I didn't have any madeleines so I ate a few almonds.

I'm sort of into micro-interviews of the Proust Questionnaire variety these days. Especially ones where the questions are rapid-fire and random. This one, "The insider" comes from a fashion magazine, The Moment. I found it while researching The Juan McLean, a musical group comprised of Juan McLean and Nancy Whang, who are actually more like DJs, I guess. They're quite good, had a free download from iTunes last month. But they were interviewed in the March 6 "Insider". Their answers are more interesting to me than mine, but you know what would be even more interesting to me? Your answers to them! It would be so easy to copy and paste the questions into the comment field, erase my answers and put in yours...no pressure. Ever. I'll be doing more Proust Questionnaire-inspired questionnaires in the (hopefully not-so-near) future.

Name: Valerie Hecht

Age: 41

Occupation: Student of Latin American literature of this and the last two centuries

Home base: Vallejo, CA and UC Davis

Retail standby: Retail for me is actually re-sale. I frequent thrift shops more frequently than retail stores.

Music venue: Slim's or The Independent in San Francisco

Favorite concert: White Stripes in Berkeley

Music: Whatever the shuffle cues up. Ani Defranco's "Both Hands" is on every running mix I make now because it gets me up a hill or through the last few minutes.

Provisions: Dried cranberries, coffee, Bombay Sapphire, oranges

For gifts: Flowers, iTunes

Restaurant: Matsuri Sushi; The Front Room; Taquería La Cumbre

Drink: Pimm’s Cup or Sapphire tonic when it's hot, red wine when it’s not.

Party central: Any dinner table surrounded by friends.

Momentary style obsessions: black, properly-fitted t-shirts that bear an image or saying incongruous to my personality (ex: "What happens in Vegas" or the "Nascar" logo)

Reading material: This week, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and the poetry of Mexican feminist and one-time ambassador to Israel, Rosario Castellanos

Art pick: Jim Dine's "Blue Clamp" at SFMoMA

Museums: SFMoMA; Museum of Musical Instruments inTrondheim; Train museum in Old Sac

Movie: Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown. It's time for a sequel or remake or update.

Vacation destination: Mexico City

Winter survival tip: Meyer lemons

Something you are looking forward to this spring: There and back, safe and sound.

"You live in a world of symbols...

...every little thing you see or hear or otherwise experience is like a metaphor for your or someone else's internal state."

"Nuh-uh," I denied. "My world is an understudied text of varied literary styles, yet it belongs to no movement in particular. It is richly emblematic and contains many subtle references to other texts and their authors. And that last thing you said wasn't a metaphor, you know... I mean, I'm sure sure you do know, but it was actually a simile...'like or as'... What? I'm just saying."

"We should think about expanding our operations," I said.

"Subsistence laundry isn't really working for me."

Top Ten Reasons I Like Having a Facebook

10. I participate in at least one aspect of American [pop?] culture.

9. I'm in good company.

8. Updating my status lets people know what I'm up to when I've been out-of-touch.

7. Updating my status lets me practice crafting aphorisms.

6. Updating my status is sometimes as close as I'll get to writing micro-cuentos/micro-stories.

5. It has all kinds of "What kind of - are you?"/"Which character from - are you?"/"If you were a color, which one would you be?" kinds of quizzes.

4. It has e-mail.

3. It has chat.

2. I get to read the clever, charming statements of my friends and....

1. ¡I get to see their tiny pictures!



P.S. While I wish to protect the identities of my Facebook friends, I seem to have no compunction about exposing the faces, etc. of someone else's friends in order to illustrate the tiny pictures function. He'd posted the image on his Facebook tutorial site, so maybe it's fair-ish game...

Blog Re-frito #4

From the blog I had prior to these...

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
Volver, resolver

BlogTemplate
Escribo desde: la casa
El tiempo: hace un calor sorprendiente
Estoy luciendo: algo que no me hace "lucir" para nada. En los últimos días he mirado como doce capítulos de What Not to Wear y estoy convencida de que nada me queda bien. Pero no estoy convencida de que mirar WNTW y otros programas al estilo sea necesariamente malo. He sacado varias ideas, y realmente la imagen es lo que hace que la gente que encontramos en el mundo nos tome en serio.
Conmigo: Karl, Stella, Paloma (en su camita al lado de la cama)
Estado de animo: un poco cansada, pero noto que desde el día que empecé a tomar vitaminas no me canso tan facilmente.
Libro(s): Montones de libros f-off de autoras al estilo Olivia Goldsmith y Helen Fielding, pero he empezado a leer para las clases. El libro de buen amor, de que recuerdo casi nada. Y los primeros dos artículos del reader (comprado por $104.50 por internet). Pero tendré que re-leer por lo menos dos veces el segundo porque la autora se llama Anna Brickhouse ("She's mighty mighty, just lettin' it all hang out...") y la letra de la canción impidió que me concentrara bien en el texto. ("Yeah, she's a brick...house. She's the one, the only one, who's built like an Amazon.")
Música: En este momento de la vida, los boleros y otra música tipo nostalgia (JAJ, Vicente Fernandez, Chavela Vargas, María Dolores Pradera, Agustín Lara, George Jones)
Vi a: Aparte de los de siempre...a nadie
Hablé con: " "
Antojo: piña
¿Qué pasó hoy (y qué pasó varios días antes si no he escrito
en mucho tiempo): ejercicio, mimar mucho a Paloma y Stella
Imágenes: estacionamiento en Kaiser. ¿Por qué se pone tan cabrona la gente cuando conduce por una de estas estructuras?
Personas que se destacaron: Una pareja gay, muy elegante en el Starbuck's de Albertson's

posted by vhecht @ 10:03 PM
0 comments

Yes, I do have thoughts about the election results.

Bulb out...awaiting 8.

However, I will say that among family and friends, I think I was voted Most Likely to Forget to Vote.

She taught me to read early and often.

Ni en sueños me atrevería a reseñarlos. But if I were to give my reviews, they would be an animated photo of my clapping hands.

This extremely well thought-out, informed, informative, insightful and carefully written book is also absolutely delightful! For example, reading that a whole lexicon-mexicon- homosexicon of gay-referent phrases has been built around the number 41 after the 1901 raid was fascinating. I seriously considered cutting my run short today in its honor. When it came down to it, though, I couldn't stop. But I did make the 41st minute really count. I cued up the gayest song on my Shuffle and ran it really hard. And I'm going to vote really hard tomorrow against the number that has become linked to sexuality and social control in California, 2008...

And for pleasure, for grounding, for reassurance, for direction, for connection, for solidarity, for support, for agreement, for inspiration, for focus, for remembering where I came from...

"Wear your inside out."

This morning I chose to hear the lyric from "Mercy Street" spelled like that because lately as usual I've been thinking about my inside a lot. As someone who values authenticity in whatever emotional shape it takes, the above appeals to me as a command or a motto. But conversely, as someone who often wishes to avoid inflicting my internal state onto the world, it also serves as a warning. My outward appearance can't always be a manifestation of any inherent qualities and more often than not, it shouldn't! In spite of myself, however, I quite often look exactly how I feel. Or how/who I am.

"OK, now be completely, brutally honest," I demanded. "Uh-oh..." she replied, suddenly feigning an intense interest in the childrens' clothing we passed on our way to Shoes. "I'm serious, it's reallyreally serious!" I continued, "Do you think I should go back to shorter hair?" She was quiet for a moment. "I think," she proceeded with caution, taking refuge behind a rack of adorable little sweaters, "you either need to get it cut shorter or if you're going to keep it that length, take the time to do something with it..." "Yeah, that taking time thing probably realistically isn't going to happen." "Mi'ja. Right now you look like an absent-minded academic." Inside out, indeed.



¡¿Absent-minded academic?! ¡But I'm supposed to be a pirate!

Re: Casualidad tras casualidad

Tuesday morning I'd finally opened El error del acierto and read a few pages. On my way to work I thought, "I must write and communicate my elogios". Of course I can't deny that I like it so much because it validates the kind of work I want to do, but even if I weren't in complete agreement with its premise, I would recognize the value of this work. And later on that day... its author, as he has done so often with me, yet again acertó.

I hit the 6 button in the elevator so I could stop to check my mailbox on my way to the office.
The customary aphorism this time read, "Soy bien fácil, me voy con cualquiera."


I recognized the handwriting immediately, but even if there'd been no note, I'd have known who sent it. We share an affinity for the plastic bags from our favorite bookstores (and really, are there any that aren't?). They never get "reduced or recycled" and only rarely are they "re-used". If you ever get something packaged in one by either of us, you will know that you are held in highest esteem, greatest affection and are worthy of the precious bag we've been hording for what it represents...I still haven't unwrapped the book. As I walked back to my office, I turned the package over in my hands and smoothed the plastic until it was transparent and I could read the book's title and author, La novela según los novelistas, Cristina Rivera Garza (coordinadora). When I got to the office, I crinkled the plastic. One of many things I love about Librerías Ghandi is that they use bags made of strong enough plastic to provide secure transport for the books I buy there, even when I'm shlepping them 5 miles through the Mexico City airport...the sound of that unique plastic, the store's logo, the word "for" preceding my name swirled through my head and heart and there were tears dropping onto the yellow plastic when I entered the office. "¡Pero, mujer!" she exclaimed, "¿Qué te pasa? Qué tienes?" Cuando se lo expliqué, creo que me entendió perfectamente.

I immediately turned on the computer to fire off a thank you in response to the message that was waiting.

"Anyway, it is a brief book, so enjoy. It is a gift from C. who never
says "you betcha."
Best,

I am sending the book with"

"¡¡Thank you!! "C.'s" gift, sin exageración, salvífico, as are interactions with you in general. This book in its more than apt wrapper is... perfecto. You always know...very few people have as high a rate of acierto with me as you do." Anyway, I'm a little fahrklempt. So much so that I can't turn off the italics...
Thank you so much.
Do let's talk soon.
Love,
Val

Bulb out yesterday...migraine.

"So, how do you style your hair?"

And other questions I can't just answer like a normal person...

• "What do you think of the election?"


• "How many miles do you run?"


• "What are you wearing, baby?"


• "Who's your favorite author?"


• "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"


• "What's your dream?"


• "If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to your dinner party, which 5 people would you, and why?"


• "How was your day?"


• "So, when do you finish with school?"

In my world, it does qualify as an ¡X-Treme! sport.

Ran, 20-somethings on the sidewalks in the decimononic light of my neighborhood. Who do we have to **** to get some working streetlights around here?

It had quite the opposite effect.

These days words like "literature", "writer", "publish", "editor", "culture", "journal", "author" provoke mixed feelings. While I was excited about attending LitQuake's Literary Pub Crawl 2008, I went prepared to feel a bit of stress at the least and sinking feelings of inadequacy and irresponsibility at the worst.

Inadequacy not because I want to write fiction or poetry or travelogues - I don't. At all. My concern was more about how I was going to take anything from the event that I could use in my studies. She said that maybe not everything had to relate to my work, maybe I could just go and listen and enjoy and even though I said, "Yeah, maybe." I was trying to figure out how to hear the Latino lit. selections and the erotica selections and testimonio that all appeared to be happening at once as well as hear James read. OK, so I was also worrying about whether there'd be time for a burrito and horchata before any of it.

Our lack of ablility to get our act together (aka: the "Karl and Val Factor") solved all of those problems. We arrived at Valencia St. when the first section was already underway by about 30 minutes, so we decided to get a slice of pizza, then head straight to the Elbo Room and get a seat and drinks and settle in for the Opium and Canteen writers' readings.

Arinell is as close to "New York Style" as it gets around here. Burning the roof of my mouth on the thin foldy-over pizza was so totally worth it! So was having to eat standing up on the sidewalk outside of the joint, setting the bright red, cloying fruit punch we shared on a newspaper dispenser.

Once inside the Elbo Room, we elbowed up the bar and ordered drinks. While waiting for the readings to start, we observed the local indie literati in all its glory, the males with dark straight hair and wearing zip-up jackets with collars and rectangle glasses with dark substantial frames, females with all colors of straight hair wearing skirts that were in defiant mismatch of every other article of clothing on their thin frames. Very very cool. And then, for about an hour I sipped wine and listened to six very talented writers read their wonderful stories. And I took nothing from them for anything I will write. Except maybe for a little courage.

The readings and the wine combined to relax and open my mind. But they were nothing compared to meeting Zach Houston.

Zach types poems onto sticky labels using a tiny blue typewriter. His hand-lettered sign that advertises his Poem Store stopped us in our tracks. Of course I had to have one. He charges whatever his clients wish to pay for a unique poem, written before their eyes. He asks that the recipient provide him with a theme and then his poetic process takes over. As I waited my turn, I figured out my theme and made a mental note to ask him to make my poem diagonal. As he finished up the poem for the girl in front of me, he mentioned to her that he was psychic. When she and her companion left, he asked for my theme. "Emotion," I answered. It wasn't until he was almost finished that I remembered. "Oh no!" He looked up, "What?" Dismayed, I replied, "I meant to ask you to make it diagonal..." Still looking at me, he said, "I know. It will be." When he'd finished, I saw, early in the poem, in its sixth line, typed long before I'd interrupted him, the word - "diagonal".

Mañana...

...and I do mean it.

Just got back from this!

In a diabolical subversion of a traditional Irish blessing,

the road rose up to taunt me.

Last week the young man who sold me my new running shoes asked me a lot of questions. Since being pulled over last month, I freeze up when anyone in uniform asks me a question. You should have seen the slack-jawed look and heard the accompanying inarticulate explanation of the origin of the sage bundle on the dash when I went through the Agricultural Inspection Station. The uniformed sales staff at Roadrunner Sports are almost as intimidating as those officers who interrogated me, and the questions were harder to answer. "How many miles a week are you running?" stopped me in my tracks. Since he was getting ready to spend time analyzing my step on a special sensor and my stride on a treadmill, I thought he deserved a real answer. "Um...it can't possibly be many...maybe 3 to 4 times five or six." He looked at K., who translated with an audible eye roll, "She goes 15-25 miles a week. I'll be at REI."

But since then, I have been giving it serious thought. So today I chose to run at the State Park because every 10th of mile is painted on the asphalt. That only helps if you remember why you went that way and remember to stay on the asphalt instead of going on to the dirt trail. So I still can't give the information most runners have at the ready when they're asked, "How far do you run?" I don't even want to know how not-far I ran today. I do know it was slow and didn't need that road sign to rub it in!

It's been quite the social wrrl

Bulb out

Spent what little energy I had locating the daily trinity (keys, wallet, phone), thereby avoiding probable pre-work hissy fit tomorrow morning.

Another 8:00AM class...

...another empty promise to get to bed earlier.

Nevada - 10:00ish

ACT II

Me:¡JODER! ¡¿Am I just doing this on purpose now?! He even had to flip a U...¡I SUCK!...He's probably looking at a file of yesterday's episode on some special little screen in his dashboard and putting flashing redblueredblueredblue lights around my name...at least my papers are all organized and easy to find this time...¿WTF is wrong with me? ¿Why do I feel like I have to drive so fast? ...This one's going to cost a lot and then we reallyreally won't be able to fix those scrapes from when I hit the frame of Eric's garage door...¡God, I'm never driving anywhere again! I'm definitely not bringing up yesterday, but if he does I'll accept the consequences...Maybe Idaho and Nevada don't share databases...But what if it's like confession and he asks when I last got pulled over...?

The opening strains of "La bien pagá" sound from my red cell phone in its caddy beneath the gearshift. I want to pick it up and wail to my friend but realize that I can't pick it up, nor should I expect much sympathy when I do talk to her and explain that I couldn't take her call because I was getting pulled over again...


Deputy Sheriff: Good morning, ma'am.
Me: Not so much...here's my license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
DS: (smiling (¡!)) I don't need your insurance card.
Me: The officer who pulled me over yesterday did. Oh, OK...

The opening strains of the theme song to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly sound from my red cell phone in its caddy beneath the gearshift. It is the ringtone I've assigned most callers related to me either through DNA or by the power of the great state of Montana. Definitely don't want to pick up...

Me: Oh, God, I'm sorry...
DS: (still smiling) Not a problem (looking at license)...Valerie. (tone serious now) You were going 64MPH.
Me: (confused look)
DS: The speed limit is 35...
Me:( chagrined) I was still in town! Even though it's Jack Pot, I know it's a town, but maybe a 45 MPH town, not a 35MPH town. I mean, not yet anyway, although it's grown remarkably in the last few years and I wouldn't be surprised if it soon becomes the Las Vegas of Northern Nevada, especially given the water issues this state is facing now...
DS: Is there a reason you're driving so fast?
Me: No, especially not after having already been pulled over not even 24 hours ago.
No, but at least I wasn't speeding and talking on my phone while being from California.
Yes, I always accelerate hard off the green light as a courtesy to the drivers behind me.
No, I just behave as though the law doesn't apply to me.
No, there's no reason for my speeding...excessively...in town...
DS: (looking down at me for an infinity )OK, Valerie, I am going to have to cite you.
Me: I know...
DS: But I'm only going to cite you for 10MPH over.
Me: Why? You don't have to do that...I was... Someone should really call me to task for my transgressions.
DS: We all make mistakes. They say, "don't sweat the small sh stuff." This is pretty small stuff.
Me: (biting lip, fighting tears)
DS: It's OK...I'm going to go back and write this up. It's going to be $187.00. You just wait here, alright? It's OK!

Counting my money. I have $87.00. How do you pay a speeding ticket anyway? In MT, I used to just hand over the $5.00 to the officer and continue on my way. Do they take checks from scofflaws like me? Do I stop at an ATM and go in and pay in person? What day is this? Are they even open?

DS: You OK, Valerie?
Me: Why are you being so nice to me? Yes, thanks, officer...or (looking up at the word on his cap)...should that be "Sheriff?"
DS: I'm one of the deputies. Look, I was watching you from my vehicle. I could tell you're beating yourself up pretty bad. I think I'm feeling kind of sorry for you so I knocked the fine down to 5MPH over.
Me: Don't feel sorry for me! Just give me my ticket! I have my pride and don't want your pity! You shouldn't...I mean, thanks...but the law is...I broke it...Wait - how could you even tell I was feeling bad?
DS: Yeah, I'm going to have to do quite a bit of explaining to the judge as to why I dropped 29 miles over to 5 over. But this way it won't get sent in to the DMV, you won't get points on your license, your insurance won't go up.
Me: Oh no! Don't get in trouble...
DS: Look, I've gotten more speeding tickets in the last couple years than you've probably gotten in your life.
Me: Oh shit! You did see yesterday's! (smiling)
DS: OK, so it's going to be $107.00 and here are the instructions for payment. You can mail it in by August 8. Or, of course, you can show up to court and contest it...
Me: (laughing) No, no contesting. Thanks for being lenient.
DS: No problem. Have a good trip. Drive carefully.
Me: Yes...you too.