Claudia Rodriguez

I read somewhere…oh yeah on myspace that you know it’s true love when “it’s complicated”.  Compton IS a complicated city.    I’m sure you’ve heard of it? Various stories, news reports flashed on television, interwoven with the lyrics of gansta rappers like EZ-E, Dr. Dre and The Game. Surely you’ve bobbed your head to their beats? The tales these rappers and news reports tell are not make-believe stories but they make folks  believe what’s only half true and the other half  folks fabricate on their own  cause folks just don’t know no betta'. COMPTON! Did your mind conjure up something all tingly and California-sun warm? There are tales that people tell tales I have to hear whether I’m checking in at a small inn in Santa Fe, New Mexico or taking a tour through the Polynesian Cultural Center in Oahu, Hawaii.  I hear the tales of my city.     “Is it as bad as they say,” asks the Miami transplant now residing in a slower paced Santa Fe and working in Guest Services at the small inn.   

I liked it. I found it while web-surfing the other day. It’s what I do in between my writing (some times), to look up facts for my story, to scratch an itch or just kill some time while my own ideas are idle. Sometimes I open one too many tabs, lose track of unnecessary windows and finally reload after reload- I don't remember my way back to my purpose of going on-line in the first place. All this to say that I ran across this quote " Our lives are shaped by the significant truths we say or don’t say." I read it in this article: http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/RelationshipFixHowtoTellDifficultTruthsSoPeopleThankYou.htm I am a writer but still plagued by miscommunication. It's the feelings; they get in the way. I want them when I need to induce more writing but feel so uncomfortable when they are happening “live and direct” in me. And when they're happening they require all of me. It's like trying to talk when you're yawning, not only is this a pet p

Hey Homie! Just kidding. How are you Juan? It has been a while since I’ve written to you.  Been through a lot actually in the last few months; have been healing from various injuries from exercising mostly my shoulder, hand. They feel a lot better because I’ve been getting pricked with needles; acupuncture it really does help. That and the extra deep massages they game me each time I went to a session. I recently got over a little health scare. The doctor found an ovarian cyst…so I had to wait out 3 months to see if it was dangerous to my health or not.  It wasn't. I’m abut to turn 32 so technically I’m considered low risk para esas cosas. Still it makes you think the things that are yet to come for me as my body ages. Not sure if you remember but I’ve always been an active person, physically I mean I’ve always liked to run, be outdoors work on my body and now my bones ache. Still I want to run a marathon! It’s one of the things on my “bucket list” things I want to experience befor

 For the past two weeks I have been participating in a workshop series called “Our Barrios, Ourselves: Writing from Cement and Skin,” is a Playwrights Intensive. For the past two Sundays I have gathered with other writers from across Los Angeles, and one daring dedicated writer who drives down from San Bernardino to join us.    Oliver Meyer and Luis Alfaro have edified us…and I would add the whole class. The exercises the sharing of ideas, the commiserating and co-epiphanating has been so motivating.    This for me has been better than caldo de pollo (salvi or Mexican!) como me han destapado estas sesiones.     Las palabras sabias de Luis, the way Meyer lead us to be in tune with our feelings and senses, basic shit but so helpful and great in it’s pureness.    They, the established playwrights, didn’t offer anything magical and my collugues didn’t talk about being plagued by anything mystical but hearing the plethora of ideas, voices and experiences was so nourishing, me senti alimenta

What’s In a Name?                           What’s In a Name?                                                    What’s In a Name? I got so embarrassed when he asked me. As Raquel would say it- I felt like he had just looked at my asshole.    Ashamed, embarrassed that he had pointed it out all the while pushing back the rush I got from thinking of showing him some more.    Bending over spreading them if you will. Can I be an introverted exhibitionist? Cause that’s how I feel at times with my writing. I perform it- but that’s about the only way that I felt more reassured of doing it.    In other words, I’m insecure about my writing.    PHEW! Ok there I said it.    But I have been saying it a lot. I will probably say it a lot more times. I will be obsessed with writing about how I have problems writing.    I will write myself into and out of a paperbag.     I believe it was either Stephen King- I could be way off but someone suggested that the struggling author, the writer’s block inflic

  I. Carpe diem!    Seize the day! Seizing it our way!    What the fuck do we have to lose? Balls out we bring it to the stage.    All the shit we think about, are close to, have been touched and troubled by gets dickwhipped in our process circles. That’s where we create what you see before you- that’s how we make sense of the world. Art- our life. We seize the day ‘cause tomorrow we’ll be gone like the homeless elbowed out of skid row (of all places!)    by expansionism, gentrification and the mantra: “if we build on top of that mess then no one will ever know it was there”. Dolla! Dolla! Bills ya’ll! Gone! Like yesterday’s hood-fame act. Gone!    Like a dead-beat dad. Gone! Like the fourth member? And who will remember? II. We remember. What once existed and what scarred us with its absence.    The lack of female masculine role models  is  my phantom  limb . The craving for connection – constant need for validation lands one in painful  positions, huh?  It distorts you, t urns you in

I don’t do it only because I have a slight case of technophobia but because it actually gives me a reason to smile when I collect my mail.    That’s why I write letters to some friends, yes the old fashion way. I got two pen pals have had them for more than a year now I would say even though email is so immediate and I sit in front of a computer all day at work so it works for me but neither one of my pen pals has the means to access e-mail so we communicate through mail. They are not the first people I community via snail mail with, I love sending updates and some of my short stories to my niece. But again, my pen pals don’t have the advantages I have even the telephone gets costly for my pals so this is how we can keep in touch.    I love receiving friendly letters in the mail although it does get a bit tiresome sending them out.    With letters you have to actually write them and sometimes my carpal tunnel acts up so I can’t hold the pen then my penmanship sucks so I worry that the

What do you want me to tell you about them? Come on ask me! I dare you! Ok, fine I don’t know that much about snowshoe hares except, all an average person really needs to know about them.    They are vegetarians cause they don’t eat other animals and they use camouflage as a survival tactic. They are the color or forest ground in the summer and snow white in the winter. That’s how I spent my president’s day this year along side one of the cutest little boys I know helping him out with his second grade report. I love kids. Truth is I always have.    I grew up around so many kids, my oldest sister who is four years older than me was the neighborhood baby sitter at age thirteen; maybe even younger.    After school my one bedroom shoebox size apartment was filled with up to ten little kids including my three older sisters and I. Now I enjoy taking part in the lives of my nieces and nephews- I like to take trips to the theater, park, basketball games and bookstores were we spend quality t

The flu or influenza if you want to be scientifically correct is something that I’m sure we’ve all experienced and will continue to experience throughout our lives as long as the influenza virus continues to exist and mutate as it does. It’s the virus’ mutation abilities that make it so resilient since our immune systems can’t really develop antibodies against a changing predator (mush like the HIV virus but that’s a whole other story). At it’s worst the influenza can kill you but most of the times we just experience mild cold-like symptoms or respiratory infections.    But lately whenever  I  get the flu I get KNOCKED on my ass. I recall the days when I was younger (Oh god! I’m hearing myself say this more and more) I’d get the flu and still manage to function as if nothing was wrong. Nowadays I get sick and I  have   to be  under the covers, severely medicated, asleep for hours accompanied by my cats. No ifs and or buts about it. I only wake up for the essentials- eating and bathroo

So my homegirl, Mari, and I went into Tattooland the other day to get some tats.    We’re not new to the experience but you definitely can’t call us ink addicts (yet). We went to Jack Rudy’s shop up in Anaheim. Jack Rudy is famous you know.  He d idn’t create black-and-gray single-needle tattooing, but he unquestionably perfected it 30 years ago and he's pretty much an underground celebrity especially in the tattoo community. Black-and-gray tattooing basically means that the artist uses nothing but different shades of black ink to design a tattoo.I didn’t know much of this information myself until I started talking to the guys at the shop, Big Chuey and Antonio, who hooked Mari and me up. Ok, ok enough with the lecture I am here to talk about my tattoo which by the way took me about 2 years if not more to conceive or at least match the concepts I had in my head with an image.    I’ve always wanted an Aztec warrior to adorn some part of my upper body. A warrior with  the Aztec codic