Thursday, April 22, 2010

I told her that I had hoped we'd maybe make out while watching the ducklings frolic in the pond.

It was all carefully orchestrated. That's what I tell myself when I sit in my apartment, crying into a beer and heating up fish sticks in the toaster.

I am but a puppet in someone's master plan.

So it's OK that I smeared an inch-thick layer of cream cheese frosting on my vegan carrot cake and ate until I had a belly-ache. And it's OK that I said Fuck You Asshole to the Vodafone-guy who refused to help me sign up for DSL in English.
I have one more wall to paint in the livingroom and I've called in sick to do it. I decided to have a crush on the girl at the café. Just because the weather was so lovely and I had been shopping and drinking and felt so alive I didn't know what to do with myself. Carbonation in my bloodstream. Shoes made out of marshmallows.

And then. Disaster. Failure. Rejection. Mega-rejection. We rode our bikes to Treptow Park. They have this really cool Russian monument there. A giant bronze guy stabbing a Swastika with a sword. Then, as we sat in a beer garden, she started lecturing me. Said I was so American. That I always should ask if someone speaks English, before I just order a beer in American or ask for directions in American.

Sure, I said. I should. But as soon as I do that person looks at me like I had insulted them. Because everyone speaks English here. Except for the Vodafone-guy.
Then she said that by asking her out on a date I was acting no better than a dude. I was making her an object. I was copying fucked-up heterosexual behaviors.


Maybe that's how you do in the States, she said, this gorgeous café latte-skinned girl with dreadlocks and a pierced septum. But that's not the way it's done here. The world is big, you know.

I told her that I had hoped we'd maybe make out while watching the ducklings frolic in the pond.

Then she got up and left me with the bill. Just like a fucking girl.

Now Volcanic ash is clouding the air. The temperature has dropped and the skies are gray, gray, gray.

But there's still a light that never goes out. I will eventually wipe my tears, blow my nose, band-aid my wounds.

12 comments:

  1. You're right, Kim. Practically everybody speaks English in Europe, at least young people. Just go ahead and otder your beers the way you like.

    But Europe and America are different, no doubt. It became very clear to me when I lived in Colorado for one year. One thing I like about Europe is that people are in general more liberal (like in Boulder CO and San Francisco). If Europe had been voting in the last US election, Obama had got about 80-90% of the votes for sure.

    Anyway, hope you enjoy living in Germany >:)

    Cold As Heaven

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  2. you little lover. i love that about you. you keep putting yourself out on a limb, and that takes guts. honestly she kind of sounds like a bitch, you are better off without her. did i just say that?

    is that your beautiful face in the pic? i hope you are enjoying your adventures, otherwise gorgeous.

    xxx
    t

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  3. that's you in the picture, kim? that's gorgeous!
    interesting story, i enjoyed how you arranged the details as always. you're really a good writer!

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  4. english is practically the Universal language.
    it's ridiculous that she acted that way. and even though you wrote about it so beautifully it is not a beautiful situation and i'm sorry you had to find out she was like that.

    also- you are lovely.

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  5. man, I liked the shifts in that.
    abrupt but seamless.

    it's a big world.

    --dustyrose.

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  6. it's ok. i have no words these days either. not that they're shit, just that they won't come. like my head is blank. it happens sometimes and you just have to wait it out. sooner or later you'll be positively going mad with words bursting out everywhere when you don't have a pen and you'll have to try to memorise the sentences as they come and revise in your head while you're trying to walk three dogs at once as fast as you can so you can get back to the car where if you're lucky you've left some paper. oh wait. that's me. still. these things go in cycles. don't worry. and if you can't speak, let others speak for you. hence my quote. which struck me as the exact truth of that exact moment that i read it while sitting outside in the dark in the night smoking cloves. so Cortazar speaks for me when i have no words.

    also, did you just call me YOUNG? because you know i am nearly five years older than you, right? you are the spring chicken around here. although maybe emotionally you are right. probably you are. as always. :D

    xx x

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  7. Your writing does this to me. it's beautiful

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  8. That girl sounds condescending and self righteous, but it doesn't ease the blow, does it? Sigh. What a lame person. C'est la vie.

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  9. im sorry i was laughing to this. im cynical and sadistic. i was wonder what her expectations were. cause im sure if its a guy or girl ask out the same in any damn fucking corner of the planet you'd ask em out. except when you are drunk and sport fucking in a bar. well, have a nice bigass cheese burger. and a inch thick cream coffeee. and thicken the blood in your viens. it surely would help you deal with it :)

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  10. It's her loss miss, not yours...Some people would rather play games than deal with direct honesty. Don't waste your time. Enjoy Germany!

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You Rock. I am certain of it.