soccer-mommy than la Fruitvale.

This yarn shop, THE KNITTING BASKET, was the one that had the effrontery to be closed when i hiked up there on a monday. It was huge, and their yarns were sorted by color (not by fiber) which made it really pretty. Again, very pricey! Again, no brownsheep (they tried to sell me Manos de Uruguay instead, which at my old yarn stores was one of the priciest yarns in the shop). I bought only the angora for the scarf and the navy wool for the cable skully on my list. they bagged the two different colors of angora in two different bags so "the bunnies don't mate".

L* mentioned I was getting grouchy around noon, so after that I had a gatorade and some cacahuetes "japoneses" and felt more civil. I dropped her off at an Urban Teahouse, and went to Chelo's for a (long overdue) haircut. Again, in the hopes of banishing my blues (maybe if it weren't six months since my last haircut, I would feel more pretty)

My Spanish skills pretty much abandoned me at Chelo's iNternational Hair Salon, so I ended up getting just a wet cut (I had just taken a shower so my hair was clean and wet) rather than a champu, cut, and style. My participation in the conversation was pretty much "si," as the lady lamented the state of my ends, calculated the months since my last cut, pointed out the high percentage of new growth (all those trenzas must produce a high rate of breakage that I hadn't noticed) admired my natural hair color, and re-shaped me into clean, presentable lines.

Then off to the Cesar Chavez branch library, where after searching the fiction shelves unsuccessfully, I had to go ask the librarian where the Chicano literature was. THEN I found my copy of Alejandro Morales's THE RAG DOLL PLAGUES, and returned in triumph to the Urban Tea House, where L* had graded all of her exams and a chunk of the essays.

I had parked in front of Saint Elizabeth's, where, in celebration of La Virgen de Guadalupe, they had made a screen of fresh flowers for the front of the church, just like they do in Mexico. The Urban Tea House was also rich with images of La Virgen: paintings, prints, t-shirts (I should have asked where they got the t-shirts, 'cause they were really nice ones!)

After all that, we were lured to have dinner around Internacional, but made an unfortunate choice, as a muchacho who had had too much beer was making una escena, and wouldn't leave until the police came and cuffed him. (With handcuffs, I mean: I just realized that "to cuff" means both "to put on handcuffs" and to smack around. hmm)

Keep on walking!

Gotta walk again today!

Yesterday was cool. I didn't make it in time to meet up with no racewalkers (though by the time I was finishing up, the gay runners and walkers group was warming up). Since I ended up walking alone, I was wishing I had some tunes or a story.

There were kazillions of people walking and running. Lots of ladies: you know they're gonna be spending the rest of the day taking care of everyone else, so they're out early to take care of themselves.

I love Oakland!

I thought a lot about Bird Flu, since there were so many birds!

Aside--I always wonder why homeless people aren't roasting those big-ass geese on a spit, but then I saw a government-style sign:"All Birds are Protected By Law". And then I thought again about--was it Ruben Martinez?

What time is it downtown in L.A.
when the LAPD raids the sanctuary at La Placita?
And in the city that bans Santeria sacrifices,
a thousand Pollo Loco stands notwithstanding?
What time is it where little Saigon meets little Havana
meets little Tokyo meets little Armenia and we all meet
the sea speaking in tongues.

Ruben Martinez, El Otro Lado

I thought about the serial killers profile of "killing animals as a child," and children who grow up on farms where you have to kill the animal, and wondering why this carniverous country can be so hypocritical as to say "private companies may slaughter animals by thousands" and "private individuals who kill an animal are criminal"



Back to the birds: Canadian geese, two different kinds of cranes (one fluffy), mallard ducks, other ducks, gulls, white geese, and something that looked like a waterfowl with turkey ancestors. (it had all that lumpy red stuff on its face like a guajolote).

Do they have h5ni? they look pretty healthy to me. Though, either there are a lot of one-legged birds around here, or some unlikely characters like to stand on just one leg when they're hanging out.

Okay, so why am I up early again, if I'm not joining no group to walk? I liked the energy of the morning crowd. I think the parking will be tougher once the church hour approaches, and it made for a really nice day.

Walk, Doña Ana, Walk!

I'm up early (for me) because I want to get some exercise at the lake this morning. Of course, one could just go walk at the lake any old hour of the day--why get up early on a Saturday? Well, there's racewalking at 8am. Either the sense of community or the sense of competition should be enough to keep me coming back.

After using my running gloves in the garden last weekend, I forgot to bring them in and wash them. Last night I dreamt I found my pair of white wool running gloves. (In real life, I have no white wool running gloves). This greatly relieved my anxiety.

(I also dreamt of a new Harry Potter movie which showed the homoerotics between Harry and Ron. I remember being surprised it hadn't caused more controversy.)

My running shoes are thickly crusted with dried mud, as a result of the same little bit of yardwork. There's a brand new pair of shoes sitting in a box in my study (right next to my chair, right this minute) trying to tempt me, but I have sworn to mail them back, because I would be ever so much happier with a 9.5, which will give my toes room for their inevitable swelling.

I'm swiping one of L*s hoodies for the morning. I traded mine to doña Leora after the Turkey Trot. Hers didn't fit her right and I was pretty sure it would fit L*, and mine had the embroidered logo from my previous employer. Of course, I have not yet replaced it. (sigh)

Perhaps this the appropriate time to remind myself that if I were in Ohio right now, it would be 22 degrees, but feel like 10, and that weather forecast for the week varies between cloudy and mostly cloudy, with a pretty good chance of snow every day.

I'm hoping the exercise will pull me out of my pms/pre-birthday funk. I'm very good at feeling sorry for myself this week. (what have I got to complain about?) I'm turning the big 4-0, and consequently feel that I will never again be cute. Does this make sense? I was so excited when I was turning 30. of course, that was ten years ago.

Note to the galley: Romulan ale no longer to be served at diplomatic functions.

In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Rosana DeSoto does a tremendous job in the small role of Azetbur, the Klingon Chancellor's Daughter (later Chancellor in her own right). I just love her: she brings Aztec Princess and Klingon together. (it's amazing she isn't killed at the end)

CHEKOV

Ve do not impose democracy on

others. Ve do believe that every

planet has a sovereign claim to

human rights.



AZETBUR

(Spits)

"Human rights". Even the name is

racist. The Federation is basically

a "Homo Sapiens" only club.....



[SPOCK reacts to this. CHANG is amused.]



CHANG

Present company excepted, to be sure...

Mix it up at the Office Party

Is the "Holiday" Music starting to get to you?

Do you feel like it's "Merry Christians" and the rest of us can like it or lump it?

(Were you at the party the year they explained that they had looked for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa carols but couldn't find any?)

Then burn a subversive CD for the office party. Include something like Johnny Mathis' "In Winter it's a Marshmallow World," which is very gay, just like Johnny, and won't raise any suspicions. Melt some snow with Eartha Kitt's classic Santa Baby (which will make everyone feel smugly naughty). Bring the house down with Pansy Division's Homo Christmas, which has most explicit lyrics about what should be done under the tree.

BART morning

This train car is full.
There are twelve women in purple jackets and red hats
Four at the end, four near the doors and four more behind me

I know the poem,

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

I don’t like what they’ve done to it
Anglo women in a particular uniform
of uniform bourgeoise eclecticism

they’re quite pleased with themselves.
they disembark at Powell street station,
perhaps to tea, or to brandy

CNN inanity

"A suicide bomber strikes again!"

Sci Fi geeks come out of the closet

All the sci-fi geeks in the college are coming out of the closet to me because of my new class. W-M tells me about a SP Somtow and whaling, and Japanese ancestry (oh my gosh, this is just like the Carp in Bless Me, Ultima! and, was it Alejandro Morales's The Rag Doll Plagues that posits that only chilangos will be able to survive the lethal pollution to come? She also shares insights on Aeon Flux. The historian of race and social movements tries to talk me into showing Blacula and Blade (we started out talking about Fledgling and the African vampire episode from the X-Files, season Three).

I'm taking zillions of notes and now trying to track down an episode of Deep Space 9 (time travel/science fiction writer) and Voyager (Chakotay's tattoo).

Love Letter to L*

When I am with you I am nothing I was before
I am everything I ever wished I could be and more
So it's not just for what you are yourself that I love you as I do
But for what I am when I am with you.

Y'all know how important Johnny Mathis has been to my racial and sexual identity.

Fruitvale Avenue

A dropsite
because you know someone else will find a use for it

• a box of children’s toys
  
• appliances that are cheaper to replace: a coffee pot, a television, a vacuum cleaner
  
• a neatly folded stack of men’s clothes
  (do they no longer fit the man? does the man no longer fit the home?)
  
• what does it mean, that dragged out sheet that looks like it’s just been stripped from a child’s bed?
  

how different this is from that new house in the new subdivision

• titled “estates” because each house is as big as an apartment building
  
• each back yard complete with playground, more spacious than the urban play parks
  
• children’s toys left on the lawn, secure in the knowledge that they’ll be there when the next desire to play strikes
  

10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, yesterday

10 years ago
San Francisco
on the verge of the big 3-0. best friend Joanie plans my first birthday party in decades. I tell the students in my sexualities class "Women are Dogs!" in a tone little more than a growl. It's my fourth year of the Ph.D. program. I've just finished my play. I'm flirting with L*, this little fella, though I think we're both too shy to pull it off.

5 years ago
Las Cruces, NM
Second year of my first job. Overwhelmed, I sit in the bathtub and fantasize about drowning. But I couldn't leave L* with the mortgage, stranded in the middle of nowhere. A surprising pleasure is racewalking. Finished my first race five months ago and now I've got the bug. Racing in the Reindeer Run 10k in Roswell. A runner in his sixties comes in right before me. Don Fon wants to know why the old man gets a medal and I get a medal even though other people finished a half hour ago. "There's age categories and race categories" I explain. "I understand," he replies. "Everyone's a winner." For my birthday, L* gets me a racewalking lesson in Alamogordo! L* is on the job market, with interviews scheduled for the next three months. She buys a down parka online. How will we live with this pressure and uncertainty.

1 year ago
Columbus, OH
I get an email from a certain CSU telling me my file is incomplete. I call and tell them the letters were sent a month ago. They track them down and suddenly I'm scheduling a flight and a job talk. I practice the job talk with L*. We're both on the market and going muy loca. It is another grey day, and I hum "California Dreaming" to keep my eyes on the prize. I skip the quarter's last meeting of the College diversity committee in celebration of the upcoming job talk. I promptly run into the Associate Dean (who's on the committee), whose friendliness is one of the few rays of light. I feel so busted. It begins to snow. How will we live with the pressure and uncertainty of the next four months?

Yesterday
Oakland, San Francisco, and Oakland again
There was frost on the grass this morning, and my eyes water from the cold. I meet with grad students, several of whom are so together, they bear no resemblance to Ktrion-as-grad-student. Others promise a full draft by next week and then duck away from me in the hall. this is more familiar. I dawdle at the office and L* calls expecting me to be on the BART. I run up the hill, miss one shuttle, pay for the bus, run up the escalator and ride off on the Fremont train just as the next shuttle pulls into the station. I make it home in record time, and L* and I are off to our CORE training. We are infuriated by the instructor when she says "It's against the law to bring animals into a shelter." when the big ones come, will some burly fellow claim that the law allows only heterosexual families? How do we engage in community preparedness and yet balance our DEEP suspicion of the "the law." The class teaches me that L*'s whacked out preparedness steps are, in fact, extremely well thought-out. I covet the crowbar for our kit. I wonder if I could keep boxed water in my desk at the office without drinking it in the day-to-day. The instructor tells us if we work in San Francisco and take public transportation, we'll be stuck in the city for at least 2 days after the Big One. So, what? We should buy a second car and I should pay thousands of dollars in fuel and tolls on the chance that I'll be able to drive home after the Big One?

too much genealogy for today

It's time to take a break when the information becomes too contradictory, even for me.

Our family lore is that my grandmother Libradita's parents were Elfego and Juanita. Juanita died and Elfego married Escolastica and they had three daughters together.

The records I have from a fourth cousin, show that her grandmother's parents were Elfego and Escolastica, and they had something like ten children together, some of whom appear to have been born before my grandmother (that is, while Elfego was married to his "first" wife).

This would suggest that Elfego had two families simultaneously, and that when one wife died, he and the other wife raised all the minor children together.

However, Escolastica also appears to have had another husband, Luciano, and her sons with him seem to be about the same age as all the other kids.

So while I can accept two simultaneous families (even though this contradicts my family lore) it's harder for me to imagine these three leapfrogging simultaneous families.

you know what this means. i'm bound to find Libradita's kids marrying Luciano's kids in the next generation. it is new mexico, after all.

Genealogy Software

I am fascinated by genealogy software. That is to say, once you start using it, you realize the whole ideology behind it. Most genealogy software defines "a family" as one man, one woman, and their children. What's wrong with that?

My mom has two half sisters. According to the genealogy software, she and her sisters are not from the same family. It's very frustrating trying to chart family stuff when you can't get all the siblings on the same page.

Surprisingly, a lot of the programs seem to allow for same-sex partners. There's not necessarily any politcs behind this, since they also let you list pets and extra-terrestrials.

The one I use--Reunion 8--even allows you to list both birth parents and adoptive parents and to make one set "preferred." Very useful when charting those complex intra-family adoptions.

Race and Science Fiction

Students will be signing up for classes next week. I really need to get some posters up for my class on Race, Gender, and Science Fiction. I'm still tweaking the syllabus. I ordered two Butler novels and I'm going to put together a reader.

I was tempted to use the first Dark Matter anthology, which is excellent, but I would still have to make a reader to include the Latina/o, Native American, and Asian American authors I want. Definitely want Guillermo Gomez-Peña in there. and Sherman Alexie.

Last night, L* and I watched John Sayle's 1984 film, Brother from Another Planet. It has aged much better than Lianna

L* thinks it's more speculative fiction than sci-fi. That's prob'ly true. A lot of what we'll be reading is not "hard science fiction," but speculative fiction, supernatural horror, magical realism, and folk tales. It's about redefining science fiction.

I have been reading George Schuyler's Black No More, which is excerpted in Dark Matter (I). The satire is so wicked sharp: it's like Twain in Letters from Earth. Don't know if I'll teach the whole book yet. I'm in the middle of reading about the Nordic Knights (yikes!) and an ex-Black man's involvement with them as a most promising graft.

I'm thinking of showing Man Facing Southeast (Argentina, 1987), but will have to figure out how that will work in the context of the class. (all the other fiction and film will be North American).

Teaching Inspirations

Just read Barbara Jane's blog account of the culminating experience in P/Filipino Literature. Wow! What an inspiration! What a challenge! I know I walked past that classroom every week, and the energy and enthusiasm was just amazing. It's what everyone wants her lit class to be like!

Really has me rethinking my lit classes, which are, perhaps, too centered on the novel. I tried to include a poem-of-the-day. But I didn't have it fully structured.

One thing I'll need to overcome is my resistance to printed readers. I guess in my head, I've really been wanting to do the whole "electronic reserve" thing, where the students can read the works online and print them out (or not) themselves, rather than paying a copy place to xerox the whole packet. And they don't spend a wad of money on a book that they can't sell back.

I guess there's no reason I couldn't still do that, and make the reader available for purchase.

Because with a reader, you can include a wealth of short fiction and poetry.

I do love novels. But I do have other options. I really gotta think about this.

Tortillas

So, yesterday I found out I received the mini-grant I applied for, so I’ll be working on the anthology In the House of the Tortilla-Makers in 2006.

And you know I recently posted Nana Minnie’s tortilla recipe.

El Xolo commented that real tortillas are de maíz.

Which reminded me of a couple of passages from The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Urrea. The first passage occurs when the community discovers their patrón is moving to Sonora, and thus they must move with him.

Eggs and tortillas became a new astonishment. The Sinaloans had heard that Sonorans indulged in the unspeakable atrocity of eating flour tortillas. Flour! Any human being knew that tortillas were made of corn. So they regarded their pieces of tortillas with sorrow--serving as spoon and fork and napkin all at once, their humble little maíz tortillas, with their loose skins and their delicious burned spots, had revealed themselves at last to be family members more loyal than sisters or brothers. Long after a fight with a brother, even after a funeral for a sister, you could scoop us some fried beans with a tortilla de maíz. And when you didn’t have beans, a pinch of salt in a tortilla was a great meal. How could you eat salt in a wad of flour? Did not Padre Adriel say they were “the salt of the earth”? Nobody was sure what it meant, but it clearly related to the tortilla. (105)

The second passage occurs when they have arrived at the ranch in Cabora, Sonora, only to find it razed to the ground.

Huila [the medicine woman] had sent clay bowls full of beans and nopal cactus fried in eggs to the men at the ruined ranch house. Some of the locals had provided weird huge flour tortillas, and the men at the main house ruins suspiciously wrapped their beans in these wads of what seemed to them to be wet laundry. Segundo [the foreman] found the tortillas de harina squishy and deeply improper, though by his third bean and cactus burrito, he started to enjoy them. Their rich taint of lard felt good and greasy in his mouth.
Tomás [el patrón] chose to remain loyal to his little corn tortillas. There was only so much he was willing to concede to el norte. (163)

Now, I come from what Jose Antonio Burciaga describes as a mixed marriage: Califas and Nuevo Mexico. So my mom, whose mother is from Sonora, dislikes new mexican food: the rice is soupy and the tortillas are bready. She grew up with the large thin tortillas de harina of Sonora. The legend goes that a good woman of Sonora could roll her tortillas so thin that you could a) see the moon through them or b) read a book through them. New Mexican tortillas de harina, by contrast, are closer kin to pita bread.

Reading Sonrisa Morena had me looking for champurrado this morning!

What a goofball!

Remember that it’s my first semester on the job. So, I just missed a college faculty meeting and a holiday party. Not really my fault, since I am teaching today, and the college faculty was added as a memo to the email about the holiday party just last week. Oh well. I spent all day yesterday in meetings. Surely that should count for something.

I’m hoping that the state of my office is a indication that my office mate also forgot about these things. Slackers love company.

La Vida es Sueño, y los sueños, sueños son

I was a professor in my dream last night. I don't think that has ever happened before. I mean, I'm usually me, and sometimes I'm at the university, but still a lot of the time I realize in my dream that there's this Spanish class that I haven't attended all semester and I've just missed the final exam. Sometimes I dream there's a class that I'm supposed to be teaching that I haven't attended all semester. (In fact I have that one a lot).

So I wonder what it means that I'm (finally!) a professor in my dream?

I was walking along the campus (which had features from at least four different college campuses). A Latina student came up to me (she could have been a grad student) and asked me "Do you love this country?" My mind was whirring with how to answer that question when she went on, "Because I don't think I can love this country anymore." She was filled with despair, from Hurricane Katrina, to the pandemic, to the way in which "majority" America (as represented by the implied audience of CNN) constantly affirms that racism happens but that's just life.

--During el día del guajalote, I recounted to mi familia the story of my colleague being arrested for going to his own office at night--because he's black and therefore "looked suspicious." Toda la familia said how wrong it was, how he would have basis for a lawsuit, etc., but mi ma said well that happens. Yeah, when it's someone else's son it's happening to, it's easy to say that. But when it's your son or grandson, then you'll stand up and say ¡Ya Basta! (I'm all about Ella's Song right now)

Back to the dream:

I started talking to this student and telling her that we have to make community in the midst of this. Yes, we can start by stockpiling the canned goods and breath masks we need to survive this, but the next step after that is to say "How can I use this moment to make the world better?" How can I reach out to someone and say "How can I help?" How do we move beyond the four walls of our homes and our immediate families and start treating all of our vecinos as familia?

After that (still in the dream) I was walking toward the shuttle and another Latina student came up to me and was asking me about the campus shuttle and where it picked people up at and how much it cost and where she could get change. I ended up opening up my wallet but told her she had to wait until I'd made sure I had enough change for my own shuttle ride. It cost a dollar twenty-five, so I was counting out quarters. (In real life the shuttle is free, but last night I took the bus to Safeway because it was raining, and so I was counting out quarters.)

Then I sent her on her way, and went on to the Theatre building where I was 15 minutes late to class and the department chair saw me walking and told me my students were waiting for me in this hall where we're not allowed to teach (so to please take them somewhere else).

Raining in Oakland

That's the trouble with these people who move back to California. They give away their down coats and boots when they leave the midwest. They keep on acting like Califas means perpetual summertime. And then it's rainy november and they're still wearing summer shoes to work, and they have no winter coat.

Note to self: Today, take an umbrella.

Standing in the rain at the bus stop with no hat and no umbrella and no scarf and no gloves and only a cotton denim jacket left me performing "oh pobre mio" when in reality, WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Chaquegüe

In one Thanksgiving Day conversation recounted earlier,

Don Fon and Nana Mini were talking about "the good food from the old days" like atole and something which sounds more like blue polenta. I'll have to check the name but it was noticeable how un-Spanish the name was. i.e. if not a true blue native word, it's a hispanicized native word. Nana Mini's mama or nana used to cook this and then prepare it with chile colorado. Don Fon definitely knew what this was, recognized the term and started using it, but it's not one I ever heard him use before.

The name of the dish is Chaquegüe. Found it discussed here. Google Text found it in four books, one of which, Mi Lengua: Spanish as a Heritage Language in the US identifies it among the "indigenísmos pueblo." Don Fon has Picurís ancestors and Nana Mini has Apache, but of course, we're all of us pretty mixed, despite those pervasive Fantasías Castellanos.

Viejitas que no hablan ingles

Two weeks ago I flew to LA, and last week I flew from New Mexico to California, and both times I've run into viejitas que no hablan ingles.

The first lady was prob'ly only in her fifties or sixties. She's Chinese and had

• Lived in San Francisco for 3 years,
  
• Arrived in San Francisco 3 days ago, or
  
• Been to San Francisco 3 times
  

She was traveling with the limit of carry-on bags with two totes and a backpack, and the backpack was too heavy for her to lift up and put on her shoulders. At the Burbank airport, we disembarked right onto the tarmac. The lady was having trouble with her bags, which were too many and too heavy. So she held her tote bags in each and and tried to drag her backpack along the ground. What amazed me more than anything was that she was having obvious difficulty, but everyone just walked around her. (Is that what will happen after the apocalypse?). I was sure one of the strong young fellows on the flight would help her out, but when it became clear that no one would, I doubled back. After failing to communicate in English, I offered to help by putting her heavy backpack on top of my rolling suitcase. She was greatly relieved. I walked her over to the baggage claim and pulled her enormous rolling suitcase off the conveyer belt, and then attached her backpack to it with the belt. She explained that her husband would meet here there to pick her up, and so I finally went on my way. I continued to worry about her though. How would her husband find her?

This Saturday I returned from New Mexico by air from El Paso to Oakland via LAX. Some passengers were only going to LA, while others were going on to Oakland (like me) and/or Seattle.

The El Paso to LA flight was not that full--in fact, Thanksgiving Saturday is a good day to fly out of the El Paso airport. The lines at security were almost non existent, and the flights were not full.

So I got an aisle seat in the second row, with no one else sitting on my row.

or so i thought. Right before takeoff, the flight attendant helped an elderly lady on board and suggested the window seat in my row. I stood up to allow the lady in, and she spoke to me in Spanish and indicated that she would prefer the aisle seat. In my bad pocha Spanish, I clarified, you want this seat? She said yes, I said "Sí Señora" and scooted myself down to the window seat. She carried a purse, a totebag, and a crocheted black rebozo. I admired the rebozo, which looked new and was made of a very soft synthetic, probably in half-double crochet. I asked if she had made it but she replied que "me regalaron." She was at least seventy, and was from Durango and traveling to see her nieta, though I wasn't a hundred per cent sure whether her nieta lived in LA or in Tijuana. At times she seemed confused (about where the plane was going, about what documentation she would need to show and when), and again, I had a real strong sense that this was someone's abuelita travelling alone. My heart went out to her, and I was especially frustrated that my pocha Spanish was not fully up to the task of assisting her. She was anxious that she had lost a piece of paper that she had tucked into her passport, and which had the contact information for her relatives in LA. I helped her keep track of her passport and green card. When it was time for her to get off the plane in LA she was reluctant to leave without ever having found the paper she was looking for. None of the flight attendants were any better at Spanish than me (the Chicano who came onboard to help her to her wheelchair explained he could only speak German). I had to convince her to disembark and told the flight attendants to find someone to translate for her. I hope she made it safe and sound. According to her papers, she lived with family in Downey.

Queer familia

As I stood in line to board SW flight 1590 from El Paso to LAX to Oakland, I scoped out all the other folks there. I said to myself, how many other queer Latinos made this pilgrimage to visit familia and are now eagerly returning to their California lives?

Spotted at least one guapo who looked like Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause.



I was thinking of my first play, and how I should have had folks meeting at the Southwest Airlines gates.

In Rocky Gamez's "The Gloria Stories," when the butch Gloria is working at the meat-packing plant, she's described as looking like Sal Mineo. When she becomes a door-to-door broom salesman, she has to change her look, so that the the housewives don't run away from her, so she's wearing slacks and a cardigan and and her hair is more fluffy, and Rocky tells her "but you don't look like Sal Mineo anymore. Now you look like Toña la Negra."

Tortillas and Traditions

I worked a lot on the familia website while I was in NM. My sister Xriz requested that I put everybody on the system that notifies us when people's birthdays and anniversaries are coming up. So since we had so many people there (and email access to everyone else) we updated the the birthday and anniversary information. My cousin Cni already posted fotos from thanksgiving, and Xrix posted Nana Mini's fabulous foolproof tortilla recipe. It really works, as long as you don't try to halve it. You can keep the exta dough in your fridge and make the tortillas as you need them.

Note that these are New Mexican flour tortillas, which are smaller and thicker than Sonoran tortillas. If anyone has a foolproof recipe for Sonoran-style tortillas, I would love to have it!

Recipe passed down from Nana Mary to Nana Minnie, to my sister Xriz. Keep the traditiona alive and make tortillas with your familia. Great with green chile stew made from New Mexico green.

Title: Miss Minnie's Fabulous Tortillas

Description:
These are fool-proof, and they'll be better each time you make them. (Kids love helping!)

Ingredients:
4 C. flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
6 Tablespoons Crisco
approx. 1 1/2 c. very HOT water

Directions:
Sift together all dry ingredients
With a pastry cutter, cut in shortening
Add hot water gradually as you mix dough
Dough should be slightly sticky
After well mixed (1 minute or so) place dough in a baggie & seal. Let stand at least 20 minutes before rolling.

Make 15-20 little pillows of dough. Flour each one as you begin to roll it into a large flat pancake about 8 inches in diameter

Cook over a hot teflon griddle

Eat right away with REAL butter

(You can leave dough out at room temperature for 1-2 days and roll out tortillas as you need them.)

Number Of Servings:15-20 tortillas

Preparation Time:Mixing dough-approx 15 min, rolling & cooking time depends on experience level of the cook!

Home again!

Hurray!

It's such a joy to be home again con mi amorcito L*

The quality of light is so different between New Mexico and the Bay Area! It's amazing how they are so both so beautiful and so different.

my gatas have forgiven me for going away. Nxi finds me utterly irresistible when I'm knitting and crocheting.

JMB's SF dream

Very strange science fiction dream that featured JMB and at some point within the dream I realized that she had written various parts of the dream. That is, someone made reference to some fanfic she'd written, and then I realized that the fanfic had been turned into a blockbuster film, and that we were all characters within same.

At one point in the dream it was Ferdinand and Isabel day, which we don't celebrate here [but which L* and I learned when we visited España.] The bracketed part is the logic of the dream--or the language of the night--but anyway, not real. all this had something to do with the fact that "columbus day" in the US is "el dia de la raza" in mexico.

in real life, don Fon and nana mini were talking about "the good food from the old days" like atole and something which sounds more like blue polenta: cachetaq? I'll have to check the name but it was noticeable how un-Spanish the name was. i.e. if not a true blue native word, it's a hispanicized native word. Nana Mini's mama or nana used to cook this and then prepare it with chile colorado. Don Fon definitely knew what this was, recognized the term and started using it, but it's not one I ever heard him use before.

Day 3 in Cruces

It's not even eight o'clock yet, and we've already had a healthy walk. Me and Nana Leora and Nana Luxi went for a walk before seven--I wonder if I'll be waking up so early when I'm their age? I could barely put my pants on I was so sleepy, and they had to wait on my having my first cup of coffee.

I could fall right back asleep now, but instead I'm going to go pour my second cup of coffee and work on Maria's doll blanket.

One secret to success at family events: don't get caught without your crochet kit!