After 7 years of producing my monthly spoken word and storytelling show, The Austin Writers Roulette, I was ready to call it quits. Yet, Austin’s unofficial mayor of poetry sweet talked and flattered me into producing it for an 8th year. I split the difference and made this year bimonthly, thinking I may continue for a couple of years with that schedule.

What a difference a few months make! I started selling CBD in July with the hope of building up the business enough to generate residual income. One thing the company encouraged us to do was share our personal experiences with taking the products. Watching the training videos motivated me to provide a platform to share other people’s CBD narratives via podcasting.

When I announced my intention to end the Roulette to my family, one of my sisters flipped out. “But that’s your baby!” All healthy babies grow up. Besides, it’s better to end an event on a high note than to let it fizzle out to an embarrassing end.

Instead of stating any of the above, I said, “Shut up. You’ve never even watched an episode!” One of the most wonderful aspects of The Roulette’s fourth and longest venue, Malvern Books, was that they videotaped all events. So, no matter the size of the audience, the performances live on the internet until society collapses.

Next thing I know, my sister informed me that she was coming out for a long weekend in order to attend the grand finale. Just like her to invite herself–something I reminded her of nearly every day during her brief visit.

As soon as I picked her up from the airport, we went to my favorite costume shop to get contrasting outfits. My favorite staff member decked us out to resemble Louisianan conjure women, complete with binding us so tightly in corsets, they could have doubled as back braces.

including a tiny home remodeled as a store to showcase Louisianan jewelry, followed by a boot store my sister hadn’t shopped the first time she visited me. One of the saleswomen shared a story from her life about Louisiana. (That state again!) She’d become a huge fan of the New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina.

Prior to her visit, I’d asked my sister which vegetarian recipe she wanted me to prepare. She requested that I surprise her. I knew that raw onions gave her gas. When I asked her if she could eat cooked onions, she told me that onions in general gave her gas, but she could still eat them. (Uh, no you can’t.)

So, after shopping, we returned home where I made a scrumptious linguini dish with roasted cauliflower, walnuts, garlic, and capers. I grated pecorino over my pasta, which completed the flavor bouquet, but she went without the cheese.

I’d also bought my favorite specialty red wine infused with habanero peppers since I’d wanted her to try it the last time I’d visited, but we couldn’t find it at any liquor store in her neck of the woods. Yet, my sister, who’d actually graduated from college, somehow didn’t understand how cocktails worked.

On her flight, she had not one, but TWO rum cranberries. Even the guy who sat beside her told her that she should have a vodka cranberry, but she ignored his advice and ordered the second one. Now, her stomach felt funny. At least she liked the pasta and managed a sip of the specialty wine, which she thought tasted better than my usual wine choice: Malbec.

Friday morning, we dined at a trendy breakfast/lunch place. A Meetup group I belong to had eaten there, but I refused to wait in a long line on the weekend. We walked right in and the host sat us in a cozy little booth. I ordered off the holiday menu. (Yes, that IS a giant marshmallow.)

Afterwards, we took a long walk along Lady Bird lake. I thought the trail was mostly paved, but as we soon discovered, most of the trail west of I-35 to the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue was dirt. My sister wanted to walk back through the city on the sidewalk because she was wearing “the wrong shoes.” They were comfortable flats, but made of cloth. That latter part made them wrong in her mind since they would be more challenging to clean. After living in Austin a decade, I’d forgotten that some part of the world cared how clean their casual shoes were.

Since we were an hour too early to go to yoga, we ended up parking at an upscale grocery store to use the bathroom. To kill time, we browsed in stores so posh that I felt I was on an anthropological outing, seeing how the other people, including my sister, live.

My sister’s first yoga challenge turned out being her desire to wear jewelry and lipstick to class. She removed most of the jewelry except earrings and her wedding band, but I couldn’t convince her to wipe off the lipstick. Our little spat amused the other yogis in the women’s locker room.

During the 60-minute class, she lasted for all of the standing series and half of the floor series, becoming so hot that she couldn’t catch her breath. After class, she sat outside the room to cool off. I added an electrolyte to her water. For all that heat, she hadn’t broken a sweat, which amazed me. She then shared that when she ran track in high school, the coaches always made sure she drank a lot of water because she never sweated.

She took so long showering that I waited for her outside only to discover she’d spent a lot of time looking for one of her earrings. Again, why the hell would anyone wear jewelry to exercise? Not to mention lipstick. The 90-min Bikram class on Sunday was out of the question.

For years, I’ve ordered two dozen tamales from a nonprofit’s fundraiser. For some inexplicable reason, they only allow individuals a two-hour window on a Friday to pick them up. So with my sister still freaking out with Bikram after effects and earring loss, I convinced her to get into the car to pick up the tamales. Just as I pulled out of the parking space, she had an epiphany: she’d snagged one of her ears with the shower cap. (Yes, a woman with cornrows STILL wore a shower cap!) She wanted to hop out and check her gym bag. Since I’d already recovered from my “yoga brain” fog, I reasoned that if the earring was in her gym bag, it would still be there when we reached the nonprofit.

The clock was ticking to get the tamales. I knew we’d waste time in traffic. As soon as we arrived, she found the earring in the shower cap. Once we got home, we snacked on almonds and I did two loads of laundry before leaving for my favorite Mexican restaurant to meet a friend and her husband.

Light traffic allowed us some time to stop by a store where I bought envelops for my handmade Christmas cards. My sister bought her husband a Christmas card, but the store across the street intrigued her. When I told her what it was, her eyes lit up. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit before dinner, which was why we shopped at the adult toy store after dinner.

She was like a kid in a candy store. And why not? She’d been married for 30 years. They deserved adult toys. Even though I pointed out the portable sex swing to facilitate anal sex, attachable to any doorjamb, my sister stuck with the more conservative edible underwear, lube and sexy outfit.

Saturday morning, we returned to my usual yoga studio to take Inferno Hot Pilates although I’d kept referring to it as only “pilates.” The heat surprised her as soon as we walked it. At least she’d left most of her jewelry at home and wore no lipstick. Progress. Once again, toward the end, the heat started making her dizzy. Although Bikram hadn’t made her sweat, pilates did.

We ate lunch while watching back episodes of “Watchmen,” which brought her up-to-date for its regular Sunday night airing. After finishing the laundry, we travelled quite a distance, which was still considered Austin, to a hemp-tasting. We arrived early since traffic wasn’t bad, but ended up being the only two there out of 18 RSVPs.

Nonetheless, my ulterior motive had been to line up an interview with the owner of the company for an upcoming podcast. From what I learned about her during that tasting, she had an amazing story. Also, now my sister and I had the same shared experience of trying CBD for the first time with their chocolate. Her workout pain disappeared minutes after the tasting.

We transversed the city again to a shopping village, which she and her husband had visited nearly 10 years ago. It had been a few stores on a strip back then. We didn’t find what she wanted, but I bought an inexpensive wrap since the sun had set, plunging the temperature rapidly. Out of sheer hunger, we ate at the nearest restaurant, which turned out to be a hit.

Since there was no way in hell my sister would take the 90-minute Bikram class with me, I came straight home after yoga on Sunday and forgot to pick up costumes. She accompanied me to the costume shop. Along the way, a monk, who had a bunch of books, accosted me on the sidewalk. I firmly said no thanks, but once we headed back to the car with our costumes, he approached me again.

This time, I chose a book, whipped out my change purse to dump its contents into his hand and out plopped two cents. My sister augmented the donation with her pocket change.

Instead, I draped a necklace across my forehead, which looked interesting, but I fought with it off and on until the very end–it was the first casualty after the show.

Once at the venue but prior to showtime, my sister acted as if she was a wedding photographer, taking pictures with me and of me, and other rouletters, even wonderful candid shots.

I dealt myself quite a hand for the grand finale: announcing one-line introductions for the artists and timing them; handing out the heartfelt cards I’d decorated and written for them; and taking pictures of them for the blog. Once the show ended, I knew I’d done the best I could.

Some of us parked at a fancy restaurant across the street from the venue. My sister and I graced the place with our costumes, but still couldn’t get an inside table nor a discount. Some other rouletters joined us at an outdoor table. Fortunately, the weather cooperated.

After a breakfast of leftovers and tamales on Monday, I conducted a 10-min interview with my sister. I was pleasantly surprised that the settings I’d stumbled across the week before still worked, along with the aggregate device I’d set up. This reduced preproduction time down considerably.

I then whisked her off to the airport, returned the costumes, went to the bank and dragged myself to my desk to log on and work. As I cycled through the queued up calls, I knew The Roulette wouldn’t be the only thing I’d end.

When one of my friends confessed to having a gun phobia, other friends and I rallied to support her. Only one of us had actually grown up around guns since her stepfather had taught her how to hunt since age 8. The rest of us just believed, since we were all very cerebral academics, that nothing should be feared when clearly becoming more educated about a fear was more productive.

Hence, “Chicks with Clicks.”

The Hunter asked her gun enthusiast/instructor friend, who owned property outside of Austin, if he’d show us the basics of gun safety. Through email, we pinpointed a date, the firearms we wanted to practice with, potluck items for lunch afterwards, and confirmed that The Chicks with Clicks would buy and split the cost of the ammo.

Of course, nothing happens with us without food; so we first met for brunch prior to ammo shopping, which I referred to as “Brunch and Bullets.” (Yes, there was a corny theme that ran throughout the soul of this endeavor, but I’ve not captured all the “gun puns.”)

So, our bullet brunch discussion included the fact that .22 ammo fit in both handguns and rifles. The Hunter stated we were much better off starting with a rifle. That last part was counterintuitive for my novice self only because I thought the kickback from a rifle would be more challenging to deal with than a handgun. The Hunter air demonstrated how one’s wrist allowed a lot of flexibility, which meant that the barrel of a gun could theoretically point anywhere. A rifle, when properly positioned against the user’s shoulder of the dominant hand, had a more predictable direction for the barrel.

As a matter of fact, the most common direction of a rifle barrel once a novice user pulled the trigger was involuntarily raising it up. Plus, the wrist flexibility was greatly controlled, making it at least safer in terms of knowing where the bullet would go after the trigger was pulled.

The Hunter led us to the aisle. Since we planned to practice with a handgun, a rifle and a shotgun, we needed 3 different types of ammo. As The Hunter looked on her phone for the size of ammo needed, I dashed off to the firearm counter to ask one of the two employees to help us.

The younger of the two men followed me to where my friends stood. Although I already knew that shotguns used shells, and handguns and rifles used bullets, that was the extent of my ammo knowledge. He advised us to look for bullets that had brass casings since steel casings dirtied guns more. Besides, if there was a faulty bullet, steel casings would cause more damage to the gun due to pressure buildup than brass. For shotgun shells, one didn’t have to worry so much since there was more room within the shell to dissipate pressure.

Another consideration he brought to our attention was our environment. For example, since we were shooting targets on private land, we didn’t have to worry so much about which type of bullets we were using, but he normally steered people away from AR-15s for home protection. The justification was this: if you shot an intruder with an AR-15, the bullet would most likely go through the person and could potentially hit a loved one. A shotgun shell, on the other hand, would hit the intruder and its momentum would be greatly reduced by the impact.

He then added that hollow-tipped bullets were more likely to lodge into the intruder, but would be far more deadly. I’m sure we must have all pulled a face when he said that since he quickly added that it was far better for the intruder to get the brunt of the bullet than any loved one we were protecting. Nonetheless, we had no use for hollow-tipped bullets for this activity.

The user could breakdown the shotgun and store its parts in the buttstock. Intrigued, we walked over to the firearm counter and asked to see one. The employee wasn’t allowed to break it down for us, but he let us to hold it.

The Hunter took the opportunity to show us the proper way to hold a shotgun, especially where the non-dominant should go. At this point, an older man peeked around the corner with a big smile on his face. Initially, we all thought he was going to be an asshole, seeing four women gathered around the firearm counter. Blessedly, we were wrong.

First of all, this guy was a veteran who’d trained soldiers on how to properly handle and fire weapons. Not only that, he’d taught his own daughter the same thing. He informed us that the number one consideration we should look for in any firearm was comfort. If the weapon didn’t fit comfortably in our hands or rest comfortably against our shoulder, then we had the wrong one.

The Hunter made the actual purchase while the rest of us used a cash app to reimburse her for our quarter.

During this outing, we learned that The Hunter had invited her husband along. Then, Phobia asked if she could invite her boyfriend. After all, he’d taught his kids how to use guns and knives, and trained them in martial arts. We agreed that Phobia’s boyfriend could join us. Yet, we shot down the idea of changing our name to “Chicks with Clicks and Dicks.”

The other Chicks with Clicks were texting and emailing what they would bring. I saved time by texting a picture of my basket at checkout.

After a round of introductions, including two of The Instructor’s friends who’d brought their shotgun for us to try, The Chicks with Clicks took a group picture: Phobia, The Hunter, Alpha Tits (her own spontaneously minted nom de guerre), and me.

We either wore disposable earplugs or hi-end durable ear protection, which was a bit overkill, given the firearms The Instructor had chosen for us to practice with weren’t too loud. Only Phobia’s boyfriend’s AR-15 seemed surprisingly loud since it lacked a suppressor.

all weapons being open with no magazines attached until loaded; loaded weapons with the safety on until aimed and ready to fire; having a proper, stable stance such that one could do a “booty dance” without moving the weapon; having proper hand placement.

By some strange sense of pecking order, I was always second, usually followed by Phobia and graciously The Hunter went last.

While watching The Instructor demo our first rifle, a Ruger 10/22 with an AAC Suppressor .22lr, I noticed Phobia’s cringing posture: slouched back, curled fingers pressed against her mouth and lower jaw. I couldn’t visualize anyone with that posture handling a loaded weapon. I immediately stopped her by saying she had to adopt the Wonder Woman posture: back straight, shoulders squared, hands on hips.

The Instructor purposely started us off with the most user-friendly rifle, mounted on a table with a wonderfully powerful scope with crosshairs that visually lessened the 100 yards between us and the targets. With all that help from the setup, my biggest challenge was being too close to the scope. What I learned about a rifle scope was it differed from a microscope eyepiece. I started off too close to it. Minute movements on my part made the entire visual field dramatically move around. After commenting on that phenomenon, I received the advice to move my head farther back from the scope.

Then I overthought, pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

The rifle was a little dirty, so The Instructor cleared out the loaded bullet, I overthought some more, pulled the trigger and hit the target. I tried again only to discover that the magazine was empty, which gave me the opportunity to reload it. Once I put the magazine onto the rifle, The Instructor told me to smack it into place. So, I smacked it and heard rifle fire.

Perfectly timed to my smacking the magazine, Phobia’s boyfriend had fired his AR-15. I let him know in a not-so-gentle tone of voice that he had to warn us before he did his own thing. I took a few deep breaths, overthought, and managed to hit the target a few more times.

Not only did she shoot the beginner’s mounted rifle, but also tested out the .22 caliber survival rifle she’d gifted her husband.

here was Phobia’s boyfriend set up on the same firing line to our left. At least he followed my sage advice and got our attention before he pulled the trigger.

but they both agreed that it was a good skill to have and congratulated us on being proactive non-gun owners. After all, if the first time you’re around a gun is when there’s an active shooter, that’s too late.

I felt peer pressured to practice with this shotgun, a CZ Quail 20 gauge,  to hit a moving target. Everyone kept telling me that since the shotgun’s owner was about to leave, I needed to try it before it was too late. I knew before I even said “pull” that that clay pigeon was in no danger. I loaded one shell, said “pull,” swung the shotgun in the direction of the moving target, and missed just as I knew I would. As a matter of fact, the only thing I hit was my right shade lens when ejecting the shell.

“Fuck this,” I grunted and handed the shotgun to its owner. I assured him it wasn’t his weapon; it was me. Definitely me.

At least I took an impressive picture with the shotgun. I texted it to my family. Mom commented, “You look like Granny (from the Beverly Hillbillies), looking for an opossum!” In real life, my maternal grandmother was a markswoman–a skill lost by my generation of suburbanites. By the time I came along, she only hunted with a fishing pole.

no amount of comfortability or persuasion would bring Phobia to try it out. When asked why, she said that she had no reason to because it was a weapon of war. Not that I disagreed with her rationale, but I had to try it at least once since, for the past decade that I’d been living in Texas, this weapon, more so that any other, had been the symbol of Second Amendment rights.

I did my usual overthinking before pulling the trigger. Although I hit the target, the stench of ammonia from the rifle startled me.

Ruger Mark 23 in 22lr, Glock 34 in 9mm with a SilencerCo Osprey Suppressor), we moved closer to the targets, so we were only 15 yds away. At this point, I was starting to become hungry, and not for more gun practice. I’d snacked a little in between practice, but nothing takes the place of actually sitting down and eating.

I can’t remember if we practiced with the Glock first or second, but I definitely remember trying the revolver last. It turned out to be my favorite. None of the handguns felt particularly “right” in my hands, even with The Instructor correcting my hand placement. Yet, I liked the revolver since the weapon’s action meant that the user couldn’t just pull the trigger and many bullets fired away. Even loading it with 6 rounds took longer than loading more bullets into a magazine.

Despite Alpha Tits’ sheer enthusiasm, she kept aiming too high. Round after round, The Instructor told her to lower her aim. I couldn’t resist. “She can’t aim lower because she went to Yale!” She laughed and confirmed that all her life, she’d been told to aim high.

I was next and hit the target nearly every time. Of course I attributed that to going to a state school–Carolina, to be exact. Every other person who hit the target, then identified that he or she either attended a state school or community college.

After wiping off the front porch table twice, we all dressed the table with pre-prepared foods from our local grocery stores along with adult beverages. All of us sat around the large community table and ate and drank, firing off lively conversation.

The combination of giddiness and concentration had taken a toll on my energy. I’m so happy I hadn’t planned to do anything afterwards since I didn’t know how long we’d practice.

I’m still not convinced that I need to be a gun owner, but I’m far more interested in learning more about both the culture and the legislation of guns. I know there’s a happier medium between the two extremes being bandied.