future – Page 93 – hannah ananas

Unpacking

My life is absurd.

In case you read this regularly and don’t already know that, this is a reminder of it. 😛

Continuing my unpacking the other day, I wanted to get my desk space set up, so I can actually use it for my school work and writing and photo work, right?

Okay, so, I’m unpacking the box labeled “Komputertisch” – for some reason, I almost always label my moving boxes in German, without even thinking about it -, and I find a small pile of a ten dollar bill and about an equal value in one dollar bills.

No biggie – I set cash down all the time, and then end up adding it to a savings account of some sort when I re-find it, after having forgotten about it for a while.

I continue unpacking the box, putting things in their new homes, and then I pull out a pile of 500 dollars.

Okay, this is the money to go deposit, now that the dentist paperwork is completed, I think.

(Because I’ll pay with my card, but didn’t want the money to get lost in my bank account before everything was handled.)

I set the money aside, to insert in an envelope later, to take to the bank this week.

I pull out something else from the box, and find underneath this next object…. another small pile of money.

Actually, this one is much, much larger… it is mostly twenties, but it also has some fifties in it… and it ends up being 890 dollars.

What??!…. What is this money now???

I add the ten from earlier to it, because that is too weird an amount for me, but I keep the ones and the dentist money separate from the stack, because they’re ‘different money’. 😛

After several minutes of contemplation, I recall that it was from all the nannying I did, where the mom would leave cash for everything we would go do, and I would use my card actually to pay for those activities… so I’d end up with a lot of twenties – many more than my wallet would hold -, but I don’t want to have to go to the bank ever to get cash, so I usually keep some cash available to me… this was just more than usual, because of the specific situation and its having continued for quite some time.

Okay, that makes total sense… glad I worked that out.

I remove two more or so things from the box, getting almost to the end of it, now, and what do I find?

It looks like a folded twenty and ten.

It actually is a twenty folded around four hundred dollar bills…

Seriously?…. you’re absurd, child, I think, talking inwardly to myself (though I repeated the Seriously? of disbelief aloud, in a similar fashion to SNL’s “Weekend Update” Really?! segments).

At that point, nothing came to mind for this one, so I just let it go – it could have very well been birthday money, or something like that, but I knew it wasn’t destined to anything specific, because of the bills involved (I don’t do hundreds for paying things), so I let it go.

I put the dentist money into an envelope and with my bag, as planned, to take to the bank, and I piled up the rest together, making it all ‘the same money’, still unsure as to what precisely to do about it.

It wouldn’t surprise me if, somewhere down the road, I come across this pile of money that I have since today forgotten, because I didn’t want to put it into my bank account, and let myself suddenly think that it was okay to spend more money than I have been lately, because I would have seen a higher amount in the account… 😛

Totally absurd, right?

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

Bedtime routine…

I wanted to go read, because I didn’t want to think about what to write…,

But then I thought about how I would be thinking all along in the back of my mind about things I could use for writing, as well as maintaining that semi-constant reminder that also resides back there to make sure I write before I go to bed…

And so I came and sat down on my magical handmade chair… thing – I think it’s possibly a stool, technically, and “magical” just felt right, because it is special to me, not because it is a regular Hermione Granger or anything of the sort – and picked up the little phone – “little” being totally relative, because it is definitely not Zoolander sized, but it also is loads smaller than the first many versions of phones, as well as the most recent iPad-type mobile phones – here to write something…

Apparently this is what I ended up writing for tonight – and “For Tonight” is the name of a musical that is about to have its world premier here in Houston(!)… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Moving forward well

As I pursue each day a little bit more of those things I dream about and desperately want to become my reality (though am totally terrified of having become my reality, because, let’s be real, how could I be able and worthy of being that awesome?), I somehow feel a sense of calm and comfort settling over and around and through me and my life.

Preparing for bed at night, I have feelings of excitement and delight – subtle as they are, they are there.

Things are still kind of a mess around me in my life (even physically, for that matter, because I haven’t even finished moving in entirely), but everything somehow feels right – it is all moving comfortably in the direction it feels like it is all meant to go.

Imagine how nice things look when traffic moves perfectly, cars zooming along together in their designated lanes and directions, as though they are designed to do just that…

Even better, imagine those blood cells zooming through our veins, perfectly comfortable, and not even needing to be confident, for they have no reason to doubt their task and/or their ability to complete it – they were made for this, and they are doing it.

That’s how these pieces of my life feel now, and more and more of them keep jumping on the train of properly purposeful movement in their natural flow directions… as I breathe and am nourished, so they move and are bountiful, comfortable, going and at ease.

Post-a-day 2019

Photos!

Okay, one ended up not happening after all, but the first photo thing happened today, and, not only was it a successful photo shoot, but it was also an awesome adventure!

I was doing photos for a friend who is a curator at a museum, and so I got to go see (and photograph, of course – that’s why I was there) the new museum setup before it has even opened its doors to the public!

It was something wonderful to see, and also a delightful learning experience regarding all of the objects and models and things on display within the museum!

I really enjoyed the whole time of it.

Then, looking through the photos tonight – which I was rather terrified to do, and which I only did because I’d given my word to the friend that I would check over them tonight – I discovered that almost all of them looked great!

I just need to redo a few, which was already expected, anyway, due to the fact that not everything was finished being set up in the museum yet.

So, yay!

Also, when going through them, I went ahead and loaded the previous two rounds of photos I’d done… and those.. were.. awesome!

I was totally inspired by my own photos – a concept which then doubly blew my mind with inspiration!

How cool is that?!

Yay!

Post-a-day 2019

Passions…?

Tomorrow, I have on my schedule, somewhat unexpectedly, two very different photo sessions scheduled.

Ones where I take the photos for someone else…

And one of them has even requested my photo-taking ability for pay…(!!!)

I am sometimes terrified, whenever I see my current place and undetermined path from the eyes of those around me…, and it is times like this that I can trust that feeling deep inside me that I am exactly and perfectly in the right spot and heading in the right direction for me and my life right now.

🙂

Post-a-day 2018

It’s all in the attitude

Do you ever find yourself walking through a store, looking at all the items for sale around you, and feeling utterly sick at the thought of it all?

Walking through a Marshalls today with my aunt and cousin, on a trip my cousin had been wanting for a while for some household things, I had this experience as I walked to the bathroom, just before leaving.

I thought of my best friend, and how she had lived in The Gambia…. the way things are there…., and I thought of how things are in so many similar places, where air conditioning and mattresses and safe showering and clean water are not a given but a rarity and a practically-unachievable luxury… and I felt repulsed by the few items – some foods and soaps and a bottle cleaner for my water bottles and tea bottles – I myself had pulled out, let alone the overwhelming sense of the thousands of items surrounding me that even I found entirely unnecessary and wasteful…

And I felt terrible…

And then I looked into it further than merely being upset…

And I saw that this is the life and the part of the world and the lifestyle in which I have been placed and in which I have opted to remain… there is much I dislike about it all, and yet there is more than enough to keep me in it, wanting to be part of it… to some degree, anyway…

And it reminded me of what I would tell my students whenever they complained about school rules or homework from other teachers or the administration, that this is the school and the society in which they are choosing to participate, and so they can follow the rules and either get over it or work toward change, or they can go somewhere else to have different rules… as long as they select to be at this school, though, they are agreeing to follow this school’s rules.

And so my Marshalls visit was a lot like that for me – I want to be in this culture, and so I have to accept the ‘rules’ this culture follows… I can work toward change, as I already do, and I can work for myself to buy and to use and to produce what I feel is appropriate, as I also already do, and I can encourage and empower others to do the same, all while accepting that this is the way things currently are here, whether I like them or not.

And I totally wanted to go check the dumpster, instead of walking the inside of the store, in hopes of preventing the sad waste that likely was back there… unfortunately, circumstances did not quite allow for such a move today.

So it goes… an attitude of gratitude is a good way to start, and then we can make some real progress. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Miley on my mind

My brain all this afternoon:

…..
Here I am for the first time
Look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous

Na-na na-na na-na naaa-na
na-na naaaa na-na turned on the radio
And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on

So I put my hands up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflies fly away
Noddin’ my head like, yeah
Movin’ my hips like, yeah
I got my hands up,
They’re playin’ my song
You know I’m gonna be okay
Yeah, it’s a party in the USA
Yeah it’s a party in the USA

This morning, we visited the site of the first McDonald’s location, from before it was fully franchised and all that jazz… a site that was apparently also visited by Miley Cyrus not so long ago.

This afternoon, we swung by and somewhat spontaneously picked up a beloved friend of mine from dance, whom I hadn’t seen in five or so years, and journeyed to the Griffith Observatory to see the Hollywood sign.

It was still really far away…, but cool to see and read, nonetheless… I’ll have to find a way to get up close to it one day (slash figure out if I care enough to do so in the first place).

Then we went to a drive-in theatre…, which really wasn’t Miley Cyrus at all, I suppose…, but the movies were all about fulfilling one’s dreams by being in touch with what’s really on the inside and by just going for it, and “The Climb” is all about that kind of idea, too, so that counts enough.

I still found myself singing about the Hollywood sign when we got home just now, so I think I can safely say hat it was a very Miley Cyrus day today. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Hello-Goodbye

The Beatles sure do have a song for every occasion.

Tonight, we say hello to the new year as we say goodbye to the one that’s been here for a while (for a year, to be exact).

And it really has been a year, this one… life has looked little like how I might have expected.

And yet, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs and the plateaus, have all balanced out rather nicely for this year… it kind of even has me terrified for this next year, because of how wonderful these unexpecteds keep turning out.

Kind of like the beautiful Marianne Williamson quote, where she says that ‘it is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us,’ and that ‘our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,’ but ‘that we are powerful beyond measure.’

This year has been an even more clear example of that entire quote for me in my life, as each year has been progressively showing me, more and more… and so this next year definitely has me on the edge of my seat in slight but giddy and delighted terror. 🙂

P.S. For those who want to read the full and fabulous quote (which I didn’t even have to reference when writing this, though I haven’t seen it in probably years – I just know it so well) from Marianne Williamson: a link.

Post-a-day 2018*

*The Last of its group

Baby talk

At 35, you’re considered geriatric.(!)

I’m not gonna be geriatric.

I stopped by to visit a friend at her extra job today, so I could pick up her key to go play with her cat and dog.

We started with talk about Christmas presents and CrossFit, and ended up on careers and finances, houses and babies, all within about three minutes of chatting.

We joked about how her husband (currently boyfriend) who is finishing medical school right now, will be super poor for the next several years, and so she wants to work and save as much as possible now, so she can buy a house and have babies at the latest by 30.

Thus the glorious comment at the start of this… gotta love the oddities that drive us all forward in life. ;P

Post-a-day 2018