Owning & Disowning My Age. And Also: Invisalign.

I had a birthday a few weeks back, and I realized that I'm one of the few people on Facebook whose profile includes the year of their birth. At first I thought, "Yes—I own my age! I'm okay with my age! My youth is long gone, but my wisdom grows! I can afford more expensive shoes! My list of fears has diminished (except for karaoke; I still fear karaoke)! I barely care what people think of me! I know how to do so many things now! My children are really good (at the moment)!"

And the next day I thought, "You are a crazy-ass old woman."

And then, because I am re-reading To the Lighthouse, "You are 'nothing but a sponge sopped full of human emotions.'"

And in subsequent days at subsequent times: "You are a woman of a certain age." "You've still got it, gurl." "You've lost it." "You never really had it, whatever it was." "It's not important, whatever it was." "Eat a brownie." And whatnot.

Anyway.

Here I am, just moment ago, 46 years old and with the fine and not-so-fine lines to show it. It is what it is. Also, it should be noted that I am still rocking the same crooked left tooth I've always had, which inspires me to end with this startling insight: I am too old for many things, but I am not too old for...Invisalign.

I Should Not Be Saying Any of This

This is so not nice of me. This is so crossing-the-line of me. Because it's one thing to blog about your nutso kids when they're 3- or 4- or 5- or...10-years-old, but to blog about them when they're 13-years-old is unforgivable. Truly.

Ha! LIKE I CARE.

Here's a list of things currently twisting me into a knot about my teenage girls:

• Although they have their own phones, they seem to prefer mine. They use their uncanny ability to hone in on my device, snatch it without my knowing, and then use it to take about 40,000 pictures of themselves doing that duck-lip thing that girls do now when taking their pictures. When I asked Vida to explain the phenomenon she said: "It's so we don't look dumb." Got that, everyone? They make duck lips so they don't look dumb.

• They leave their stuff everywhere. I long to tell my mother this, but she would just laugh hysterically and point at me and say something about karma and I would totally deserve it.

• When not engaged in feats of athleticism, they just...loll. They drape themselves over the furniture and twirl their hair and stare into the distance. If I had to imagine what song was playing in their head while this Roman-esque relaxing occurs, it would be that One Direction ditty that's supposed to make me feel tender, but which instead CRACKS ME UP (I don't know what it's called; it's the slow, rhyme-y, extra-corny-with-a-side-of-chees-y one).

• The fact that they can drape themselves in this way, that they are long and lanky and drape-able in this way, also drives me crazy. Or maybe I'm just jealous. Because I was, contrapuntally (what. why are you looking at me like that? is that not a word?), short and squat.

• When one of them is exercising her right as a 13-year-old female to briefly transform into a lunatic, the other one turns into the best kid ever, thus forcing me to become a suburban female version of that Two-Face character from Batman: one side of me responding pleasantly to the Good One, and the other side of me responding like a kraken to the Bad One. And then sometimes I get confused and yell at the wrong one. I think they think this is funny; I think they plan it this way.

Huh. I just read this back, and they don't sound so bad. Must be me...

That Time I Opened A Store

I opened a shop on Black Friday 2012.

More specifically, on Black Friday 2012 I opened a toy shop and soon-to-be playspace. The urge to do this was not unlike the urge (for me) to write: I just wanted to tell a story. It turned out to be a story about two friends who have the best tech-free playroom ever. And they have these eccentric traveling relatives who send them toys from all over: Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Peru, France, Spain, Italy, Vermont, New York, and...um...South San Francisco. And they have parents obsessed with good design and, apparently, the color orange.

Here's command central:

And here's some Danish foxes and monkeys chilling in a French pram:

Here are some very lovely things sitting upon a shelf:

Judging from the expressions of confusion and disconnect that have flitted across the faces of friends and acquaintances, my "walking off the plank" (someone said that!), has caused some confusion. But the truth is that small biz-ownership suits me well. First of all, as I said, this whole undertaking feels like a big story to me. Plus, I love experiential retail; I truly believe that customer service is an art; I thrill to the hunt for beautiful things; and I enjoy tearing the learning curve to shreds.

Oh but wait, there's more: the collection that I curate in the shop reminds me of a simple and sweet time in the lives of my own children. Yes, I have been pleasantly surprised by the tween and teenage years, but the truth is that I miss being able to scoop them up with one arm, plop them on the couch, and read board books together. And then on the flip side of that is that I wanted them to see me do something...not so amorphous. Like most women my age, I'm still a jill-of-all-trades/responsiblities, but now there is at least one thing I do that's simply defined.

Oh my god. I opened a toy shop.

That Time I Went to Salinas

I spent last Saturday in Salinas for "A Conversation of Filipino Writers: Past and Present," an event organized by the now-legendary writer and local educator Oscar Penñaranda (so dapper in his barong Tagalog!). It was held in conjunction with the exhibit "Filipino Voices: Past and Present," which is on display at the National Steinbeck Center through this weekend, I believe. If you miss it, don't worry: this Fall it will be moving to the War Memorial Building in San Francisco. Here's a write-up from the San Francisco Chronicle. Many good folks, including the wonderful Jean Vengua, put a ton of work into this project and it shows and shows and shows.

I had been wanting to see the exhibit, but Salinas is a 90-minute drive and I'm a whiner so I needed a bit of a push. Said push came in the form of an invitation to participate on the morning panel, which was going to be a discussion about pre-1965 Filipino American writers with the central question being: Hey, why is Bulosan the only writer from that era that anyone ever talks about?

I felt a little weird about the invite, mostly because I couldn't figure out why I was invited to be on the panel. First of all, I'm not an academic or an educator and second, I'm not an academic or an educator. So I let the message languish in my inbox until one morning I woke up and thought why not? As in why not venture out of my comfort zone? Why not state my thoughts and opinions about pre-1965 Filipino writers? Why not take a 90-minute drive to Salinas? Why not what the hell oh la di da di da.

I immediately plunged myself into Carlos Bulosan, Bienvenido Santos (my favorite), NVM Gonzales, Wilfred Nolledo, Jose Garcia Villa, and—on the off-chance that I might be able to slip them in to the conversation somehow—Paz Latorena and Estrella Alfon. So this was unspeakably enjoyable to me, all this time spent reading. As it turns out, I did get to say a little about each of these writers: yay! As for the central question of why Carlos Bulosan seems to garner all the acknowledgements and name recognition, I just spoke my mind:

1) people are interested in his writing and his life, what with the inches-thick FBI file, his blacklisting as a Communist, and his work in the multi-ethnnic labor movement.

2) and then his end was distressingly sad: he died in Seattle from malnutrition and tuberculosis.

3) unlike some of the other writers, who came to the United States as pensionados (students) and went on to study at some of this country's most prestigious universities, Bulosan arrived here as a worker who then hobbled together an alternative education for himself, reading and studying widely on his own. I'm impressed by this; this sticks with me.

4) in my opinion, he's the least talented of this group of writers, but he can be engaged with on so many different levels, which is why he maintains his iconic standing.

The other folks on the pre-1965 panel were my buddy multi-genre writer Tony Robles, poet Lou Syquia, and novelist/playwright Cecilia Gaerlan.

Here's a blurry photo taken at the end of the day. With me are a few of the hardworking SFSU students (so young, so young...) who organized much of the goings-on. They were an enterprising bunch, and I suspect we'll see and hear much from them in a few years! Also pictured is the ever-delightful Marianne Villanueva, who I hadn't seen in so very long:

Pivot Left!

If you don't mind, I'm just going to ignore the fact that I've been absent from this space for...oh, a very long time.

{  pivot left !  }

The twinkers are wrapping up their first year of middle school, and I can't lasso all the thoughts pinging around my head. When September started, they were just goofy little nutjob kids. And now here we are in June and, yes, they are mostly still goofy little nutjob kids, but more and more I catch sight of the women they're going to become. And the kind of women they are going to become are the kind of women WHO KICK ASS. They are all about words that begin with "s." They are super studious, social, and studly. I will give you pictorial evidence of the stud-ness:

Why is that silly girl chasing Risa! She will NEVER catch her:

Why would anyone hit a grounder directly to Vida? Vida will scoop it up, whip it to first base, and even though the batter will run with all her might, she will be OUT. So out:

I'm just guessing, but I think it's probably not too easy to be the twins' little sister. In fact, if I were their little sister I would spend most of my waking hours rolling my eyes and making faces whenever they speak. Lea is much nicer than I am, though, so rather than suffocate under the weight of their twin-ness and "s" words, she just makes her own way. She sings and dances and makes people laugh, kind of like a miniature Carol Burnett. When we were in New York City this past April, she plopped herself down in front of the Mad Hatter and proceeded to have a lengthy and quite serious conversation with him. I didn't listen in; some things are private.

The truth is that this has been a triple X crazy year. The truth is that it's only going to get crazier. And the truth is that these three girls are what keep me going.

The Post In Which I Describe My Bummer of a Dream

I'm in the madly spinning vortex of life change. Also, I appear to be a fan of hyperbole. But if you've been with me this long, you already knew that.

I'm at turns bewildered, empowered, super tired, and vaguely elated. Because it takes me longer than the average person (I think) to process this type of life adjustment, it's a challenge to blog about it. But guess what? It's March Madness, and I'm willing to give it the old college try. Though I risk turning you immediately away from this post, I am forced to begin with a line that instantly kills any interest I might have in a conversation: So...I had this dream.

Still with me?

Said dream occurred about two years ago, and it's the only one in my life from which I awoke in a fit of uncontrollable weeping. Simply put, I was in a number of scenarios in which I believed I was fully participating. There was a ride in a horse carriage, a party at which much photograph-taking occurred, dinners at restaurants, etc. A jolly good time, if you will. But eventually I realized, a la Bruce Willis in that whatever-it-was-called-movie, that I was not at all participating in these scenarios because I was...cue spooky music...dead. Then suddenly I was standing in a windy spot somewhere with my father, who was able to see the barely-there me, the bit of me still left. I gave him a hug. "I have to go," I said. And he said, "I know."

And then I woke up, as noted, weeping and attempting to recount the dream to my spousal unit (I'm sure I was fairly incoherent). I am not one to invest an inordinate amount of time deciphering dreams, but this one was a clear call-to-arms. A year later, I finally understood that my childhood, which had lasted 41 years (41 years! how lucky am I?), had come to an end.

So now here I am a grown-ass woman with grown-ass responsibilities that I'm doing my very best to meet. I won't go into details because I want to protect the privacy of others, but I will say that I think I'm doing good. I was a good kid, after all. And good kids turn into good grown-ups.

At the Dialysis Center

I have a new routine. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning I roll myself out of bed quietly at 5:45, tip-toe into the den where I get dressed in the sweats I have left warming near the heater, cross the hall into the kitchen (avoiding the squeaky spot on the floor), retrieve a tin that I have packed with a little fruit and some graham crackers the night before, grab my purse and my keys, and drive five minutes down El Camino to pick up my Dad. Then I take him to the dialysis center, hand him his tin of fruit and graham crackers, drive back home, and crawl back into bed for an hour.

At 9:30, I go back to pick him up. The majority of dialysis technicians at the center are Filipino, and they are unfailingly pleasant and efficient. They call my dad "Tatay" or just "Tay," and they tug his ponytail and say, "You're so Jeproks, Tay!" They tell him to "listen to your daughter," which cracks both of us up.

There are so many stories waiting in that center. The stoic older gentleman in the khakis and the alpine sweater, who never says anything (I helped him once open his can of Ensure, though, and he said, "Oh, thank you very much."); the thin young man from Mexico, whose ride is never on time to pick him up; the wizened guy in the woolen cap who I swear to god cruises me every time I'm there; the young woman who I hope is on the waiting list for a transplant; the man without legs, the woman with no teeth and the one in the blonde wig, the guy who goes on and on about politics even though no one is listening.

So many stories. Maybe I'll tell them one day.

Adventures in Zen Gardening

Not that I'm doing any Zen gardening, mind you. I refer simply to the fact that last week I taught some 4th graders an art lesson about Japanese Zen gardens. This required much rooting around for supplies. First on the list: shoebox tops to serve as garden containers. Where the heck, thought I, am I going to find 30 shoebox tops? I considered emailing the parents and asking them each to send their child to school with one. I thought about randomly raiding my friends' homes. I thought wistfully of all the box tops we had broken down and sent out with the recycling right after the holiday. And, finally (my brilliance takes time, you see), I thought: a shoe store!

So I headed over to a shoe store that shall not be named. At the door I was greeted by a young woman with one of those Madonna headset things (evidently, selling shoes today requires more...communication?...than it used to). "Hello," she said. "Do you need help?"

"Yes. My daughter's class is working on a project, and they need shoebox tops."

She stared at me with nary a glint of oh-I-get-it in her eyes. I explained further: "So I thought I'd come here and ask. Because this is a shoe store. Do you have any shoebox tops?"

"Oh...no," she said, not quite sure of herself. "We don't have any of those."

"Really? 'Cuz this is a 2-story shoe store, so I'm thinking you probably have some shoebox tops."

She looked around. "Well, let me ask someone..."

I left her without saying farewell. I found a manager, who told me to come back at closing time, and she'd give me everything they had. Thank you, manager lady!

Next on the supply list: river stones. Easy.

And then: moss. No problem.

Moving on: twigs, acorns, pebbles. Done!

And, finally: sand. Sand which would be placed in a nice layer at the bottom of the shoebox top, and then raked with a fork into pleasing lines and curves and whatnot. I went to the craft store. They were selling 3/4 lb. bags of sand for $3.49. I figured I needed about 10 lbs. I left the craft store and walked into...KMart. I've never been to KMart before; I will never go to KMart again. And, besides, they did not have sand.

I went to Home Depot. Smallest bag of sand: 60 pounds. They sent me on a semi-goose chase to the lumber department, where a nice man named Jamar whispered, "Have you tried Orchard Supply Hardware?"

I called Orchard Supply Hardware. "Do you have small bags of sand?" I asked. "A ten pound bag, let's say?"

"Yes, we do."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm sure."

Great! I drove to Orchard Supply Hardware, where I accosted the first salesperson I saw. "I need a ten pound bag of sand, please."

Again with the blank stare. "I don't think we have anything that small."

"I just called. The lady on the phone said you definitely have 10 pound bags of sand."

We walked over to some sort of display with various tickets depicting various bags of sand. "You just want, what, regular sand?"

"I guess. Like the kind of sand that goes in a sandbox."

He stared at the display. "Smallest bag is 50 pounds."

I sighed. "Okay. Can I buy the 50 pound bag, take what I need, and leave the rest here?"

"No. We wouldn't be able to do anything with that."

I looked dramatically around the store. "You mean there's absolutely nothing you can do with some sand in this HOME AND GARDEN store?"

His loathing was thinly disguised. "No. We would just throw it away."

"You would throw the sand away?"

"Yes. Uh-huh."

It was at this moment that I thought of the headset-wearing young woman at the 2-story shoe store. I hoped with all my heart that these two people would never meet, never fall in love, and never procreate.

So, anyways: I bought a 50 pound bag of sand. And do you know how much it cost? $4.99! I was grateful for one thing only: that I hadn't purchased 10 bags at $3.49/each at the craft store.

Here's what the kids made:

***

In other news...just yesterday I received a text from the taxi driver who took me back and forth from the airport in New York sixteen months ago. Here's what it said:

Hello Veronica! Happy New Year from crazy New York. May Almighty God Bless u and ur families with Health, Peace, Happiness and lot of money. Tarek, ur Egyptian Taxi Driver.

Happy new year, Tarek! And happy new year to all of you, too!

Oh, Hello.

Are you good at maintaining your car? Rotating your tires, making sure your windshield wiper fluid thing is filled up, and whatnot? I am horrible at this. However, I can only go so long—let's say 6 weeks—before the fire-engine red "CHECK ENGINE OIL LEVEL" light wears me down. Which is how I ended up at Jiffy Lube today with a $450 bill. But that's not the point! The point is that in the Jiffy Lube waiting room they have hot coffee, hot tea, a selection of magazines, and a blaring television.

The television was tuned to The Maury Povich Show (I assume, anyway, that that's what it was called), which I have never before had the pleasure of watching. I have been missing a lot. Today, Maury's distinguished guests agreed to take various tests—lie detector tests, paternity tests, etc.—to prove to the love of their lives that they have been true. There was much weeping and yelling and doubling over in emotional pain. There were uncomfortable and unnecessarily lengthy make-up/make-out sessions. There were several I-told-you-so moments, I-told-you moments, and I-told-you moments. It was riveting.

Next, came Family Feud! I haven't watched this since I was a child! Much has changed. The host is no longer Richard Dawson, aka the Creepy Kissing Bandit, but is instead the personable comedian Steve Harvey. The feuding families were, on one hand, members of a zany roller derby team and, on the other, a cheerful African-American family. The roller derby team was really, really...not very smart. The African-American family was hilarious. When asked the puzzling question, "How do you know when a man's pants are too tight?" one of the females on the team paused dramatically before revealing her answer. And then: "His balls is showing, Mr. Harvey. His balls is showing." And the survey revealed that that was the #1 answer.

As I said, much has changed.

Entertaining as all that was, I'd had my fill. I grabbed a copy of Men's Journal (why do I carry books in my purse when I have no hope of being able to read them, but never when I have 90 minutes available? I do not think ahead! I do not!) and read articles about 1) Daniel Craig and 2) the three NHL enforcers who have recently committed suicide (lesson: it's not good to be an NHL enforcer) and 3) the crazy, cranky, fabulously silver-haired Anthony Bourdain.

I have had several interesting situations occur in my life since I last blogged here, so I'm not entirely sure why this is the one that bubbled up from the depths, but there you have it. Also, I've been wanting to show these disgusting mushrooms to someone. Much to my horror, they popped up in my backyard and grew to almost ten inches before collapsing on themselves and disappearing. Some people have nightmares about knife-wielding masked men; I have nightmares about these mushrooms:

*shiver* Now that I've shared them with you, I don't feel so...alone. Merry Christmas!

The Final Days of November Post

Today Lea was singing along to Adele's Chasing Pavements, her voice as rich as her 9-year-old body could muster. Full of emotion, she crooned, "Should I give up/or should I just keep chasing cavemen..."

Oh, the hilarity.

Also today: my husband pulled up to our house in a cab, jumped out, opened the front door, and kissed me hello. Then he tilted his head to the side. "You look beautiful," he said. And then he ran back outside, jumped into the cab, and was gone again.

Oh, the hilarity. But also: why did he tilt his head like that?

I saw two movies over the weekend, both adapted from graphic novels. We attempted a go at The Descendants, but it was sold out, and so we ended up at...Immortals. It was filled with eye candy in the enviable shapes of Henry Cavill (yay The Tudors!) and the glorious Frieda Pinto; gasp-worthy violence (oh, the poor faux virgin oracles!); a campy Mickey Rourke; and sets that looked like they were straight out of a Hellenic-themed Vegas spa. In other words: so excellent.

On Sunday I took the girls to Hugo, a book much beloved by all three of them. So dreamy, this movie, what with the steam and the snow and the enormous clocks. And the automaton! Anyways, go see it. Make it a holiday gift to yourself.

Let's Just Start Typing

Let's see what happens.

Maybe I'll write about how I hate my printer because regardless of the fact that all ink is fully loaded, it will only print in blue.

Maybe I'll write about how I rue the day we gave the twins their phones because now all they ever do is text and download free apps. I've attempted all sorts of remedies including taking the phones for large blocks of time, normal conversation, heated conversation, yelling, and freaking out. Nothing really works. I'm hoping the novelty will wear off soon.

Lea's "noisemaker," i.e. the little machine that has played white noise in her room all night long since she was born, has up and died. The ensuing drama was not unexpected. "Oh, Mama! Oh noooooo..."

I recently found the blog Letters of Note, which contains all sorts of letters from all sorts of people. The one below is from Roald Dahl, written to a girl who was inspired by The BFG to send him one of her dreams in a bottle. Isn't this so beautiful?:

And that will have to do for now because I'm off to...somewhere...to find a new noisemaker for Lea.

Report from FilBook Fest 2011

Let us begin at the beginning: last Thursday evening at Eastwind Books of Berkeley for a FilBook Fest pre-event, "The Places We Call Home." Because birthday girl Rashaan has such a nice recap at her blog, I'll just add some of my personal highlights:

A few weeks back, Dean Alfar was kind enough to send me several copies of Philippine Speculative Fiction 5 (I'm sending a care package of books in return!), which includes my story, "The Left-Behind Girl." I never thought I'd have the opportunity to read that piece to an audience, so I'm truly grateful to Dean for the books, and to Bea & Harvey for giving us the time and space to share our work at Eastwind.

I was super excited to read with everyone, but especially with Oscar Bermeo and Sunny Vergara because it's the first time I've ever read with them. Here we all are, post-reading, quite happy to be together.

Afterwards, some of us headed over to Burger Meister to eat greasy things and solve all the problems of the world. Of course, much of the conversation revolved around the upcoming weekend's FilBook Fest, which we were all participating in in one way or another.

For my part, I had worked with Cecilia Brainard to put together readings for both days of the festival (I emceed one day, and read on the other; same for Cecilia). They were dubbed, "Hot Off the Press," and a total of 20 writers were featured, each reading and/or presenting for no more than 8 minutes. If you think wrangling 20 authors is easy, well then, Sir, you would be mistaken. Nevertheless, the effort went off nearly hitch-less, and we had a good-size audience both days. Here I am with two readers from the first day, Pacific Rims author Rafe Bartholomew (have you not read Pacific Rims yet? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I'm serious: FIX WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) whose pleasant expression here belies the discomfort he no doubt felt by my insisting every ten minutes that HE IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND. Also pictured is my pal Sunny Vergara, aka The Wily Filipino, who read from his sure-to-knock-everyone-on-their-ass novel-in-progress:


By the way, here is Sunny's excellent review of Pacific Rims.

I spent much of my time in Cecilia's Philippine American Literary House booth, where bookselling was brisk. The crowd wasn't as enormous as it should have been, but those in attendance were eager to chat and buy, so you'll hear no complaints here. Want to see what it looked like from my seat? I bet you do:


The first day of the festival ended with Barbara Jane Reyes and R. Zamora Linmark's reading and, as per their standard operating procedure, they killed it. How can it be that the "Tourist Tips" from Leche get funnier every time I hear them? And I thrill to the first lines of Barbara Jane's "Aswang" (from her book Diwata) no matter how many times I hear them: I am the dark-hued bitch; see how wide my maw, my bloodmoon eyes / And by daylight, see the tangles and knots of my riverine hair. Here they are after their reading. Here, too, are everyone's shoes (you know I love shoe photos):



Afterwards, we set off for Tasty Bear to drink sangria (or, you know, Diet Coke) and eat tapas. There is no proper way to capture in words the hilarity that ensued; it requires a sort of loopy silent film-type treatment, complete with slipping on banana peels, close-ups of women mouthing, "Oh, MY!" and a seance scene where auras and past lives take center stage. Here is a picture of some of my fellow diners—Barbara Jane Reyes, Zack Linmark, Oscar Bermeo, Sunny Vergara, and Kiko Benitez:


For me, day 2 of the festival began with the Hot Off the Press reading, where I was happy to present Angelica's Daughters. I was in the good company of several other women, including (l to r) Cecilia Brainard (Vigan & Other Stories), Sam Sotto (Before Ever After) Tilay Angbetic (Love & Other Firsts), Dr. Lilia Rahman (For the Sake of Louise), and Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto (Traje de Boda). Angela Narciso Torres (Associate Editor, RHINO: The Poetry Forum) is in the back row with me, your Nesting Ground Mistress. Not pictured is the lovely Karen Llagas, who read so beautifully from her book of poetry, Archipelago Dust:


And now I'm suddenly remembering the woman who said to me, "You're married to an American, correct?"

"Yes," I said.

"So what's that like?"

"Um...what part?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And I'm also remembering the delightful young volunteer, an MFA student somewhere in Southern California, who helped me procure my swag bag. "What's your name?" she said.

"Veronica Montes."

"Angelica's Daughters!" she said. "I'm reading it right now!" Later, she said I reminded her of Evelina, and I don't know if she meant celebrated writer Evelina Galang or not, but I'm going to pretend she did.

Finally, here is one of my favorite photos, snapped by Cecilia Brainard. I love talking to everyone, really, but maybe especially to the younger ones. Here I am with some college students who are holding, kindly note, a copy of Growing Up Filipino II:

Wow. That was long.

And Also..Hot Off the Press @ FilBook Fest!

WHAT: Hot Off the Press: 10 Readers @ 8 Minutes Each

WHERE: Koret Auditorium / Lower Level SF Main Library / 100 Larkin St.

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 - 1:30

Saturday's Lineup

(in order of appearance)

• Moderator: Veronica Montes
• Tony Robles - Lakas and the Manilatown Fish, Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel (will be reading poetry)
• Almia de los Santos - Journey to the Beginning - A True Story
• Peter Jamero - Vanishing Filipino Americans: The Bridge Generation
• Cecilia Brainard - Vigan & Other Stories
• Rafe Bartholomew - Pacific Rims
• Sunny Vergara - Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City (will be reading fiction)
• Gloria Ramos - The Whippoorwill, Mirabella's White Boots, Mango Memories
• Romy Honorio - Open Visa: A Novel
• Bob Flor - Daniel's Mood - Mestizos, The FAYTS (Filipino American Young Turks)
• Geraldine Solon - Love Letters, Chocolicious

Sunday's Lineup:

(in order of appearance)

• Moderator: Cecilia Brainard
• Angela Narciso Torres - contributor, Hanggang sa Muli: Homecoming Stories for the Filipino Soul
• Sarita See - The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance
• Karen Llagas - Archipelago Dust
• Veronica Montes - co-author, Angelica's Daughters: A Dugtungan Novel
• Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto - Traje de Boda
• Lilia Rahman - For the Sake of Louise
• Tilay Angbetic - Love & Other Firsts
• Emmie Velarde - Show Biz, Seriously--Entertainment as Life, Life as Entertainment
• Myles Garcia - Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies
• Samantha Sotto - Before Ever After

Hope to see you there!

Eastwind Books, September 29th, 7:00

You know what's coming up? Events are coming up! You should totally come because I haven't seen you in FOREVER (whoever you are)! Plus, I love this line-up; it's going to be a beautiful evening.

The Places We Call Home

September 29th, 7:00 pm

Eastwind Books of Berkeley

2066 University Ave.

A literary event in celebration of the upcoming

Filipino American International Book Festival

Oscar Bermeo was born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpset, Heaven Below, and To the Break of Dawn.

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the award-winning author of eight books, including the internationally-acclaimed novel When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Magdalena, and Vigan and Other Stories.

Rashaan Alexis Meneses earned her MFA from Saint Mary's College of California's Creative Writing Program, where she was named a 2005-2006 Jacob K. Javits Fellow and awarded the Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz Scholarship for Excellence in Fiction.

Veronica Montes is the co-author of Angelica's Daughters, as well as a short story writer whose work has appeared in Bamboo Ridge, Growing Up Filipino I & II, and Philippine Speculative Fiction 5.

Barbara Jane Reyes is a recipient of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets and the author of Diwata, which was recently noted as a finalist for the California Book Award.

Benito M. Vergara, Jr. was born and raised in the Philippines. He is the author of Displaying Filipinos: Photography and Colonialism in the Early 20th-Century Philippines and Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City.

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The next event is the Filipino American International Book Festival itself, coming up on October 1 & 2. I'll be hanging out in Cecilia Brainard's PALH booth, as well as facilitating an event on day 2. But more on that later! I'm in the middle of much personal upheaval, as Risa and Vida are currently finishing up their first week of middle school which, I'm relieved to report, is not even remotely close to The Place of Terror and Pain and Rejection and Sadness that I was fretting about earlier in the year. Nevertheless, you can expect an angst-ridden post on this latest milestone. Until then, I remain...

Your True and Occasional Blogger

#IShouldBeWritingForReal

A newsletter came through my e-mail inbox the other day, and because the newsletter was pleasing to my eye, I read it (though I cannot remember what it was called or who sent it). It contained a single article which took as its premise the fact that expressing ourselves via Facebook status updates or 140-character Tweets has a benumbing effect on our attempts at longer, more circumspect writing.

I remember reading recently about a songwriter who became addicted (his word) to Twitter and the lure of what amounts to a sound bite. He had legions of followers, all awaiting his pithy, clever little tweets and thus fueling his desire to send out even more zingers. The only problem was that thinking and writing in microbits began to affect his work to such an extent that he could no longer write songs. I can't recall how it all ended, but I believe he went cold-turkey on the tweeting. Good for him, I say.

Some counter this argument by pointing out that it is, indeed, mundane facts (what we ate for lunch is the classic example) that help us forge connections with each other. To this I want to say, "Really?"

Anyways, The Actual Truth, as usual, probably lies somewhere between. I will admit, though, that when I was recently working on a short story, the feeling I had was one of extreme luxury. It felt like I'd been sleeping on a tiny cot for two weeks, and then suddenly someone delivered me unto a king-size featherbed. Except the feathers were letters and I was rolling all over them and laughing. I don't know if the story works, but it felt good to write it. Better, even, than offering up a droll tweet or an amusing status update.

I do have a thing for the Facebook "Like" button, though.