From the monthly archives:

February 2013

My Boyfriend

by Marinka on February 28, 2013

Before I was in high school, I had a fake boyfriend.

He was handsome and nice, but he was so in love with me that sometimes it got uncomfortable for me.

Because I was the kind of girl who wanted to keep things casual, I was just a kid after all, but he was all over me. Not physically, of course, but emotionally. He knew, of course, that we couldn’t do it because I wasn’t a whore, but even though there were girls seriously interested in him, he was waiting for me.

Several of my friends knew about David.

His name was David because when I first told my friend Lana about him and she asked his name and at that moment the only name I could think of was David because we were students at an Yeshiva and also David Horowitz was walking by and probably making gagging sounds at the sight of me since we were nemeses. (And if you’re going to read some “romance” between me and that asshole, I have to ask that you enroll in remedial reading immediately because that was definitely not there.) By the way, this is a good lesson, if you’re going to lie and create an imaginary boyfriend, you probably should have some things in order- like name, age, where he lives (I hear Canada is especially welcoming to the imaginarily in love) and maybe what he looks like. Believe me, I learned the hard way.

Lana wanted to know all about him and I had to improvise. Since I wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the shed,the improvisations sounded something like this.

Lana: What does he look like?

Junior Marinka: What do you mean?

Lana: Is he handsome?

Junior Marinka: What?

Lana: What color hair does he have?

Junior Marinka: Color? Hair?

But eventually I settled on blond. Either that or brown.

Sometimes he sent me flowers. I really, really hope that I never actually sent flowers to myself from him, I hope that I just told me friends about the flowers he sent, but I can’t be sure. There was a florist nearby and I was, as you may be picking up on, insane. The only reason I think I wouldn’t have sent the flowers was because my junior high school wasn’t in an office and everyone knows that that’s the only point of having flowers delivered- so that everyone else can see and be a little jealous (where “a little jealous” = realize that they have no reason to keep living since they will never know love like you know love). So I’m sure I told everyone that he sent me flowers, but I probably didn’t buy them. I need to hold on to this now, if you don’t mind. I really do.

Eventually when I started dating a real person (so overrated) I still felt weird that I never dated before, so I kept David as an ex. That’s the awkward thing about breaking up with a made up boyfriend that no one tells you about– you have to have the whole break up scenario at the ready. And with homework and being on a team, I was already stretched to the limits. I went with some sort of “it just didn’t work out” bullshit, which, when you’re 16, really goes a long way.

But that was over, OMFG, over three decades ago. I was a teenager and David was a figment of my imagination. So tell me, why, today, of all days, as I was coming home from grocery shopping and checking the mail, did I think about David?

And why did I miss him so much.

{ 16 comments }

I’m Right, You’re Wrong: Teacups

by Marinka on February 26, 2013

It’s I’m Right, You’re Wrong time again!

And this time, we’re going to tackle an important subject: How to do you store your teacups and saucers?

Because I thought the answer was pretty clear, i.e. like a normal person, but one of my friends has expressed a preference for teacup storing diversity.

So, without too much foreplay, let’s just recap the rules. I’ll give you the two positions with a mini-quote from each defender, but I won’t tell you which one of us holds which position, so this way, when you agree with me, your vote will be pure and untainted.

Ready?

Here we go!

Disagreement: How do you store your teacups?

Disagreers: Lisa, of Smacksy and Marinka, of Teacup Storing Anonymous

Position One: teacups

I stack them that way because I saw Martha do it and I am a Martha-lemming.

Position Two:

teacups-2

I stack them this way because I believe in teacup and saucer segregation.

So, what do you say? How do you stack your tea cups? The right way or the wrong way?

{ 38 comments }

Slave Math is Bad Math

February 23, 2013

There’s a bit of an outrage this week in NYC because some public school students in Manhattan got math word problems and as if those aren’t horrific enough, these particular ones included slaves. I don’t mean that the math problems came with math slaves to solve the problems for the kids, I mean the problems […]

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Wait, So This Isn’t How Math Works?!

February 17, 2013

One of the problems with writing a memoir, if you are me, is that while you’re writing, all these memories come flooding back in a huge wave of cliches that come crashing on a sandy shore. And this weekend was no exception. Because this weekend I remembered that when I was in grade school, I […]

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Love

February 14, 2013

It’s impossible to explain why we love who we love. Well, maybe not impossible, but definitely a lot of work, and who has time for that these days?! It’s like explaining a scent, we can say ‘vanilla based” or “greens” and it evokes an understanding, a thought of the scent but not the scent itself. […]

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Red Pepper

February 13, 2013

A recent conversation with Mama.   Marinka: Mama, thank you so much for bringing that pasta dish over. It was delicious. Mama: Did you like it? Marinka: I loved it. So tasty. I’ve been having it for lunch every day. Mama: I’m glad, because usually you have junk food and this is wholesome ingredients. Marinka: […]

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The Finger

February 7, 2013

Yesterday Young Ladrinka injured his middle finger in basketball. The finger “hurts” and also “really hurts” and as a result he’s holding his hand approximately a mile away from his body. I don’t know why. I showered him with adoration and sympathy, but he insisted that he needed to receive medical treatment in case it’s […]

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Testing

February 2, 2013

11 year old Young Ladrinka had a practice standardized test in school last week and in anticipation the parents received an email from the director with some words in it to the effect of not stressing out the kids about  the test and the importance of getting a good night’s sleep before the test and […]

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