Month: April 2018

Smells of me

It’s funny to me, the things that make me feel so comfortable, so at ease, that it feels like everything is okay and is going to be okay.  Tonight, not for the first time since I have returned to living in Houston, someone told me, “You still smell the same,” and followed up my question about it with, “You still smell like you.”  And this is a comment I’ve had from lots of people over the years.  I have a very distinct smell.  It’s mostly just my deodorant and essential oils and oil blends that I use for various things in my life, but there is something special-feeling about the fact that people associate those smells with me.  It is as though one of my favorite parts of me and my life is something that people not only notice, but usually really like.  And, most of all, they remember it.  That to me is special, and I so love having it happen, it makes me feel whole and complete in the present moment… even though I have no idea what is next for me in life, and even though I’m not too glad or proud of where things stand for me in my life in this moment, people still remember and love me.

Post-a-day 2018

Males

On my evening walk last night, I walked with a small opossum for a while.  It was great.  He was adorable.  We were both enjoying the weather and a casual stroll in it.  At one point, we paused and gazed into one another’s eyes for a few moments.  It was very intimate.  I guess it got a little too intimate for him, though, and he felt awkward.  Because, a few seconds after our gazing into one another, he wandered off suddenly in a different direction.  And I haven’t heard from him since.  Sigh… And we had been having such a good time…  Perhaps we will never understand the male sex…

😛

Post-a-day 2018

A time to live

I have just found myself sighing in amazement at something the students around me probably would think me a crazy adult for doing – I was that nonsensical old teacher, who got all excited about nothing special, because she/he was a total nerd, just now.  Who’d have ever thunk that I’d be that person when I grew older?

Anyway, the girls were talking about books for school, and I mentioned how using the audiobooks can be really helpful, whenever one finds it difficult to read the actual text of a book – it was how I managed to read lots of school books that I just didn’t like (and therefore struggled to sit down to read).  It was also how, I mentioned, I read Huckleberry Finn.  The language was written down for the story, but it was a set of spoken dialects that really weren’t written at the time.  My being from the southern US, I can understand most of those spoken dialects referenced in the book.  However, I never would read them.  They were, as I mentioned, always spoken.  So, when we read the book in school, I had to read a sentence once to figure out how to pronounce the words written there, and then I had to read it again aloud (either aloud in my head or actually aloud with my voice), so that I could hear what it was, and then I was able to understand what was written on the page.  Suffice it to say that this took way longer than I was interested in managing for an entire book.  Thus, the usefulness of the audiobook, which allowed me to understand everything immediately.

After I explained this, one of the girls mentioned how she would have found that useful for Pygmalion, the story of “My Fair Lady” that was written by George Bernard Shaw.  She said that the language in the beginning was incredibly difficult to understand, such that she was somewhat dumbfounded with it at first.

Now, that reminded me of how I keep forgetting to add Pygmalion to my reading list.  I’ve wanted to read it ever since I first learned about its existence, back when I was in high school.  But, I keep forgetting to add it to my list, and so I forget about it any time I’m on the quest for my next read.  Therefore, mid-conversation, I turned to my computer, and I added it to my reading list on GoodReads.

While there, I read the little blurb about George Bernard Shaw.  I was amazed at his years of life.  1856 to 1950 was his lifetime.  I began considering the historical events that occurred during that time span, and I was dumbfounded at how life might have been for this man, or even for any person living during that span of time, especially in the US, though he was in Ireland and England.  I then saw that he had won the Nobel Prize in literature (and refused the money, asking it to be donated to book translations into English instead), and he also won an Oscar.  And that second award struck me as odd.

He was born in the 1850s.  But when was film first an actual public thing in the world?  How do we go from the 1850s to an Oscar?  I checked.  It looked like film started to become a public thing around that 1880s.  Before that, it was the little wheel things (zoetrope and praxinoscope, the predecessors of the flip book), like the one with the images of the man riding the old bicycle, where it looks like he is riding, because the pictures are rotating so quickly, but it is just the one single loop, repeating over and over again.  (I looked quickly, but didn’t find a video or photo of that particular one, though it is the one I best remember from originally learning about them.)  So, essentially, this man went from a world with no film to winning an Oscar for a film on which he worked (specifically, he wrote the story and script).

Is that not a crazy concept?  It, I suppose, is similar to someone being born in, say, the 1960s, and being alive today, doing spectacular things in the computer industry.  (Think Steve Jobs, even though he is not actually alive today.)  Going from almost no existence of the world of the computer, to a time where one can become an expert and award-winner in the work of the computer.  Except, for George Bernard Shaw, there were also two world wars that happened, and a million other huge historical events.  What an amazing time to have been alive.  What a terrifying time, as well, to have been alive.

So, anyway, I found myself gaping and sighing and “Wow”-ing over this new-to-me information just now, as the girls likely saw nothing spectacular for me to be “Wow”-ing about, and didn’t really care anyway, since I hadn’t really shared the information with them.  But I just had to share this with someone… isn’t that an amazing time to have been alive, the lifetime of George Bernard Shaw?  It’s like “Midnight in Paris”, except that I don’t actually want to go back to that time – it’s just a spectacular concept to me, being alive in that specific stretch of time.

Anyway… yeah.  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Nonsense that really does make sense

The following is something I actually planned to tell a friend today, but I forgot to tell him.  It was in preparing to tell him, thinking of how the conversation might go, that I realized how odd the whole thing was.  See for yourself below…

……………..

I remembered to check the ingredients of my deodorant, because, when I was sniffing my toilet paper, I saw patchouli incense on the floor.

……………..

How’s that for normal, eh?  Just try to make sense of just about any of that.  😛

Post-a-day 2018

the outsider view of a culture, viewed by an insider

Walking around the Japanese garden, I stop when I come to the take.  I stop of just a moment, envisioning myself in Japan, in the real Japanese gardens of the world.  Tears come to my eyes, and I wonder Why?  What’s going on?  Why am I suddenly crying?  Why am I shaking inside from my sternum, as though panic is coming up?

And I realize: I miss Japan.  Not so much for the whole experience, but for some of the experience, and, especially, for the part where I fit in appropriately, in the right way.  I was expected to stand out and not to do exactly as others did.  I was expected to turn heads and to surprise and shock those around me.  And I did.  And I was comforted by the feeling of ‘fitting in’ in that odd sense of it, fitting into the expectations my surroundings had of me.

But it is different being here, where I am expected to fit in one way, but I don’t fit in that way.  I am American, but I am multi-cultural.  I used to think those two a little more synonymous with one another.  But, based on how I look on the outside, – my skin and hair and eyes – I am expected to be on a similar ground with those around me here.  Perhaps we have visited other countries, but that was for vacation.  Living there, being truly part of the culture, is not in the books for most of those around me, unless they specifically came from that country directly, through their heritage, and moved here after having lived there in the earliest years of their lives (as is the case with one in four people in Houston, actually).  However, I am not expected to know how to dress someone in a kimono or yukata better than someone my own age back in Japan.  I’m not even expected to know the difference, unless I am what would be considered a sort of geek of Anime and Manga (at which point one still might not know the difference between them, but it is less surprising for them to know such things).  I don’t fit into that category, and yet I know so much about Japanese culture and life in Japan, and I have experienced so much of it, that I often find no need to talk about it – it’s become so a part of me and my life, it is similar to putting on shoes or brushing teeth.  Sure, we do them both all the time, but hardly ever do we consciously ponder on them and share about them with others.  They’re just part of our subconscious and our mostly-daily lives.

Anyway, that was what I was feeling today at the festival in town celebrating Japan and Japanese culture.  When I ran into a friend who had spent even more time than I had in Japan, I mentioned to him how I wasn’t quite sure what I was feeling, but I felt as though I was about to cry.  Something about feeling like I belong, but then not belonging after all.  ‘It’s your first “Japanese culture” experience post-Japan.’  I confirmed his questioning declaration.  It was, in fact, the first time I had experienced something that was all about Japan from this country’s perspective since I had actually spent time in Japan.  If I had attended the same festival before going, I likely would have felt quite wonderfully walking around the festival.  I had a different view of Japanese culture in Japan back then.

This was something like seeing a “Mexican Restaurant” in northern France that time, and feeling a giddy sense of hilarity at what kind of food could possibly be served in there.  Or the “American Restaurant” (that was it’s name) in northern Spain, where the “american hamburgers” were nothing like our actual hamburgers.  (Think meatloaf, with a slice of thin ham, on fluffy, dense bread.)  But now, instead of it being Texas and US culture, it is Japanese culture.  And so it was also weird to be relating to Japanese culture – a culture with which I struggled greatly at times, and still do – in the same sort of protective way as I traditionally have related to my original home culture.  It kind of added this whole extra layer to my identity semi-crisis.  And all that just because I went to a festival.

Post-a-day 2018

Effective Toilets

One thing I love about the Europe in which I lived is the practicality of concepts and mentalities.  The main example of this which comes to mind right now is that of toilets.  Public toilets, specifically, I mean.

At my campus in Toulouse, France, was my first experience of the idea of one set of sinks for toilets of both genders.  There were the individual stalls, as in any US bathroom, though with doors and walls that closed off each stall more effectively from outsiders’ views.  However, each stall was labelled as for male or female users. Then, over to the side, was the countertop sink area.  Just one sink area for everyone to use.  It was practical, efficient, and sufficient.  It was odd, at first, walking into the same bathroom as the guys, and even talking with them while in line in the bathroom and at the sinks.  But I never felt uncomfortable, because I still got my own, private little space to do my private business.  The privacy part was kept even more private than the stalls in the US, where we have nonsense structures that require us to avert our eyes whenever we enter the bathroom, because we get that one-inch-wide view all along the length of either side of every stall door, and, whether we like it or not, leaves us knowledgeable of the color of everyone’s underwear.  (No joke here.  We totally have trained ourselves to look away as fast as possible, and also not to remember what we see, but it doesn’t change the fact that we totally see it and on a regular basis.)  (Also, the urinals were still kept for the men, the  private trash bins by the toilet were kept for the women’s stalls, and girls didn’t have to worry about guys urinating on the seats or floors around where we’re dropping our pants.)

When I was in Germany most recently, I was using the toilet in the airport just before my flight.  When I walked out of the stall to go to the sink (in the women’s bathroom), a male cleaner walked into the bathroom with an indifference nonchalance.  He walked to the trash bin and emptied it to his cart outside the bathroom, and refreshed the bag.  Then he swept the floor a bit and wiped down the sinks, checking the soap and paper towels.  Not one person flinched during this process.  No one was embarrassed.  But there were other women in the bathroom, coming and going as though all was well and normal.  And, for some reason, I was delighted and warmed at that fact.  I think I even giggled when I left the bathroom, because I was imagining how people back in the US might have responded (and, potentially, panicked like no other).  Again, just like in France, he wasn’t in the actual privacy portion of the bathroom, so it didn’t really matter so much that he was there.  He was only passing through – it wasn’t like he was hanging out in there all day or anything.  He cleaned up and got out, just as he probably did in the men’s restroom.  So what that he was a man?

In the US, our restrooms are shut down from use whenever someone of the opposite gender cleans them.  And that really sucks at times.  Really.  Because, sometimes, you’ve just got to go.

However, one restaurant in Houston gives me hope for our city (if not quite our country yet).  It has regular-looking entrances for the men’s and women’s restrooms, on opposite ends of this one wall.  Upon entering either of those doors, one will discover a beautiful wall of sinks between those two entrance doors.  That is, both doors lead to the same room of sinks.  From that room, continuing in the initial direction, there is a second door, which will lead into the separate-gendered toilet rooms (men’s and women’s).  And, in those, the individual stalls are like their own little rooms, with real privacy to handle one’s business.  (None of that eye-averting necessary.)  It’s wonderful.  I ate at this restaurant with my dad once, and he and I specifically left the restroom from the opposite doors – he went through the women’s and I through the men’s – so that we might surprise the person with us at dinner.  She didn’t notice, of course, but we had fun being rebellious in a way that didn’t actually matter.  😛

Anyway, I really like that kind of bathroom, and I really like the general mentality of efficiency I have found wherever I have lived (and visited) in Europe.

Post-a-day 2018

 

It’s for you…

Talking with a friend tonight, he mentioned that he is not one for keeping up with others via the telephone.  He said that he felt a worry of it growing awkward at some point, and I’m guessing he meant due to the lack of things to discuss.  I’ve never really thought of myself as someone who’s a very phone-y person, however, I do consider myself good at keeping in touch with people long-distance, when they are interested in remaining in touch.  Out of curiosity, I checked my phone log for the past eight days (I got tired of clicking on each one, so I stopped after eight days.).  I had two conversations of about half an hour (one with this particular friend), one conversation of about 45 minutes, one conversation of about an hour, and two conversations of about an hour and a half.  That’s just in the past eight days.  There were a few conversations between ten and 15 minutes, but most of them were under five minutes in the total phone log for the eight days.  I’ve never thought much about this, but I suddenly wonder if this is not quite normal.

To be fair, one of the people – she had two of the very long conversations – is a friend from college who now lives in Georgia, and another is my brother who lives in Japan.  So, they’re both long-distance folks in my life.  But it wasn’t like we were ‘catching up’ on things.  She and I were just chatting about whatever, keeping on another company while we accomplished other things, and my brother and I were talking mostly about this book I’m reading, and then a little about taxes and insurance, before returning to the book.  We hardly even mentioned anything relating to ‘catching up’ on what’s going on in life for each of us.  I guess we just don’t have difficulty discussing things fluidly, and so we never reach a point of dryness in the conversation.  Or, as in the case of the friend in Georgia, if we aren’t talking for a bit, it’s because we’re focusing on something else, and so we want the pause in the conversation.  It is in no way an awkward silence, but, rather, a welcomed, desired moment for focus to be elsewhere.  Our goal is to hang out together, and so we do just that… miles and miles apart.  (I looked it up.  It’s about 700 miles by plane, 800 by car.)  My best friend and I would Skype like that, just hanging out together as though we were in the same room as one another, even though we were in different countries.  (We don’t right now, because she’s had to hunker down to finish her PhD, and so we couldn’t have our hanging out distract her from the much-needed focus.)

Maybe I’m just super accustomed to long-distance relationships, beginning with my parents’ having divorced and lived across town from one another from the time I was five.

On the other end, I have one of my best friends living in DC.  We learned from the first time I studied abroad that she is not a great long-distance friend.  Even when I would reach out, she wasn’t great at getting back to me on things or at getting herself on the phone in the first place.  Even today, she’ll stay on the phone for a while if she gets the chance, but the chances don’t come often.  And so, we talk little on the phone, but hang out like mad whenever she’s in town (or I surprise her in DC by just showing up to her office one day).  And, when we did live in the same city, we hung out constantly.  We saw one another probably every couple days, and at least once a week.  She’s a spectacular in-person friend.  And I think that balances out the long-distance aspect, because, even though so much has changed and we have changed so much since we were last together, it is always fabulous when we hang out, and it is always still the wonderful bond of friendship, of “us”, when we are together.  (Cheesy, I know, but it’s totally true.)

Anyway, just some thoughts.  Kind of makes you wonder what kind of phone person you are, huh?  (Or maybe not at all, but whatevs.)  😛

Post-a-day 2018