One Billion? Or Just One?

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Sigh. Right now, as I write this, dozens of people I know–and thousands, if not millions, of people all over the world–are gathering to mark One Billion Rising, a V-Day project that calls for a kind of giant global dance party against sexual violence. All week, people have been asking me if i’m going to go. And all week, I’ve been shrugging my shoulders like the worst kind of grinch. Eh. I am just not that in to it. On the one hand, I’m happy about ANY event that keeps rape and sexual violence from being the kind of shameful, unspoken secret that people carry around inside of them like somehow they’re to blame for something someone else did. But on the other hand, I am JUST NOT THAT IN TO IT. My feelings about V-Day have always been ambivalent. I think their work is superficial, sometimes patronizing, and often fails to recognize the ways in which the specifics of women’s race, nationality, economic status, etc etc etc affect their ability to “rise” above rape. There is a really solid critique of the project here, and I’ll leave it there because I am too busy to go around reinventing wheels.

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In Which I Confess, In Verse, To Being an Awful Person

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Last month, Nina Corwin invited me to participate in a poetry reading about Consumer Culture at Woman Made Gallery. I don’t really write much about consumer culture, partly because I’m not sure what to say about it. I love consumer culture – shopping and lip gloss are genuine passions of mine- but of course, I am educated and informed enough to know all the reasons consumer culture is “problematic.” What I don’t know is how to kick the habit!

Still, I put together a set of 4 poems that speak to the subject, most of which admit, with great guilt and some defiance, that I’d rather shop than save the world… for now. The result, if I may say so myself (and I may, because this is my website), is pretty funny and very human. Check it out online here. I come in at 1:11, but the lineup is really divine. I recommend downloading it and listening to whole program if you have time.

 

Fudge the Mommy Wars!

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So… I guess the “Mommy Wars” are back. This makes sense, because it’s an election year, and what better way to distract us from real issues than to ignite petty debates about whether or not stay-at-home moms work or if it is akin to child abuse if you breastfeed a child past the age of 2 hours. War? Economy? Immigration? Pollution? Fugggetaboudit!!!!!!! The real problem facing America is… Attachment Parenting! Oh, The Man, you clever rascal, you’ve done it again!

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Shoes. Shoes. SHOES!

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Yesterday, I was minding my own business when I got a text from my housemate. It was a picture of a shoe rack and he’d captioned it, “you need this.” Fast forward four hours, and I’m kneeling in the hallway outside of my apartment. I’ve pulled out every pair of black boots I own and I am shaking them, one after another, at him while I yell things like “Does this one look like this one? I mean, do you think they serve the same FUNCTION? Do you think I could wear them with THE SAME OUTFIT?!” And then I went into the bathroom and cried.

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Cue Patti La Belle

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This month, I am doing a triple-play as The Lovely and Talented Coya Paz, solo artist, after having just closed the third of back-to-back ensemble projects. The sad thing about solo work, though, is that I’m all alone (cue Patti LaBelle)! So I’d love to see some of my favourite friends, acquaintances, people I’d like to be friends with, and people I admire from afar in the audience! Here’s what’s on:

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I <3 FB.

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I <3 FB.

EXCITING NEWS, INTERNET!!!!!!!!!

The Free Street show I’ve been working on just got extended for one more weekend. That’s TWO more chances to catch LOL OMG WTFAY #Distracted!

To celebrate the extension, I’m posting my own ode to facebook. It is just an audio file because my hair just doesn’t know what to DO with this weather

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Au Naturel

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I’m a “vegan.” I have to put vegan in quotes because I’m not really very diligent about this matter, mostly because I think being a vegan sucks. I’m telling you right now this is not one of those essays where I rhapsodize about how my skin is clearer and how I’ve lost weight and how I sleep easy knowing no baby cows were injured in the movie that is my life. In fact, I’ve gained weight since I went back to being a vegan because I found out that most mass market cookies are vegan– not because they are healthy, but because they contain not one iota of natural ingredients, and I’ve been shoving “sandwich cookies” into my mouth like it’s going out of style.

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Best Hair Day Ever

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Amores, I’m sure I have many good qualities. I know a lot of knock-knock jokes, for example. And I laugh all of the time at the stupidest things (Adam Sandler movies or the aforementioned knock-knock jokes). And I am, despite routine crabbiness about how-come-people-don’t-care-more-about-injustice, a genuinely hopeful person. But I’m also rolling in the bad qualities. I am easily distracted. I like to tell stupid knock-knock jokes. I do not return emails in a timely manner. And above all, I’m SUPER VAIN. (I had to put that in all caps because it is real serious.)

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Take Your “Feelings” and….

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Well, Amores, lately I’ve been a little bit on the down low. Oh sure, you can catch me live and in person in any one of about a zillion-trillion meetings, classes, panels, workshops, or rehearsals, but alas… the internets have been quiet for me lately. Someone even complained that I haven’t been posting on FB! Ja! Usually the main complaint I get about my FB is “do you really think about racism that early in the morning?”

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