May 4, 2025

this rich life

Welcome to Mommy’s El Camino.

If you’re in or near Chicago, or have friends there:

Friday, 4/25/25

In the pool first thing in the morning, with the people I’ve come to think of as one of my communities, with no knowledge of most people’s last names or prior histories. It doesn’t matter in the water.

Early evening, we pull into the tiniest slot of a parking space outside the bakery I’ve been going to since I was a child. Painted signage tells me the bakery is 87 years old. As old as my mother! A few days later I read a local news story about how the bakery is suffering.

Later, a conversation on a small stage in front of friends and family, amid flowers and a puppy and strawberry cake. Beer in my hand. Talking to a friend, but into microphones. Seeing an old friend from across the space and not connecting who it is, until he’s up close—what’s up with that. It’s the glasses, I’ll think later. Hahaha, in three weeks I’ll be 52.

Saturday, 4/26/25

We take two kids to USC. The sky threatens rain. We stand in line so Roy Choi will sign his new cookbook for us. Later I sit on the lip of the fountain in front of a library. I remember that I worked at USC while I was living/writing Hollywood Notebook and Bruja. Twenty-plus years later I’m a writer and reader among thousands again, walking to a booth to sit down and hope that someone actually wants me to sign their books.

And someone does, and another someone, and even more someones. Some want to talk. There are photos. One person wants to read some of what they find in the index of Bruja to me. I’m gonna have to hold onto this, they say as they walk deeper into the booth, book in hand. Someone without speech types on his phone little messages to me. He shows me his tattoo. A woman mentions that her husband pointed out Excavation to her, because it takes place in the San Fernando Valley. She reads the back of the book and tells me that she, too, remembers a predatory teacher. It’s a common story, I say. I ask where she went to school, she tells me. We’re about the same age. As she leaves with the signed book she says something about wanting to see more of our stories in film, from those of us who grew up in the Valley. More than one person tells me they bought my book earlier but then found out I’d be there, so they came back. So my fear isn’t realized. It’s a busy half-hour spent signing books.

Sunday, 4/27/25

An art gallery downtown with the kind of outdoor space I envision in the space I fantasize about creating. Hugging someone I haven’t seen since before the pandemic, in the literal weeks before we understood what was happening. With each reading I’m hearing a heady sliver of someone’s articulated experience or fantasy or autofiction or fiction. It’s a welcome thing, to submerge in other people’s writing after a weekend selling my own writing to others.

I’m gonna be 52, I’m hovering right between visible and invisible, and I’m not done yet.

I recently got to join Ben Tanzer on This Podcast Will Change Your Life. The episode is titled “A Rich Life,” so to find out if I said that, and what I might be talking about, have a listen.

I wrote a blog post for Incidental Noyes, A Northwestern University Press blog, about the books being reissued.

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for being in the streets, for writing against fascism, for continuing to love and strive for justice. Take care, You.