What NOT to say on a dom interview.

Everything I said.

Okay, no. I lied. I wasn't that bad. But, honestly, it was the first time in my life where I walked out of the interview and didn't think I nailed it. I've always been able to land jobs, and the reason for that ia that I'm an amazing conversationalist. Put me in any room, any place, and I can get whatever I need from whomever is there.

But last night? Nope. I just wasn't on point.

*******

It wasn't that the interview went badly, really. It's just that I wasn't my usual professional and articulate self. The top three things that I should've done differently:

1) I shouldn't have asked off the bat if they required STD testing. The way I asked sounded like "I can't be sexin' for a living, so if that's what you want I'M OUT."

However, (and maybe it's just my overly self-critical self saying this) I think I might have made it sound like I have something to hide.

Honestly, after my previous bad experience (wherein they asked me to shell out a hundred+ bucks in order to pay for STD testing - to make sure that I could do "yellow-" "red-" and "brown-showers," they assured me), I've been apprehensive about looking for dominatrix work. I love the work - as long as it's legit.

2) I should have asked more questions. I assumed off the bat that this place needed switch girls. Meaning, women who are both sub and dom. One of the girls came in during my interview and asked what I'd be doing, and I immediately said "switch work, hopefully." She kind of looked at me strangely, which makes me think now that perhaps that particular dungeon only does dom work. If that's the case, I looked like some newbie who didn't do her homework.

3) I should've been a bit more professional. Not overly professional, cuz DUH. But, I mean, I could've shaken my interviewers hand, asked her name, that sort of thing. I'm so used to dungeons being two steps away from being brothels; I didn't even think to be professional. This place was the most legit dungeon I've ever had the honor of interviewing for.

*******

Opera Singer also interviewed for the place. It seemed to her that I had the better interview; I stayed in longer with the interviewer, got a sneak peak (albeit accidentally) of a session, and spoke with some of the girls. We both just kind of shrug our shoulders and have a mutual understanding: we'd obviously like the work, but we'd be just as happy to see the other succeed.

I realized the other night, when hanging out with a bunch of my closer girlfriends, that I've indeed reached this strange new zenith of adulthood, wherein things are what they are. It's not that there are less challenges now; it's just that I don't care about adversity. I've been there and done that, and nothing fazes me anymore. I've spent a great deal of time and energy making my life as close to my ideal as possible, and at this stage of the game it's as close as it's ever been to perfect.

Maybe it's all the smoking I've been doing (cigs, weed, et al.), but I'm a lot more chillax. I know that I've done my best, that I'm doing my best, and that I'll continue to do my best, regardless of what the situation is - and, really, what else is there for me to do? I guess all of this is just a long-winded way of saying that right after I post this blog, I won't give last night's interview a second thought.

I really need this to work out.

And by "this" I mean everything that I'm working on at the moment. I have another dominatrix interview scheduled for this Sunday. Opera Singer's also applied to the same dungeon, and we're being interviewed within 2 hours of each other (her first). I need good, fast money, and I need it yesterday.

I'm thisclose to completing a writing project that I've been fretting over for... umm... maybe... 4 months. I'm afraid that if I throw my hat in the ring and it meets a big fat rejection, I'll roll up in a ball like those roley poley beetles and cry.

No. Correction: I was afraid of that. Now I'm just excited. Like: woo-hoo, this writing project is finally within completion, I've dealt with my issues, and I might actually land a prestigious, regularly-paying writing gig. I should be finished by tonight... *excited shudder*

I'm spending the rest of today looking for day jobs and volunteering/interning gigs that are up my alley. I have to decide right now, very quickly: will I go straight into physician's assistance (by changing my major and going to a different school), OR will I go back to BC, finish up my philosophy & creative writing degree, then go where the wind takes me? [Actually, I lie: I've got a good idea of where I'm going after a creative writing degree. I'm thinking: an education degree, traveling, teaching in inner city schools, then get my MFA. Damn. I think I've made my decision.]

I have this sick feeling in my stomach that in the next couple of weeks, I'll be running at full-throttle: night job, day job, volunteering/interning, writing gig... And I might *laughing hysterically* go back to school.

I have this really bad habit of making plans waaaayyy in advance when I'm fully aware that these things change. But I do it anyway. So here goes: I need to do all that work stuff to make me feel productive and confident in my decisions, then I can pay off as many bills as possible, get an apartment, and go back to school. In that order. I probably won't go back to school till winter or spring. But, eh. It's okay. I've learned my lesson and I'm glad that it's finally stuck. There is no schedule, no rubric, no system more important than your own biological/emotional clock. Fuck anyone who thinks differently. Social constructs are only important to petty people.

What a difference a week makes.

The days collide and blur, and I'm not quite sure of when one started and another ended. There have been two dom jobs - one I got fired from for almost killing a man, the other I didn't start because it didn't seem legit; numerous retellings of the day I left my parents' house in Queens (I apologize if you haven't heard the full story; I've told it too many times to care about the events that transpired that day); several nights of drunken carousing with good friends. And yesterday, I dropped the other shoe. I told my mom that I'm not going to the Philippines anymore. It's official. I've made my decision. I'm staying in the States.

*enter trumpets, blaring*

It seems crazy that I choose my life here, over the one I'm certain to have in the Philippines. Over there, I would be living in the lap of luxury. I'd have a maid and butler, a house all to myself and my brother, nothing to worry about but grades and my love of teaching. Over here.... well...

I'm staying with Rob and his family, in a house that's full of relatives. We have our own room up in the attic, and neither of us have steady money coming in. In truth, I haven't really been looking for office work since I left my parents' place. I've been too busy licking my wounds, trying to find a dom job (as opposed to a regular 9-5), and adjusting to the new reality. I now have no ties with my parents: our financial responsibilities are separated at last; I have no phone for them to contact me; they have only an inkling of where I'm staying and what I'm doing with my life. It is - to put it plainly - the antithesis of where I was at (emotionally, financially, physically) about a week ago.

So forgive me for skipping over the parts where I scare myself with my own confidence. Excuse my lack of exposition over the episodes where I ended many phases of the last incarnation of Maria. Read on, despite the fact that my writing has been hampered by an inability to focus on real events; only fiction soothes my soul these days.

Let me tell you that this thing, this plan, this new version of myself, is something that I have been working towards for a long time. It's different from the many times I've left home: I don't feel the itch to return to my parents; I don't feel dependent on anyone to be okay; I am confident in who I am and what I'm about.

Let me say that despite the many appreciative gestures I've experienced - friends who've picked up tabs, families who've opened up their hearts and homes to me, etc. - I still feel like this right here is mine. It is because of me and who I am that I am given these opportunities and gestures. This has just as much to do with my worthiness and my personality as it does with other people's generosity. I don't take for granted their kindness, but at the same time I don't sell myself short.

And that's the main difference between right now and every other time in my life when I've attempted to break the ongoing cycle of dysfunction known as "my family."

I've finally finished keeping tabs on myself and my shortcomings, and now I act and react without self-doubt or self-criticism. I know better than to be offended when someone makes an off-color comment that doesn't threaten my livelihood. I can ease my way in and out of duress and teach myself something contrary to the undisciplined nature instilled in me by my parents. This is my world, my life, my responsibility, my legend, my accomplishment, my failure, mine mine MINE. And no one else's.

I just can't have ugly friends.

Not good friends at least.

I came to this conclusion at an Anime Convention I attended about a month ago. There I was, surrounded by kids wearing costumes, and none of them were attractive.

Okay, no. I lied. There was one guy who was maybe 16 or 17 years old that made me think, When the fuck did I turn into a pedophile?! But that's neither here nor there.

Now, I'm usually very social. Put me in any room and I can work it like nobody's business. *snaps fingers* But I didn't want to socialize with these people. They. Were. Just. Too. Ugly.

Probably, this predisposition toward attractive people is something I've always had, but I hadn't identified it till that moment. After noticing it, though, I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why?"

And I keep asking myself "Why?"

Why do I keep on asking myself, "Why?"?

I haven't formed a conclusion. I'm just too busy to think about things like the attractiveness of my friends.

I'm just happy that I have em... And that they're all so fucking hot.

The time for pride has passed.

I've always thought of journal writing as catharsis. During my morning brain vomit sessions, nothing was too sacred to impart onto the page. Never before in my writing have I held back (a feature of my talent that many editors and professors have lauded). My close friends have always been the keepers of my most intimate and life-changing thoughts and actions, and blogging has always been an extention of my all-out, balls-to-the-wall mentality. Still, I find myself in the precarious position of needing to explain why I won't be talking about what's been going on in the past week and a half. Make no mistake; the declaration of my omission is ironically necessary in fulfilling full-disclosure (which is something, as an artist and a sane human being, I need to be able to do). So. Here. I. Go.

There was no trip to France. There were, however, many talks with several women over the superior and unsated sexual appetite of men. These women were in different stages of giving themselves over to a shared life; my mom was one of them.

***

It's been three hours since I've started this post, and I can't think of what else to say. All my thoughts run together like rivers into the Nile, and all I can think of is that this stage of my progress is different. There will be no sharing with close friends, no advice sought or given, no assistance on how to manage life's duties and phases (give or take). I'm tapped out on energy and personality that don't fulfill a need.

What do I need? Money. A place of my own. Education. Trusted people who've "been there" and understand. And make no mistake: when I say "been there", I mean they're older. Much older. Ten or twenty years, at least. I see things from this point in my life that are easily obscured by attempts to communicate; I need to speak with people who have had to been through what I'm going through, singularly by the virtue of their age.

***

For so long, I've played the part of "Glue" in the very-staged drama known as "My Family". I've joked with friends about what it means to live in a household where patriarchy rules so supreme that paternal indescretions are glossed over and taken as "the way things are". I've shared stories with women who have had to learn on their own accord what it meant to have a backbone, because their own mothers never had one. I've commiserated over the strange and very real feeling that no one - especially not someone who's white or middle class - can ever know what it means to love your family the way that we love our families.

But I've moved out of my parents' house.

I have written to the lawyers, made it official that the house is in their name yet again. Signed paperwork, taken my necessary possessions.

I mull over whether or not to take my dog, Justice, to the place where I'm staying. I don't know how long I can stay; I just might be a nomad, and if that's the case, what good will it do Justice to be with me? Would I just be selfish by taking him, aka the only "person" in my parents' house who hasn't disappointed me, to live with me?

I have, in every conceivable way - physically, emotionally, financially - abandoned my family. Something I said I'd never do. Something I've always written off as a coward's action.

But now, from the other side, I see that it was really my inability to take care of myself - financially, and especially emotionally - that was holding me back from making this break. It was really an incessant need to believe that what I have - my family - is really some sacred source or goodness which nothing could waiver. It was all really a manifestation of my inability to fulfill my potential. I guess, what it boils down to, is that I had been acting like a coward by not starting out on my own two feet, without anyone's baggage on my shoulders.

All along, there were many parts of my psyche that needed only to be convinced that I was doing the right thing in "taking care of everyone". Now, I realize, I've done harm by cloaking my selfish intentions with a guise of virtue: I enabled bad habits and retarded the progression of personal insights and learning.

***

I can only hope that the vague articulations of my feelings translate into a feeling of emotional unloading. I'm finding it hard to connect to my feelings. It's easier for me to just do nothing. To be a blank personality. To instinctually act, as opposed to consciously act. To shut down in social situations. To be intimidating, intense, unphased by anything. I've been told by my brother (with tears in his eyes) and close friends that it's scary how much I can change so suddenly. It's as if this were the "real me", the side that I mask with my pleasantries and sunny disposition. The facet of my personality that allows me to survive and thrive.

I can no longer look in the eyes the people who have disappointed me. I no longer have time for verbal exposition. Too much of my life has been used in trying to communicate, and I feel like much of that time was for nothing. Why spend my time explaining my actions? Telling my stories? Sharing my theories? What good does that do me? I would be better off spending my time doing something more proactive. Something - anything - that doesn't leave me feeling used up.