Face-deep in me humble-pie

Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Girl let’s boy do whatever he wants. Boy does whatever he wanted and one day boy decides to take girl out. Boy sounds happy and excited. Girl can’t believe her luck. Goes out and buys things. Wonders what to do about hair. Then boy disappears. Girl gets angry. Girl writes angry emails. Girl makes angry phone calls and sends angry texts. Boy refuses to respond. And then he calls girl crazy and manipulative. That girl should stop bothering him, or else.

Boys can be mean sometimes!!

But did he stop there? No sir, he didn’t. He continued by saying he decided not to come because he realized I was fucked in the head. Called me “a head case”, “a trip”, something else. No wonder, he added before signing off, my husband wanted out!

Girl knew I was fucked up. I knew there was something wrong with me. [Even warn them as much in the beginning. Suggest they read my blog to know the inner workings of my mind. “Wait and see”, I say – when they start “majgodgoding” compliments, wishing the warning flags away. They never listen!]. I was also no stranger to being called names before being deserted. What I didn’t know was that I was the Crafty-Craftswoman he described me to be. That I was any more crazy than the next scorned [passionate] woman whose fury hell would be hard-pressed to match. That my corky-nesses were anything other than adorable qualities that sets me apart from girlkind.

So I went to me best friend, google!, and asked the question: “Am I manipulative?”. And to my shame, to my eternal disgrace [I do use big words and poetic language to get my point across too!], learned that although none of them were conscious decisions, or things I did to gain a specific/material end, I did and do all those things it says manipulative people do:

– I do pretend to be incompetent, play the victim, act helpless, or admit too often that I am stupid
– I did say “anything you want” when I don’t mean it or I lied about how I feel (but isn’t that what “the dating game” is all about?! The make ups, the eye shadows, the waxings, the clpings?! Aren’t we catering to “his” needs instead of ours? Saying “thy wish, sir, is my command”?!).
– I did say “promise me” (“we will remain friends even if we stopped seeing each other”. And meant it too.)
-I do not think I “act overly concerned” or “promise to change my behavior knowing perfectly well that I don’t want to change.”
– I do blame others (but myself too) for my problems.
– I do act ignored, forgotten, hurt, wounded, unloved, or uncared for (which is how I am or feel 99 percent of the time)
– I get angry or throw temper tantrums.
– I am always depressed or suicidal.

So what I thus far thought was “humility” or “being self conscious” was, infact, typical manipulative behavior.

Now for the “crazy” part.

Of guys and hoes*

I am a whore. We are all whores after we hit 30 and there seems to be nothing for us in life except do the things we were supposed to have done and wait for menopause. Wrinkles. Old age. Death.

I’m a whore, an affection whore, because I lust after every man, after his affection. It doesn’t have to be a man I’d like to spend the rest of my days with. It doesn’t have to be a man I’d like to hold hands and watch a movie with. It doesn’t have to be a man who is single, in anyway likable, of age. If he’s a man and he’s talking to me and smiling, I start drawing all these scenarios in which he’d come again tomorrow, pretending to wanna buy something, stopping by my register to say hi, say “Remember me?”.

He’d leave me his number or ask for my number. Hang around till I am free to talk to him, to warm him with my rays [of intelligence, wit, sense of humor. The sunshine of my smile]. I imagine him going out and going to his car and waiting restlessly, to see me come out. I see him trying to “meet me accidently” at the store – down the street from where I work – where I stop-by every day, more out of habit than the refrigerator being less full. [Not that that’s ever stopped me from carrying plastic bags after plastic bags of grocery which I take home, and consume, watching TV, reading an article on the internet, chatting with younger siblings back home.]

I’m a whore in that a five minute’s talk with a customer who seems to have found me interesting, smiled looking into my eyes, probably told me I have a cute accent/a nice smile/a singsong voice, would make me go without sleep. I toss and turn, on my futon bed, infront of my TV, toss and turn half the night wondering how he’s gonne do it. How he’s gonne appear in my life tomorrow. How it would feel like to kiss him, kiss that face of his which seems to have worn out from over thinking, appearing in and out of my vision – now clearly, now not. I keep rerunning our conversations in my head. I keep seeing how it would go when he comes next time. I start making up stories, stories that kept my imagination occupied and my ears full when, once…long time ago, my father was abusing my mother – both physically and verbally – all. through.the.night. Stories so well thought-off and so personal, so real I end up covered in tears in the telling of them. Stories of how a relationship would be built, how a budding lotus of love would sprout, how a mistake would be made, how somebody leaves, and then comes back — pulled by a memory, a dream, a heart-string.

I’m a whore because he doesn’t come the next day. Or the next. And when he does come, he’s either with his girlfriend, or his boyfriend, or pays at the next counter, or has completely forgotten me that he won’t even say “Heyyy, you are down here today!?”.

I’m a whore in that I never learn.

Another customer would come the next day. You’d start talking, because you are supposed to. Make them feel at home, comfortable, known – personally. And you’d think you got him until he throws his arm in despair to show why he’s hanging around the register. “She isn’t ready yet!” he’d say, smiling exasperatly. She would soon appear, all bustling, smiles and brown hair. Confident, demure, white. “Honey..?!”, she’d pout, as if the few minutes they’ve spent apart was an intentional desertion from him. She’d then walk to his side, seemingly unaware of the perfect picture they make, and show him something she knew, simply knew, would be perfect somewhere in their nest.

You’d continue to smile, say a warm Hi, comment on her light colored sweater, her Scarlett-O’Hara hair-do, little baby-blue in the trolley. When they have finally made up their minds [after one of them had run back and forth through the aisles to grab or put some piece of junk back], joked and laughed about her inability to resist temptation, his baseball card collection [a lost cause he’s hoped little blue there would one day inherit and go to college with the profits from, until they started to manufacture them in millions or everybody was collecting them], you start punching the numbers.

You are folding their merchandize, taking the tags out and reaching for a plastic bag while the printer spits stringed piece of papers, when he says “Can you give me a bag please?”, motioning to where your hands are striving to reach. “Sure”, you’d say, instead of ask him what on God’s mother-fucking-earth he thinks you were trying to do. “Here you go,” you’d add cheerfully, handing the stuff out, “Thank you, sir. Mum. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Next!”

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* Disclaimer: The feelings depicted in this post are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

Can quote me on that!

A friend of mine sent me two “quotable quotes” this morning. One from what actress Kristin Davis said, and the other from a “The Sopranos” script he found on Ethiopundit . blogspot . com used “to whip Meles Zenawi’s stand on the conflicted land issue around Gondar-Sudan region”. I liked one of them, I hated the other. Here below is my reply. Would appreciate your take on them!

Thank you for the “TiQsis”. Your Kristin Davis’ quote (“If I had one wish for myself, it would be to fall in love. That’s asking for trouble, but that’s the truth.”) sounds pretty shallow. Maybe because I find the concept of “falling in love” freaking funny. So does Chris. We used to laugh about it all the time: one of rolling on the bed saying “oh… oh.. I’ve fallen in love.. It’s all over me.. !” (in a very much Carrie-in-a-wedding-dress way) while the other chuckles delightedly. I know it’s silly. But so is the concept, were you to see it from where I saw it.

Here is how I believe “love” happens:
You see a person, you want them! That’s the reality. Everything else is sugar coating it and we’re both too old for that. If you started dating them, then you are maneuvering them to bed. If the sex is great, you wanna have more of it. And you’d pay whatever it takes to keep it. That’s what they call a “relationship”. While in this relationship, you get used to the person and his/her ways. Some good, Some bad. You develop a resistance to it, or you don’t. You either stay, or leave. When you stay and they aren’t around, you’ll miss them. Miss their corky ways that don’t look so bad when they are away. And you think you must be in love. The truth is: You are just used to them. And you need them. They been filling gaps in your life that needed feeling and, without them, you find yourself pretty see-through-ish as if with some yeTalyan gize “chichi”. Cold and lonely, that’s where they came from. And you find out that you guys were [have become] perfect for each other, inspite of all the imperfections you know you can live with and will perfect in this waltz we call “relationship” eventually. That’s where the expression “Gabichana chama midelaw siyarej new” came from. It’s your leg, your individuality/whatever you been walking through life with, that shrunk to fit the new shoe or got used to the discomfort. Nothing to do with the shoe!.

So.. I ask you, where does the “falling” come in?

True, Kristin Davis ain’t exactly wishing it on me and a person can wish for whatever they see fit. But I won’t be running to list it under my “fav quotes” section any time soon. So, I guess you can say I haven’t found the Kristin Davis stuff so hot although she’s pretty neat herself. “A Shiksa goodess”, Harry Goldenblatt called her character on one of the “Sex and the City” episodes. Which indeed she is. Sticking to doing what you do best, that’s the bitch!.

Loved the Sopranos one (“Buy land AJ, cause God ain’t making any more of it”-Tony Soprano to his son). Can I use it for my post? Can I?