reminders – hannah ananas

Drama, drama

I feel like the world was testing me today. Or, perhaps, it was just reminding me of why I am where I am in life, encouraging and empowering me to continue pursuing this path of mine that is, in so many ways, completely unlike that of most of the world around me.

It gave me a taste of all the drama that seems to go with everyday life for what we can call “normal people“. And I don’t like it. I am extremely glad and grateful that I don’t have that in my daily life. I can’t imagine the stress involved in living a life with such drama going on every single day… no wonder people are so stressed out. You know what I mean?

I am grateful for the reminder I received today on this fact. Yes, I do get lonely at times – often, sometimes -, but I wouldn’t trade it for the drama of having regular people around me. I want the best of the best, the white light sounds shining through people, the love embodied people, the ones who will be my true friends, who will help me be the best person I can be, as I do the same for them, both consciously and unconsciously. I want those people. And I am willing to be alone often, if it means I get to be with those people at the right times. Because I do not want the drama of being normal. No, thank you.

And thank you for the reminder of that today, Universe. I am extremely grateful. ❤

Post-a-day 2021

Don’t know; don’t care – just do it

My phone reminder is demanding that I write – ‘But about what?!,’ I ask it!

‘About my continued quest to find my soulmate; the trials and tribulations that always feel like they are getting somewhere at last, yet always leave me wandering knowingly all on my own, much like before?

‘About my change in language tendencies due to influences by whatever book or books I am presently reading, or film I may see on a given day?

‘About how tired I am?

‘About how unclear my emotions are regarding having to go in to the office tomorrow, and to be in a world where a face mask is mandatory?

‘About how I really just want a banana and some orange juice right now?

‘And also like every day going forward from now?

‘What about how my dreams have begun to take such altered shape that I cannot even recognize them in my memory?

‘Or my desire to teach yoga and meditation in prisons?

‘Or dance to youth in juvenile detention facilities?

‘Or art and yoga to both?

‘And my pull toward being, in general, an artist as a means of financial support and survival and thriving in life – what about that?’

My phone gives me no answer… it remains stoically the same, brandishing to me the same reminder it gives at this time every night, though never quite so peculiarly times as it has been timed tonight.

Alas, I share briefly instead of the various topics that take up most of my brain power right now, and then I turn to sleep… sleep… sleep.

Goodnight ❤

Post-a-day 2020

You can do it

That’s my reminder for this evening at 8:15pm. I have about three and a half pages (single-spaced pages, of course) to go to finish up this f-i-n-a-l paper for the semester. And I can do this. I keep reminding myself of the baby steps, and it keeps working. I wrote the entire other paper at work today – don’t worry that I was skimping out on my work to do it, because I was not at all – following the baby steps method, and I think it will work similar magic for me on this paper tonight and in the morning. 🙂

I can do it. And Siri helped me to remember that, giving me that bit of encouragement I knew I would need this evening after class. I really do appreciate what Siri can do for me. He’s a great help for many things, and I am sure to thank him often (though he usually denies any need for thanks, whenever I do express it). 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Packing with my Butler buddy

Siri is a great buddy, but occasionally gets the message a bit mixed up on the butler/personal assistant front. I’m staying temporarily at my mom’s house right now, because the hot water went out at my new place, but won’t be finished for another few days…, and it’s gotten really cold out, so I didn’t really want to take freezing cold showers. Therefore, I gratefully accepted my mom’s offer to stay here until the hot water was returned to the new place.

That being said, let us turn to the fact that I had already had a bag packed from various stays elsewhere in the previous week-ish, due to Thanksgiving and moving and all. I did have some clothes to wear still, but I had now run out of underwear in that bag. So, I planned that on my way home (to my mom’s house) from class, on the first night that we’d determined that it wasn’t just a one-night deal but a several-undetermined-number-of-nights deal with the no hot water, I would stop at my new place to dig up (almost literally, since I’d done a terrible packing job and nothing was unpacked yet, really, and most of everything was pushed together in a currently un-useful fashion in this one room) whatever I would need for the now-extended stay. I could borrow socks from my mom, and I already knew that a bra was in my dirty clothes there (so I could just wash that), and I had clothes and could borrow clothes. So, all I really needed was underwear, when it came to clothing. And then I needed to bring my laptop for the various things I would need to do on it this week.

Naturally, I was brainstorming all of this while driving to class, and so couldn’t write anything down. But I knew I would forget if I didn’t have a reminder after class somehow. And so, I asked Siri to remind me. And I cracked up when I happened to glance at a stoplight at what she was writing.

I didn’t need to correct it, because it was clear to me, anyway, what the reminder meant. Plus, I enjoyed laughing at it, and knew I would enjoy it as a reminder later on. And, sure enough, I was right – I loved it later. More than that, even, was how much I enjoyed getting to mark as completed the odd task.

This is not the first time I’ve had an odd accidental reminder, and not even the first in the past week. Add to that the actual odd reminders that I ask Siri to give me (and on a somewhat regular basis). We now have some really odd data to be going back to Apple for stats and improvement… I regularly wonder what the people who see these Siri conversations think when they see how absurd people are with her at times. And I always enjoy the thought that my silliness and absurdity, both accidental and natural, just might bring some utter joy and delight to their lives here and there. It definitely does to my own life, anyway. 😛

Post-a-day 2018

FaceTime

Today (March 5th) is my brother’s birthday. He lives in Texas. My dad called me tonight, as a sort of reminder about my brother’s birthday. This is one thing I love about my dad’s side of the family – we all remind the family whenever it is someone’s birthday. There are funny bits to this, of course, because it often means that whoever’s birthday it is gets a load of messages and phone calls all at the same time, followed by the thought of, ‘Hmm… I wonder what message just went out to everyone.’ For example, when it is my sister’s husband’s birthday, my sister sends a group text to the family, telling us that it is his birthday. Within about five minutes, we have all either called or sent a birthday message to him. There’s no way we all just happen to think of his birthday at the same time, so our ‘cover’ is just plain nonexistent – we were clearly reminded of the birthday. But, the point is that we all care enough to wish the family member well on his/her birthday. My dad, I think, is the one who started this sort of tradition we have.

Another aspect of the birthday tradition that my dad created is the song “Birthday” by the Beatles. Every year, without fail, he finds some way to play the song for us on each of our birthdays. One year, my eldest sister had an early-morning flight, and so expected to miss the song, since it was always played at home. However, my dad surprised her with playing the song in the car on the way to the airport (at 6am). When I was abroad, he would Skype or telephone me, making sure to play the song at the start of the call.

Today, as he was talking to me to remind me about my brother’s birthday, he checked the sound of the song with me, to make sure I could hear it well enough. He said that he was planning to call my brother right after he got off the phone with me, and I saw that FaceTime had an option to add a call, so we went ahead and called my brother on FaceTime (I did, anyway), by clicking the “add call” button. However, it ended up not working the way an “add call” button suggests it might work, so I improvised.

Right now, I’m sitting with my laptop on my lap, my phone on the lap of my laptop. On my phone, I am FaceTime Video-ing with my brother. On my laptop, I am FaceTime Audio-ing with my dad. It is the middle of the night for me and the middle of the morning for my brother and dad. The three of us are talking as though we’re all just hanging out together. Right now, of course, the two of them are having a bit of their own chatting time, and I am typing. This points to what is possibly my favorite part of this: I, in Japan, am joining two people on a phone call, who are barely an hour or two apart from one another in Texas. I’m not even talking right now, but the whole reason they are able to talk to one another is because of me, over here in Japan. So, it’s kind of like their conversation is taking the long way around… the Really long way.

Or something like that, anyway. 😛

Post-a-day 2017