YOU KNOCK ME OFF OF MY FEET

I’ve been partying pretty hard for Michael Jackson every night since I heard the news, so I’m exhausted. And still sad. I loved Michael Jackson. He was mindblowing. He took pop artistery and performance to extreme, complex, unbelievable levels. No one else has gone there since then, and that’s the end of it.



Deaths of icons are bizarre and disorienting. They highlight the importance of shared culture, and the power of celebrity and performance and art. At one point Michael Jackson’s voice and body had half of the world in hysterics. What kind of a human being is that?

By the way...

...here is the best movie poster I've ever seen. I am guessing this is not what the poster looked like in America. Confirm/Deny please.


I tried to take a photo of myself making this face but I couldn't do it and my cheeks are sore from all the effort. That might be why Nicholas Cage is more famous than I am.

Can't Stop

Maybe it's all the summertime going on but Julie's post sums it up for me.

This is where I came from:

This is where I am:

I don't think the world even believes anymore in the particular kind of love that I have for Oregon. But I am up to my knees in Tokyo like quicksand.

I stay out too late

because, Sundays.

Anyway, I drew this and I think it's awesome. You feel me? I wish I could show you in person. I think I took this photo wrong somehow because the proportions look a little different.


I know a guy who's always loaning me the greatest 60s rock DVDs. A couple of weeks ago he passed me this pirated DVD of rare promotional videos the Beatles made back in the day. It was unbelievable and so that week's eggs were kind of the Beatles. I tried. Paul McCartney was the only successful one I think. Anyway they were kind of cute and certainly delicious.

Current Events

1. I saw a cockroach FLY across the supply room at school yesterday and land with a little *thwap* on the side of the copy machine. But I was really cool about it, I just stared at it for a minute and then kept cutting paper. I am the picture of cool.

2. I was not the picture of cool on Thursday when I dropped my act during a private lesson and told the guy where to go. Sorry guy, I just don't need the cash bad enough to sit there smiling patiently while some dull businessman talks to me like I'm an idiot. I guess now I know once and for all that I would never have been a good hostess.

3. I am being followed by vomit. Yesterday there was puke on the floor on the Chuo train. Then when I got off the train I almost stepped in puke on the station platform. Then I was walking up the stairs to the Saikyo platform and a girl walking up the stairs in front of me stopped, slumped over, and puked. That's three pukes within 15 minutes. I went to bed that night (novel!) and before I fell asleep, I heard someone puking on the street outside. Four pukes. Four pukes in a day.

Joan Baez

Can you imagine having that voice? Everytime you opened your mouth it'd be like gold was pouring out from your chest!

Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" (my favorite song) was inspired by Joan Baez's version:

late night #247

Photo by Kei

Got a lot of reasons to stick around.

I could have been born a cockroach, too

My aversion to cockroaches is a little severe. Last night was traumatic. The thought of another close encounter with a cockroach almost makes me cry, but I'm sure it can't be avoided if I'm going to live in Tokyo. So, I decided that it is time to get serious and make peace with cockroaches. I'm not sure Ayabean is going to be very happy about this when she gets home but I hope to help her understand that making friends with Gregor is simply the only reasonable thing to do.

Besides I really don't have a choice because if I let him go outside I'll just think about him finding his way back in. So after a brief homestay I hope we'll be on good enough terms that I can take him to a nice pile of trash away from my building and set him free on a civil note. So far I just shudder and flail my fists a little bit every time I look at the jar, but I am trying very hard to overcome my prejudices.

OK TIME OUT WE NEED TO TALK

Tokyo, I know that all lovers must, at some point, exit the honeymoon period and really come to terms with each other, flaws and all. I know. I understand that after almost two months of bliss you may have felt it was time to test my sincerity by showing me something ugly about yourself. And you know what, Tokyo, I'm up for it. Because I do love you. And I believe there's nothing you can show me that will change that.


BUT WHOA SERIOUSLY? DID IT HAVE TO CRAWL UP MY FUCKING NECK? WHILE I WAS LYING IN BED? WAS THAT REALLY NECESSARY, TOKYO? REALLY? I MEAN REALLY?

Health Tips

On Monday I woke up 95% recovered from my cold and in the afternoon my friend called and I said YES I'D LOVE TO, and had this flaming night in Kichijouji and crawled into bed at 8AM all, YEAHHH THAT'S MORE LIKE IT. Here's a photo someone snapped of me saving a life around 1AM.

Anyway I woke up later feeling like I'd swallowed a handful of screws! My voice is this annoying squeaky wheeze and now I have to sit out the rest of Golden Week eating pudding or whatever so I can be well enough to holler at children when I go back to work on Friday. So that was dumb. It was a great night though.

Tokyo never sleeps but the trains stop around midnight. The last trains are full of annoying drunks but the first trains at 5am are just partied all the way back to chill. When the sun comes up at the end of an epic night and you're so worn out and busted shuffling home you can't think about anything but passing out with your face in some fucking breakfast, it's like, man I really gave it my all. The first trains are full of winners. Or at least tryers!