I feel better after a nasty cold/sore throat/lost voice a couple of weeks ago.

There’s only two more weeks of summer school teaching left!

I finished writing a grant that I had been working on for a few weeks. I’m trying to find ways to write (nearly) full time next year. This grant actually had a ‘first part’ to it. Or first round. And THAT took me several weeks as well, back in March. So I found out a month ago that I made it through the first round of the grant ‘auditions’– here’s what they said:

“Congratulations! We have reviewed your inquiry, and it is with great pleasure that we invite you to submit a full application.

2068 artists submitted Inquiry Forms in the three disciplines under review: Emerging Fields, Innovative Literature, and Performing Arts. Each inquiry was read by two distinguished arts professional from the designated discipline, helping us determine which 687 proposals to advance to the application stage.”

I was one of 2068 who sent in an the Inquiry Form and now i’m one of 687 who are moving to the next level–the Application Phase…!

Yay! I’d much rather be one of 687 than one of 2068. It just sounds better.

Ted wonderfully helped me with this second stage– where I had to give them a budget estimate for my project (my project being my new book), a work sample, and any update/changes on my project description.

I learned it’s not easy to write a budget. Ted’s good with numbers so he really helped out with that one.

I’ll keep you posted. AND I promise more posts now that that hurdle is jumped.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Ted and our cat, Betsy, that I snapped (more like snuck… he was completely asleep. snoring. they both were) yesterday morning.

Angels, aren’t they?

Ted and his baby.

Feel free to insert a caption of your own for the set of pictures!

Here’s mine:

Oh, Betsy. Let’s just say the apple doesn’t fall far from that tree…

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love crazy T-shirts. Occasionally i’ll wear a T-shirt to teach in, but sometimes I worry that that i’m dressing too casual for teaching (though i’ve seen other teachers in shorts and flip-flops). When I wear T-shirts to work I usually try to wear a light jacket over it so that the students can somewhat see the zany T-shirt but it looks somewhat more professional.

I still haven’t ever found a true Mustache Rides T-shirt. They used to sell them at Urban Outfitters but I haven’t seen them there in a long time. No doubt I could find one online somewhere. In fact, I did find this groovy Mustache Ride T-shirt featuring Burt Reynolds, that I might just have to get:

<–It’s Burt Reynolds– the original Mustache Ride!

(from Threadpit–a new T-shirt discovery)

Speaking of Threads… it’s been too long since i’ve ordered a Tshirt from one of my favorite online T-shirt companies, Threadless.

Here are a couple i’m coveting:

Being Vague–Buy it here.

and

Gay Pride (in honor of all of the Pride Events starting this month!). I love this Gay Pride shirt, designed by Nicholas Bright. Buy it here.

My Garden.

I’m finally getting my garden to grow. It’s actually just out on our front patio, but after about 3 months i’m finally seeing results! Yay! The first time i’ve ever grown vegetables (and fruits).

Last week Ted and I ate the first ripe Patio tomato– and it was Dee-licious. Here’s the story of my tomato in pictures–as you can see, the story ends with our lovely tomato being sacrificed on a fresh chicken salad.

We also now have yellow teardrop tomatoes

Just one nearly ripe teardrop tomato but as you can see we have several more on the way.

Salads for everyone!

And… we have Cayenne Peppers growing

Hot, right?!

Ok, since i’m a novice green thumb does anyone know:

1.When should I pick the Cayenne Pepper/s and what should I do with them?

2. Should I get those ‘cage’ thingys for my sprawling, out of control tomato plants?

3. What other vegetables and fruits are easy to grow? (i’m kind of having fun with this!).

Gee I wish I had that hair again.

So Ted and I saw the family on Friday up at Camp Pendleton. My brother-in-law is retired Navy and every summer my sister and her husband and my dad and step-mother and little brother and sister and older sister and her family and me and Ted all meet up at Camp Pendleton where you can camp on the beach, or rent cottages near the beach. This year, though, my sister and her hubby and my dad and step mom all bought RVs (well, my sis actually bought a trailer). So they RV’d it.

The beach there is beautiful, but Ted and I get a little nervous driving our Honda Civic, with the Obama 08 sticker, the rainbow flag, and the ACLU sticker onto the base.

We had a great day, though, sitting on the beach, watching Marines and sailors flirt with underage girls (like my little sister), BBQing, playing with our 10 month old niece, and listening to my dad’s stories True-Crime stories.

My dad can tell a story like no one else I know. He talks about his various jobs, his travels through Europe while in the service– and when he talks he moves his arms wildly and his face lights up (or, rather, gets red and puffy), and uses phrases like “You wouldn’t believe it…” or “I thought I was a gone-er for sure!”

We grew up with these stories but mostly brushing them off (because we’d often hear the same ones over and over, only more elaborated as the years passed). But now I like listening to them. And Ted can sit listening to him for hours (or maybe he’s afraid to offend my dad and leave the room).

<Ted listens intently to Dad’s story

My father and I have a good relationship now, after years of distance and resentment and guilt and shame. When I came out to him he didn’t speak to me for almost six months, and then for ten years after he never spoke of me being gay, rarely asked about my life or who was in it. But when I met Ted I decided to not let that happen anymore. He met Ted in 2005 (after we had been together for a little over three years), and we see him (and my step mother) more now than I ever did in my 20s. And they adore Ted. My father asked us Friday when we are going to have kids of our own. Funny how time changes people. How people grow and evolve and learn.

And I’ve come to realize that my father and I are probably more alike than we would want to admit. That maybe I get my ’storytelling’ talents from him.

Cyd Charisse died today in Los Angeles at age 86.

Read her obit here in the New York Times.

And see her paired marvelously with Fred Astaire in The Bandwagon.

I just finished my teaching semester last week and this week I started teaching summer school, so I had about, umm, three days off in between. They call that a weekend.

On top of that i’ve got a cold, that feels to me like bronchitis, and I even lost my voice yesterday and for part of today (both times before or while I was teaching my class). Fun times. I’ve never lost my voice before.

Now I just sound like a cross between Demi Moore and James Earl Jones (I was going to say I sound like Selma Diamond but does anybody even know who Selma Diamond is anymore?).

I’m going away for the weekend– and promise to blog more when I get back.

I’m especially excited about Louise Erdrich’s new book, The Plague of Doves, that I started a few days ago. It’s stunning. Michiko Kakutani calls it her “most ambitious and … most deeply affecting work yet” in the NYTimes.
It originated as a short story in the NewYorker four years ago– read it here. I’ll talk more about it next week; i’ve already been picking out my favorite lines.

And finally, today, while parking at the mall in La Jolla, no less, to buy my nephew a birthday present I saw a bumper sticker that said : The Dixie Chicks Were Right! (photo from Adelphia.net)

Awesome.

********************************** Editor’s Note:

This Just In! I just discovered that Selma Diamond had an album (at least one, there might be more) out in 1960. It looks like a comedy album. Here’s the photo of the album and description:

STLP 5001 - Selma Diamond Talks…and Talks…and Talks… - Selma Diamond [1960] About “NOW”/About Being Single/About Men And Marriage/About “THEN”/About Four Minutes, 25 Seconds Long/About Her Aunt.

I’m SO Ebaying this.

So, tonight is the 2nd Photobooth reading. You might remember the first.

Or maybe you were there? In any case, tonight will be more of the same: a bunch of people (well, 5 to be exact) responding through readings to various photobooth photos– some vintage/old, some new, some borrowed, some… well, you get the point.

This time Ted’s one of the readers! Yay. It’s not often I get to read with my hubby.

Here’s the info:

Photobooth 2 Reading–Tonight 9pm (though it probably will start around 9:30ish)

WhistleStop Bar

2236 Fern Street

San Diego (South Park area) 92104

DJ set by the Deadbirds, drinks, take your own Photobooth Photos courtesy of Photoboof.

Readers: Ryan Griffith, Rob Williams, Sydney Brown, Ted Gideonse, and Jess Jollett.

Here’s the poster/flyer:

<–click to make it bigger!

Hope to see you there.

and here are some cool photobooth pics:

(beyonce courtesy of MFI).

The New York Times Book Review asked a handful of writers to recommend books for the presidential candidates. (JFK photo from Conelrad.com)

I love love love Junot Diaz’ words and John Irving and Francine Prose are pretty wonderful, too.  And then there’s Gore Vidal…

Here are some of the higlights:

LORRIE MOORE

For Obama: “The Portrait of a Lady,” by Henry James. A virtuous orphan is plotted against by a charming, ruthless couple the orphan once trusted and admired.

For Clinton: “Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare. The timeless tale of how untethered ambition and early predictions may carry a large price tag.

For McCain: “Tales From the Brothers Grimm.” In case more are needed.

* * * * *

JUNOT DÍAZ

I believe in books as only a deep reader can, but even I cannot imagine that any book would change any of our candidates. But just in case:

McCain: War Hero needs to read his fellow Vietnam vet Joe Haldeman’s novel “The Forever War.” McCain’s willingness to keep the nation in Iraq for, say, 100 years is a sign that for all his war hero posturing McCain has truly forgotten the young people we’ve damned to this folly we call Iraq. Perhaps Haldeman’s marvelous novel will crack Pharaoh’s heart. But don’t bet on it.

Hillary: What to recommend to a driven, brilliant, flawed woman who has no problem threatening to obliterate Iran, should they attack Israel? I recommend Peter Balakian’s “Black Dog of Fate,” in an attempt to cure her of her genocidal impulses. Armenians know all about being “obliterated,” and perhaps that nation’s suffering and miraculous survival will crack Pharaoh’s heart. But don’t bet on it.

Obama: A warrior-hearted black man running for president in a country that bends over backward to deny its white supremacist tendencies? Now here’s a cat who truly is an optimist, who really believes. For the honorable senator I recommend Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony,” a) because it’s a perfect novel about our country and b) because “Ceremony” is all about love and hope, and Senator Obama is going to need a ton of both to get through this one with his warrior-heart intact.

* * * * *

JOHN IRVING

…And poor old John McCain — who is even older and more old-fashioned than I am — should be forced to read Evan S. Connell’s “Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn.” With all due respect for Senator McCain’s military education and his heroic service in Vietnam — and as truly dumbfounded as I am by his support of the war in Iraq — I sincerely urge Senator McCain to read Connell’s brilliant account of the utter folly of Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. With any luck, and stubborn though he is, he might learn that engaging the enemy isn’t always such a swell idea.

* * * * *

FRANCINE PROSE

I’d advise all three candidates to take a brisk march through the Norton Anthology of American Literature, as well as certain American classics, for a crash (or refresher) course in who — as a nation — we are, and how we got to be this way: Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards for a notion of how important it is to resist our country’s periodic eruptions of harsh, punitive Puritanism; “Moby-Dick” for (among other things) a warning about the dangers of fanaticism and monomania; Walt Whitman for his passionate humanism, his celebratory spirit, his love of the physical and of the body; Emily Dickinson for an essential dash of mystery and beauty; “Huckleberry Finn” for its wit, its trenchant social analysis, its moral conscience; and the sermons of Martin Luther King for a model of the heights that rhetoric and oratory can reach. Finally, I’d suggest they read Fanny Trollope’s “Domestic Manners of the Americans” and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” as helpful reminders of the fact that someone with a bracing sense of humor and a highly developed consciousness of the absurd is (whether they know it or not) always present, always watching everything they do.

* * * * *

GORE VIDAL

I can only answer in the negative: I want them not to read The New York Times, while subscribing to The Financial Times.

Read the entire article here.

I finally read the wonderful piece on Frank O’Hara’s writing by Dan Chiasson from April 7. (photo from TheNewyorker.com)

I’ve been a fan of Frank O’Hara for some years now, ever since the brother of an ex-boyfriend gave me a postcard with the poem “Lana Turner Has Collapsed” on it:

Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up.

I have several of O’Hara’s collections– including the luminous Lunch Poems.

The NewYorker article explored many of the poems that I didn’t know of and provided such great insight to the ones I did.

Also, I discovered the following line, that is going to be my mantra (from the poem “Ave Maria”):

Mothers of America

let your kids go to the movies!

Read Dan Chiasson’s terrific essay here.

I don’t remember how I discovered Etsy–oh, wait, yes I do, it was an ad in ReadyMade Magazine.

I’m getting to the purpose of this post in a moment, I swear.

Anyway, I went to a birthday party last week, for two friends (that I met through Eduardo) who are just about as cool as Etsy (not to mention they are two of the most attractive people in San Diego). At the party was this neato woman who had the funniest tattoo. It was a moustache, tattooed to her finger, so that when she put her finger under her nose it looked like a little drawn ’stache under her nose. It was hilarious. I’m probably really behind the times on this but it was new to me.

I discovered it’s called a fingerstache and apparently it’s sweeping the country. There’s even a wikipedia entry about it (of course).

It got me thinking about how much I love mustaches. (ok, I just typed moustaches, but my spell check told me it was wrong!–what gives? Is moustache the European spelling and mustache the redneck spelling?).

A few months ago, you may remember, I bought this fun felt badge with a mustache on it (from MooseandBear– a great Etsy seller).

So yesterday I decided to do a search on Etsy for more mustache items and low and behold there are a TON! It’s easy– all you have to do is type in “Mustache” (or Moustache) in the search engine on the Etsy website, and a whole bunch of Moustache items appear, such as:

These ginger mustaches– party favors for your guests to wear. (from the seller Lupin)

This Ron Burgundy felt doll with that funky lil ’stache. (from Kezzaroo)

This mustache book bag. (from Eriogonum)

This awesome print, called “Mustache Princess” (from CuriousZoo)

This freaking crazy pillow! which comes with velcroed mustaches!

MUST HAVE THIS PILLOW (from sallyenglanddesign) There’s also a smaller version of the pillow.

And, of course, the item i’m STILL pining for…

The Mustache Comb Necklace. (by Makool)

Sigh.

Wouldn’t I look cool with that? Tiny running shorts on, and striped tubesocks pulled up to my knees, my shirt unbuttoned down to my navel and the mustache necklace swinging like a pendulum between my chiseled pecs?