She's Ba-ack!

Loud Maria is back, and it feels so fucking good... To have this self-trust. To know my boundaries. To understand the repercussions and be fully responsible for them.

The last incarnation of Loud Maria was simply rude and obnoxious, and she felt the urge to let her id out just because. She never took responsibility for anything - good or bad - and was in constant need of thinking and analyzation. Passive Maria dealt with that by being very accomodating and understanding and zen. She analyzed ad nauseum, and let other people do the loud and obnoxious. She felt the need to apologize, even if the situation didn't necessarily call for it (for fear of "being rude"), and communicated alllll thhheee tiimmmeee why she did what she did.

But this new Loud Maria, with her better grasp of the world's ways and her aptness to say "I LOVE YOU, BUT FUCK YOU IF YOU WANT ME TO CHANGE!" is coming into her own. She won't go out of her way to rub you the wrong way, but she doesn't mind so much if she does. ("You'll just have to grow some cajones and deal.") She still loves people, but now sees this love as a mere option. ("I need to focus on me before I can help you.") She still has those pretentiously deep thoughts all the time, but she reserves them for her writing. ("A place for everything and everything in its place.")

And communicating why and how she does things seems moot and repetitive... I dare say, I'm becoming more conservative*. And I like it.

*****

I've gotten replies to my letters, and it's funny how people have reacted to them. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but it's gone something like this:

Of the 30-someodd letters I've sent, I've gotten more than a dozen replies, and 2 have come back to me, unopened. (I didn't put my name or my address on the envelopes, so I'm guessing I just got the wrong addresses.) Of the 15 or so replies, nine of them were emails or letters, telling me some elaborated variation of "it's all good." One of them is inviting me to their wedding next month. A few of them wanna get together and talk.

And, it seems, all of them have wondered from time to time about me and how I'm doing, but they didn't know how to get a hold of me (most of these people are of the too-cool-for-the-internet ilk).

I've talked on the phone to a few of them, laughed, had "moments" on the line, shared stories, apologized whole heartedly. And always, there was a sentiment of "Hey, back in the day this was a big deal, but as you grow older you learn ________, and you realize there's no reason to feel bad. Shit happens."

Funny, but rekindling a relationship with these people, they seem closer to me in mind and spirit than a lot of the friends I've kept along the way...

*****

Opera Singer talks a lot and she feels bad about this, but I love her more for it. Sometimes it's good to bathe in the way another person thinks, and just take it all in. I'm pretty sure I'm being an emotional spy, but also, it takes the edge off of having to come back with the witty repartee. And it gives me time to acclimate to offering the witty repartee, which is strangely antithetical to the deep, philosophical ramblings that I'm prone to.

I'm not used to being encouraged to speak on subjects that my interlocuter might find disagreeable. (I think that came out wrong. It's not the subject itself that Opera Singer might find disagreeable, but my opinion on them.) But, anyway, Opera is cool with that. She's respectful and open-minded and awesomely intelligent, and I can feel like a two-way street of information is being crossed when we converse. She offers me a glimpse of what may come, and I haven't felt that in a while.

*****

Rose Madder emails me and asks about my blog: Why wasn't she aware that I had one? Why didn't I message her about it? And, most importantly, why haven't I mentioned her in it?!

Apparently she found it while blog hopping, and instantly recognized some of the people I mentioned... Funny. You know a person for almost 20 years, and the way she finds out that you're a former phone sex operator with designs on the world is through the 'nets...


*Conservative, in this sense, as in "I'm winnowing down the choices of who I can be, until my personality is more compact and manageable."