My Mom, The Style Icon (Although My Submission Didn't Make It Onto That Blog)

My mother, Esther Gaudet, and me, her daughter Paullette Gaudet

Toledo, Spain

1977

“My native Puerto-Rican mom was a nurse in the Air Force before meeting my father, also an Air Force officer. Stationed near Madrid, Spain, in the mid-Seventies, our family went on several day trips like this one in 1977 Toledo, where Mom displayed her uncanny knack for fashion even on this dusty, sweltering afternoon spent climbing ruins after a long day’s drive in a cramped Renault 5. Here, her lilac-rimmed sunglasses alone raise the fashion stakes to an all-time high! All throughout my youth, my mother was consistently and appropriately chic during every moment of any given day;  she dressed me accordingly as a girl, and even now I always view an outfit through her eyes before putting my own spin on it. My mom remains my style icon, for still being beautiful, exotic, stylish and tasteful. I love you, Mom!"

Intellectual Refuge, With Still-Alive Cat

I am still trying to figure out a raison-d'etre for this blog, thank you very much--I go between the impossibly limiting (posting a new mini-essay of a poignant memory each week, with a related picture), to the way-too-all-encompassing (Recipes on Tuesdays! Movie Reviews on Wednesdays! Hair-Related Questions on Thursdays!). I suppose if I have a resolution this 2012, it's to find a voice for my blog and stick to it; however, I hope that whatever that voice turns out to be, it will also take time out to shamelessly self-promote, like now:

The lovely and talented online literary journal, Intellectual Refuge http://www.intellectualrefuge.com/ will apparently soon feature my lyric essay, "Academic Barbie," on an upcoming Friday in 2012!!! One of the wonderful things about Intellectual Refuge is that it is free, so all y'all who have avoided purchasing the latest issue of The Ledge Magazine http://www.theledgemagazine.com/current%20issue.html, featuring my short story "Celebrity Sperm Bank," will have no fiduciary excuse whatsoever not to read my work.

Also upcoming are my story appearances in the next two issues of Storylandia: The Wapshott Journal of Fiction http://www.storylandia.wapshottpress.com/ These are not free, but they will be available for purchase as a PDF for your Kindle (or other electronic reading device), and in good old-fashioned print, for all you Steampunks out there.

Kiki (seen above with her copy of Storm of Swords) is doing better, and still has four legs. An inflamed sciatic nerve has apparently been the cause of all her trouble over the past six weeks; we're managing it with medication, which seems to be working okay. As for the G.R.R. Martin book--I can't talk about it without a slew of Spoiler Alerts, so will wait on that--but it's SOOOO good!!! The best of the series so far. Have started Feast For Crows, and am inexplicably sorry that only about 2,000 pages of this saga remain to be read. Whatever will I do, after?? Work on my own book, I suppose...