Tag: Love

Love languages

Love languages

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 2 Comments

“You know, there’s a book about that.” She said.

“About what?” He asked, walking faster to catch up with her.

“About why every time we fight, you buy me something.” She turned around and stuck out her tongue.

“Oh yeah? Does it say how you like pretty things and I’m the sucker who goes and buys them for you?” He grabbed her hand and pulled her close.

She laughed and tried to pull free, but only half heartedly. He tightened his grip.

“Nooo…” She whined. “It’s a book about the different way people show their love. You show it by giving gifts. You know ’cause you’re a big brooding meany pants who doesn’t like talking about his feelings.”

“Hey!”

She laughed. “What?”

“I’m not a ‘brooding meany pants,’ whatever that means.”

“It means that when you’re angry with me you get mopey and quiet and then I get all paranoid trying to figure out what I did wrong.

And it’ll be something like I DVR’d over one of your shows, or I wouldn’t let you order pizza for dinner again, or I forgot to put away my inks and you stained another pair of jeans.” She trailed off quietly.

He squeezed her hand. “You know I can’t get hot pink and gold ink out of my pants.”

“You gotta talk to me babe. You know I hate that cold shoulder shit.”

“I know, I know. Look, my family wasn’t big on talking things out. I’m not used to it. you know that. We’re all repressed. Look at my mom.” He pulled her into his arms.

“But I’m getting better aren’t I?” He whispered into her ear.

She could feel her face getting hotter.

Public displays of affection both embarrassed and thrilled her, not having been accustomed to them before he stumbled into her life.

She squirmed in his arms trying to break free.

“Remember,” he continued, “when I told you you were gross for drinking straight out of the juice carton?” He brushed his lips against her jaw and down to her neck, breathing in deeply.

“I’m not gross.” She muttered. She enjoyed the warmth of his breath against her skin.

“You are.” He kissed her lightly. “It’s cool though. I still like you.”

“People are staring.”

He looked up and saw a small group of teenage girls giggling in their general direction.

He turned back to her. “Those aren’t people.” he said as he moved his lips to the other side of her neck. “Those are teenagers.” He ran his fingers through her hair and moved his other hand to the small of her back.

“Now what was I saying?”

“You were telling me about how gross I am.” She reached for his face and pulled him away from his neck. She looked up at him.

“Tell me I’m not gross.” She demanded.

He smirked. “Oh you’re so gross. You leave your dirty laundry all over the house. Panties and socks everywhere.”

She laughed. He loved the sound of her laugh. It’s what drew him to her the first day they met.

“Oh yeah? And what else? You have a list?”

He kissed her forehead. “Oh, if I started going over that list we’d end up missing the movie.”

“That long, eh?”

“You’re a brat and a mess.”

“Damn. Should we file for divorce then?”

He sighed. “I think so. Well, we gave it a good run.”

“Three months were long enough.”

“I’ll call the lawyer.”

She smacked his arm. “Oh shut up. Let’s go in, I wanna sit in the back.”

“Ooh it’s gonna be one of those movie visits.” He pulled her towards the theater door.

She giggled and hurried along. “No! I want to actually see this one. I just hate having people sitting behind me.”

“Damn tease.”

“Shut up.”

He winked at her as he opened the door.

“Hey, so what’s your love language?”

She stopped and thought about it a moment. “You know something? I’m not sure. I didn’t get very far in the book. Why don’t you try and find out?”

Stars

Stars

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 3 Comments

I have this thing with freckles and birth marks.

I think they’re cute.

The other night I was tracing the ones on his back with my finger.  “You know something?” I asked him. “If you connected these, it almost looks like a constellation.”

“Oh yeah?  Which one?”

I traced the outline of the familiar figure once again.

“Orion.”  I smiled to myself and kissed one of the little dots on his shoulder.

He flipped over to face me.  “Turn around,” he told me.

“Why do I feel like you are about to do something incredibly inappropriate to me?”  I laughed and turned my back towards him.

He pulled my tank top up and his fingers searched my back.

“Here.”  He said.

“Here what?”

“Here,” and he leaned forward and kissed three points on my shoulder blade, “is orion’s belt.”

Eulogy for a Pup

Eulogy for a Pup

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 7 Comments

Nothing will ever prepare you for death.

Not time, not the knowledge of its inevitability, not illness–Death just happens.

And no one’s ever really happy about it, but we deal and that’s the best we can do.

It was a Friday evening in December. I was a freshman in highschool. I was standing in the kitchen doing God knows what (probably getting a snack after a long day at my nerd school) when my parents came home from work.
I asked my mom about the puppy she’d promised us. Her coworker owned a beautiful chocolate brown chow chow and she’d just had puppies. She was going to buy one.

Mom said they’d gone but he didn’t have anymore dogs. She tried to keep a straight face as I groaned in disappointment, but couldn’t as the front of her jacket started twitching.

I ran to her and she unzipped her coat.

There he was, this tiny, black, fuzzy, angry, little ball of fur, who smelled like death.

“Why does he smell like that?”

I still don’t know. Maybe it was the kibble they gave him? Maybe he hadn’t had a bath since he came out of the womb. Regardless he smelled pretty gross. There was no new puppy scent.

One thing was for sure, the jerk hated being held.

He was fighting against my mom and when I reached for him, the little brat hissed at me like the very spawn of Satan.

I spent the whole first week of his life in our house with him. I learned he really liked milky cereal, he hated fuzzy slippers, he liked hiding under beds, and his tiny little teeth were as sharp as needles.

But he was the cutest little evil thing.

After days of trying to think up a name my mom suggested Baloo, like the big black bear from the Jungle Book and it worked.

Eventually he faced the facts that he was stuck with us and allowed himself to be loved and squeezed and begrudgingly cuddled sometimes.

He loved long walks, using every opportunity to scare the crap out of strangers. He especially hated men. The only man he liked was my dad, and only after dad established the fact that he was the alpha and Baloo resigned himself with being the beta. But there was no room for anyone else.
He lived for car rides, sticking his head out of the window, letting the wind flow through his glorious mane. He looked like a mix between a lion and a bear. Cute but terrifying.

He loved cheese and ice cream and mangoes and pizza and hot dogs straight off the grill and all the food he was probably not supposed to eat.

But how can you deny those big puppy dog eyes?

My mom used to make sure Baloo had an enchilada before making the rest of us one.

The dog lived like a spoiled king.

He was a part of our family: the short, furry, angry kid that didn’t talk much, unless it was to bark when something annoyed him, or as he got older, when he was hungry.

A dog’s life is over far too quickly.
At best you get maybe 10, 15, or if you’re really lucky 20 years with them. And what is that compared to a human’s lifetime?

When you’re holding a puppy you don’t think about the future. You don’t think about failing hips. Or diseases. Or muscle loss. You don’t think about doggy incontinence. Or about carrying him up and down the stairs to go outside.

But it’s the harsh reality of old age.

Baloo had a good life. He was strong. He was healthy. He was happy, in a crochety kind of way.

Age crept on him and in the end we knew we had to let him go. Even

though I’d made him promise me a long time ago that I would be allowed to die first.

I loved that dog. I love that dog.

Thank you, Baloo.

You were a very good boy.

image

coffee

coffee

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 10 Comments

I told you dirty jokes until you laughed.

“It’s been shitty,”  you told me.

So I told you the one about the Pope doing a crossword.

“Stop me if you know it. So, the Pope is doing a crossword,” I laugh,  “and then and then um,” I’m not very good at telling jokes, but you listen anyway,  “oh! And he goes ‘but there’s only four letters in cunt!'”

I messed that up. I always get to the punchline to soon, but you laugh. And that’s the point.

I do anything to make you laugh.

“Wanna hear another one?”

I tell him the one involving a doctor and the wife of a politician.

But halfway through I forgot the punchline.

“You’re not very good at telling jokes.” He tells me. “But I still like you.”

“Guess I’m not going to be a stand up comic like I wanted.” I tell him.

“So what are you going to do with your life now?”

“I think I’ll finally join the circus.”

“Lion tamer?”

“Exactly.”

We both laugh.

“So what happened?” I ask him. I put the tiny percolator on the stove and turn it on.

“When?” He goes to the fridge and pulls out a gallon of milk.

“Grab the small sauce pan from the cupboard.” I tell him. “And I dunno, you said it’s been shitty. I’m asking why?”

“Oh.” He set the pan on the stove and poured in enough milk for both of us. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

He smiles at me and turns the heat on and sets it on high.

“Are you feeling ‘not shitty’ now?” I hand him a whisk. “Make the milk extra frothy.”

“Of course. I’m with you.” He starts to whisk the milk as it heats up.

I groan. “Stop falling in love with me. You know I’m saving myself for Johnny Depp.” I stick my tongue out at him.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but that ship has sailed.”

“Are you saying that Johnny Depp will never fall in love with me?”

“I’m saying I’ve already fallen in love with you.”

The espresso finishes percolating and I cannot bring myself to look at him.

OkCupid and the Quest for True Love

OkCupid and the Quest for True Love

by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 10 Comments

What’s a shy girl to do?

I feel as though the taboo of internet dating isn’t as strong as it used to be.

I was 13 when we first got a computer and the internet in my house.

Actually we were one of the first families on the block with a computer and dial up internet provided to us by the wondrous America Online.

I remember going into those infamous AOL chat rooms and being bombarded with “A/S/L” by people either looking to hook up or just looking for someone to talk to who also happened to really like Ricky Martin.

Not that I went into Ricky Martin fan chats or anything. I mean I don’t even know if they had those.

But I digress.

As the world’s shyest teenager I felt strange and weird meeting people online. Like was I doing something wrong in my life because I couldn’t meet friends in real life, because I couldn’t get a boy to like me in real life.

Even as I got older and started blogging on xanga (yep you read that right, I’ve got 10 years of posts on that bad boy. shit that probably isn’t helping my situation is it?) and gained readers from all over the country and the world and more of my friends started meeting strangers online and, gasp, even dating them, I still felt weird about these people. I felt weird about letting these unknown, sometimes faceless people into my life. I felt weird befriending them and even developing feelings for some of them.

But here I am, in my late 20s spending my lunch breaks and bus rides scrolling through dozens of profiles of the eligible men in the city of Chicago and trying to decide if I’m still in the same mindset of my 13-year-old self wondering if I’ve messed up somewhere along the way. If I’m defective because I cant seem to meet a decent man in real life and am instead relegated to hunting for one on an app.

Is there no such thing as a cute meet anymore?

Welcome to 21st century; the digital dating age.