Mistress Mom

That's the name of my new blog. I've yet to jazz it up with graphics and banners and all of that business, but I haven't had this much fun blogging in a really long time. Join me at MistressMom.

The Musing Broads

I've teamed up with two of my closest friends-cum-writing buddies, Annamarya and Deena, to become The Musing Broads. Every week, we'll be answering your questions about love, life and everything in between, and I'll be writing about the misadventures I've had while trying to earn a buck and figure out "what I wanna be when I grow up."

Check it out!

Funny, how it happens...

Contrary to my facebook status (and my myspace status, I think?), my cell phone isn't dead and buried. It's in its final death throes, coming to life for a nano second before turning back off, refusing to allow me access to my contact list, and redirecting me to a blank screen when I want to check my texts. What's the use of carrying a phone when you can't pick up calls, make calls, see texts (much less, answer them), and can't silence it when you're at work, etc.? It might as well be dead, since I can't depend on it; I'm leaving it home from now on.

I've considered cancelling service to the phone, so that people realize that it's not working (as opposed to thinking that I'm avoiding them), but it's part of a family plan and I don't have a couple hundred dollars to pay Sprint - at least, not to make people feel better. The sad part is, paranoia recently got the best of me, and I decided a few weeks ago to change my service so that I could only listen to my voicemails from my cell phone... Ah, the comedic undertones of it all...

Much has happened in the past week, and I'm taking it all in stride. However, as my friend Marvina the Martian observed a few days ago, I'm no longer the type to blog. This blog has chronicled a very important time in my life, as well as the many minute changes in personality and writing style that I've undergone in the past few months; but nothing I have to say is applicable to this particular medium. My words get caught in my head - even that word "medium". I don't think it's the word I was going for - and the only time they don't seem to get caught in my head is when I'm working on one of my novels. (I've written two that I need to draft and I'm working on three more.)

So this is it. Blogging Maria is taking leave. Thanks, blogworld, for being so kind.

XO-M

Blah blah blah

Not much philosophizing or pontificating happening on this end. At least, none of that that's fit for blogging.

As you can see from the last entry, things've been interesting - when are they not?! - but, eh... most of what I go through slides off my back relatively easily. Last week, Latina Princess told me about being in the Latin King fam and implied that she'd rather not be a part of it, but that she's too scared to back away. I've known her since she was eight or nine years old, and I have to say, it broke my heart a little bit to remember the innocent little girl and to see the grown woman standing before me.

I've started working with an afterschool class around my way, doing a lot of what I'm doing at Nuyorican on Saturdays. Last week, one of the girls asked if I'd go with her to Planned Parenthood. It felt surreal. There she was, 14 years old and impressionable, and she was looking to me, her teacher and confidante, for advice and assistance. She hardly knew me but insisted that she felt a kinship.

I still have yet to cash in my check from my Saturday job, and in the meantime I'm hustling to pay my bills, picking up whatever gigs, etc. I can land that'll put cash in my hand right away. It's lucrative, kinda shady (in an illegal kinda way), and makes me feel complete in the sense that I'm working every angle that doesn't poo-poo all over my character.

Last night I bar-hopped in the EV and partied till the last call (4 a.m.), danced with Rob, got hit on repeatedly while Rob was away, drank to my heart's content, forgot about the weight on my shouders, and danced danced flirted grinded grinded hair flipped laughed danced drank flirted my way into a heady place of sublime proportions.

Emails Say It Best

okay, so my phone's officially on the fritz. I think it got wet last night, when I was walking in the rain. it would probably help if I took out the battery, but it doesn't wanna be removed :(

I've had a rough day. this morning, my brother collapsed for no apparent reason, and was brought to the ER via ambulance. this happened before, when he was 11 (he's 18 now) and the doc said the first time around that he's hyperglycemic (the one where he needs sugar all the time). thing is, according to the blood work, his blood sugar was fine/normal, so we don't know what's up with him. the doc even ran routine drug tests to rule them out, and sure enough they came back clean... so now the question is: wtf is going on with him?

my mom says it's stress. but seriously?! the kid doesn't work and has no bills. he's not going to school, and he gets everything/anything he asks for. what kinda stress does he have?! that's the kind that I wanna have!

it looks like he'll be okay. he had a slight concussion, but that's all. I think I handled the situation well. I was on my way to work when my mom called me, frantic. I rushed home while on my cell phone, fighting the static, etc., and made sure my mom called 911. then I texted my coworker to let her know that I wasn't gonna be at work while making asking my mom to make sure that my brother was breathing okay, etc.

she's a f*cking nurse, and she wasn't sure how to check on him! AHHH!!! I mean, yeah, I get it, he's your son and you freak out when there's something wrong with him (my dad freaked out the first time it happened, big time) - but geez!

so yeah. that was part 1 of today. then my half brothers' mom called me to try to get me on her side for the court case against my dad (apparently, she heard that I'm a feminist and believes that that means I'll side with the woman in any situation).

then I had to meet with my folks' lawyer because I'm getting sued for outstanding medical bills.

CRAZINESS!!!!!

I still have YET to file my taxes (doing it on Monday) and all I wanna do is kick back drinks with some cool people and dance away the night. *sigh* what are you doing tonight? Sherene's celebrating her 25th at The Park tonight. I'm gonna head there kinda late (arond 12ish, I think) cuz I have to make a cameo at Eli's apartment warming party (which you could meet me in front of, if you want. it's by Ave J on the Q line)... anywhos, wanna join us? I love The Park, and it should be some fun times!

XO-M

These Are My Confessions

So... *teeth sucking*

Let's say- *cough*

Well... *nervous laugh* Yeah.

*beat*

Let's say... you know me.

*beat*

Let's say you even know me... well.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

Let's say... we hang out... all the time.

We talk about... everything.

I'm my usual no-holds-barred self with you... and our repoire... is... awesome.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

Still. *cough*

It stands.

The truth, I mean.

*beat*

You haven't seen all of me until you've seen all of me.

*inhale cigarette smoke*

And you haven't seen all of me until you've seen the worst of me.

*stubs out cigarette*

So here's the worst of me: the parts that any normal person would hide from the people who don't need to see them.

The parts that detract from the up-right, morally-gray-but-ultimately-worthwhile-and-almost-wholesome character that I've presented thus far in our relationship.

The parts that I allude to all the time but you've never been privy to.

The side of me who will not hesitate to break a man's heart while his father figure is dying of cancer and he's trying the best to show me his love.

The side of me who will stand someone up just because... or because I haven't yet gotten over myself and I'm xenophobic from time to time and everyone feels like a stranger to me.

The side of me who will end life-long friendships because I've outgrown the people I used to tell everything to.

Let me tell you that I can't be depended on.

That I balk at the idea of standing on pedestals because I suffer from vertigo.

(Kundera said it best; it's not the fear of heights but the fear of falling that every vertigo-prone person falls prey to - and I am no exception.)

That I have a severe issue with authority or anything that resembles authority, and I find it difficult to do as I'm asked unless I truly love you.

(And sometimes even when I truly love you, I need to rebel against your love just to prove that you don't own me.)

That I have never known without a doubt that I am my own person, and that I fear being molded by the inverse of expected norms.

(It's like being the jell-o outside of the mold; even if I don't look as expected, I'm still shaped by the mold.)

That I don't know if I do anything right - except for writing. It's the only thing that's ever made sense to me and the only thing that I know without a doubt that I know backwards and forwards and inside out.

That I doubt my goodness all the time and allow myself to act like a bratty, whiny child with anyone who'll let me get away with it - and these people earn my love by putting up with my immaturity.

That I feel sometimes like I deserve time to be a brat because I've been acting grown from the time I was a child, and no one's ever told me how to be an adult or shown me how it's done.

That I constantly bite the hands that feed me because I distrust folks who take it upon themselves to do good by me -

even though I love to do good by others, unexpectedly -

and I was taught that no one does good by me unless they want something in return.

(I try to teach people by example that this isn't true, but sometimes I feel like I'm doing an injustice: it is truth and they need to learn this bitter truth or they'll be taken advantage of and hurt time and time again.)

So many people have wanted to mentor me, take me under their wing, teach me, mold me, and nothing's ever taken because I don't feel like I can trust anyone's reality. I feel like I don't belong in anyone's world. I always fit so neatly into every role, every lifestyle, every niche and opportunity granted me. I've always fit and excelled so easily: I must be fake, or the situations presented me must be fake.

So many people have wanted me to mentor them, take them under my wing, teach them, mold them, but I always feel like I fail them. I don't know anything. I wish I did.

So I act out. I drink too much. I love too hard. I sleep around. And I lie through my teeth (poorly but effectively) when someone who wants to grow old with me asks if I love them. I lie through my teeth when I say that I want to see other people; I lie through my teeth when I say that I love them but I don't want to end up with them; I lie through my teeth when I say there's a chance for us; I lie through my teeth when I say that there's no chance for us.

The truth is, everything I say is a lie because I don't know anything. Nothing feels true and nothing feels real and when I want to feel a truth, something - loss, regret, pain, shame - stabs me straight in the spine and it feels real.

I am a masochist because it is the only way I feel alive. I am a teacher by default - because my life choices show a path that so many are interested by. And I don't know if, tomorrow, I'll disappoint you or make you proud. I don't know myself that well.

I just know that I'll do everything in my power to make sure that tomorrow happens.

I just know that my unremarkable life has been punctuated by the palpable power of people who go about living, loving, leaving the best way they know how.

It's pure poetry.

What Goes Up...

I'm sitting in my home office, trying to send my resume out and write some fiction and poetry. My hotmail account's been messing up and one of my old editors just called to say that a piece I sent her two days ago just got to her. The wind is coming in through the dusty blinds. Portishead is crooning and booming in the background. I'm looking out the window. The sky is so fucking beautiful.

Stong gusts shake the branches of the tall trees that line my neighborhood. A chorus of a hundred birds are serenading the setting sun. It's otherwise quiet outside. Inside the house. In my heart.

There are cars thumping down the street, cruising at 30 mph down a street where ne'er-do-well children are talking ebonics and playing basketball.

My family is downstairs, in the living room, watching television with the volume up so that my parents can catch all the words.

The crackhead down the street is jeering at our autistic neighbor at the top of his lungs.

But it's quiet. In my head. In my heart. In the marrow of my bones. There's a chill. And it's quiet. Really quiet.

*****

I'm getting closer. I feel it. Closer to that feeling that I've been simultaneously dreading and working towards. That feeling of hitting The End. Not death, but that place where there is no place to go but up, out, forward -or down, into an abyss of mediocrity. That destination that makes people surrender to a Good Enough Life because the stakes have gotten too high and God forbid you fuck up the big chance to do something Great with your life. I'm headed there. I can feel it in my bones. The test. It's coming.

I'm mulling over all the choices I can make, all the futures I can have, all the people I can be.

I'm thinking about school: Going back. Succeeding in the conventional world. Being a "respectable adult."

I'm thinking about the work I do with kids: How much I love it. How little I need monetarily when I feel like every day is spent doing a good deed. How it makes me feel level, even - like none of the horrible stuff I've done matters because I go into the classroom and I listen to the kids and we run around the track and write short stories and have grammar lessons and I tell them that they're special and that they'll make it no matter where they come from or what people may say to the contrary. It' like being baptized in the breath of babies every day; I'm cleansed and new again.

I'm thinking about love. Love and dating and sex...

Drummer Boy and I had mind-blowing sex the other night, even though my initial reaction to him was sadness. How could I hang out with him knowing where it would lead, when Caleb warned me that Drummer Boy always went after his conquests?

There was solace in Drummer Boy's familiarity with that part of my life. There was hope in knowing that he was the only living vestige of that version of me, Rocker Maria. I knew that he would see her through all the layers; that he'd pick out that particular inflection in my voice, that particular twinkle in my eyes; that he'd see me and he'd see the same Maria that dated Caleb... and I needed that. I needed to be her.

I forget sometimes what it was like to be those Marias, and when I'm scared, when I'm lost, when I'm facing the eye of a storm, it's good to melt back into the skin of someone I used to be and just... Be that person. For a while...

So many times, I catch myself winging it, and I shudder.

Contrary to popular belief, I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. I just act and react and build my life bit by bit and people see in me what they see, and there's no magic or special quality to me. I'm just another person.

*****

So I'm in my home office, staring at a dark sky, thinking about love, about life, about Caleb. About Travis. About Rob. About Jorge. About Tarenz. About them, the great loves of my life, and all the guys and gals in between the great loves of my life.

I'm thinking about the struggle for a female Filipino-American-New Yorker to find her place in politics, in society, in her culture(s), in her sexuality, in her generation, in her potential. How hard it is to overcome the daily nuisances that life throws at you, the moments of wonder, the ugly and awful memories which haunt our nightmares.

I'm thinking about the opportunities I've had, taken, missed. I'm thinking about the revving up, the readying, the practicing for Real Life to begin. And I know that I'm scared. I'm really scared. I'm typing this, and I know deep down that this is when the excess of all I've ever been will be buried.

I'm feeling my mind ease as fear screams blisteringly inside of me. I'm grasping for my friends, my family, my lovers, to remind me of who I've been, who I've been wanting to become. I'm shouting at myself, pumping up my adrenaline, quickening my pulse. I know what I need to do. I just have to do it.

I'm all too willing to go out on a limb no matter how far down the possible fall.

Forgive me if I fail.

YAY!

Rob called me this morning to say that my iPod finally came in the mail.

Okay, wait. *thinking* Maybe I shouldn't be posting this until the iPod is actually in my hands...

Oh, fuck it!

I'm excited and elated and... well, I guess to understand why a piece of technology can cause such a reaction (it ain't simply cuz I'm addicted to tunes), I should start from Valentine's Day. Or about 6 months before Valentine's Day.

But that'll come later...

For now, YAY!

Top 10 Things That Should Irk Me But Don't

NOTE: I need to elaborate on these - especially since a bunch of em are tongue-in-cheek. For now, though, this is who I am, condensed.

The second I put down this list, I started getting bothered by some of the things I put on it. I guess that just goes to show how transitory life and people are.


1) People who don't like me.

2) Not getting my way.

3) Unsavory opinions of me.

4) Being stood up and/or being kept waiting.

5) My parents.

6) My body.

7) Being 23 and without a degree.

8) The "failed relationships" that I've had - both romantic and platonic.

9) Being swamped with bills, bills, and more bills.

10) My selective memory.

Top 10 Things That Irk Me

NOTE: These are things I'm proud to say I can extrapolate from life. I wanna elaborate on some of these points, but here they are in all their first draft beauty.

1) Beating around the bush. Last night, I went to someone's house and hung around uncomfortably, trying to make good with my social graces. A couple of people kept on making references to things they'd only know by reading this blog, and maybe I'm being paranoid or I completely miss the point of blogging - but all I kept thinking was, "My instincts say that they're alluding to my blog, but I feel no need to cross the boundary between cyber reality and physical reality. If they have something to say/ask, they'll do it, and that's when I'll answer them."

I stand by my decision, but I wish they'd have either kept their thoughts to themselves or they'd have fully aired out their quandaries. I mean, seriously, I'm not the kind of chick who gets all upset if you call her out on shit. Just say the damn thing already and have some common friggin' courtesy! Don't bring voice to something if you don't have enough voice to have your statements heard.

2) Unnecessary(?) Violence. When I decided to redo my blog profile, I almost added one of my favorite quotes. It's something that someone - me? Carrie? Samantha? Charlotte? - came up with during one of our many drinking binges back in the day. It goes something like: "I'm a pacifist till you fuck with me; then I'll kick your ass."

I have friends who would waste no time in calling me a hypocrite, or say that such a statement is unfathomable and offensive in some way. (That's just how I roll: some of my people are politically-correct hippies.) But is it true? Yes. Most certainly.

So how does this work?

I am the sweetest person you'll ever meet - and in many ways, one of the "cutest" as Rob, Drummer Boy and Past Tense can attest. I am very much an advocate of postponing and/or eradicating all sorts of bodily and emotional injury. I will admit that violence, in all of its forms, serves little use outside of throwing around one's weight, and that that sort of politicking ain't for the day-to-day of habit and circumstance.

But get on my shit list and I will see red every time your name is mentioned. I will very likely put on the vaseline, the rings and/or the brass knuckles and beat you within a millimeter of your life if you so much as glance at me the wrong way. I will tell people that your kid is an ugly retard who's better off an orphan than remaining in your stead. I will not hesitate to cut you. I... well, you get the idea.

I'm not an overly sensitive person. In fact, if you tell me straight to my face your less-than stellar opinion of me and cite specific examples of why the earth and its inhabitants are better off without me, I won't be fazed. I have no shame and there are very few ways to coax an honest-to-goodness reaction from me. The fact that you're on my shit list, therefore, means that you've done something utterly disrespectful. Maybe you threatened my life or you insulted someone in my fam. Maybe you tried to play me for an idiot or were so ignorant as to let your bloated ego fall in my way. Either way, I'll very respectfully tell you to get the fuck out of my face. What happens after that? Well, either way, you asked for it.

3) Intentionally Rude and/or Disrespectful People. (Especially anyone under the age of 20.) The first time my brother really liked a girl, he was in high school; the girl he liked was also in high school. Now, I love my baby brother more than life itself, and I've kept him under my wing in the hope that he'd learn from my mistakes. More to the point: I was a high school student once, and more importantly, I was a high school girl. The worst kind of high school girl. I played guys for fools. Used and abused hearts. Toyed with emotions. Wielded my sexual prowess with utter disregard for humanity. Yada yada yada...

Inevitably, this girl that my dear brother fell for -

I bet you thought I was gonna say that she was just as bad as I was.

Unlikely! Not many bitches-in-the-making can reach the level of bitchdom that I'd conquered by the tender age of 14. I'm happy to announce that the girl my brother fell for was your run-of-the-mill, let's-see-what-I-can-get-away-with teenage girl. She stood him up, deliberately hurt his feelings with uncouth words, and relegated him to her circle of platonic male friends while teasing his libido.

Instead of hating on her, though, I related to her. I told my kid brother to chalk this girl's actions to those of a kid being a kid, and I reminded him that there are many lessons that he (and I) still had to learn. As someone who'd been on the flip side of where he found himself, I said that he should take advantage of my hindsight and accept that youth & ignorance are like peanut butter & jelly.

This is my typical standpoint on foolish actions. When people - especially young people - are rude and/or disrespectful toward me, I assume that they're just too young and/or ignorant to know what they're doing.

But being deliberately direspectful and rude is something altogether different. This assumes that a person knows that their actions are wrong. Furthermore, it assumes that these people know the extent of the damage they are about to cause and that they mean to cause this harm. Such people are not to be tolerated. They are the shady-ass tricks and dicks that attempt to get one over on people. They are the degenerates with low self esteem that hope to raise their sorry stations in life by stepping all over you. They are the enemy, and they irk me to no end.

4) Ignorance. n. The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

In my mind, there are two kinds of ignorance: passive and aggressive. Passive ignorance is a state that everyone is in. Examples of passive ignorance include every time that you're in a conversation with someone and they say something about the world that they need to explain to you. It's not your fault that you didn't know that very particular and specific viewpoint or factoid; it's just something that you never came across.

I'm aware of my passive ignorance every time I go to Nuyorican on Saturdays. Joe, Amy and Roland, who are old enough to be my hippie commune parents, will wax on about a topic I very blatantly know nothing about. I assume the role of student, soaking up all the information surrounding me - which woul be fine if not for the fact that I tend to forget my own knowledge when I'm put in this position.

I fit so comfortably into the role of student that while in it, I no longer acknowledge my teaching abilities. Sure, there's a bunch that I've already learned and experienced, but faced with the daunting and impressive body of knowledge accumulated by one of my would-be parents, I feel empty. The four hours spent on the internet the morning before, collecting information about whatever abtuse and/or abstract idea caught my fancy, no longer mean anything. I might as well be mute.

(NOTE: I'm now learning to melt out of my voyeuristic role of student-sponge, so that I can join in the give-and-take and not just observe the goings-on of amazing people. YAY! me)

But passive ignorance isn't what really gets my goat. That distinction is given to aggressive ignorance.

Aggressive ignorance is the kind of thing that scared people actively participate in. Every time someone deliberately passes up an opportunity to learn - that's aggressive ignorance. Every time someone decides they don't want to hear something, know something, experience something, feel something - that's aggressive ignorance. People who are aggressively ignorant are paralyzed by the fear of possibly having to change their way of life. They hide behind excuses like "I'm stuck in my ways" or "_____ can't possibly have anything I can gain from" or "What's the use in knowing that?"

Aggressive ignorance is closely linked to "conservatism." If someone refuses to be emboldened to a situation, odds are that they're too close-minded to consider perspectives that are not their own. Their comfort zone extends only to the space that is within their immediate reach, and they do not want to learn or experience.

Aggressively ignorant people are those who refuse to challenge their way of thinking or actively expand their minds. They are militant, dogmatic and often dangerous. Very often, they are the cause of (unnecessary) violence.

5) Not Knowing. As much as I enjoy the ride that is Life, sometimes I'd like to be able to fast forward a couple of paragraphs, read up on how a chapter ends, and sit back with the comfort of knowing what's going to happen. The not knowing is sometimes too much for me to bare.

This is so because I believe in two contentions:

a) Every moment is saturated with unlimited possibilities.

b) Free will.

No matter how much I experience, I always feel like a blank slate. Nothing is etched on me, nothing has been imprinted on me, nothing has changed me so much that I feel like something else. For a time, I experienced whatever was in my way because I wanted to be changed, I wanted to become something. I assumed that I had been born an amorphous blob of potential and that there was a process I'd have to undergo before becoming defined.

But the more I do, the more I feel like I'm coming back home to a place I left before really knowing it. It's like I was born fully formed but not fully developed. I was a constellation of stars from the beginning; it's up to life to connect the dots and tell me what I am.

But the spaces between the stars, the distances between the dots, are all kinds of blankness in which anything can happen. Like plot points of a story, there are infinite ways to connect these two subjects. There are infinite roads which lead from one thought to the next. And the way in which one decides to connect the dots seems so definite and binding. The choice is mine to do as I wish, to be as I want to be, and yet in making that decision I am making a conscious and specific impact on my life and the world at large. The wave of activity which is created by my actions and my personality will ripple unceasingly and I will have to live with the ramifications of my actions forever.

Thankfully, free will includes the possibility of acting differently, of negating as much as possible previous actions and personalities, of change. One must take into account, however, the fact that "change" is a process and not a step. Changes - especially dramatic ones - take time to happen. This is why I feel the need to look ahead and see what I end up doing with my life.

6) Never-Ending Arguments. I ended #5 on the screen, but in my head it keeps on going. If I looked into the future and saw something I didn't want to see, wouldn't I change it? Couldn't I change it? And for that matter, couldn't I form the future right now? Isn't that what I'm doing? With every key stroke, every phone call I take which interrupts my brain flow and causes me to impress my personality directly on someone else's personality, every purchase I make: aren't I changing the outcome of my life? So what's the use of knowing the future? What's the use of #5?

I can go on and on like this ad nauseum. It's a blessing and a curse, and in a very telling and self-fulfilling way I've been working up to the point where this is possible. But every action and every thought is a declaration of an idea, and the more one acts or thinks in this way, the more creedence they're lending to whatever they're doing. Simple thoughts and actions become viewpoints, opinions, credos; they are enmeshed into what we stand for, and therefore become weighty and important. Of course, the more important an idea is, the more it becomes a "statement," and the bigger the statement, the easier the target. This point - the one at which a statement becomes a target - is when the statement stops being a simple declaration and starts being an argument.

Argument. n. a statement, reason, or fact for or against a point.

Every lifestyle hence becomes an argument for certain things and against other things. The lives we lead become direct indicators of who we are as abstract ideas, influence, and thought processes.

Due to the contending nature of these statements, people - especially confident people - rub other people the wrong way. We go around living, being literal personifications of arguments, and we come into contact with people who are the literal personifications of opposing arguments - some of whom are so haughty and arrogant that we are personally affronted by their existences.

This is normal. We aren't supposed to be all the same; nor are we supposed to come to the same conclusions about this great mystery called Life. The reactions that are caused by the meeting of unlike minds is quite understandable as well; we are animals and as such become confused and aggravated when pressed with something we don't understand.

So now that we've come to the well-learned conclusion that it's fine to be different and to be perplexed by each other, the question must be raised: what's the point of asking all of these "eternal questions," anyway?

I mean, is the existence of an eternal question - "What is the meaning of life?", "What is love?", "Is truth attainable?", et al. - just a validation of skepticism? Or is it an excuse to be aggressively ignorant? Is there a point to asking questions that seem to have no humanly-obtainable answers?

I want answers. I want truth. I want knowledge. You can see how Cartesian circles and their ilke irk me.

7) Fakeness. The other night, I hung out with people that I have little in common with. Put us on paper and you'll see that our day-to-day routines and the bare bones of our personalities barely overlap - but we attended college together, and I felt the need to act social.

Now, I understand that social interaction demands a suspension of blatant hostility and polarizing opinions - at least, between folks who hardly know each other - but there is a level of fakeness that I find intolerable. It's that smile-in-your-face-lie-through-your-teeth fakeness. You know the kind. Layla Liar says something excrutiatingly suspect, and you know in your bones that she's attempting to fit a pre-conceived notion of what she thinks you want to hear. She's mired in insecurity and doesn't want to take the chance of your personalities not meshing. She "knows" very well that she isn't the kind of person you'd like to associate with - most likely because of pre-conceived opposing viewpoints - or maybe she is going through a transitional phase and doesn't know who she is.

I get that you don't know me and you're basing your actions on experiences of yesteryear, but can we not do this cocktail party song and dance? How about you say something completely out of context that reveals something about yourself, and I'll say something comletely out of context that reveals something about myself. We won't criticize each other off the bat, but instead revel in the experience of meeting someone new. Maybe we'll commiserate about the practice of meeting people at parties, or we'll learn about each others' sordid sides. Maybe our conversation will be macabre and we'll talk about devils and dangers and death. Maybe we'll realize we are too different to really like each other.

But at least we won't be bored witlessly. At least we'll have seen life through the eyes of a person we'd probably never get to know. At least we'll have something more than polite talk about the weather.

It's one thing to show off a facet of yourself which fits in better with a crowd; it's something entirely different to act like something you're not. Have some self-respect and be yourself.

8) The need to impress people. It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, seriously, what is the point?

9) Poverty. No one should go through it.

10) Government. I don't even know where to start. Is it the American government that I have a problem with, or the abstract idea of "government"? Off the top of my head, I'd say both - and it's not just those two entities within the idea of "government" that irk me. It's the ostentatious superiority complex present in any body which assumes to know how I should live.

Hmm... Maybe it's not government that I have a problem with, but authority? Or maybe it's both? I need to marinate more in this topic.

Top 10 Places to Buy Awesome & Affordable Fashions

I was talking to my homegirl, Poetic Justice, last night, and the conversation quickly turned to matters of fashion and personal finance.

See, we're broke. I mean, DEAD BROKE. Working in the non-profit world helps us sleep at night, but definitely doesn't pay the bills as much as we'd like.

All the same, we're fashionistas. Poetic Justice looks like a model - long, slim torso, legs for miles, waist about the circumference of a sapling - and likes to dress like one. I am just discovering the side of me that likes to talk about Coco Chanel and Anna Sui after successfully sewing on a shirt sleeve or stitching silk into the hem of a skirt.

Admittedly, we both shop the sales. But there are also some other details about our style which set us apart from the average woman: We keep an eye on trends, but only take into our wardrobe what we like. We know what flatters our bodies and what will weigh on our financial consciousness. We are creative in how we see ourselves and how we view fashion.

Most of all, though, we know that the line between fashion victim and fashion maven is like the latest fifteen-year old Brazilian model who has never seen - much less worn - 5-inch stilettos: thin and wobbly. The trends of today are the fads that we balk at tomorrow, and vice verce. I say, wear what you like, work what you've got, and to hell with anyone who doesn't get it.

1) Urban Outfitters (.com) There was a time when I refused to shop at Urban Outfitters. They're too expensive, their styles are the regurgitated fashion choices of high school emo hipsters whose school gates are bombarded with fashion-photogs-cum-style-stealers, and they're obnoxious. (I've never understood why people expect me to pay $100+ on a shirt that looks distressed when I can go over to Salvation Army and by a genuinely distressed shirt for less than $10!)

But one day, after having shopped the post-holiday sales with my mom, I decided to go online and see what I was missing. The website called to me like a siren - especially the link that reads "sales."

Dresses, shirts, shoes, the works - they're designer brands and used to be $80, $90, $100, whatever! Now that they're on the web, they're at bargain bin prices, baby. Shop till your fingers drop!

2) Beacon's Closet My good friend, who I'll call "The Man," is one of the only guys I'll deem worthy as a shopping partner. We'll say "hmmm..." and cock our eyebrows at the same shirts, roll eyes at the same jackets, suck our teeth at sequins on men's suede jackets. And he never holds back from telling me when something looks like a train wreck on me.

Still, we disagree on the fundamental foundation of my fashion world: Second-hand shopping. I haven't brought up the topic since the last time it was brought up (circa 1999), but I trust that his view on wearing duds that used to be owned by other studs is still the same: Negative on that, Cowboy.

Maybe he'd change his mind if I brought him over to Beacon's Closet. I've only ever perused the Park Slope locale, and I've been one of those sorry people whose clothes they deem unworthy for buy-back, but hey: Where else can I get a pair of pristine Christian Louboutins for $40? Can't go wrong there!

3) Buffalo Exchange Let me say now and forever that Buffalo Exchange is the bomb diggity. They're not as pretentious and highfalutin' as Beacon's Closet. Oh, no: they're funkier. It's not all about the designer's names here; instead it's all about style. Your style. Personal style.

If Beacon's Closet is where I go when I wanna purchase a designer dud on the cheap, then Buffalo Exchange is where I go when I wanna make an outfit that no one else will have - something that positively wreaks of ME and no other person.

Recently, I went over to their store in the Burg o' Billy and found the cutest cream-colored cotton jersey dress which will be integrated seamlessly into my wardrobe, later picked apart, and recycled into something else that'll be re-integrated seamlessly into my wardrobe. It was $9. I wore it during my errands yesterday with Mom and there were so many heads turnin, you coulda sworn I was on the set of The Exorcist. That's the kind of yumminess you find at Buffalo Exchange.

4) New Designer's Bazaar Okay, so it's been a while since I've been here. Four or five years, to be exact. But the first few times I was there: WHoo-EE! Lemme take it back, y'all:

It was August 2004 (I believe), and Tall Afro, Militant Lesbian, and I were walking through Little Italy after having participated in the Marcus Garvey Parade in Brooklyn. These were the beginning of my non-profit days, and I had spent the day registering voters along the parade route and singing Bob Marley at the top of my lungs (while kicking it to a yummy student from Queens College - amongst others). Our trio was joined by Monkey Comic, who was weening himself off of the nonprofit scene.

So there we were: walking. Now, I can't tell you where we were walking, except to say that we were somewhere near the Broadway-Lafayette stop of the F. But anyway, yeah: we're walking and getting hungry, and out of the corner or my eye I spy a funky little enclave bursting with clothing and apparel. Much to the chagrin of Monkey Comic and Tall Afro, Militant Lesbian and I went in.

Awwweeesssooommme clothes, y'all. Most of em were either refugees from some high-end niche of a store or newly-designed pieces of art whose makers were on the premises, hawking their wares.

Sneaker-heads would love this place, since it had kicks from waaayyy back in the day, in really good condition. Petite princesses would love this place cuz there was a lingerie designer whose hand-crafted bras and panties were easy on the eyes and the wallet (though, sadly, there weren't any undies for the more curvaceous mujeres, like myself). And clothes: I haven't seen this kind of craftsmanship anywhere but the annual Fashion Expo.

I think I'll walk around next Monday and look for this place. I'll put the address up here if I find it.

5) Target Say it with me: "Tar-jay." Yeah, dude, it's French. And what?

Say what you want about big business, but when you're strapped for cash and time, you can get practically anything at Target. This means, of course, that you can find that really cute little black dress that you've been looking for. But the downside is that Sheila, Latisha, and Diana down the street's probably got it, too.

The up (or down?) side of Target these days is that so many designers have mass-produced lines in its aisles. Vera Wang, Isaac Mizrahi, even Steve Madden knock-offs... This spurs the debate over what role fashion has in the life of the layman, and how important it is in the long run - but hey. Ain't nothin' but a thang when you rock the look you're wearing. Who cares who else is rocking it, too? No one else rocks it like you. (MUSIC.)

6) Aqueduct Flea Market Maybe I'm extolling the virtues of this place because I live so damn close to it, but there's nothing more I'd rather do on a lazy, unproductive summer Sunday than peruse its loud, hot lanes of merch.

Most of the stuff its got is either really old or really ubiquitous, but that doesn't mean that it ain't good. I've bought purses and clutches here on the cheap, and whatever un-chic things you say about them are tempered by their lack of availability anywhere else. Now and again, too, you get to meet entrepreneurs-in-the-making who sell their stuff on the cheap cuz all they really wanna do is see someone wearing their fashion.

The fondest memory I have of this place happened when I was seven years old. My mom and I were walking home and decided to go through the Flea Market since it was on our way. Unfortunately, it was closing up and all of the vendors were packing their merch. I can still remember the sound of my mom's voice as she was complaining that she spent two dollars' admission just to see everything carted off.

But lo and behold: There! In that empty space! Where the old white couple from Long Island usually sell fashion jewelry! It's littered with the stuff that probably fell off their counter! And next to it, where that Asian guy usually sells hair accessories: there are headbands, clips and accessories strewn on the cement!

It was a wonderland of freebies!

I wonder if that's still the case today...

7) Salvation Army My bosslady, Amy, talks about her hippie days, when the best-dressed people wore their grandparents' gear. We agree that thrift stores and second-hand shops are truly the way to go when it comes to finding diamonds-in-the-rough (to lift a phrase from Aladdin).

But the name "Salvation Army" still hits a couple of nerves. People hear it and they automatically ask: Don't only poor people "shop" there? Aren't the clothes dirty? Used? Ugly?

I'm here to dispel the stigmas.

With the rate of inflation and the oncoming recession looming on the horizon, we're all working or middle class. That isn't to say that the proud amongst us wouldn't/shouldn't shun the practice of buying things second-hand, but that there should be no bravado when it comes to class. The clothes are inspected before being put on the counter, and they're clean. Sure, they're used, but they're not used up. And ugly? Have you seen the clothes some brands try to pass off as fashion? In a lot of ways and for a lot of reasons, you're less likely to find something completely offensive to your palate at Salvation Army.

8) Liberty Ave/Jamaica Ave I don't know if people in other cities/states refer to places simply as "The Ave," but here in New York, all of us say it. In Queens, the phrase refers to either Liberty or Jamaica.

When I say, "Liberty Ave," what I mean is the stretch of road in Little Guyana, Queens, that roughly extends from Woodhaven till about 130th Street. There are some goldmines in there, including a few shoe stores that have adorable heels, sexy pumps, and everything in between - and not at the exorbitant prices of name brand shoes. (I'm talking less than $40 for a pair of killer heels!) Also, there are a few clothing stores that I swear by, like Knockout.

Knockout is located on the NE corner of Liberty Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard and it's the go-to spot for cheap threads that look more expensive. Think Strawberry's, but cheaper. Back in my JHS days, I would spend $100 here and leave the store with an entire new wardrobe. Of course, now $100 gets me only half a new wardrobe, but it's in the neighborhood, easy on the pocket book, and always has a few great deals.

Jamaica Ave is an obnoxiously loud and busy part of Queens. There's always bumper-to-bumper traffic (which used to be alleviated with the ubiquitous Dollar Vans), and hordes of people shopping in every season and at practically any time, day or night. That said, the experience can be intimidating. You don't get to be zen about things. You can't take your time shuffling about, relaxing. But what you do get is a look at the discount side of 'hood fashion.

You know what I'm talking about: Roca Wear, Baby Phat, Sean John, et al. Marketing folks call it "urban fashion," but it boils down to brown skin tones. Way before rappers, producers, and their wives thought it was cool to sell back to the streets what everyone was already wearing, Jamaica Ave was where you could find the hoodie that LL Cool J rocked in his latest music video - and it remains that way today. That curve-hugging cut-out dress in the window for 15 bucks? In a couple of months, a sweatshop in the Philippines is gonna be recreating it with classier fabrics and stamping Jennifer Lopez's logo on the label.

Get it now, while it's not hot.

9) Flatbush Ave Flatbush, my adopted Ave, how I love thee!

In every borough is a goldmine (or three!) of inexpensive fashion. It takes a good eye to weed through the "blah!" and come up with a "yeah!," but when it happens, the clouds part and a ray of light beams straight at you as angels sing and violins play... Or, at least, that's my experience.

The first time I really paid attention to the burgeoning fashion scene on Flatbush was three years ago, when I joined a bunch of people in walking from Brooklyn College to Manhattan. We walked down Flatbush, and every now and again we stopped at a second-hand furniture store with some gorgeous (and affordable!) antiques, or at a clothing store that had vintage shirts. I couldn't stop oohing and aahing at all the great merch that I'd never noticed before. It was like rummaging through my grandmother's attic - that is, if my grandmother had an attic, she had kept fashions from the 30s and 40s, and she was fashion-forward during WWII.

Closer to Brooklyn College, though, is Canal Jeans & Co. Okay, so technically this isn't on Flatbush, and it might even deserve its own number - but it's close enough to that intersection of Nostrand and Flatbush lovingly called "the Junction," and I wanna stick to my claim of "Top 10 Places to Buy Awesome & Affordable Clothes." The title just doesn't work if you replace the number 10 with the number 11.

There isn't enough praise in the world for Canal Jeans & Co.! Not only does it sell gently-worn second-hand ensembles, but it also has a great assortment of cheap furniture and household necessities, like kitchen ware. Also, it's quiet enough that you don't have to deal with lots of people blocking your way in aisles and rudely bumping into you with their carts.

10) ASIAN STEALS: Main Street & Canal Street An Asian woman can get away with wearing ANYTHING. Maybe it's because so many of the fashionista Asians are tall and slender (or short and slender, LOL), but somehow we just make everything work. Rainbow tights, distressed jean skirt, and a wifebeater? Sure! Black knee-high stockings, purple gaucho pans, and a green T-shirt? Why not? Put it on an Asian woman and watch it work!

I've embraced my Asian-ness of late and I fully relish the Fact of Life that is the perfection of the Asian-woman-fashion-maven; I'm making choices in fashion that I never would've had the balls to make before. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Main Street, Flushing (Queens), and its big brother, Canal Street, Manhattan.

Walking down Main Street (near its intersection with Kissena), or anywhere near the Queens Korean-Town, there are a plethora of shops that cater to the stick-skinny who want to look like they've just walked off a Japanese runway. Sometimes, there are even amazing wardrobe finds tucked away in the back of a grocery store!

But what if you've got some meat on your bones? Canal Street's where it's at. Not only are knock-offs of celebrity fashion choices - and all the one-dollar finds imaginable - to be found on this stretch of street that runs through Tribeca, Chinatown and SoHo, but so are regular-sized versions of the gorgeous Asian gear found in Flushing.

And THIS, kids, is when mommy found her way...

Geez.

This is it.

Solipsism Confidential

I often feel like I was born at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or to the wrong family... but, mostly, at the wrong time. I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I have a way of romanticizing myself and my situations. I'm like Barry Obama, but without all of that suspicion of being Muslim (insert tongue in cheek here, dontchaknow). I'm the safer Obama, with all of the lack of experience and moving, emotional articulation/sophistry.

A few years ago, maybe I'd have had the hubris to even match Obama's historic presidential run- wait. *listening* Really? *surprised* You don't say! *laughing* That's absolutely right! I did have the gall to assume and believe that I was fit to be the governing elected official over a body of citizens! [NOTE: I ran the first write-in candidacy for president of the day students of Brooklyn College. So. Many. Stories. Here.] Well, lookie there!

The truth is, though, that since running that campaign, my ideas about government, politics,and individuals have changed a bit. I'm still nowhere as cynical as many of my anarchist political brethren - but I do buy in to a kind of socialism (something I wouldn't have owned up to back then). I'm not entirely certain I buy into the Adam Smith style of capatilism made famous to hordes of my generation by a Russell Crowe flick. I do, however, believe in good ole American dedication and perseverance; strangely enough, though, the more I consider these traits, the more un-American they seem.

Maybe that's why it's easy for me to imagine that I'd fit in better with the Lost Generation, flying off to Paris with Gertrude Stein and lamenting the degeneration of America with Edith Wharton.

Or maybe I should've been in the South during the Civil Rights Era; I'm curious to see if I'd have had the cajones to stand up to The Man.

But tonight, while reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and leafing through copies of Elle magazine to get to the designs I'd like to mimic in my own clothing creations, I realized where I'd best fit in: in New York City, during the 1980s. That heady, drug-fueled, birth-of-brand-name-narcissism time when a hip chick asserted her independence from the patriarchal views of society-at-large, Puritanical expectations of marriage-and-motherhood, and All-Around-Vanilla, and danced down the streets to her own beat as CBGBs swayed her hips and Run-DMC blew the crowds a kiss, and Basquiat hadn't yet put down his brush. That's where I wanna be!

I feel like I've finally seen the light, like I came to this realization about who I am and what I want. I now know the ends at which my desires put me with the Real World. I excel in this society, where diplomas and opinions from Those Already in Charge are what you need to go far. I've long ago mastered the art of seeming non-threatening to The Powers That Be while seemingly and paradoxically being Able to Get Resuls.

But I want so much more.

I want to live life like it's a design of my mind and I'm the first trying out its accessories. I want to ride it out, keep it cool, workable, runnable, and have it give me more of the awesomeness that I didn't expect it to have. I want to sing out loud, wear what makes me feel like me, have no pretentions, never act fake, never need to lie, share my perspectives, give voice to struggle, think richly, create unceasingly, love unflinchingly, talk without worry or fear. And act. Even if I'm on a Broadway stage, I want my actions to be real.

Today, as I was driving home from Brooklyn, I thought about the things I want to do. A laundry list of experiences spilled into my head and I realized that, even though I want a family of my own, the lifestyle that I have/will have in the next twenty years is not conducive to having children (and definitely not conducive to "settling down" with anybody.) But having a family of my own doesn't necessarily mean giving birth to children. [Oh geez, I CANNOT believe a cook's memoir has got me thinking about kids...] And motherhood is something that I don't want for a very, very, very long time. I like the idea of experiencing all life has to offer before becoming a mom; I don't want to be resentful of the little buggers and I'd like to have a thing or twenty to teach em, too.

But this thing that's happening with me: this being instead of wanting to be. The active voice instead of the passive voice. The change in the way I write, the way I process information, the way I act - I actually reread parts of this blog and my last blog and was bowled over by the stark contrast - fills me with wonder and purpose that can only be rivaled by motherhood. And as much as I realize that I might have fit in better in another time, I can't help but wonder if I'm in this time for a reason. Maybe I'm the throwback to a set of mannerisms that went out with LES eccentricity. Maybe my white-collar background is exactly the canvas I need to splash a little life experience around. Maybe I'm just waxing poetic, and this is all an illusion masterminded by some evil demon.

If the last is true, and I'm no Descartes, then blogging at least makes it real.

*thinking*

Another idea for a This Girl's Life article... even though I haven't finished the last one.

I'm Working (It) Out

There's a blog entry that I started a couple nights ago. It was gonna be titled "Crying and Sit-Ups" and it starts like this:

"It was 5:30 in the evening and I could already smell night climbing into the winter sky. I was due on E16th & Irving in fifteen minutes for the Urban Word Slam Poetry Finals, and there was no way of getting there in time. The strawberry ice cream colored walls of my bedroom pushed and pulled away from me as tears streamed down my face, and my abs felt like a rubber knot being squeezed tighter into itself. The linoleum tiles of my bedroom bore their hard geometrical pattern onto my back as I repeatedly set my back down and hauled myself back up. I was on my fifty-first or fifty-second sit-up and there seemed no way to get out of my system the anger, shame and frustration which had accumulated in my body during the previous 30-someodd hours. Hair wild, hands lifting my head, tears and sweat saturating the neck of my T-shirt, I moaned and groaned and yelled and screamed while crying that my dad is an asshole, a degenerate, a horrible human being. It would take me at least another thirty minutes to feel like myself again.

"Let me first say that I'm well aware of the masochism involved in this type of activity. I realize that I physically punish myself for the resentment that I feel towards my father, and that I feel good about the act and results of said punishment. Whether I do so because I feel I shouldn't resent my father or because I need my physical condition to match my emotional one, I'm not sure, but I am certain of the link between said resentment and extreme physical activity. In some ways, I feel that exercising the pain away is proactive and keeps me emotionally and physically healthy by providing an outlet through which to vent.

"Whenever I feel like the world's crashing in on me, I drop to the floor, do as many push-ups or sit-ups necessary to squeeze the pain out of my mind, or run around a track until I've exercised the pain away."

*****

My dad, who is in many ways an amazing father, has many quirks and faults. For one thing, he's never had much of a social life. For another, he likes to play mind games in order to gain, what is in his mind, supremacy. Points of fact: Instead of teaching me to overcome my insecurities as a child, he fed on them so that he always felt needed. Instead of overcoming his own insecurities, he blames many of his flaws and problems on my mom. He comes from the old school variety of child-raising, which, much to the detriment of everyone involved, includes the inability to accept any ideas that weren't originally the parents'. He is the prototype of the tight-lipped father figure who neither excels at providing emotional support nor accepting constructive criticism.

*****

Being the second-to-last in a tight-knit family of ten children, my dad had a lot of factors against being the dominant personality of his family. His two oldest siblings were forces to be wreckoned with, whirlwinds of personality and life experience who impinged upon their younger siblings' ability to come into their own character. His parents were colorful characters whose life stories culminated in a kind of mythos - magical powers and panacea amulets, religious polemics with Biblical proportions, shootings, betrayals, blackmails, murders, et al. - that would extend to his siblings, cousins, and their children. His own father, who lived with us from the time I was seven until I was nine, faced the Japanese during the second world war, had a quick and righteous shot with a pistol, and would smile in someone's face before beating the shit out of them for some unironic and very deserving reason.

Yet, by the time he married my mom (who was as close to a debutante as he'd find in the old country), my dad had gained the authority to speak his mind and have the rest of his siblings take heed. He'd offer advice, and they'd follow his words like law. He'd make suggestions, and they'd relinquish dominance over a situation. It was in this way that I suspect my dad's ego became bloated.

*****

Fast forward to this past Friday: My dad was talking about his job and I was dyeing his hair. He was complaining about office politics, and telling me that he was reconsidering taking the raise in status and earnings that had been offered to him months beore. He asked my opinion: How should he handle the office politics? Was he right in his actions?

I told him my opinion, said what I would do if I was in his situation, and all the while my brother and I were exchanging knowing glances. You see, my dad has a tendency to make mountains out of molehills when it comes to his job. He'll make issues out of things that needn't be issues. He'll take into account positions that needn't bother him simply because they have nothing to do with him. He has good intentions (I get my lofty ideals from him), but he doesn't know how best to use them - so he spends all his time making straw arguments.

Very lovingly, I said to him, "Dad, with all the love and respect in the world, I'm telling you this: Maybe if you got more of a social life, you wouldn't worry so much about all of this stuff. Maybe you and mom could go out dancing, take walks in the park, take trips together. It'll be good for you-"

"I don't need a social life. Only people with no confidence need social lives. They need the validation. Not me."

Trying to defuse the growing tension, my brother laughed. "Then you're saying that sis has no confidence, because she always goes out."

"Well," said my dad, "most women have that problem."

It wasn't so much his words as his tone that really got to me. He was trying to be malicious and hurtful. He was trying to get to me. He was trying to tear me a new one. And "tear me a new one" he did.

We got into a huge argument right there and then. My main problem was that I was in all honesty being forthcoming and loving with my suggestion, and that my dad had taken it upon himself to tear me down. And for what? Because he was hurt? Because he's used to doing it? Because he's the one with social issues and low self esteem?

So I plopped down on my bedroom floor, started doing sit-ups, and cried and cried and cried until my eyes were puffs. That night I was due out to hang with my girls, Opera Singer and Trini Jew, and there was no way I'd be sobbing myself to sleep. I had to get all of the negative emotion out of my system so I could have a good time.

*****

The next day, though, was a different story. I'd had an awesome night out with the girls + some guys (including Rob), and had made it home at 4:30 in the morning. I was due at Nuyorican at 10, so the latest I could wake up was 8. And despite all this, I made it to Nuyorican, wrote the beginnings of a long-mulled over piece that everyone loved, and felt really, really good... until that night, when my father and I got into Let's Have an Argument, Pt. 2.

So there they were: all the problems my dad has with me. That I'm promiscuous. That I haven't settled on a career. That I plan on being in school till I'm 40. That I'm spending all of my time writing, creating, traveling, teaching, when I could be holed up in an office, cubicle, or other "respectable" line of work where I feel unchallenged and/or unfulfilled. That I have so much untapped potential.

To be short, all of the problems and insecurities that I've ever had with myself were flying out of my father's mouth - and this realization felt surreal. At once, I texted all of the people that I thought I might see that night, and said that I wouldn't be able to make it out because of some family issues. Then I cried and screamed and did sit-ups until my abs felt like they would burst from overexhaustion. Lastly, I continued working my body over. I continued stretching, pulling, pushing, jumping, running, screaming, punching. I continued to evaluate and harshly judge and criticize myself and my situation. I continued to feel bad about myself.

Then I stopped. In that sudden and brief moment of frenetic energy, damning accusations, soul searching, and parental forgiving, I found a clarity that bordered a religious experience. Snippets of scenes from my day-to-day life formed a montage in my mind - jogging around the track, lifting weights, writing on the subway, talking with the power writing students, laughing with Opera Singer and Trini Jew, dancing with Rob, flirting with attractive strangers, having coffee with Past Tense, having three-hour telephone conversations with Best Guy Friend, playing with Justice, looking for work, spending time with my baby brother, reliving JHS with D.A.Y.,...

Indiana Poetess (aka BKD) texted me and said that I really needed to move out of my parents' house, and that my time will come - and all I could do was laugh. My time has come. Whatever the next step is, it's happening right now.

The Making of a Fashionista/Designer

My mom had an old shag coat from the 70s that I've been meaning to take apart, and yesterday, I finally did something about this desire. I cut the sleeves (which were too skinny for my sinewy arms) and made them into bell-shapes. Then I cut off the limp tie at its collar and created cuffs with this fabric. I restitched the shoulders after taking out the shoulder pads, and I started on the lining of the jacket, which will be silky and red. With the remaining fabric, I made a cap, which I'm thinking about embroidering with a butterfly-shaped sequin pattern that I found in my armoire.

My mom also had a 100% polyester dress that's pink with tiny black dots all over it. It's long, has ruffles in the front, and has a very high neck. So far, I've raised the hem of the waist to accentuate my cleavage, and cut the neckline so that it falls off the shouder, creating a flattering décolletage. I think the dress needs something to make it more modern. I'll probably add a felt sash and a matching felt border - both black - around the neckline. (Maybe cotton? Silk? I want the texture of the sash/lining to up the class factor of the dress.) That way, it'll draw attention away from the distraction of the ruffles in front, while maintaining the integrity in the line of the dress. I'm also thinking about putting a slit in the back of the skirt, down the middle.

There are two other dresses that I'm working on, both of them more modern than the jacket/hat ensemble and the pink and black dress. One of the dresses is a black and white number that I bought off of a discount rack maybe four or five years ago. It's made of some cheap stretchy material and is black with white polka dots. The dress has served me well, being something on which to add layers and look young in. However, with my eclectic sense of style burgeoning and my lack of funds painfully obvious, I've wanted to make something new of it. Gucci, D&G and YSL are making see-through fabrics the go-to affair of their spring lines, and since I'm too broke to afford the real deal and I have the means/talent, I figure I'd do something with this dress that reflects that particular motif. I'm going to keep the polka dots on the hem of the dress and the upper half of the bodice, but I'm going to cover the rest of the dress in a barely-there black and white diagonally striped sheath which will up the class AND sass factors, while being more forgiving and affectionate towards my curves. In fact, if I pick the see-through fabric correctly, the dress'll have the curvy-in-the-right-places look of the black and white number Cameron Diaz wore in The Mask.

[NOTE: I tried to find a pic of said black-and-white number, but all I could find was the following.]

The other dress that I'm working on scares the shit out of me because of the challenging nature of the design. It has a nude-colored bodice, and involves draping different barely-there fabrics on it, layer by layer, to achieve a sexy bohemian look. It'll be short, but tasteful and irreverent while also very spring-time worthy. At least, that's my hope.

I've taken inventory of my jackets, coats, scarves, shawls, etc., and my jewelry collection -believe me when I say it's a COLLECTION! I've got rings and things for daaaayys - and I'm happy knowing I can properly cover up and accessorize whatever craziness I create.

The part that I'm really scared/psyched about, though, is actually wearing something I've created. Because it's one thing to be fashion-forward and BUY good taste. It's something entirely different to make something of your own design and wear it out in the world, exclaiming that you've got the go-to goods and/or grand and gorgeous gear. It's a statement, in every regard. The lack of label doesn't immediately hint at how much (or little) money I've spent on buying the clothes, or how much (or little) time I've spent scouring the city for just the right look.

Clothes of my own design speak entirely of the people I've been, the people who have influenced me, the cultures that I've experienced. It's a complete and unadulterated physical view of Me. NOT Calvin Klein, NOT Tom Ford, NOT Betsey Johnson, NOT Abercrombie & Fitch, NOT Guess?, NOT Anna Sui, NOT EVEN THE PEOPLE AT FOREVER 21! Every stitch, every fabric, every collar, every sleeve is a direct indication of something I thought, something I did, something that I am. And wearing that out in public is more revealing than walking down the street naked.

Realization Time

I've done some awesome stuff, but the best has yet to come.

A Day in the Life

I left a few cliff-hangers on here a few days ago. One was about the general fuck-up-edness of things right now - lack of money, being sued for bills I've yet to pay, my folks' drama (cheating, lying, stealing, et al.), my plans to Move Da Eff On, et al. - and the other about things with my BGF (Best Guy Friend).

Thing is, I've come to this place in my life where I feel no need to be stressed about all this. Life is gonna happen whether or not I participate in it, whether or not my contributions to the actions around me are purely speculative and spectator in subject, whether or not I have panic attacks about the general shittyness of things. Sure, my day-to-day is fit for consumer consumption via Reality TV and/or telenovelas - but that shouldn't change the way I regard it.

All this time, I've been urgently willing a 180-turn. I've been plotting get-done schemes for all the drama I'm up against. I've been turning these problems into the defining parts of my personality. But I came to the conclusion that they're all things that I go through; that doesn't mean they have power over my person or personality. I decide what I'm about.

So I'm more proactive about things. I'm tackling the problems that are within my power: lack of satisfaction when it comes to my living arrangement, money issues, health concerns, the need to be more cultured, the desire to be more creative, et al. I'm running at least three miles every day at the track. I'm eating healthier (abstaining from meat and drinking a gallon of water every day). I'm applying to jobs while enjoying the hell out of my current work. I'm cleaning up my house and not feeling crappy if/when there's ANOTHER pile of laundry/dishes/chores to be done. And I'm becoming a little Susie Homemaker. My repertoire in recipes has increased exponentially. I'm sewing and designing clothes. I'm drawing and painting again.

Fuck all of the negativity. I've accepted that my family's problems are NOT my problems. By not allowing each member of my family to claim responsibility for their actions/inability to act, I was showing a lack of respect for their autonomy and decision-making skills; I was hindering their ability to live out their lives the way they deem fit. I was impressing my own notions of justice onto every situation.

But my mom isn't me and my dad isn't me and my brother sure as hell isn't me. They're gonna make their own decisions whether or not I agree with them, and the only thing I can do is offer advice when I can, be a shoulder for them to cry on, and allow them to pick themselves up every time they fall. Like a mother that breastfeeds well into their child's school years, I had to realize that I acted the way I did For Me, and not For Them. I needed to feel needed. I needed my self-worth and life observations validated by voicing them and attempting to have them followed as Law. I needed an excuse to stay a while longer in the comfort of the reality I've known for so long.

None of that is the case now.

I trust my instincts enough to walk into an awkward situation and know that I will arrive at its end unscathed. Nothing surprises me, but everything delights me. And Hope, that ever-elusive visage of tomorrow, has been internalized like a sacred amulet. The best I can do is the best I can do - and that simple realization is how my potential will not be wasted.

Dare I Say It?

I was hanging out with Past Tense last night and I couldn't find the right words to explain how I feel. Everything that came to mind seemed utterly cliche: an unerring sense of inner strength, the confidence to move mountains and shatter dominant mores, the peace of mind to Act as oppose to React. I've hit my stride and I'm able to do Everything without fear. I am ashamed of nothing. I do not need to analyze the hell out of everything; I do it, but only out of respect for my writing. Everything is within reach. And for the first time I know without a doubt that this isn't transitory; it's permanent. This feeling that I can do no wrong is Permanent.

Wow. It feels so good to put that out there.

This, my friends, is happiness. It's not the shallow and temporary happiness of a girl who clings onto unstable theories and other peoples' attitudes. It's not the contentment of passing through a phase just to get to another phase. It's not the mania caused by getting myself out of a deep depression. It's a feeling of joy that is stirred by the smallest of details: a conversation on the train with a stranger, the pride that wells in my chest when going to work, the realization that I am not perfect but my attempts at perfection are perfect.

We walked through the streets, Past Tense and I, in a comfortable almost-silence that felt as warm, heavy, and cozy as a favorite overstuffed blanket. The words passing our lips were not the inquisitory ones of other nights, but small morsels of our realities which made little allusion to our late-night think-a-thons: men we were dating, friends, bric-a-brac actions that form the outlines of our day-to-day lives.

Not much had changed on the outside since we'd seen each other last. There were still problems with which to contend: bills, friends, family issues, the issue of finding a soulmate, et al. But progress had been made, and both of us were too mired in our progress to be able to speak on the ins and outs of it. Speaking on your progress while it's happening is like putting the live sports reel on pause to interject a voiceover: sure it helps to put everything in perspective, but there's a halting of the live feed. The main object of the scene - the Progress - seems deterred, deferred, distracted all because you want to convey its parts. The overwhelming sentiment seems real: if you were truly cognizant of what was going on, you wouldn't need the play-by-play. Why not just let it be?

Luckily, Past Tense and I are well versed in this Truth, so we let the live feed continue to grow, and we exhalted in the quiet and relatively relaxing here-and-now.

But "happiness"? The ability to say, "I'm happy"? It seems like part of a fairy tale. We go through our lives striving for something that seems out of reach - this "happiness" we speak so much of - and very rarely do we assess our lives to be Happy. Content? Sure. Complascent? Often, yes. But not Happy. Happy is a tall order. Happy is taken to mean the whole kit and caboodle: job, family, friends, extracurricular activities, health, education, culture - you get the idea. It seems unlikely that one would achieve it all.

But what if all that isn't what makes us happy? What if the assumption that we need "it all" to be happy is incorrect? Or, what if we stumble onto a patch of life as slippery as ice which takes us, sliding, onto a pure and perfect path of happiness, and all of a sudden all of the "necessities of happiness" are ours?

That second one - that's where I'm at. It makes me think: What if we really do need the whole kit and caboodle, but the clincher is that we must be ready and willing to lose it all at any moment? Wouldn't that be a mind fuck? If you could only be perfectly happy if you were sure that you'd be perfectly fine unhappy?

The search for happiness brings to mind a philosophical quandry that had been posed a year ago in class: If you haven't experienced something, how do you know if you've found it? I think I'm going to spend the day thinking about this, while sewing/designing clothes, teaching class, applying to jobs, writing contest entries and poetry, and getting ready to go to the 40/40 club...

With any luck, I'll have a TGL article - my first in almost five months - for you to read by tomorrow.

Holy Shite, Batman

I can't sleep and I can't do anything productive. My mind keeps wandering to the three hour conversation I just had with BGF (Best Guy Friend, Big Greek Friend---whatevs).

Fuuuuuuuck.

Either I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, or only outrageous situations can come of this (and certainly a blog post or twelve). Past Tense, I know you're grinning.

More on this at a later time...

Around The Way

Randy Rudolf walked past my house as I was sitting on my stoop. It had been a long afternoon and the hazy sun fell across my pale face in sharp angles. I'd fallen asleep at a little past four in the morning, had gotten up two hours later, and kept on falling prey to periods of productivity before succumbing once again to slumber. Each burst of activity punctuated the subsequent power nap like italicized exclamation points: Another doze!

I was getting really tired of the twitch surrounding my right eye. The frustration welling in my chest burned like I ate some bad sushi. And man, if you had seen the pile of bills collecting on my dresser, you'd understand.

On the plus side, though, I was looking good. Hard times brought out my hard eyes, my high cheek bones, my try-your-luck-strut. I'd perfected the hoodrat glare of seasoned sexual experience, and could shoot a salty stare farther than you can spit. Maybe that's why Randy Rudolf smiled at me as he walked home. He knew that look on my face, knew what I was capable of when I glared at guys like I had game for miles, knew that a perverse mania swept my psyche every time my eyes shone like pearls.

"You know you can get a ticket for that," Randy Rudolf said as he motioned to the beer bottle in my hand. He pecked me on the cheek - a greeting and acknowledgment of our shared history.

I took another swig of my Heineken and laughed. "At this point, I couldn't care less," I said with a shrug.

We lowered our stares and directed our attention to the street, where a blue and white was rolling. Cops were patrolling our block a lot, and even though I was no longer involved in the hijinx of the neighborhood low-lifes, I couldn't help but fall back into my old self. No matter how law-abiding I am, I will never trust police.

Randy Rudolf swept his gaze back at me after the blue and white had drifted from sight. He seemed to be thinking over my last words, sizing up my answer; I simultaneously searched it for truth.

It's been a long time since I ran numbers around my way, whistled high to announce the arrival of squadron cars, fucked with the dudes in the corner house. - (To my credit, I hadn't allowed myself to stoop to the level of ho or trick; I'd fuck with the dudes, but I laughed at the idea of fucking them.) - Now, years after I'd snuck out of my parents' house to partake in tasteless talk about taboos, it all feels surreal.

I am not the same girl who wore puffy princess dresses in elementary school. Nor am I the wide-eyed and wild-limbed pre-adolescent who, suffering from insomnia, took it upon herself to wander the streets at night. I am not the girl who, at the age of fifteen, got stabbed in the leg with a steak knife and bandaged the cut by herself. I am not the girl who, at the age of sixteen, moved to Virginia with her brother and attended class with the attorney general's son. I'm sure as hell not the same girl who moved in with a suit at the age of seventeen, and thought I could handle it because he wasn't my first love, my first fuck, my first live-in relationship.

I am not the same person who deemed it excusable to print my close friend's sex life in a blog, under the guise of art. I am not the same person who cut ties with her childhood best friends because she didn't know how to continue being someone's best friend. I am not the same person who smoked up daily, got drunk daily, snuck into bars, fucked voraciously, loved shallowly, befriended anonymously, partied haphazardly, nearly fucked up everything because of Daddy Issues, Mommy Issues, abuse, fear, quarterlife crisis, pressure, hubris, stupidity, just to feel what it's like to hit rock bottom.

I am not that person.

So when Randy Rudolf stared at me with those dark glittering eyes of his, while flipping in his head my words - "At this point, I couldn't care less" - and sizing me up, I didn't know how I was feeling. In the context of the other Marias - the unsure ones, the inexperienced ones, the less intelligent ones, the luckier ones, the rough-and-tumble ones, the scholarly ones, the jaded ones, et al. - I knew how to size up who I was. The contexts had been used before, in classic stories, beloved movies, old time songs. I knew the roles, knew the stereotypes, cast myself in each shadow before learning how to shine.

But at that very moment, with a remnant of my past staring me in the face, I realized that I was something, someone entirely different from anything I'd ever imagined or come across.

Somehow, in between all of the introverted introspectiveness and wild extroverted perversities, I'd come into my own skin. I didn't know yet what that skin was made of, which parts of which Marias had remained, but I knew that I was more or less fully formed, and I really couldn't care less what life had to throw at me. I was gonna be okay.

Randy Rudolf smiled at me, and at once his face was kind, mischievous, and fatherly. "You did good, kid," he said.

Other Marias would've beamed, but I earnesly nodded my head in agreement. "I know," I said as I put down my beer and picked up my journal and a pen. "Man, do I know..."

You-Hate-Us? Dry-Hump-Us! Hi-At-Us

I recently got an email from Soul Patch, a friend of mine who lives in Virginia. Soul Patch is one of those people who I love dearly, but to whom I concede that sans 'net, our relationship wouldn't last past my driving past his state's line.

SP wanted to know why I haven't been blogging, why all he's been reading has been my vocabulary upgrade, and why he didn't get an update on Valentine's Day. I just replied unfeelingly that I've been on hiatus, that he should take his library card out for a spin, and that he has three baby's mamas to worry about so he doesn't have to worry about my love life. Such is the bond between folks who've seen each other naked and sweaty: words aren't minced and feelings aren't spared. God forbid one of us should think we have a connection that's more than platonic.

I didn't have the cajones to say flat-out to SP that I've been licking my wounds. Doing so would require humility, and humility is something that I'm short on when dealing with a man who's seen my goodies at every angle - even though said sexcapades were seven years ago.

So here's the dealio, for those who swear they're my BFF but depend on my blog to find out the nitty gritty: My first job's cut back my hours, my second job is a temp gig (which lasts only till the end of the month), and my bills are backed up like a toilet after Thanksgiving dinner. I inked a "limited time engagement" deal with a phone sex management co, and did it for two nights; it pays well, and by "well" I mean that my family doesn't have to go hungry for the next month and a half, and I can pay for gas and metrocards.

I need to find work, and in the meantime I want to enter a few writing contests that I've been eyeing. The crapped out part about that? Both writing contests require me to write about dating and love - and I'm short on inspiration when it comes to both. Valentine's Day was sad, pathetic and disappointing; I've decided to take some time out from dating.

Back on the lack-of-money tip: I found out that I'm getting sued for not having paid off my med bills from a couple years ago, which makes me go, "REALLY?! I got cancer, paid off half of the bills, and obviously don't make enough to pay off the rest of the bills SO YOU SUE ME?! WTF is that supposed to do?! Get your money sooner??? Cuz, OBVIOUSLY, if I had cash, you'd be paid." And maaannnn... If I could, I'd throw myself a pity party.

Unfortunately, I'm too grown to be so pathetic.

More on all of this soon. I've gotta clean my house.

Randomosity

Were you the one who called me at 2 a.m. from a private line, then left a 4+ minute message of heavy breathing on my voicemail?

If so, I find you sexy. Call me sometime. Let's hook this up. Ya know what I mean. A little heavy breathing. Some light touching. You already have my phone number, you probably have my address, my work email, my social security number. I mean, THIS IS THE AGE OF PERSONAL INVASION, am I right? Where we air our personal shit out in blogs, on internet networking sites, out in the street as we're talking on our cell phones. THAT IS WHY YOU FIGURE IT'S OKAY TO CALL ME AT 2 A.M. AND CREEP ME THE F*CK OUT BY LEAVING A 4+ MINUTE MESSAGE OF HEAVY BREATHING (AND DID I HEAR A MOTHERF*CKING PORN PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND?!). RIGHT?!

Word. That's what I thought.

Dear Slug

On some real tip, this dude's answers were NiCe! Peep the asterisks.

From http://www.avclub.com/content/home

When The A.V. Club thinks about Valentines' Day, we naturally think about relationships, passion, and Sean "Slug" Daley, MC of hip-hop duo Atmosphere, who has written some of the most pointed love-and-sex rhymes we know of. So we enlisted him to answer some questions in honor of the holiday, figuring that he'd be willing to get deep with our readers. (He is, after all, the guy who told us at length about his theories on alien life.) The call for questions was overwhelming, with multiple marriage proposals tucked within actual cries for help. (Names have been omitted to protect the innocent and guilty.) Slug decided to answer 14 questions in honor of February 14. He also decided that whether or not you have love problems, you should know he's got a new Rhymesayers record, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, coming out on April 22. His album Strictly Leakage is also available for free download at rhymesayers.com/atmosphere.

Every couple of years, some girl I'm dating will just spontaneously burst into tears after sex. I've talked to guy friends of mine, and they've had it happen, too. What the hell is the deal? Just some female thing I'm not getting? Or do I have an effect on women that reduces them to tears?

Slug: Crying is a common defense mechanism for the women who sleep with you. Don't get neurotic about it, though. They are not defending themselves from you. They are defending themselves from themselves and their overwhelming desire to burst into laughter.


I am 18 years young and pretty shy. There is this male in one of my classes and I can't keep my mind off him… I don't even know his name, so what are some good ways for him to notice me without looking like I'm trying too hard?

Slug: Who are you afraid of looking like you are trying too hard in front of? I'm going to assume that the male in question is a) not your professor, and b) near the same age as you. If these are both true, relax. I usually try not to generalize, but most male prey your age do not analyze the hunter's technique the same way that you might. He will be too busy wrapping his head around the fact that you were proactive to question whether you appear desperate. Go for it. Now.


I made the mistake of taking my boyfriend to go see Juno with me. Ever since, he's been terrified of getting me pregnant, to the point where he damn near refuses to sleep with me. Help a girl out.

Slug: Relax. It will subside. In the meantime, catch up on The Wire.


I am a 28-year-old woman who has had the pleasure of having one partner for the experimental period of my life, and he and I explored all the doors of intimacy. My now-fiancé lacks the forbidden fun that I am craving. I am the one who had the cuffs, the rope, the toys, and the knowledge, and if I bring these things out during our private time, he acts scared and intimidated. I have tried to break him out of his shell and get him to explore with me, but he just likes to do the same thing over and over again. How do I get him to open up to me and be comfortable enough?

Slug: Comfortable enough for what? Maybe it's not your knowledge that he is intimidated by, but rather where you obtained it. Try some things that are new to both of you. My best half has been to Mexico, I have not. So when we plan our next vacation together, I would prefer to go somewhere neither of us have been, rather than experiencing Mexico with her as my tour guide. I'm not wrong for that (maybe a little stubborn), but I prefer the idea of a shared adventure more than I like the idea of trying to track down some restaurant that she remembers from when she was a teenager. Now if she absolutely must go to Mexico, and I'm still not into it, I'm secure with the idea of her going with her homegirls, while I stay at home and rap. Figure out an adventure that fits both of your tastes. If that doesn't work, figure out how much you need the adventure. If you can't live without it, do what is best for you. But never, ever, guilt or manipulate someone into doing something they don't wanna do. After reviewing your question, I think maybe I wanna go to Mexico.


What warnings do you have about marriage besides the fact that there will be arguments, and you'll likely hate one another after living together for a year? I am a 21-year-old single mom who is constantly being proposed to, and I wonder what it would be like if one of these guys could actually wrangle me into commitment. I have had long-term relationships, but I have never lived with a man I had been in a relationship with. What are the ills that could scare me off from marriage for good?

Slug: Constantly being proposed to? By who? Co-workers? Neighbors? The guy at the local food co-op juice bar? Are these long-term friends that you've known for a while? Or just random guys? Forget focusing on the warning signs. Focus more on the bond you share with the person who is proposing. Due to the way your question is worded, I feel like your parents may have left you with a twisted outlook on "happily-ever-after." Join the fucking club, and only marry for love. Anything else won't work. Besides, your child will benefit more from learning what happy looks like alone, rather than what misery looks like embraced.


What is your advice to a couple in which one person is sober, and the other is addicted to crystal meth?

Slug: Personally, I don't believe in the risk. The addict needs to get well. The addict also needs to examine how he/she could ruin the lives of the people he/she loves. The addict won't do either of these things if the addict can take advantage of the love and nurture of his/her lover. My advice is to wean off of each other. Send the addict to treatment. And once the addict learns to establish a love for self, the addict may actually end up mentally and emotionally available enough to love another person correctly. Or not. Either way, throwing away one life trumps throwing away two. I don't believe in the risk.


I need a good pickup line, something that will sweep a girl off her feet and into my bed. Give me some sort of dope line, please!

Slug: Try this one. Next time you're at Daiquiri Joe's tossing a few back with your Billy Bro-ceans, walk right up to that long-legged makeup kit and tell her, "I'm the type of guy that thinks it's hilarious to write into an advice column asking for good pickup lines." Dog, she will think you are the cat's pajamas.


I'm a 27-year-old female and I'd been with this guy for about a month and the sex was okay, but I didn't really feel he had much passion for it. He was a mechanical dick, at best. That is, until I let him cross the velvet rope and enter my virginal back door during one of our encounters, and his inner gay was released. He likes the backdoor action A LOT. Giving, receiving, butt plugs, dildos, tossing, he's all about it. He can't even get off now unless HIS ass is being stimulated or penetrated with something. He even talks dirty in a different and somewhat feminine tone when I'm dominating his ass. I've hinted and teased that if he were any more flaming, he'd spontaneously combust. He laughs it off, but doesn't deny. Would you guess him gay? Would you marry me?

Slug: I'm not entirely sure, but I think you are asking me if your boyfriend is gay. Is that the question here? Maybe you should ask him. I really have no answer for you. I don't think people's metaphysics are defined by who or what they have sex with. But I do think you and him should link up with the couple from question number four. And no, I will not marry you. Buy my new album.


The woman at the root of my grief shouldn't be as tricky as this. It's almost transparent that she no longer has feelings for me, but this doesn't impede her ability to call me (sober, no less) and say that she loves me. Her words never seem to match her actions, and I'm constantly fighting between my urge to stay away and my urge to try and get her back. How do you get past it all?

***Slug: Drama is a helluva drug. We get addicted to it. When we are in a dysfunctional relationship that lasts long enough, we will still crave the dysfunction after the relationship has ended. We will still carry out some of those dysfunctional actions with that ex. It's our way of still feeling important to that person. A string to hold onto. The Vali-Dating Game.
My advice to you (and her, for that matter) is to stop taking the calls. Self-intervention does work. Do not go to the bars she frequents. Do not hang out at mutual friends' homes if you know she may come around. Ignore her away. The more progressive the dramatic advances become, the bigger step back you take, until you are both far enough away from each other that you can stop acting like the people that you know you are not. You are both bigger and deffer than what you've become for each other. Growth time. And then go get the word "codependent" tattooed somewhere on your upper torso in a place that only can be viewed by the next person who sees you naked.***


What, in your opinion, is the biggest difference between men and women?

Slug: The "wo." Sorry. Had to. I'm an idiot, mostly.


I'm a shy small-town girl, and I need some advice. I've been single for the past two years, because it seems like every guy that comes along just wants a piece of my ass. How do I get the fellas to look beyond the exterior? I'm no hoochie, nor am I a skank. I just happen to have a body that appeals to guys. Can you help me out?

Slug: Honestly, change your preferences. You yourself are attracted to a certain body type. Some tattoos, maybe. Dark hair. Tall. Change your preferences. Start noticing a different type of boy, and that different type of boy will start noticing you. Eventually, the type of guy that you are complaining about won't be so obvious in your life, because they will get tired of you not giving back the attention. Go directly to the independent record store (vinyl stock is a must), and start flirting with that employee shaped like Grimace from the McDonald's commercials. He doesn't have an awesome sleeve tattoo. But he isn't embarrassed about his dandruff, he knows way too much about cool music from Alice Cooper to Zhigge, and he has studied enough Internet porn to teach classes at junior college. If your "shy small town" does not have an independent record store, move to the big city.


Why is it that girls can't resist a cocky asshole?

***Slug: I'm going to assume that you are not a cocky asshole. And that you are frustrated with how the cocky asshole always walks away with the girl you desire. Relax. You don't really want her yet. You are best off without her for now. Give it five years. Everyone is amused by bells and whistles at first. Those neon lights distract us, like moths. But eventually, we realize that there is nothing else there. And that's when your worth will translate. The real question is, once everyone realizes how awesomazing you are, will you have your face buried too far up a stripper's butt to notice? Good luck.***


Do you believe that everyone has one specific person or "soulmate" that they are supposed to be with?

Slug: No. But I did murder the tooth fairy once (by accident). It's a long story, and I've told it before. Go Google it.


What's the best way to celebrate Valentine's Day when you're single and you're secretly jealous of people in relationships? Should I get blind-drunk and forget what day it is? Or should I go to the strip club? Or both?

Slug: Hell, why not both? And when you are there, blind-drunk, make sure you preemptively used a Sharpie to write this on your hand: GET USED TO THIS, YOU SCHMUCK. Ha. I've never even said the word schmuck, much less typed it. I'm all about new experiences.
I love you all as if you were my own. —S