What spaces do you hold?

Madison, WI
January 4, 2010

I was at my mother's house. You know it's my mom's house because when you're walking down the street she lives right at the corner of Morrison and Dickenson. When you walk down the street you see this cat on the sidewalk. Just hanging out, walking around, doing all this little cat stuff and being extremely gay and whiney because he's a real faggot cat. And he sits on the sidewalk and meows and meows like he is being horribly mistreated, like no one feeds him, which is not the case. And when you walk up, you have to ring the doorbell because my mom never makes me a copy of the key, which is fine. Either my mom or her housemate, Ricardo, will come answer the door. You get in the little entryway and it smells kind of like cat piss because my mom's cats like to mark their territory. And it smells a little bit like cigarettes because the downstairs neighbor likes to chain smoke and get drunk at 11 am. He's an ex frat boy. You walk into my mom's room, well into my mom's apartment. It smells probably a little bit like weed in there, you know, vap smell from my mom or her housemate, you know either one of them, or me since I'm visiting. You walk in the house and there is this ugly carpet in the hallway and there's cat puke stains on it. My mother's room is the first left. She has this really thick cobalt blue carpet and it is really matted with cat hair and she has these little silver mirrors on the blue wall. Before you get into her room there's this really horrible, horrible painting I did in high school of La Virgen and there's glitter on it to tell you how bad it is, and behind that a series of prints I did, also in high school. There are lots of other spaces in this house. I used to have a room there and now my mom's housemate lives in there. He's a character. He has this really ridiculous bed construction on cinder blocks and wood. He has this weirdly constructed loft bed. He has all these guppies in a tank. You walk into the kitchen and to your immediate left, right here, there are lots of stickers from Ricardo's daughter she likes to put stickers on everything. It kind of smells like cat pee and marijuana still. It's good though, it's really good. There are lots of beautiful bright colors in the living room. She lives in this really tiny little apartment, but it overlooks the lake. In the winter you can look out the window and there are people skating by.

Gonzalez, TX
1997
Eight years old. Family reunion. The way you get there from Houston is you have to drive three of four or five hours south, and I have a really terrible bladder so sometimes there weren't any, like once you get down to the country there's no more like gas stations around. I just remember being younger and having to pop a squat by my mom's car. There were times when I would fall asleep, and wake up to us getting pulled over because my mom was speeding. You keep driving and driving, and things start to get a lot more rural, you see cows, and it becomes drier and you see more mesquite plants. When you get to my grandparents gate you have to move the metal rod so you can move up on to the dirt and gravel path. You drive up the dirt path and the house is in the distance and there's a big pecan tree in front of the house, and a small electric gate around the house to keep out coyotes. The house has a garage next to it where they keep all of the boots. In the background there is a big windmill to pump water. In her backyard there is a swing chair. So if you were walking up the front porch I think there was also a swing chair there too. You walked up these steps and there is a big porch, plenty of room. The year of the family reunion I did a dance to Paula Abdul. I wore my mom's high school drill team, sequined outfit, and I practiced for months. You walk onto the porch and you walk into the house, all wood paneled, and you can tell that the wood underneath the fake carpet kind of squeaked a little. On the left side was my grandmother's big screen television and two couches. Pictures of family members on the walls, little knick-knacks and La Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall and Jesu Cristo and everything like that. Then on your right was the main bedroom, and a bathroom that connected between the other two rooms. You walk forward and there is the kitchen. I remember my grandmother's the smell of tortillas and frijoles on the stove, yellow linoleum floor and cheap furniture that they probably got at a flea market. There were two bedrooms next to the kitchen. The on on the left has two twin beds and my grandmother had this big picture of this girl swinging on a swing and she was wearing a see through dress so you could see her breasts. I would jump on the bed and I would poke at the girl's breasts in the picture. My cousin caught me once and I was really embarrassed by that. That was also the room, my grandmother would always get Avon products and I would always rub her feet or rub her hands with the Avon lotion. She would always get the purple one. As you walk past the kitchen there's another room on the right, and that has a bed. My grandmother taught me how to sew and I would make Barbie clothes by hand in that room. Walk to the next room, I think it was an add-on room, I can't really remember what was in there I think, the washer and dryer maybe. Then you walk past that and you get outside. There was a little herb garden. Sometimes you would go in the back and swing on the swing. I remember singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.