Memories of Mom, or Why I Enjoy the Macabre

Mom left Dad, again, and we were driving from East Texas to New Mexico. There was a horrible accident on the flatlands, and Mom pulled over to do the looky-lou thing. I might have been six.

Cars were turned over, and on one the windshield had a head-sized hole in it. There was hair and blood around the jagged edges. People were talking about searching for an infant that had been thrown from the car that rolled. They were searching a field.

There were bodies strewn around and covered with blankets. Under one, a woman's manicured left hand protruded.  Mom stared for a long time at the hand, so I did, too.  The hand didn't look particularly dead.  Their were dimples at the knuckles, and the skin around her wedding rings was puffy, like she'd been retaining water.

We stared a bit longer.  Then, in a tone like she wished Dad were present so he'd see what she saw, Mom said, "Those are exactly the style of ring I've been telling your dad I want."

A Brief Update on My Life

I'm off to give a break to my bro who has been caring for our elderly mother. She seems to be giving up, doesn't want to do much to help herself. It'd be just like her to die in my care. And right before Mother's Day.

On the upside, I have a story in the Latinos in Lotusland anthology, which Dan Olivas edited, and we're doing readings starting later this month. My youngest son is graduating from Reed College, and my older one has been accepted into grad school at USC.

I've lost ten pounds, and my arms and legs are quite shapely. Stomach is flat, but (the writer's lament) my ass is unwavering in dimension. Have not worked on my second novel much. But have started to feel at loose ends, which is a sign I need to get back to writing. Going public with it here.

At Long Last, Latinos in Lotusland Arrives

Just received my hardcover and paperback copies of this book. Isn't it beautiful? I am so pleased to be a part of this group of illustrious authors, including Reyna Grande, John Rechy, Luis Rodriguez and Helena Maria Viramontes, and so many others.

From Bilingual Press: Spanning 60 years of writing, Latinos in Lotusland portrays vivid accounts of complex and entertaining characters that bring to life the diverse and soulful communities that comprise Southern California, from East L.A. to Malibu, from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley, from Venice Beach to El Sereno.


Our editor was the eminent Daniel A. Olivas, an award-winning author of four books. He says, "I grew frustrated with the constant barrage of imagery that portrayed Southern Californians as chronically superficial and greedy . . . I wanted fiction readers to encounter the incredible diversity that is the heart of Los Angeles and surrounding communities."


My story is called "Lana Turner Slept Here," and concerns a motorcycle cop and the very pregnant woman he pulls over in Malibu.


Go to LA Observed
for more on this book:

Requiem for Shirley Mae

My stepmother was the second most influential woman in my life.

It’s been eight years since she died, alone, still holding onto the myth of love, honor, and success she’d created around my father.

That doesn’t mean Shirley Mae was a “good” person. Nurturing, no. Generous, no. Friendly, no. Shirley Mae didn't like children, but since she was my father's third wife the odds were against her:­ he already had four. I was the lone girl in the bunch.

She was the only model of a woman working in the business world that I had as a child. My father respected her for her smarts; they were in business together.

If she’d given me love, would I have returned it? Yes . . . but with a bite. Shirley Mae bit first, her psychodynamics more important than mine. She did it in the coldest way possible for an impressionable twelve-year-old: she ignored me completely. Visiting for a few weeks during the summer were one thing, but when I decided to take up my dad’s offer to come and live with him, the lid blew off their stalemate.

At the dinner table, from which my father was increasingly absent, Shirley Mae and I sat across from each other, and never uttered a word. I could stare directly at her and never fear being rude. I existed at the gnat level for her, annoying but for the most part invisible.

My stepmother was high-strung, with facial ticks that caused her to grimace, and unblinking, cold green eyes. She occasionally required electric shock therapy. But I only found out about the latter when I’d grown up and started a family of my own. That was after a thirteen-year stint of no communication with my father. It had once been easy to cast her as evil stepmother, and my dad as unthinking but lovable dupe. But the truth was that he used us all, told us he loved us, but rarely demonstrated it. He cheated on everyone.

That is when I learned the power of the “love” word. It took Shirley Mae years longer to shake his hold on her. She was mad with love for him, and she had to go a bit madder to stay with him to the absolute, unrecognizable end.

While going through a box of her memorabilia recently, it became clear to me that her particular obsession was with death and numbers.

In the box was a 3x3 date book where she had written people's birthdays in her tiny, precise writing. The date book is from 1976, obviously saved and recycled for Shirley's not so happy Hallmark memories since her notations have little to do with that year.

She noted the day of people's deaths, people I’d never met, as well as the days my father fell, the injuries he incurred and the damage he did to the furniture, "Bill falls against T.V., breaks short ribs, knocks over cart." Throughout 1991 -1995 there were a series of these tumbles. He drank. He had strokes.

The births, deaths, accidents, and miscellany she recorded included the year of the event. Clearly, the date --- the numbers --- were important to Shirley.

She liked writing in pencil on the back of cash register receipts, the old kind that came on rolls for printing calculators. The calculations were intriguing, redolent of numbered accounts, but she'd scissor them into 2x4 slips for incessant list making, rendering it impossible to deduce what the heck she was adding and subtracting.

Family rumor had it that my father had married her for her money. I think it was for her talent with math, her organizational skills, and her ladylike whiteability. My mom had none of that; she and by extension my brother and I were not even included in my paternal grandfather’s obituary and list of grandchildren. But I can’t place the blame for that on Shirley’s doorstep; that was the work of another woman, and a story for another day --- my paternal grandmother.

Here are Shirley Mae and my father during their courting days.

During a particularly bad month of Dad being in-and-out of the emergency room, Shirley felt compelled to write down all the births and deaths of his side of the family, which she paper clipped to the page: computing longevity, I guess.

In her book of days, she included the births of puppy litters, the deaths of dogs, and notably April 11, "Coco bites my arm." Coco was my dad's Chihuahua. Unconnected, in a different month and year, a visiting nurse accidentally backed over Coco. Notation: Coco 26 bills $1732.53 plus.

Shirley lasted three years after my dad died. Her little clippings and notes turned religious, and she started calculating the longevity of her side of the family.

I finally made the list on the plus side (not dead yet), and she began to include the days of the week everyone had been born.

She said I was born on a Sunday. My own mother didn't even know that.

From Shirley's Book of Days:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

Traditional Nursery Rhyme

Shirley Mae and Dad right before the end:


A picture to be shared with family, which I never received.

The Mothers of Invention

Notes from the second annual convention reported by Gaia

The hundred hellos and hugs, kisses smacking at empty air next to powdered cheeks, sneezes and giggles, shuffling and exultant whispering filled the convention center with a muffled din, like children playing in a discarded refrigerator. The sound tapered off when the Mistress of Ceremonies approached the podium.

“Our earth is changing and we must change with it. We are The Mothers of Invention!” She paused to allow the surge of feverish applause to wash over her.

“In the civilized world the birth rate is dropping even as the children we produce are increasingly affected by various disorders. How many mothers here today have children with Attention Deficit Disorder? Let's see a show of hands. How many with children who have uncontrollable facial and body tics? Autism? Anorexia? Bulimia? Obesity?”

Wave after wave of female hands rose to the air. Some mothers waved both hands. The M.C. paused, and her eyes swept the audience before she continued, “Children who spend hours in front of the computer? Hours in front of the television?”

Her questioning was relentless, edged with maternal vengeance. “Who relish violence and never ride their bikes? Who resist peer pressure by killing their classmates?”

The mothers remembered and were quickly at their limit. They nodded their heads, gritted their teeth and clamped their rectums tightly shut in angry agreement.

Satisfied with the tumult, the speaker looked to her right. “It is my great honor to present today a mother who has fought against impossible odds and triumphed.

"As you know, her son, Dr. V. Newt Matra, perfected laboratory-grown skin for burn victims. Through foresight, careful manipulation of her child's emotions, artful management of his destructive impulses and little property damage or loss of life, she has raised a child who is giving something back to the world.

"I present to you, the Mothers of Invention Award for Outstanding Mother of the Year, Kali Matra.”

A petite matron in a crisp linen suit rose to accept her award. She hugged the M.C., who whispered encouragement in her ear. Ms. Matra dabbed her eyes and turned to face the women from the podium. As always, the honoree began at the beginning. The women expected this. The following is her story, in her words:

“I’ve cheated on my husband. Yes, and lied to the authorities. I’ve risked all our lives.
Yes, yes, it’s true. But if I hadn’t, my son would be dead. And you might be, too. His invention has saved countless lives. My son, Newt. Yes, he has. But first he had burning to do.

“I conceived him on an ordinary Saturday morning. The mail arrived at the usual time. ‘National Geographic!’ I yelled up to my husband. When we married, Ken and I each had a collection of the magazine stretching back to our childhoods. There was something magical about the photographs, and it was easy to get lost in both the micro and the macro of those other worlds.

“I spread the enclosed map of the earth's rainforests, a composite of the earth taken by satellite from the cool stillness of space, on the dining room table. The earth was ablaze, and I began to sweat at the sight of it. No longer a hopeful watery blue and green ball, it held streaks of blazing orange with swirls of smoke sending off warning signals to any interested parties.

“My husband approached me from behind. He brushed his palms across my breasts, barely touching. My nipples reached out for his fingertips, ready. ‘Hmmm, Kali, what's gotten you so hot and sweaty?’

“ ‘The destruction of the rainforests and the widening hole in our atmosphere,’ I said.

“I found it difficult to breath, but spread my legs anyway. With palms flat on the table and my knees slightly bent, I continued to catch glimpses through half-closed eyes of the arc of fire encircling our world. I could smell the musky sizzle of primeval forests and feel the hot breath of destruction on my skin. The flame, the burning torch between my legs, burning hole in the ozone, burning, burning.

“ ‘Burn, baby, burn,’ my husband said.

“My heartburn began shortly thereafter. And not long after that the doctor confirmed my pregnancy. I was huge with my son and he wouldn't be still, always pressing, always hungry. But when I fed him, it was never enough, never the right food. So he'd punish me by setting fires in my gut. He'd make the heat rise up my esophagus, searing delicate tissue. I never farted in my last trimester, only belched the fiery rebellion of my precious pyromaniac. I complained to my husband of my physical discomfort.

“ ‘Native-American women have babies by themselves in the woods,’ he said.

“Newt was born and wore sunglasses as he lay on a tanning bed at the hospital. His first word was ‘hot.’ I learned to hide the matches. We bricked in the fireplace. He ignited dry tinder by aiming the sun's rays through the thick bottom of a highball glass, and small fires appeared around the backyard.

“To teach him the effects of fiery destruction, we followed fire trucks all over the city. On the scene, Newt's eyes glowed satanically like a bad Polaroid. The local firemen laughed when I asked them to teach my 3-year-old fire safety. I had no other choice but to seduce the fire captain. Newt's backyard fires were soon halted by strategically dug trenches and artful backfires.

“ ‘A well-planned burn can lead to new growth,’ the captain promised.

“The neighbors complained of the smoke. We moved. Newt joined the boy scouts. A raging forest fire appeared near his troop's campsite.

“ ‘Send him to military school,’ my husband said.

“One day at the library, Newt saw a horribly scarred man. I told him the story of the boy whose father set him afire while he slept. The child lived encased in skin that would not grow with him.

“ ‘His father did it,’ Newt repeated, over and over to himself.

“Later that day, I smelled burning fur and heard high-pitched squeaks. He was experimenting with his hamster.

“ ‘Commit him,’ my husband said.

“We visited a local burn unit. I slept with the head resident. Soon our basement was outfitted with a full-scale lab and mini burn unit. Experiments continued on rodents and advanced to cats and dogs.

“ ‘Fetal cells are engines of life. They inspire,’ Newt said. ‘A well-planned burn can lead to new growth.’

“ ‘I'd like a chaste daughter who would adore me,’ my husband said.

“I watched a documentary on glacial melt. The hole in the ozone liquefied the polar caps. Huge chunks of ancient ice sloughed off the maternal core. My husband stroked my frigid thighs. The resulting oceanic slush raised goose bumps on my flesh. Meltdown.

“My daughter was born too soon and at home. Her fingers and lips turned cold and blue. Huge head with watery defrosting matter inside. What could I do? There was still magic in her brainless embryonic cells. I let my son have her.

“I let Newt have his father, too. My husband and I had tried hot, we had tried cold
— there was no in-between, you see? Asleep when the fire was set, his pain was brief — we rescued him quickly.

“ ‘My son. Burning . . . son,’ my husband said. Newt held his father's hand in the recovery room.

“His daughter's cellular glue and his son's burning love saved him. It brought us together as a family.”

The screen behind Ms. Matra lit up with a larger-than-life family portrait of Newt embracing both his parents, who stand on either side of him. His father smiles at the camera, but Newt and his mother are smiling at each other. Kali swept her hand toward the screen, her voice resolute:

“This, too, can be yours. Take account of your child’s inclinations. Don’t turn away from the bad, turn the bad your way. Do whatever it takes: lie, steal, or cheat for your child. Your children. They are our future, and we can do it. We are their mothers. We are the Mothers of Invention!”

The audience stood as one, their hope for their children renewed. They surrounded Kali, the victorious mother. Each woman clapped louder than the next, doting on the impossible, planning to divert the inevitable with her mothering energy.

Appeared in “Hell Hath No Fury,” 2004

Not Your Erotic Not Your Exotic: Suheir Hammad

I like this:

Vegas, babee

The Scream, Lucky Cheng's

I'm in a danger zone.

I've always enjoyed breaking rules, not so much testing the boundaries. There is a difference which we can discuss if you like.

I'm susceptible to my own fantasies, ridiculouly unafraid of bad judgement, see little value in postponing gratification but do it regularly.

I'm fed up with my own maturity.

So I decided to go to Las Vegas.

Me. Lucky Cheng's.

My brother and his partner flew in from New Mexico, and I drove up from Los Angeles to see Bette Midler at Caesar's. This blog is not about her. There are time jumps in this narrative, kind of like my best night in Vegas. There is also ChiChi.

Before the lights of the city came the drive.

Some of the weather on the road to Vegas: light spatters in L.A. Dense fog on the I-15. Love entering those patches, especially when there is no highway line as touchstone. Heavy winds battered the car and turned into a thick sandstorm, followed by heavy rains which washed us clean. A rainbow arced from snow capped mountains to dry plain, and I slowed under it, hoping for a tingle. Volcanic memories poked up through ashy sand, dappled through clouds by the sun.

Just me and my vehicle and music and weather. Getting out of L.A. No one to please but myself.

Ever been the third wheel with a couple who is bickering?

This was my first go. Didn't notice the tension between them for a long time because I was . . . well, let’s just say I was high on life and enjoying some quality me-with-me time. When I did notice, they were each walking off in opposite directions --- the high drama huff.

I was alone, trapped in Caesar's Palace which seemed to cover half of Vegas. Couldn't find my way out. Did some booze-ridden shopping. Got a taxi to go downtown, and then changed my mind, and met another friend who was gambling at Wynn's.

We had a late night snack at a Japanese restaurant, Okada. I invented a new drink here --- Jasmine Gin, which prepared me for our next adventure at Lucky Cheng's, where I was outrageous, but the place called for it.

ChiChi