Hanako

My lost friend Hanako is back from traveling. She's been staying with us for a couple of weeks. It's been so fun. She's as messy as I am, and I love a mess (sorry, Ayabean).

But she also cooks delicious food all the time. I was slowly, happily shrinking on my distracted-bachelor diet and then Hanako fluttered in with her udon and shrimp pasta and okonomiyaki every night. "Because you don't eat well!" For god's sake, summer's coming! Let a girl starve! "And you should learn to cook!" Oh, yeah? WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS?

Jesus Christ delicious! I urge you residents of Japan to go buy a some jam, bread and a jar of real peanut butter and see how fond absence has made your heart. Has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever disappointed anyone?

One Coin Dress

OBSESSED with this dress I got at the flea market last weekend.

I'll wear this every night as soon as I don't need a coat.

Someone said it looks like a kimono and indeed I don't think I can wear it with my hair up, lest I be accused of cosplay? Not to alienate any readers but yeah, I kind of am cooler than that.

( でしょう ? )

Sunset Over Panties

You're WELCOME.

Tokyo Flea Markets

Went flea marketing on Sunday, at Meiji Park and then Yoyogi Park for the first time.

Business was too good! Hanako and I ended up with more stuff than some vendors brought to sell. I got four dresses, a winter coat, a corduroy jacket, a pink sweater, a skirt, and a necklace. I spent like 2,000 yen. The most expensive was the coat for 1,000 yen (something I actually needed for once) and the cheapest was the necklace for 10 yen.


The Meiji Park market has a great garage-sale range of stuff -- junk, antiques, housewares, clothes -- and a lot of it is super cheap, sometimes free. I basically go there to find stuff I like for a buck. I bought the most amazing maxi dress ever for 500 yen and that seemed an extravagant priceat the time. This market is like a 10 minute walk from Sendagaya Station, 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month I think, morning to 4PM.

The Yoyogi Park market is mostly clothes, and trendier vendors. It's a bit pricier on average but you can still find super cheap prices. If you're just visiting Tokyo I'd definitely recommend this one because it's right in Yoyogi Park and you can eat street food and check out the rockabilly dancers and everything. It's a 5 minute walk from Harajuku Station. Not sure if it's every Sunday or the 1st and 3rd Sunday, morning to 4PM.

I'm too used to flea markets and thrifting. I'm usually wearing like $5 worth of clothes at a time. Bum, bum, bumming. I got these shoes for 100 yen a couple weeks ago.


More Flea Market info.

America, America

Forget Japan, I am really proud of all the enthralling American headlines this month. NEWSFLASH: I LIKE GOSSIP!

3!

CONAN VS. LENO

Huge entertainment scandal. David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Jay Leno are the three big late night talk show comedians in America. Letterman is a classic offbeat jerk, and Conan is weirder, more hip and popular with college kids. Leno is squeaky clean and old people like him, but he and Letterman have been enemies since Leno screwed him over by stealing the iconic The Tonight Show out from under him 17 years ago. I love feuds! Last June, Leno passed the Tonight Show torch to Conan and made a new show of his own at an earlier time. It didn't do well. So he took Conan's spot back! Oooh! Slimeball! Celebrities and fans have rallied around Conan, and Leno's been slammed in the press, even though he won and Conan's off the air now. I LOVE FEUDS!

2!

SENATOR BEEFCAKE

This is the new Republican U.S. Senator, Scott Brown, posing for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1982. Brown's surprise victory destroyed the Democrats' super-majority in the Senate, likely the final blow for Obama's attempted health-care reform, but the point is, Scott Brown's nickname in the press is Senator Beefcake.

...VS.

PRESIDENT DREAMBOAT

Sweet America, hot mess!

1!
GOOGLE VS. CHINA
(These are the Google Guys)

OH SHIT! Google vs. China?! As huge corporations go, Google is an interesting company with an attractive philosophy. It was a big deal when they agreed to comply with Chinese censorship laws so they could do business there, because it went against their stated belief in free and open access to information and their motto (Don't Be Evil). Google claimed that it was better to provide some access to new information than none at all. Now Google's fed up with cyber-attacks on their systems targeting the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. They believe the attacks are supported by the Chinese government and they are threatening to pack up and leave. Now Obama and Clinton are demanding answers from the Chinese government regarding the attacks and criticizing the restriction of information, Chinese officials are pissed, and Google looks really cool.

Honorable Mention

HEIDI MONTAG DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING

I don't hate tabloid celebrities like Paris Hilton or Heidi Montag. I doubt they're any dumber than the average person and I don't call girls sluts or whores, so there's no shit for me to talk. But as an indicator of what many of my peers find interesting, they do depress me. I guess I have actively disliked Heidi Montag in particular for being the most obnoxiously boring one. A couple of months ago she disappeared from the press, which was weird because the bulk of her career, seriously, is posing for paparazzi while making obnoxious beauty queen/centerfold faces. It turns out she was in recovery after having 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day and now she looks like a dead person.

Look at that miserable face! She looks like she's in shock! I am so intrigued by her weird corpse eyes that I want to pay attention to her now. Celebrity therapist of celebrities Dr. Drew says, “...what I call this is female cross dressing. In other words a woman that over accentuates her femaleness – who becomes a Barbie doll – that always really concerns me. That suggests some significant trauma." Way to show some grit, Montag!

I can't read more than a few dozen kanji, so I can't read gossip about Japanese celebrities and politicians. It's so sad, I'm almost motivated to study.

Very? A little?

The sad poster is still my favorite thing I've ever drawn for school, while the Michael Jackson shows that I'm really no good at all! I can't put any motion or tension into anything, ever. But it's okay. I like to draw and being able to do it all the time and learn to develop an actual style for school materials has been the best part of working in Japan. Better than eating school lunch and dancing with children? Yes. Oooh. Someday soon. Someday soon I might tell you a thing or two about teaching English in Japan.

I had higher hopes for this. Look at that guy's weird emotionless arms. Haha. The kids like it, though. They are not very discerning critics. Who is? I plan to fall in love with a discerning critic someday.

Saturday

I like Miku looking all sci-fi but I might also like a better camera.

be right back

I really do take a lot of photos of myself in restrooms. Maybe I kind of love restrooms on nights out. Especially the first time you go in once you're in the place and you can hear the people and music outside kind of muffled, and you don't know who your friends will be talking to when you come back out and you're checking your look in the mirror. It's a great moment. Am I right? Plus after I took photos of myself in like three different restrooms I decided I might as well make a habit of it. Here's last night.

Back to Work

Cold bottled tea and a fruit & yogurt cereal bar. That's what THIS champion likes for breakfast!

Five Easy Pieces

I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.

No substitutions.

What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?

Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.

Yeah, I know what it comes with. But it's not what I want.

Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind.

Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.

I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast...an English muffin or a coffee roll.

What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?

Would you like to talk to the manager?

...You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?

I don't make the rules.

OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.

A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise. And a cup of coffee. Anything else?

Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

I want you to hold it between your knees.

Do you see that sign, sir? Yes, you'll all have to leave. I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.

You see this sign?

Out of Control!

I only recently realized that I have like, a new annoying catch phrase every couple of months. I don't mean to. It just happens. I get hooked on words and overuse them. A couple years ago I was pushing "the bomb" really hard. Then I was calling everyone "B." Then I started saying "that's nuts!" about like, fucking everything. Since I started this blog, I've been all about "rad." I have to be careful what I say as a joke, because ironic usage of things like "OMG" and "I know, right?" becomes natural real fast and it never goes away completely. Sometimes I just find or remember a term I like so much I want it to come back. Like right now I'm really into "fly" which is like, the coolest word ever, remember the Fly Girls?



Oh my god. Still so cool my heart aches.

Here are Japanese words I would like to slangify in English. But it just never sounds all that cool to hear English speakers dropping Japanese words on other English speakers. Which isn't really fair, because languages swap words all the time and it's a lovely thing, and obviously I think Japanese is rad, but you know what I mean. How did we let it get so nerdified? Anyway here are my fave Japanese words. Beware of my interpretive translations.

BIMYO
Means: "Meh."
"How was the sex?"
"Nnn... it was like, bimyo."

CHO
Means: "SUPER..."
"He says he feels so empty when I'm not around..."
"Ugh, that is CHO lame!"

YAPPARI
Means: "Ah, just as I suspected!"/"I knew it!" (kind of)
"Did you go home after I left last night?"
"Ah, no, actually me and High-Five Guy..."
"LOL, yappari!"

What are your favorite Japanese words? Do you mix your Japanese into English conversations? Do you ever do it on accident?

dance dance dance dance

I don't know these two but I snapped this picture of them dancing and I love it so much. They're too lovely. If I see them again I'll be all shy because I took a picture of them and put it on my blog and daydreamed of being their third musketeer.

THE FUTURE

Holidays in Japan blow! My Japanese friends always go back to their hometowns, leaving me to drum my fingers against my lips in peace for about two seconds before I dive for tights and mascara and head out on my own. Danger danger danger.

Good thing Amanda's in town this time. As you probably know, New Year's in Japan is for hanging with the fam. Well! New Year's in our world will always only ever mean disco makeup and party girl behavior. After a shopping trip, a few hours of Gaga and half a bottle of liquid liner, we were on the train.

Everything is closed in Japan around New Year's, especially the kind of bars I like, but my favorite place was somehow open. Unfortunately, as soon as we settled in with drinks and started grooving, this army of meatheads lumbered in and ordered a round of Jaegerbombs.

We barely had the chance to snicker any bitchy remarks before they sent drinks over. A minute later one of the guys swaggered over with a bra on his head (that's weird, someone must have left it on the ceiling last time she was here). Before long they'd worked themselves to a fever pitch and Bra-man was tearing his boxer shorts into pieces, pulling them out of his pants and shoving them down my dress.

Believe me, friends, this all lasted much longer than it was funny, and we spent the next couple of hours ducking and dodging. Amanda ended up passing out, and I ended up followed into a bathroom stall. Dude, I am not in the habit of turning down free service, but these people were really too much. I may vaguely remember drunkenly patting/shoving his face and bellowing, "NO NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, you CAN'T HAVE A GIRL LIKE ME, I'm TOO FILTHY and AWESOME!"

Thus Amanda once again wins the evening's prize for dignity. She held this elegant pose for nearly 5 hours! Brava. I shoved ice cream in her face for awhile as I fended off my drunken suitors, and that was basically my New Year's! We left Shibuya around 8AM, our hair and makeup impressively intact.

When we got up around 5PM, I pulled out of my dress a scrap of flannel, a note saying "YOU NAME IT, I'LL DELIVER," and a post-it with some girl's email address -- containing the word "bizkit." Yuck. But anyway -- It's 2010! I'm 24! I live in Tokyo. These days it's miniskirts, music, drinks and cigarettes, boys, blogs and breakdowns, poetry, pick-ups, parties, walks in parks, hotel rooms and hosts, waking up at 2 and getting dressed at 9, a few brilliant friendships, good books and a lot of long hours thinking scary thoughts. I don't think I'm wasting time.