What a trip! Literally. Several trips. Many trips. Still tripping on all the trips, and still not done tripping, or traveling, or both. Okay, the good news is I SURVIVED MY FIRST BOOK TOUR pretty much intact, thanks to the direct intervention of several good people whom I must thank right now: Gloria Ramirez, who travelled with me on the last few legs and who will walk with me to the end of my yellow-brick road through the magical land of my sabbatical year; Tina Luna, the masseuse with the gentlest and most healing hands (who also happens to be from El Paso, by the way); Patti Weissler, warrior woman of needles and herbs aka my acupuncturist; Ms. Sandra, Macondo Queen and fellow writer who gave me my first instruction manual on how to survive a book tour; and all the friends and familia who were there for lunch or dinner or breakfast, with a hug and a prayer and a big sonrisa. To everyone who bought the book and helped us sell out of the first printing. To everyone who attended my readings and listened with such compassion and corazón. To all the bookstore managers and community relations coordinators and colleagues who hosted me at their institutions. And especially, to Marina at Arte Publico Press, a true workhorse, who not only organized the whole thing and kept me on track but also generously accommodated all requests for fund raisers and nonprofit consciousness-raising actions using Desert Blood. I know that, even though the official book tour is over now, that I will continue to speak on the Juárez crimes, to read from Desert Blood, and to break the silence. I hope you will continue to check in with me here periodically and learn of my other writing adventures (with occasional forays into my teaching life at UCLA), and more than anything, I hope you will make it a point stay informed and involved in the campaign to end violence against women and children in Juárez. ¡Ni Una Más!

Apologies to all who have been vicariously following my book tour via this blog. Today is May 16 and I'm just now able to catch up on my last three venues. To recap, I was in Los Angeles from 4/21-4/26; in San Francisco from 4/28-4/30; and, in Houston from 5/5-5/7. The last you heard from me I was waiting for my laundry to dry in Deena and Ellie's house, and actually, laundry is a good metaphor for the L.A. visit. Because L.A. is my homebase (even though I have been on sabbatical and leave in San Antonio), there were other things to do in Los Angeles beyond my readings and booksignings. Sorting, cleaning, organizing--these generic activities that we engage in rather mindlessly when we do laundry are what I was up to, both at home and at UCLA. As I prepare to wind down the book tour and end my stay in San Antonio, I have to clean up the messes I've made along the way, sort through the past and the present, and organize a new kind of future with me, myself, and I. But I digress. Back to the book tour. Los Angeles: I had a fabulous reading sponsored by Women's Studies and Chicano/a Studies at UCLA, where we (again) sold out of books. Signed books at the L.A. Times Festival of Books at the following booths: Cultural Latina (which had a long line waiting for me and where we also ran out of books the first day), the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and Book'Em Mysteries. Also did a fabulous radio interview on KPFK with Marcos McPeek Villatoro, host of "Shelf Life," in which he actually asked me to read a short excerpt from the autopsy scene! Bold choice for a radio show! As a capstone event, my friend Tish (aka Morticia Addams aka Susana Chavez Silverman) invited me to a whole day of events at Pomona College that included a reading from Desert Blood, a class visit where I was enjoined to read from my latest poetry collection, La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge, a lunch, a reception, a dinner, and a spot of tea at her home in Claremont. Arrived home at 10 pm and proceeded to stay up the whole night, finishing what I needed to finish before heading out to San Francisco, including, of course, laundry! San Francisco: After 24 hours of no sleep, I arrived in the City and was promptly taken by Peter Handel (hired by Arte Publico Press to handle publicity in San Francisco) to the studio of the local NPR-affiliate, KALW, where I was interviewed for the show, "Up Front," with Sandip Roy (the show will air later in May). Great interview, too. Really makes a difference when, as happened at KPFK, the show's host has read your book and can really converse with you about the story. Later that evening, I drove to San Mateo, about 30 miles out of the City, to speak and sign books at M is for Mystery Bookstore, where nobody showed up to the reading. That's the first time that's happened on the book tour, but to tell you the truth, I was so exhausted from not having slept in 24 hours, that it didn't bother me at all. I gave my presentation to the bookstore's manager and she had me sign all the copies she had ordered of Desert Blood. So, if anybody in the San Francisco area needs a signed copy of the book, go to M is for Mystery. Early the next morning I had a live interview with the Morning Show on KPFA, which would have been a fiasco given the poor condition of the telephone in my hotel room, but the Communication Goddess decided to bless me with 20 minutes of good contact time and the interview went fine. Even spoke to a couple of callers who were listening to the show on their morning commute. Little did I know that Marilyn Kalman would be listening to the show, as well, which is what prompted her to invite me to be the keynote speaker at DykeMarch, 2005! The San Francisco leg ended with my standing-room-only reading at Modern Times Books in the Mission, where I got to see some of my old students (it was great seeing you Erica, Carmen, and Anayvette--all Razawomyn troublemakers with amazing writing skills and far out organizational talents) and my dear dear friend and border "prima," Chicana artist, Yolanda Lopez, with whom I have been working on a children's book for the last ten years, at least. I need to thank Valentin Aguirre with a big hug for the email blasts to the folks on the QueLaCo (or Queer Latino Arts Coalition) listserve and for making the reading possible at Modern Times. Also want to thank Bill Jennings for his photos (check out the still-under-construction Photo Album Page on the Desert Blood website to see some of his images). Went out to dinner at La Rondalla afterwards and was treated to several rounds of very impassioned mariachi music to accompany my enchiladas. By the way, Anayvette's gift of homemade Salvadoran bread is what kept me going the whole next day as I transitioned back to San Antonio. Houston: Gloria and I decided to drive to Houston, being only 3 hours away from San Antonio. But the first day of the trip coincided with Gloria's birthday, so first we had a breakfast party at Cascabel, with 20 of her closest friends in attendance and an all-female mariachi band called Las Alteñitas (thanks to my buddy Cynthia Perez for helping me to organize this, even though she did forget to tell the mariachis that their performance was supposed to be a surprise!) I'd never been to Houston, so didn't know what to expect, and I found it to be a cross between Philadelphia, Mexico City, and San Francisco. We spent all our "free" time in the gay district, eating great food in different restaurants on Montrose and Westheimer. The University of Houston is also the homebase of Arte Publico Press, and I spent a couple of days visiting with Nick Kanellos and his amazing staff of powerful and talented women (Marina, Gabi, Linda, Monica, Georgina, Carmen, et al) and climbing up and down the four floors of the Cullen Performance Hall, where the press is housed. I can see why you're in such good shape, Marina! And, by the way, thanks for taxiing us around in your cute little red car that you need to stop apologizing for. Had another great radio interview, this one with Alison Young on "The Front Row" at KUHF (see the link to the show on my Desert Blood website). What I loved about this interview was the fully feminist spin that Alison Young gave to the questions. She had me reading a section of the book I've never read in public before but that really illustrates one of the rifts that exists in the whole dilemma of the murdered women of Juarez between the feminist activists and those who don't see domestic abuse, sex abuse, or the murders of women as a feminist issue at all. That evening, I was the keynote speaker of the "La Voz Femenina/Voices Breaking Boundaries" event that took place at the Museum of Fine Arts. My reading was preceded by four young writers from the Project Row-Houses' After School Program. The next day, I spoke to a group of high school students, most of them Raza, involved with the Planned Parenthood After School Program, impressing upon them, especially the young women, that they were the same age and physical profile as most of the victims of the Juarez femicides. "Keep in mind that it could have been you," I said to the girls, "or your sister," I said to the boys. I find that making it personal for young people is the best way of getting them to understand the ramifications of these crimes. Perhaps the highlight of the Houston trip for me was going out to dinner with the Arte Publico women and watching Gabi and Georgina remembering Ivon Villa's exploits in the book, talking about her as though she were a member of their own family. Georgina said that a really sad thing for her was realizing that Ivon Villa "didn't really exist." Since I returned from Houston, I've been to El Paso to visit my mom and grandmothers for Mexican Mother's Day (May 10), and I've already done two more events in San Antonio, both of them related to Texas Mystery Week, where I got to meet other crime authors and hear about their books. The folks at Remember the Alibi, the mystery bookstore in town, were especially responsive and interested in reading Desert Blood. It's been an intense three weeks, to say the least. I hope I haven't bored you with this long catch-up entry. Now, on to do more ... laundry ... as I get ready for yet another trip to Los Angeles.

I've crossed three time zones in 24 hours, and I have to say I'm so tired I'm actually dazed, and the six days in Miami seem like they happened last year. But actually, just yesterday morning (Monday morning) I was walking along Highland Beach with my friend (professor, mentor, and model of someone who tries to practice the politics she preaches), Jane Caputi, who invited me to read at Florida Atlantic University. I hadn't seen Jane since 2003, when I invited her to participate in the Maquiladora Murders conference at UCLA, and I hadn't actually been in her space since before I left Albuquerque while still her student and dissertation advisee at UNM in 1991. All around it was a great visit. Gloria and I enjoyed meeting Roger and spending time in their beautiful condo filled with the sound of the surf, photographs of glaciers, and lots of Wicca iconography. I especially enjoyed cooking breakfast, frying up some bacon and tomatoes and real freshly-thawed New Mexico green chile scrambled into the eggs. You have to understand that at this point in the book tour when exhaustion hangs off you like a second shadow the memorable things are the homey things, the details of daily life that remind you of a more grounded existence. Had a very nice reading at Murder on the Beach bookstore on Sunday and at the Highland Beach library on Thursday as well, though some of the people who attended the library reading were not expecting their lovely late afternoon to be spoiled by my not-so-cheery presentation. The bookstore audience, gritty hard-cores that they are, really seemed to enjoy the presentation and we had a great discussion on the politics of NAFTA (and now CAFTA, too) and the essential vein of GREED that is at the core of so many of these crimes on the border. Returned to San Antonio late last night and I was at the airport again this afternoon to catch my flight to L.A. Tonight, I'm sitting here in Deena and Ellie's house waiting for my laundry to dry so I can get myself to bed and get ready to hit the pavement again tomorrow. Ah, the romantic life of a writer...

Yep, it's April 10th and my flight was scheduled to leave an hour ago and I'm still sitting in my jammies in Emma and Scarlet's house watching the snow accumulate in the backyard and being treated to signs from the Universe: a pair of red-shafted flickers appear out of nowhere, amazing orange light under their wings and spots of reddish-orange on their cheeks and at the back of their heads. Sophia, one of the cats, whom I call the sentinel of the snow because she's been watching it all day, entranced, not taking her eyes off the window except when she's harrassing me to give her some mayonnaise from my sandwich, calls our attention out the window and then suddenly one flicker appears and then another, and they both sit on the cable outside, balanced perfectly against the snowy wind, and give us a good long opportunity to be amazed by their presence. We know it's a sign from the Universe, so we look it up in Ted Andrews' ANIMAL SPEAK book, and sure enough, it's a powerful totem that came to both of us, signifying huge spiritual growth, healing, and the stimulation of all the chakras in the head. "...a catalyst for major creative changes in your life ... this totem can reflect a new balance coming into your life, regardless of the conditions...Flicker will awaken a new rhythm and the ability and opportunity to manifest all-healing love" (142-143). WOW! This sure does put a different spin on being "stranded in Denver in a blizzard." I would have missed that sign, if it hadn't been for the snow and the cancelled flights, and for Sophia staring so intently out on all that whiteness, teaching me how to sit still and wait for the Universe to answer my questions. I want to thank Scarlet and Emma for hosting me in their home and treating me to a fine example of healthy living.