girls – Page 6 – hannah ananas

My life in a novel

I feel like pieces of my life – almost every day – could be parts of a Sophie Kinsella novel. Perhaps that is how she writes her novels; she combines all the ridiculous bits of her own life, with the plot of a made-up person’s life. Even if she doesn’t do that, I think this is good enough validation for me to do that myself. I mean, let’s be real here: I’m wearing a would-be engagement ring around these days, as though it’s no big deal, and I’m about to start telling people about how amazing it actually is, and how I think it’s a great thing for women to try at some point when they aren’t actually engaged. How is that standard white bread normal? Plus, wouldn’t that be a great part of a book about smart yet silly, somewhat crazy girl in her mid-twenties? Exactly. I need to start writing my own Sophie Kinsella novels. She has inspired me and shown me that my life has just enough ridiculous for such a story.

Post-a-day 2018

Teatime with the girls

A sort of short story about a girl’s casual, 30-second train of thought.

……………………………………………..

“…I go on a job interview there, and that’s how we finally meet up, and discover that we really do like one another in a dating capacity. And so, I start working over there, and we start dating. That’s easy enough, you see,” says Eliza.

“Okay…” replies Karen speculatively. “And then?”

“Well, and then we realize that we totally love one another,” continues Eliza, “and we’re ready to get married. But the question is whether we get married here or over there. If we got married there, it would be totally classy and cool, but then all of my family and friends here likely would miss out. But then, I think, what people here do I really care about having at my wedding? Most of them would be invited only so I could show off my amazing husband and wedding to them, anyway. And wouldn’t it be accomplishing the same thing by getting married in Europe instead, where my husband is from? It shows how he’s exotic, and so am I, getting married over there. Plus, then all the ladies could wear their fabulous hats and everything would be so chic and practically straight out of some fashion magazine.
“I would have a dress that is inspired from the princesses’ wedding dresses in London over the years, with a hint of French flare and loads of my own personality, all tied together beautifully and stunningly.”

Karen cuts her off, “You have the dress planned already?”

“Well, I’m not sure about the whole thing exactly, but I know how the sleeves would look, and they’re spectacular and classy. And YES, they do exist, despite all this recent fashion of sleeveless wedding dresses. So not my style.”

Karen shakes her head, and takes a sip of tea as Eliza continues.

“Anyway, so that could be cool. And we’d have a super-fab old Church for the wedding, and that would be amazing and not cliché, because it’s actually just normal in Europe. But then, we’d have to have some kind of something here in the US afterward. I’m not sure what, exactly, but something to celebrate specifically with everyone here who couldn’t make the trip. But nothing lame. Too many people do a lame ‘Oh, we couldn’t invite all of you to the wedding, but we still want to celebrate with you’. Aka ‘Give us presents, even though you weren’t good enough to be invited to the wedding.’ Not to be harsh, but you get the point…”

“Who’s she talking about?” whispers Lorena, who has just returned from flirting at the tea bar.

“The guy from the photo I showed you yesterday,” replies Karen, sighing. Lorena accepts this, and begins to process what Eliza is saying.

“Then we’d continue living over there, and it’d be perfect, because it lines up with my wanting to live over there, and we’d be so close for an easy trip up to visit Christine and her husband whenever we wanted for a long weekend or whatever. Or I could go alone super easily.”

Astounded, Lorena cuts in, “You mean you’ve already decided on wedding plans with this guy?! You haven’t even gone on a date, yet!”

“He hasn’t even asked her out,” chuckles Karen.

Only slightly defensively, Eliza replies cooly, “Well, if we can’t agree on a wedding location and place to live, then it isn’t really worth bothering dating in the first place, now is it? We’d be wasting our time if we knew so soon that it never would work out, yet went forward with it all, anyway.”

“She has a point,” allows Karen, raising her eyebrows.

After a pause, Lorena replies, “True… I still hold that you’re nuts, Eliza.”

“I’ll second that,” throws in Karen.

“Third it!” laughs Eliza. “Oh, I know I’m totally nuts. That’s why it’s so important that a guy and I be compatible through and through before we bother starting anything.”

They erupt in giggles and laughter, enjoying the ridiculousness of the conversation, and knowing how true Eliza’s statement really is.

“Weirdo,” says Lorena, playfully. “Okay, let’s have some lunch. I’m hungry, and now all I can think about is smoked salmon…”

The other two frown questioningly at her.

“What? You were talking about weddings. Weddings always make me think of smoked salmon.”

“Weirdo.”

“Total weirdo.”

Lorena laughs, “Whatever.”

……………………………………………..

Post-a-day 2018

Tying up dirty boys with grammar

Changing laundry from the washing machine to the dryer (It’s a machine, I know!!!!!!!*), I saw a towel on the floor between the two machines. It was originally intended for the load of red shades earlier today, but the load was too large for comfort, so I pulled out the towel. I left it on the floor, because a towel load needed to be done today or tomorrow anyway, so why bother bringing it back upstairs just to bring it back down only hours later? But that isn’t the point.

The point is (sort of) that I saw the towel sitting there, and I had an almost-urge to pick it up and put it in the dryer with the laundry I was transferring. Not that I wanted to put it in with the clean laundry, but that, usually, whenever something is on the floor there, it is because it has fallen in the transfer between the two machines. So, I simultaneously wanted not to touch the towel, to put it in the dryer, and to move it to the dirty towels upstairs (since I wasn’t doing the final two loads tonight, but doing them tomorrow). And, for a good moment, I was worried that I would pursue the final of the three, and accidentally fulfill the second in my tiredness and in the middle of routine muscle movements, and then wish for the first.

I managed to let go of having to deal with the towel now, and I left it on the floor, for fear of the second result.

As I thought about that possible second result, I was practically distraught at how it would ruin the fact that I had already put the load of clothes on to wash. By putting one single towel in the dryer, I thought, an entire load of laundry would be considered dirty. Now, why doesn’t that work the other way around? Why does one piece of clean laundry not make a load of dirty laundry clean, when mixed together? The dirty still win out. And how come a whole load of clean laundry can’t overpower the one dirty article? The clean just can’t overcome.

And then – now, this is the point of this all – I wondered about what is life is like this, if anything. Almost immediately, I thought about gender pronouns (and particularly in Spanish and French, because I learned those first). It’s just like guys and girls. A group full of guys, the dirty clothes, is (let’s use French) ils. Add one girl, the clean clothing, and it stays ils. A group full of girls is elles. Add one boy, and it becomes ils.

So, no matter what, if there are any boys, it is ils, dirty. The only way to keep it elles is to have only girls – no boys allowed.

And how odd that the boys are the dirty laundry and the girls are the clean… so like life, and I hadn’t even intended it to be so.**

Anyway, isn’t all of that fun?! Towels to grammar to life comparisons – I do lead an extraordinarily interesting life, huh? 😛

*Japan doesn’t exactly do dryers. People are expected to hang clothes outside, because every has a stay-at-home wife, you see… not. Everyone used to have a stay-at-home wife, but the lifestyle hasn’t changed. It just takes days and days to do laundry as a solo-liver, because weather can decide to soak your clean clothes while you’re off at work, or hide the sun from them, or be too humid for them to dry at all until they start to smell of mildew… I just hung mine all indoors, because I’d heard too many stories from my brother’s issues. Plus, supposedly people steal women’s underwear from the drying clothes in Japan. I didn’t need to deal with any of that nonsense. So, I set my air conditioner to a daytime setting to keep the apartment mildew-free, which also helped dry my clothes!

** I once wrote a poem about how boys are dirty. I didn’t exactly believe any of it, but I knew that people thought boys were dirty and smelly, and I rolled with the idea.

Post-a-day 2017

It really is all relative

Tonight, I was reminded of a girl I met, while I was living in Toulouse, France. She was in school (high school, I believe), and doing a temporary internship at the place where I was doing my volunteering. She was from a small country that was at war (and it might still be, but I haven’t kept up with the news). She had a boyfriend and a baby of her own, in addition to a younger sister, I believe. She taught me much.

What I was discussing with my mom tonight is how relative things are in life. Just as in Aesop’s last fable today, with the bunny rabbits about to drown themselves in their exhaustion of living in fear, and suddenly discovering the frogs at the pond afraid of them, causing them to realize that someone had it worse off than they did, so is life. No matter what one’s struggles and turmoils, there’s always someone worse off. And I feel like our turmoils and struggles are saddening next to the real turmoils and struggles of other parts of the world. This girl spoke to me about her country of origin, and how they moved to France. And, when she spoke about it all, it were as though she were telling me about a class project, or how she went grocery shopping yesterday. Those, however, were not the subject matter. What I remember most of her story, is how people broke into her house one day/night, beat up her parents (and possibly her, too), and then took her father. Her family tried offering money as a ransom for her father’s return, but no information was even received regarding her father – they never found out if he even was alive or dead, or who had taken him. Just some men, she’d said.

I mean it that it were as though she were telling me about what she did yesterday after work/school. She was not sad in her words, nor was she hauntingly depressed in her eyes or spirit. She was living life as I was, and merely sharing about something. ‘Yeah, I don’t know where Josh went after dinner, but he left. We called him, but never got a response. Maybe he went home, instead of coming for coffees with us.’ That’s was the easiness with which she spoke – no premeditation or practice. It was just what’s so, and so that was how she told it.

I say a prayer for the world tonight.

Post-a-day 2017

Mr. Right

I’ve been thinking tonight about my Prince Charming, my personal one, my desired future. It all started with thinking about musical theater as I showered. As most shower stream-thoughts go, I ended up on a very loosely connected tangent. Do you know the song by Chris August called “Stranger”? It’s a beautiful song, and I fell in love with it several years ago. A lot happened related to that song, but let’s not go there now. While some specific lyrics rolled through my head over and over again, as song lyrics so often do, something struck me.

I dreamed you.
Now, I’ve found you.
Call off the search,
’cause I found my stranger.

Those were the specifically inspiring words tonight. Though I have listened to the song more times than I know, and I know every word still, despite having stopped listening to it years ago (for reasons I won’t mention just yet), I have never had the thought that followed those words as they repeated in my head tonight.

“I have never dreamt you.”

Though I have wished and wished, and even hoped and prayed and asked for my partner in life, I have never dreamed him up. I have begun ideas before, but I have never come up with what my partner in life actually is. You could ask me now, and I would have no idea what to tell you about the partner I want. Sure, there are plenty of things I know that I don’t want, but everything else seems to change with how I feel each day, each time someone asks me about it.

Now, I don’t exactly see this as a bad thing. I just happened to realize that I have never dreamed him up. So, I can never have Chris August’s song become a reality for me – I can’t find my stranger. I don’t even have a vision in my head of what it looks like being with someone. Every time I have dreams where there seems to be a sort of partnership, I always seem to be the one taking care of someone else – the traditionally male role. Or, perhaps it is the mother role I play. I already seem to do that all over the place in life. It’s the reason I have always wondered if I can ever find someone to take care of me. But I digress…

I realized in the shower that I have no image of a person. I don’t know if I’m looking for someone tall, dark, and handsome. I don’t know if he is foreign or domestic made. I don’t even know what kind of skin he has. Again, I don’t necessarily see this as bad. I am just noticing it. I also notice how so many others seem to have dreamed up their partners years before they even have begun dating others. I mean, they seem to know what they want. By having that idea of what they want, they are able to seek it out. Sometimes, when they find it, they realize they didn’t want it after all. And sometimes they find something better along the way. But they have something to pursue. I don’t even have an idea to seek out, a type of someone or something to pursue. Perhaps that is an issue with being so open to the world and to new ideas, and for knowing that what I see or think isn’t always the best that the universe has to offer.

Post-a-day 2017

But… those are mine – the things we do for love <3

Girls and bracelets. Seems like a rather simple topic, right? Just girls and bracelets. Nothing special. Today, however, they were both special.

It was my last day going by the school where I have been based this past year. A student had been in touch to find out this information, and so knew that I was going to be there today in the morning. When I arrived at my (well, it’s not my former desk, but I guess it must have still been mine, since the stuff all on it was for me) desk, I was surprised by a small and adorable (because Japan) pile of wrapped gifts. Each one had a different note and was from someone different, both teachers and students. They all surprised me, but the one that got me ready for tears was the one on a beautiful piece of Rapunzel Disney (C) paper, with “Love” tape to attach it to the pink bag. It read:

Dear Hannah
Present for you.

From Nono, Yuna

These were the two main trumpet players in the band at school, the two with whom I had spent bits of time here and there, just listening to them play, chatting with them, having lunch with them, taking photos with and of them, letting them paint me (yes, they painted my arms one day), giving them fun jazz (which they had never heard!) music to play, and also playing trumpet with them. Of course, I am going to miss these two dearly.

However, I never quite expected a present from them. Let alone the nice little Japanese mirror, charm, and coin purse (or maybe it’s for makeup, even). They’re designed to go with the whole yukata/kimono getup, and I had never found ones to go with mine. So it was essentially a perfect going-away present for me! And they had no idea. They were just being sweet and giving me something Japanese.

So, a short time later, they show up to the teachers’ room and ask for me. I rush over to them and shove them out of the teachers’ room in a hurry – no one else needs to be part of this little celebration-slash-goodbye ordeal that’s about to go down.

With the two are a handful of other girls from the band, too. I thank them eagerly (Is that right? Let me check… “eager, avid, keen, anxious, athirst mean moved by a strong and urgent desire or interest. eager implies ardor and enthusiasm and sometimes impatience at delay or restraint,” says merriam-webster.com, so I accept it as appropriate in this case.), and give hugs all around. Some embrace the american social norm, and others delight in it hesitantly, but they all hug me with joy and enthusiasm. I will miss these guys, runs through my head as we’re all chatting and being silly together, and I know my thought is right. I will miss them desperately, and I know they will miss me, too. The simple fact that my successor is not even musically inclined shows the unlikelihood of their finding a replacement-ish for me, and the fact that I am leaving Japan almost guarantees that I couldn’t even begin to find a sort of replacement for all of them.

As we are wrapping things up, so that they can go eat before they have to be back at band rehearsal (to which I had been listening earlier on in the morning, secretly), I notice yet again a comment directed at my shins-ankles-feet region. i couldn’t hear what was said, as it wasn’t said to me. Each time it happened, the comment was almost whispered to another girl, just quietly enough that I couldn’t quite hear. But I could see.

I wondered if they were finally noticing how I don’t shave my legs – I kind of gave up shaving… not sure where I’m going with that in life, but it seems to be the current situation. I am always happy to talk about almost anything with the girls, despite their often being incredibly shy about most things. So, as I usually do, I encourage the comment to come to the open.

Finally, someone gets the nerve enough to say it aloud, and I am surprised. It was not, as I thought, anything to do with my hairy legs (it is dirty blonde, after all, so it isn’t all too noticeable in the first place, but I imagine they’re all accustomed to mine already anyway, plus they seem to love the colors in all my various hairs (since they’re not just black, like Japanese people’s)). What was the comment regarding? My anklet.

“She… want… it,” was the oh-so-embarrasing phrase. And oh, what self-searching consideration I had to make all of a sudden – I was amazed at myself at my success in the matter.

And so, as we all hug once more (or twice more) and say our goodbyes, I watch with a huge smile and a chuckle, as three of the girls bounce off wearing my anklet and two bracelets, all of which I had made for myself a couple or few years ago, and all of which I absolutely love wearing. But, hey, as I told the girls, I made those myself, so I can get some more Mookaite and Jasper stones when I get back to Houston (I might even still have some, actually), and make myself some new versions of those same bracelets and the matching anklet. Plus, as much as those meant to me, it pales in comparison to how much each now (and likely for the rest of their lives) means to those girls. As they say in Japanese, one of them told me that it is her “precious treasure”. I’m not sure they could have been more grateful, even if I had made the bracelets for them specifically.

I still kind of can’t believe those girls got my bracelets and anklet off of me. But I also love how wonderful it felt to give away a part of myself to those who so greatly longed for a bit of it. It was more than just giving away something I had with me, because it was 1)something I valued and 2)something I made myself, for myself. It really was giving away a part of me. It kind of feels like I’ll be able to take care of them forever, in some small way. I like that.

Anyway, that was about ten minutes of today. A really, really good ten minutes. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

Trumpet and Sex(?!)

This conversation happened between students and me this afternoon.

Student: “We have to go to practice.”

Hannah: “Oh, really? What practice?”

Student: “We must practice trumpet and sex!”

After a stutter in the conversation, the second student, who wasn’t speaking, noticed the blunder, and she aimed to correct it. As we all laughed almost hysterically, they did their best to practice the difference in pronunciation between the two words.

Sex…sax…sex…sax…sax…sax…Sax… Back and forth we went, my pronouncing it, and their aiming to copy the sounds correctly and then reproduce it over and over again. It was adorable and wonderful. I love those two girls, and I will miss them loads after I leave here.
Post-a-day 2017

Crushes & the imagination

I’ve got to say: There’s something really fun about having a crush.

Perhaps it’s the excitement and anticipation of wondering what, if anything, might happen. Will he end up confessing his undying love for me? Will he declare that I am the best person he has ever known, and that he cannot imagine life without me? Will he become my best guy friend for now, or even for the rest of my life? (Actually had this happen.) Will he end up being psycho? (Again, happened.) Will he even notice I exist? (Yep.) Will he completely ignore me, and go date some other, more sexy girl? (Happened.) Will he be the best guy I’ve ever known, yet never have a bit of interest in me? (Yup.) Is he actually gay? (This one, too.) Will he become a priest instead of dating me? (Really am speaking from experience, here. :P)

But then, perhaps part of it is also imagining life, should something actually come of the crush. Will we become this amazing couple, traveling the world together with a dog and a cat and a few kiddos? Will people wish they were we, or wish they had what we have? Will I get to announce our engagement to all of our family and friends? Will he turn out to be the man who breaks my heart? Will we spend weeks at a time visiting beautiful beaches together, living a picture perfect vacation life each time? Will I be the woman who breaks his heart? Will we do something fabulous in a big city together, and be super modern and hip with our furnishings and modern art? Will he turn out to be absolutely vain or utterly boring? Will we end up on a ranch together, raising kids who ride horses, and swinging into the nearby lake on sunny days? Will we be dancing, singing superstars (at least among all of our friends)? Will he end up being super jealous, that we can’t possibly stay together, because I couldn’t possibly give up my friends? Will I? Will we move into an old, renovated fire station, and be art and music hipsters who help save the world each day? The ideas go on and on, to any degree of crazy my imagination feels like going that particular day.

Perhaps it’s nature, perhaps it’s nurture, and perhaps it’s a bit of both, but I have these sorts of thoughts every time I have a crush. Even for the times where I have no intention, desire, or even opportunity for anything to come of the crush, these sorts of thoughts still rush to mind. It’s as though I have a sort of mobile-esque photo montage floating around my head, filled with snapshots from all of our potential life paths together.

For the most part, I enjoy the ideas without actually considering them to be a likely forecast of the future. Sure, they could happen. However, I find them all quite unlikely.(Though, I do admit that very upsetting scenarios also come to mind at times, and so I am always glad to know that those particular futures are very unlikely.) I think I just enjoy imagining how crazy and awesome a story it would be to tell everyone if such-and-such happened between whomever and me. ‘Kids, this is how Daddy and I met. Can you believe it?’ 😛
On a sort of tangent, this all kind of reminds me of how people say that women have had their weddings planned since they were little girls. I think we just have fun using our imaginations, and a wedding is just one particular outlet for them.

I’ve often thought about my own wedding, however I can never decide on any actual details. As soon as I think I want a certain style of white dress, I suddenly think I want a totally different style of green velveteen, or perhaps floral ochre… I think I just don’t really care about the results, because it isn’t actually something real happening – for the time being, it’s just a brain exercise… I love imagining various wedding scenarios for myself, of course. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m actually planning my own wedding. You know? Anyway… just some thoughts.

Crushes are fun, in part for their potential, and in great part for their role in the imagination-creativity game. I mean, what if he actually asks me out, and then confesses his love for me while we’re ice skating in the park, followed by our having hot cocoa, going horseback riding, and then dancing together all night to live music? It could totally happen. ; )

Post-a-day 2017

And Unexpected Story From… Somewhere

Tonight, for whatever reason (aside from the part where one thought links loosely to the next, those tiny threads of ideas drawing you quickly along the ever-unexpected path with them, until you eventually find yourself miles from the original thought, wondering how on Earth you got there), I was reminded of something I wrote a while back. As I mentioned to my friend when I sent it to her, it is rather messy, and it just kind of came out of me. One day, the words were just in my head, as though urging me to write them down, and so I did really quickly… It was almost like an ‘I have to do it now’ experience.

I have various theories as to how the story came to me, as well as to why my mind wanted me to write it down on paper (yes, the original is with paper and pen, not computer), but I find them unnecessary to include here, as none of them was present when I actually had the story pouring out of me that odd morning (odd, due to this near-overwhelming necessity to write this story, which had never quite happened to me in such a way until that day).

Anyway, it is sad – dreadfully sad to me, anyway – and it is terrible, and it is a miniature story that asked me to write it down, and somehow got back into my head tonight to get me to share it with the world (well, whatever portion of it will cross this weblog posting, at least). Enjoy… or whatever… you know…

“No,” declared Jessica, exasperated, “I’m not going to call him.”

Yet, even as she spoke, she knew deep down that she would be with him again. So she wouldn’t call him…, but she’d said nothing about texting. Or his calling her.

Soon enough, perhaps in a matter of hours, she’d be with him again. And then, in a matter of minutes, she’d be lying there alone, feeling gross, almost wanting to hurl. Or else hurl something… he wouldn’t hold her, no matter how she wished it. He never did… But, for a few moments, she would feel the pressure of him resting on her chest, and it almost would feel as though it were intentional, as though there were someone – right here and now – who wanted to be with her, who cared for her, who loved her.

Though she knew it wasn’t so.

“This is so messed up,” she would say to him… And she would mean it.

And yet she couldn’t stop herself.

He was in need, and she could help. Besides, she had been curious in the first place. Now she knew. Perhaps that was a good thing. If nothing else. And an icy feeling told her there was nothing else good about it all.

Jessica wouldn’t see how he only appeared to be in need – she was too trusting of him and his word; she had looked up to him for too long to question what he expressed to her. And so, in her time of extreme need for love, she would leave the love of her friends to go to him, and be robbed of what little she still had, knowingly sacrificing her own happiness and love to help, to serve, to please another.

Post-a-day 2017

A Memory

Shortly after I turned 18, my mom and I went to stay at my aunt’s house (perhaps for a weekend or something), which is in a small town about two hours outside of our city, and in the semi-middle-of-nowhere.

My cousin Shawn, who is not quite a year older than I am and was/is also my Confirmation sponsor, decided for us to go out for a bit, late one night. He was reminded of the fact that I had recently turned 18, and so declared that we needed to have cigars to celebrate. I shared my being not into it, but went along to the gas station, where he bought two small cigars (which smelled nice, actually).

We ended up at a park down the street, play complex and all, and I don’t remember if Shawn smoked his cigar or not, but I know that I did not smoke mine, and ended up just giving it back to him. Nonetheless, we hung out at the park for a couple hours, I recall, just walking around, talking as we played on the various playsets. I remember specifically mentioning how I loved that Jesus has fabulous grammar in the Bible (I think it was as I was walking across the shaky bridge thing, and then slid down a pole at the end). Somewhere, I had been discussing with girlfriends the idea of husbands and boyfriends and such, and we had come to the idea that Jesus just needs to be a real person right now, so he can be one of our boyfriends. And I just loved that he had perfect grammar (at least from what I recalled having read), making me wish even more that he could be my man. Haha.

So these are the kinds of things I did with my cousins growing up. Harmless, somewhat silly activities, filled with goofy yet incredibly honest and open conversation. I miss Shawn a lot, and all the ridiculous love he has to share (and shares) with the world.

He’ll be in India for a while soon. Just a fun fact. 🙂

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