Hannah's Random Thoughts #10: It is rainy and I like it

Last spring break we went to the Grand Canyon but the day before we got there we spent the night in Las Vegas. I remember waking up, looking outside and the first thing I saw was how blue the sky was. I said, "Wow! It's so sunny! Look outside!" and for about 30 seconds I was awestruck at how amazingly blue and clear the sky was.

Then I realized I was not actually in the Pacific Northwest, and in Las Vegas it is sunny a lot of the time.

Ham Fact: Las Vegas has sunny days 80% of the year.

That made me kind of sad, because for me, I would see such a gorgeous day and be really excited and happy but then I realized that people here would wake up and just see a typical sky and probably not even think twice about how awesome it was and just continue their day. So I was sort of sad that nobody else in the city would be as excited about the sky as us Bellinghamsters.

But, today it is rainy and overcast. Welcome to the end of November I suppose. (Although really, this fall has been not the typical crazy windy one we usually get). But I LOVE it when it's this weather. By the end of the summer all I want is lots of rainy overcast weather. I suppose I live in the right place. I just love it because it just feels so cozy and lazy but it could also be wild and adventurous too. It's the best.

I know a lot of people get all sad with all this rainy weather but I like it. I also had a dream last night and I ran outside because it was snowing and the snow was so heavy that if I opened my mouth to catch the flakes by the time I closed it it felt like there was a snowball in my mouth. It was quite nice.
But anyway, hope you like the weather today.

oh and a Ham Fact is just a nice little fact that you can ponder for the day or laugh at or use in an argument someday because they're always true and then you'll win.

Ham Fact: Celeste came up with the name "Ham Fact".

have a great rainy day.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #9: Imagination

This morning I was doing my normal routine, ya know, making weird faces in the mirror and all, and I pretended to fall down on the floor towards the mirror (hey, you do it too) so that my head and my reflection were really close and I thought how weird it would be if something in my reflection was... different....
I think if it was something really subtle it would be the weirdest. Like if an eyebrow was 1/2 and inch higher than it should be and you weren't raising it. That would be weird.

I also was thinking how cool it could be if you could walk into mirrors too. :) I imagine it like the time-turners in Harry Potter... don't let yourself see your self or you'll freak out!

Sometimes when I'm in a car ride and listening to awesome music that makes my heart beat faster I imagine that I'm on a horse galloping away from the bad guys or something.

Sometimes when I am in a very busy, person-filled area (say, the farmers market) and I have a task to complete (say, to get some cheese), I feel like I'm a spy on a mission or in National Treasure...
(Do you know what the preservation room is for? Delicious jams and jellies?)

Or the good ol' run away from the mailbox as fast as you can because the cars passing by are shooting arrows at you and if you don't get to the driveway before the car passes, oh no! That's a good one.

In 3rd grade I remember pretending I was in a movie. I was looking at a poster of a seal and I think I was imagining that the scene of me looking contemplatively at this seal would end and then the music would be dramatic and it would show me 20 years later as a marine biologist or something working with a seal. (Not that I wanted to be a marine biologist, but... I mean... it was a seal.)

Well that's all the thoughts for tonight. I can imagine a lot more I just don't really feel like writing it all out right now.

*giggles nervously, backs away slowly towards door. Lighting dims and antagonist narrows eyes toward Hannah, her head slipping slowly away from view behind the door. Close up shot on antagonists fist, clenched. Door knob turns and door is shut with a soft thud. New scene, Hannah on other side of door exhausted and relieved to be out of the dim room with the scary eyes.*

Now you can imagine whatever events follow. Use your imagination.And don't forget to make weird faces in the mirror.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #8: Memory

I was thinking today as I was eating some Nerds (the candy, guys, not the people), and it was grape flavored. For some reason, that taste brought to my head a picture of me and Sarah really little in the Atlanta Hello Kitty store. So I think we must have gotten some grape flavored candy there, because it just tasted like that memory.

Sparkling apple cider tastes like Christmas Eve. Orange Creamsickles remind me of family reunions. All-dressed chips taste like Canada. I can always remember the taste of those good, Mickey Mouse-shaped lollipops from Disneyland.

A rubbery chemically smell reminds me of some goo Sarah and I had when we were little that came in a pineapple-shaped container. Sometimes when I smell oak trees it reminds me of Atlanta. The crisp foggy air smells like snow and Christmas. A nice musty, lived-in smell reminds me of our old car, "The Explorer". Sweaty hats remind me of Mount Baker.

And on more random notes, I also associate for some weird reason the color yellow with happiness (which is not too abstract) and the letter "e". I have no idea why. But people who's name starts with "e" I just picture wearing a yellow dress or their name in yellow, or something. I don't really know why. Also, it's weird when you see one thing and then you can suddenly remember all of your dream that had that one little thing in it, even if the dream was one that you couldn't remember before. Oh! And then when people hum or sing like, 3 notes, and then you can suddenly think of a whole song (even if it wasn't the song that the other person was humming).

I kind of like it when you can relive all of a tiny memory with a split-second interaction with something random.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #7: Why I Laugh

I really love laughing.

I believe there are 3 general categories of how I laugh (other than a typical haha):

-While running
-With happy tears
-When trying to hold it in

Picture a group of runners, about eight, say, all looking very serious, 3 or 4 abreast running down a trail. Then, a few paces behind is a girl looking back with an embarrassed and annoyed expression. She is looking back at another girl who has several meters of separation between herself and the group. This particular girl is doubled over in laughter, her "heehees" trailing behind her, as her head lolls about her shoulders with an expression of pure insanity across her face. (That girl is me, if you can't tell. And the one looking back would be Sarah.)

One of the best (and worst) times you can laugh is on a run. Sometimes I'll be running and I just have this huge urge to laugh. It's so much fun and so terrible at the same time, because somehow it makes it funnier when you are just laughing your head off behind all the other runners, and then it's kind of awkward after a while. And it also feels like you've done about 100 sit-ups.

My running-laugh is really odd, too, which makes it even more awkward. It is usually really repetitive and weak-sounding, since I'm all out of breath from having to run and laugh at the same time. ("Ha ha ha heeheehee..... Ha ha ha ha heeheehee!.... HA HA ha heeheehee!!!...") I can't ever really tell if the other runners are weirded out when it happens... I sound sort of crazed. (Interjection from Sarah: They ARE weirded out.)

I also love getting to the point when you cry because you laugh so hard. It's a nice when you wipe away tears as you gasp to catch your breath. Proof of your investment in an emotion.

Then there's the good ol' hold-in-every-breath-because-this-is-a-situation-where-you-shouldn't-laugh-anymore type of laugh. This usually happens if I pick up on something sort of late, or else we all laughed about it for a while and I still think it's funny, or it's something subtle that most people didn't notice but you and your one friend are trying to supress the giggles. Sarah and I call this, "Internal Chaos".

But overall, I think laughing is just dandy. Here's some funny stories that make me laugh: (most of these have to do with Sarah)

The Picture
Being a twin has it's odd moments. One of these moments occurred when I was trying to take a picture of Sarah on an iPad. I started to get the camera ready and she grinned, ready for her close up. I opened up the camera app, and, to my annoyance, she had stopped smiling. I just wanted to get the silly picture taken, so I took my eyes off the screen to tell her to smile.... but she was. I glanced back at the screen. Again, Sarah wasn't smiling. As I opened my mouth to say "Can you smile?!?" I realized I had been looking at myself through the front-facing camera but I had just thought it was Sarah. We laughed about it for a long time.

The Bubble-in-the-Throat
So, it just happens that we were going to watch Monsters, Inc. with our cousins. Sarah was feeling like, I don't know... conversation should be started while the previews were still going. She was going to ask if our cousins liked Mike or Sully better, but she only got as far as "Um, so, do you guys," when all three of us (me and our two cousins) looked at her with our eyes wide with a mixture of humor and confusion. Sarah had a ginormous, massive bubble in her throat that made her "Um, so, do you guys," quite funny. To this day I have continue to tease her about it.

The Arm
(Why are all these stories about Sarah!?!) When Sarah and I were little, we were sitting at a table in our playroom with our arms in the middle of the table alternating (Like Sarah left arm, Hannah left arm, Sarah right arm, Hannah right arm). Sarah got mad at me or was feeling silly or something, and she wanted to draw a smiley face on my arm. But she got confused with the amount of arms on the table, (four was a big number back then!), and she drew a blue smiley face on her arm. I escaped unmarked.

The First Drive
The first time I drove by myself, I just did a short drive to a neighborhood up the street. I guess I was feeling all nervous and only focusing on the road, because as I continued down the street to come home, I thought, "Wow... seems like I should have passed our driveway by now..." and I looked out the window as I saw our driveway flash by. But I was going 35mph, folks, and I had no time to stop and turn! After a brief application of the brakes and a heavy bout of laughter all alone in the car, I managed to turn around and make it back home. But I just kept laughing at myself and thinking "You missed the driveway! You missed the driveway!"

Hannah's Random Thoughts #6: Running Lightly

I generally consider myself a fairly quiet runner. I find it almost disruptive when someone's footsteps hit the trails with the same thunk thunk. With quiet feet, the pattern is varied and  changes from inaudible pat-pat-pats to the soft crunch of leaves under my shoe. And I think it's cool when you can be in the forest undetected if you so choose...like a hobbit! :)

I remember reading Hunger Games -I think it was the first one- and I can still remember Katniss' annoyance at Peeta's clumsiness in the woods. After that when Sarah and I went up in our woods or ran somewhere trail-y I tried to Katni-fy my steps. It was kind of fun.

Running lightly makes you feel like a spy or a hobbit or... like you know all parts of the trail with your eyes closed.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #5: Textbooks

As I was reading my chapter for AP US history, I was thinking.... What if the school gave out DVDs of textbooks, and a nice voice read out all of the text (maybe in a British accent!! I find reading in Professor Snape's voice helps me memorize) as the screen showed accompanying images or maybe the text also on screen. 

Then it wouldn't take as long to read and then copy down, you can copy down as you listen! And then at the end of each chapter it ran over the highlights again. It *would* be more difficult to study at school due to less access to a tv, etc, but along with the normal textbook it might be helpful.

 I don't know. Just some genius I thought of as I was doing my homework.

Hannah's Random Thoughts #4: Facebook

I was just thinking what if Facebook had a little meter and it timed how long you were on Facebook? I wonder how quickly you would start to rack up days/months/years(?) (hopefully not!!) and then how people would feel about seeing "So-and-so has spent 6 months on Facebook" on their home feed. I think it would make people go on less. Or at least I would probably go on Facebook less.

 And what if we were "sentenced" by Facebook to spend all that much time AGAIN on facebook consecutively... like in a room with only facebook to be on for, say, 6 months. No sleeping. No real interactions with people in real life. No eating. (Ok, you can eat.) 

I'm not saying I'm quitting my facebook or anything, (Don't worry folks, I'll still be there to entertain you!! ) I just think that people would lose interest in Facebook pretty and really see how addictingly-boring it is.