Birds of a Feather

There are those of you who actually know me well. Some of you, residing back there in my motherland, have yet to be introduced to the key players of my life in Japan. I realized this while on the phone to Gabriel, who met most of my cronies during his yearlong stint here in the land of the rising ball of fire. However, since he's left, I have yet to tell him of my newest buddies.

Then, there are the rest of you, who have yet to visit, have yet to meet the special people who keep me happy here in Japland. I figure the fairest way to determine the order of introduction is chronological. It makes the most sense. Despite meeting a myriad of awesome people in this country, there are actually just a few that I feel will be my lifelong friends. There has always been a special feeling I get from a person that lets me know that. Gabriel, Janine, Kenny, Daniella, Traci, Sahar, Angela, Kalila, Griselda...I'll never lose touch with you special people.

So, it's important that you learn about my Japan people now, because you WILL meet them eventually.

A few days before leaving San Francisco, we had a conference preparing us for what is to come. On this day, I met Michelle who lives a few cities away from me. Despite our proximity, I haven't had much of a chance to get to know her well. However, I do remember asking her if she met the third Shizuoka-ite, and she pointed to the opposite side of the room. From my standpoint, I immediately deemed him a frat boy, and turned back around to focus on the glass of wine that rested upon the bar.

Little did I know at the time, that this guy would become my closest buddy. His proximity is near, as he is my closest neighbor. It takes less than ten minutes to ride my bike to his apartment. Despite that matter of convenience, I now feel extremely grateful that we are neighbors because perhaps if that wasn't so, I would have never got the chance to know him as well as I do. By now, he has become one of my favorite people in this country to spend time with. His sense of humor is by far his best quality, as I am quite the critic in this arena, he never fails to make me laugh whenever I'm around him. It isn't very often that I meet someone who influences me so strongly in regards to people, movies, and music the way he does.
D-Force is someone that all of you MUST meet.

The next person that I met who bestowed a great impression on me was the one I nicknamed "Leonigiri". I met her in my Japanese class, and we bonded over our mutual abiltity of speaking English. However soon, over beers and izakaya food, I came to respect this lady immensely. Her defining characteristic, I'd say, would be her extreme chillness. She, like D Force, has an impeccable sense of humor...one that I haven't encountered in a girl in a long time. Though I named that as her special quality, her sweetness and sincere generosity is another of the traits that drew me to her as if she were the tip of a magnet. I only had the opportunity to know her for a short time, less than a year, however within that time, I came to know that she is someone who I will always strive to keep in contact with. She's a good, good girl.

I would say that the closest person to me at this time is Chubabe. So, ya, obviously, your girlfriend quickly becomes your best friend.
Duh, right?
But besides that apparent fact, she is the coolest woman I have ever met. Though I am quite lax about who I allow around me, I am ridiculously strict in regards to who I allow myself to fall in love with. I am constantly in awe of her impressions of everything. Her way with people, her obsessive love of art and musik, her undeniably original outlook on life, her sensitivity, her ingenuity, her need for freedom and originality, her sexuality, her way of speaking....I could go on and on. But I doubt you need me to, or really want me to. Perhaps you should just take my word for it. She shares her birthday with my brother, Ricky, my best friend in this world. Born twenty one years before him, to the day....she has become my best friend.

True Dat, bitches (An ode to hopelessness)

I was born two legs. With ability, I stood.
Practice, soon, they became hungry chopsticks.
You might catch me before the bullet hits the air,
hopeless.
I believe in pessimism.

Should you wait, sound meets the ear
yet again, hopeless.
There are many beliefs,
also, romance.

Lines are full, so unbelievably full.

Walking from a vendy at night, thinking of you.....

So goes the rice,
in their neatly drawn rows,
tucked soft away in their gently tanned clothes
charmed by the dance of a windy night blows
just as the writer of these faulty words knows
that the beaming just above the crook of your nose
holds the same facination, as knowing love goes
when she knows,
she knows!

A Lover's Secret

As we were watching a movie I chose at the video store, she turned to me and proclaimed that she gives me full permission to write whatever I'd like about her, about us, about anything. The movie was somewhat of a romantic comedy, my secret obsession. Though I choose only to discuss prevalent movies, indie flicks, award winners, widely acclaimed and acknowledged films, I can't deny my love for cheesey, girly, romantic comedies. I love Sandra Bullock films, "Fried Green Tomatoes" "Beaches" "Terms of Endearment" "Pretty Woman" and any other Julia Roberts/ Richard Gere flicks that stir up the cheese, not to mention that I prefer seeing Jack Black playing a romantic lead than a comedic sidekick....
Yeah, i'm that kind of girl. Actually.

So as we watched "Margot at the Wedding", a flick about bickering sisters who share a love-hate relationship with everyone around them, driving them all bananas, there was a scene where Nicole Kidman, a writer, is accused of exposing all of the families' secrets in one of her novels.

It was then that she so innocently turned to me and reliquished to me complete permission to write anything I want about her, or us, or anything. I couldn't help but smile at the fact that she sees me as a writer. However, further than that, I also thought about how I would never want to share my people; failures and much less triumphs, love affairs, secret anecdotes and intimate details of any of my sincerest relationships between my kindred with anyone else.

What kind of writer could I possibly be while holding onto those kinds of ideals?

However, should I ever give up those beliefs, I would have nothing less than a phenomenal story about a wonderfully beautiful woman who has opened up my world to a myriad of recounted experiences that I'd never have been able to dream. Her life, and my life without her, would be a novel never written....because some things are too privileged to share, despite all permission given.

You sunk my battleship

We'd argue twenty moves ahead. I'd bet on the peices and you'd vote for the placement. I'd say, "i have 4 of your men and you have 3 of mine". You'd recount by pointing to my awkward strategy. I gave you the evil eye for castling your heart, while you'd retort "tried tested and true". But yr traditional moves are a bore and we play no more. I have little strategy, not to say I have little sympathy. I know my men and i know yours, and i see you coming from the distance. I don't fear you all around. Because I trust my instincts and I trust my foresight and i trust my vengeance. Yr knights are nothing, yr pawns are nothing, and our queens are dead. During these moments i see you detach and recoil. I silently curse yr soft mind and fallen shield. If you fail yrself, you'll fail me. If you rely on defense, its merely waiting for yr lover's mistake, If you attack like a Queen, you die like a King.
It's never just a game, and i always told you so.

My move:H3G4

Nani ga daisuki ka?

I will admit that i feel responsible for a few of the opinions that my sister holds. I have had my moments of relating what love is, and what sex is, and what human relations are, to her. Though I don't believe that I have an entire effect on the kid, i still think that some of my ideas were definitely wrong at the time. And, even as short as a year ago, I was wrong. And it goes without saying that I think my beliefs now are a bit more on the level. I mean, I'm older and wiser, right? Ne? Well, I am progressively getting older on quite a stable timeline, and age does not equal wise, that I learned, for sure. But, I hope to be different from all the other aging bastards.
I like to believe that I am on the side of truth and happiness---two virtues that rarely converge. And in admitting so, I find a greater challenge in life.

But, something that I wish that I could tell her should I be at home, in my room, with her hanging around like an annoying younger sibling often does. If I had that, right now, I'd tell her these things about love:

Love isn't about cute or sexy, or physical attraction--

Yes, I'm still a sucker for cute, sexy and delicious attraction---I'm suffering from the affliction as we speak, but it isn't love. It is something else. It is the past, or what we've learned in the past to be beauty. It is what our eyes and hands want to love.
But deary, our eyes and our hands are not trustable things. And the eye fails eventually. And the things our eye catches also fail eventually. Oh baby, much faster than we'd ever believe. It's so sad. If only beauty, style, and demeanor were everything! If that were so, i'd place all my bets now. I'm quite the idiot!

Love is extremely impermanent. Love is just a reflection in the air. Like a rainbow after a storm. It happens quickly. The suddenness of love is shocking and beautiful, and something that isn't to be reckoned with. I wish what I was saying wasn't true, and i wish that i could say love was like the Roman Coliseum, or like fire. But it's not, because love exists in humans; things that exist impermanently.

Love can last a lifetime. Now doesn't that contradict everything I've said thus far?
Well, it does, and it is proven. Mothers love their children until they die. Mothers, that is. Or Children, if so nature intends....Love will last a lifetime should it be pure.

But sexual love, or love based on attraction, or love based on anything but familial connection.....is not forever. Because people change. And lovers cannot handle when what they fell in love with changes. It's too disappointing! How dare the escape we desire eventually become what we've always known? Sexual love, it is a bitch.

But love is something that exists. If only we could make it what we'd like it to be. If only what we loved would stay that way forever. If only we were all mothers who loved our children, and regarded everyone as our children, or our brothers and sisters.

Dueling Tangos

Two anonymous quotes lying naked on the page
one singing love while the other squirms with rage
dueling for the eye to lift her shoulders up in praise
while the one bleeds in pink and the other stains with grey

while size and shape tend to give chase, punctuation plays her cue
as the only source of movement that is shared between the two
and with the passing of day, the words rearrange
yet the overall tone remains,
the same.

"Let's dance, put on yr red dress and dance the blues."