hannah ananas

Boys’ Choirs

This afternoon, as part of an Oktoberfest celebration, my mom and I listened to and watched the Houston Saengerbund. They are an organization all about promoting German language singing and culture, and they seem quite kind and fun as a whole. However, hearing their name instantly called to mind the name of Wiener Sängerknaben, which is the German name for the Vienna Boys’ Choir.

One of my brothers was in a boys’ choir when I was little. I remember going to their performances and concerts. I loved it. The music was always absolutely beautiful. I suppose it was one of the many reasons I have always looked up to him, thought him awesome. I think it was because of this that I was perhaps a bit more aware of boys’ choirs than the average kid. I grew up knowing about the Vienna Boys’ Choir, and dreaming of how amazing they must be. They were seen almost as gods, when compared to my brother’s boys’ choir, but how could I even imagine such a thing, when, to me, this boys’ choir, the one with my brother, was already singing music of the gods? I imagined the Vienna Boys’ Choir as perfection, and left it at that.

I never even considered hearing them perform. It was that far out of the realm of possibility.

But, of course, since my life is so dearly blessed, this unacknowledged dream was fulfilled. While I was living in Vienna, my mom and I went together to hear them sing. It was the only time I have paid to attend Mass.

When we did some research about it, it seemed all too easy. I could hardly believe that we merely had to buy incredibly affordable tickets to attend Mass at the Wiener Hofburgkapelle (Wowzer, that place is gorgeous, by the way!) in order to hear the boys sing. But we did it, and it was absolutely amazing. I think I could’ve cried during the Mass at almost any given moment, and I might have actually cried when the boys came down in front to sing a couple other songs after the Mass. I don’t actually remember. That wasn’t exactly my focus at the time.

There’s no way to describe the experience appropriately, so I won’t bother. It was a dream that I had hardly even dreamed, and it was being fulfilled. Perhaps you know what that’s like. It was magic being real in two ways: First, in their music, and second, in my being there to hear it firsthand. It was perfection (in the cold, since it was the middle of winter).

Post-a-day 2017

Malts

Today, I did what one would call volunteering while my mom was at work, and then she and I went to a shake place, so we could get a malt. I even called ahead to verify that they had malts. We didn’t want a shake. We wanted a malt. My mom briefly suggested that we just make our own at home, but I pointed out that half the purpose of going to get a malt was to be out of the house.

So, we went to the Galleria, the huge, high-fashion shopping complex in Houston, so we could try out this shake place. We got a chocolate malt to share, and then walked around the complex a bit, drinking simultaneously from straws in the same cup, as though we were little kids who could wait to have their malt. As we first walked out and saw various store names, we discovered that neither of us was even interested in window shopping. So, we finished our malt, watching the kids ice skate below, which was far more interesting than shopping.

It was a good time.

As a whole, today was on a completely different level from yesterday, and in a very wonderful way.

Post-a-day 2017

…holding out for a (anger) management position…

“The thing about giving yourself a pep talk is that secretly you know it’s all bullshit.”
That’s a quote from a Sophie Kinsella book (Remember Me?, I think). Today has kind of been a day where I got to live it. Though, since I already knew this, any effort to give myself a pep talk was dropped almost before I started. It’s not that I actually think life as I know or want it is coming to an end – indeed, the good stuff has only just begun. But knowing that has almost no effect on the feelings of total misery and hopelessness that arise when I hit places like my current one. Sure, I accept then, thank the feelings for sharing, and then move on to what’s next, but they really do suck when they’re busy hanging around.

I have been experiencing another one of these odd feelings of waiting lately. It is as though there is a set amount of time I must go before I find a job again, and then, after that time period, everything will fall into place perfectly, and the waiting will have been totally worth the misery.

However, when I get these feelings, I always have to take a first step, be proactive somehow, in order for things to fall into place. As I see myself growing more angry and on-edge each day, I find it more and more difficult to do anything productive, anything that could help with that first step. I even have some plans for that step, yet here I lie, miserable and without having taken any action for them today. I guess I would have to give up the idea that this isn’t where I want to be right now, living at my mom’s. I moved out years ago, intentionally, and had no intentions of returning for residency. Not for desire to be independent or anything of the sort, but because I don’t want to live the lifestyle of this house… at all. Nor do I want to be treated like a kid again, as my mother does automatically most of the time whenever I am here. Any time she has visited me in my own home, or anywhere else when I’ve not been living with her, she has treated me differently. Sure, she’s always still a mom, and fussed at me for this or that. However, it is not like how a parent talks to a child, how it is now.

Anyway, I have some things to get started with doing. I want to live elsewhere, and yet here I am – this is what is available to me currently. I want a good job that I love, and here am I, without employment. So, little by little, I guess I have some steps to take, including figuring out what they are. I know I’ll be all right, I really do. It has just been mentally rough lately, and I so want to be finished with this near-constant anger, annoyance, and sense of hopelessness. Guess it’s well about time I chat with Jude, hmm? (I’ll start there, and see what I can brainstorm in that mental conversation.)
P.S. Bonus points to you, if you know what movie helped to inspire the title of this post. It’s a family favorite of ours. My cat even watched it with me after I first got him. And he really did watch it. It was kind of weird that he did, really, but also totally cute.

Post-a-day 2017

Got confidence, or passion?

Today, I leave you with these words from Robert M. Pirsig, which were somewhere near the middle of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. They really got me thinking, and I like them, so I figured that I would share them somehow. They really are good thinking words.

Post-a-day 2017

Love Notes for the World

My mom sent me an e-mail today that reminded me of one of my fun activities in college: my (love) sign.

You see, when I was in high school, I was doing partner dancing. A guy in the dance community in Houston died at some point, and it caused people to reminisce often. I’m not sure if I ever met the guy, because he died shortly after I began going out dancing (as opposed to just dancing at the studio and in classes), but there’s a chance our paths crossed a handful of times. Nonetheless, I have always remembered this guy. My friend’s dad was talking about this guy, and talked about “his signs”. I inquired, and discovered that this guy would carry around signs – I think they were poster boards, actually – with various messages, and would use them when at the club for dance socials. The specific example I remember was how, if two people were really flirting or kissing, he might hold up a sign that read, “Get a room.” As this is by no means a social norm, the idea always stuck with me.

In college, for some reason, this memory arose right at the time my flatmate was in an art class and had extra art paper at home one night. It’s the really thick, soft paper that is similar to poster board, but is used specifically for drawing or painting (or possibly both). So, that night, I had a torn-off section of this art paper, and I decided to make my own sign. On one side, it read, “you should, too”. The other read, “I love you”.

I carried this poster around with me almost everywhere for the remainder of that semester. I think I even had it while I rode my bike (actually, yes, I do remember riding my bike as I held on to it). It was incredibly odd, but completely accepted by my college. I was really nervous about it at first, but very quickly became comfortable with carrying around the sign. I mean, come on… kids do all sorts of odd things in college, so this was just one more in a million odd things we would cross.

Anyway, I loved it. I miss it at times, even. I don’t exactly live the same sort of lifestyle now as I did in college, however, I think I could work out something. The thing my mom sent me was about business cards that read simply “YOU MATTER”. And I think I want to make some more of my own things, but following this fashion of a small card that can be given to others.

When I lived in Vienna, a friend found a stash of the ‘Our Daily Bread’ cards, which is a sort of deck of little cards, where each is shaped like a bread basket and has a bible verse on it (these had German on one side and French on the other). We handed them out to people at the train station late at night, while another friend would do his regular harp serenading for the late-night folks waiting at the station. (Yes, that is a whole other story.)

So, I guess, my point is that I am now planning to combine these three ideas. I don’t know exactly what I’ll put on my cards yet, but I know that I want to do them. I can start this week, and see what comes up, see how I like them, and see what to change for the better.

What I wrote with this one on Facebook, back when I originally posted it:

A girl in the WG found a bunch of little cards with Bible verses on them. One side was in German and the other side was French. I think they were made in Belgium. No one really knows whence they came, but the girl decided to start giving them out to people, specifically in the subway station when David, the harpist, would play late at nights. I am now hooked, and want always to have some on hand, that I can give out to people as food for thought – you never know what people have going on, and thus never know what might make a difference in someone’s life. So don’t let anything stop you from sharing your love and care for others. Rather, find a way to have those things that are holding you back actually Help you to accomplish that which you wish

Post-a-day 2017

The article my mom sent to me today

A word scramble: as though my words were a Japanese tote bag or t-shirt with English writing

Sometimes, the bottomless blue of life’s desperation is a swirling mass of deepened encroachment on one’s territory. The beyond selfless doubt is innumerate by the believers’ paradise of above, unwillingly taken before as a response to the redeemed unbeliever’s unity. How dare we approach such a despair without the embodiment of the soul in tonight’s united way of thinking into being? I know I couldn’t let anything less be of service in this matter of importance for tomorrow’s gain of grains, without gaining the pounds… because what else is a pigment in the imagination of your animals worth, without glory, anyway?

I love it to be lived, and beyond the walls of belief I am… and prestigiously so, indeed. Incongruous, without a doubt.

Post-a-day 2017

A few Japanese t-shirts for reference on style

Is this friends talking?

I found myself wondering the other day about friends, and whether the ease of conversation has a role to play in whether a friendship will develop. I was with someone whom I had previously considered a friend, when I began thinking about it all. We had trouble spending time together easily. That sounds odd, but I mean it. We were fine spending time with one another – there was no specific issue, per se, that arose. It just wasn’t an easy hangout.

You know the friends with whom you never seem to lack a topic for discussion? You can go on and on together, covering who knows what topics, whether you last saw one another years ago or a matter of mere minutes ago. It’s just easy. That’s the easy that I mean. We were okay spending time together, but we weren’t having an easy time-spending together – we were just together.

I even found myself noticing that I was looking forward to being done spending time with the friend. (I suppose that this was the point at which I began truly wondering if we were actual friends, or just acquaintances.) I considered what I had next on the agenda, and noticed how excited I got about spending time with the next person on my schedule. I knew instantly that she and I would never run out of discussion. Sure, we could potentially come up to some quiet times, but they wouldn’t be uncomfortable, and they would be followed soon enough by more excited conversation. This friend is a particularly happy one, so the conversations are usually quite excited, however, the point was not about the exciting conversation, but rather the fact that we never had to search for topics of conversation – it always just flowed. As I considered this, I had the thought that that was what is present in friendships. That ease of conversation is necessarily part of a friendship.

I also noticed, again, that the current friend and I did not have this. It felt as though we didn’t have enough in our lives that was even somewhat on the same path, and so we didn’t have much to discuss. It isn’t even about commonalities so much – a baseball lover and baseball hater could always talk about and argue over baseball – as it is about being aligned somehow. And we really just aren’t aligned. I had already noticed that by how little I related to things this friend would say, and how I often felt almost offended by certain ideas and ways of thinking that this friend expressed and presented. And so I saw that we really are more of acquaintances than friends… and, what’s more, I rather feel as though I don’t much want to become friends. I guess we’ll see how that goes in a few years…

(See, I got all distracted in that, I forgot the second half of this all!)

In contrast to that, I spent time with someone tonight who had been a childhood friend. Though we had bits here and there regarding catching up on things, most of our conversation was not that. It was about all sorts of things. Naturally, I found myself in the middle of it all, specifically remembering my thoughts from the other day about ease and flow of conversation for friends. It took almost no effort to talk. We always had something to discuss. The conversation space felt open and safe. It was just easy.

It was so easy, in fact, I got blisters from walking so much in my sandals. I planned for a 30-minute walk, with a maximum of 45 minutes. Four hours later, and after a call from my mother (I’m living with her currently) to tell me to come home and go to bed, since I have to be up early tomorrow morning, I finally found myself heading home. We walked and talked and sat and talked, and then walked and talked some more before sitting and talking even more. Like I mentioned, it was just easy. And that is how I feel talking with a friend goes. This is not to say that acquaintances can’t have that – we are currently acquaintances, I believe. It is simply that friends do have it.

The people whom I truly love, they and I have that ease every time we are together (be it physically or digitally together).

Post-a-day 2017

Squeaky Clean Time

I really don’t get what it is about showers, but they always get me. Without fail, – at least, I think it is without fail – every time I shower, I end up singing. Even in the middle of the night, as was the case just now, with people sleeping in the next room, there I am, singing.

This is not to say that I am belting a out-of-tune, almost unidentifiable, somewhat annoying tune in the middle of the night (or ever, really). I am certainly an adequate singer for the things I end up singing in the shower, and I also keep them to a reasonably low volume, no matter the time of day or night. But, in the middle of the night, after I catch myself for singing, and am in the middle of going through the reasoning that I need to be as quiet as possible, no matter how loud the shower may seem to me, because any extra sound means extra noise and an increase in the likelihood of disturbing the sleeping folk, I suddenly notice that I am already singing again(!). I’m in the middle of “scolding” myself for the act, and I’ve already started it up again. I’m like a little kid or something. Put me in that shower, and I guess my brain gives up regular function, preferring instead a song-filled youthful path for the time being.

Anyway, I’m just sharing this, because I think it’s silly that I can’t seem to stop myself from singing in the shower, even when I actually want to be quiet (like tonight). I truly love the whole idea of singing in the shower, and I love when people do it. There is just something unique about showering that almost always leads to song, and I find that miraculous and beautiful. So, embrace your singing when you shower. And get some lessons, if you’re concerned that you don’t sing well enough. I know that Incertsinly have done that, and I loved the lessons.

Anyway,… sing away, and stay clean!

Post-a-day 2017

My side of the bed

I sleep in the middle of the bed.

For the past few years, I’ve had a queen or full bed (the size adjective, not as any other adjective). Unless I have a sleep-over, which has become quite the seldom occurrence since college, I sleep right in the middle of my bed. At any hotel, I always end up in the center of the bed, when sleeping alone. Sure, I move to a side and make space when needed, but that is only every so often, and often rarely. I like my space, I guess, and I usually get it.

It all just makes me wonder if I’ll ever be able really to share a bed with a spouse/partner. Even when I want to snuggle up to someone or cuddle, I never seem to last very long before I break away and require my own space.

… Well, I always like just barely touching the person next to me – it is like a verification of the person’s presence, without invading anyone’s space…, like when the dog used to sleep up against me, but not on top of me. That kind of thing. I guess I am okay with sharing a bid after all – I just need a bed big enough to give me plenty of space to spread out, while still being able to make slight contact somewhere near the middle of the bed.

But that all wasn’t the point. The point is that I like sleeping in the middle of the bed, and preferably a large one. I don’t mind sharing too much, but I just don’t understand how people must sleep on a specific side of the bed (the middle is my side), nor when they do it when not in the middle of sharing the bed with another individual. Why waste half the space like that, and crush up into oneself? Oh, well…

Post-a-day 2017

Today’s “ugh”

You know when people seem to ignore the question you ask, and instead answer a different one, one they assume you meant? And you know how you asked that question on purpose, because you wanted an answer to that question, not some other question? Yeah, I kind of want to punch people when they do this to me.

My mom and my best friend are the only ones who have a real shot at guessing whether and where I am going with an idea and questions I am asking about something, and they don’t even get it right all of the time. And they know this, so, if they think I might be leading somewhere specific with my question, they ask if I am doing that, and still answer my question. Other people don’t do that. And it makes me kind of want to punch them for it. Kind of…

Also, I can’t stand when people seem to be incapable of being straight about something. I ask a question, because I am seeking the answer to that question (see aforementioned explanation). Avoiding the answer or making up bull when the true answer is of actual importance is just plane crazy, and yet people like to do it a lot of the time, it seems. Ugh!

Also, when highly educated people misuse basic points of grammar, I have a sort of desire to throw a drink in their faces (the bad-grammar users), and rush away, disgusted. It’s dramatic, sure, but it’s a feeling that shows up somewhat often, nonetheless.

Anyway, I’ll go to sleep, now. I’ve had an annoying time with these few thoughts today (in addition to what felt like a million others), so I guess I just wanted to get them off my chest, in a sense…

Post-a-day 2017