Tag: men

Trustworthiness

I think it is important that we either always remain alert or always remain fully willing and able to become acutely alert at any moment in life.

Sometimes, situations are perfectly fine and safe to a point, and then w ended to be alert and wary – “Proceed with caution,” our mind must tell us.

But how often are we unwilling to become alert in a situation?

If things have been fine for so long, do we become somewhat ‘immune’ to any concern that may arise, due to the fact that nothing bad has happened so far?

Do we forget that anything can change, despite something’s having been the same for as long as we can remember?

I think this is a common situation that females can run into in relationships with males… he has been reliable and totally safe so far, so long as I have known him…, and so I miss seeing those spots where he suddenly is pushing limits, and I don’t notice things fully until something really big has happened in a way I had never hoped for things to happen… possibly something very bad… Do we give the benefit of the doubt for too long sometimes?… Do we feel guilty for turning our senses on full alert, and so force ourselves to ignore them, convince ourselves that the warning bells aren’t really there, but are just in our minds?

I think it ultimately is important for us, if not to be always on alert, always to be willing to be on full alert, and in any situation.

And I don’t mean merely females, here – I mean all people.

Do you know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Some days, round diamond

Some days, that one extremely rich acquaintance-slash-friend gets engaged, and you find out the ring was a “4.5 carat, round flawless, D color, Excellent cut (XXX)”…

And you think, Well, that sounds nice… big, for sure, but whatevs…

And then a girlfriend tells you that, not only is that “HUGE”, but the stone alone is worth over three hundred thousand dollars…

… and your eyes open really wide, and you sit there with your jaw wide open, and then you start belly laughing, while you begin to process it all…

And then you learn that the proposal was a scavenger hunt that involved multiple locations and a private plane (owned by that same friend-slash-acquaintance who was the one proposing), and you think, Well, sheee-itt…, he really is Christian Grey after all.

And it all feels quite silly instead of depressing in terms of your friend who used to date him, and you giggle uncontrollably for a bit, and end up having a wonderful time with that girlfriend who used to date the early days version of your verified Christian Grey…

So goes life, I suppose…. for some people, anyway… 😛

Which includes the part, I suppose, where this isn’t really a some days for most people… guess this one’s just for me and my life, after all, too. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Gal Pals

In a comical and slightly intoxicated – truly only slightly on the one side, and then sober on the listening side – conversation between two girls (women) this past weekend, I heard the following line, delivered slightly like a five year old’s declaration of wanting her own birthday cake at someone else’s birthday party, from the girl who has a boyfriend:

I want a boyfriend who does the sex to me every day.

She then proceeded to say, “I really do,” in an effort to convince the sober, single friend who was laughing deeply beside her.

And no, English was not a foreign language for either – they were all too clearly native English speakers.

I think that’s part of what makes the silly statement so wonderful.

I am still laughing at the whole thing today, days after the fact, it was so odd and goofy…

😛

Post-a-day 2019

Acknowledgement

The gym owner did the class with us this afternoon.

He does it every day, I think, but I haven’t paid attention as to whether he attends the same class time every day or not.

Nonetheless, he worked out with us today, right?

Right.

Okay, two things.

Firstly, he verified that he intends fully to do the Murph workout next week using strict pull-ups only, no kipping – “Murph didn’t kip…” – and so expects to have a terrible time (of it, and literally, I suppose).

Secondly, at the end of the workout today, I hear someone walking behind me say, “Who picks stupid shit like that?”, clearly referencing the intense and exhausting workout we’d just finished in the crazy heat and humidity that make their appearances this time of year in Houston.

I turn, and, as I had already suspected, I see that the gym owner, himself, the fittest person I’ve ever known or seen in person, was the one who’d spoken.

I laugh a casual, “Ha,” and agree, “Right?”

After a brief pause, during which I consider many possible scenarios, but still settle on the original one as the most likely, I add, “You do pick out the workouts, though, right?”

He looks right at me and nods morosely, breathing through his mouth, and I crack a smile as, shaking his head slowly, he says, “Still stupid shit…”

And then I got to experience the beauty that is my abdomen at this point, flexing wonderfully in giggling laughter. 😀

Gotta love when people can speak honestly about the pains of doing a quality but extremely exhausting workout, especially when they know it’s because of them that everyone is suffering, you know?

And also that the one who puts us through the misery always makes sure to put himself through it, too.

I love our gym owner – he rocks on so many levels, and today was just another one of those levels shining brilliantly through.

Post-a-day 2019

That guy

Remember how I shared about that guy from Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”?

Well, I did as planned with the whole ‘one last purging cry’ to finish off all of the stress of the situation… for the next while, it was still a bit unsettling for me, but increasingly better every day that passed.

By the time I saw him again this week, I had truly let it all go out of the way – we had (at least, I had) and awesome time talking about this and that and being wonderful, somewhat silly people together… I got to have the friendship experience I truly want to have with wonderful people, especially wonderful men.

Eventually, I want to have a certain kind of awesome relationship with a my man in particular, but I want always to have these wonderful friendships with men otherwise – I think they are good for me and for the world.

And then, as I was considering today how it had gone so well with him this week, and I thought about the song again, I turned on the radio in the car for once… and would you guess what was playing on the station that came on?(!!!)

Yup.

“Ironic” by Alanis Morissette… and it was about five seconds before the exact line I’d been considering… talk about perfect timing.

I took it as a total sign of success on my part, that I’d done good. 😛

It was great. 😀

Post-a-day 2019

“Love”

I really love when younger adult men (e.g. aged 20-40) call women “love”, “sweetheart”, “darlin'”, and the likes in an entirely and obviously non-romantic but loving way.

I mean like how the guy in the student ID photo-taking station wished me well as I left, by saying, “You, too, gorgeous,” or how this particular cashier at Trader Joe’s always calls me “love” – ‘You’re all set, love.’

The first was perhaps around 35, and the cashier possibly around 25… and neither gave off even the slightest hint of desire or sexual connotation to the use of the endearing terms… they were, simply, terms of endearment on a friendly, human-to-human level.

And I love that.

Today, after class, a coach said to me, “Great job today, sweetheart,” and waved me a goodbye… it was clear that he intended encouragement and care on a friendly level, and nothing at all on a romantic level… and it felt so good…

To be cared for by the opposite sex, without there being an alternate agenda of any kind, is really, really nice.

Certainly, when someone uses the same words in a derogatory or demeaning, looking-down-at-me sort of way, it is dreadful and, even, somewhat inappropriate.

In these contexts, however, it is clear that I am respected for who I am, and the word is used as an expression of human love and concern for one another…

(I’m not sure how else to put it right now, but I hope you can see what I mean with all of this.)

I just love that these men have started doing this again – it once was somewhat normal, here in the South, anyway, but has fallen away almost entirely in recent decades, leaving only the really old men to use the terms with women.

But these younger guys are somewhat bringing it back, and I love it.

Perhaps it can be a sort of step toward showing our love and concern for one another more openly in the world, like how I always told my Starbucks coworkers every time I left work, “Okay… love you guys… bye!”

Perhaps we are on the path to show one another and to share with one another our mutual love as human beings, who are together here on this Earth.

You know?

Post-a-day 2019

Tax dollars…?

Just a quick thought here tonight:

I was thinking just yesterday, after I purchased my feminine hygiene products at the store, how I paid the standard 8.25% sales tax for Texas on the items.

I wondered briefly at how certain items (e.g. raw food items) are tax-free, and began to ask why feminine hygiene products weren’t tax-free.

And then it occurred to me that they needn’t be tax-free, because they are, in fact something people purchase, which is the whole point of sales tax, after all.

Therefore, since women can’t exactly avoid being women, which includes menstruation, and it is not acceptable by any means to walk around dropping blood all over the place in public, and women therefore need some sort of feminine hygiene items, would it not make sense that women have an ever so slightly higher vote as to what to do with those tax dollars they are paying?

There doesn’t seem to be anything that comes to mind for me that men have as necessity, at least that doesn’t balance out with a similar version for women (e.g. shaving)…, so the whole menstruation thing seems to stand alone with these extra tax dollars paid by women.

(For that matter, I guess pregnancy falls into it, too, but it can be avoided naturally and easily, whereas menstruation can’t, so it is kind of different… however, when the government wants the population to grow, it makes sense to have financial incentives [which, I think, are kind of in place here, but nowhere near the degree of other countries with their children-having people’s financial situations].)

Therefore, women ought to have a little extra sway in voting on how that money gets used by the government.

I know that isn’t really at all how things go, and I fully admit many flaws with the idea, but, in terms of sales tax alone, isn’t it a bit funny how this actually makes a tiny bit of sense, after all, despite how silly it is? 😛

Just a fun thought I had yesterday and today – hope you enjoy it!

Post-a-day 2019

Speedboats and slow thoughts

I might have shared about this already, but I’ll share it again, because it’s on my mind…

I was thinking tonight about this boat thing.

(Well, actually, I was thinking about Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and how I’m looking at reading it with a friend, so we can talk about it, but that this time I might do well to make a list of reasons why it’s good that I didn’t live in Pride and Prejudice times.

You see, I usually get lost happily in the story, such that I am sad when I finish it and just return to real life… it only ever takes me a couple or few days to read, because I end up doing little else once I start reading it.

And so, at the end of it all, I am covered with a sort of depressive feeling of my life being inadequate and/or uninteresting and I likely to be anything wonderful compared to the world of which I’d just been dreaming in Jane Austen’s book.

Anyway, so I was thinking about making a list of reasons, right?

I’d thought, ‘Oh, the whole bathing part makes me glad I don’t live there… that’s for sure,’ because I like being clean, and clean didn’t seem to be so precise a thing in those days, and smelly was all too common…

‘But then,’ I thought, ‘I couldn’t have ridden on speed boats or gone water skiing…, though I could have ridden on big boats between countries… like the Titanic!… only not the Titanic, because that was terrible, and, besides, it was much later in time, anyway…’

And that was then I thought of tonight’s topic renewal!)

Sophie Kinsella has a book where the main character has amnesia… when she watches her wedding and honeymoon DVD to help jog her memory, she sees herself beside her husband, who happens to be driving a speedboat.

She is absolutely delighted by the fact that her husband can drive a speedboat(!), and brings it up in her mind somewhat regularly, partly as a reminder that it it worth staying with him, despite the fact that she doesn’t remember him or seem to have a connection with him, and partly just as an adorable and silly reminder of how amazing her life has become (since she can last remember it), because, goodness, a man must be amazing if he can drive a speedboat(!), and it is even more amazing to be married to such a man.

Totally silly, I know, but that in no way changes the fact that I love it every time I think of it.

The main character does such a good job of convincing the reader of her belief in the fact that her husband’s skill is spectacular, that I found myself even thinking how amazing it would be, even dating someone who knows how to drive a speedboat.

‘Wow!’ I would think, ‘What could that be like, knowing, let alone dating or marrying, such a person?’

And this thinking continued for rather some time – even a couple or few years, I dare say – before something absolutely absurd hit me.

Growing up, two of my grandparents lived in a private community of lakes a ways North of Houston.

It would take us about two hours, door to door.

My uncle kept a ski boat there.

And we grew up kneeboarding and water skiing.

The damn broke terribly when I was supposed to start to learn to ski, but I eventually had the opportunity, when the damn and lake were restored.

And so, for the last couple years my grandparents lived there, I was the only child living at home, and so the only one who went to visit with my dad whenever he went up (the other went, too, but nowhere near as often).

My dad, therefore, taught me just about everything needed in terms of caring for and using the boat.

The ski boat… a speedboat…

Meaning, of course, that I not only know my dad as someone who can drive a speedboat, but that…, well,… I know… myself… you see…

Yeah… not too sure how I missed that one… for years.

😂😂😂

Not so impossible after all, to find someone who can drive a speedboat. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Grazingly uncomfortable

A few years ago, I was talking to a male friend of mine about one of the other guys at dance, and how I couldn’t figure out if he noticed that he would end up swiping the edge of my boob whenever we danced together (partner dancing).

He informed me and the other females present that a guy always knows when he has touched boob – it is like radar… whenever boob touches any part of a guy’s body, it immediately alerts, “BOOB!”

And so then we were all wondering if the occasional faces that the guy we’d been discussing would make – an almost embarrassed, pursed-lip, laughing expression, like a little boy who’s snuck ice cream before dinner, and his favorite aunt calls him out on it, but they both know she won’t tell Mommy (and probably just will steal a bite in exchange for her nonverbal agreed-upon silence in the matter) every so often while dancing with me were because he noticed that he’d touched boob, but hadn’t meant to do so, and so now didn’t know how to respond appropriately, but did his best to ignore the event (with his face totally betraying him).

Because we really couldn’t figure out why he always made those faces when dancing with me…., but this seemed like a reasonable and likely solution to our quandary.

The specific guy was an actual well-known friend, and so we all agreed easily that he was not at all intentionally malicious in any way with the boob grazing – he was just not that great with the body management while staying on beat and all in the dancing.

I don’t remember if I ever verified this theory – aka tested it time and time again, when dancing with the guy – but I have a sense of being rather convinced of that being the case, even now, years later, so I’m thinking I did check that he always made those faces just after what seemed like an unintentional boob graze.

Now, the reason this has come up tonight, is because of something that happened tonight.

When giving me a side hug tonight, a long-armed guy’s arm went a little too far around my back – about half an inch, I guess – and his fingertips, ever so slightly, grazed the outer edge of my breast.

When it happened, I naturally pulled strategically out of the hug, from years of practice in removing myself from any sort of uncomfortable situation, intended or accidental.

I didn’t say anything, though, because I found myself wondering first, Did he notice that?, which was almost immediately cut off by the memory of what my friend had told me years before: “BOOB!”

And then I wondered, Was that intentional?

????????????????

And then I didn’t know where to go with it.

He’s a tall guy, so misalignments can happen rather easily, as they happen with extreme height differences…, but he’s a tall guy, and he has been a tall guy for some time, and ought to know how to manage such things by this point in his life… but he’s also really not a ladies’ man, and so might not be too accustomed to hugging girls in the first place…

After the fact, I feel almost embarrassed that I was too embarrassed for him to bring it up, to tell him in some way that I disapprove of the behavior, whether it was intentional or not – I didn’t have to be mean to him at all, but I think it would have been valuable to inform him either way to be cautious in the future.

Yet, it was not so natural a thing to me that I even considered saying anything at the time… I just moved away from the incident altogether, for fear of discomfort.

I didn’t want to embarrass him over something he had neither intentionally done nor known about.

I was embarrassed for myself at the prospect of pointing out that he had touched me inappropriately, period.

This is something for me to work on for myself – I want to be comfortable to speak up and conscious enough to do so, whenever anything like this might happen.

And I want all people to be encouraged to do so themselves, too – I want us to be happy and comfortable in our own skins, and to be able to express, in a useful and beneficial way, what doesn’t work from other people’s behavior toward us.

Yeah.

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