Oh, no!

Friends, watch my back. I am devouring fairy tales and John William Waterhouse paintings like a starving idiot.

The last thing I want is to turn into a Renaissance Faire geek, okay? All right? You must know how I feel about vulgar Arthurian-ism.

I don't know if I should blame my ongoing Keats obsession, or the 3 Gunne Sax dresses I procured in a week's time this summer. I should have known better than to embrace Romanticism and long skirts simultaneously. Then you throw in some Early Middle Ages studies and a few fairy tales...

"I am half-sick of shadows," said the Lady of Shalott.

Once more!

I posted this Glass Candy video about a year ago.



I'm posting it again because I remembered it suddenly and have been watching it all morning. It's just made of everything I like. Bizarrely so. I'm predictable but it's okay.

What's wrong with me?

I can't stop thinking about old RVs.

God they're so cool, I've wanted one for my whole life!

When I was little it was like everyone and their uncle had a camper. Why? They all had rad 70s upholstery and wood paneling. My uncle's camper was parked in our driveway forever. The decor was all red and orange and there were orange glass grapes on the shelf. I used to sit on the upper bed and read all day.

Someday I'll have the raddest camper ever and constantly scream, "MY HOUSE HAS FUCKIN' WHEELS! HIT IT!" Zoom. On the road.

Look what people do with vintage campers these days. Restoring a camper would be so fun. I would need a carpenter boyfriend to show me the ropes or something.

God I cannot stop googling campers. I think in a year or so I'll just go buy a camper. I HAVE PUT THIS OFF FOR TOO LONG.

Teaching English in Japan

That's what I'm doing here. I was teaching at a junior high school in Yamagata, but I ended up in an elementary school in Tokyo, which I did not want. The night before my first day of work I ended up on the balcony chain-smoking, cradling a wine bottle, bawling to my friends through the open sliding door that being child-friendly would destroy my soul. But I've learned to deal with it and I get to do arts and crafts all the time. These are the things I've had the most fun making this year. I made the shopping exercise after Michael Jackson died. The students had to buy each item of clothing with their shopping vocabulary and then color it in. I love the vegetables because they look so delicious like cartoon food. And I'm not sure what I like so much about the sad poster but I think it's one of the best things I've ever drawn.

Kamakura

I made a post about my birthday in Kamakura awhile ago. I was just going through some photos of the place and thought since all I ever write about is like, Bob Dylan, toxic persimmons and coming home drunk at 6am, I thought I'd try and be a proper JAPAN BLOGGER for once. Kamakura is my favorite tourist destination in Japan. It's only an hour and a half from Tokyo and super cheap and easy to get to. If you're visiting Tokyo and want to get out of the city you should definitely go to Kamakura.

Once you get there you can ride a famous old train called the Enoden to get to all the interesting spots.

The Kamakura Daibutsu is the second-biggest Buddha statue in Japan. It used to be inside of a temple but a tsunami washed the temple away in the late 1400s and now he kicks it outside. I really love his face.

You get a little bored of temples and shrines after awhile. I like them and all but after you've seen a few you kind of like, get the idea. So I was surprised to find Kamakura's religious sites really awesome and unusual. If you wash your money at Zeniarai Benten Shrine, it'll double. Tokeiji Temple was once a refuge for abused wives. The Hase Temple (Hasedera) has an intense statue of Kannon, and a shrine to unborn children.

Each of these little jizo statues represents an unborn soul.

My favorite shrine in Japan is Bentenkutsu. It's this dark cave with statues carved into the walls of Benten, an ancient goddess of the sea and fine arts, and other minor gods of art and industry.

I lost all my atheist cred stumbling over myself to write my name on a candle and light it in front of Benten and praying my ass off but what else would you expect? I'd go there every morning and night if I could.

Deeper in the cave is this small cavern where you can buy a small statue of Benten to dedicate to a medium statue of Benten.

It cheers me up that so many other people want to be on her good side.

Kamakura is unreasonably beautiful in the springtime when the wildflowers and cherry blossoms are in bloom, but it's probably beautiful all the time. There are also beaches and an island and hiking trails and stuff. If you go to the Odakyu counter at Shinjuku Station you can get the Enoshima Kamakura Free Pass for 1,430 yen, which gets you round-trip from Shinjuku plus unlimited rides on the Enoden and Odakyu trains in the Kamakura area all day. That's a good deal. You can have the best day trip ever for like, nothin.

Look at all these super Japan-related photos and tips! To think I was actually about to make a post about Augustine of Hippo / how much I like popsicles.

FALL-MOST

It suddenly feels like fall. I realized soon it'll be dark by the time I get home and I'll ride through the lights in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro (Ikepukero!) every evening. That's nuts. I don't feel like I'm in NIPPON PARADISE or anything but once in awhile, elsewhere as well, I catch myself accidentally living out small forgotten childhood dreams. It's a pretty good thing to say about your life. That's why you should do what you want all the time.

I moved to Japan almost a year ago. I spent all last autumn like this, poring over a giant map, charting epic walks down the backroads and up the mountains in Yamagata. I was all alone up there. I couldn't make any friends so I just walked all the time. One night I went to the top of this mountain and wound up in the darkest, spookiest place ever.

At the time there were persimmons growing everywhere in Yamagata. I picked one and ate two bites. It wasn't that tasty, I guess there's a bitter kind and a sweet kind. I'd never had a persimmon before Yamagata so I didn't know. After the two bites I abandoned the persimmon and then got worried the mountain would think I was being rude. You can call me a hippie but look what it was like up there!

The persimmon was all I'd eaten that day because I was truly broke, and I walked a lot of miles. When my stomach started to hurt on the way back down I quickly concluded I'd eaten a fatally poisonous fruit by mistake. I was in the middle of nowhere.

I really thought I was going to die under a tree in rural Japan from eating a poisonous fruit I'd picked at the top of a moonlit mountain and it was going to be so melodramatic and ridiculous and I rued every poetic fantasy I'd ever had. I was so anxious and grim.

My death throes went on for about thirty minutes and then I guess must have gotten distracted by something, because I forgot all about it until the next afternoon when I was like LOL WTF. This story reveals my dramatic idiocy/idiotic dramatics, should I delete it or can I blame the mountains again? If the story of Yamagata had a ring structure the corresponding section to this would be the traumatic nightmare I had about a real-life Mister Donut before I moved to Tokyo. Let's not.

I'm having a pleasant day.

I've been waking up at 8am lately. Summer mornings are so lovely. I'm back in Japan & haven't stopped gloating over my perfect summer in Oregon, but I'll give you a break for now.

I think Julie and I have similar tastes so I always check out her recommendations. Today I read her mention of Fela Kuti and I'd never heard of him before, so I YouTubed him and fell in love. I spent my morning on the balcony listening to his music and eating corn out of a carton. Heaven.

Then I got a craving for coffee jelly, so I threw on a fabulous crochet dress I brought back from the States and strolled to one of the many old coffee shops in dear Nishiogikubo.

Coffee jelly is just what it sounds like, gelatinized coffee. It's really popular in Japan. I was skeptical at first but it's so delicious. It's served chilled and topped with ice cream or whipped cream. The best place to have coffee jelly is at an old kissaten, a Japanese coffeehouse. Traditional kissaten are decorated with a lot of heavy wood and knick-knacks. They always play old jazz and are popular with old people (and me -- I think they're super hip and will have a big revival sometime). There's no fancy espresso menu, just coffee, tea, toast, cake, and Japanese comfort-foods like omelette rice, spaghetti, and curry. Sitting alone by the window in a kissaten, eating my coffee jelly among all the adorable ancient old ladies having tea, makes me feel like a little kid with an old soul. Haha.

Portland pt. II

Just rollin' up and down night highway 99.

Found my harmonica!

I love swimming in the Siletz River.

I love the Yaquina Bay Bridge.

I love sitting on the south jetty in the evening.

No Smoking

While I was away, Oregon's total ban on indoor smoking kicked in. That means no smoking in bars. Before we went out the other night, we stocked up on candy cigarettes. 75 cents a box and no cancer or smelly clothes. Invest now!

Partying in Lincoln County has been priceless. Check out this fisherman's bar. An older skipper invited us for coffee and free fish on his boat. We were supposed to be there at 11am the next morning but I took us to the wrong dock. Shame! No sea stories and free tuna for us.