Anger

Anger, anger, anger — I’m brimming with anger — I think the guru, he pissed me me off so deeply because he acted like some rich guy with a misdirected help itch he wanted to scratch. I just hated the whole decade, the design. I had money. It has nothing to do with making IT back, but rather that I didn’t have to lose it. That’s on me, but it was more so wishing I swatted away these men like flies. Like, leave me alone. OR, put it in the appropriate container, parameters, and that’s it.

I keep moving forward. I keep directing myself towards the point I’d like to be at right now. It sucks, starting over like this. It truly does. It sucks running across “rivers” with men in it who saw me for what I lacked, meaning, I didn’t need HELP. What help did I need? Besides contacts? Be real. I wasn’t thinking. Look, with the slytherin, all good, now? “Look dude, I don’t know why you’re calling me every day.” This guy, he called me every day.

When I moved into the Chelsea Hotel. He called me every day. And it shook me. I just wasn’t able to express that. “You don’t need to call me every day.” But because he got me this apartment— I felt grateful, a complex state for me, and I genuinely appreciated it. And, the real question was: why do you need to live for free? Unless you’re being craft, in some way, like live here and save a crazy amount of money. SAVE. Go go go go. Get the best job you can, work nights, just fucking stash that cash. Imagine? No rent in NYC. That was silly.

Me, now? That set up at this totally enchanted old world New York apartment, Virgil Thomson’s house, three apartments in one. Yes, so Arendtian, I entered into Great Expectations, the novel. Couldn’t you picture Hannah Arendt almost breathless at herself? At how poignant her observations were? Truly, and I’m the first to roll out the red carpet for this woman, I would have been her clown for life. I’d be opening EVERY DOOR for Hannah Arendt.

Boom— I’m her bodyguard. She’s a maneater…

This is Hannah Arendt’s song to me. I owe this woman my life. “Whoaaaa here she comes…”

A genius, this woman was an unparalleled genius.

Anyway, I fully embodied the concept, now, “the enchanted, enchanting Maria,” I could almost hear Hannah Arendt talk in my mind. “Now, Maria she moves into a total spell of an apartment at the Chelsea Hotel that looked like an existence out of a novel. But it is not hers. This is the fundamental point. Maria now needs HELP?” She’s confused. “She’s become a writer, met a guru from Hollywood, even, amazing, when she happened to stop by LA, living in her Black sister’s apartment who was also adopted into a Mexican family in the Black Beverly Hills…” and now, “Maria is literary, she literally lives in Virgil Thomson’s apartment, she’s going to be a writer, and she is encouraged to live for free in my thirties, so she can ‘write…’” as if that’s some event that even lives in a fantasy where she’s typing like man on a typewriter for hours — unleashing herself — at the Chelsea Hotel — rather than getting an apartment and just dealing with it. It APPEARED like a good idea. Lots of appearances. But in fact, that was not the best direction to go in. There turns out to be many worlds in the world, people live their lives in so many different ways, but I feel like I just got here, that I’m actually very smart, very practically intelligent, like I do not have times for weird mind games with ideologists. Imagine? Hannah Arendt in front of the guru? Some man pointing to Hannah Arendt like a guru and saying “KNOOOOOOOOW what do you wanna KNOOOOOOW…”

“I’m sorry?” I picture her peering through this. “Life is about what you wanna know, not what you wanna do?” Man, she would have sliced this ethereal asshole to pieces. Hannah Arendt. Imagine? I came from a complicated background, sure, but no one one earth had ever treated me like he did. The disrespect. And I had to battle with whether or not this was appropriate? WHETHER OR NOT I deserved to become Alice In Wonderland???? Some special girl who could “make it out?” Make it out of WHAT? I wanted to slap him — this son of a bitch.

I was so angry, today, I was enraged. I was listening to the Dark Knight soundtrack.

The Chelsea Hotel. It was magical, indeed. And that was the site of my execution. That was the end. To an Arendtian, my story is so for real, just because it contained a fairytale quality, and simultaneously, I become the last of the last, the last of the last to engage on social media. When I try to step out into the world, who cares about social media, I get HIT with bullshit I don’t need to be hit with. As if Brad Pitt and me are truly speaking the last two people on earth, nice to meet you, who couldn’t give less of a shit about social media! Look, for the sake of BRAD PITT, I’m sick and tired of the bullshit. That man? He’s a smart man. That’s what I see when I see Brad Pitt. I see he’s attractive, sure, but that is not what I see — I see a smart man. We were both — against the internet, together, the last in the world. My friends didn’t understand…. why was I using social media…? When they were like gnats, where I just didn’t need the pests.

It doesn’t have political instability in it, it has psychological instability. It was just a structural problem. And coming from a world, a private one, sometimes, for me anyway, made it difficult to move into another world concept. Hard to explain. And anything online is so aggrevating because you don’t have any real contact with anyone. I’m not the biggest fan of the internet. I think Hannah Arendt is doing exactly what she needs to do. If she’s writing blog posts on social media, about social media, she’s not going to care. She’s Hannah Arendt. She’s a genius. That’s it.

I’m liking and commenting on everything— so many hearts.

But it’s true, I became magical, I lived in enchanted surroundings towards the end. “Death,” the guru says, “is a very good psychological device.” While I am living in Virgil Thomson’s old house, the last original apartment at the Chelsea Hotel — everyone believes it’s haunted. I don’t know what that means. I didn’t need talk of ghosts, could have just left it, there are people out there who never come into contact with it. Not happening. NO one is talking to President Barack Obama about the ghosts in the Chelsea Hotel. That’s not what they are mentioning. Obama is just cruising through, checking out an old landmark and leaving. He’s got that visit down, quick, then lunch. Cool. Nice to be here, piece of history. He’s not setting up camp. Obama is getting his own place. He doesn’t need to live for free unless he can save lots of money. That’s it.

And he would have been someone who would have said that to me UPFRONT. He wouldn’t have understood WHY—Maria, I was living for free when I didn’t need to. I was a 100% capable person, I had significant savings even, not to be spent, and I would write in my free time. That’s it. That’s what Obama would have said. Let’s not get silly. It was a touch silly. Now, I thought, you know what, I could go there once twice a week, check the mail for them, have a cool office address, something, go write on the weekends, Maria, Obama said, have a tight container around it, and then, you get that dose of magic. It was — gigantesque. The floorboards a dream, 100 years old. I had to unzip a plastic covering around the door out of the Secret Garden as the hotel was under intense renovation and construction, the end of it, the end of me, as it was purchased — in a messy legal battle — by hotel owners, and they were going to turn the legendary artists residence and hotel into — well, a hotel.

And artists lived there, except they couldn’t as they had kids, and they were renovating it.

I’ll write more later. The Chelsea Hotel was so Arendtian. I’ve relied on her, I truly have. It was masterful, even, that I ended up living there, why? I looked back on ALL OF IT — CONFUSED. What the hell am I doing? I lost reality. This is unnecessary. And so, at times, listening to Earth Wind and Fire, a musical group that requested to take a picture with me, yes, you read that right. Earth Wind and Fire asked ME if they could take a picture with ME. Okay? It was a shock, an honor. I was at the premier of Clive Davis’ documentary, of course I was, working for a magazine. I had never done a red carpet, it was small, but still, I didn’t know what one wore to one. I figured black tie. I showed up dressed up, thinking everyone would be, and the person who checked me in wondered if I was with “the models.” And I thought, “are there models…?” No. I realized that no one was dressed up unless they were on camera. Okay. Well, look, who gave a shit about anyone else? Earth Wind and Fire was going to stop by. That’s why I was here. My Mexican family and I — which includes my Black sister — we’re going to THEIR concert at the Hollywood Bowl you see, as a family…..we’re cruising down the boulevard in the Yukon listening to Earth Wind and Fire on the way there… we’re exiting the car… and my Black sister and I are dancing to the stalls in the lady’s room as everyone else is, a goddamn musical jubilee. That’s Clive Davis. You see, he’s listening to Earth, Wind and Fire, and he’s SEEING the ladies dancing to the bathroom stalls. This is — it.

I had my couple of questions ready. It was simple, respectful, honest.

I saw octupus on Verdine’s velvet slippers. Randy was in a multi colored jacket, dreamcoat. Their manager moved them over to me, sandwiched between Snapchat and a proper journalist, who did come in a jacket, at least. Look, I used the word “illustrious” and I just wanted a snapshot of that moment, when they met Clive Davis, when they got there, how did they feel? I meant it. And Verdine he answered, he told me where it happened, that it felt like your whole life was about to change… so it was a clean exchange, no attachments here, and they ended up coming back… and their female companions were in the background smiling and waving at me, sincerely, and they asked if they could take a picture with me… I’m sorry? I stepped over the barrier, I took my position on the red carpet, between Verdine and Randy, and I embraced them. Wonderful moment. Once I was back on the other side, Verdine said, “you’re the best one in this line… “ which was so sweet to say. “Good luck to you…” Verdine blessed me, even. Their companions waving, still, with the brightest smiles. I was touched. I only asked a couple of questions. And through the shit, Toto “Africa” playing on Youtube, it’s just happening, I held onto it.

The Gods smiled down on me, basically, that’s how I described it to my Neapolitan cousins, in Naples, Italy. “The Gods smiled upon me… the Gods sent the elements, you see, Earth, Wind, Fire, to deliver a message of hope to me before my hour of darkness, that there was “the other side.” So that’s where I ended. I began in anger, and ended with Earth, Wind, and Fire.