Hot Sauce and Hand Grenades: September 2011

Luis Alberto Urrea’s use of description in Across the Wire is so intense and profound that I can clearly see the characters and setting in my mind. Certain parts make me physically lurch, and my stomach tenses up just recalling them.

"Pacha had startling eyes… her eyes would have seemed like a movie star's." This precise detail stands out to me because this woman is such a contradiction. She is homeless and destitute, yet too proud to scramble for the food delivered by Christian missionaries, instead waiting for it to be brought to her. She is filthy, yet her eyes are those of a beautiful and glamorous movie star.

"And she had been leaning against it to go; bloody ropes and spatters of feces were all over the wall." Through this effective use of metaphor, I know how sick Mrs. Serrano must have been to have stool that would be characterized as "bloody ropes". This also gives some insight into the “house” and the squalor in which the Serrano’s lived. Not only is there no bathroom, but the family’s waste isn’t even contained in a separate space.

"I was told that if I was really interested in the shooting, one of the men would sell me the shotgun. It was going for forty dollars." After Jesusita and her husband are viciously and deliberately executed, the commentary is cold and unsentimental, confined only to the measly cost of the gun instead of displaying any grief or desire for justice.
Luis Alberto Urrea's description is concise, but the adjectives and metaphors he uses are cutting and haunting. He describes the garbage dump and its cast of characters vividly, drawing a detailed portrait that is so clear that I'm tempted to look away so that I don't have to see the horrors that compose it.

Hi! My name is Claire Blakeley, but it is soon to be Claire Gutbrod. I promise to keep mentions of my impending nuptials to a minimum. I moved to New York City from Cleveland, Ohio in the fall of 2003 to attend a musical theater conservatory. After eight years of being hideously successful, I decided to reinvent myself. (Thank you all, by the way, for not openly acknowledging how famous I am and how much you love my work. It truly does go without saying.)

In the summer of 2009, I battled some health issues that sent me back to my hometown for a few months to be treated at the Cleveland Clinic. This experience changed my mind about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I want to have a more meaningful impact on the world than just performing (working in a restaurant.) Spending the time that I did in the hospital, I became aware of how necessary great nurses are. It is the perfect way to make more of an impact, challenge myself, and become more fulfilled. Unfortunately, all my acting, dancing, and singing lessons don't transfer to most nursing programs. So, I'm here at LaGuardia catching up on some basic liberal arts classes so that I can get accepted into a four year nursing program.

I've always been a writer. I have kept journals since childhood, I've been known to write a pretty great eulogy, and have written some plays and short stories (all have been about as successful as my acting work.) I also have another blog for you to visit; www.skinnedkneesandbuffalomustaches.blogspot.com. I warn you; it's a doozy.I would like to write more. I think I have some decent ideas and more than a few stories to tell.

Some of my favorite authors who inspire me to write are Jodi Picoult (before she started pumping out a book a year, every year,) Wally Lamb ("The Hour I First Believed" is arguably creative non-fiction,) Anita Diamont (her fictitious accounts of bible stories rock my world,) and Joyce Carol Oates (whose "Blonde" is also arguably creative non-fiction.) All these authors take factual events (if you take the bible as truth- let's not get into it,) and weave human life into them in a way that captures me and doesn't let me go. I mourn a little when I finish their books.

My father* wrote a work of creative non-fiction, which is actually what inspired me to take this course. He chronicled his life as a Detective Sergeant and hostage negotiator for the city of Euclid, Ohio, as well as his feelings about growing older, his complicated love story with his wife of thirty-two years, raising his two children, and finally, the corruption of the police department and the city's leadership. The book is written in a stream of consciousness style, which is challenging to make accessible, but ultimately makes it thrilling and colloquial, much like if someone was sitting across the table from you telling the story. I would like to get this story published, but I know it needs a little work, which brings me to you all every Tuesday and Thursday this semester.

You wouldn't be the first person to call me quirky. Most people politely pretend to be charmed by it, which I think is the right thing to do. I love to cook, and I'm getting pretty great at it. While my entrees are decent, I'm best known for my desserts. Most recently, I made a crustless plum pie that people would have eaten out of the dumpster. Other than that, I'm a horrible homemaker; my taste is that of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I mean it. My whole home, all thirty four square feet of it, is decorated in lush red, black, and khaki. That is, except for the bathroom, which is done up in Cleveland Browns.* I'm Slovenian and proud. There's only 18 of us, we have to be proud.* I have a dachshund named Beatrice*, who I say is a therapy dog so that I can bring her into places where dogs aren't allowed. I love sour candy after it's been in the freezer. I lift weights like a maniac. I bet I'm the only woman my size that you know that can squat one hundred and sixty-five pounds. And I'm talking reps, folks. If I'm not, I would like to meet this woman and challenge her to a duel. I dislike it when any American says "cheers" to mean "thank you" or "signing off." I'm anti-feminist as rule (Our brains ARE smaller. That's science. Thank you, by the way, for letting me use this typing machine, sir. It sure is handy.)

I could go on. But, why would I? So that you'd get conspicuously bored of me and never check out my other blog? Forget it.

* See attached photo