Metro Mondays

Thanks to the brilliancy of one of my friends my hate will turn into love. Making lemonade out of lemons and other such nonsense. Plus, a safe way to funnel all my anger.

My number one hate? Being car-less in LA. Joking about how in the future I will be able to use all my terrible events and turn the pithy into fuel for the fire, my friend suggested a metro journal. Yup, a metro journal complete with secret camera.

These people should be documented. No, NEED to be documented. An urban athropologist completely disconnected, an observer from the outside. A social cartographer mapping out the dysfunctional variations of the species.

No, not really, I just need something to do on the bus to make me look busy so people won't talk to me. Lately I have taken to carrying my enormous Shakespeare text in my arms due to its back-breaking weight in my tote bage (no joke, I got the shoulder bruises to prove it) and it seems that the bard is an incredible people magnet. Usually my "don't talk to me" vibe works well enough but there is just something about the bard that people cannot resist. So far, I've met some interesting people who have just felt the need to come up and ask me if I'm studying the bard. Alls fine and well in an academic setting but when people on the bus turn my book into a segue-way about how I should go over to his house for a home tatttoo that's where I draw the line.

Anyways, now I have something to do to keep me from getting bus sick.

"The map is not the territory" - Alfred Korzybski

I’m Not An English Major, I’m Pre-Law!

I don't do book plugs (which would reach infinity) but maybe I should start a book lust blog since I am loving Salvador Plascencia's People of Paper. More love since he came to my experimental fiction class to discuss his novel. His novel is like a continuum of Calvino, Borges and every crazy typesetter from the 19th century but it was his enthusiasm that elicited such love. He reminded me why I became an english major even though it's difficult to explain to mother's friends what I study and even more difficult to field their questions:

You mean you study english? But you speak english!"
"Oh, so you wanna be an english teacher? Elementary? So you like kids , right?"
"So your homework is reading books?"

He also reminded me of all the infinite possibilities of the novel form; he's breaking boundaries in his novel that haven't been fully explored (Danielewski is only the tip of the iceberg). He was very frank about the pitfalls of the novel (the percieved misogyny, the lack of political content, form over content) but you gotta admire it for what it is: a fuck you to conventional form and a breaking of conventional standards. Speaking about his rejections from every major publishing house becuase of its experimental status (and later came back begging) just made it more inspirational. It's like the little indie novel that could.

When the ethnicity questions came up he was very open about not being "enough" of a chicano which I loved. He made it very clear that he didn't want to be pigeon holed which is why lots of chicanos criticized his novel. I sat there totally nodding my head and I think that's why I've never been able to stay in a chicano organization. I still remember one of my favorite professors telling me that I had to behave a certain way because it was a reflection upon my community; that comment really bothered me and has stayed with me to this day. It must suck being a Mexican writer feeling that you have to write in a certain style but he did it and that gives me hope for the future of awesome mexican writers who don't fit the mold.

Just So You Know Whom To Blame

There is a radical faction of pro-lifers running rampant in my neighborhood. Part of their nefarious plot includes door-to-door tactics much like the beloved Jehovah's witnesses. Actually, a somewhat ordinary man knocked on our door Sunday affternoon asking my mother to sign a petition that would ban abortion and gay marriage. My mother politely declined and he immediately took up another line of defense.

"You mean you love abortions?" he accused.

Before my mother could open her mouth, I shouted, "We LOVE them!"

And I would have shouted, "We have them all the time!" had my mother not shoved me out of the way. So next week when I die a fiery death because my house has been torched you will know whom to blame.