And now I shall unbutton myself from this rainbow unicorn onesie, stumble carefully down the stairs to use the bathroom, climb back up quickly, and snuggle myself into my currently-chilly-but-soon-warm bed to fall quickly and fast asleep.
My letters for tomorrow (today, technically) are complete, and so I may sleep.
Goodnight, Moon, whichever direction you may be right now.
P.S. T-2 days to my birthday… Friday awaits!
Post-a-day 2020
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, they always said.
This morning at breakfast, I was very bummed when I asked if my food could possibly be heated, since it was served cold (and just tasted terrible cold), and I was informed first that it could be, but then told that the plate was being re-made… so wasteful…
When it was re-served only slightly warm and significantly worse made, I didn’t dare say anything about it, and instead just wrapped it up to take home for one of us to eat later, after we could warm it ourselves.
Tonight, we had some king cake after dinner, and it was far too dry for me to be interested in eating it beyond a couple bites or so.
But no one wanted to take it home to finish, and none of us had anyone at home with whom to share it anyway.
So, I was curious when I crossed a kind-looking man on a street corner during my drive home.
I rolled down my window, called out, asking him if he wanted some cake, and was delighted to see his face light up, and to hear him answer with a genuine and surprised, emphatic, “Yes!”
I handed him the box of a more than 3/4 king cake, and wished him well as he thanked me.
It made me want to go back and spend some time with the man, and I even felt bad that I didn’t give him water to go with the cake.
(I mean, it isn’t painfully dry or anything – I just really only like king cake when it is super moist on the inside.)
I considered bringing him water, actually, but then saw the absurdity of it, and left it for now… I don’t exactly have the money to be driving back and forth, anyway.
I also found myself thinking about the safety level of going and spending time with him – I often want to do this with people, homeless people typically, but have learned not so nicely that there are often chemical imbalances that can provide an unsafe environment for me if I were to go spend time with the homeless people around town… not always, but often enough to make me reconsider most of the time…, which kind of bums me out… also, I’m afraid of being stuck with really bad smells, which then sends me into a whole ‘nother level of looking for what I could do to help, and then having to manage keeping myself safe…
Anyway, the whole thing reminded me of how one of the most valuable things we have to offer in life is our attention.
People always say “time”, but I think they really mean “attention”.
I can give you an hour my time, but never once pay attention to you, versus give you ten minutes of full attention, and I think the latter will win every time for being the most appreciated.
Sure, things like laying bricks would prefer the former, but when it comes to people-to-people interactions, it is or attention that we all most desire and most need… it is through our conscious attention that we share the most love with others, not just our showing up.
Like someone said after a dance thing the other weekend – he noticed that I kept to myself and didn’t really talk with many people, but that I took genuine interest, asked real questions, and waited for real answers whenever I talked with him… I spent a lot of time on the room, making little impact on anyone, but ten minutes of talking with him directly had a huge impact on him.
I’ve kind of gone off the initial idea here, but I guess that’s how ideas work, anyway, always linking us to different connections, one after another, always and forever…
Which makes me think of brain storming… what a storm it is… debris flying every which way, leaving it difficult to find the origins of certain things, they fly so fast at times, and cross so many turns and twists in the system of the brain, in the storm…
I guess the biggest difference between a brain’s storming and nature’s storming is that the former usually gives us solutions, and the latter often gives us problems… haha… that’s funny… I’m going to continue thinking on brain storming…
Post-a-day 2020
Ugh… I’m sitting here, all together to write out these letters, and I just can’t do it!
My belly hurts too much.
Well, it’s more of a discomfort than a hurt, but still it sucks(!).
I want to write these letters, I really, truly do…, and I can’t even focus on what I want to put into a single One of them, I’m just so uncomfortable sitting here.
Ugh(!)
(!!!)
I’ve got to ha dale this somehow, because tonight is the night to get here letters going…
Post-a-day 2020
Tonight, I share what to me is a multi-layered comical message exchange between me and a girlfriend, from earlier tonight.
……..
D: They won’t leave 😭
H: They’ve been there over two hours, right?
Are you going to want to watch a movie still, or
just slowly go to bed a this pint?
Point*
D: Leaving in a few min, so it’s up to you!
H: Nah. I napped this afternoon, but I’m already
exhausted – I can feel it in my eyes. I started
my period yesterday, and it’s really draining
me today.
Ha. Literally.
D: Ok I’m probably going to go to bed too
H: I can’t even get myself to get up and go
shower, it seems like such a hassle
D: I have to make my bed before going to sleep
and I’m dreading it lol
I washed my sheets today lol
H: Uh. That just reminded me that my laundry
is in the dryer on the first floor. I have to
go outside to get it
I have no more clean socks
But that can wait for morning
Haha
[pause]
D: Lol why would someone die their dog pink?
H: Exactly
……
I laughed pretty hard at my discovery of my “literally” comment/statement, and it hurt my organs, and made me have to rush to the bathroom… gotta love the absurdity of our reproductive systems, right?
Haha 😛
Post-a-day 2020
I feel sick.
To my stomach, I mean it.
I might just be exhausted, now that O think about it…
Yes… I went to bed at about 4:40am last night (this morning, technically, that is), and my alarm went off before 8:00am… that means I had barely three hours of sleep.
No wonder I’m exhausted and feeling sick to my stomach… and at 11:29pm, nonetheless!
Whew!
Glad I got that figured out… I hope I did, anyway…
Whatever the case, I’ve been daydreaming tonight, this evening… I am beginning to see opportunities in my struggles, and it might turn out wonderfully, if I can pull it off… let us just see…
Post-a-day 2020
I recently discussed the idea of not disregarding people’s good works simply due to their faults.
For example, DSK was known as being an amazing politician who would be good for the country… he had an incident of something akin to harassing or groping – I really don’t remember, because that really wasn’t the point of any of the talk in France at the time – a chambermaid while he was visiting the US.
The world disclaimed him and wrote him off… yet he still had done amazing things for his people and his country.
DSK has been awesome, and he also did some not good works.
Doing one bad thing doesn’t make him bad always or at the core.
Fast-forward to tonight, when I found myself discovering that I had never fully evaluated the opposite, the inverse.
Just because someone does something good does not make him or her good always or at the core…
Sadly, I have had terrible, terrible people do very nice and kind and good things…
Also, I have had amazingly wonderful and good people do some really bad things…
The few bad or few good do not determine the person.
I’m not exactly sure at the moment what does make the person, other than what’s on the inside, and we just have to be able to judge that from interaction and not individual actions on the person’s part…, but I know a few acts of good or bad do not do it.
Perhaps, even, a million actions of either good or bad do not make the person.
So, then, it would have to be a ‘what’s on the inside’ kind of conversation, I think…
Yeah.
I’ve actually always felt that way about it, but I’m not sure I had ever put it into words.
Yes, our actions speak louder than words, but who we are speaks loudest, and that is in our presence – it is in our whole being, it is the energy that we each bring to the table of the game of life.
(Great game, by the way.)
So, yeah… that’s what came up strongly tonight… 😛
P.S. Yet again, I am going to bed only three and a half hours before my alarm must sound in the ‘morning’… ugh(!)…
Post-a-day 2020
Showers.
There are two things that have been on my mind regarding showers tonight.
Naturally, as is the case with all amazing ideas that arise in the shower, I’ve forgotten one or the other at least five times since they first came to me while I was showering half an hour ago…
Fortunately, though, I got them both back safely into my consciousness, and wrote them down before I could forget again.
The first: Shower buddies.
Whenever the idea of showering with someone is portrayed in film or television, in books, or even in conversation, it is almost exclusively approached as an erotic experience.
The same is true with physically exploring another’s body – it is never never anything but an arousing, erotic experience for both (or all) parties involved.
But why must they be so?
There is a photo – simultaneously dreadful and adorable – of me as a baby, climbing carefully into the shower to join my dad, my bum covered in you-know-what (Obviously, my mom had a sense of humor about it.)… we got to be shower buddies, sharing the space and showering simultaneously, my dad and I.
When I was older, but still a child, I had minimal space in the house that was ever granted to me entirely – that is to say, nowhere was guaranteed to be my own space for long.
This, of course, included the toilet and the shower. (Yes, I have this one terrible memory of sitting on the toilet while my sister showered, and my brother walked in and told me to scoot forward, because he needed to pee… I am proud of 7-year-old me for refusing…. but I digress…)
Whenever my sisters needed to shower, they got to shower.
If I was already preparing to shower, it was no matter, they just hopped on in with me and adjusted the water to their preferred temperature (quite hotter than I liked it, actually).
At first, they had me shower with them in order to make sure I was showering and to show me how to shower properly (I didn’t exactly love showering or bathing as a younger child).
Eventually, though, I turned into more of a coincidental affair that no one really minded, and that I actually found fun.
In one sense, I enjoyed learning how my older sisters showered and how their bodies were – though, to be fair, they already walked around in towels or half-naked or naked for an hour or so after every shower anyway – and, in another, I enjoyed the fun of sharing an event with someone and in such an intimate, one-on-one way.
It might sound a bit absurd, but it really was a fun event for me as a child.
At my mom’s house, it was only ever an exchange of space – she would finish and step out of the shower, and I would step directly into it, without turning anything off.
But, at my dad’s house, it was all too common that I would end up showering alongside at least one of my sisters… and I loved it.
Fast-forward to grown-up days.
I really would love to be able to have a shower buddy again.
Bathing at all the onsen in Japan, I learned to appreciate the human body even more than I had before, and especially to appreciate nudity not as something wrong or weird, but as something that is natural and that merely has a certain time and place in society.
I also learned to be comfortable with my own naked body… and to be comfortable with my own naked body around other people… and to be comfortable with my own body around my friends and their own naked bodies…
I guess, now that I’m really thinking about it, I actually did have showering/bathing buddies in Japan… it was silly at first, but it became rather fun for me.
‘Hey, what do you want to go do this weekend when we get together?’ a friend asks… ‘Onsen!’ was my delighted reply.
And it wasn’t so that we could go be naked together – that was always a way-after thought – but because I love having out in all the lovely baths in onsen… it’s one of my favorite pieces of Japanese culture, onsen.
I just became very comfortable with the whole showering and being naked with others – including friends – situation.
(Fun fact: I met my ukulele teacher in a bath at an onsen while on a snowboarding trip in Japan… we started lessons together a few months afterward.)
And so, I want to bring that back into my life, I guess.
Why would I love to have someone in my life?
Right now, because I want a shower buddy… 😛 (I am totally cracking up right now, but I really do mean it!)
It definitely teaches cooperation (and agility), it inspires a sense of childlike silliness, and it is just a little bit crazy…, all of which I think are wonderful things to have in our lives. 🙂
Also, in terms of exploring bodies physically, can we not learn to touch another’s body – say someone’s ripped abs or arms or legs, or beautifully shaped back, or even someone’s buttocks (Can you tell this one has happened to me??? Several times, actually…) – either clothed or not, with fascination and appreciation, and not have to make it an erotic affair?
Think of how a blind person might explore another’s face… it is not for erotic reasons but for getting to know the person.
Sure, a sighted person can see the other’s body, but how much do we really see?
I would love to explore my partner’s body, every bit of it, in a non-erotic sense… just as we get to know and to spend time with someone’s personality, I think it is important that we get to know someone’s bossy and spend time with it in its natural state (i.e. not aroused).
That isn’t to say that arousal need be denied always and forever – just that it has its own time and place, and isn’t always what’s called for (or best) at certain times.
So often, I hear people talk about wanting the lights to be dimmed or out when they are going to be naked in any way, even and especially around their partners, because they are ashamed or embarrassed about some or many parts of their bodies…
Would it not be better for everyone, if partners took the time to visit and explore and get to know one another’s bodies fully, in the light of day, so that they can be that much closer, more intimate and loving and accepting and appreciative of one another, more wholly so, after dark (and at all times)?
My opinion, of course, but I think it would be totally fabulous for both the individual relationships and for society at large.
……….
Okay, moving onward…
Second thing: Clothes.
One of my favorite things to do when showering is to enter the shower with clothes still on me.
It’s not something I do all the time – not by any means… it’s just something that I love, whenever I have the opportunity to do it.
When I was little/younger, I always had to do it because I had somehow gotten myself and my clothes absurdly dirty, such that the clothes could Not be put in the hamper in their present state – they needed to be rinsed off first.
Occasionally, it would be and still sometimes is because I have gotten myself caught in the cold, cold rain, and just want to get myself warm as quickly as possible… peeling the wet, gluey clothes off myself before entering the shower not only would have taken forever, but it would have frozen me even more, leaving my skin so exposed(!).
Most commonly, it was because I was in my swimsuit, and I needed to wash out the chlorine immediately, so as not to ruin they suit…, so I just got int he shower with the suit on, and then peeled it off and washed it quickly before washing myself.
These days, though, it is mostly just because I need to hand wash something that I am wearing (not necessarily a swimsuit)… a bra or underwear, sometimes socks or shorts, very occasionally a shirt or leggings or pants… and it’s sometimes because the items must be hand-washed, but most often because it is loads easier to do a quick hand wash in the shower than to do a whole load of laundry (that I may or may not have) just for the one item… also, if I need the one item soon or often, and I had only worn it just enough to be not fresh anymore, it really doesn’t need to go through such intense washing as the machine would do… a quick rinse and scrub is sufficient.
In fact, in winter, I have two of this particular shirt that I wear constantly, and so I always hand wash them in the shower.
Year-round, I wash almost all my sports bras in the shower… it started because I was required to hand wash my running bras, but continued because I have more work-out shirts than I do bras, and, as I have admitted before, I am not great with getting laundry done… I practically avoid it until I’ve been out of options for at least a few days*.
(I am getting loads better at it, actually, though I still have my moments of avoidance from time to time…)**
Anyway, I sometimes will hand wash something in the shower just because I want to experience the amazing feeling that is entering a warm shower, dressed.
If you haven’t ever tried it, naturally, I highly recommend it. 😉
Well, those are the two shower things that have been on my mind tonight…(!)
Happy bedtime, folks! 🙂
*In high school, we began “Swimsuit Day”, my best friend and I, because she loved wearing her swimsuit top better than a bra, and because I inevitably ran out of clean underwear, and didn’t necessarily notice until post-shower in the morning before school…, so I would grab a bikini bottom instead… and it became a thing that we did together for a day or two every time I needed to do laundry (obviously, I improved my awareness a bit, and so was able to give at least a day’s warning before “Swimsuit Day” was to take place… also, nobody ever really knew why we did it or how we determined when it would be, but plenty of people knew that it was “Swimsuit Day”, whenever it was… and some girlfriends actually started joining in, wearing swimsuits under their uniforms along with the two of us on “Swimsuit Day”…
**Did you lol at that unintended pun???… because I certainly did. 😛
Post-a-day 2020
