I am watching TV with my Mexican mother- and my two sisters-in-law. Octavio Paz' ex-wife comes on.
I know very little of Octavio Paz and whatever I read by him was pretty boring. All I know that he is a very famous writer and is living in Mexico.
The camera zooms in on his ex, her daughter and their surroundings. The room is filled with disgusting furniture, twenty or so bedraggled cats. The women are in pj's, besides that it is the middle of the day. Both of them look crazy and definitely out of touch.
"How can this be? The wife of this very famous man living in such poverty?" I ask my family in very bad spanish. They assure me that they are crazy, and that Octavio doesn't live there, that he has a very nice house. They also tell me that she has been a really great writer herself.
I am appalled. The camera knows no mercy. The two women are lunatic. What a tragedy!
A good woman writer condemned to live like that, or be turned into that. I am deeply disturbed.

Oct 6, 1998
New York

Malu, my expatriate Mexican aquaintance, comes over to visit. We talk about my website and rumble about womens' lives, my art, and how my art always has a feminist angle, since I cannot not be a woman.

Malu brings up the trouble she is having with the newspaper she's been writing for 10 years, and how they censored and then aborted her project: "Mexican Artists living in New York and the reasons why they left Mexico" for which I took the photos.

Octavio's wife comes up, unexpectedly. Malu's last column at the paper had been about Octavio and his ex, who both passed away recently. In it, Malu reminded the readership that his ex was also a brilliant playwright and should not be forgotten. Malu and I are all fired up and continue to talk about this damn injustice...

Oct.7, 1998
New York

I missed the Kusama show. Another woman who went wacky and spent major time in the looney-bin. What's up with that? Countless other women artists went crazy, have killed themselves, or have been fucked into oblivion. I realize that STRAPPED is actually a very sad piece.

By the way, the name of Octavio's ex-wife is Elena Garro!

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