I recently got the privilege to see an exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago that I’ve wanted to see for months. The Art of the Brick showcased Lego sculptures by artist Nathan Sawaya.
Here are some of the most incredible sculptures I saw:
To learn more about this exhibit and to buy tickets, please visit The Museum of Science & Industry.
My latest story, The Mark is an ode to Chicago and the toughest Chicagoans I know, my siblings. This story is about teenage siblings, Shannon and Luther. They are struggling to survive. Their parents are gone and with Shannon being the eldest, she must find a way to keep her life as normal as possible. She usually does a decent job keeping things together, but lately, everything has been falling apart. Will Shannon and Luther ever overcome the cards life has dealt them or will they succumb to hardship and lose everything?
Check it out on Amazon now.
Hello all,
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this previously, but I live in Chicago in the Wicker Park neighborhood. It’s a unique and rather cool area filled with lots of different stores, events and people. There is a lot of love here.
Unfortunately, a tragic incident occurred this past week, which rocked our community. We are heartbroken, but we are going to keep our heads up because that’s what we do. If you would like to read more about what I’m referring to, please visit: https://abc7.ws/3hiSID8. If you’d like to donate to Olga Maria Calderon’s family’s GoFundMe, you can do so here: https://bit.ly/2R7gJm9.
Rest in peace Olga.
A few weeks ago, my family and I were at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) to view the Christmas Around the World exhibit. The Christmas trees are decorated by volunteers and “represent holiday traditions from cultures around the globe.” They are quite beautiful and something you really need to see with your own eyes to believe. The amount of work that goes into decorating each one of these Christmas trees is quite remarkable.
While walking through the museum, we also stumbled across an exhibit called, The Art of the Bicycle. This exhibit examines the history of the bicycle and pays close attention to its design elements, which were meticulously folded into the construction and practicality of the bicycle over the years. This exhibit was equal parts fascinating and whimsical.
Check out my photos below for more:
If you’re in the Chicagoland area, I highly recommend taking a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to check out the Art of the Bicycle exhibit. Happy Holiday’s everybody!
I just had a piece published by Chicago Literary Map.
If you haven’t heard of Chicago Literary Map, you should check it out. Here’s what it’s all about:
“Beyond the bright lights and cityscapes, stories unfold. Some are true, others are fiction, showing you a side of the city that often goes untold. Chicago Literary Map is charting the text and putting it in the palm of your literary-loving hand.
Navigate Chicago on a new level, guided by the voices who have been, where updates bring new vignettes from around the city.”
Rad, huh?
Please check out my piece called Ohio Street.
If you’d like to more about the creator of CLM, Stephanie Plenner, please follow her on Twitter: @splenner. You can also follow Chicago Literary Map here: @literarymap.
Your turn. What was it like where you grew up in Chicago?
My life is always changing, which means that the space around me is always changing. After my first update, I worked on my office closet again and here are the results.
I stated that I wanted convenience, space, lighting, and color. I think I have achieved all of that and more.
Here is my current space:
And here is a close-up of the interior: 
Here is what I did to achieve my dream space:
For convenience, I had an outlet put into my dining room and it is wonderful. I no longer have to avoid cords sprawled across my floor.
For space, I purged a ton of paper. I still have one small bin that I need to go through, but everything else is in files on my desktop. Sure things need to be separated, but at least all of that paper is out of the way.
For lighting, I used a clamp lamp, which can be moved around anywhere. It’s a great tool to have. I couple that with my overhead light above and it works beautifully. I believe that a workspace needs plenty of light to be functional.
For color, I added a city scene that my son made and put up photographs and desk toys. These pops of color are like tiny pieces of happy energy that help me focus.
For organization, I added a DIY combination cork/dry erase board. I made it using an old cabinet door and a pack of square cork and dry erase tiles. I used stamps and white paint to make patterns on the cork, which gave it a little bit of personality. I love my cork/dry erase board and use it every day to keep track of ideas, to-do lists, and important reminders.
I also organized my writing books by color. Organizing books by color makes your space look well put together. Try it yourself.
The best part about my office closet is that there is a place for everything and when I’m done, I can just close it up and join the real world.
May you find your perfect work space in your home as well!
If you’ve tuned into the news lately, you’re aware that the weather in the Midwest and beyond has been intense. It’s been snowy to say the least, but we’re tough. We can handle it. Except when people get stuck in the alleys. That’s where we draw the line.
A few weeks ago on Saturday morning, I was awakened by the sound of spinning wheels. I looked out and saw a truck stuck in the snow. The alley hadn’t been plowed and I wasn’t sure it would. Alleys aren’t top priority in Chicago after a snowstorm.
The driver kept hitting the gas. The wheels spun. This went on for an hour and a half.
If you’ve ever been awakened by somebody stuck in the snow before drinking your first cup of coffee in the morning then you know how blow-out-your-brains inducing this can be. Think I’m exaggerating? Watch for yourself:
Imagine hearing this for an hour and a half.
Just as I was about to go out and bring the driver a shovel, I saw my neighbor trying to help. Strange thing was, the driver didn’t seem to want his help. Eventually, two burly men arrived and pushed the driver out of the snow.
A beautiful calm fell over my alley and all I could think was, silence is wonderful.
Note to self: emergency shovels are essential and rather cheap.
Note to others: Chicago winters aren’t something to be messed with. Prepare well.
My sister and I recently finished our collaborative picture book. I’ve got to tell you – it feels amazing! It took a lot of hard work, motivation, and serious revision, but we’re finished. It looks awesome and I like the way it reads.
I am proud of us!
This work is especially important to me because it’s about growing up as a multiracial kid, a subject I know all too well.
I grew up in Chicago in an area called Ukrainian Village and went to a grammar school in Humboldt Park; a neighborhood that was a stone’s throw away and mostly Puerto Rican. Many of the students that attended my grammar school were 100% Puerto Rican. My sister and I were not. We were genuine Poliricans – half Polish, half Puerto Rican. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal now, but it was back then. I didn’t and still don’t speak Spanish or Polish. To people in these very strong communities that is a no-no. It looks lazy and like you don’t care enough about where you came from, but that is incorrect. All that means is that neither language was available to you. If you were not immersed in a particular language, chances are, you did not pick it up. That’s what happened to us. It had nothing to do with us being lazy or not wanting to connect with our cultures. It didn’t have anything to do with the kinds of people we were or the kinds of people our parents were. It did however, have everything to do with the environment we grew up in. Now try explaining that to a child. I can tell you from personal experience that all of those things don’t matter because kid world is different from adult world and it comes with its own rules. Kids can be loving and enthusiastic, but at their worst they can be as cruel and illogical as any adult.
I was told that I wasn’t Puerto Rican because I didn’t speak Spanish in the 7th grade. When I stood up for myself, my classmate asked if I was calling her mother a liar because that’s who she got that idea from. She was the tallest girl in my class and she was towering over me in a threatening way. For a moment, it scared me. Would she really hit me? I didn’t know. All I knew was that you never wanted to call somebody’s mother a liar in grammar school because it could get you punched. So I did what any kid my age would do, I backed off and let it be. I never believed what she said, but I never liked her or her mother again. From that day on, I refused to be her friend.
What she said to me divided us. It made me feel like I was not good enough to be Puerto Rican, that even though I had this blood running through my veins, until I spoke Spanish, I would never be good enough for that girl and all of the other Latina’s that spoke Spanish. To them, I would be just be an imposter, a fake, different.
Being different is the worst thing you can be in grammar school. Nobody wants to be different. Everybody just wants to fit in and blend and exist because nobody wants to be made fun of. Everybody just wants to be left alone. Most days, I was, but some days, I wasn’t. So, I just got quieter and quieter. All I wanted to do was disappear. And I was disappearing or at least my self-esteem was. That’s how it all started. That’s when I learned how to bury my feelings. That’s where it lay until this one day when I took my son to the park.
This older kid singled him out and told these little girls not to play with him because he thought my son looked weird. Weird to kids nowadays seems to be the new racial epithet. And he wouldn’t let it go. He was berating him and my son didn’t know what they were saying because, well he was two, but I did and it brought back all of these horrible memories of being ostracized by ignorance. All because he looked different. It made me angry.
So, in order for my son to be accepted into their world he had to look like them? Who told them that nonsense?! Where did they pick up that ideology?! I wanted to leave and never take my son back to that park, but my husband said no. That we weren’t going to just walk away and hide. That doing so would be teaching our son that he’s not welcome to play where ever he wanted to and that is not a good lesson to teach a child. You know what? He was right!
And then one of the little girls said something that changed everything. She said, “WHO CARES IF HE LOOKS WEIRD. I DON’T CARE!” And I wanted to applaud that little girl and I was, on the inside, because even though she didn’t know it, she was standing up for my son, for people of color, for me. I knew then that my son and this world would be okay. And that is how our picture book was born.
It’s a book that is long over-due, a book that kids like my siblings and I have been waiting for our whole lives. We are currently shopping our PB around and we’re hoping that it gets picked up soon. This world needs this book and more books about being multiracial; about acceptance and love.
Our fingers are crossed.
I sketched these two fellas using Paper by FiftyThree
When I found out Roger Ebert passed away, I felt hollow and sad. Much like the way I felt when I found out that Ray Bradbury had died. He was my favorite short story writer. Most of that sadness has passed and I now feel inspired by the work they’ve both left behind.
Ray Bradbury was a brilliant writer. Most people would probably know him by his novel Fahrenheit 451, but I know him by his short story, “All Summer in a Day.” It’s the story of a girl named Margot who lives on Venus where it always rains and where the sun only comes out once every seven years. It is a wonderful short story I recommend checking out if you haven’t already read it. I read it for the first time when I was eight. It was one of the stories in the Great Books series given to me by my teacher. I read it over the summer and fell in love. I was most drawn to the human aspects and emotions of the story. “All Summer in a Day” changed the way I viewed story telling and writing by opening my mind to the possibility of constructing unhappy endings.
In the same respect, I found Roger Ebert to be a ridiculously talented writer and reviewer. I looked up to him in more ways than one. He went to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, was in an interracial marriage, and loved the city of Chicago. I can relate to all of these things. I went to U of I, am in an interracial marriage, and love the city of Chicago.
Ebert wrote a great piece about his love for his wife. Check it out here: Roger Loves Chaz. It’s a good read. I have yet to write such a beautiful piece about my husband, but that’s another post for another day.
I attended the Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois with my husband one year. Roger Ebert showcased a brilliant documentary about amateur boxers. Afterwards there was a Q & A session with the director, which I found fascinating. My husband and I were talking about the movie while exiting the theater when I looked over and saw him walking with two gentlemen. To be honest, it caught me off guard. He was so close. I’d seen him on television so many times, so to see him in person was surreal. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t know what to say and by the time I did, he was gone.
My husband and I finally made our way outside and started to walk towards our car when I looked back and saw Ebert. He turned his head and looked directly at me like I was the only person on the street. I said to him, “That was awesome!” His reply? “It was, wasn’t it?” And I shook my head yes. He could’ve very well left me hanging and not answered at all, but he didn’t. It was like he actually cared. I will forever cherish that memory.
I actually thought I’d have the opportunity to discuss his take on writing one day (it’s good to hope), but nope. Now, his books will have to do.
What an amazing legacy Ray Bradbury and Roger Ebert left behind.
I wonder if anybody else will ever come close to their genius.
