Under Construction

I'm bugging out a little bit over financial woes. I need to do arbitrary things to keep myself from mentally imploding... The Maria from back in the day would've done something extremely unhealthy - drank herself into a stupor, fucked her worries away, smoked two packs in half an hour, etc.

But I'm gonna do something less harmful to myself and others.

Uh-huh.

*inhaling deeply*

That's right.

*exhaling loudly*

I'm gonna... try out... different blog templates.

*inhaling deeply*

Yes. Blog templates.

*exhaling extremely loudly*

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

*calmly lighting my weed pipe*

Yes. Blog templates. That's what I'll do....

To Everything, Turn Turn Turn

My friend, Sura, thinks that it's because I'm "too cool." SoHo Suit thinks it's because I'm a loveable but temperamental (READ: sometimes very cold) bitch. I think it's because I may or may not have hit some pseudo-godly plateau of zen.

But anyway, I don't get bothered by things.

Not really, anyway. Things'll annoy me, people will piss me off, I will inevitably become angered at the world. But do I get bothered ? No. "Bothered" has this lingering connotation, like I wake up in the middle of the night and really smolder about something or another. Like my orgasm is interrupted by some memory that won't leave me alone. Like my vocabulary becomes limited because I'm using too many brain cells on some problem.

I do not fall prey to those sorts of ailments.

At least, that's how things usually go. This week, I was just plain bothered by everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

Things that usually make me smile, people who are my favorite in the world, situations that I would usually derive pleasure out of - I just couldn't stand any of it. I was rude, stubborn, immature, bitchy, egotistical... I took to my computer and wrote for hours on end, and luckily, my internet access was limited at home, so I didn't have too many distractions. I wrote and wrote and wrote, ad nauseum. (Due to all that sitting and writing, I'm sure that I'm pasty and out-of-shape, but that's okay.)

Today I'm forced to take a break from writing in order to drive my mom to her doctor's appointments, and it feels really good to not have to feel what a dozen imaginary characters are feeling. It feels good to talk on the phone to friends, reconnect through text with friends, complain about the general state of male-female-relations/the war/the rising price of gas and cosmetics and everything else with real-life human beings. It feels good to have conversations with trusted individuals and put my mind at ease about a number of thoughts that've been plaguing me this past week.

For one thing, I've noticed that I've been starting to feel something that's akin to envy. I wouldn't know for certain if it's envy because I've never felt that. (I've felt instances of school-girl jealousy, but that's an entirely different bag of tricks...) But the more I write and the more I elaborate on the feeling, the more I realize that it's really misplaced regret: I cannot help but feel a twinge of longing when I meet someone who will probably succeed in the opportunities that I passed up. And even though I had valid reasons for passing them up, and even though I don't know/think that I would've been happier per se had I taken up those opportunities - I dunno. I think I just want those opportunities to still be available to me. It's like seeing your ex with someone else. Even though you're happier where you are, a part of you still wants them to want you. Or, at least, find you attractive. (<--As I'm writing this, I don't even know if I still subscribe to this feeling... Hmm...)

In a strange way, writing this short story collection is helping me re-evaluate myself and everything that I know. So is the process of writing letters to people I've wronged, and the task of writing out queries to literary agents*. It's incredibly liberating, to set all of my knowledge down on paper and stake claim to who I am as a person. At the same time, however, it's incredibly daunting. I know that I'm actively improving myself, but I'm a little afraid of what I might uncover. I'm a little embarassed about the conclusions I might make.

Maybe I'm just so enamored by the intensity and excitement of getting caught up in the process of becoming something, that I just feel (felt?) odd having gotten somewhere. Maybe, no matter what the vantage point, or how beautiful the scenery, I'll always crave the open road, the roll of experiences, the chance at doing something else.

Anyway, I have to fill up the tank. I need a new skill set, new ideas, and a new repertoire if I want to get to someplace else. Moving to southeast Asia, publishing a book, and learning a couple more languages seems just the ticket...


* When I was 17, I wrote a socio-political novel - novella? It's 150 pages. I dunno what that is - in one day. This past week, I revised the last 1/3 of it, and even though it's nowhere near my best work - my writing style has improved and altered substantially in the past 6 years - I figure, what the hey? Every retarded idea under the sun is getting published. Might as well throw my 6-year old hat in the ring, right?

BANG, BANG

That right there is the sound of me jumping the gun.

But I'll do it anyway.

I'm really flowing with the prose, and it's turning out good. Like, actually good. Not hypothetically good.

Holy mother of Jesus, I might actually finish this thing. Within my lifetime.

Before my self-imposed deadline of October 1st, 2008.

Before the end of the summer.

*gasping for breath*

Must... Go... On...

"The world calls me great, like nothing else..."

Twenty points to whomever can guess off the top of their head where the title comes from.

The closest thing to a religion that I've ever had was knowing how to read people in order to get what I want. If that makes me a con artist, then I wear the moniker proudly. At least I was an honest con artist, only following that code before I was wise enough to question it.

Ignorance keeps people stupid - but honest, too.

Like everyone else does, I went through the phases: angst, faux-maturity, skepticim, God-complex, hippie-dom, et al.... I started out investing all of myself into whatever belief accurately described my actions, but started realizing how difficult it was to leave off on one belief and start another. Doing so was like packing all of my possessions in one truck, carefully placing them in neat boxes and rows, and then abandoning that truck for one that seemed to depict me more accurately. I had to spend more time and energy and patience in packing up my life into something else.

So finally I stopped packing up so neatly and carefully everything that encapsulated me, and there were no true delineations or characterizations or categorizations to describe me. I stopped investing in these trucks, which were meant to symbolize simply something I had become.

There was a freedom in not having a box in which to fit my self. But also, there was a fear. If I stood by nothing, did that mean I stood for nothing?

This past week confronted me with many characters from my past, and I realized more the permanent deviations between myself and other people. I made more concrete the boundaries that separate "my people" from "other people". And I made decisions as to what I will deal with and what I won't deal with, how I will deal with things that I don't like, and what I am willig to do to not have to deal with things I don't like.

Finally, my load had dwindled until it fit on my back, and I could take any truck I pleased to carry me around. I was set on hitchhiking my way to wherever I felt like going, but then I started writing and reading and informing myself and others of who I am and what I'm about - and I came across a way of life that was in me all along, I just didn't know what to call it.

I've done a lot of fucked up things in my past, and I've wronged a lot of people, and I've loved a lot of people the wrong way, and I've walked away from people who needed me. I think, in order to move on to the next step, I should write letters to 25 people. Sure, it's an arbitrary number, but it sounds right. Like the protagonist on "My Name is Earl" or "Billy Madison", I've decided to apologize for the strangeness and pain and drama that I've caused - and if I'm really honest with myself, I'm sure there are 25 people that I need to clear something up with.

Only afterward can I really know where I'm at and where I'm going. Only afterward can I really know who I can trust and why I should trust them.

So if I ask you for your address and/or ask you to help me hunt down someone else, don't be surprised...

Word.

Queries, Quotes and Confessional Observations.

"Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth."
- From "The Sunscreen Song", by Baz Luhrmann


We all go through the same patterns, bigger schemes, emotional hangups, psychological phases, personal triumphs/heartbreaks, etc. Those of us who are able to take note of and accurately relate/report these themes are called artists.


Ever fuck someone knowing that your parents are fucking in the room next door? It's exactly like watching porn - sex augments sex. You get this strange competitive streak and wanna outdo everything you think they're doing... until you realize they're your parents and you're a sick pervert.

Not that I'd know or anything... *looks away and turns deep crimson*


"With the greatest leader above them,
people barely know one exists.

The second-best are praised and revered.
The next, merely respected.
Then the despised.

When trust is unattainable,
there is no sufficiency.

Trust the cautious sage
whose words are most carefully chosen.

With all we accomplish, we can say
only that we did what comes naturally."
- From "Tao Te Ching", written by Lao Tzu, translated by Sam Hamill


As I'm writing the stories in "23", I'm taking some passages directly from my blogs. It's funny how you do something in following the zeitgeist, and end up making real use of it in the future.


The word "opportunist" is defined and implicated with such negative connotations. Aren't we all opportunists? At what point do we go from "taking advantage of situations" to "manipulating people"?


I started writing out my list of people to write letters to. I meant to write 25 letters. So far, I've found 28 people to write to.

The thought crossed my mind that after sending out these letters, I could compile them into the most confessional and true-to-life collection of my indescretions.

But that would be trife, right? I mean, the intimacy between me and the recipient of the letter would be compromised, and my apology would seem more like an afterthought to an artistic endeavor... So I'm not gonna do it.

It's all for the best. As much of an "artist" as I say I am, I don't know how comfortable I'd be knowing that all of my biggest mistakes were on display, together and in public.


Given the level of responsibility and obligation in keeping a relationship on the up-and-up, is it possible to be "good friends" with lots of people (10 or 15)? Or are there simply not enough hours in a day/days in a week to make that kind of commitment?


I felt a pang of insecurity
as close friends hovered over me.
Sitting so close to The Past, I
wondered if all the better days
had passed, and imagined they'd have
benefited from the lingering of my
immaturity.
But The Future beckoned
and laughed at my worries, and smiled
with the unflinching resolve of the wise.
And I discarded my self-depracating ways
in a hurry, and remembered there's no
reason for my Present presence to be shy.


I don't know what exactly I mean to resolve, fix, or change with these letters that I'm writing. I just have an overwhelming feeling that writing them is the right thing to do.


I kind of wish I'da kept my sex toy reviewer gig. I coulda gotten my hands on some chice merch.

your choices are half chance, and so are everybody else's

I spent last night writing. Feverishly. Poetically. Non-sensically. I have the first full-length drafts (approx 30 pages each) of 3 stories for "23", as well as the first dozen or so pages of 2 more stories for the same collection. It's exciting and draining and sub/consciously exactly what I need to be doing.

There are at least four voicemails for me to check. Three people that I really need to get back to. Two people in town that I should see. Dozens of emails for me to send. But these stories: they're EXACTLY what I need to be doing right now.

How insane is that?

I mean, really: a lot of my friends talk about being taken captive by a muse and needing to bide their every whim, but very few of them risk losing touch with friends, throwing themselves out of their social circles, getting out of sync with their realities simply to finish a story. Or song. Or painting.

The few that do risk the death of their social lives in order to fulfill their artistic credo are lucky - their social lives consist of like-minded artistic folks, so it's expected they be a narcissistic recluse.

Not so for me.

I've made it a point to make commitments/connections/relationships with people from all walks of life. And, in a weird way, I feel like that fact assists the evolution of my character and my work by immersing me in different mindsets and situations. [NOTE: Darrell Brown wrote a really interesting op-ed in the NY Times that called artists "Emotional Spies". I completely agree/empathize with what Brown says, but many people replied harshly to his candid observations, saying that the term "Emotional Spy" has a negative connotation.]

At the same time, however, most of my friends - though attempting to empathize and/or forgive my disrespectful/misplaced egotistical-artistic energies - will write me off as a less worthwhile friend.

It's a fact of life I've come to accept and understand. Friendship is a lot of give and take, and problems arise when the person with whom I have the friendship wants to take more than I can give. In this state of artistic mania, when every little whimper from my muse begs my attention, I do not give. It is a choice, though most of us artistic folk will contend that it is not a choice. Creating art is what keeps us alive, and we will die if we don't heed the call to greatness, yada yada yada.

But I'm not so delusional as to believe it's not a choice to write about a fictional person instead of meeting a friend for drinks.

On the same token, I'm not so delusional to believe that I'm the only person emotionally available to fulfill that role of drinking buddy. If there's one thing I've learned from life, it's that as special as each person is, we are also replaceable. Each and every one of us is only worth as much as the emotional investments other people make in us. And other people... well, let's just say that voids are filled with different emotions; it matters less what emotions do the filling than the void be filled.

I'm happily restrained to my home for the time being, and I'm thinking about the people I'll inevitably let down. Their disappointment will change the way they interact with me, and our relationship will be forever altered - however small or large the change - by my (alleged) mistreatment of our friendship. Then forgiveness will or won't happen, and things will go on, and everyone involved will find happiness and beauty and joy and good health... at least, for a time, before their lives descend into a dark abyss of tragedy.

When I was younger and more wreckless, I would glibly reply to writing such as this that the person was being morbid or unnecessarily emotional. I'd make a comment about what I'd experienced and rationalize that only x amount of years separated myself from this person; or that I understood where the person was coming from, so I knew better how to look at the situation; or that I was bubbly and outwardly jubilant and obnoxiously more happy - so my perspective had to carry more weight than one from a person who seems weighted down by their views.

But as I'm writing these stories, each told from the point of view of a different 23-year old person living in New York City, I'm realizing just how little we all really have in common. We have the big ideas in common - the thriving, the striving, the will and the won't - but the smaller caveats, the more personal gradations of understanding, the minor and simple that are in ways the only barrier between me and you...

A person goes to bed wearing two matching socks and wakes up with one sock hanging precariously from their foot - and that makes all the difference in the world. You read their expressions five minutes later, take note of their body language, put their story into a context you understand and assign them a role in your life. They are evil or loveable, your best friend for life or your sworn mortal enemy, your saviour or your accomplice in crime - and yet that relationship will be limited if most of your ideas and actions and perspectives don't match.

If you stop seeing that thing that initially attracted you to this person, you have to find another reason to keep them around - or you two will eventually lose contact. If this other reason to remain friends is lost, no matter how much loyalty or love or respect you muster for one another, your relationship will be a shallower, synthetic version of the authentic ideal. You will always know that they are not what you had initially believed them to be. They do not fit into the reality you meant to create.

And that's where the big problems arise. Crime. Infidelity. Hate. They're all external representations of the chasms we feel with our relations/realities. Someone reaches a point where they can't handle what's happened with their lives - the relationships they can't/don't want to foster, the persona they no longer fit, the farce they've been presenting as reality - and then something breaks. Something deep inside the fabric of our reality shatters like glass. The tenuous strings of faith are clipped until they exists no longer.

It's just what happens.

Those among us who "make it in life" are the ones whose ideals are so simple and beautiful and our wills so strong and courageous that our realities match our desires. We are victims, too, of the mismatch of chance and circumstance; we just know what we're looking for, respecfully decline what we don't need, and keep on going.

Any other protocol for action is a recipe for disaster.

we're flat broke, but hey, we do it in style.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

How is it possible to be so fucking poor?! *laughing hysterically* I mean, seriously, I had a six-figure payday two years ago and now I have twenty bucks in my name.... HOW IS THAT FUCKING POSSIBLE?!?!?!?!

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

*breathing deeply*

Okay... Okay... I get it. It happens. You don't know how to invest money. You feel obligated to give your family things that'll make them happy. You pay a shitload of debt off. And inevitably, this happens. I get it. I really do. Especially since this "you" is "me" and I'm feeling the brunt of all this right at this very moment.

I get it. I really do.

But WOW.

The highs and the lows? Yeah, I've got em.

Stories? In spades.

Experience and introspection? No doubt.

But, inevitably, when I'm in the midst of going through all that, it still unnerves me. It still shocks me. It still makes me feel something other than stable and static.

And I've gotta admit, I love it.

Not the drama, per se. But that I know how to deal with the drama, and it still affects me.

What I fear more than problems is not being affected by problems. I fear being cold, isolated, unfeeling. I fear not flinching when I hear about rape. Not crying when someone's used me. Not laughing when someone says/does something amusing - even if it's not exactly something I'd say/do myself.

If I was isolated or cold or unfeeling, I wouldn't be in a position to hear about rape, or get used by someone, or hear/see something I might consider crude or unclassy or a mere deflection of judgment. I wouldn't be in a place to consider and learn and feel. I wouldn't know any of the good stuff.

And that's exactly what I don't want.

*****

I spoke to Will-to-my-Grace (heretofore known simply as "Will") about a week ago on the phone, and I confessed to him that I like drama, and that I think this facet of my personality makes me like teaching: My abilities to see the light at the end of the tunnel - almost any tunnel - and weave a path toward the light, make me unafraid of problems. I don't shy away from dispensing advice when called upon to do so, and this makes me uniquely suited to teach at-risk youths.

When I employ these gifts at work, I feel like it's proof that I'm a good person. But more than that, I feel like it's proof that I'm not living in vain. Right there in front of me, every day, are signs that I'm a worthwhile individual, trying my best to make other peoples' lives better.

No matter how zen I seem, I will always admit that these verifications of virtue are necessary components to my day-to-day ritual. They fill me up with more pride than any validation brought about by men hollering at me in the street, dudes pushing up on me in clubs, and compliments about my looks. And no matter what kind of crap people might throw at me, this keeps me going.

wake up, kids. we've got the dreamer's disease.

A continuation from this past Friday...

When my phone buzzed, it was like an omen.

While pumping gas at the local station and talking on my cell phone to Military Mother (who I've known since I was 6), I had run into a guy from around my way, Chigger (as opposed to "Whigger"). Chigger had tried to get with me all through junior high, then dated Military Mother after I moved to Virginia.

A little after running into Chigger, I got a text from my two other best friends (who, along with Military Mother, are my sisters from other misters), asking to meet up with them the next day for lunch.

And a short while after texting back my girls, I'd bumped into Whigger 1 and Whigger 2, two dudes from around my way that have signed minor baseball league deals and now drive fancy-schmancy cars.

The more my day continued, it seemed, the more back in the day I was being dragged... Then Flo.

By the time I was in Williamsburg with Groovy Girl (heretofore known as "GiGi"), I had readied myself for some serious flashbacks. After all, an acquaintance from high school had invited me to the very same party, and the theme of the day seemed to be "Blast From The Past"!

But no. I didn't see anyone from high school. I did see, however, lots of cute breakdancing boys, and ghetto-pretty dudes who could get some. And, man, did they get some---*ahem* I mean, man, did I have fun!




In case you didn't get the memo: I've been getting my groove thang on. A lot.

Okay, okay, I know I don't write much on here about my recent sexcapades, and maybe I should, but the fact of the matter is, I ain't the type to kiss and tell. To strangers, at least. Out of context. For no reason.

(I think that covers it...)

I mean, yeah, back in the day, I woulda loved to leak out all of the wet details of my shenanigans, but my private life.... well, it exists now. There are certain details that I'd rather leave for my nearest and dearest to hang over my head when they really need a favor. Not all of the two strangers that read this (sorry, Pugs & Joe) need to know all of that.

But anywhos, yeah: Friday.

I party-hopped in Williamsburg with a couple female acquaintances, and ended up spending the night with a beautifu mixed-Latino man whose friend GiGi found attractive. [NOTE: If there are any coming-of-age chicas reading this, pay attention. There is always more safety in numbers. Maybe not a lot more safety, but enough that you should skip on the sultry sex god in favor of the .14-less-attractive guy who has a roommate your friend wants to fuck. At least both you and your friend are in the stranger's apartment. I'm just sayin'...]

So I'm having a fuckalicious time with this random beautiful man, and the next morning, I wake up at 9:14, and I'm not really sure where I am.

I mean, I hadn't been so terribly wasted the night before that I forgot that I'd hooked up with a guy. I just didn't remember how we'd gotten to his apartment. I vaguely recalled a cab ride with GiGi, Beautiful Boy, and Beautiful Boy's roommate - but the details were sketchy, at best. Had we left the county of Kings? Had I somehow found my way back into my borough of Queens? And if the latter, could I be close enough to my house that I could hurry there, take a military shower, and be on my way to work?

Because, yes, ladies and gents, I work on Saturdays. Starting at 10 a.m., to be exact.

And yet there I was, in a sranger's bed. In an undisclosed (or, at least, unknown) location. Having lost my bra. And I had 45 minutes to get to work.

Unbefuckinglievable!

Beautiful Boy woke up with a jolt (no doubt after having felt me wake up with a jolt and rustle the sheets). He offered me coffee, commented on how crazy the night had been, and very amiably asked if I wanted breakfast. From the expression on his face when he woke up, and the subsequent way in which he spoke to me, I'm sure the first few thoughts in his head were: 1. FUCK! I had beer goggles on, fucked a girl, and she's STILL IN MY HOUSE! 2. THANK YOU SWEET JESUS, she's actually kinda hot... 3. And I remember the sex being really good. 4. Decision: I'll be nice to her.

Needless to say, beside the usual pleasantries of the morning after, I didn't speak to Beautiful Boy much. In fact, I was sure that his name was David or Michael or some other arbitrary and ubiquitous Hispanic God-type name, but according to GiGi, his name was Ralph. (Neither of us are too sure, so he'll remain Beautiful Boy.)

In the midst of my getting out of him the location of the nearest subway station, and his offering to drive me to said subway station, I searched for my bra - to no avail. (What did he do, eat the thing?!) I washed my face, gargled with mouthwash, ignored his polite musings about random hook-ups and the morning after, thought really hard about taking him up on his offers to 1) make me coffee, 2) buy me breakfast, 3) take me to Duane Reade for assorted toiletries, and 4) drive me to the train station, and answered only the last suggestion affirmatively.

So there I was. Wearing the black dress that I'd picked out for hanging out with Flo. Thankful that I'd been sensible enough to pack a pair of "cute shoes I can run in" (another noteworthy item to all coming of age young women). And worried that I 1) stank of booze, 2) stank of sex, 3) appeared ridiculously dis-sheveled, 4) left necessities in Beautiful Boy's apartment, and 5) would be late for work.

Thankfully (or maybe not so much), only 4) ended up being right on the money.

Work went well. I'd texted some of my nearest and dearest, and Indiana Poetess, about my morning, and I was able to laugh at myself. My boss lady asked about my slightly too-stylish duds, and I told her up-front that I still hadn't slept in my own bed. And I spent the time walking around the lower east side with some students, taking note of the various community gardens (E6 Street, between Aves B & C - go check it out. It's bananas, it's so beautiful! And the treehouse is awesomely Robinson Carusoe-esque).

Before long, it was time to meet up with two of my sisters from other misters. I'm sure I've already given them cute nicknames, but I'm too lazy to look for references to them in previous posts, so they'll be Jersey Girl and SoHo Suit. (I'm giggling to myself as I realize after-the-fact the pun in "SoHo Suit" - but whatever...) We had set on meeting up in Fort Greene, at Habana Outpost, at 4 p.m., but my class had let out early and I'd decided on sitting in the sun and reading my NY Times.

The first high school I attended (the most notable one of the four I attended), Brooklyn Technical High School, is in Fort Greene, and while I was a student there, the neighborhood was just approaching gentrification. Now it's fully hip and hipster-fied, and despite the dwindling battery on my cell phone, I decided I had to call up some high school buddies and discuss this fact.

I talked to Lawyer Lady, Will-to-my-Grace, and Best Guy Friend, (all of whom attended Tech with me) and even spoke for a minute to Clairvoyant Symphony and Opera Singer. (Most of these conversations, I'm thinking, will be referenced one time or another in the near-future...) Then, with my phone almost dead, I met up with Jersey Girl and SoHo Suit.

Jersey Girl's been in a tumult about whether or not she's gonna marry the man she's engaged to, but she told me that she's finally set on being Mrs. Man-She's-Engaged-To.

At first, I didn't believe her, so I turned to SoHo Suit.

"No," Jersey Girl said, cutting off my query to our friend. "I'm serious."

The secret to her new happiness with Man-She's-Engaged-To?

"I stopped being an asshole."

From her lips to God's ears, lemme tell ya!

Like the other three of us, Jersey Girl tests the limits to every relationship she has. SoHo Suit winds up being whiny, Military Mother becomes extremely passive-aggressive, I end up (sooner than later) a blatant bitch, and Jersey Girl becomes an asshole. It's just what we do: somewhere in our hearts, we believe that the person we end up with will know how to deal with this very negative side of our personality, and we'll be convinced that they're "the one."

Jersey Girl had stopped being quick with her temper and her actions. She stopped picking apart her fiance. She stopped doing the things she usually does at this stage of a relationship... And she started to enjoy herself.

Two weeks had passed, Jersey Girl said, without an incident. Then another two weeks had passed. Before she knew it, a month and a half had passed and she and her fiance still hadn't gotten into an argument. A little while later, they did get into an argument - but that's to be expected between people, sooner or later. And besides, it was the right kind of argument: not so petty as to be confused as anyone pickig a fight, but not so big as to be an indicator that they're not right for each other.

Habana Outpost was crowded with yummy-looking people and yummier-smelling food, and the three of us were knocking back margajitos (you guessed it: margarita-mojito concoction). Jersey Girl had already gone through the last couple of months, up to the point where she described how her husband-to-be has just acquired a couple new properties, how her engagement ring and wedding band are too large to be put on the same finger, how her fiance has stopped working and wants to buy a house in Florda.

A year ago, I would've quickly written off Jersey Girl's sudden change of heart as an excuse to start a more comfortable life, but last Friday I simply took the news for what it was: a joyous and life-altering change of pace. For whatever reason, one of my best friends is going to enter a new stage of her life - and I stopped being a bitch and got really happy and excited for her.

When Jersey Girl got up, I quickly assailed SoHo Suit with similar questions. How was her rapper-boyfriend? Work? Her family? She said, without missing a beat, "Everything's good."

I knew she was lying.

"No," she insisted when I pushed. "Seriously. I have nothing to say because everything's been really good with Rapper Boyfriend."

A year ago, I would've launched into a whole tirade. "Why are you lying to me?" I would've asked, indignantly. "You're my sister and I love you and I'll support you 100% in whatever you want to do with your life. Just tell me the truth. I just want to know more about you."

But I knew why she didn't owe up to her lie. Just like I knew why she always texted and called me with such trepidation in her voice. And just like I knew why there were no pictures of me in her apartment... Not only have I failed to be there for SoHo Suit when she needed me, but like it says in a book about love that's in her apartment: "I dislike you because I see reflected in you things I dislike about myself, and it's easier to dislike you than it is to dislike me."

I read SoHo Suit like a book and I find faults in things that Military Mother will write off as a "quirky peronality trait" and Jersey Girl will call "just the way shit is." I'm the one who's looked SoHo Suit in the eye and told her that I think she can do better than her current boyfriend - even though she's set on marrying him. I'm the one who will tell her that she deserves more out of life than a man who treats her like an inferior person who is to be put up with. I'm the one who will tell her that it's cool to have fun and swing on stripper poles, but that it's an unhealthy form of ignoring deep-seeded problems if she uses sex to distract from what's really bothering her.

On Friday, I played along with the charade even after the three of us made it back to SoHo Suit's apartment and smoked bud and drank some more liquor. But it stopped the second Jersey Girl and I realized that SoHo Suit was crying to her boyfriend on the phone and pleading with him not to leave her.

"Does this happen often?" I asked Jersey Girl.

She nodded. "At least four or times a week."

I knew what was happening even before we walked into the bedroom. It isn't that Rapper Boyfriend is a bad guy, I know. He's faithful to my sister in that he isn't cheating on her. But he doesn't have faith in her. He isn't in love with her. He is always playing mind games with her to prove that he's the superior intellect.

I know this because I used to do this all the time with guys. I picked apart their words and preyed on their insecurities. I knew how to manipulate them to get exactly what I wanted and to make me feel better about myself. I know that that's what SoHo Suit's boyfriend is doing, and I know that she's feeding into it.

"I knew it", I said to Jersey Girl. "When I asked SoHo earlier today about things with Rapper, and she said they were fine - I fucking knew she was lying to me! Why doesn't she get it, that she's my sister and that I will support her 100% no matter what she chooses - but do I think there's someone out there who's a better match for her? Yes! Do I think there's someone out there who won't make her cry every other day? Yes! Do I think there's someone who knows and appreciates how her mind works, and will love he? Yes!"

Maybe I should've said all that to SoHo when Jersey and I went into her bedroom - but at the time it felt like an elaborate way to say "I told you so." I couldn't find the words that would make everything okay, so I let Jersey reach for them instead. I patted SoHo on the back and kissed her and hoped that she could read the space between us and know that it was full of empathy and feeling.

We went out to eat later on that night, and when we all parted ways in the wee morning hours of Sunday, we were in downtown Brooklyn. Queens was at least an hour and a half away. I was too broke to take a cab. I hadn't changed clothes or showered since Friday afternoon. My father had gotten into an accident while driving my car a few days before. And I was tired. Emotionally and physically, I was just tired.

If I hadn't been so sure that SoHo hadn't read the space between us, and that I was too spent to go into all of it with her, I would've asked to stay at her place. Instead, I made my way to Would-Be Romantic's place. We talked and laughed and slept together and had sex. I couldn't sleep soundly.

Maybe it was all the alcohol, or maybe it was the events of the weekend, or maybe I felt guilty for treating him a little like Underground Rapper treats SoHo Suit, but I kept on tossing and turning and waking up whiny and annoyed.

At 5 a.m., I lay in bed next to Would-Be Romantic and thought about everything changing. Jersey Girl deciding to get married to a man she'd been convinced she didn't/couldn't love the way she'd like to love her future husband. Military Mother saying that she'd contradict her plans and desires to leave the military if her lover asked her to re-enlist. SoHo Suit settling for a man who makes her cry. And me...

Would-Be Romantic woke up and asked me what was wrong. I said that the alcohol had left me dehydrated and that I wanted water.

"But we don't have water", he said.

"Also", I said, feeling the craving define itself, "I dunno why, but I want mangoes."

It was five in the morning and sunlight was only a promise to the sky.

"Sure", Would-Be Romantic said, begrudgingly. "I'll go out and buy you water and mangoes."

So he did. And we stayed up for a couple of hours, talking and laughing.

Fully hydrated and happy, I kept trying to think up Best Guy Friend's phone number, so I could tell him that I had to cancel our plans to walk aimlessly - but the digits escaped me. Even though they'd been etched into my memory years before and I'd been implying to Jersey Girl hours before that he might be the one unrelated man to really get me...

My phone was dead and Would-Be Romantic and I would have sex and cuddle and laugh and talk and be happy all day, and the rest of the world be damned...

I didn't get home till the wee morning hours of Monday, and by that time all of my thoughts about giving in and giving up were safely surpassed.

It is the artist's and philosopher's way to always analyze, and I will always wonder why I do what I do and whether or not I could've done something differently in order to make positive changes to my life. But when it comes to people, in general, who cares if we become hypocritical or hyper-critical of statements and decisions we've made in the past? Does it matter why we turn over new leaves or make changes to our lives or steal ourselves away from a future we'd once coveted?

At the end of the day, I can never really know if other people have given in or given up. Sometimes, I guess, everyone just has to give.

every new beginning comes with some other beginning's end...

Where to start, where to start.

It seems like the more into "blogger territory" I traverse (i.e., making comments on other blogs), the more I find it easier to stay with my original scheme: write what I want, respond to what I want, but mostly WRITE and feel like I might have an audience.

Here I am again, needing for my temp agency to call me about another job, and on break from teaching till Friday. I don't have enough time to really sit and marinate on any of the writing projects I'm working on, but I'm definitely itching to set thoughts down....

This past weekend was crazy - especially since I intended for it to be relaxing and borderline-bummy. It was my first weekend 95% healthy, and I wanted to get home on Friday night, relax after a long day, wake up early on Saturday, jog a couple of laps at the park, then go to work and write write write with the kids. I completely intended to go back to the park after work, lie in the grass with Cloudsplitter, finally finish the book, then write a little bit more, maybe meet someone for a drink or a meal, then order in some delicious take-out (curry and roti?! mmmmMmmmmmmMmmm), and spend some time with the family. Throw in some candlelit yoga on Sunday and maybe meeting a friend or two for brunch and a brisk walk in the park, and that woulda been SUPER. Really, it would've.

Instead, Flower Power called me up on Friday afternoon - and what could've been a relaxing weekend doing absolutey nothing became... well... the typical craziness of hanging out with Flo - despite the fact that I didn't really hang out with Flo.

Flo is one of those women who completely EXUDES confidence and sexuality. She's the only girl in a brood of six children, has a presence that landed her a couple of cameos on TV and a Guess? ad in the late 90s, and she's gorgeous. She's gorgeous and loud in the way that men always smile at and women always suck their teeth at. And I owe so much to her.

I might never have become the woman I am now if not for Flo. She and another friend, VT (VT died when I was nine or ten) were the first strong, independent women to take an interest in my well being. They let me watch as they lived their lives, and never let me feel ashamed for being a fly on the wall. I could never keep up with the quick pace of Flo's life, and when I saw her on Friday, it felt like I was coming full-circle and meeting the woman I'd subconsciously modeled myself after.

Flo was sixteen when she started modeling and promptly got her GED. She'd always been rough-and-tumble, always with a quick mouth and a sharp wit - but she'd also been smart. She'd sooner talk her way out of a tight jam, but wouldn't hesitate to draw some blood if that's what it came down to. And gorgeous - oh God, was she gorgeous... I remember being fifteen or sixteen years old, and her younger brother, Carlos (who was my best friend for many years) would regail me with tales about Flo's adventures. She fucked only models (and men who could've been models), flew in private jets, sailed in yaughts, backpacked through Europe. She had grown up speaking Spanish, English, and ebonics, and had had the foresight to also pick up proper grammar along the way - but she managed to learn Italian and pick up some French and Portuguese while overseas. She invested her money wisely, bought extravagant things for herself only if she was sure that she could either give them away later as presents or that they'd become collectables, and she loved with all her might.

Now in her early 30s, Flo is what I want to be at her age. She studied anthropology in France, lived with a bevy of handsome men, settled down with a woman (they had a child together), then separated from her wife after being cheated on. Now newly single and very experienced, she is very much free and her own woman. But gorgeous - oh man, is she gorgeous as ever!

When I met her on Friday night in the Lower East Side wine bar, all eyes fell on the statuesque beauty that I seated myself in front of. She feigned ignorance of this fact and graciously smiled when she saw me. Men coughed so they could turn away from their dates and steal glances of her. Women either smiled lasciviously or sneered at her. And yet her entire attention was lavished on me. Me, who in my flats, could be no more than 5'6". It felt in that moment like I was in the cast of the most all-engrossing fairy tale to ever be realized.

"I was gonna cut you if I found out you changed your number without telling me!" she said, not missing a beat.

I laughed and screamed, I was so excited to hear her voice and see her in person.

The sedate wine bar tensed and shirked at my shriek.

Flo's voice was the same street-smart cadence of Puerto Rican-Brooklynite that I remembered.

"Me?!" I countered, incredulous. "I called you like four years ago, and your number was disconnected!"

"Why didn't you call my folks?"

I hesitated, hating the feeling of being grilled by so close a friend.

Flo laughed. "I know, I know. It's hard talking to them..."

If it had been any other time, I would have felt dwarfed next to Flo. Not only is she a full five inches taller than me, but she is one of those women who looks positively air-brushed the moment she wakes up. (Granted, of course, that a lot of the times I saw her upon waking up were after long nights of partying, and she'd slept in her make-up, but still...) She'd cut her hair into a short boy-cut, she said, and was now growing it out. It was dark brown, with light brown highlights, and her choppy-wavy layers accentuated her high cheek bones and perfect bone structure. She'd permed it while waiting for it to grow out, so that the tight, big curls looked forced and exaggerated, making her look like she'd just walked off the runway of some haute couture fashion show.

When we hugged, I quickly noticed just how different the actual woman looked from my memory: The tight curves of her body looked positively elegant in a full-length, wine-colored cashmere column dress, and a black pashmina draped effortlessly along her shoulders. Even her sparse jewelry selections - flawless diamond studs in her ears and the noticeable but unobnoxious diamond bangles adorning her wrists - seemed contrary to the around-the-way-girl rocking the latest Pumas and Tommy Hilfiger bubble jacket.

But that voice, that attitude, that va-va-voom that got the boys from Bay Ridge to the Grand Councourse drooling - it was all still there. Despite everything she'd been through, she was still Flo.

After two bottles of wine at the wine bar, and a short walk to Little Italy for gelato, three hours had passed and I'd gotten a text from a new teacher-friend that I've been partying it up with, Groovy Girl. Flo and I had wound our way around our shared past, as if to compare notes. Two of her brothers have passed away, one of them is in jail, one is a family man in upstate NY, and another is still running around the barrio chasing skirts. [Flo: "I can't believe you dated all of them." Me: "I didn't date all of them!" Flo: (laughing so hard her body is convulsing) "Oh. My bad. You just fucked all of them! - Except the gay one!" Me: (laughing as hard as she's laughing): "Yeah! But not for a lack of trying! Carlos was fiiinnneee." Flo: "Stop talking about my fine-ass dead gay brother!"] Her parents have recently retired and moved to Miami [Flo: "I told Pa, I said 'See? You got so mad when I was showing my goodies in ads, but you wouldn't be watching half-naked young girls fraw-licking on the beach all day if I wasn't spending my younger days half-naked! It's the circle of life!' (busting out in full Lion King mode)The ciiiircclle of Life!"]. And Flo's decided to buy some property on the east coast while the market is good [Flo: "You know what a buyer's market is, mija? It's when the economy is so fucked that even good, moral people like myself take advantage of the fact that none of the poor folk can pay their bills, so I buy their property right from under them."]

Her younger brother, Carlos, had been the real-life rendition of the My So-Called Life character, Rickie - but with a lot more bite to his bark. I had been drawn to Carlos like a moth to a flame: he was gorgeous, and passionate, and could dress like a mofo. He had talent for the arts, could dance circles around anyone and had a knack for getting me into trouble and then bailing me out. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I was a little in love with him - even if he was gay, and man, was he gay! Carlos was gay before I even knew what gay was, and though it didn't sit well with his folks, he didn't go through the usual growing pains of angsty adolescence. Maybe it was because he had his big sister, Flo, to back him up; or maybe some of that patented Puertoriquena attitude rubbed off on the two youngest kids of the fam, but Carlos worked it. At eleven years old, I'm not sure I fully grasped what it meant to "work it" - until I saw Carlos wearing his purple and black Perry Ellis suit. (Yeah, I had to bring it back...)

Flo was the cool older sister, to whom Carlos and I would tell all of our secrets, in the hope that she would deem us worthy of shared escapades. She taught us how to measure an ounce of bud, introduced us to very unsavory Italian characters, and got us into clubs with more coke than Coke.

Flo was the be-all-and-end-all of cool, and looking back, I realize that the 2 or 3 years we had bad blood was all just a test; I had to endure the pangs of being without this ghetto goddess as my saving grace. She had to make due with saying things like, "You're either stupid or you think I'm stupid," to some unsuspecting hood, and not have me and Carlos finish with her famous tag phrase, "And I know you don't think I'm stupid."

Even though I was more a voyeur than a participant in those adventures, it was all part of my becoming me, and it was enough for me to get a contact high.



Friday night. There I was. Sitting across from Ms. World-Traveler-Been-There-Done-That Matching her stories with stories of my own. I was talking about picking up after high school and driving along the east coast. I was remembering the union organizers I met in North Carolina and the Navy boys I met in Virginia, the fishermen in Florida and the wanna-be cowboys in Texas... And Ms. All-Perfect-And-All-Experienced was laughing and nodding her head and fully immersed in everything that I'd done and been and become.

Groovy Girl was inviting me out to Williamsburg to a B-Boy battle that she hoped to win, and I texted her back that a friend from high school had invited me to it weeks before. Flo nodded her head while paying the bill and looked at me like I was crazy when I reached for my wallet. "Mija, you're either stupid or you think I'm stupid," she said, lowering her gaze at me, "And we both know you're not stupid."

In the old days, she would've said, "And I know you don't think I'm stupid" - but there it was: Verification of my coolness. Validation. Victory.

We hugged and cried and promised to talk in the near future. I walked away, toward the L train, and called her parents in Miami. I got the answering machine, and left a message saying that I miss them and I love them and I hope they're doing well. And just as me and my cell phone were sinking deeper into the subway, I got a call from Flo.

"Maria?"

"Yeah?"

"I hope you don't mind me calling you mija. It's just so deeply engrained in me, ya know, from back in the day. I was walking away and rethinking our conversation and I didn't want you to think that I still think of you as that awkward 11-year old girl..."

"I know you don't," I said with a smile that permeated the phone waves.

"Good," Flo said, feeling me smile.

We hung up and I joined my friend in Williamsburg, and even though I know I'm probably not going to talk to Flo again for another 4 or 5 years, it doesn't feel like we lied to each other about talking soon. I'd smiled and she'd smiled, and somewhere in there was a lot of deeper meaning that words could never begin to describe.

Those who can't do, teach...

If I stick with a teaching career in writing, am I admitting that I can't "make it" as a writer?

Toeing The Line

I had a really weird dream last night. It involved going back to Brooklyn College to take classes, dating and fucking a student of mine, having sex with my best guy friend, attacking a bunch of evil spirits, rescuing a box of kittens from getting thrown onto the subway track, taking photographs, eating jell-o at a park, and proving to someone that I'm the same person they met at the beginning of my dream.

Not in that order, and not in that same vain. But still. That's what I dreamt about. It was intense and strange and somehow made a lot more sense when I woke up than it does now.

I should've written it down, but I got the basic gist of it. I'm writing a story now that's based on it, called "See-Saw." The basic premise goes like this: A, B, C, D, & E happen, and people either figure that A, B, C & D happened to legitimize E, or that E happened to legitimize the occurrence of A, B, C & D. It's like the chicken and the egg: which came first? Does it even matter?

The fact remains that A, B, C, D, & E happen, and each letter is like a pivot point, like on a see-saw. You put your weight in one direction, and shift the pivot just a little bit, so that when you move in the other direction, it's definitely not the same way that you've moved any other time. Every little change and every little movement alters the proceeding action - even if it's only by a minute measurement. In this way, you don't change the future so much that you can't logically deduce what'll happen next; you just change it enough so that it's different from the first time around.

It might not sound like much, but that's my idea for ya. We'll see where it goes...



I'm working on a lot of writing ideas right now. Some of them interlap, so that when they're not working for one story idea, I just add them onto another story.

Along with my See-Saw idea, I'm working on something called "23." Basically, I want to pour every little bit of knowledge, wisdom and experience I've accrued before my 24th birthday into 23 interwoven short stories. I've written three of them so far, and I'm excited to continue the series.

I'm working on a collection of poems for National Poetry Month also. I think I'll call the collection something like "Snapshots of Myself in April" or "Self Portraits in April." Each poem is supposed to capture something of myself, a moment, a glimpse, a rendering of who I am at any particular time within this month.

And, of course, there are the other things I'm working on: Beautiful Prison, Pieces, Exercises in Futility - all of them works in progress that I've been hard at work on for years. Lately, I've actually been getting some work done on them, and it feels good to be at a place where I can ask opinions of people I respect and have the means to show off my writing, too. Maybe I spent too much time marketing myself to people in the know, but now that part's over and done with, and those people in the know know me. I can concentrate on the craft at hand.



I didn't sleep well last night. A student of mine had an emergency and called me, and I did everything I could to make everything all right.

Still, the ambiguity shakes me: How did I know what's all right? How do I know what I should do in an emergency? Is it all learned knowledge? Or is it naturally instilled in us?



I'm an adult and a teacher and a responsible human being - but never before did any of that feel so real than it does right now. It's springtime, and the warm breeze kisses my cheeks. Somewhere in Richmond Hill, a teenage girl is mourning the loss of her virginity and wondering if she would've gotten raped if she had played the part of "prim princess" more accurately.

Opportunities are ripe and reality seems tangible, and I tell her that it's not her fault, it can never be her fault. She nods her head even though she doesn't fully believe me. All the prep seems to have been valuable. Shame and anger can only be aimed at herself because it hurts too much to feel the repercussions of a single, life-altering event; the realness cuts like jagged glass. She is much too humbled by culture to accept anything less than full responsibility. She hopes that she can look herself in the mirror and learn to like the person she sees.



So I write and I live and I try not to confuse the two. I act and I think and I know when to do either. Life is good and what I'm feeling is real. Life is bad and what I'm feeling is real. Life is not a dress rehearsal, a run-through, a backstage pass to the main event. It is the only event. The real event. The one true test and defining matter.

And when it's all over, who knows what we'll have?

read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Sometimes, you meet someone and off the bat you know that you don't like them.

Sometimes, you get to know someone a bit and then realize you don't want to get to know them.

Sometimes, you make a life-long connection with a person and notice hindrances to your relationship, but you figure out a way to deal with those hindrances.

Everyone makes their minds up the way they want, but it's your choice to do what's right for you.

My advice?

You know yourself. You know what kind of drama you want and/or can handle. If that person doesn't fit what you're looking for, take note, be amiable, and move on. The world is big enough for us to harmoniously exist on it; if we distance ourselves enough, we can sing different tunes without creating a cacophonous dissonance.

It's Never as Good as the First Time... Part 2

The comfort and safety of staying in one place - they’re components of what I like to call “static electricity”. Static electricity powers mundane existence and shocks people whose systems naturally resist the blind perpetuating of norms.

I am one of those people.

*****

That's part of something I came up with while doctoring the last post. I'd been trying to make it more palpable to journalistic minds, as I was attempting to send it in for a contest in the NY Press... And, well, voila! The above excerpt didn't really fit into what I was doing, but it sounded purrty...

And the contest? After careful observation, I've come to the conclusion that the editors are looking for something that isn't me. And that's cool.



It's now been a full three days since I had that conversation with Clairvoyant Symphony, and my lungs are full of mucus. My mind keeps flitting to other topics: finishing up Cloudsplitter so I can return it to Jazz Star Crony, the need to take antibiotics so I can heal once and for all, wondering about blogging and why it's pulled me in.

I'm thinking about the rest of the conversation that I had with CS, and all I remember is saying that I'd "date a 10."

We'd been talking about dating and fucking, and somehow got to the point where CS was saying that all the guys she's fucked have been hot, but a lot of the guys she's dated have been lukewarm, at best.

I agreed; I'd thought that lesser-looking men would try doubly hard to get me off, and for the most part I'd been right. I dated them and fucked them without a second thought. The narcissistic part of me thought that every average-looking guy I slept with should consider themselves lucky; they'd been deigned worthy enough to experience my pussy and (sometimes) my affection.

But what about the hot guys, CS had countered. What about the guys who knew they were hot? The guys who could bag a girl simply by innocuously bumping into her? Would I be willing to date one of them?

CS had done extensive research on the subject, having asked men if they were willing to date a woman who is a 10, and women if they were willing to date a man who is a 10. All of them had hesitated to answer in the affirmative. Fucking a 10 was understandable and legitimate - but dating a 10 seemed stupid.

The logic went like this: As a woman, I know that men are (mostly) dogs and that women are (mostly) shady; so the odds are stacked against me in the first place - why test them? It seems logical that the result of dating a 10 would only be heartbreak. I'd fall for them, they'd play me, and at the end I'd feel bad for having ignored my own advice. Why go through all that?

Better to stay with the less-than-10s, to not trip up the red flags, to live and love safely.

At least, that's what the majority said.

I objected.

I hadn't realized it while I was talking to CS, but I've met men who have started out 10s. Caleb was one of them. He was charming, intelligent, passionate, talented, and oh-so-good-looking. He was the type of guy that girls would fall over - literally.

Being Caleb's girlfriend was a lesson in humility.

Each day, I was reminded that I could be replaced at any moment. Flirtatious come-ons and come-hither stares were directed at Caleb by strangers, and it was easy to get jealous. These women were gorgeous, funny, talented, brilliant people - and they'd obviously recognized the same attributes in Caleb that I had seen.

But then again, I ain't too shabby, either. And Caleb wasn't lost on the idea of losing me to another gorgeous, funny, talented, brilliant person.

Anyway, there I was, with my 10, unabashedly and unhesitatingly cavorting sexually with a real-life 10... Until I wasn't any more.

Long story short, I wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for a real-life, you-for-me-and-me-for-you relationship. I liked the idea of it, but the reality of it was just too real. So we ended our relationship, and I haven't dated a 10 since.



"But what is this '10' nonsense, anyway?" you're probably asking.

A 10 is someone who satisfies the more blatant and obvious prerequisites of attractiveness: physical good looks, financial stability, status, et al. But more than that, a 10 has those sought-after qualities that you don't realize you want until you see: the ability to make decisions at a split second's notice, the calming effect s/he has on your soul, the hours spent pontificating on the merits of a dual party political system, etc. A 10 has all of those qualities and is rare to find.

So, given that definition, why shouldn't you go after a 10?

According to the people queried by CS, you shouldn't go after a 10 because there's a heightened possibility of loss. If things don't go the right way, not only will you feel bad about yourself for getting dumped (since that's the presumed outcome), but you'll feel worse about it because you didn't listen to yourself in the first place. You'd been telling yourself that this 10 is going to play you for a fool - and look! It's happened!

I say: Why assume that, in the first place? Why assume that you'll be this 10's fool? Why stack the odds against yourself and your possible future from the get-go? It's a self-fulfilling prophesy!

Sure, a pragmatic world-view relies on statistics, and your experience tells you that you'll be left in the dust... But... S/HE'S A 10! DO NOT FORGET THAT!

May I remind you again why this person is a 10?

This person is a 10 because your conscious and your subconscious minds see things in them that are worthwhile. These parts of your brain feel safe about the conclusions they've drawn. They know you and they know what you're like and what you like and what you can handle, and they're screaming at the top of their lungs: "10!"

So why ignore them?

There's obviously something about this 10 that's drawing you in, and you should see where it goes. It's the case with 6s and 7s and 8s and 9s - and to stop yourself from possibly being with a 10 just because they're a 10 seems ludicrous. Following this logic, you're only willing to date people who are less than your ideal - because you're afraid of what may happen if you fall for your ideal. You're afraid of putting yourself out there, becoming completely vulnerable, assuming the role of a susceptible victim, joining the hordes of stupid people who put themselves in a position to get played.

But getting played only happens when you let yourself fall, and letting yourself fall is what happens when you love wholeheartedly. You should let yourself fall for people who are good for you. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for pain and resentment.



"It's easier said than done."

I know that old addage and I know that it's true.

There are times when I catch myself ignoring my own advice. In these moments, I'm shying away from opportunities that may be too good to be true. I tell myself that I'd rather preserve the untainted memory of something perfect than fuck with it and possibly disturb my opinion of it.

Then I remind myself that hypotheticals are for writing, and living is for life.

I remind myself that it's just as possible that I fall for an 8 and he cheats on me, than I fall for a 10 and he cheats on me.

I remind myself that I will not regret dating a 10 because I will have looked the possibilities in the eyes and have said, "So what?"

If, at the end, my 10 plays me for a fool - it's okay.

I'll have lived and loved some more, and at the end of any relationship - with a 10 or not - isn't that what we all say, anyway?

It's Never as Good as the First Time... Part 1

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Some of My Earliest Memories

When I was in the third grade*, a really enthusiastic middle-aged man visited our classroom and talked about creative writing. He had the caffeine- or crack-induced high of a self-help guru, and spoke in a really loud voice.

Ever the type-A student, I sat politely in my seat as my eardrums felt like bleeding, my hands folded neatly in front of me. My teacher, Mrs. Wiland, sat at her corner desk, disciplining us with her eyes; I silently refused to make a fool out of her by pointing out that the visiting speaker was a few decibels short of a jackhammer.

The man talked about how a particular phrasing can unlock and open up doors of the imagination. His thick brown hair barely moved, and his smiles seemed too quick. He led a discussion about literary and grammatical devices, and all the while made exaggerated hand movements. He walked us through a few word game exercises, and simultaneously leered as if overselling his methods. He laughed amiably along with our guffaws and triumphs, and smugly turned to our teacher. It was like he hadn't realized he was pandering to a bunch of seven- and eight- year olds. What the hell was he trying to sell us? What was my teacher a conspirator to?

The whole time, I was patiently waiting for his time to be up. I didn't want to be forced to write. This gift of linking up written shapes and audible sounds, catering to the expectations of an audience then surpassing them - it filled me with a pride and power that scared me. I didn't want the coos of praise from adults. I didn't want the attention. It all perpetuated a cycle: praise had to be followed by more praise, attention by more attention. It was like a line on a graph; I could accept and understand if its slope remained the same, but climbing would only accentuate falling. And falling...? I'd been taught that failure was unacceptable.

Writing was my first home, but my first dwelling was with my mom and my maternal grandparents, in Brooklyn. My grandmother, ever the racist, elitist bigot, taught at a public school at the time. She came home with stories about all the black kids being rude and mean and always calling her "chinky." (Back then, no one knew what a Filipino was. Now, the general familiarity of my heritage never ceases to amaze me!) She said that poor people were dirty and black people were poor, and espoused this kind of verbal attack despite the fact that we lived in a working-class black neighborhood.

The good thing about my grandmother, though, was that she always brought home books for me to read and learn how to write. I can still remember sitting in the daybed in the front room as my mom called my dad, who was still in the Philippines. I was maybe two or three years old, and it was nighttime. My mom would pick up the receiver with its long curly cord, spin the dial - (We had an-old school rotary phone. Damn. I wish I knew where it was!) - and talk in her native tongue. I would be lying in bed, with one of those workbooks with lined pages. It was a big, light, rectangular, book with a sky blue cover. There were letters to trace, and I carefully adjusted each straight line and squiggle as I listened to my mom, on the phone with my dad, giggle. Those were heady days, when I knew nothing but whatever I directly experienced.

By the time I was three and a half years old, I was scribbling away on dozens of sheets of loose leaf paper, doodling in boxes that I'd made on each page, and stapling the pages together to make them "catalogues." I'd go around the house asking my mother, grandmother, grandfather, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends, if they wanted to order from my catalogue, and I wouldn't be deterred by hesitation. "Keep it with you!" I'd insist, my business savvy potent.

An hour later, I'd return and throw my hands up, exhasperated: "WELL?!"

I can still remember my father pointing to a picture and saying, "I want apples."

"No, Dad!" I'd screamed, taking the catalogue from him and turning a dozen pages. "These are the apples."

"Ooooh!" he'd said. "Of course they are!"

"Duh, Dad!" I shook my head, annoyed, then took out a small notepad and a smaller pencil to record the order. "How many do you want?"

I guess maybe my writing and my drawing hadn't coalesced yet into talents, but I'd definitely had the enrepreneurial spirit at three and a half years old. And I had moxy, too. Thinking back on that, I wonder where the shy wallflower of early elementary school came from, and when I peek into elementary school classrooms, I wonder which student most resembles me. I was bookish and quiet, I think. My memory fails me because it's full of the high-jinx and shenanigans that started in my 'tween years.

Anyway... Yeah. Third grade. Mrs. Wiland's classroom. The energetic (possibly high) visitor who taught us about creative writing.

His final and most time-consuming activity with us was the first creative writing exercise I remember doing. He had a stack of postcards, each with different pictures on the front. There were landscapes and still lifes, caricatures and cartoons, surrealist and Renaissance styles on those postcards. He was to blindly reach into a bag of these postcards, present us with one, and then wait for us to finish writing a story about the picture on its front.

Excited and conflicted about beginning the exercise, I waited with bated breath for my postcard. Then got it. Fuck. It was religious. And not just religious. But uber religious. An angel stood in front of a woman (the Virgin Mary?), its wings stretched out as light cascaded out of its backside and the rest of its crevices, it seemed to me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Religion has always been a strange and slightly touchy subject for me (one that I'll get into some other time), and I didn't know what to do with it. Then, suddenly, I did.

I don't still have the story I wrote that day, but it sticks out in my memory still. It was a first person narrative of an angel visiting a family, there were many gem stones in the story, and it had at least one really long word that started with "multi-" ("multi-colored", I think? "Multi-dimensional"?). It started something like: "Look! There, coming in from beyond the window! It is an angel, its multi-colored wings glistening. Look at the emerald green, the amethyst and citron and diamond-like hue of its wings!...."

Clearly, I'd spent too many hours perusing my mother's jewelry catalogues. But, anyway, that story is what did it for me. There had been many earlier indicators of my proclivity toward the written word, but after the class oohed and aahed and Mrs. Wiland looked at me with pride, I knew that I was hooked. This talent that I had for weaving tales - it gave people almost as much pleasure as it did me. And ever since then, I've been pursuing the ultimate high: writing something enduring which will always be a source of pride.


* = According to Susan J. Breen, author of Fiction Class, lots of writers get their epiphanies in the third grade.

Lost Without You

I used to blog with a sense of urgency. It was important to me that I lay my words out in cyberspace. They served a purpose, and even if no one but me read my words, at least I had an intended audience. The audience gave my words meaning and direction; I knew how to phrase my thoughts because I knew how best to communicate to my audience.

But lately, it's not that way. When I blog, I feel like I'm talking to myself. My audience has become Me, and I can't write to Me because it seems pointless. Why communicate to myself things I already know?

My last blog had been a lesson in what blogging could be like. I was amazed when strangers found me on facebook and myspace. Seeing new messages in my inbox filled me with a kind of heightened glee, then gradually felt like living in a glass house. I grew afraid of people throwing stones.

At the same time, I outgrew my persona. No longer in need of any covert barriers between myself and other people - descriptions, titles, statuses - I felt the exterior manifestation of my personality wane. Loud outbursts, hysterical laughter, crude escapades, violent tumults all lost their appeal. They no longer seemed like organic extensions of the person I'd become.

I became more quiet and intense. A know-it-all complex began to brew in me, or rather a strange paradox involving the know-it-all complex: I knew that no one knows everything, and that made me feel like I knew everything.

Then a realization hit. It wasn't everything that I'd learned, but an elusive and eternal truth. I'd come to the point where opposites are enmeshed and bleed into each other, and I understood that everything and nothing really matter. The feeling inferred from this realization was compatible with the little I knew about Eastern philosophy and zen.

It's this paradoxical chasm that typifies my experiences as a philosophy student. We'd sit in class, dissect the mind ramblings of (mostly) old, white men, and come to the conclusion that every viewpoint had a grain of truth, and no one monopolized that particular truth. The real truth, the big truth, involved beliefs that stretched the gambit of thoughts, and it was an uphill battle to figure out where one notion left off and another began.

It's an altogether simpler task to figure out where one phase of life starts and another begins. Sometimes the starting point is a new job, a new love, marriage, children, a break-up, the death of a loved one, realizing that you don't fit into your favorite pair of jeans/that you're gay/that your parents are swingers, being diagnosed with a disease, ending a personality-defining habit or relationship. I had faked my way through life, making up answers and escape routes as needed; I knew that I was a different person when I became certain of what I knew and what I didn't know.

So this blog came into being, and with its growth came the diminishing of my old writer's voice.

I know that it's probably just a matter of getting used to who I've become, but there are parts of who I was that I miss (even though they weren't necessarily healthy). I miss the danger, the excitement, the feeling of not knowing. Now, everything feels sublime; therefore, nothing feels sublime.

All this time, I've worked to hit my stride, and now that I've hit it, I am certain that I much prefer the activity of working towards a goal than I do the achievement of a goal. Perhaps I've known that all along, and I was subliminally and subconsciously delaying the inevitable.

Throughout all of this, I've blogged and maintained a record of who I am and what I've become, and I've come to realize just how important it is to have a target audience, to feel like you're communicating with someone, to have someone specific to want to speak to through your writing... Without that person, those people, that audience: the activity feels empty.

So I'm thinking up ways to feel not so empty. To rock the boat a bit. To feel abrupt jolts of life, instead of a steady stream of it. I guess I'll always be the adventure-seeking, wise-cracking, unconventional hoodrat. That's good to know.

The Student-Teacher Relationship

It was in June of sixth grade when my teacher, Ms. Stein, started to sing along with the radio. The class must've been having a pizza party or something, because I remember Ms. Stein ran a tight ship. Her voice was light but crisp, kind of like her teaching style. She was singing along to Sophie B. Hawkins.

"You know this song?" one of my classmates asked, obviously surprised.

Ms. Stein laughed. "You think teachers don't have lives outside of the classroom? That we just stay in the school building and recharge every night, like robots?"

Years later, I'd realize that that feeling was common of the students in my elementary school. I'm one of the privileged few who can attest to a superb public school education, and that feeling that most of us had about our teachers was probably a testament to their amazing teaching abilities. We thought they were amazing and infallible. For the most part, at least.




Fast forward to last week, when I encountered one of my students on the train platform with her mother. I'd hurried home after work to change into my decidedly casual and un-marm-like clothes for a night of yoga and beer. (Yeah, strange, I know!)

My student excitedly introduced me to her mother, who turned to me and said, "You're a teacher?"

I pretended not to notice her snide attitude. "Yes, I am!" I gleefully replied. "Guilty as charged! And your daughter is an absolute pleasure, I have to say!"

"You're a little young to be a teacher, aren't you?"

"I'm twenty-three."

She gave me the once-over, then snarled, "You don't dress like a role model."

My smile tightened and I blinked several times. "With all due respect," I said to her, "I'm off-hours and can dress any way I like." I smiled at my student and then forced a smile at my student's mother. "It was nice meeting you."





Fast forward again, to a few hours ago. One of my students saw me from behind, in pom-pom shorts and a tank top, walking to my house from my car. I'd seen them - Wiseass, Sweetheart, and Joe - in my periphery when I made the turn onto my block, but their identities hadn't registered until I heard the smacking of lips and cat-calls. Then, the inevitable holla: "Yo, shortie! You lookin' good!"

I almost walked into my house without confronting them. Maybe I would've, if it wasn't for the fact that I'd just attempted to sweat out the rest of my flu, and my attempt did nothing but cause hot flashes.

Anyway, I looked behind me and sucked my teeth. "'Yo, shortie?'" I mimicked mock-menacingly as I walked off my stoop. "'You lookin' good?!' Is that what you really think it takes to garner the attention of a young lady, Wiseass?"

Their jaws were on the floor. Their eyes were bugshot. No way in hell it could be their afterschool poetry teacher. No. Way. In. Hell.





I teach an afterschool poetry class in my neighborhood, Monday through Friday, to high school students. I also teach an afterschool poetry class on Saturdays, through a different employer. The mood, attitude, course work, and emphasis in learning are very different between these two jobs, and it shows in the way my students view me.

My Saturday job uses an "It take a village" approach to teaching. There are several teachers and no outright heirarchy or division of power. It's egalitarian and shows the students by example that they are strong, smart, capable individuals who need only to learn how to find reliable information, and how to think for themselves.

My Mon-Fri gig is more authoritarian. They're still under the impression that teenagers know nothing about sex, violence, life... They infantalize the students, make them believe they don't know how to make decisions, mold them into future-yes-men and -women. I attempt to curb that infantilization with lessons about humility, tolerance, acceptance. I talk to the students in group discussions about sexuality, religion, and body image. Students have come to me to ask for guidance about abortions, STDs, problems with their boyfriends/girlfriends, physical and emotional abuse, gang violence/initiation... You name it, I've heard it.

Maybe it's the nature of a poetry class to uncover the heart of a person, or maybe I come across as the kind of teacher who honestly cares about her students' well-being. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Anyway, I find myself building relationships with these teenagers that are definitely not cold or lukewarm. I let them know that I'm available to talk whenever they need an ear, and that I'll write a recommendation if they need one.

Still, there's a big difference between this gig and my Saturday gig. In this gig, I'm an authoritarian figure, and part of that is withholding my own insecurities and flaws and misadventures and doubts. Maybe it's because my boss isn't as liberal as my Saturday boss, or because most of my students are west indian, caribbean, and southeast asian (where traditional, paternal authority is coveted), but I can't show too much of my personality. I can't read them a poem I wrote about sex. I can't discuss my teenage days, running amock with the wrong crowd, getting into fights, almost being sent to juvy, getting wasted every night, etc. I can't vibe with them on this level... whereas, at my Saturday gig, this kind of soul-baring activity is encouraged. EVERYONE - teachers, students - sheds tears and talks about being abandoned, fucking, gang fights, getting jumped, first love, the good stuff. The real stuff. The stuff that matters. There's no ambivalence about "protocol" or "the norm"; there's no hesitation to be one's self; there's no hypocrisy and there's no back-pedaling. We teach on Saturday that people should be real, and "real" means all sorts of things.

But from Monday to Friday, I wear slacks and button-up shirts, vintage blouses and blazers, sweaters and modestly-cut skirts, and slacks that don't accentuate my ass too much. I do it because that's the person that was hired, and she needs to get paid so she can pay her bills. I do it because I don't trust my teaching ability yet, and I'm scared my students would take advantage of me if I was myself with them. I do it because it's safe.

When Wiseass tried to holla at me, and I rebuffed him and his friends, I really and truly wanted to whip out my ebonics accent, tell them stories about talking my way into bars and clubs when I was barely thirteen years old, and blow their minds with my resume: phone sex operator, sex toy reviewer, cocktail waitress, high-end real estate agent, drug dealer, battered women's advocate, non-profit board member, bartender, et al... I wanted to show them the real me. I wanted to say that I might sound like I know all the answers, but really, I'm just playing a part that's loosely written by the New York Dept. of Eduation. I wanted to be fun and irreverent and yet mature and experienced. I wanted to be the obvious answer to a life spent incessently asking questions. I wanted to feel like these students of mine, who spend twenty hours a week with me, know something about me.

So I whipped out my accent and mentioned that I was coming back from the park.

Wiseass cracked that he'd heard I was sick, and that he'd tell the principal that I'd lied. I countered that the principal had seen me earlier today, and he'd said to stay my ass home because I'm still too germ-y.

The exchange wasn't long, and it wasn't obviously meaningful, but it was something. A start. They were too dumbfounded to form coherent sentences, and I pretended like I'd forgotten they were trying to pick me up. In two or three minutes, we'd established a repoire and I said I had to go inside. Then I left them there, on the sidewalk, in front of my house, aghast at what had just occurred.

In the shower, I thought about Ms. Stein, and my student's mother, and Wiseass and his buddies. I thought about how the different choices we make alter peoples' perceptons of us, and how things look so different when you reach the other side of a paradigm. Still buzzing with thoughts after my shower ended, I cracked open a notebook and finished up my lesson plans.

Packing Up

Maybe it's a sign of acquiescence. Maybe it's a sign of maturity. Maybe it's a sign of wisdom... But I love my bedroom and my home office. I really and truly do.

After years of moving out of my parents' house and moving back in, taking on the mortgage, wanting to sell the house, coming thisclose to selling the house, deciding to keep it, all the while grappling with my own issues of financial/emotional/intellectual insecurity, I've finally made my place my own. I've finally made my house my home.

But this morning, still sick and groggy (albeit a lot less sick and groggy than I was initially) I woke up to the sound of my cell phone. I talked for three minutes with Would-Be Romantic, who got sick by taking care of me. I surveyed my room, which is orderly and clean thanks to Would-Be Romantic. I felt a quiet pride in having a place for everything and everything in its place. And then I fantasized about packing it all up and moving on, to another room, another house, another place in my life to grow into and grow out of.

As Would-Be Romantic's cousin, Bootylicious, observed via text message last week, "It's courageous that you pick up and leave just as you find a place in life where you're comfortable."

Indeed.

As I replied to her text, and I said later to Puerto Rican Poet at a stinky booth in a Brooklyn McDonald's, the comfortable place where I'm at isn't a physical place. It's a mental/emotional/intellectual place, and as such, it goes wherever I go. True comfort and self-esteem don't easily fade away or deteriorate.

Yesterday evening, I received a text from Indiana Poetess that my favorite Boss Lady was freaking out because she'd misplaced my bio for the written program. I called my favorite Boss Lady, and I croaked through a ten-minute conversation in which she said she loved me, and that it's been such a pleasure to get to know me these past few months. I said that we should definitely get together outside of the classroom, and that she'd better come visit me in the Philippines. And then she offered to come by my house with whatever I needed since I'm so sick, and I thanked her profusely, and we hung up.

I want to write a piece about my favorite Boss Lady, and how thankful I am for the experience of the past few months: sharing my poetry with youthful minds, and having them do the same, soaking up knowledge and experience and friendship and love while earning a solid paycheck. The whole experience comes so close to perfection that it all feels like a dream.

But then, so much of what I've been going through lately feels sublime and ideal. Even the bad stuff, the hard stuff, the ugly stuff, seem like life lessons, from which to extract goodness and vitality. Even in this ill state of understimuation, I know that much.

Whatever the reason - my sickness or the homogenizing of goodness surrounding me - it's hard for me to be creative. I can't write with the poignancy of one who is actively rising out of the ashes, because I'm soaring above the clouds. So I'll write funny, happy little ditties that stretch my imagination and are suited for young adult readers. I'll finish light stories that I started ten or fifteen years ago, and be grateful when seeing the elevation of my style and vocabulary. And then, later, when there's a shift and I'm grounded again by school and work and the business of figuring out for myself another infinite truth, I'll be dark and a little cynical and brooding and romantic in the way that hobos end up being so unexpectedly handsome.

Right now, I'm preparing for that stage of the circle. I'm reading, reading, reading, and wondering if it's possible to simultaneously observe and live wholeheartedly and completely.

Why Waste Your Time On Negativity...

... when there's so much good to do in the world?

In my incapacitated and vulnerable state, I've had a lot of time to think. I keep getting phone calls from my bosses, wondering where something is or if something got sent out or what kind of tea Mr. Rosenfeldt of the 4:15 meeting prefers. I answer my cell phone, albeit begudgingly, and I am aware that I sound like a prepubescent F to M trans who has laryngitis. There was a time when I'd do everything I could just to stave off any showing of weakness - maybe quitting my jobs, just to avoid having to admit that I get sick - but those days are gone. Now I relish the opportunity to show that I'm human.

"(The Perception of) Weakness v. (The Perception of) Strength" is a topic I've been thinking a lot about. I spent a great deal of my life with power struggles: with my family, with my friends, with my lovers and love interests, with employers, etc. I always had to prove something to someone: to my parents, that I'm a capable individual who needs to find her own way and be her own person; to my friends, that I wasn't some punk with no life experience aka street cred (read: aka value); to my lovers and love interests, that I'm not just some kid to be taken advantage of; to anyone I meet in an office or job situation, that I'm worthy of the position and, further, that I'm their work salvation, able to do anything and everything and still be pleasant. I've always raised the standards for myself particularly high.

Maybe that's why I was drawn to politics; with high standards came high opinions of me. I scrambled to get to the pinnacle of whatever I was engaged with, and people responded positively to this facet of my personality. Doors that other people - most people - covet were ceremoniously opened to me. Situations that seem unfathomable - work experiences, dating experiences, sexual experiences, educational experiences, et al. - were conjured into reality. I'd found that in faking an all-powerful persona, I could have anything I wanted. Anything less was admitting fault and weakness, and would definitely not lead to success as easily.



I'm no longer that aggressive, attention- and success-craving would-be mogul of all things under the sun. I now take my time in deciding what it is that I want, and why it is that I want it. I've wasted too much time blindly attaining the highly-coveted, and when I look back on it, I realize that I was the personification of the cold-blooded, machine-like psueudo-personality that proliferates our culture. Even though I denied it at the time, money, material wealth, status, and other markers of elitism were what I aspired to gain.

Ironically, after taking the time to figure myself out, know my own motivations, and accept and relish my place in the greater scheme of things, I am in more of a position to aspire to great heights. Only, now I don't have the pressure of failure or doubt or regret. What I have is the engrained knowledge that at my core, I'm a good person, and everything I do - travel to a foreign land, befriend strangers at a coffee shop, rise to a position of perceived power, take out the garbage, plant flowerbeds all day - is beautiful. What I don't have is a necessary goal with which to hang myself. I just know the general trajectory of where I want my life to go, and what I need to achieve that track. In this weightless and positive existence of opportunities and adventures, sky's the limit to the good I can do.