Tag: culture

Vroom Vroom

Today, I went to my mom’s house to bring some salmon for dinner for my grandparents (who are still there due to hurricane damage at their home in farther-east Texas), and to hang out with them and with my mom. Where I am house-sitting is about an hour away from my mom’s house. I have express permission to drive the Vespa (which was, essentially, a copy of mine only a few weeks after I bought mine) and the Porsche, because, “It’s the cheapest car we own.”

Take that in for a second, will you?

…

Anyway, it’s a 1999 Porsche 911, a little car made for speed and spectacular performance. I drove it (with the owner in the passenger seat) once years ago when he first bought this particular one, and he had me go up in the highway and experience the sheer speed the engine can produce. I remember noticing that we were going 96 miles per hour despite my having had no idea we were much above even 60mph – I had told him at the time that the car just felt comfortable there, like it was made to go that speed more so than any other speed. He agreed with me, and then gave me a breakdown on why that felt to be the case. It was a really cool experience for me.

Today, I own a 2002 Hyundai Accent GL with crank windows and a 2013 Vespa 300GTS (that’s 300cc). The Hyundai is mostly a rainy day and grocery store car, as the engine can really only handle light use and short distances. The Vespa is, well, a Vespa. It can go 88mph with me driving it, but it isn’t made to do that very often or on the regular – it is really made to go 50-ish on the regular, possibly a bit more. Neither of these vehicles is anything like a Porsche. Nor was the 2011 Toyota Prius I recently drove for a while while a friend was out of the country – that one even less so, really.

And so, fast-forward back to today, when I fired up – and I use those words on purpose, because, boy, does it sound like someone just lit a massive fire when that engine roars to life! – this Porsche 911. It kind of made me nervous just to get the thing out of the one-car garage door (of a four-car garage, of course), I felt like I might blast a hole in something every time I even touched the gas. (Plus, with the age, the gear shifter was a little wonky to figure out at first, having to pull it way to the side for first gear, and even more way to the side for reverse, I was nervous of going the wrong direction straight into the concrete in front of me!) I had to run a quick errand first, and so experienced the world of growling beasts that are the low speeds of such a vehicle… I felt like I was going to break down just about everything that I passed, that engine was so strong and rough with its constant dull roar and slight explosion at every press of the gas pedal.

But I got over it after that short errand, and I took the dog for a quick little neighborhood ride before I headed out. I was told she absolutely loves it, and she even snuck out the gate while I was checking things over before leaving, and she climbed halfway in the driver door, despite my telling her to come back inside the yard. It was actually quite comical, so I couldn’t resist. I had considered doing it, anyway, but didn’t want to be running any later in my plans than I already was. When she so pathetically tried to crawl into the car, I had to go ahead with the original plan to take her for a ride.

Thus, the following… and no, I have no real explanation but that I imagine she might have been escaping the sunlight… the top and the windows were all down, and she knew it…

So, there’s that…

…

After I dropped her back off at the house, and gave her a treat as my departing gift, I headed out to my mom’s house. To start the trip, there is a quick stint of about six or so exits on the highway, before exiting for a ground-level Highway with a million stoplights and a surprisingly low speed limit for something called a state highway… anyway…

As I turned onto the feeder and headed the long road to the ramp onto the highway, I began really to feel the car’s power. I used to drive a new Volkswagen Jetta, manual, and was in love with the German engineering and the smoothness and classic-ness of the engine and steering and everything-to-do-with-driving of it. When I rented a new Volkswagen Beetle a few years ago, I was reminded of that fabulous engineering. Today, climbing up onto that highway ramp and overpass, my whole body reacted with memory and nostalgia at this experience of yet another classic case of stellar engineering. When the car felt like it was in its ‘chill space’, as I call the average vehicle’s 45mph feeling, we were going 85.

I might have gone a bit faster than that for a while, but I wasn’t paying attention to the speed anymore. I was feeling throughout my whole body the tingling sensation of memory combined with satisfaction and fulfillment. This is how a car should feel, I found myself thinking. This is a car.

And I meant it.

The top was down, the wind was blowing in just that way around, and I couldn’t stop smiling and giggling and laughing aloud, hard. I actually thought for a second, Wouldn’t it be silly if I cried right now? And then I noticed how my thoughts spoke without analyzing fully the situation… within seconds of having the thought, I noticed tears in my eyes. And not from the wind. I agreed with my thought, that it was silly, but I allowed the expression to be true and easy, and dove into my experience.

Driving this little car just felt right for me. It surprised me, but I could see that, now that I was trying on the idea, I truly want to make having one of these in my life happen – I want to have one of these 911s one day, to drive on the regular, wherever I may want to go in it. She is calling me, and I can finally hear it…

Vroom Vroom…

Post-a-day 2020

Extra ouch

Well, today felt like much of an improvement after yesterday. I tutored in the morning, finished up mixing six CDs for a student to have some exposure to French-language music – these have been taking me weeks of on-and-off effort to organize them out and pick which songs to include, which genres go where and belong at all, and figure out what degree of effort it is worth as well as how many CDs would be acceptable – messaged with a good friend about her wedding planning and tres leches and not feeling like working out, and then I worked out and watched a very interesting film of Natalie Portman’s. I want to look further into the film to see what it was all about, and whether it was inspired by a specific story or many or what. She sang very well in it, by the way, and I was quite pleased with her performance on all levels, especially the concert portion, which was a surprising yet lovely part to me. As for the workout: man, it had a 3k run in it, as well as 80 jumping up-downs (burpee without the push-up)… talk about a sore calf feeling the heat! Both calves have been sore for a few days now – I genuinely could barely go up and down the stairs two days ago, and walked with a limp, all because of my calves. Finally, when they show signs today of recovery, I have to put them through so much work. Ridiculous, just a bit, I dare say.

But the greatest part of the workout, I think, aside from doing it, was the part where I hung out in the pool afterward to relax and stretch out. That was awesome. Though, the effort to swim breast stroke for a few lengths of the pool felt like it might paralyze my arms, my shoulders and all were so worn out from today’s workout. 😀 Haha

Anyway, I’m off to read and sleep, now. Today was a lot in a good way, but it was nonetheless a lot, and I am exhausted. Goodnight!

Post-a-day 2020

Recuperation

Today, I did a lot of not much all day and evening. In fact, I woke up a few times throughout the morning, either because the dog was shifting around or because I needed to pee. But, every time, I went ahead and went back to sleep. It was overcast enough of a morning, plus the curtains in this room are rather effective, I was able to fall back asleep easily. I went to bed after one in the morning, sure, but getting up for the day at 1:45 in the afternoon is just plain nuts. I haven’t done that in years.

However, yesterday, and the proceeding few days had a whole combination of stressors for me, as well as the added lack of sleep that comes with an uncomfortable situation yet comfortable company (read friends). So, it really makes sense that I slept so much and so hard last night (and today, technically). I knew I was exhausted yesterday, especially since things were really getting to me in a way they only do when I am exhausted. So, even though I physically felt okay, I knew I was close to wiped. Thus the 12+ hours of sleep.

Then, after getting up for the day, I indulged in the candy that tempts from its jars, as well as a Tillamook ice cream bar (which was awesome, by the way) from a freezer filled with desserts. I did eat some real food, too, but the bulk of my calories today was likely the three ice cream bars and the finishing part of a tub of ice cream. However, I think I still ended up under my caloric requirements for the day, so my body gets to use its excess stores to handle the remaining caloric balance for the day.

Basically, I spent the day hanging around, either eating food or watching Disney movies, or even both at once. I took the dog on a training walk-run, and exerted some real physical effort this evening, but mostly just spent the day recuperating. And yes, recuperating is the right word – I wondered why I was so unbelievably uninterested in doing anything else throughout the afternoon and evening, and I realized that it was because I needed this non-effort… I needed the opportunity to readjust and revamp… I needed to spend today in a way that allowed me to re-empower myself, both physically and mentally. So, I slept physically for 12+ hours, and then I rested mentally the rest of the day.

And it did a really great job. I think tomorrow will be a joyful and bouncy day for me, now that I will have rested so much and so well. 🙂

I am grateful for such an opportunity.

Post-a-day 2020

Swirlytop

I don’t have much to say right now, tonight. Except that I feel a lot of that old hurricane season waiting for the next 24-48 hours. It could be disaster, and it could be simply some winds and rain and no biggie whatsoever. It could not even do that much – the storm could turn elsewhere entirely, or dissipate immediately upon landfall. They all have happened in my lifetime, and more than once. I guess that, in a way, growing up in such a place, I find myself calmly in the middle of the total and extreme fear and concern, and of, its polar opposite, utter chill and calm and unconcern – it shall pass. Because they always do pass. Like final exams, next week, they will be over and done with, but there is a huge hurdle to get through them to next week. And all we can do is just prepare and then wait.

As I was saying recently to someone, having grown up in southeast Texas, hurricane season, somehow, always gives me a sense of at-home-ness. I guess it is kind of how I felt so comfortable with all of the earthquakes in Japan, because they happened so often (weekly, was the average where I lived). In a way, they were representative of my home there. So, I have this odd sort of affinity for earthquakes now. (In fact, when still living in Japan, it am earthquake didn’t happen for a couple weeks, I would feel so out of sorts, it seemed nuts. When finally one happened again, I felt like I could breathe more easily, more freely again.) And I think the link between hurricanes and my childhood, being with my family through them (and through their aftermaths), has me feel this sense of homeyness and comfort around hurricane season now.

Also, I am rather fascinated with the powerful display of this planet’s abilities of power. Air and water, two things we need to be alive, are the exact things that can take away this life via a hurricane. Yet there is beauty in their power, both figuratively and literally.

Funny: I just realized that I even felt incredibly at-home when we had typhoons in Japan. Just like home, I suppose was the feeling. Haha. How odd this all is…, but that doesn’t make it so any less.

Over the next couple or few days, there is a potential of two hurricanes to pass this way. We shall see what happens, I pray.

P.S. While this has never happened in my lifetime, I think there has never in known history been two such storms developing in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. She’s kind of a one-storm-at-a-time kind of Gulf. ;P

Post-a-day 2020

Yikes

It has only been a few days of te air being warmer in the house, and already my acne has gotten significantly worse. Specifically my back, shoulders, and chest are suffering from abnormal numbers of individual blemishes appearing. Even my face has had a bit extra in the past two days. And this is normally the time in my menstrual cycle that produces the least amount of acne… so much for that right now. This merely adds to my experiential belief that a huge part of my acne is related to 1) getting sweaty and then 2) having things (mostly clothing) rub on that sweaty skin. Without the clothing part, it is never as bad, but it still can happen a bit. However, the two together really make the acne happen, no matter the time of month. Add onto it my week-ish or menstruation, and we have a recipe for an extremely uncomfortable-for-me amount of acne on my body. Ugh.

So, I suppose less clothing would be helpful over the next few days, to help to counteract the elevated temperature in the house. Racerback tanks instead of tees are the requirement now.

Ugh…. hassle.

Haha

I acknowledge my first world problem, as some might call it. That doesn’t make it any less annoying to be covered with acne when I already have found a way to prevent such a thing from happening… anyway…

Post-a-day 2020

First loves

I found myself thinking again today – after another long conversation with him, that is – of my high school boyfriend. We are certainly clear that we are of no romantic interest to one another anymore, and are fully satisfied in being friends. However, as I explained last night, there is a part of me that is only filled by him, un trou that likely never will be filled fully, as we never will be in a romantic relationship again. And that’s okay with me. What it had me wondering today was about the irony of my not wanting to be like all the world, yet fitting practically perfectly to the stereotype of the adage, “You never forget your first love.”

I never understood that before today, I think. I always wondered why people spoke so fondly of their first loves, yet they had let their first loves get away or disappear from their lives completely – what kind of love is that? Or so I always wondered. I realize now what it likely really is. When we love someone for the first time – even before we might understand what it means to love someone outside of our families – it is exactly the fact that we have never done it before and never experienced it before that it ends up staying with us throughout our lives. Without the opportunity or intention of keeping ourselves safe or preserved or protected, we dive into our first experience of love wholeheartedly, loving with all of our being, however we can find to love. We have no reservations, and no agenda either – we just live purely and truly and openly and fully. We have never lost our love, and so we don’t even try to cling tightly to it, or mistrust our own feelings around it – we simply love.

When the relationship ends, for whatever reason it may be, we have our first lesson in loss. Yet we, after having been so utterly invested in our love, can never hold anything against our first love. No matter how it ended, the experience of the love remains untouched, pure. But the ending of it keeps us forever on our guard, of course. Likely never again will we love in such a way. Never again will we be so reckless with distributing our love, as we may see it. The free love lives forever in that first and only fully free relationship of love, therefore inducing a nostalgic look of longing for yesteryear whenever we find ourselves reminded of our first love. I’m nowhere near old age, but I already experience just that around my first love.

And I am grateful for it.

I have no desire to reestablish that relationship, yet I always will be grateful for the opportunity to love so fully as I did with my first love.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a perfect opportunity to consider what value may lie in loving so freely again.

Post-a-day 2020

Today

Two things tonight: trash and holes.

First:

Today, I got to experience a delightful little bit of small town life. No one put out the trash this morning, so, once I was up and finished with tutoring, I handled it myself. There were still trash bins all down the street, and, when I had been doing the running for my workout, I discovered that some really reeked… suggesting that they still had trash in them. In fact, it smelled outside period, because of trash. So, I cleaned out the trash cans throughout the house, added their trash to the kitchen bag, and stuck it in the trash bin. I hugged the bin out to the curb, and headed back inside, out a clean kitchen bag and cleaned the trash can lid, and then washed my hands.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. After a pause of contemplating the possibilities and likelihoods, I went and opened the door. An older, grayed and balding yet able-bodied man stood on the doorstep. “I hate to have to say it, but the trash man’s already come today.”

His southeast Texas small town accent only increased the endearment of the whole act. Only in small towns, communities that care openly about one another, does this happen. The other week, my mom said that the fat layer on my arms was due to my having been in the boonies for so long – it was just part of living out here. I laughed really hard at the joke, and told her later how grateful I was again and again at her having given me that silly way to look at the unpleasant situation of having gotten fat where I didn’t want it. That was, nonetheless, one of the drawbacks of small town life. This week, I got to have a positive of small town life, and enjoy the super sweet neighborly kindness that this guy gave freely to me. Just lovely. 🙂

Second:

I talked with my old high school boyfriend this afternoon. We have remained friends these past many years, despite the oh-so-different paths our lives have followed. We don’t talk often, but, when we do, we have to be cut off by some activity of some sort, or else we talk for hours. And we do it with ease. We weren’t just a dating couple in high school. We were really good friends for years first.

Talking today, I noticed how there is a piece of me – un trou – that is filled only by him. It sits just behind my ribs, from the center to the right a few inches or so, and it has a bit of depth to it, though not uniform. I could feel it so incredibly clearly today, I am surprised that I hadn’t fully identified its existence before. It had just been one of those subconscious knowings, I suppose, until today. But now I see and feel how that one spot is filled only by J——–, and it makes my heart, somehow, feel more full. By the knowledge of his absence, he somehow goes everywhere with me, whether I realize or pay attention to it or not. It was a kind of fun realization to have.

While we spoke, I could feel an intangible heat stretching inside my ribs, expanding to fill, at least in part, his space within my being.

Whenever I see him next, I can definitely see myself hugging and hanging tightly around his neck for quite a while – he is so important to me. But it is truly out of love through friendship, not romantic love. Frankly, we are so not interested in one another on a day-to-day or dating level – that’s a hard pass for the both of us. But, just because we are not romantically for one another, doesn’t mean that we cannot improve the foundation of our relationship, and stick with that: friendship.

Anyway, I’m losing focus, both visually and mentally, actually. So, I’m going to end here and do my stretches and reading so I can go to sleep now. Goodnight!!

Post-a-day 2020

Power

BOOOOM!!!

And then all the lights go out.

And the air that had not yet been turned down from 80°F from during the day cuts off.

We had just arrived home, close to 2:30 in the morning, and I was in the middle of folding towels, so I could put the sheets on the bed, so we could go to bed. We hadn’t planned on being back until tomorrow afternoon (technically this afternoon, but whatever). But he wanted to go ahead and drive back tonight, after we finished around midnight. And so, we did. Now, it is growing harder to breathe by the minute, it is uncomfortably warm, and it is practically impossible to use the bathroom safely.

I managed to call out to Siri to give us light, and then turned on my phone flashlight to find some candles and matches in the living room (which are now dripping wax all over the cardboard we set under them on the floor – glad we did that! Whew!). I worked for a while in efforts to report the outage, but the system is idiotic. Fortunately, it was reported somehow anyway, despite its having been at 2:30 in the morning. Estimated recovery time is 5:00 in the morning, just another hour and a half from now.

One comment on the stupidity of the outage reporting: They all want you to do it online… when there is no internet, due to the power outage. Also – okay, a second comment – you cant report to outage unless you have the right company and the right user number or ID or whatever… I don’t live here, but am house sitting here. I have no idea what power company they use, nor what their user ID is. However, I know that just after 2:30am on this street, something exploded and then all the power went out, and it doesn’t look like anyone on the street has power right now. Geez… stupid systems suck big time.

Anyway, I’m off not to shower and not to have a normal night of rest, but o continue my bedtime routine stuff, and see if I can manage to sleep at all until we have air flow again.

I feel so spoiled with all of this talk. However, here’s the thing: We pay for a service that declares reliability. Therefore, we expect it to be reliable. And it hasn’t been reliable. And we’re exhausted, and I just wanted a shower and a bit of cool air, so I could pass the **** out until I had to get up to tutor in the morning.

Ugh…

Anyway… turns out that it is three and a half streets with no power right now.

Post-a-day 2020

Admit the problem

Well, it is semi-official: My arms are fat. Meaning a noticeable chunk of them is fat, not that they are entirely made of fat or anything.

I couldn’t quite figure it out at first, and I wondered if it was that I was getting bulky from the workouts lately, my arm muscles growing too large or disproportionately in some way (though I doubted that I was that strong, it seemed more likely than the alternative). But, after flexing everything I could in my arms, I have found that a whole layer up top will not flex but will wrinkle like cellulite when prompted (read “squeezed”).

I can’t tell if I’m utterly distraught or just disappointed or annoyed, or if I haven’t even begun to react to it yet, because it is so terrible to me.

I’m leaning towards the lattermost, actually.

It’s kind of funny to me how my arms would make me automatically happy, whenever I saw them or saw their reflection in a mirror or something… but now, one of my greatest tiny delights in my everyday has disappeared…

I suppose that the socially acceptable lesson here is to learn to love myself no matter what, to appreciate and love my body at any stage or state of life. And I value such a view. However, it is exactly the fact that I have not valued and loved my body lately that I am in this current situation. If I had respected my body for the beautiful thing that it is, I would not have been so terrible to it, filling it with minimally nutritious (if at all) foods, and hardly doing enough exercise as it deserves to be well kept. So, while I do love my body, I have zero intentions of keeping the arms as they currently are. The fat has got to go – it will be on the fast breath train out of here, beginning tonight, when I sleep. (In case you didn’t know, that’s technically how we release fat from our bodies, is through breathing, once all the breakdowns happen inside our cells.) Tomorrow begins my return to fully taking care of my body both in terms of food and in terms of physical activity.

I know myself. I have been doubting this whole food regime I first took on last summer for the past seven months. I wanted to get back on it, but I just couldn’t get myself to do so. I needed a solid reason, not just one in my head, one with no genuine foundation. Now I have a foundation: eat as I have been eating, and, despite the exercise, I will not have the body and arms I want to have. Theory tested and proven now. Goodbye, not super-healthy foods!

And phew! Thank goodness for that.

🙂

Post-a-day 2020

So much to say

I sometimes feel that I have so much to say that it would take more time and effort to share it than I am willing to put forth. Which then brings up the question of whether it is eve worth saying in the first place… at times, my answer is a yes, and, at others, a no. Even still, though, the yes content is a lot.

So, perhaps that is why I want to write books and books and books – it is the best way to share a lot.

Huh…

I’m going to think on all of that for a while now, and see what I can determine regarding my writing and sharing and what I feel I am here to do in this world…, I’m beginning to feel a stronger than ever connection between the three, and it somehow seems to be the answer to my everyday question of what to do with myself right now…

Post-a-day 2020