Glimpse

Today, my work station is Starbucks. 

I’m drinking a peppermint white mocha and listening to Imogen Heap.

I look like this:

(I find resting my chin in my hand helps me think more clearly, though I doubt I’m usually this “smiley” while thinking. Something in me thinks that part is staged for this photo. Shhh.)

Irregardless of my natural smiling tendencies, I am happy to be doing what I’m doing today.

*PS, can you believe irregardless is even a word?? I disputed this in high school, mocked it, even. And yet here I am, using it a mere 10 (11? 12?) years later…

Just Call Me Marjorie Goats

I have been called a lot of things in my life. With a name like “Marijke” it isn’t hard to see why.  A silent J? Who comes up with this stuff? Here are just a smattering few, phonetically spelled for [ahem] clarity:

Veronica

Mareeka

Mary Kaye

Maridgekee

Mary Jika

Jikes

Rika

Marjorie

Mejracky

Marishnakoff – My little albino billy goat

Marika-lecka-hi-mecka-hiney-ho

Marijuana (actually pronounced Mari-ju-wanna)

GROAT!! (that one went around high school like wildfire)

And, you know? I’m used to it. I’m comfortable with it. I like being the only me I know.

At one point around the age of 9 or 10 I thought I wanted to go by the name “Marie,” which now seems incredibly boring. (Sorry to any of you Maries out there, I’m sure it’s a wonderful name..  It’s just not mine.)

Also, if you google my full name you can find a MAP to my DESK at my OFFICE where I WORK. So I’m very stalkable.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that you may be reading this blog and have absolutely no idea how to say my name. Which, really, is entirely understandable. So let me introduce myself.

My name is Marijke. I tell people that it’s “Maraca” with an “I.” Or “Mariah” with a “K.”

Confused? I hope not.

You can also call me MJ.

It’s nice to meet you.

I Dream of Singing

I started voice coaching recently. I call it “coaching” as opposed to voice “lessons” because I think they’re less traditional – it’s not classical style and hopefully will help me make the most of what I have. Should be a good time, right?

Last week at my first lesson, I didn’t actually sing. My coach talked about the voice and how it works. And I stared at the posters on his wall of places he’s been, accomplishments, etc..  He told me to come next week prepared with a few songs I’d like to sing; I get to pick them myself!

So on my way back to work that day I listened to music in my car, thinking of what I’d like to sing. And I imagined myself with the strongest version of my voice. A killer, powerful voice. Oh man…   I got so excited, envisioning just how wonderful it could be. Maybe, just maybe??

SUDDENLY ALL MY DREAMS OF BEING ON BROADWAY WERE REVIVED.

I remember a time in high school when I knew, deep down inside me I just knew, that I wasn’t going to be on broadway. I was barely even a singer then. And I don’t know why I thought I could be, but I knew I wouldn’t be. It wasn’t the fact that I wasn’t “good enough” (although I wasn’t). Somehow I just knew. 

So what of the dream? It’s a fire in my bones; it makes me smile, gets my heart racing, and literally would get me out of bed in the morning! So, what about the dream? Honestly, I have NO idea what steps lie in front of me.  But there is always the dream. And maybe the dream is more about “what” than “where.” And you better believe I’ll be doing the what, no matter where I am.

I need new socks…

One day in high school my friend Rachel exclaimed, “My goal in life is to wear pants that aren’t jeans.”

To which I replied, “Really? Your goal in life?? If there’s one thing you accomplish from now until you DIE, you’d like it to be wearing pants that aren’t jeans?”

I think I made a similar pact in 2001, however. It was, in my mind, to wear socks that weren’t white.

I say this not because I remember actually telling somebody this, although I might have. But I bought a few pair of striped socks and I proceeded to wear them every day, color coordinated with my outfits. And clearly this act of blatant non-white-sock-wearing was bookmarked in my brain, all the while reminding me of Rachel’s fateful anti-jean proclamation.

 

I still have those socks. 7 1/2 years later…

I STILL have them and I wear them.

 

But I need new socks because they don’t stay up any more. Their elastic has depleted almost completely. Also I need new socks because I wear a lot of socks that are white, which is clearly in violation of the GOAL OF MY LIFE.

In Other News

Apparently John “Cougar” Mellencamp wised up sometime after I was in 8th grade and dropped the middle name. I know this because I saw his CD at starbucks today.

Upon further wikipedia research I have discovered that:

• He’s been John Mellencamp since 1991 and I’m just now blogging about it
• JCM has been around as an artist since 1974 (?!)
• He’s been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• John Cougar was his stage name prior to adding Mellencamp and then dropping Cougar
• Nowhere in the entire(ly too long) biography did I see anything about the only song I could remember by him: “Life is a Highway.” Which is why I just googled it and realized it’s not by John Cougar Mellencamp. Which would explain why his dropping the middle name in 1991 (long before I was in 8th grade) didn’t exactly match my memory. Because my memory was completely wrong. Which means this whole blog is based on a lie. And actually not about anything at all.

The Cheese Poem

When I was in high school, I participated in an activity called “speech.” It wasn’t exactly what you think when you hear that word, more like acting without moving around. There are different categories like poetry, drama, or humorous, and each participant picks an excerpt from a play, book, or poem, and acts out all the different characters through voices and body posture. Well, one person acts it out, unless you’re in the category “dramatic duo.”

I was never in dramatic duo. I was in humorous. And my friend Rachel, she wasn’t in dramatic duo either, but that didn’t stop us from writing the following piece and performing it for people whenever we got the chance. In dramatic duo the actors stand next to each other facing the audience (instead of facing each other) but the hand gestures and facial expressions behave as though each person were actually directly facing and interacting with the other. So this is what we looked like, side by side, facing our audience, gesticulating like crazy. It all sounds a little absurd, and maybe it was…

But people love it.
Always have loved it.
I imagine they always will.

“The Cheese Poem.”

We all have different preferences. I prefer cheese. Marijke prefers salami. Amy prefers condiments. These differences were tearing me apart, so I wrote a memoir of how it gnaws at me, as a mouse gnaws cheese.

“You like cheese, Marijke.” by Rachel Axvig

The other day in the market, between the salami and the condiments, I saw a fuzzy, cool, calm BRICK of cheese, that was bigger than a breadbox. So I turned to my friend Marijke, but before I could speak she said, “Salami is quite possibly the world’s most perfect food.” But I said, “Marijke, if you please! The most perfect food…… is cheese.”

So I took the cheese and wrapped it in my coat, like an embryo still moist from the fluids of birth. And I extended my cheese to Marijke, as a sort of peace offering, and said, “You like cheese, Marijke. You like cheese…”

But she did not want my cheese. She turned and ran, from aisle C to D, and into the parking lot. And as I chased her I was more flexible than a pretzel, that had not been cooked!

“You like cheese, Marijke! You like cheese, Marijke!”

But I tripped… dropped the beautiful brick… where it was smudged to a piece of dust on the sidewalk. By a stupid semi….

My Most Embarrassing Moment Ever?

When I was in high school, I was a little insecure. Certainly I was not one of those girls who knew who she was or had all the confidence. I was still “finding” myself. So much so, that I tried to fit into the mold. Not necessarily everybody’s mold, but the general populace mold. The one that said I belonged and was accepted. And I’m not too proud to say I may have bent a little one way or the other to be what people wanted.

Case In Point:

I had a crush on a guy when I was in 10th grade. For some reason I thought guys would want to go for girls who were like them – you know, someone they relate to… So, clearly, the way to be like a guy – the most OBVIOUS way – is to dress like him.

Yes. I did this.

No, I did not wear men’s clothing. I did, however, try to simulate the style. Jeans and sweatshirts. I wanted to be what he liked, be what he wanted. For some reason I thought he would be attracted to me for it.

But, alas…. He did not want to date me. No, the “dressing like him” method did not do the trick.

It was a fateful day later that year that I was sitting near him at lunch and he told me the only reason he dressed the way he did was because he couldn’t afford to buy nicer clothes.

*ouch*