February 2012
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On Shopping.
This skin cream looks interesting, I think, and buy it although I can’t really decipher the Japanese on the label. It comes in a solidly squat white ceramic jar with a yellow plastic lid.
Taking it home, I google-translate the product description to find out the main ingredient is “horse oil”.
What on earth have I done?
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“One must in general take into consideration the false impression that every...”
– Max Brod, from the postscript to the Diaries of Franz Kafka.
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Setsubun.
The coldest day this year so far, yet according to the Japanese calendar, it is the beginning of spring.
It is also my sister’s birthday. I wish her well and have sent a present but to what end, no one knows. My grandmother was born later in the month, but now she is gone and there is no one to call on her birthday either.
February makes me sad.
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Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.
A reader kindly pointed out this site a couple of weeks ago. I signed up and was recently granted an account. I suppose it is just an experiment for now, but if anyone is interested, here I am.
January 2012
17 posts
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Weather.
The weather took a strange turn today, getting considerably warmer but with gusts of wind up to 30 mph. I saw, to my dismay, that all the plants had fallen over on the balcony again. The light was funny and the face of the sky was covered by a gigantic bank of clouds. It seemed like something sinister might occur at any moment. This week is not winning any awards for me; I would much prefer to...
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“We are all failures—at least, all the best of us are.”
– J.M. Barrie 1860-1937, Aims for Oblivion.
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Winter.
While having only lived in this city a calendar year (minus a month in Okinawa post-earthquake), this is the fourth winter I have experienced here…2009, I visited Tokyo the first time in February; in 2010 I spent a wintry fortnight watching Columbo on TV and ploughing through a battered copy of Crime and Punishment (to later learn that the rumpled TV detective was based off a character in...
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Scissors.
Friday, peeping out the office window, I spied flakes floating gently down but they melted into rain by the time they reached the earth.
Instead of the series of dry cloudless bleak winter days, it is now a misty wet world. The top of the nearest skyscraper is shrouded in fog.
It occurs to me I have lived in Tokyo exactly one year.
Today I let a friend cut my hair. As she chatted away I...
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A Pillow Book.
I used to keep better track of my dreams, though perhaps not as elegantly as Mlle Ghoul does. The following is four year’s worth of jottings for my own record, if anyone cares to read those sorts of things.
(14 Jan 2011) I was going on a business trip with a boss from two jobs ago. The house we were supposed to stay in had a bathroom with a large picture window that faced into an...
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Barely Concealed.
I did not intend my brief absence to cause any consternation, but it appears that some did notice—my apologies. I am alive and well and finally over the colds that have plagued me for the last month or so, but I am also feeling a bit scratchy and grey and rough around the edges, so typical of January and winter, as much as I enjoy the season. A bit of bleakness is good for the soul.
I...
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Disquiet.
Today, walking home from the grocery store with crusty bread, yogurt and fancy honey, we saw a new glass-fronted building that had what looked like a tall-ceilinged lecture room with a dry-erase board covered in large kanji, with perhaps two dozen Japanese people gazing at the presentation intently. K. happened to see the board through the windows, frowned, and announced that what was written...
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December 2011
25 posts
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Quake.
Today, during a walk at Meiji Jingu, I felt oddly dizzy for a second, as if I might faint. It passed. I wondered briefly if it was a minor earthquake—when one is outside, it is hard to tell these things.
Later, sitting at home at the table, I had just opened a book and was munching on some popcorn. The cat was trying to nab a piece, when he suddenly jumped down from the table and slunk...
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Memorandum.
For the upcoming year:
Knit a shawl.
Knit a stocking for CTR.
Read all of Proust.
Finish The Brothers Karamazov.
Draw/paint something twice a month.
Study Japanese.
Study another language.
Visit Finland, Taiwan, again.
See more of Japan. (Osaka? Kyoto? Sapporo?)
Work on film photography once a week.
Frolic in every snowstorm, flake or flurry that presents itself.
Drink more tea.
...
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The Most Wonderful Time.
All of my colleagues at work are fleeing town for the holidays, so I have been enlisted to care for not one, not two, but THREE other cats. The not-small amount of glee this fills me with makes me wonder if I should have even bothered going to graduate school at all, and instead just have become a professional pet-sitter.
December is wonderful, but only at the expense of a bleak...
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She's In Parties.
She: It’s cranberry almond bread—I made it this morning. (Everyone helps themselves to slices).
Guest 1: (To She) And why DO you have so many books about poisoning?
She: Oh, it’s always been an interest of mine.
Guest 2: (mid-mouthful of bread) So, what would be the fastest acting poison?
She: Errr—I suppose cyanide is quite fast.
Guest 1: (fork poised over...
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Top Five, Part Two.
Top Five Writers
In that I like how they lay words down on paper…
Anita Konkka
Shirley Jackson
Robert Aickman
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Fernando Pessoa
Top Five Japanese Novels
All read in translation.
The Makioka Sisters (Junichiro Tanizaki)
The Pillow Book (Sei Shonagon)
Shipwrecks (Akira Yoshimura)
Black Rain (Masuji Ibuse)
The Sound of Waves (Yukio Mishima)
Top Five Favorite...
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Top Fives.
Top Five Favorite Japanese Places:
Shiga Kogen area of Nagano Prefecture.
Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture.
Motobu peninsula, Okinawa, Japan.
Meiji Jingu, Tokyo.
Yanaka Cemetery, Tokyo.
Top Five Favorite Japanese Foods:
Okinawan-style tempura.
Mozuku (a slimy brown vinegared seaweed).
Miso soup.
These funny fried and salted mushrooms you can get in this tiny restaurant in Ome.
Pickled daikon...
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Top Fives.
I’m in the mood for pointless lists. Top 5 of anything, ask away.
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Tuesday.
It rained all the way home from work. Inside the shops, the workers were busy with their end-of-the-day tasks, from the old lady who sits in a pool of light in the back of her fruit stand to the bakery, which looks warm and inviting and wholesome inside. I wonder if being a baker is more fun than being a bureaucrat because they all seem to be laughing and then I remember I once worked in a...
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