Tag Archives: love

Truly, Madly, Deeply, Part V: Taking a Chance on Love

‘Lo.  I’m back with the fifth and final (I think) installment of Truly, Madly, Deeply:  JAZZ HANDS–er, a tale of a grrl and her ape.  Before I start, though, I have to regale you with a funny/cringe-worthy anecdote about my mother.  She’s here visiting for a month and a half.  She called two days before she came (right as I was about to clean for her visit!) and asked me many questions about the ape.  I was cautiously optimistic at the tone she took, but I knew the real test would be when she arrived.  Of course, one of the first things she wanted to talk about was the ape.  After I answered her questions for roughly half an hour, she said, “Dad told me I shouldn’t tell you this, but–”  Pro tip:  If you want to tell someone something, do not start out with, “So-and-so told me not to tell you.”  She then proceeded to tell me how, you know, she’s been praying for me (I know).  Well, she usually prays that my relationship with God would be healed (shudder), but in the past few months, she’s been asking Him to bring me a good man.

Inside, I’m laughing, but also rolling my eyes.  I said, “Why did Dad tell you not to tell me that?”, thinking, “He knows I do the opposite of what you say”, or, “‘Coz you sound a leeeetle bit crazy right now!”  She said, “He knows that you’ve been hurt in your past affairs, well, you know what I mean–“. I interjected, “Relationships.”  She went on as if she hadn’t heard me, “And he doesn’t want you to get hurt again.  He’s very protective of you in that way.”  That was the cringe-worthy part.  I shrugged it off, but I also felt a flash of pure anger.  Protective of me?  What the fuck is that shit?  Still, I said in my head, “A good man is better than God, apparently!” and moved the conversation to another topic.  This is huge because even a year ago, I would have gotten into it with her over her words.  Now, I can just say, “Whatever, Mom,” and go about my merry way.  And, as friends pointed out, if she thinks she had a hand in me meeting the ape, she’ll be more for the relationship.  And as another friend said, “Let her nag God.  At least she’s leaving you alone!”

All right.  Back to my narrative.  When we last left the titular couple, they were climbing Mount Everest, swimming in the Amazon, and–oh, all right.  They were at taiji and meeting with the grrl’s best friend for dinner.  Which went swimmingly.   We closed down the Thai restaurant, causing the manager to push a vacuum noisily past us as a hint to get the fuck out.

Then, Friday.  Idle’s last full day here.  We planned on getting Indian food (his favorite) and visiting the Snoopy statues around St. Paul.  We didn’t manage the latter, but we did do the former.  My absolute favorite Indian restaurant got raided and closed years ago.  Three others have come and gone, but couldn’t hold a candle.  The one to which I took Idle was very good, though–except for one thing.  It was ninety degrees out that day, and the restaurant didn’t have air, for whatever reason.  It was brutal, especially since both of us do not like the heat at all.  Sometime in the evening, I started saying, “It’s not so hot.  It’s not bad at all!”  Idle looked at me and kindly said, “You’re hallucinating, honey.”  Apparently, part of being dehydrated is entertaining delusions.  I didn’t care ‘coz at least I didn’t feel as if my brains were being scrambled in preparation for the zombie apocalypse.


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Truly, Madly, Deeply, Part IV: An Ode to Joy

Hello! You know the drill by now. Go read the previous posts of this stories, especially part III in order to be caught up with this thrilling tale of love, danger, espionage and–oh wait, it’s mostly about love.

Where was I?  Oh yes, musing about having Idle in my life.  More on that later.  For now, more on the rest of his visit.  We’re up to Wednesday, and I have to share with you an odd detail about me:  I hate the end of things with a passion.  If I’m watching a TV series on DVD, I will delay watching the last episode because then I have no more left to watch!  It’s so bad, I start the countdown when I am halfway through the series (if there are not a large number of episodes).  Take, for example, Miracles.  There were only 13 episodes made of the show.  When I hit 7, I became increasingly morose with each episode viewed because it meant I had less to watch than I had already watched, if that makes sense.

I’m the same way with trips (at least, ones I want to take).  When the midpoint arrives, I start becoming depressed thinking about the end of the trip and how soon it’s approaching.  It’s funny because my friends were shocked I’d let Idle stay in my house for eight days (so long!), and all I could think of was, “I wish he were staying longer.”

Wednesday was the halfway point of his trip.  I pushed it to the back of my mind because I wanted to enjoy his company to the fullest, but it was lurking like an evil, lurky thing.  We went to my therapy session–or rather, I went to my session and he wandered around St. Paul, the lesser-known of the Twin Cities, in the ninety-plus weather we were having at the time.  After my session, I joined Idle in the wandering, and we checked out some of the local shops.  Oh, he also got excited about the Snoopy statue we saw in front of a nearby vet’s office ‘coz he’s a big Peanuts fan.  Charles Schultz is from MN, and they did a series of Snoopy statutes to commemorate something or the other in relation to him.  We saw another one further down the street that had been vandalized.  Poor Snoopy.  Idle didn’t have his camera with him, so I said we’d do a tour of the statues.  We didn’t get to that, but hey, it gives him added incentive to visit me again, amirite?


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Truly, Madly, Deeply, Part III: Love, Actually

Hello, my gentle readers.   Before we return to the enthralling saga of our heroine (moi) and her ape (Idle), I have a housekeeping note.  Astute readers will realize that I changed the title of this series.  Instead of attaching these new posts onto the old series, I decided they deserved a series of their own, especially as I feel this is not the last post on the subject. That out of the way, back to our romantic tale already in progress.

By the way, have you noticed that where I left off, with the hug at the airport, makes both a perfect ending and a perfect beginning?  Chew on that for awhile as I regale you with what happened during the actual visit.

Idle and I hugged for what seemed like forever, but was probably only minutes.  He felt solid, comfortable, warm, reassuring, and just so damn right in my arms; I didn’t want to let him go.   I did, reluctantly, and we were on our way.  I had to focus on the road, of course, so I didn’t get to stare at him as I wanted.  I did catch him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking, and it didn’t really fluster me as it normally would.  I pointed out things of interest on the way home, but I wasn’t really thinking about my city.  I was giddy with happiness and lust that the ape had finally landed.  It didn’t seem possible that we were actually in the same city, my city, in my car, driving back to my house.

I was nervous, yes, but I was also just overjoyed to have him with me.  We stopped at Subway because he hadn’t eaten all day, and then I drove him to my house.  I am uncomfortable having people in my house for many reasons, but I was so eager to be with Idle (and touch him), I managed to quash the small panic I had as he walked into my house.

How did the cats greet him?  In their usual way.  Raven sniffed and let Idle pet him right away, and Shadow stood aloof.  But, I am very proud of my shy guy because he didn’t leave the room.  And, he did let Idle pet him the first day.  By the middle of the visit, Shadow had accepted this stranger into our household–probably because Idle awoke before I did and would go to the kitchen to make coffee.  Those with animals know that any time you go into the kitchen, the animals think it’s feeding time.  By the end of the visit, Shadow was planting himself in front of Idle and arching his back–his way of demanding to be pet.  Raven accepted Idle as another piece of furniture and would flop all over Idle, sometimes at inconvenient moments.

Back to the narrative.  After we ate, Idle and I retired to the bedroom so we could get to know each other better.

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Truly, Madly, Deeply, Part II: The Strange, Sweet Story of a Grrl and Her Ape

So.  In my last post, I dropped the bombshell that I had met someone.  If you haven’t read it yet, take five ten fifteen how ever long you need and look it over. Go on. Do it. Otherwise, this post won’t be as full an experience. Done?  Good.

As we last checked in with the grrl, she was anxiously awaiting a visit from her ape.  When he told me (the grrl.  Try to keep up) he had bought the tickets, I was jubilant.  In the back of my mind, I was afraid that he would back out at the last minute.  I couldn’t quite believe he actually WANTED to see me, so much so that he would fly a thousand miles to meet me.  He hates flying as much as I do; he hates change as much as I do; I was floored that he was actually going through with it.  With my history, I have a hard time believing that I’m worth someone making that effort, especially someone as averse to traveling as he is.

Once we had establish that yes, he was coming for realz, I had to do something I hate:  Clean.  I absolutely loathe it.  Plus, I suck at it.  Not a good combination.  I’m not comfortable having people in my house, not even good friends, and here I was eagerly offering Idle Primate to share my bed.  My friends were floored by the fact that I was letting him stay in my house.  Frankly, so was I.

As I prepared for his visit, doubts started flooding my mind.  I am a dynamo online. I’m funny and witty and charming as hell.  I am MUCH better with the written word than I am with the spoken word, and I was worried that all my neuroses and quirks and idiosyncrasies would be annoying in person–not endearing.  The demons were whispering in my ear that once Idle Primate spent some time with me, he would realize that he had made a mistake.  I didn’t want to disappoint him.  One thing that made it marginally easier for me not to panic was that I knew he had similar worries about disappointing me.

We have some of the same life experiences, which means we have similar issues.  We also both think of ourselves as the caretaker in a relationship, which makes for a very interesting dynamic.  In the past, I’ve tended to be with people who, in the long run, didn’t want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with them, and then my concubine nature would take over and I would do whatever it took to make them happy.  Idle has a similar personality, which is actually refreshing.  We both wanted to make the other happy, which is much better than one person doing most of the work.

As his visit neared, we started to post more on each other’s FB walls.  Mostly videos, and mostly ones that one of us found funny.  We have a rule that we had to listen to the entire song if the other person posted it on our wall. As we both have devious minds, it led to lots of mirth, especially as neither of sleeps very much and one of us has OCD (that would be me). For example, as I said in my last post, I loved the hair bands of the ’80s such as Cinderella and Warrant.  My poor Idle, well, let’s just say he was a punk back then and leave it at that.  In our serious moments, he posted the video Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.  I had heard the song before and hadn’t been immediately captured by it, but through my new lens of love, the song had a resonance that it lacked before.  I felt such a strong connection with Idle, being ‘with’ him was like being home.  I wrote a brilliant essay many years ago (as it’s not online, you’ll have to trust me.  It’s quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever written.  Pulitzer Prize worthy) about how I found ‘home’ in people, rather than places, and I felt it strongly with Idle.


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Truly, Madly, Deeply, Part I: Friday I’m in Love

Hello, all. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Three months. Damn. There are cobwebs all over the place, and I’ve never been a good housekeeper.  Hold on a second while I tidy up.  Yes, that lamp goes there and this table needs a good dusting.  There!  I’m ready to post now.  Last thing I wrote about was Minna 4.0 and all the changes she’s gone through. Well, it’s time for another update because Minna 4.0 has gotten a major upgrade–one that I never thought she’d get*.

Remember how I’ve written in the past that while I have started longing for a relationship, I never thought I’d find one?  Of course, that was back in the dark ages (MONTHS ago) when I wondered if I was dating material.  I wanted love, but I was deeply afraid that I wouldn’t find it in this lifetime.  I thought the best thing to do was to go to activities that I would enjoy anyway and see what happened.  I would test the water and see what was out there.  I would take it slow and not expect anything to happen for some time.

At least that was the plan.

Funny how things change in a heartbeat.

A few months ago, I got into an epic word battle with a guy on ABL’s Facebook wall.  He went by the name of Idle Primate, and he knew ABL through a cultural commentary site called Pajamas or something like that**.  I don’t know how the great ate debate started, but it evolved into the two of us exchanging ripostes involving words ending in -ate or derivations of.  We went on for hours.  It was a blast, and I included a song that he immediately claimed.  It’s the first video posted below.

He requested to be friends on the FB, and I accepted.  We started flirting almost immediately after, but I was determined to keep it light because he wasn’t in my city or state.  Hell, he wasn’t in the States at all.  He’s from Ottawa, Canada, and I was determined not to get into another long distance relationship.  Sure, he was intelligent, witty, funny as hell, thoughtful, goofy, creative, poetic, and we clicked right off the bat.  Yes, he was single and not afeeeeered of commitment as my past partners have been.  He was in fucking Canada, and not in Winnipeg or anywhere close-ish.  I was NOT going down that road–uh uh, no sirree.

The internet is a funny thing.  It allows for a connection that isn’t based on physical proximity; indeed, I didn’t even know what he looked like since he only had pictures of apes as his profile pic on FB.  Yes, we were both putting our best feet forward, but the real us still came out loud and strong.  We quickly moved to PM’ing each other, and then I suggested we take it off FB because I don’t trust them at all.  No, I don’t trust Google and gmail much more, but FB really is the nadir of privacy.

I soon grew to anticipate emails from him.  My heart would skip a beat if I had one, and it would thump in disappointment if my inbox was stubbornly empty.  Sure, we bantered on FB, but it wasn’t the same.  Still, I told myself that it was just for fun and that I was just practicing my dating chops since I haven’t used them in a long time.  Honestly, I’ve never really dated as I find the concept an anathema–I tend to plunge right into relationships or flings or whatnot.   I was determined to keep it on a fling-like level because he was so far away and the chances of us meeting were slim.   Months earlier, I had decided that I wasn’t going to be the first one to fly to meet, especially not for a booty call.  I’d done that in the past, and I didn’t want to do it again.

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The Last Snowfall*

Sunday morning, we’re up at the break of dawn.  An ungodly hour.  Actually, Rose got up first because she actually had to be presentable for her job.  The rest of us could just roll out of bed, throw on a t-shirt and shorts and go.  We were out of the room and on the road by eight.  I have to say, the hotel had enforced valet parking, which struck me as odd.  Kel said it’s pretty common around there, but I’d never seen it before.  Anyway, we went through the McDonald’s drivethru for breakfast.  None of us go to Mickey D’s very often, but they are everywhere.  We had our own Three Stooges moment with trying to figure out what everyone wanted, but we eventually got our order straight.

Can I let you in on a little secret?  I love McDonald’s sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit.  I know!  It’s so bad for me, but it tastes soooo good.   I washed it down with a hazelnut iced decaf latte with skim milk, which was yummy, too.   Of course, the breakfast sat in a lump in my stomach for a good two hours, but it was so worth it.

Kel and I chatted as Rose read, Irish Dancer did her puzzle book, and I’m assuming Punk Girl listened to her music.  She was way in the back, so she might as well have been in Siberia as far as I was concerned.

Like a true OCD child, Irish Dancer couldn’t skip a puzzle once she started it (I sympathize), and she was asking us for help now and then.  One of the puzzles had the theme of rhyming colors (yellow fellow, for example), which is when I went on my own OCD kick.  The clue was something like icy metal (cold gold was the right response).  I started tossing out ice words like frigid and gelid.  Then, I got stuck on gelid and started rhyming to see if I could come up with a color that rhymed with it.

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A Tangible Expression of Love

Me.  The Quilt.i have a twin in spirit
her name is Kel
i haven’t met her in person yet
but one day soon, i will.
she knows i am struggling
so she sent me a Sekrit Weapon
i can wrap it around me when i sleep
so the demons cannot get in.
she poured her heart and love
into every colorful square
i can feel her with me
even when she’s not there.
she sewed in a part of her soul
and part of mine as well
united, the two of us
can conquer all kinds of hell.
tears fill my eyes
as i snuggle beneath the quilt
it means more to me
than any gold or gilt.
i am touched, humbled and awed
she would do such an amazing thing
Kel, i thank you profusely
you have captured my spirit within.

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Do You Believe in Love?

j0385435My friend, Rubo, and I have been have a FB/Yahoo Messenger conversation about love.  Well, we were when I was actually on FB.  I am taking a hiatus because the FB police are after me–again.

Anyway, she turned me on to a group named The Storys.  They are a Welsh band, and I am totally addicted to them.  My favorite song is Journey’s End (Show Me Love).  I have listened to it well over fifty times in the past week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual number is double that.  I bought their self-titled debut album, and the whole thing is excellent.   Here is a live version of my favorite song:

Well, Rubo has been on a kick of posting links on FB to their videos.  Her most recent one was I Believe in Love.  This is the rapidly becoming my second favorite song by The Storys.  Since I am a compulsive commenter, I quickly posted something about loving that song, even though I didn’t believe in love.

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I Want You to Want Me

asian loveRelationships.  They have been on my mind lately.  I have had several discussions with friends around the world about them, so on them I ruminate.

When I was a little girl, I assumed I would grow up, get married and have kids–after getting my Ph.D. of course.  White picket fence, apple pie, and all that stuff.  I didn’t really think about what it would mean, of course, as that part was never explicitly explained to me.  Still, by what I absorbed from reading tons of books, it seemed like a pretty straight-forward proposition to me.  Go to college, meet my hubby-to-be, get married, have kids and a career. 

Well, reality intruded.  I was never a popular kid, partly because I grew up Asian in a mostly-white area, partly because I was so brainy, and partly because I just didn’t fit in.  I got teased for being fat, Asian, and smart.  It was pretty much a daily occurrence, and it started pretty early.

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