Aloha!!



My "you-survived-Christmas" reward

In less the 24 hours I will be Hawaii-bound! This will be my first trip ever to Hawaii, and I have been anticipating this Maui vacation all year long. The first thing I’m going to do is hunt down a celebratory Mai Tai for getting through the hectic holiday season.


Even though I have never been there, I have had a life-long, love/hate relationship with the islands. With a name like Hana (which means many things in many different languages), and my ambiguous racial appearance, most people who meet me for the first time assume I’m from the town Hana in Maui, or that my parents named for me for the Hawaiian meaning of “work.”

I get really offended by this assumption for many reasons:

A) I’ve never been to Hawaii, so I’m not a freaking islander. It’s the equivalent to assuming every white person you see is from Sweden. “Oh my god! Have you been to Ikea?!”

B) My name means flower (and nose, but don’t tell) in Japanese and not something as heinous as WORK.

C) I am black, Japanese, and white. My dad does have some roots in Hilo, Hawaii, but they are so far back that I’m only 1/16th Hawaiian. Which leads us to:

D) My tan skin is from my African American side. But people don’t believe me when I tell them I’m black so they need to associate my tan skin with something they can cope with.

When I was younger, and unscathed by idiocracy, I did include “part Hawaiian” in my answer to “What is your ethnicity?” (But usually this question comes in the form of “what are you?” to which my response is “Human. What are you?”) My sister and I even joined a hula group and learned how to do the traditional Hawaiian dance. It was a lot of fun (and MUCH harder than you’d think).

But after a year or two, we quit hula, and I started getting sick of people assuming I was from a town I had never even been to. It reminded me of the scene in Juno when Ellen Paige meets the dad who plans to adopt her baby. He says, “Oh Juno. Like Alaska?” Ellen simply says, “No.” She doesn’t explain and lets him sit there awkwardly. She simply points out he is wrong. That is my life story in a nutshell.

If people aren’t assuming I’m Hawaiian, they’re assuming I am trying to be cutesy with the name Hannah. First of all, I can’t even comprehend how many times I’ve heard, “Ya spelled yer name wrong HANNAH” and subsequently having to tell people my name rhymes with Donna. Secondly, don’t be rude and just ask me how to pronounce my name. If you don’t know, ask. It is much safer for you to admit your ignorance than to botch my name and pay the consequences (in which case you will refer to me as Muhana Ali).

I have come to a point where I will let it slide if someone calls me Hannah if I’m never going to see that person again. You can call me Nancy if you can handle that better during our one-time rendezvous. But I have joined the facebook fan club, “Everybody f**** up my name” to cope with my anger.

So as of tomorrow, we’ve come full-circle. I will inhabit the island that contains the famed town of Hana, and I have not come to the conclusion if I even want to visit it. It would be all dandy to take a picture in front of this town I’ve been hearing about for most of my life, but not visiting it feels like giving the proverbial (and satisfactory) middle finger to everyone who has ever assumed wrong about me. We’ll see what happens when we get there.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I’ll break yours if you call me Hannah.

Ode to the Company Christmas Party

Hanson gets me in trouble AGAIN!! I swear this is not turning into the Hanson blog.

 
I have been involved in some pretty epic company Christmas parties; some of which have involved blacking out and ending up across town at a Denny's somehow, bringing drunk co-workers back to my parents house and explaining in a slur that my co-workers would be dead if my parents kicked them out, and my favorite - getting the company banned from ever returning to the hosting facility.

These experiences happened during a time when I wasn't making attempts at establishing a career. 

Now that times have changed, I am in a smaller, more conservative department. So it was without surprise that this year's shin dig was not made up of rowdy behavior as in years past. BUT I started going there and decided to open up my mouth in an epic way.

First of all, you know I'm drunk when:
A) I am constantly smiling.
B) My incessant laughter starts turning heads.
C) I don't stop talking.
D) I am talking about things I shouldn't, sans filter.

All of the above occurred last night.

It all started when the Backstreet Boys came on. I was being transported back to middle school dances (you know the ones- its your first time slow dancing with a boy and you both dance with your arms out, elbows locked. If you're really good, your legs are straight with your knees locked too. You teeter totter back and forth. When the songs over, you run back to your girlfriends giggling and start rumors that your dance partner is now your official boyfriend and then you get your heart crushed when you find out his friends dared him to dance with you - oh that didn't happen to you? Never mind).


I of course announced that the BSB were bringing back middle school memories, and other co-workers confirmed experiencing similar time warps. Somehow, this paved the way for me to start blabbing about my former Hanson obsession.

My boss's boss, amused, asked, "Did you have posters on your bedroom wall?"

I of course said, "By posters, you mean SHRINE?! OH MY GOD YES! I HAD A WALL SIZED POSTER AND A BUNCH OF POSTERS FROM TIGER BEAT ALL AROUND IT!" (I was talking as loudly as I am typing).

To which everyone started making fun of me. Once again, flashbacks of school mates teasing me about Hanson started to occur. I kept trying to emphasize that it was a former obsession but my enthusiasm about it was indicating otherwise.

Somehow my boss's boss changed the subject and somehow started talking about playing spin the bottle as a kid, to which I said yelled, "Oooh! YOU'RE A P-I-M-P! WOO!!" My small department of eight stopped talking. The bar fell silent. Everyone looked at me and suddenly burst out guffawing, as I had officially blown my "playin' it cool" cover.

"Yeah...I'm going to stop drinking now." I wasn't so tipsy that I didn't realize the path on which I was headed. Yikes! Who on earth in the corporate world, tells their boss's boss - not just their boss- that they are a P-I-M-P? And yes I spelled it out like Jay-Z.

This morning I came into work feeling completely fine, but everyone was like, "How ya feeling? HARDY HAR HAR!"

And my boss's boss came up to me and said, "So! Ya still sauced from last night or what?!"

Hardy har har.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but stick to O'douls if you want to avoid your boss's boss singing Mmmbop or Jay-Z to you from down the hall. 

AHHH!!!

I wish I had time to be home alone.

The holidays never used to be an insanely busy time of year for me until now. I never used to understand why people turned into such scrooges, or when I worked in retail, how people’s fuses were so short, they were willing to backhand an employee if they looked at them wrong. But I think I’m starting to understand why.

This year, I feel myself struggling with my inner scrooge. I’m ready to be the one to backhand somebody. Now don’t get me wrong-I love the holidays (please see my previous post “Getting’ in the Holiday Spirit”), but I’ve been so insanely busy that it’s cutting into my sleep, and even my Hanson Christmas album isn’t making holly and gingerbread cookies shoot out my ass like usual (sorry for that mental image).

This is also the first time in our five-year relationship that my boyfriend and I are spending the holidays together (we were too stubborn to deviate from our own holiday traditions in years past). We’re lucky that our families are close enough that we can see them both during the holidays (after some lengthy discussions about compromising), but it does add another sense of chaos to an already busy season. I’m so happy and excited to spend the holidays with them all, but we will end up touring all of Washington’s highways about four times next week (okay so instead of compromising, maybe we found a way to jam both of our families in). I’m trying to focus on one day at a time, but it isn’t keeping my eye from twitching.

As far as the rest of the month has gone, I went to my best friend’s bachelorette party last weekend (which involved a much needed absinthe cocktail – blog post to come sometime after my eye stops twitching) and it’s been a non-stop tornado of tasks and appointments ever since. There is something going on every single day until Christmas and it’s been like that for about two weeks now.

This weekend, I somehow need to find time to bake a million cookies, somewhere in between my haircut, sushi happy hour, Seahawks game and ugly sweater party. Don’t get me wrong- my “tasks” are fun ones, but the more overloaded I get, the more they seem like another thing to do. I forced myself to say no to a co-worker who invited me to a ginger-bread making, martini party at her house next week, although under normal circumstances, I certainly wouldn’t have turned that down.

I still haven’t even wrapped my presents. And I’m supposed to find time to pack for Hawaii (I absolutely DESPISE packing, and would be willing to pay someone to do it for me. Any takers?) I know, boohoo. I’m bitching about going on vacation. I’m going to freakin’ need that vacation, okay?

Not to mention, work has been hectic and full of deadlines and pre-vacation preparations. Just about every article I’ve written this week has come back full of red lines which has not done much alleviate my stress level.

And in the background, there are all sorts of stuff going on with my mom that I can’t help but worry about. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my after-Christmas Hawaii trip is keeping me afloat!

An unfortunate equation

KFC for dinner last night + not so bright person taking our order + boyfriend getting an attitude with them = diarrhea for the both of us today. Thanks Honey!

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but KFC will never be going into my system again.

Gettin' in the Holiday Sprit

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas was going to be doomed this year. I’m the type that breaks out the holiday tunes the second the dessert dishes are washed and put away on Thanksgiving Day. However, when I went to look for my Christmas music this year, it was nowhere to be found.

I started to panic. I tore up our guest room, thinking it may be in an unpacked box leftover from our move almost a year ago. Nope. Not there. I scoured CD albums, coming across such gems as MoKenStef and SWV. Nope. Not there either. It looked like I was going to have to rely on Pandora’s schizophrenic suggestions for the holidays. Sigh.

For days I listened to Pandora and suffered through suggestions like Andrea Bocelli’s rendition of “Do You See What I See?” (or was that song Do You Hear What I Hear?) and Michael Bublé’s attempts at being a daddy-o. I was really trying to get in the holiday spirit and even tried to dress my dog up like Santa (to which he almost bit my arm off), but it just didn’t feel the same.

Then yesterday, my $10 fake Christmas tree that I ordered off of Amazon came in the mail. I got all excited until I opened it, and discovered that I got such a great deal because it has about 4 branches and sheds as though it were a living tree. The vacuum is still a necessary accessory to our holiday foliage. It was also a whole foot shorter than it said it was on the site. Nonetheless, I trudged down to our garage and pulled out my ornament box, when I saw another box that was underneath it. I could not remember what had been packed in it, so I opened it up to find MY CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!

I ran back upstairs and played ALL of it for a good 5 hours straight, repeating favorites and dancing around the living room. I sang to my puppy that all I wanted for Christmas was him, and forced him (and my neighbors) to listen to me attempt Mariah’s vocal stylings. But the gem amongst my Christmas tunes is Hanson’s Christmas album, “Snowed In.” Even though it’s apparent the brothers were going through puberty at the time of this recording, I still can’t help but mmmbop around to their voice-cracking rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” I know I’m closer to 30 than I am to 13, but this album brings back good holiday memories for me, and it never feels like Christmas without it. I can’t fail to mention my love of N*SYNC’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” song either.

Don’t worry. I do have some taste in Christmas music. I already mentioned Mariah Carey, and I have a spot in my heart for all of the old classics sang by Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. I finally got the Christmas spirit back!

My boyfriend did tell me to stop singing yesterday. I told him to get used to it if he’s planning on sticking around.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but it ain’t the holidays without Hanson.