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.