Dear manicure,

I don't think I will ever be able to do my nails this well.  Sometimes I catch myself just looking at my nails.  What a life.


love,
hannah

Dear Birthday Week,

In my house we have a thing called birthday week.  We even go so far as to have "birthday month" although only my mother and brother get to fully take advantage of that while my dad and I share a birthday month.  Birthday week merely extends the celebration of your birthday and allows you to do whatever you want for even longer.  My mother is a big proponent of birthday week and though I have claimed its privileges I wouldn't say that I have embraced birthday week.  I think it's one of those things where your response has less to do with the thing itself, and more about how you were raised with it; it's not that I don't like birthday month, it's that was a big deal for other people and consequentially it wasn't a big deal for me. 

Not so this year.  For whatever reason, I decided that my twenty-first birthday was going to be an all-out celebration.  Maybe it's because Harold Camping said that the world actually was going to end, but year twenty one was going to end in style.  I went all out for birthday week: I blew off homework, cancelled rehearsal and spent the week at Playlabs 2011 at the Playwright's Center (more on that later) planned a big party and then an official excursion the next day.  The world hasn't yet, and I may have just had the best birthday ever.  And then the weekend ended with my friends gathered around, watching You've Got Mail and trying to work.  (Some of us were successful and some of us were absolutely not.  I was both.) 

Perhaps the best part is that the celebration isn't really over because I'm headed home next week to celebrate with family and friends.  Oh, and I'm going to see a play next week. 

I may actually like birthday month. 


love,
hannah

Dear last five minutes of being 20,

Look at you go! This has been a pretty amazing year, as documented through this blog. 

I'm more excited for this birthday than I have been for any other.  And it's strange though because American culture does place some significance on this birthday, it lies only in one's sudden ability to drink legally.  I'm not so much interested in the drinking that comes with this birthday, so I can't say why I'm so excited.  I just am.  I've gone all out this week, doing Birthday Week in a way that honors the birthday legacy of my family.  And I have two days of celebration planned.  Two days!

I suppose this is the last birthday I'll actually be excited for.  Only a few more years before I start counting backward.  I'm more curious about what lies ahead, so I won't be leading the countdown.


love,
hannah

Dear butt,

You are a pain.  I am in pain.  Bruising my tailbone was dumb. 

Mostly it means I can't for more than a half an hour at a time... wish that meant I didn't have to go to class.   But it doesn't work like that.

Sunday night means homework.  Being in school makes Sunday nights permanently painful.  It's weird to think that Sunday nights might not always be this way.  Granted, I'm sure that Sunday nights will become painful in a different kind of way; I just like to think that Sundays will feel less crammed in the future. 

Sunday nights are all the more painful when I don't want to sit to do all of my work.  


love,
hannah

Dear coccyx,

I'm sorry I hurt you.  I'm sorry that when I got on my bike this morning I wasn't totally ready.  I'm sorry it rained.  I'm sorry I had a little spill, right in the front yard.

I'm sorry I hurt you.

But damn, you're one to hold a grudge.  Granted, this only happened this morning, but I get the distinct feeling that this pain is going to stick around for a long time.  (A long time says the internet.  Some internet poster even says it is a pain I might feel for the rest of my life.  But, then I might know when it's going to rain.)

It's hard to cough, choke, laugh or adjust my seating.  That's mean.  And I'm icing you once an hour.  That's cold.  All this for my bruised tailbone. 

Srsly.  This is going to take a while.  It also means that I can't lie down unless I really really mean it.  It's unclear yet whether or not this is good for my work ethic.

And in all of this I feel just little bit dumb that I don't know how to ride my bike.  


love,
hannah

Dear left contact,

I lost you down by the Mississippi on Friday.  My eye was so irritated that I thought I had lost the contact in my eye, and that it would appear in a few days time.  It has been a few days time, but I still haven't felt you come out.  Maybe you fell out into the river.  I was casting my sins out into a flowing body of water, but I didn't mean to cast you out, left contact o' mine.  You were brand new too... What a shame.

Other cool body-related thing: I was playing with my split ends throughout the day today, and I found an especially cool one.  My split end looked just like the Hebrew letter "sin."  It was actually amazing.  Also, we were discussing Jewish burial and funeral practices at the time.  It felt right.  (I didn't interrupt the conversation to share this with anyone.)  

I've been thinking a lot about pedagogy recently.  A lot.  Sometimes, that can be a strange thing to share with people. 


love,
hannah

Dear zombie pub crawl,

I've been hearing about you for years.  Of course, I've never been able to go.  I thought, just maybe you would fall after my 21st birthday this year and I would be able to go, but sadly, that didn't happen.  Bummer.  Well, I just have to stick around the Twin Cities so that I can go next year. 

I think the best part of (not going to) the zombie pub crawl is seeing everyone the next day.  I imagine everyone stumbles home, full of liquor and brains, and falls asleep immediately.  The thing that no one does is take off their fake blood, so everyone walks around campus today covered in black marks of death and red bloodstains.  It makes it look like all of campus got into a crazy brawl last night.

Also, it's the 9th of October, and I'm sitting outside regretting that I'm not wearing sunscreen.  What is this world. 


love,
hannah

Dear internetz,

You basically exploded this week, didn't you? This week began with the announcement that Arrested Development would return not only as a movie, but with nine to ten new episodes.  I enjoy Arrested Development but the level of excitement that the internet produced was overwhelming.  I thought Facebook was broken because there was nothing on my feed that wasn't about Arrested Development.  I don't know whether to be pleased or disappointment that I could (almost) uniformly describe my friends as Arrested Development freaks.  Congrats freaks.  (I love you all.)

And then, on Wednesday we lost Steve Jobs.  Same as every time I hear about a celebrity passing, I didn't believe it at first.  I always think people are lying.  Though he was a great innovator and thanks to him I have a computer, a phone and an iPod, I did not feel his loss so intimately as others.  Again, my news feed was flooded with thoughts on his passing.  I was so tempted to post "This post is not about Steve Jobs" but decided against it.

Well internetz, this has been a busy week for you and I think you might just wanna take a rest next week.  Let's hope nothing big happens. 

It's Saturday and there's no new Doctor Who.  I know this feeling will pass soon, it just hasn't yet. 


love,
hannah

Dear giggle fits,

You keep me young.  You only come after midnight. 

You might scare the people around me. 

Oh well.


love,
hannah

Dear prison jokes,

Recently a professor told our class that when you spend a long time in prison, eventually, you've told all the jokes you know. At some point each joke just gets a number, so that you can one day just say "Joke number 37" and everyone will laugh as they recall joke number 37. 

Sometimes, I think my friends and I should just number our jokes.  This isn't a bad thing, I'm just fascinated at how we can still get a reaction even though we've told these stories at least twenty times now. 

Also, as far as I know, my professor has never been in prison. 


love,
hannah