Tag: surprise

Stand up, and lose the pants

Yesterday, I was oxen the glorious opportunity of seeing a friend of mine complete an online challenge…

***Small tangent: You see, everyone has been – and by everyone, I mean a lot of people, not actually everyone – doing various challenges in their homes, and, upon completion, challenging someone else (often multiple someone elses) to complete the same challenge.

The ones I have seen have ranged all over the pace, including but not limited to juggling a toilet paper roll like a soccer ball, doing ten push-ups and nominating ten people to do them, doing 25 push-ups, singing a praise and worship song, chugging a beer, and doing specific hand motions to a fast song without being allowed to practice… to name one more than a few. ***End of small tangent

Today, I woke up focused and ready to complete my task, to complete this challenge with which my friend had presented me yesterday… hoping, at the very least, that I could complete it, for it was not an easy one…

Now, what was this challenge, you may wonder… I divulge:

The pants-less challenge: Either take off or put on a pair of pants, without using your hands, while holding a handstand.

Wow, right?

Of course, that’s the kind of challenge you get when you have acrobatic friends who find it funny that everyone is working from home in pajamas most days right now, and who imagine that a good chunk of everyone is at home with no pants on, since there is no one to see…

So, anyway, my friend did it with her onesie, which I found somehow hilarious, and so I elected to do the same with a onesie of my own.

Hers was a panda, and the one I selected for the task was a rainbow unicorn… equally suiting to our personalities, in a way…

It took many efforts – perhaps close to ten – for me to figure out how truly to make everything work and then actually to do what I had worked out to do… I can’t hold a handstand, – just pop up onto one and then come almost immediately back down – so I knew I would have to use a wall… behind that, though, all the rest of the strategy had to come from giving it a try and seeing what happened, finding out from trial and error a bit as to what works and what doesn’t.

Eventually, after lots of practice and a short break, I went all-out and got it(!!).

Woohoo.

Super silly, and I could hardly stop laughing, this challenge was so much fun.

I had been thinking at every challenge how unchallenging it really seemed to me to be, and how not-very-entertaining each one was…, ‘These are lame challenges,’ was a common thought from me… but not on this challenge – it was not only interesting, but kind of crazy, a tad scandalous, challenging, it made me think, and it was totally fun.

I loved it.

Feel free to give it a try in your own home – though no video is required, you might enjoy reminiscing immediately with what is likely to be some comical footage… and you might want to share it, anyway, even if you utterly fail… 😛

Wishing you loads of fun and silliness right now – laughter is, indeed, an amazing medicine. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Lazy days of love

Today, I hopped out of bed only six hours after I gotten into it, and headed to my friend’s apartment (where I’m taking care of the cat and watching over the place) to meet a technician.

The technician, named Roland, was incredibly sweet, and even a bit fun for that brief half hour of having him in my life – I hope I was able to bring light to his day as he did to mine.

After that, well, I was already at my friend’s place, and the internet now worked, so I finished watching the currently available online one-hour Cirque du Soleil special, while snuggling with the cat.

I then made a brief trip to the grocer for eggs, and then returned to more time sitting on the sofa, cat pointedly on top of me, legs intertwined with my arms and hands…

I watched the film “Moonstruck” at last – she was 40 and he was 22! – and enjoyed the artistry of it, as well as the comedy and the use of Italian.

Otherwise, I spent the majority of the day and evening just sitting there with the cat, napping off and on together – I guess we were cat napping [Can you cat nap with a cat, can you do it in a hat?]… every hour or so, I’d take a bathroom break from our lazy times on the sofa, and I would stop on the way back to see if I could do a pull-up – I had done my first ever strict pull-up this morning, dead hang, arms locked out, feet off ground, no swinging, strict, chin over bar (without lifting my chin either)… a real pull-up(!!!), and the first in my life…

So, I guess I spent today either lounging and cat napping with a cat on top of me, or in practicing pull-ups…

And, somehow, I am going to bed extremely satisfied… the cat was just as bad as I am in terms of needing that physical touch love today, and it was wonderful and wonderfully fulfilling for my soul… and the pull-up was kind of amazing, too, and also very satisfying. 🙂

A good day… a very good day.

And it is truly a blessing after my struggles last night…, I am extremely grateful for the experiences I had today… I knew I would be okay, and I was today. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Stop, in the name of love

When I was around eight years old, a group of neighborhood kids and I were wandering around the streets – because that was the norm back then – and we came across a garage sale at a house across the creek.

It was not often that I was allowed to venture across the creek, so this was already an especially exciting day for me.

But then, this garage sale made it even more exciting… and something in the garage sale just set me on fire(!)…

It was… a gigantic stop sign…

A true and genuine, very large stop sign…

And I wanted it so badly..

We all looked around a bit, one person, I believe, buying something on the spot, due to his or her having a dollar in her pocket, but the rest of us had no money on us – that just wasn’t the thing to carry around then…

And so, we all calculated the amount of money we would need to gather from our respective moneys, and headed back across the creek together, dispersing to the various houses.

Now, I didn’t actually live on this street, due to a somewhat complicated scenario, so I didn’t have any money waiting in a house for me per se…, but my brothers and their dad lived there, and I was spending time at their house, as was usual for me, and they had money at home.

I raced to the house, and I went to my oldest brother as fast as I could… I asked him if I could have some money… I think it was ten or fifteen dollars (not a lot, but not nothing either for the time)… he asked me why, and I quickly explained everything to him, practically begging for the money at this point…

He said we would have to go check it out, and so grabbed about twenty dollars, and we were about to head out, when it was suddenly time for me to leave – my mother was there to pick me up.

My brother said he might still go check it out, but my mom said she and I could drive over to see it, because she likes things like garage sales, anyway, just to look at things.

When she and I arrived, everyone was already back, my brother among them this time, and some of the kids were already heading back home, new treasures in hand.

I showed my mom the other small something I had wanted, as well as the stop sign… she was not convinced on the stop sign…

I was sad, but not surprised – I had known my true chance of getting it lay in my brother’s letting me get it… kind of the whole, ‘Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission,’ idea, where my mom would have accepted a done deal, but wouldn’t make the deal herself.

And so, I believe we went home, my having a small treasure in hand, and grateful for it, but sad the opportunity that likely was never to present itself again had passed, un-seized…

Sigh……

The next time I was at my brothers’ dad’s house, upon entering my oldest brother’s room, I was struck: there against the wall, behind his speaker system, was a huge and red stop sign… very much like the one I had recently told him about…

Seriously?! I wondered and asked… he openly admitted that he knew I had wanted it, but that that was because it was cool…, and so he got it for himself…, because it really was cool.

….

So unfair, brother… so unfair.

😛

It was actually rather comical for me, as opposed to heartbreaking…, and my brother, I think, knew it would be.

For me, it was just something really cool that suddenly was available to me – it was not something that I had always wanted…, so I would be okay not having it… and I was.

Plus, as he mentioned, I still got to see it all the time, but I didn’t have to figure out how to rearrange my room to put it on the wall somewhere that looked right – for his rather bare walls, it was an easy task.

So, it was totally a cheater move…, but we both were very okay with it and found it quite funny in its irony.

I still do, decades+ later..

Haha

Ridiculous, right?

Ridiculous.

Post-a-day 2020

Two things about music

The first:

It is funny, the things that get us, that get to us… I have been mostly totally fine with all of the splatters of chaos going on in the world around me these past weeks (the past one especially), and my life has been rather normal-ish… I have been bummed for many a people who have had work closed (and, therefore, no pay) or canceled (performers who, of course, now will not be paid for unperformed shows), but that is it… I have been bummed about it.

Today, as I read the lovely e-mail from Houston Grand Opera, stating clearly and beautifully that they are cancelling their remaining shows, both paid and free to the public, of the season (four altogether, with many performances of each) and that they are still paying 50% to all workers and performers who were hired to work on the shows, and, if we would like, we could ‘click here’ to donate our ticket prices to help them do this (instead of being refunded or having it apply to next season or something), I found myself full on crying… tears overflowing, body shaking slightly, a feeling of failed, helpless distress filling me…

Perhaps it was the first thing that 100% affected me directly, and not merely indirectly…, and perhaps it was that they were doing it all so kindly, handling it so well for the performers and workers they knew would be out of income probably entirely until the public returns to a life that includes theatres and performances and people…, whatever the case, it helped me to experience all the feelings I had been avoiding inside myself about all of this… I am terrified for my friends, these people I love, who work in these industries that have closed, and I am distraught for my performer friends, the people who light up my life for me with their every moment of work – their entire job serves the higher good in my life, lifts my spirits, heals my soul… how can I tell them that everything will be okay, when it very possibly will be quite terrible for them for a while?

I cannot…, but I can love them and value them nonetheless for all that they do, for all that they are, both in the world as a whole and in my life specifically…

I don’t know how I would be in life without them and all that they do and are committed to doing…, perhaps that is why it is so hard for me to know and accept the current absolute halt of their work… they mean more to me and my life than they ever could know or understand.

And I believe they might be feeling entirely useless and stupid and helpless right now…, I want the to know that they are not – they are as amazing as ever, and will be even more so amazing when we move forward through all of this, and they stick to doing what they do so spectacularly, both for themselves and for the world around them.

::big siiiigggghhhhh…

Second thing:

I discovered today that one of my absolute favorite places to sing is in a parking garage… I have turned unconsciously to singing this past week, and unabashedly so.

Walking through the parking garage today, I couldn’t help but marvel at how spectacular my voice sounded, reverberating so majestically around the concrete and air that surrounded me… it was beautiful.

And I am not exactly a fancy or trained singer or anything – very much an average, so far as people who understand and play at least some music go.

It was just so amazing a space for singing, it made my own singing sound worthy of being on a soundtrack…

Crazy, right?

Anyway, I look forward to gathering with friends for music dates in the future, in which we feel not so unlike drug dealers, when we meet up in various parking garages at all hours, like it is totally normal. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Skin patrol

Let’s talk about clothes for just a minute.

In my life, I have often wondered with fascination at the girls and women who show skin other than arms and lower legs when in public (or even in private, but with others present!)… how could they do that?… how could they be comfortable with that, with people seeing so much of them, their bodies, their skin?… how could they even consider wearing such an outfit?…

And then, there was also, without fail, this tiny voice, afraid to speak, even in a whisper from the shadows, that cautiously murmured, ‘Could I ever do that?’

After going through a whole series of this and thats regarding negative experiences with my own body image, and with men as a whole, I was eventually certain that such clothing options were only for the harlots and hoes… at least, that’s what I would be, if I wore such things….

But then, fast-forward another few or couple years to today: I have really sorted through that stuff – intense stuff – and I am in no way in the same space as I was before… I am seemingly not even the same person l (though, who I am deep down is, of course, the same).

As I mentioned, the other day, I wore an outfit that I had dreamed of wearing in the past, but could not fathom its being truly possible that I could wear it…

(And yet, I had the dress… something within me wanted it badly enough, dreamt of it strongly enough, for me to own the dress… I just never really expected to wear it, I think… it was always just a dream…)

Yesterday, when dressing, I found myself wanting to wear this shirt I have had for years – it was in the same scenario with that lovely dress from last weekend – but have never worn… Without thinking much of it or about it, I pulled on the shorts I had planned, added the appropriate bra and the shirt, and continued on in my morning activities… and I knew that I would be seen by people throughout the day… I was fully aware…. including people I know.

It wasn’t until that night that it occurred to me what had happened… including the significance of it.

Today, I had to do the grocery store.

To dress for it, I dropped my PJs, grabbed clothes that had not yet been folded and that would be warm enough for this rainy day and the grocery store, but not hot or uncomfortable…

And this is what I went out wearing:

My lower belly – the skin all the way around – was visible to varying degrees, depending on how the sweater hung… the sweater is holy by design, and, though my skin tone blends with the brown of the sweater, it was totally showing all throughout the sweater, because I had only a light gray sports bra under it, no shirt… the leggings jeans pants things show every angle of my legs and butt… and my hair was pulled up and it of the way, allowing even more skin to show all around my neck, upper back, and the v-neck cut of the sweater on my chest…

And I didn’t… even… worry about it…

Not one bit.

Sure, I pulled my pants up a couple times after squatting or whatever, and they had been pulled down somewhat… but otherwise…, I was genuinely unconcerned about how much skin was visible on my body, how much my body was noticeable.

It all just felt so normal…

When I realized this all, I couldn’t help but smile with genuine delight.

I think I am free… of whatever this mind game was that held me so tightly and for so long… Finally…, I am myself, and I can breathe…

I don’t want to dress like this every day…., but I want to dress like this when I want to dress like this… and the free is finally released from me, and I can act comfortably and confidently in my dressing… at long last, and after so much hard work, I am free…

How lovely… 🙂 ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Every bit counts

I found myself going all sorts of places with negative thoughts the past few days, but then I realized and remembered something very important:

Even in the smallest of things, if people do not love and embrace and accept me for me, then those people are just not the people to be in my life.

Period.

And I am totally worth it.

It sucks when people don’t get that I am, and especially so when everyone except the people I want to get it get it…, but I am so worth it, I really needn’t worry… The love will come on its own, so long as I trust and allow myself to be true to who I am.

It keeps proving true, more and more so, every time I do it.

Inhale::::::: Exhale:::::::: Just Breathe, and be who I am… all will be well.

🙂

P.S. The bread thing happened again tonight… ::face palm

Post-a-day 2020

Wanna be… me

Tonight, for what I believe to have been the first time in my life, I confidently and utterly comfortably – even somewhat proudly – wore a womanly, beautiful, sexy dress that showed off my body (tastefully yet subtly)… at one point, a friend complimented me and asked if I had a hot date, I was so appropriately dressed (“I wish,” I replied, and he jokingly offered to take up the position.. which may or may not have been just a joke.).

I was honored and appreciated by his comments and by those of others, and I was so happy to be so comfortable – I felt entirely myself – it would have been overwhelming, if it hadn’t felt just so right.

Tonight, I was the woman I want to be… I said what I wanted to say, the way I wanted to say it and to the people I wanted to say it; I stood up for myself to myself and the world around me; I was at ease; I was a delight to those with whom I interacted; I was beautiful and sexy to behold…, and it was all without trying to be.

I just was myself.

I had two moments of consideration at which points I dismissed easily my thoughts of taking the ‘safe’ route, and I elected easily to remain true to myself and to do what truly works for me, the true me.

Frankly, I like this woman, and I want to be friends with her… she was so amazing… which reminds me: I am amazing, and I did a beautiful job of being entirely myself tonight, tears and love and sexy and smiles and all.

This was an empowering night for my life, and I am extremely grateful for the experience.

I look forward to being my gorgeous, attractive, beloved self tomorrow, too… and each day and night afterward, as well…

At last, I see that we can do this, Banana, and I believe it with my whole being… we really can do this. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Food…

Have you ever had a strong physical reaction to food…?

I don’t mean like food poisoning or allergy, not at all.

I mean like… an arousing… reaction…

No?

Well, tonight, riding home through the cool, misty air, I passed underneath the train tracks, and hit the first wall of Sunbeam bread being freshly baked for the early morning send-off…

I inhaled deeply, sucking in the warm, glorious smell I always delight in crossing…

And I felt an instant, almost overpowering, reaction in my body… my muscles tensed, and an intense shiver, originating … well, yeah… below my belly, rose powerfully upward, through my belly, my spine, down my arms and spreading through the hair follicles on my entire body… in a sense, it was a moment of ecstasy…. It was deep and intense and thorough, though only for a few moments.

My whole body was suddenly tightly wound, and utterly warm, for just a moment…

As the shiver released through my body, its spread all-encompassing, it flowed out my finger tips and skull, and dissipated entirely, leaving only a questioning sense of ‘What the h*** just happened?’ in my mind…

I wasn’t opposed.

But I certainly was surprised.

I mean… wow.

Bread.

Not even… the scent of bread.

Just… wow.

So, that’s been on my mind since I arrived home tonight… haha 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Date-lights and date nights

Approximately 8:30pm, I pull up on the Vespa to a stoplight, a Chevy truck in the left turn lane next to me.

We both see one another.

“Nice ride,” he says to me.

I laugh, lift my visor, and say, “Thanks,” enjoying the irony.

“What’s you’re name?”

“Huh?” He repeats, and I reply, “Hannah.”

“Alex. Nice to meet you.”

I smile, and, after a brief pause, add, “We have very different rides,” wondering how exactly my little scooter is so impressive to this truck guy.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and then adds, “Can I have your number?”

I give him a large grin, the light changing green, and I lower my visor, shaking my head while I drive away, chuckling to myself and smiling super big in my helmet.

THAT was adorable, I think.

I smile the whole way to where I am going, thinking of how funny it is, and wondering if it would be weird to tell the guy I’ve just asked out, even though it is funny and worth sharing.

By the time I walked in, this guy – not “Alex” – was pretty much the only thing on my mind, and I had entirely forgotten about the stoplight incident – I didn’t even remember to tell my mom about it.

… I still haven’t told anyone about it… I’m so weird about dating.

Unsure of how things were left after my date today, I expressed my bit of stress and frustration to a good friend of mine, and the tiny conversation made me feel a lot better, though it changed nothing:

Hannah: Uh! This is so stressful. Why do people date? I can’t take it. I can’t stop thinking about him, yet I feel like he’s just not really into me. Ugh!

Friend: Yea when you said “dating sounds fun” I was like well…. haha

Hannah: It SOUDS fun
Like how communism sounds fair
Haha

Friend: Liked the message, “Like how communism sounds fair”

So, yeah… I don’t think I offended him or anything, but I think I just wanted to spend so much more time with him one-on-one than I was given, and we didn’t clearly ‘end’ the date, because it just flowed into the next part of the day, with other people slowly showing up and around, and then I got all into my head about it for quite a while, and rather negatively so…

I got over it after a while, but it sucked for a good bit today, the craziness in my head and my extreme self-doubt.

It had me wonder if it wouldn’t be good for me to go out with people just to practice being denied and still being okay with it and with myself, like how I applied for the artist residency the other week, 90% sure it would not happen… practice in failure, so to speak, in order to help me release my fear of failure.

So, basically, maybe it could be good to ask out a bunch of super cute guys, give it my all, and be okay with the high likelihood of rejection, and then, eventually, with the actual rejection.

I don’t know… it’s perhaps just a thought, not a good or great idea…

Whatever the case, I liked being with this guy today, and I wish we could have more time together.

And as soon as possible, of course, because I struggle with this whole delayed gratification in this kind of scenario… oh, well… deal with it, Banana, right?

Right:

On that, I bid you a good night. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Are you game?

I am somewhat terrified (though not in any life-threatening way) for tomorrow and onward.

I don’t date people… I just don’t.

Men don’t ask me out, I don’t ask them out, and we don’t go out.

…

Yet, here I am, scheduled to meet a person for brunch – I also don’t go eat with people when I don’t know how they eat, physically (can’t stand smacking and all sorts of nonsense) – for, well, a date that, well, I asked him to go on with me.

Have I gone mad?

I am so particular, and also so panicky about all of this business…

We (meaning my friend) put me on the dating apps, and it stressed me out so much, I couldn’t take it.

And I didn’t even go on any dates from them(!), but I just needed to be removed from them.

And I think they scared me.

I have it in my head that things will be easy with the person meant for me, and that’s totally okay.

But I also have this desire to date people – like the concept of going on dates and being giddy and silly and flirty and having fun and learning all about someone else, and then also just having someone to go do something with me, to spend time with me.

One side of me wants to go date all over the place, but another wants to be reserved, to stay away, to wait with utter loyalty for the one meant for me…

The parable where the one guy goes and buries the money, while the other two invested their shares, and he returns just the original amount to the master, but the others return more, due to interest from their investments, and the master fusses at him for his poor judgement of what was best to do with the money… comes to mind…

If I sit quietly, safely, alone and underground, I will not improve upon myself and I will have significantly less to offer when that someone comes to retrieve me, so to speak – I would have so much less to offer my partner whenever we did get together.

So, it makes sense to invest myself, again, so to speak…

But I also am terrified of hurting the other person I date – I hate rejection, but I also hate rejecting… my usual tactic is to avoid the whole situation by figuring out ahead of any dating opportunity that the person and I are not meant for each other, and then making sure no date ever comes of it…

And I don’t want to be hurt myself… I don’t want to be rejected myself… as much as I don’t want to have to ‘let him down easy,’ as we say, I don’t want to be ‘let down’ at all… I’ve had enough of that experience in my life already, especially with guys… I don’t want any more of it.

But it is just like the job interview, as my mom and I always discuss before I have an interview… I want to get this, because I think it would be amazing, but I want to be true to myself and I want to get it because I am good for it – if I would not be good for it and would end up miserable in it, I want not to get it… if they do not want me, then it is good that they reject me, because it is not the place for me, and it is not a good place for me, either… If they accept me, it is because I am perfect for it, and things will be amazing… if they reject, it is because something better awaits me… I need not put any extra stress, emphasis, or meaning onto the interview (e.g. That I have to get this, or that it means I suck if I don’t get this, etc.)… however it turns out is perfect for me and my life, and I will be heading perfectly to where I need to be next in life.

This whole dating thing, I think can be like that for me… if we are meant to be together, we will be; if we are not, we won’t be…, either way is perfect.

We are on this date for some reason, and there is something wonderful to get out of it, including its being a wonderful opportunity to learn about and get to know another human being in the intimacy of a one-on-one experience (something of which we seem to do far too little in this life)… if nothing else, that is a good enough reason to go on this date.

I think that is actually why I wanted this date: He attracts me, and I want to see why, I want to learn about him, to satisfy the curiosity that called me so strongly to him as to want to spend one-on-one time with him.

Wanting to spend one-on-one time with someone doesn’t mean we have to kiss or have sex or anything at the end of it – it is truly just an opportunity to have uninterrupted interaction with one another… and I think that is one of the most important parts of this for me to get… I can go on a date and not have to kiss the guy at the end… and I can even talk about that with him, and even at the beginning.

It’s kind of like how I told this one friend-ish acquaintance straight up, “I’m not having sex with you,” and he understood and was not offended, and we still spent and spend time together, one-on-one, despite my clear declaration… hmm…

Wow… is it really an expectation of a kiss (etc.) that most stresses me about dating?… that I would be declared overly chaste and wuss and whatever afterward?

Hmm… I might have something there…

But what if I already do want to kiss him?… and I end up not wanting to kiss him later on, after we spend more time together?… is it okay to back away some, to remove the kissing from the table, while still being amicable, friends, even?

I guess that would be part of the conversation to be had to begin it all… establishing expectations, concerns, goals, and anything else that needed to be said before diving into the date fully…

Actually, I really like that idea… I had thought of it before, but not in such clarity and with such specific reasoning behind it… now I need to make sure this happens tomorrow, before our date begins fully…

Yes, I am game (and it seems like it will be very fun to play). 🙂

Post-a-day 2020