The Donkey and the Gremlin

In three words I think I would characterize my current relationship as being humorous, inspirational and affectionate.

We challenge each other on an intellectual level and will leave no stone unturned when we run into a surprising new fact or notion.

I like to go all the way down the rabbit hole with him when confronted with an oddity. We, take our time with our analyses and make sure we understand each other before moving on (as much as our schedules permit).

Also, in the decade I have spent with him, I don’t think we have ever left any uneasy feelings undisclosed nor left to fester into something big and ugly.

Even though communication is super important for us we don’t necessarily have the same approach to it. I guess that might have to do with our upbringing or just simply with the fact that we are different individuals.

The pushy gremlin

If something sparks my curiosity my mind goes into philosopher-mode. I can stare into blank space (or a crackling fire) for hours, drifting off into a maze of thoughts that might take days or weeks to figure out. Blogging helps. So does talking to fellow maze dwellers.

I like to think I always try to understand a puzzling fact by doing my best to approach it from different points of view. I end up making my own opinion but not before giving every idea I come across a fair chance.

G and I have similar ideas about many things. That awesome fact sometimes actually ends up being the problem.

If I notice he is not agreeing with me on something, I tend to think I just haven’t explained my point correctly. An expression of disagreement or confusion turns into a stimulus for me to introduce more ideas and arguments, as I myself have probably also gone through stages of confusion before forming my final opinion.

But as I push my point further to bring him on board I sometimes end up empty handed. My perception of “giving context” ends up tipping the scale towards domineering behavior, resulting in annoyance on both sides.

The ease with which I sometimes dismiss someone’s ideas without giving it a second thought is disrespectful, I see that. I just haven’t figured out how to keep myself from turning into that pushy gremlin yet.

I still need some more time staring into a fire to untangle that one…

The donkey

Geronimo is a self taught intellectual. All though our ideas are often quite similar, he likes to get his information from different sources than I do, which keeps our conversations interesting.

G’s opinions are no less strong or present than mine. However, he does back down from a discussion in cases where I would not. If he feels there is no point to it he shrugs, puts on a certain (slightly dismissive) face and goes on with his day.

To him a discussion is pointless if the other is not listening well enough (up to his standards) or if he senses the other is not prepared to change their opinion.

Also G is very wary for signs of manipulation (some would say he is oversensitive). When a question of mine turns out to be a cloaked demand, he goes into full donkey mode.

And don’t get me wrong… I adore donkeys…

So yes, I don’t always agree with his judgements on these moments and sometimes feel unfairly shut down. And that in turn is something I find wildly interesting and am still in the process of trying to fully grasp.

Luckily, in the end, we always figure out which wrong turn we took and like I said, no hard feelings are ever left to fester, which is so important.

We celebrated our anniversary last month and I expect to celebrate many more!

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Lil heartbreakers

The other day I heard the Jason Mraz included below, called Have it All. In this song he expresses his generous wishes for you.

He lays out a rich banquet of positive scenario’s, varying from managing to “keep the chaos and the clutter off your desk” to being awarded “prizes shining like diamonds”.

It’s a sweet song with a carpe diem attitude (which I actually wrote a blog about once).

The line that got my little brain-wheels going into overdrive is the one he casually throws in there at the beginning of the chorus:

Here’s to the hearts that you’re gonna break
Here’s to the lives that you’re gonna change
Here’s to the infinite possible ways to love you
I want you to have it

Should everyone get the chance to break someone’s heart? Does anyone have that on their bucketlist?

I know cute kids are affectionately referred to as “little heart breakers” sometimes. This is meant to be a compliment. I suppose charming girls and boys can’t always help that people fall in love with them and breaking some hearts along the way is inevitable. More even, it may happen without them ever even knowing about it.

But getting back to the song; Is breaking a heart something you want everyone to experience at least once in a lifetime? Does mr Mraz actually mean to say “I hope someone opens their heart to you and loves you intensely (making heartbreak a possible outcome)”?

When I told my boyfriend, G, about this conundrum, he said something to confuse me even further. He said he didn’t believe that heartbreak could ever be the outcome of love… I asked him to explain it to me again just now and to be honest I still don’t understand it enough to be able to put it into words of my own.

His exact words were:

You are responsible for the condition of your heart. If your heart gets broken this means you have allowed it to be in a position where it could be broken.

I mean… yeah… I guess… but… wait… whut?

So then… we had to talk about what “being broken hearted” or “having your heart broken” really means.

Acoording to G, a broken hearted person is beyond despair. Lost, adrift and beyond reason. Inconsolable.

If I understand correctly, what G was trying to tell me (but I’ll check with him later) is that it has to do with caring for yourself enough to no be reckless with your heart. You can’t truly love someone else if you don’t love yourself first… That sort of thing(?).

I’ve actually never had it happen to me. I’ve been sad, but never heartbroken. I guess I’ve also never been that deeply in love (before my current relationship) and also… well… I was never actually on the receiving end of a breakup…

Did I ever break someone’s heart? Eummm… hard to say… but quite possibly…

Am I glad I got to go through that experience? No, most definitely not.

It was something I learned from though!

Prompt me

My blog and I are good friends.  Lately though, I’ve been behaving like the kind of friend that only shows up when life is shitty and I need a shoulder to cry on. I’m the type of friend that takes energy and gives little back. I’m not being a good friend to my blog-buddy and I apologize.

Blogtober was too intense. Showing up because I have to is not how I want this to go. I want to want to be here. And I know I want to be here more often than I currently am, and maybe that starts with forcing myself to show up, at first(?). Inspiration is so hard to plan though….

And Daily Prompts aren’t inspiring me, either! I mean… Just one word? Why not set the scene a bit, like they you used to?

And what happened to the weekly Discover challenges?? I liked those!

Read Write Live‘s blog did inspire me though, especially when she (or he?? I don’t really know) asked her readers what she should write about. I’d like to be able to do that. The problem is that I don’t really have readers. I’m not even insulted. It is the way it is. I never really set out to have a following anyway, but for this specific experiment it would be nice…

But perhaps there is still a way to follow the same train of thought, but with just me, myself and I (and the handful of people that stumble upon my little corner of the interwebz).

How about writing what I want to read? And how about I base this on things I actually did read, like the blog I just mentioned? Instead of using the boring, standardized and uninspiring one-word-“you figure it out” Daily Prompts, I could pick a word or sentence from a fellow bloggers post and build on that… I’m sure they wouldn’t mind, right?

Yes, that’s what I will do. Now is the start, and it sounds like: Ladidada dada!

 

Help me understand Björk

My boyfriend and I often play songs for each other in the early morning. It has become an occasional part of our morning ritual, especially on those mornings when waking up is just that tad more difficult or when getting up just isn’t necessary just yet.

This morning, he grabbed my phone (he is one of those rare ones without a smartphone) and I watched as he typed “Venus as a boy” and I couldn’t help but blurt out “Oh god…”, which in turn made him raise his eyebrows at me.

I let the song play (almost) until the end, which I thought was quite an achievement… I just can’t handle Björk very well… 

I tried to explain why and I noticed how I started to raise my voice and was completely failing at giving him a good explanation. I think I just used a lot of words, starting with “What does Venus as a boy even mean?!” and ending with my piece de resistance: “she just weirds me out”.

So then he said: “you know what? maybe you should write a blog about it…”

Man, he knows me so well, doesn’t he?

So yah, I’m struggling here… Why does Björk annoy me so much and why is it so hard to put it into words?

What I’ve come up with so far:

• her music is uncomfortable to listen to
• it’s pretentious and unnecessarily complicated
• I feel like it’s a “Emperor’s new clothes” situation, where nobody dares say they don’t like it, out of fear of being labeled musically dumb.
• It just sounds like someone was doodling around with different electronic melodies and riffs and then accidentally added the audio of someone singing in the shower.
• She always looks like she’s on the verge of a psychotic breakdown.

Luckily, there are more people around that “just don’t get it” and have turned to online discussion forums and blogs to vent and inquire. Some of the explanations people have given for appreciating Björk are:

• Her (seemingly) very organic, unrestrained approach to singing, combined with the fact that her grasp on the English language is shaky at best, give her vocals a rough spontaneity that is refreshing in an art-pop artist.
• You don’t have to be crazy to like Bjork but it helps. So do mind altering chemicals.
• I loved the drama, the glitchiness, Bjork’s amazing vocal range. I find the combination of strings and the urgent, insistent song structure of Joga absolutely mesmerizing.
• In a nutshell, “understanding” Björk is beyond my ability to explain. I’d just say that it starts with her voice. That’s the gorgeous lighthouse that you follow through the wonderful storm of her ever-evolving music.
• [In a review on 2015 album Vulnicura] I’ll be the first to admit that, as a huge Björk fan since the late 1990s, I’ve often been at a loss with her music: I adore her experimental, deeply passionate approach to music, but my own appreciation of her music has become increasingly challenged.
• [In a review on her 2017 video of the Gate] You know when you’ve been out all night, and you’re really fucked, and you finally decide you should try and sleep, so you curl up in bed, dry mouthed, and close your eyes for a second? And then suddenly all this weird shit starts spinning around your brain? Like geometric shapes and faces you don’t recognise and other, intangible stuff you couldn’t even explain to someone with words? Well, Björk’s new video for “The Gate” is kind of like that, but better, because it stars Björk.
• Her eeeeks, and shrieks turn this little freak into a feisty contender for one of the most unbelievable performers of my generation. Bjork started off as somewhat of a meme in apartment 320, but I submit to you that I have rethought her status as just a meme. In fact she is, nay she will forever be one of the most interesting artists in this game of life we all play.

Hmm… none of this is really helping. Or maybe it is? It’s making me feel that I will never get it and that I just don’t belong in Björk club. But do try to convince me otherwise!

Surprise! I don’t like surprises.

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend, G, came home after work and told me he had found out about something really cool that I was going to love and that I needed to ask such-and-such Friday off from work.

I asked him what this cool thing was, where it was, why I would love it, if I needed to take my bathing suit with me or hiking shoes, if we were going by train or bus or bike… and guess what; he just smiled and told me “wait and see”.

So I did… and then completely forgot to ask the Friday off. (In my defence; I did tell him he should remind me again; maybe text me or something…) When we woke up on Saturday morning and I told him I needed to work that day, he looked really disappointed.

I realized I had forgotten to not-work on Friday and even added an extra day to the workweek… Wupps…

And then, on Saturday evening his frown (luckily) turned upside down when he found out the super-special-special-mystery-thingamajig-I-shouldn’t-ask-about-but-would-totally-love would also be available for us on Sunday… which was today…

 

I have to admit, I had the hardest time convincing myself to not tie him to a chair and force more information out of him somehow. Admission number two: I was kind of surprised (and taken aback) by my reaction to all of this… and I think G was too…

After a truly lovely day (that I will tell you more about in a blog later in the week) we got home and twisted comfortably back into our evening routines. I was exhausted though, which had very little to do with the actual physical strain of the day.

So yeah, what the hell, right?

G told me he thought this was an important lesson for me and that he would continue to organize little surprise outings for me every now and then until I learnt to deal with them properly…

My first thought:

Pfff… Thanks for making me feel like a five year old, dude….

And immediately after that:

OMFG, why can’t I just be grateful and trust that he knows and loves me enough to only take me to awesome places?!

He said I surprised him with little thoughtful gifts and gestures all the time and that he wanted to be able to return the favor, which… yah… is a sweet thought (all though I don’t recall being such a tease with anything I ever gave him, but hey…).

I told him I would prefer he would just tell me he was taking me somewhere on the day of the actual outing and not leave me in the dark for a whole week first.
He said that this method was necessary so that I could ask a day off from work.

I told him I didn’t get the point of being so secretive about it. If he would tell me he had found out about a super special place and would describe it then and there, I would be super excited to go with him. Why build the anticipation like that?
He said he wanted it to be special. He felt talking about it beforehand would ruin the magic and might even make it disappointing.

I told him keeping expectations low was actually one of my specialties; keeping my cool while handing over all control to someone else was not.
He said “trust me”.

 

 

But I do trust him.

 

Just not as much as I trust myself.

 

 

I’m working on it.

 

Mind Cleanup: Shedding indifference

All though 2016 ended with a slight whim of apocalyptic dystopia this new year is growing on me. There are actually more people that do think like me and they seem to be growing louder, which has put my desire to go into fullblown cocoon-mode to rest somewhat.

Self-reflection

When my boyfriend asked me how I looked back on 2016 and what I expected of the year to come I said 2016 was my Hobbes year and 2017 should be more of a Calvin year.

As many of you surely know, Hobbes is not only the surname of  “one of the founders of modern political philosophy”, but it is also the name that mr Bill Watterson gave the tiger that completes the legendary cartoon duo: Calvin & Hobbes.

Hobbes is the (extremely sarcastic) voice of reason in the equation, whereas Calvin is the type that “demands euphoria” and is shocked when his mother doesn’t honor the ritual of scooping out the peanut butter properly. He’s the kind of kid that does not take “because I say so” for an answer and will call you out on your bullshit. Every. Single. Time. Regardless of your status or position. He will cause a one-man-riot for causes that are important to him and will suffer the consequences of his actions with his head held high. Calvin, despite being named after 16th century theologian, John Calvin, is actually pretty much an atheist if you ask me.

Anyhow, the point of all this is that 2017 is a year in which I hope to be more vocal about what I feel is right and allow my outrage to be heard whenever values I hold dear are under threat. So there.

Time to answer some self-reflection questions from my list!

How quickly do you jump to conclusions about people?

I’m afraid I can actually be quite a judgmental person, all though I am getting better at this.

Which physical feature defines you?

As most of the members of my family I have quite a pronounced chin and tend to duckface a bit when I concentrate hard on something. I also have a relatively large nose. Sadly, no broomstick flying skills, ’cause yes, I would make a great witch. 😛

What is your star sign?

Sagittarius, all the way. And apparently, I am also a skunk.

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Not sure if any of this is true or whatever but it does fascinate me…

What are you good at and what would you like to improve?

Hmm… this is a hard one… I guess I’m a good listener (when I want to be?). I’m pretty good with most animals, does that count?

There was a time in my life when I thought I should improve my public speaking skills. I totally lose my cool in front of a group. As a matter of fact, I think I’m just not much of a group person. Small talk: also not my forte.

I would like to be less awkward in these type of situations, but would prefer to just upload this skill, a-la-matrix, and not have to go to some group therapy to achieve it. 😛

If you could choose anyone living or dead, who would you choose to go on a roadtrip with?

Not sure… Michelle Obama stole my heart big time in recent months, so maybe her? Actually, road tripping with my boyfriend has always been awesome, so he’s definitely also invited.

And…… after giving it some thought…. maybe our most-hated Dutch politician, Geert Wilders. There are so many things I don’t really understand about him and his rhetoric that I would like to ask him about in a chilled out environment. All though there is very little I can agree with him on, I do feel sorry for him as well, as he is forced to live in some bunker with constant protection. A roadtrip might mellow him right down…

Movies / Series

Recent recommendations:

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: loved it more than I expected. Maybe even more than the Harry Potter series… better acting, if you ask me!
• Sing: Watched the trailer and feared I had already seen the best bits, but there was more than enough goodness left for me to giggle at during the film itself. My boyfriend even got a bit emotional at some point… no joke…
• The Bridge: Danish – Swedish detective series, that I enjoyed very much. Only watched the first season. I hope the following seasons are just as cool!

 

Music

I was introduced to Stevie Wonder’s 1995 album “Conversation Peace“, which sadly I didn’t know at all. The first song “Rain your love down” is a heart-warming, head-bobbing song that at first glance may sound like a love song but is actually a plea to god to rid the world of “hunger, hate, war, and greed”.

The song that gave the album it’s title is one that chokes me up just a little bit every time I hear it… When you listen to it, remember it was recorded in 1995…

 

If you are looking for a lighter song, listen to “Tomorrow Robins will sing“, which of course also does point out the world is pretty sucky but hey, tomorrow robins will sing!

(all though I must say the robin in my garden only kinda chirps and doesn’t really sing… but maybe Stevie can’t tell which one it was that he heard. Or maybe I really have to wait till tomorrow…)

Epilogue

To conclude this mind cleanup I would like to put in my two cents in honor of black history month, and leave you with a couple of my favorite quotes from Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

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Keep it real!

It seems I am going to be complaing about “inspirational” quotes again… The proper response to this might be to delete my FB account, but I just can’t help myself. Annoyance is good fuel for writing as well so it’s not all bad…

The category I am going to hate on today are the quotes that attempt to be empowering and do this by questioning the “realness” of other men and women. Some examples:

It might just be the fact that English isn’t my mother tongue, cause I don’t know what half of this stuff even means!  The adjective “real” in this context can mean anything varying from “brave” to “honest” and from “sophisticated” to “independent”. And what’s more, it feels like it’s not even really meant as a declaration of “realness” as much as it is a diss to someone they consider to be the opposite of real… which is what…. a man? not human (zombie?)? an un-woman… really no clue…

…and one last thing, somewhat unrelated: WHY is it so hard to remember that womAn is the singular form?! Nobody talks about “a men” but when it comes to the female version it gets confusing for some reason….. Maybe because we often travel in packs and are not seen as individuals until later on in life? 

Anyhow…. back to the real topic of today… because there is also a category about “real” men (yes, this is the plural form), that needs to be addressed. These quotes are actually usually quite boring, imo, as they are mostly just a creative attempt by some women to vent about their exes or just another way of dealing with being turned down, because you see, he just wasn’t “real” enough to deal with her… You ready for this?

COME ON, ladies…… This just makes me feel ashamed of my gender…. Give the guys a break already… How can the dudes ever live up to this shit? If the guys you are dating keep turning out to be shitty specimens, maybe there’s something you are doing that is making them behave this way!

And I haven’t even discussed the “what-he-says-and-means-vs-what-she-says-and-means”-quotes that go around……… You know the ones…… Man, they annoy the heck out of me…

  

This last category might need a whole blog of its own, to be honest. And I must confess I’m actually a lousy woman in this discussion because I totally agree with a lot of the complaints guys have about us, as far as our indirect communication goes, our weird expectations and fickleness. I am totally that way sometimes (but I do apologize later (sometimes))!

How DO we coexist? I guess it’s all about finding the balance, right?