Last night, around 11 o’clock, I made a dark chocolate cake. Later today I’ll fill it with raspberry jam and pile is high with fresh whipped cream. Then tonight I’ll cover it in candles and light them. No, this is not a makeshift menorah (though I made one of those last night, too). It is the umpteeth dark chocolate cake I’ve made to celebrate the birth of my son, The Amazing Henry. I liked realizing that I started that cake quite close to the hour I went into such a horrendous 17-hour labor that the tale became almost instantly legendary. I also liked that, for reasons I can’t figure out, the cake fell. It is not typical for one of my cakes to droop in the center. I am actually quite good in the kitchen. But then, I do appreciate when life hands me a metaphor and even if a fallen cake is not on par with some MFA conjured wordsmithing, it’ll do for today. more ›

In 2005, when my son was 14, I was up in Chicago for foot surgery, drugged beyond coherence. So when he called to announce he was going to crash an 18 and up Modest Mouse show at the Austin Music Hall, I deferred, mumbling this might not be the best idea, and that he needed to check in with the friend whom I’d left him with. I got the report back: He’d gone to the venue, scoped out the entrances, and made a mad dash past a bouncer who proved swifter than him. The guy grabbed the kid and offered a lecture, that went something like this: Look kid, if you’re going to crash a show, you need to be a lot faster, and you need to wear a sweatshirt that you can take off as soon as you get in so we can’t identify you. Now go to another entrance and try again. more ›

Dear Henry, I recently read Mary Karr’s latest memoir, Lit. She opens the book up with a letter to her son. Of course the letter isn’t really to her son. It’s to her audience. We call this sort of thing a literary device. Literary devices are what writers use to spice up their writing, engage their readers, and, in the case of including personal letters, let folks feel like they are getting an up close and personal view of the relationship between the writer and whomever she is writing to. Think of this particular literary device as a precursor to reality TV, which, of course, isn’t real at all. I actually know a lot about this particular letter-writing literary device, seeing as my first book, All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy (← that would be you) is sandwiched between and middles with three letters I wrote to you. Well, okay, I wrote to my audience. You get the idea. Today, I am sitting here, facing the prospect of writing my column for the Austinist. I love, love, love writing columns. But lately, the well of inspiration has been a little dry, which is why I’m resorting to a literary device in the form of a letter to you. Usually I have plenty to say, but frankly, I’m totally fucking burnt out after spending the better part of this year researching a massive history of quilts from around the world and throughout all of time and history. Talk about biting off more than you can chew. (Plus—here’s a lesson in another literary device: irony—isn’t it hilarious that I, shitty quilter that I am, am earning a reputation as a quasi-expert on textile arts?) more ›

My son, Henry Mowgli Gillespie, graduates from McCallum High School on Friday evening. It will be his first time on stage at the Erwin Center but perhaps not his last, as he is a musician and you just never know. Choosing the life of an artist (or having the universe impose the life of an artist upon you—who the hell knows which it is) is something I know firsthand. Living the nightmare that the dream sometimes seems—when you’re faced with three cut-off notices from the phone/electric/gas company, the rent is late, and the cupboards are bare— is, I can say with authority, most definitely worth it. Some parents might be horrified at the prospect of a child with no plans beyond playing the guitar and keyboards. I say to my son—You go girl! I am thrilled for you. And proud. And I’m not just saying that in hopes that you’ll skip writing angry songs about your fucked up childhood. more ›

Satch died in my arms yesterday. Today is the seventy-ninth anniversary of my father’s birth. And while I have already written beyond extensively about my father’s life—namely our horrible relationship—and my oldest dog’s life (and waiting for his death), I’m not quite finished with all that yet. Living with Satch was, at times, like living with my father. There were vast differences, of course—for one, Satch was slavishly dedicated to me, eager for my time and attention, at the ready with a wag far more often than not. And yet, like my father, Satch was difficult, randomly aggressive, tenacious to a fault, not interested in putting things down, and extremely bossy with the rest of the pack. He snapped unpredictably, and in the end that snapping extended to me—twice in the past few weeks he came close to biting me. more ›