culture – Page 53 – hannah ananas

Birthday Cards

I check one last time to verify that all the ink is dry, and then, since it is dry, I strategically position and carefully slide the talking birthday card into its envelope.

Satisfied with what is left visible, I lick a few fingers and rub them to the bottom edge of the envelope flap, and seal the tip of the flap to the main part of the envelope.

Perfection.

Sure, I take extra care in positioning a card, but that is hardly the weird part of this never-changing process of mine… obviously, the weird bit is where I lick my fingers.

So, why do I do it?

Well, ever since George Costanza’s fiancée died from licking all of their wedding announcement envelopes, it’s just what I’ve done.

I went through a time where I always used a sink to wet my fingers, or even the envelope directly at times, but I usually am too lazy to take the trip and care required for that to go well.

Since seeing that episode, something within me has taken the extra-safe route, and has just forbidden me to lick envelopes anymore.

Perhaps I’ve done it a handful of times since that episode, but we’re talking an actual max of five times, here… in almost 13 years. 😛

I have told myself, on occasion, that I do the finger licking because I don’t want to get a paper cut on my tongue, licking the envelope…, but I know that is false, because I just did it more cautiously after that happened, and I mostly got over the concern – yes, that, too, is a benefit of not licking the envelopes, but it is merely a perquisite of my main intention of not being minutely poisoned by the glue.

And so, thanks to that absurd episode of Seinfeld, and my dad for being my ever-buddy in watching Seinfeld, I have been perhaps forever changed, and hopefully for the better, if not just the sillier. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Chocoholic?

I remember distinctly how Nicholas H—– from elementary and middle school didn’t like chocolate.

We were all so disbelieving about it, it is kind of funny – we had never heard of someone not liking chocolate, let alone known someone… we just couldn’t understand how someone wouldn’t just love chocolate.

The irony still tickles my belly these days, whenever I have to mention nowadays to someone that I really don’t like chocolate, and, quite carefully, I strive not to offend them in communicating this fact.

Somehow, I’m a chocolate convert in reverse, I guess – I used to be all about it, and now I kind of don’t care for it, and I even dislike it at times.

Chocolate malt or smoothie?… hand it over to me, please – yumm!

Hot chocolate and chocolate milk (usually almond milk), too…

But I regularly pass on all, and I pretty much don’t like chocolate in any other form, almost ever.

And I have no idea how I got this way…, because I used to be all about chocolate.

Maybe I just never loved it for myself, but appreciated and attached to it, because everyone else had somehow informed me that that was the way to treat chocolate.

I always loved Butterfinger and Reese’s, but both of those were for the fact that something else was the main focus – the chocolate was secondary, only a coating…. I even made sure I finished the peanut butter cups on the center, not the outside edges of only chocolate.

So, perhaps I never really was a fan of chocolate, but just accepted what I understood to be desirable…

Interesting… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Comfort

At ease….

It’s funny to me, though totally believable, that my kakizome has already begun to do its work in my life for this year.

安心 Anshin

It roughly translates to a combination of the following:

Peace of mind, freedom from care
Relief, be quite free from care (anxiety, fear)
Feel easy (about), feel at ease
Feel relieved, stop worrying (about something)
Feel reassured, be confident (of, that), be (rest) assured

And, somehow unforeseen by me, 安心anshin has found its way further and further into my daily life these past couple weeks.

I am actually excited about the near future and the present almost every day, even when I wake up in the morning (In case you don’t know, the morning thing is huge for me).

I am not fully where I want to be – not by a long shot – but I am actually moving there now, actively and effectively heading in that wonderful direction, becoming who and how I want to be every day and night (and morning) of my life.

And it feels amazing (including the muscle soreness)…

Thank you, 安心 anshin, for your existence, care, and support in my life… truly, thank you. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Phone crush!

Are we allowed to crush on people we meet over the phone?… on a help line?…is that a thing?

Certainly not, but that’s okay – I have a mini crush anyway.

I think it was his chuckles that got me… we were talking about how somebody messed up delivering a package, and yet somehow we both ended up chuckling a lot during our 14-minute phone call… that and his real warmness every time he said my name, calling me “Miss Hannah” in an uplifting way (as opposed to the near disrespectful and demeaning version I have heard on many a helpline).

I just got off from a phone conversation with an adorable Bradley, who happens to be living in the future (by eight hours) in Cape Town, South Africa.

Sometimes, the whole outsourcing of help lines is terrible, and nothing seems to work out, due to language and culture barriers, combined with a terrible phone connection, or something else absurd.

And sometimes, it works out wonderfully – I’ve already had one of my absurd fairy-tale-like stories play out in my head, where adorable, chuckling Bradley in South Africa and I end up meeting in real life and becoming besties or something – maybe even marrying…. ‘How did you two meet?’ ‘Well, it was an outsourced help line phone call that brought us together… Hannah called, and Bradley answered… and it turned into true life, half the world apart.’

😛 hashtag guffaw 😛

It is things like this that make me feel confident in my ability to produce absurd and entertaining stories that nod to Sophie Kinsella books – silly and goofy and crazy things already go down in my life, and then my mind takes them, in a mere moment, to a whole ‘nother level… truly.

What’s really fun to me about it all is the fact that I had called in to the hotline already, but the person had somehow messed up the call, or something, and had just disappeared… so Bradley was my second call in to the hotline.

Boy am I glad my call was messed up the first time. 😛

I really do love my life, and I am grateful for it, with all of my being.

🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Girl Rising

Tonight, I finally watched a film recommended to me by a couple of high school senior girls, called “Girl Rising“.

Before it even was finished, I found myself rather wanting to find a way to get myself funded to go over somewhere where teachers are needed, and to teach children (girls especially) everything I possibly can.

And I am now somewhat worried that I might actually end up doing something radical… like just that… or even finding a way to find a girls boarding school here somewhere, to bring girls who otherwise can’t afford anything, let alone education, and that will be this school I have considered and discussed so much in recent years, the one I have though about founding…

That seems even more absurd than my just going somewhere… somehow…

P.S. I recommend the film.

Post-a-day 2019

Notes on today

My schedule for school and writing and photos has gone well so far, and I look forward to continuing with it tomorrow (though my tired eyes aren’t thrilled at the moment at the prospect of reading a whole bunch tomorrow for the schoolwork that is on deck).

I went to the other two CrossFit places that were on the list my old coworker gave me to check out near me… I am nervous, but I trust that everything will work out perfectly.

I have them ranked (and easily so) in order of my preference, with one being high above the others.

However, where I go will depend strongly on what the pricing will end up being at my number one selection… I am at a financial point that I really need to take the cheapest offer, especially if it is a $50 or $70 difference per month in price.

Here’s to getting the perfect rate when I go by to meet and talk with the owner tomorrow morning!! (And, of course, to my actually getting up and moving in time to be able to do so before I have to head to school to sub and all that jazz. 😛

Cheers to finding and pursuing our dreams, folks!

Post-a-day 2019

Let go and let God

My best friend asked me today about my relationship with God, for she knows I have been in a new-to-me spot of a bit of distance from God + a disconnect from religion, and that I have been somewhat flummoxed as to what to do about it all.

I thought about it, and discovered that, while nothing big has changed, – there is still this disconnect with religion and my place within it, as well as a distance from God – things have changed – I am not so worried about the religion concern, and I have actively accepted and, even, sought out God in the space around me on a regular basis.

Still nothing too big in the lines of church and religion, but I’ve had a big feeling of, when I consider how I haven’t figured out my place in it all and how I feel like something is wrong about that, I have a filling feeling of, ‘It’s okay,’ and something helps me release a deep breath inside of me.

Whenever this happens, I can tell that it is true… it is only a temporary situation, and it is okay right now, because now is not the time for me to worry about it all and figure it all out…

Instead, it keeps feeling like the time to love and to share my talents… and slowly but surely to let go and let God.

The eternal that is within us all, connects us all, is still there and always will be – I need not fret about what vocabulary to use to address it, when talking about it to others… I just need to let it be and to let myself be with it… you know?

Post-a-day 2019

Accomplishments

Today, I socialized while getting myself some of the good Japanese culture, and even a bit of the language, too.

I made this:

The fancy and “real” one is the white paperboard one, but I messed it up, so I much prefer my practice one on the newspaper (that’s why I put the hanko [stamp] on it, too).

It is the Japanese writing for Anshin, which means ‘peace of mind; freedom from care; relief.’

We did it as an activity called kakizome 書き初め, which is the first kanji one writes in the new year, and it is an intention and wish one makes for the year.

I selected 安心, because that is what I want in abundance in my life this year (I almost considered アットホウム, which is not kanji, but is spelling out a word, and, in this case, spelling out the two foreign words “at home”, because I couldn’t find anything that seemed quite right for what I longed for in my life this year…, but then I found 安心).

安心 was perfect, as soon as someone wrote it down for me… we had discussed the meaning, which I really liked, but it was when I saw it that I loved it.

I don’t remember what the very top part is, but the whole thing includes the word for woman and the word for heart – those two kanji, combined with the meaning?… done deal – let’s do this. 😛

And, so, we did. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019 (The last year of Emperor Heisei, Heisei 31 平成三十一 )

True to your heart

You know that feeling of being in just the right place, doing just the right thing for yourself and your life?

Today, surrounded off and on by Japanese people who live and work in Texas (mostly as language teachers) and a few non-geeky-but-maybe-a-tad-dorky-about-Japan US Americans, I found myself in just that feeling…

And it was delicious, and perfectly timed. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Tough stuff

Just a curious thought that came up tonight – one which I have had many times before, thought usually only passively or, at least, without much depth of consideration – while at dinner: How are people within our society to learn to have healthy and successful and mutually satisfying physical and sexual relationships, as well as healthy relationships with alcohol?

When do we do anything real to teach our growing children and young adults (and any adults, really) this information, to give them concretes and explicit and specific information?

When do we create with them healthy relationships to the topics in the first place?

In my cave people era books, they talk about how females each had a unique ceremony, with a carefully selected older make, to give her the full experience of adult sexual intimacy…. there were people designated in different seasons who were to be guides for the growing adults to learn about sexual intimacy by voluntarily going to any of these people for the honest help and insight an older and more experienced individual could give.

I know these can easily go against various religious traditions of today…, though that does not change the fact that these were ways of helping people to build healthy sexual habits and relationships.

While avoidance has its pros, it also very much has its cons, one of which is the educational side of learning to have positive relationships to and using sexual interaction.

Do note: I’m not aiming to stir up any nonsense here – I’m just sharing the idea that came up tonight, and that I found very interesting and worth considering further.

Anyway, I see it very similarly with alcohol in the USA – we just don’t ever teach our children to have healthy relationships with alcohol, and yet we spring it on them in full power when they’re supposedly several years past being a legal adult, offering at no point any useful and practical guidance on how to approach and to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

It doesn’t surprise me that we have so many issues regarding it, especially for the younger adults and teens… we ignore it and tell them to avoid it entirely, throwing them to the hungry lions on their 21st birthdays.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019