- sleight of hand and twist of fate -

.........was I ever that young?

Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm a baby - twenty-two stumblingfumbling towards something resembling maturity (perhaps; only on half the days that end with 'y," maturity's overrated in the first place) - I'll never quite belittle what I've seen or lived but there are millions who have seen or lived more...

It's strange to find bits of your own character and quirks in other people (people are people and yet --)

...but sometimes my students just make me feel old.

Stealing sips of the cooking sake with shiftynervous smiles in the middle of the cooking class? Kids. ♥ And yet not. Not at all - I remember tenth grade and wasn't a kid then - socially active and politically aware and a bit of a firebrand, all told. Ha. In any case, I'd have punched or sent a purse flying at anyone who'd intimate that I was a kid, then. And yet, and yet.

Regardless, the days like today in which the ichinens plied me with nikujaga (think Japanese-style stew), excellent miso soup, and madeleines are certainly on my list of Favorite Days, Ever. They got a kick out of how I had been living off of nikujaga in my first month here (with a recipe I'd gleaned from one of my textbooks!), but had never had a madeleine before (they're a delicious pastry/cupcake; golden and utterly delicious. From the name, guessably French; I have one in my fridge that will be breakfast tomorrow...... mmm.)

Off to curl up with House of Leaves and some old-school U2 - I'd forgotten how awesome "The Joshua Tree" was as an album. Wow. Definitely on my "stranded-on-a-desert-island" shortlist. ^_~

- casting dreams on a fishing rod -

...whoa.

Um, blame any madness whispering through the previous post on lack of sleep and reading Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves before bed? It's an interesting book - crazy and pretentious in places but ultimately addictive and a tangled mess of a narrative(s) that twists beautifully. I'm enjoying how half the story is in footnotes (actually, I think the real story's in the footnotes) and the jeu de langue employed throughout - not-so-random words colour-coded, plays on myth and legend, the absolute uncertainty because the two narrators you're given are certainly unreliable - still, there's a reason I don't read anything suspense-y. Sigh for overactive imaginations.

So. Life in Japan.

Life in Japan and its everpresent state of electing some level of bureaucracy is interesting ... colourful language fails to describe the campaigning process in the rurbanity I call home. Imagine if you will an ice-cream truck or van sized vehicle, sometimes with a small car or group of cars following it as it plods along at 40 km/hr (obeying the speed limit is key). People wave in a genki manner out of the windows if it's warm or behind them if it's cold as vintage loudspeakers on the roof of the van blare out anything from the candidate's name again and again or what probably wouldn't be a catchy slogan even if I understood all of it or odd music choices like the Battle Hymn of the Republic. (No, seriously. I was running for my train at the time and it stopped me cold. Beat the time that some of my punky kids proudly played a recording of revving motorcycle engines to the tune of the Wedding March for me instead of doing their worksheet in class. Yes, that Wedding March; oh, I managed a watery smile at the time but even the memory makes me laugh.)

Best of all is that any time after 7 AM seems to be fair game to start blaring their messages to the world. Eyesores that they are, give me lawn signs in a heartbeat over waking me up half an hour before necessary! Fortunately, election time is over in my corner of the world, but early morning trains and commutes have showed that that isn't the case elsewhere. Poor schmucks. (See, Japan? Another solid reason to insulate your houses and apartments - soundproofing.)

Completely unrelated, but holy man, sauteed shiitake mushrooms? Love. Mom, that Hokkaido butter that you thought was cheese was absolutely worth the exorbitant amount you paid for it, even though it's lived in my freezer for the last handful of months. I wish I felt the compulsion to cook more often (no local cuisine expert am I, sadly) because it almost always turns out well (as long as I don't have to bake - microwave cookies I'll leave to others' expertise!) Too often, this whole cooking-for-one thing is way too much work, which means a lot of living off of insta-food. I'd love to have people to cook for/with, as domestic and silly as that sounds, but everyone is so busy that it seems an unlikely possibility.

And as allusions to this holiday in Canada recently cropped up in e-mails from home but I can't remember just when it was (how quickly we forget...) -- Happy Family Day, whether you're family or soul-family or simply wandering through.

Cheers. ♥

- can't you see all that stuff's a sideshow? -

courted by the seasons

...Even for me, that's an illogical, fragmented line to have popped out of nowhere on a Sunday afternoon. There's a story there, somewhere (there's always a story; you just have to remember to look.) It's better, perhaps, than

if you could unravel me -
skin and bones and memory

that haunted me for four months - four months! - before realizing that perhaps unraveling isn't the smartest direction.

Five AM on the Yamanote, sandwiched between a stranger's pinstripe and a friend's purse - sandwiched on a train before it was even really morning; welcome to the big city, little girl - getting funny looks for pulling out pen and paper half-conscious and spilling puddles of black ink and really just watching as they formed words. Not caring.

Airing out those words.

And breathing with every witnessed nod or smile as I spoke.

the trick, as it's said, is really to just keep breathing.... ultimately, while we all look for someone to know our deepest secrets, our friends ravel us in - keep us together (and in the process, themselves)

It's (too) easy to categorize. Easy to spot patterns and say why hello there archetype. But then there are blonds who should be redheads and writings of brilliance lacking any traditional chilliness and the archetypes suddenly aren't so failproof and what did you spend four years studying, after all? Art imitates life and vice versa but they are never the same; it's a smoky mirror at best.

You are yourself. I won't make the archetype mistake again, or mistake your sweetness for anything more. We're both saying "listen; hear me" though our mouths mold the words of a saccharine pop song.

It comes of being born in spring and befriended by summer; entranced by autumn and cradled by winter.

Or it would, if it were that simple; as it is, it's a place to start. Perhaps it comes down to rolling stones and soul-families and stamp envy.

Don't worry.


This is not for you.

...Smoke and mirrors, remember?



(Still, take care, and stay warm - spring's on its way, but not quite here.)

- blackbird claw, raven wing, under the red sunlight -

Home, to a hundred-dollar electricity bill(!) and plants that clearly missed me, feet still swaying slightly - I hadn't noticed the sway after the last ferry, but there it is; the rougher ocean this time around taking its toll.

Home from Hokkaido.

Home from the facing of various fears - of onsen, of reading writing to others, of tequila shots (thanks; you know who you are.) And yes, I happen to have illogical fears. So goes life?

Home from an awesome holiday (it's weird that this journal was supposed to chronicle my daily life in Japan and it's really been more trip reports than anything else for the last few months) that was about ten times more chill than I'd thought it might be, but more fun for it, I think. Hokkaido was filled with great times, better people, and amazing food (crab! ramen! panda buns! gluttonous amounts of lamb and beer at the Genghis Khan enkai! candied almonds that burned our fingers as we pulled them out of the crinkling crimson cone and bustled through fifty-foot-high movie advertisements snow sculptures!) Also a lot of running for the train/subway. Did I mention how cool it was to finally see some snow? Seriously, that may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip; it's my inner Canadian showing, I think. Winter just isn't winter without it!

And it's really awesome to hear about interest in my writing, both in regards to this blog and the scribbles and short stories I've worked on in the past. (Despite the public nature of blogging, and the particularly high access to this - it's on my Facebook for heaven's sake - I still consider myself a relatively private writer, so this change is both wonderful and strange.)

In any case - here's to girl-talk and gossip and grapes from the bartender; here's to dancing under brilliant lights and drifts of snow that got into our shoes as we traversed the city; here's to thoughts shared and tumbles on the ski hill and taking over the ship lounge or kids' room as the mood swung us.

Cheers. ♥



...now to start lesson planning. (Home, also, to real life. ^^)

- must be dreaming (or we're on to something) -

It's a snow day and a Sunday - as soon as I convince myself that it's warm enough in my apartment to change out of the warmest (and scrubbiest) clothes I brought with me to this corner of the world, I'm going to go wander around my hometown with a camera and an umbrella.

Yes, an umbrella.

And because there's snow, it finally feels like winter, even though the days have been getting longer (yay!) and relatively warmer. I woke up warm this morning and that has to be one of the best feelings in the world, as simple as it is.

The following is one of my favorite winter-songs; oh, my singer-songwriter roots are definitely showing.


~ the atheist christmas carol ~ vienna teng.
(piano-driven and sweet; a Christmas carol without religious overtones, but in no way bitter. Hence, winter-song. Just as 'harbour' will forever be a song on my road-trip CD mixes, this one gets played around Christmas.)