Tag: being silly

Stop, in the name of love

When I was around eight years old, a group of neighborhood kids and I were wandering around the streets – because that was the norm back then – and we came across a garage sale at a house across the creek.

It was not often that I was allowed to venture across the creek, so this was already an especially exciting day for me.

But then, this garage sale made it even more exciting… and something in the garage sale just set me on fire(!)…

It was… a gigantic stop sign…

A true and genuine, very large stop sign…

And I wanted it so badly..

We all looked around a bit, one person, I believe, buying something on the spot, due to his or her having a dollar in her pocket, but the rest of us had no money on us – that just wasn’t the thing to carry around then…

And so, we all calculated the amount of money we would need to gather from our respective moneys, and headed back across the creek together, dispersing to the various houses.

Now, I didn’t actually live on this street, due to a somewhat complicated scenario, so I didn’t have any money waiting in a house for me per se…, but my brothers and their dad lived there, and I was spending time at their house, as was usual for me, and they had money at home.

I raced to the house, and I went to my oldest brother as fast as I could… I asked him if I could have some money… I think it was ten or fifteen dollars (not a lot, but not nothing either for the time)… he asked me why, and I quickly explained everything to him, practically begging for the money at this point…

He said we would have to go check it out, and so grabbed about twenty dollars, and we were about to head out, when it was suddenly time for me to leave – my mother was there to pick me up.

My brother said he might still go check it out, but my mom said she and I could drive over to see it, because she likes things like garage sales, anyway, just to look at things.

When she and I arrived, everyone was already back, my brother among them this time, and some of the kids were already heading back home, new treasures in hand.

I showed my mom the other small something I had wanted, as well as the stop sign… she was not convinced on the stop sign…

I was sad, but not surprised – I had known my true chance of getting it lay in my brother’s letting me get it… kind of the whole, ‘Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission,’ idea, where my mom would have accepted a done deal, but wouldn’t make the deal herself.

And so, I believe we went home, my having a small treasure in hand, and grateful for it, but sad the opportunity that likely was never to present itself again had passed, un-seized…

Sigh……

The next time I was at my brothers’ dad’s house, upon entering my oldest brother’s room, I was struck: there against the wall, behind his speaker system, was a huge and red stop sign… very much like the one I had recently told him about…

Seriously?! I wondered and asked… he openly admitted that he knew I had wanted it, but that that was because it was cool…, and so he got it for himself…, because it really was cool.

….

So unfair, brother… so unfair.

😛

It was actually rather comical for me, as opposed to heartbreaking…, and my brother, I think, knew it would be.

For me, it was just something really cool that suddenly was available to me – it was not something that I had always wanted…, so I would be okay not having it… and I was.

Plus, as he mentioned, I still got to see it all the time, but I didn’t have to figure out how to rearrange my room to put it on the wall somewhere that looked right – for his rather bare walls, it was an easy task.

So, it was totally a cheater move…, but we both were very okay with it and found it quite funny in its irony.

I still do, decades+ later..

Haha

Ridiculous, right?

Ridiculous.

Post-a-day 2020

Dreams are my reality*

These dreams feel so real, so vivid… I can almost smell in them… and yet, they are so good, I wake up from them with a seeping feeling of sadness at the loss of them – when I awaken, they end, and I return to a lesser world than the loveliness that was my world five minutes ago.

The tips of my fingers still tingle, and the sides of my arms, too, from the touch of hands and arms in loving embraces.. I can feel the residual pressure on my chest, and the hands in my back… such embraces are filled through and through with satisfying, tactile love…

And, though they are not real in terms of taking place physically, they are exactly what I most need and want, and my mind allows them to be real, so far as my brain is concerned… we already know that watching something being done activated the same parts of the brain as actually doing that something… my mind knows I want this physical expression of love in my life right now, especially considering my current experience of physical isolation, and so it helps to take care of me, to give me what I most want and need… to love me…

And so, tonight again, I suspect, I shall have some more such dreams, and I will encourage myself to be glad of it – it is a beautiful blessing for my mind and brain to take care of me, and I want to respect their efforts with appreciation and gratitude, and to let go easily of my letdown upon waking and discovering that my world has suddenly transformed from exactly what I wanted…

But then…, what I want truly is possible…, so perhaps, one day, it will be my physical reality, and not just in my head anymore.

Now… that would be amazing…

Fingers crossed(!!!).

*Bonus points for knowing the song and singing along!!

Post-a-day 2020

Friends

I believe that, perhaps, one of my favorite things in life in whenever I have the opportunity to experience, even to witness, someone who is in the presence of his or her true and dear friends… when we are with our closest of people, we do not have to ‘try’ to be anything – there is no effort to be made – because we are able simply to be ourselves… that is the glory of friends…

When I am granted such an opportunity as to be able to witness someone I know with his or her true friends, it is truly a blessing and a gift… one for which I am dearly grateful.

In fact, it is one of my favorite ways to get to know someone new… I do not want to bother with either one of us putting our best foot forward, or putting on any kind of show, wondering what the other thinks, whether she might approve, accept me like this, and then, maybe, one day in the very distant future, accept me as myself…

I want to dive right into the truth of a person, who he truly is… who is she, really?

One of my favorite quotes about friendship was sent to me by the friend of a friend, back when I was struggling to find friends of my own, living in France all those years ago… I have kept it in my files ever since he sent it to me, because it so beautifully expressed my own sentiments, I wanted always to have it on hand…

It is:

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series

Now, imagine meeting a person who is in that state, in the space of being with a friend, all guards and falsehoods down and dispensed… would that not be utterly spectacular?

To see a person for who he truly is, and not for any of the fears or concerns, hurts or airs… just for who she is…, it would be so beautiful, how could we ever want anything else?

In conclusion, I love who people truly are, and I am filled with love at the opportunity and blessing of being able to see people among their closest of friends, where they simply are their best selves, their truest selves… those are the people I want to get to know… and that is how I want people to know me.

Post-a-day 2020

I promise, we worked today

Office talk between a heterosexual male and myself:

…“it has a sexy 32-year-old Antonio Banderas…”

“Ooh!… Just my type.”

And, what’s really great here is that we both were entirely joking, but also totally meant it – he that the sexy man made it worth seeing the film, and I that the same 32-year-old A. Banderas was just my kind of interest. 😛

There is so much to appreciate in that man, especially when younger,… he was beautiful and healthy, handsome, he could act, AND he sang… beautifully… just uh(!) to my gut, he was so lovely and worth appreciating and sharing… all thumbs up(!).

So, there’s that to take away from today… 😛

Post-a-day 2020

I said I’m sorry, Momma…

I never meant to hurt you-ou-ou…. I never meant to make you cry, but tonight, I’m cleanin’ out my closet.

So, as usual, when with my mother today, though we agreed that we always get into a struggle whenever I have to cook in her kitchen, and that it was best that my mom do the cooking (she was already planning to do) alone, and that I wanted to leave by 7pm…, she did not even finish cooking until after 7pm, and she fussed at me briefly for not helping her cook.

::face palm

Instead of struggling in the kitchen, however, I ventured to the attic.

It is a tiny space for storage, for whatever reason, but I had verified a few years back with my mom that it was okay for me to leave just a few boxes-o-stuff until further notice, and without it being any kind of struggle or strain on her in any way, so I had a few things up there.

Of course, creatures had wandered through the cardboard boxes, and humidity or rain(?) had touched one of them, but the contents were all still okay.

(All except that one doll, that is, whose long, curly hair had started to disintegrate, first falling off in chucks, and then all eventually falling out when I went ahead and rubbed it just to see what the result would be…)

I went through two of the boxes, threw away unwanted, unusable stuff, washed some clothes and towels that had been keeping things safe, put various items into the donation box, and saved the handful of items I intend to bring to my house next week (assuming I am allowed by society, of course), placing the box itself, folded up, into the recycling bin.

Knowing what is in the final box and a half, I have a feeling I will be taking a few quick photos and then tossing most of the remaining contents… I have simply reached an entirely new place regarding having things – having so much actually stresses me out… it felt so good to go through those guys today, and to handle them already… they have been a pressure on me ever since I stuck them up there, years ago… I can hardly wait to finish them up, and to move forward comfortably and confidently with what I own.

By the time we were ready to eat, I had not only gone through most of the boxes and handled the contents, but I had vacuumed the hall (for what had fallen from the attic upon opening it), and I had raided my favorites of my mom’s old cocktail dresses, tried them on, and requested to take one of them and to have another re-made for me, both due to my desire to have it fit a bit more comfortably (especially considering that my legs are a lot longer than hers) and to have it not be falling apart (sad, I know).

I also had raided my mom’s record albums, and taken the majority of them off her hands… I originally was just checking to see if she had had one of my own albums that I can’t seem to find, post-Japan, but it turned into, ‘Hey, you aren’t using these… can I take them potentially indefinitely?’… and she has no record player anymore, so she agreed easily.

So, basically, I went to hang out with my mom, pick up something important from her that I need for work Monday, – I know, kind of crazy that we even have work Monday, but we still do, as of this moment(!) – and to eat food together.

As usual, things didn’t quite go as intended… however, I cleaned out the attic, and gained a bunch of record albums… thus my quick reference to one of my beloved childhood crushes at the top of this… it was an attic, not a closet, but oh, well… 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Two things about music

The first:

It is funny, the things that get us, that get to us… I have been mostly totally fine with all of the splatters of chaos going on in the world around me these past weeks (the past one especially), and my life has been rather normal-ish… I have been bummed for many a people who have had work closed (and, therefore, no pay) or canceled (performers who, of course, now will not be paid for unperformed shows), but that is it… I have been bummed about it.

Today, as I read the lovely e-mail from Houston Grand Opera, stating clearly and beautifully that they are cancelling their remaining shows, both paid and free to the public, of the season (four altogether, with many performances of each) and that they are still paying 50% to all workers and performers who were hired to work on the shows, and, if we would like, we could ‘click here’ to donate our ticket prices to help them do this (instead of being refunded or having it apply to next season or something), I found myself full on crying… tears overflowing, body shaking slightly, a feeling of failed, helpless distress filling me…

Perhaps it was the first thing that 100% affected me directly, and not merely indirectly…, and perhaps it was that they were doing it all so kindly, handling it so well for the performers and workers they knew would be out of income probably entirely until the public returns to a life that includes theatres and performances and people…, whatever the case, it helped me to experience all the feelings I had been avoiding inside myself about all of this… I am terrified for my friends, these people I love, who work in these industries that have closed, and I am distraught for my performer friends, the people who light up my life for me with their every moment of work – their entire job serves the higher good in my life, lifts my spirits, heals my soul… how can I tell them that everything will be okay, when it very possibly will be quite terrible for them for a while?

I cannot…, but I can love them and value them nonetheless for all that they do, for all that they are, both in the world as a whole and in my life specifically…

I don’t know how I would be in life without them and all that they do and are committed to doing…, perhaps that is why it is so hard for me to know and accept the current absolute halt of their work… they mean more to me and my life than they ever could know or understand.

And I believe they might be feeling entirely useless and stupid and helpless right now…, I want the to know that they are not – they are as amazing as ever, and will be even more so amazing when we move forward through all of this, and they stick to doing what they do so spectacularly, both for themselves and for the world around them.

::big siiiigggghhhhh…

Second thing:

I discovered today that one of my absolute favorite places to sing is in a parking garage… I have turned unconsciously to singing this past week, and unabashedly so.

Walking through the parking garage today, I couldn’t help but marvel at how spectacular my voice sounded, reverberating so majestically around the concrete and air that surrounded me… it was beautiful.

And I am not exactly a fancy or trained singer or anything – very much an average, so far as people who understand and play at least some music go.

It was just so amazing a space for singing, it made my own singing sound worthy of being on a soundtrack…

Crazy, right?

Anyway, I look forward to gathering with friends for music dates in the future, in which we feel not so unlike drug dealers, when we meet up in various parking garages at all hours, like it is totally normal. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Skin patrol

Let’s talk about clothes for just a minute.

In my life, I have often wondered with fascination at the girls and women who show skin other than arms and lower legs when in public (or even in private, but with others present!)… how could they do that?… how could they be comfortable with that, with people seeing so much of them, their bodies, their skin?… how could they even consider wearing such an outfit?…

And then, there was also, without fail, this tiny voice, afraid to speak, even in a whisper from the shadows, that cautiously murmured, ‘Could I ever do that?’

After going through a whole series of this and thats regarding negative experiences with my own body image, and with men as a whole, I was eventually certain that such clothing options were only for the harlots and hoes… at least, that’s what I would be, if I wore such things….

But then, fast-forward another few or couple years to today: I have really sorted through that stuff – intense stuff – and I am in no way in the same space as I was before… I am seemingly not even the same person l (though, who I am deep down is, of course, the same).

As I mentioned, the other day, I wore an outfit that I had dreamed of wearing in the past, but could not fathom its being truly possible that I could wear it…

(And yet, I had the dress… something within me wanted it badly enough, dreamt of it strongly enough, for me to own the dress… I just never really expected to wear it, I think… it was always just a dream…)

Yesterday, when dressing, I found myself wanting to wear this shirt I have had for years – it was in the same scenario with that lovely dress from last weekend – but have never worn… Without thinking much of it or about it, I pulled on the shorts I had planned, added the appropriate bra and the shirt, and continued on in my morning activities… and I knew that I would be seen by people throughout the day… I was fully aware…. including people I know.

It wasn’t until that night that it occurred to me what had happened… including the significance of it.

Today, I had to do the grocery store.

To dress for it, I dropped my PJs, grabbed clothes that had not yet been folded and that would be warm enough for this rainy day and the grocery store, but not hot or uncomfortable…

And this is what I went out wearing:

My lower belly – the skin all the way around – was visible to varying degrees, depending on how the sweater hung… the sweater is holy by design, and, though my skin tone blends with the brown of the sweater, it was totally showing all throughout the sweater, because I had only a light gray sports bra under it, no shirt… the leggings jeans pants things show every angle of my legs and butt… and my hair was pulled up and it of the way, allowing even more skin to show all around my neck, upper back, and the v-neck cut of the sweater on my chest…

And I didn’t… even… worry about it…

Not one bit.

Sure, I pulled my pants up a couple times after squatting or whatever, and they had been pulled down somewhat… but otherwise…, I was genuinely unconcerned about how much skin was visible on my body, how much my body was noticeable.

It all just felt so normal…

When I realized this all, I couldn’t help but smile with genuine delight.

I think I am free… of whatever this mind game was that held me so tightly and for so long… Finally…, I am myself, and I can breathe…

I don’t want to dress like this every day…., but I want to dress like this when I want to dress like this… and the free is finally released from me, and I can act comfortably and confidently in my dressing… at long last, and after so much hard work, I am free…

How lovely… 🙂 ❤

Post-a-day 2020

On thin ice…?

Tread lightly… tread lightly…, they say…

I am treading lightly….(!!!!)

And it’s making me sick.

My stomach actually aches from treading lightly here….

What if I just don’t want to tread lightly in this case?(!!)

And not from a place of egotism or righteousness or, even, disregard for authority…. from a place of genuine, heart-deep, conscious love and inspiration.

What if I want to break the ice, clear the surface, and plunge…?

…

The silly part is that I couldn’t even tell you why I want to do it that way, which is what makes me feel so stupid about it all…, and yet…

I want deep to my core to plunge… I am ready for it… I have been preparing…

And yet… I tread lightly…

Whatever the case, I think I need to give up treading lightly when it just doesn’t work for me – it is lacking in integrity for me to tread lightly, to be cautious… so, either I start doing some cracking and shaking, or I walk away, I think…

Neither feels amazing right now, but I can tell already that either is better than this as it stands… this is not uplifting for anyone right now; there is something better for us all here than the current state of affairs.

And my first step is to step already – either fully on the ice or back off to shore – and to do it fully and confidently… there is something better waiting for me…, for all of us, I guess, really.

Anyway, as Superchick says, though it might not be today, “someday I’ll hope again, and there’ll be beauty from pain.”

I am ready for this someday… let’s get to walking big time, Nanner, and deal with this ice situation, one way or the other.

Post-a-day 2020

Soapy dopey

Hmm… I may have just swallowed some soap….

Not altogether unpleasant… not physically, anyway…

I wouldn’t say that I like it…, but that honey flavor on the edge isn’t too bad… C’est pas terrible…

Mentally, however, it is more of an issue… I don’t actually know the guidelines for health and safety regarding soap consumption.

Though, I can’t imagine it being all that bad, seeing as how the parentals’ generation had their mouths washed out with soap all the time as children, and they seem to be reasonably okay, unaffected by it physically…

Even still… a bit odd of an experience. 😛

My mom said that they were given that pumice soap, whenever they were bad… it sounds terrible, but then it almost sounds better than a regular bar of soap, because the pumice could provide a bit of a buffer between most of the soap and the tongue – the texture would be weird, but at least less soap would be in direct contact with the mouth, and the tongue, especially…

Huh.

Gross.

I’m really glad I never had to go through any of that, though I can only imagine that I will stick a bar of soap in my mouth one day to see what it’s like – and I’ll probably try the pumice and the regular both, so I can compare and give an accurate opinion as to which is the worse option… got to be ready with such information, in case of emergency!

😛

Total dork, I know…, but I want to know which is actually worse.

Haha

Perhaps I will dream of soap tonight…

There is no soap, no soap like Zazz; no detergent, lotion, or oil with such power… in the shower… It’s the mother and father of luxury lather, the talk of the bath, the great ointment… One little frolic with new Zazz Carbolic, you’re scented, you’ll be sent!*

*Bonus points by the dozen, if you know the reference 😉 ❤

Post-a-day 2020

What about me?

In the midst of a deep, emotional, intense, and honest conversation, she pauses, contemplating… then adds, “How can you not be fascinated by me?….

“I’m fascinated by me(!).”

She is, indeed, quite fascinating, and they both know it fully – no one who knows her well would or could disagree…

But putting it that way just sounds ridiculous, and neither of them can help but to break into laughter at this dual awareness of truth and irony.

Post-a-day 2020