Off axis angles: scene one.

Gugliel-Moni, Linda Maria Rodriguez

Where do heroines go when their novels are over? ... She wonders, how long must I still play this part?

--Julia Alvarez

"Old Heroines"

Homecoming

"Aretha says this tour is her last"

USA TODAY

Monday, April 14, 2003

As we leave Orlando dawning words permeate the aisle, "What would you like?" and know the Quaker[R] Chewy Granola Bars are on their way, and ... not being able to help myself, I turn my LA-jet-lag-eyes to catch the headliners ... U.S. forces enter Saddam's birthplace: "Normalcy" returning to capital; Syria warned not to harbor Iraqis ... my inners twitch and I crave an old fashioned cafe con leche, hand whisked steaming milk and golden sugar ... Iraqis share graphic tales of regime's torture chambers ... a heavy-boned feeling settles in ... Canadian wins playoff--and his 1st Masters ... and I would love to have all 3 seats to myself to lie down ... 7 POWs rescued on road to Tikrit ... but dutifully I share with the strawberry blonde sitting in 22E whose lap holds a day or 2-old bouquet ... Iraqis tip Marines to captives' location; Apache pilot says group "won the lottery of life" ... pink roses and yellow daisies, orange carnations and baby's breath ... Gordon returns to victory lane in Va. ... ribbons, a sparkly diamond and husband beside her ... USA TODAY Snapshots[R]: How war costs compare: World War I $191 billion, Vietnam War $494 billion, Persian Gulf War of 1991 $76 billion ... and escorted by an open-mouthed-machinegun-toting-Marine and a shades-grenade-frown-lugging-Soldier waving her through ... U.S. aims to calm capital ... a woman squints against a grey-white-seamless-scorcher clutching in her left hand a green-white-half-drank-plastic-bottle, a half-used-squashed-toilet-paper-roll and blue-white-star-spangled-soiled-pjs, and ... not being able to help herself ... Life: Podiatrists field foot queries ... she stumbles forth on borrowed sandals, but on her own 2 sandy-black-bandaged-heavy-feet, while on CBS on America Julie Chan knowingly smiles down on all of us as we fly away over Grand Bahamas, San Salvador, Turks and Caicos to sunny Puerto Rico.

9:13 am eastern time

4/14/03

miami international-san juan

Linda Maria Rodriguez Gugliel-Moni was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has lived in England, Washington, D.C., Michigan, and California. She studied at Georgetown, Dijon, Oxford, and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Her visual poetry collection, Metropolitan Fantasies--textos errantes, was published in 2001. She edited Enlaces: Transnacionalidad--El Caribe y su Diaspora--(2000), proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, a project she directed and for which she received an NEH. Her work has appeared in From Totems to Hip-Hop, The Caribbean Writer, Sargasso, Mango Season, MaComere, and Thamyris. In 2002 she was awarded an Associate Artist position at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, where she worked with Ishmael Reed, and in 2004 completed a Residence with Elmaz Abinader at the Voices of Nations Arts Foundation. Her short story, "The Galician," was the 2006 winner of The Raymond Carver Best Story Award by a Non-North American Author and also was awarded third prize by the Society for the Study of the Short Story at the 9th