I’ve Always Said I Was A Slow Learner…

So today I figured out that the phrase “What are you doing?” should probably be followed by a socially stipulated response such as “nothing.” And not by the phrase, “I’m sitting here with one shoe on, one pant leg on, one shoe off and one pant leg off and shaving my leg.” This was followed by howls of laughter on the part of Kylie.

My only defense was, “At least I’m not making instant potatoes and putting them in the freezer.” Which was something I asked Kylie if it was kosher to do earlier today.

I think she keeps me around just to entertain her.

Sex Toys...

Now that I have your attention, I have something to say on the subject of sex:

What every single one of us longs for is love. Sex is a bonus, but what our souls long for is that connection of love, trust and acceptance. I want to be loved because of everything I am. I want to love someone because of everything he is.

Anyone can climax sexually all by one’s lonesome, BUT…

• You cannot hold you own hand when you need a friend.
• You cannot put your own arm around your shoulders when you need comforted.
• You cannot hold yourself in your own arms and feel safe.
• You cannot cry on your own shoulder.
• And a tear wiped from a cheek by someone you love is always a better shed tear than the ones you wipe from your own eyes.

Culturally I come from a group that does not freely talk about sex. (And I come from extremely naïve and innocent parents!) That does not mean I am a prude. If you’d like to know my experiences follow this link to a bunny cartoon singing “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/bunny.php Also, I was once asked if I was a virgin to which I responded, “Why do you need to know? Is there an angry volcano God somewhere?” You may assume what you wish. I just wanted to point out that there are far more important elements to two people touching each other than for the actually selfish act of orgasm.

The Danger and Mango Show:

Message:

Hi Maaike,

You have every reason to be cold. It is 39 degrees out there. I think it is always colder when your mind thinks the weather should be heading toward summer and it takes a turn like this. Should have rain and thunder and some hail this afternoon. Say a prayer for my basil babies.
Love, Danger

Reply:

Dear God, please bless Ginger's Basil...and Basil's Ginger. And all the other spices of the world. Amen.

Reply:

I just checked and they are all standing upright and facing Troy.
Thanks, Danger

Reply:

All roads lead to Troy!?

Reply:

Do you know about the Troy Cafe where they have a single item menu that changes but it is always one thing. And it's always just $12 a person. I hear its good. But I also hear it's open a the whim of the cook. You have to call there and see what's for dinner and if in fact it's open.

"She opened her purse which was like a small autumn field and near the fallen branches of an old apple tree, she found her keys." Richard Brautigan

Reply:

"She opened her purse which was like a small pawn shop and near the carton of tums, the tape roll, and tape roll wrapper, she found her egg timer." Maaike Davidson

Reply:

Now THAT'S funny.

Holding It All In One Hand…

I looked around the room and thought, “I can’t do this.” But that wasn’t necessarily true. The truth was, I didn’t want to do it.

It’s hard to let go of all I’ve got here in my hand. It feels safe; it’s what I need. If I let go…what will take its place? What if my hand remains empty?

Yesterday I saw just the slightest glimpse of how he sees the world. There is no promise of the future. In fact, there’s not much of a future at all. He sees today. I said to him that I’m afraid that a day will come when he won’t need me any more. And he said, “That may be true.” What? Why would someone say that? He says it because he promises nothing. He doesn’t see that there is any need to. He sees today. If you push him into a corner and demand an answer from him all you’ll succeed in doing is pushing him away for good. I suppose that this means if one day he does make a promise, that he will keep it to the end.

If I could see things like that I think I would be far freer than I am today. I do not have that luxury. I see the future peeking at me from around the corner...the future asks me every day what I'm going to do tomorrow.

Another friend asked something else of me. It’s going to be one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced. It will be to let go of someone who is tangible and believe—totally and unequivocally—in someone who is not. I have to let go completely and not even look down to see if anyone is even going to catch me.

I’m trying to believe…trying…trying…to believe that if I let go of everything I’m holding that even if my hand remains empty he’ll show me that nothing is all I really need.

I'm just too damn clever...

This is an email I sent to my friend Ginger. It made me giggle...so I thought I'd better share it with you all:


Hi Danger!!!

What are you up to? I'm freezing. Well, my toes and fingers are cold. So I guess what I was really doing was exaggerating. But I figure you're a bit of an exaggerator yourself, being a story teller and all, and that you'd forgive me. Let's start again.

Hi Danger!

What are you up to? My fingers and toes are cold but other than that, I'm doing fine! Now I'm lying. I'm not fine. I'm still in love with a boy who doesn't care and I still get bloody jealous when this other girl (another JUST friend (d'aprés lui)) comes up and talks to him...and I think I'd be really happy to poke him with a big stick until he sees things my way...AHHHH this isn't working either. Let's try one more time.

Hi Danger,

What are you up to? My fingers and toes are cold, but other than that I'm continuing to struggle with the same issues that have plagued me since my dawn of time. Ah, no exaggerations, no lies, just plain honesty. I'm spent. I'll talk to you later!

love,
Maaike

All I Need Is This Orange Thermos!

Okay, fine. You win, Life. You are a mean, bandy-legged, dog-breathed, flame-throwing beotch and I'm all done with your see-sawing me along!

I'll keep my family with me. I have some good friends. I'll keep them too. (You know who you are...if you're unsure, then step it up a bit and make sure you are!)

Life, you go ahead and throw whatever you have at me. I don't care anymore. I'm stronger than you. I am a Daughter of God and if every man on this back-water, pissant planet ignores me, than so be it. Up yours mankind! I am ME. I am THE ONLY me there is. I am worth knowing. I am worth loving.

I've made this resolution before. It feels a little different this time.

Because all I need is this orange thermos.

If we don’t feel love with our heart...

...then how come that's where it hurts when someone doesn't love us back?

Everyone finds someone. That's how it's supposed to work, right? Right. But it doesn't. Unfortunately. Love is unlike anything else you can dream of. You can dream of becoming a doctor and work hard at making it happen. Love is something you dream but have absolutely no control over. You can make any dream come true...unless your dream is to be loved.

Here is a quote from Nietzsche; "One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by a heart that overflows." I'm one of the overflow-ers & I'm searching for a sponge. When I feel something, I feel it all the way. There is no halfway with what I feel. I wish there were. In fact, there are many things I wish I couldn't feel at all.

So, I tell myself to change my dreams. Dream something else instead. What else do I want in life? Mmmm...I'm thinking. And thinking. And for years I haven't been able to come up with any other dream.

The advice I most often get is "Get over it." You want to become a doctor? "Get over it." You want to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef? "Get over it." It's such a helpful phrase. As Colonel Potter would say, it's as helpful as "a one-legged man at a butt kicking contest." Get over it, huh? "It's the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don't get over it because it is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particular-ness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not erased by anyone but death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit. Why would I want them to?"

I think of Marianne at the dance when she sees her love with another woman. She turns to her sister and says, "Make him come to me, Elinor. Make him come to me right now." And all Elinor can do is take Marianne home. Then, the part that stabs me to the core, Marianne turns to Elinor and says, "Always acceptance and resignation. Tell me, Elinor, where is your heart?" And Elinor breaks down for the first time. She can no longer hide behind the façade she has built. I feel like Elinor hiding behind my own façade. I smile. I move on. I accept. And I resign. But where is my heart?

Someone said, "Wishing is good for us. Daydreams, fantasies, castles in the air, and aspirations all drive us forward, compel us to make things happen. They also tell us a lot about ourselves. Our wishes come straight from our core, and they are loaded with vital information."

And I can still smell him in my hair.

Progress from the Pancake Drawer

One time on an episode of “Scrubs” Carla was standing in the kitchen putting dishes away. She held up a pancake and said, “What’s a pancake doing in the silverware drawer?” I don’t remember if it was JD or Turk who answered, but he said, “The real question is what is the silverware doing in the pancake drawer?”

I love that bit. It’s simple and silly and I love it.

Ever since then, I’ve wanted a pancake drawer. Think how nice it would be to just reach in and have a pancake whenever you felt like it.

In another episode, JD was in heaven, and heaven was a diner. He tried to order flapjacks and they told him they didn’t have any. He said, “No flapjacks in Heaven? Are flapjacks evil?” THAT made me giggle.

If you combine the two scenarios I guess that makes it all more important to have a pancake drawer before you go to heaven.

Unless you’re just as evil as flapjacks.

Did you sleep well? …No, I made some mistakes.

You have read about my dreams before. People often ask me what I eat before I go to sleep to make myself dream such crazy-vivid stuff. Well, nothing. I don’t eat before I go to bed because I read that it’s really hard on your heart to sleep with food in your stomach. I usually go to bed a little hungry. Maybe that’s the problem.

The other night I was sleeping…dreaming that the Apocalypse has started and I was running for my life. (Good thing I’ve been practicing in REAL life!) Anyway, I started really running and smacked my elbow on the table next to my bed. It woke me right up because it HURT like a mean-girl’s comment! I had a bruise and a big red mark on my poor elbow. Not only did it wake me up, but it also kept me up for a while as I debated moving the table far away.

Yesterday I was making my bed, (not a daily occurrence I’ll have you know—I learned it from my Daddy who always said, “Why make your bed when you know you’re going to be all lekker-a comfortable in it the next night?” (lekker is Dutch for nice)) because…ok, I have three blankets on my bed, and the top two were right as rain, but the bottom one was completely sideways. I don’t know how I accomplished that one, but I most certainly did.

I’ve always been a crazy sleeper. When we’d sleep out in the backyard no one wanted to sleep next to me because despite the fact that we’d all start out in a straight line, by the morning I would be sideways or upside down from everyone else. Or, I’d be gone because I’d have left in the middle of the night to go sleep in my actual bed because the earth was sucking every bit of warmth from me…or the dew was on me…or a spider was watching me…or just because it was a stupid-ass idea to sleep in the backyard in the first place.

Once I went to bed with pajamas on only to find them clear across the room the next morning. I sleep all night long holding on to Eddie-Phil (my teddy bear with multiple personality disorder) so I’m confused as to how I can keep a hold of Eddie-Phil while strewing around my pillows and blankets and pajamas for that matter.

And, here is the final question for you all:

Am I the only one who has to straighten my mattress after a good night’s sleep?

Pavement Cracks

(If I could have anyone's singing voice, it would be Annie Lennox's! Here is one of her songs)

The city streets are wet again with rain
But I’m walkin’ just the same
Skies turn to the usual grey
When you turn to face the day
And love don’t show up in the pavement cracks
All my watercolors fade to black
All my dreams have fallen flat

Love don’t show up in the pavement cracks
There will be no turning back

Time and space will pass us by and by
When we don’t see eye to eye
I would have done anything
For happiness to bring…

But it don’t show up in the pavement cracks
I can’t even cover up my tracks
I’m goin’ nowhere and I’m light years back

How come
Every day
I’m still waiting for the change?

How come
I still say
Give me strength to live?

Where is my comfort zone?
A simple place to call my own
‘Cause everything I wanna be
Comes crashing down on me
And it don’t show up in the pavement cracks
I can’t even recognize my tracks
You and I can’t turn the whole thing back

Then The Letting Go…

(A short bit of fiction from inside my brain: Both parts are played by me, and neither part is 100% true.)

“It was a strange feeling,” she explained. “I’d searched for it for so long. I was so in love with him for so long.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“He came up to me today and he said that he wanted to give it a try…he wanted to try being my boyfriend.”

“That’s great!” I shouted (being one who has always wanted to know what it’s like to have a guy take that kind of chance with me). “Then what happened?”

“I walked away.” There was a pause while I waited for some kind of explanation. I was so confused by her choice. Did I even hear it correctly? She saw my hesitation and continued. “I walked away from him.”

“Why?” My heart was breaking and it wasn’t even my heart on the line.

“I think…well…it’s going to sound really weird…I think that I like being in one-way love. I think I’m happier when I like someone and they don’t like me back…then I can be miserable for a reason.”

“He’s great, though. You’re both so good for each other. Why not give him a chance! He’s great.”

“I know,” she said, “but what if I get together with him and discover that I’m still miserable.”

“What? Why would you be?”

“I kind of feel like I deserve to be miserable. All the mistakes I’ve made. What if I make him miserable, too?”

I was so confused. What was she saying? Why would someone (who has searched for love as long as I have) not take the chance when it was right in front of her. “What if he takes away your misery? I mean, I admire your strength to recognize these things about yourself and all…but, as someone who is always in the ‘unrequited’ category of love, I just have to ask why you won’t give him a chance. Can't you talk to him and work this out together? I mean, If it were me, I’d say yes in a second.”

“You know,” she said with a sad smile, “if he’d have asked me yesterday to be his girlfriend, I would have said ‘yes’, but last night…last night…I let go.”

(Title from "The Mountain Goats")

Poultry peer-pressure

Yes, that’s what happens when one gives in to being a chicken. Actually, it’s because Kylie was laughing at what I would give in on, and what I would not.

We play this game called 10,000 with six dice. It’s pretty fun and it’s a good way to pass the time. Well, Kylie can often get me to roll one more dice and risk it all. And I do, and I lose. But she knows that if she offers me a beer…I’ll say “no.”

We were trying to think of a word for the type of peer pressure that I give in to. Insignificant? Unimportant? Well, I decided to look for some help on a thesaurus.

I came across the world “paltry” but because I didn’t speak clearly Kylie thought I said, “poultry.” We giggled and figured that was exactly the type of peer-pressure I’d give in to!

Help! I’m Lost!

Background first…

In 1995 I got a very serious sinus infection that put me in bed for a week. Subsequently I catch every sinus cold that goes around and have had three other sinus infections since then. As a result, I don’t hear as well as I should.

Going even further back…

I have four brothers and three sisters, so loading us all into the car was quite a task for my Mom. One day, when I was five, I got left behind in Tempo’s (a local drug store like Rite Aid). Mom loaded up the car with 87.5% of her children, called it good and drove away.

I remember a little old lady was holding my hand and patiently taking me up and down each aisle asking me, “Is she your mom?” and I cried, “Nooo!”

Mom realized I was missing not quite a block away when she was going down the list asking each of her children what they wanted at McDonald's. “Maaike, what do you want? … Maaike… Maaike?” She came back to Tempo’s and got me…and was so flustered that the trip to McDonald's got canceled much to the chagrin of my brothers and sisters.

Now, the story…

My friend Daniel talks quietly. And, as I mentioned before, I’m a wee bit lacking in the hearing department.

We were going to a concert on campus and I didn’t have my Vandal card. Which was fine because I can still get in. Well a girl at the door was shouting, “If you have your Vandal card go to the other entrance to get a wrist band.”

Now, I thought I heard Daniel say, “We’ll just go in here.” So, I entered, walked a few steps, turned around and Daniel had completely disappeared into thin air. I waited thinking that we had just gotten separated by a few steps. I waited. He was gone. I took a few more steps into the building and then panic struck. Where was my friend? I seriously was going to cry.

In my panic, I saw a familiar face, “Joe!” (Hilary’s boyfriend) I told him that I’d lost my friend and, truthfully, I was going to cry.

“Do you want me to hang out with you, until he comes back?”

“Yes, please.”

It wasn’t too long after that that I spotted Daniel coming from the other side.

“There he is!”

“The guy in the black hoodie?” asked Joe.

“Yes, that’s him. Thanks for hanging out with me.”

(A note here to Joe: Thanks you really were a help to me! A note to Hilary: Joe’s great, don’t let him go!)

When Daniel came up to me I got mad at him (I’ve known him for over a year and this is the first time I’ve gotten mad at him) it was panic induced anger, however, and I can’t really be blamed for not being able to hold it in.

“Where did you go?” I asked, angrily.

“I was talking to my professor.”

I don’t remember what I said because mostly I was in a five-year-old’s state of panic of being left behind in an unfamiliar place. Daniel explained that what he had said to me earlier was to the effect that I was to go in this door and he was going to go through the other door to get a wristband.

My panic slowly ebbed. The concert was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it. On the way out, though, I kept a hold of Daniel so that I wouldn’t be left behind again.

People don’t believe me when I say I’m shy. But put me in an unfamiliar place and surround me with strangers and you’ll see me start crying like a five-year-old left in Tempo’s!

Ed’s New Haircut

I’m a killer. I’ve killed before. I can’t say that I enjoy it…and the last four years have gone by without incident. But the plant that was residing happily inside of my Ed-the-Head pot is dead. I killed it. I think I over watered it. But it is dead.

Kylie gave me the plant on one of my birthdays. (I love my birthday! A week from today is my half-year birthday!) She called it my “good luck” plant because I’d need luck to keep it alive. It lived a good life. It was beautiful. And now it’s dead.

Well, since Ed-the-Head is often in charge of the apartment when I’m gone, I had to find a new plant for it. I went to the store. And wandered. Not so much an indoor plant selection as they’re making way for the gardeners and lawn-fixer-uppers. I was at a loss. I stepped out into the parking lot where fewer people could hear my stupid question. I dialed the phone and called my Mom.

“Mom, I know I’ve asked you this every summer, but does annual mean it comes up every year or that I have to plant it every year?”

With that question out of the way, and Mom giggling in my ear, I wandered into the plants. The walls were lined with choices. Some I knew. Most I did not. There was one I wanted to look at, but couldn’t go anywhere near it because there was a spider perched too near. Curse you, spider!

“Mom, there’s a spider in here.”

“It won’t hurt you.”

Silly Mom. She knows that spiders are out to get me.

“Mom what does it mean when it says ‘sun perennial’?”

“That means it needs a lot of sunshine. You want a shade one.”

Searching some more, avoiding the looks of those who despise us uninformed plant buyers and annoying cell-phone talkers…and of course the spiders and various random bugs that had taken up homes in their favorite plants. I picked up something that looked dainty and pretty.

“I found something called ‘Lamium.’ It looks like it has little purple flowers.”

“Well, since I can’t see it, it sounds good to me.”

Thanking my Mom for her patience and advice I proceeded to the cashier. I went home proudly with my new plant. Hooray! Ed-the-Head will be naked no more!

Then Daniel, (“Outstanding Junior” for his department in Horticulture) comes over, takes a look at my plant and says, “They use this mostly for ground cover.”

Well, I guess that means that Ed is destined to have a buzz cut … until I kill again!