Cynthia Hawkins

So, my latest at The Nervous Breakdown, If the Shoe Fits …, was inspired by two things:  my surprisingly impulsive denial after a friend said to me, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were that into Star Trek” and then my daughter announcing the other day, “My mind is full of logic, like Spock,” while making the shape of a heart with both hands.  I thought it’d be funny to discuss the ways in which Star Trek intersects with everyday life while at the same time trying to pretend it doesn’t.  Hopefully I pulled it off, and if I didn’t you can just enjoy this photo I’ve titled “Damnit Jim!”:

New nonfiction story out this month, excerpted in ESPN the Magazine and appearing in full in Stymie Magazine:

I see myself in the glass first.  Gestalt glints of eyes, nose, and chin.  Sloping span of narrow shoulders.  My body superimposed over the skirted baseball uniform Madonna wore in A League of Their Own.  It squares across my reflection like a little emblem on my shirt.  Madonna is a tiny person.  I ask my husband Joe standing beside me, “Do you ever wonder why so many famous people are so little?”  At Planet Hollywood once I’d put my hand against the impression of Arnold Swarzennegger’s hand, and my fingers had overran the length of his.  I’d squinted in thought, feeling the grooves of the print against my palm as if tracking a little capuchin monkey.  Still warm, maybe twenty minutes ahead, about six months old, just handled a radish – he went that way.

“Napoleon complex,” Joe says in hush befitting the dim lit passages of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

“The whole being-small-drives-them-to-be-larger-than-life thing.”  I suck my teeth, shake my head.  No, it’s a cliché – the Napoleon complex.  It’s a running joke.  There must be some other explanation I just can’t quite work out at the moment.  I’m relieved, as I shuffle aside with the small crowd just a little further down the display, to find Gina Davis’ uniform would fit me perfectly.  “Ooh!” I zero in on the Wonderboy bat from The Natural and take another big side step in its direction.  My hand sprawls greedily across the glass. Read more in the Spring/Summer 2010 Issue Here

Out today on Monkeybicycle, Admit One, excerpted from my creative non-fiction work on all things movie-related, Girl on Film.  I really should confess, though — I do have a movie buddy.  I had to give birth to her to make this possible, but I do have one.  Problem is, she drags me to things like The Tooth Fairy.  Yeesh.  About how many years, do you think, until she’s ready for Tarantino?