Azteca's again
11:19 a.m. - 2004-02-26

I had an exam on Tuesday. It was in my Chaucer class; we had to translate three passages and then explain the general meaning and social implication and then do the same for the underlined words which were an average of eight underlined words per passage. When I got home, I drank a cold beer. The writing, the actual physical writing, was the most stressful part of the ordeal.

This may take a while to be completed because it looks like we�ll have to start loading boxes to take to storage. We have about twenty Xerox paper boxes full of old manuscripts. I�ve never been able to understand why we keep all that, but I suppose if we ever have one of our books nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize, those old manuscripts would be worth something.

I should be paying off some of our vendors instead of typing this entry, but I figure they can wait. Their check won�t be cut until a week from now and it doesn�t matter whether I process their payment now or this afternoon.

Last night, I was supposed to go to a reading for Nuestra Palabra. They were going to have Sergio Troncoso. He�s from El Paso, like me. He went to the same high school that my siblings went to and now he�s a professor at Harvard. I bought his book Tortilla Soup, but for some reason, I haven�t been able to get through it. It just didn�t grab my attention.

So anyway, Gabi and Caro pick me up after class to go to the reading. When I get on the truck, Gabi�s like, �Hey, you want to go to Azteca�s? Troncoso�s not gonna read until maybe eight thirty and it�s only seven?�

�Sure. I have no problem with that,� I replied.

Caro stayed quiet because this had probably been discussed prior to picking me up.

�I don�t really like him that much,� said Gabi.

�Yeah, there�s something about him I don�t like,� I said.

�It�s just that Meredith really likes him,� she said. (Aside note: Meredith is this �friend� of my sister�s that she met at a summer institute, she teaches at UTEP and when she was asked to review Gabi�s anthology, she gave her a horrible review. It�s not because she�s my sister, but Meredith is extremely jealous of Gabi.)

So that is how we ended up at Azteca�s until Chris, our server, said, �It�s last call ladies, can I get you another margarita?�

Of course we said no, we had had about three by that time which roughly equals six margaritas.

Anyway, last night, I got my coat waxed. What the? Yeah, well, Gabi and Caro were so proud of me because I sent in my submissions for Sarah�s anthology yesterday. They said that I am going to be �the best fucking writer out there.� I wouldn�t say that, but hell, if I can somehow manage to publish a book, I�ll be happy. Perhaps, someday, before it�s too late, I�ll be invited to a conference or a reading where I�ll get to see Gabriel Garcia Marquez in person. He should have been my grandpa damn it!

Speaking of writing, one of my essays for the submission has been a real challenge. I don�t know if I talked about it before, but it�s about my dad, who passed away last October. Around that time, I had been working on this said essay. When I got back, Sarah told me that we could work something out so that I didn�t have to work on it anymore if it was too hard for me, but I said I was fine. And in reality, I was fine. I didn�t have a problem making dozens of revisions before I finally turned it in with my final portfolio. But this last time, it was so hard. I�d get to the end and my eyes would get watery and I�d just have to really control myself because I could start sobbing at any moment. It�s just weird how I things like this are supposed to get better with time, but they haven�t for me. In any case, I�m really proud of the current version of that essay. I really feel that if he was around and he read it, he�d be proud of me too.

Well folks, I better get back to work. A big thanks to everyone who has left me notes. It�s really nice to look at my notes and see a new one.

back || forth

Getting linked and saying adios - 2005-01-28
What's going on... - 2005-01-26
Fixed - 2005-01-21
Sex ed - 2005-01-19
And still on the same subject - 2005-01-18