Onward through the fog

The great irony of RENT is that One Song Glory is an infinitely better song than Your Eyes.

Doctors in Berlin cured a dude's HIV.

Stem-cell transplant. Shyeah.

More here.

Today was my day off.

I spent upwards of three hours in a lawn chair set inside the open shack by the lily pond, watching soft rain drop into the water. I practiced harmonica and smeared pastels on paper, and read about a hundred-some-odd pages of Victory of Serpents.

Which is quite good, by the way. Naomi Novik has done that thing she does once again, and also auuugh, wild Australia, how are you so full of poisonous and terrifying beasts.

Serenity, yeah. That.

Also, LJ is unblocked. Or at the least, blockage is intermittent. Good enough for me.

ps. West Side Story, the revival, was quite excellent. I'd never seen it before. The choreography was lovely and the leads poured their hearts and souls into it - everybody did, really.

But.

I'm really uncertain regarding the translation of much of the Puerto Rican dialogue into Spanish. As an interpreter it's seems to me that a language barrier has been inserted, extraneously, and to great detriment. As a (I like to think) socially aware citizen of New York, I'm pretty sure my dissatisfaction's a feature of my priivlege.

Mmh. It's difficult to sort out.

The snow stuck later on today.

My resume is out and about.

I feel collected, somehow, and centered. Nearly two weeks later I've finally arrived. My first picture is up on the wall.

I'm writing regularly and aim to start translating independently tomorrow too.

MoMA this weekend.

Snowman tomorrow.

I've just peeled three slices off of my frozen kilo of special-order German bacon. It's thawing very slowly in the saucepan on low heat. Oh god it already smells so good.

+ In goes: half an onion. One of the brand-new fresh-grown local ones I got at Produce Tuesday at the supermarket. Possibly too much? Possibly not. OH HEY ALMOST FORGOT the garlic.

+holy god smells good. I need to lay off of RPing before it goes stale and I burn out. By which I mean, just pull back a little. Not quit.

+Collard greens. I think they're collard greens? Nice big kimchi-shaped green leafy things. Real name [kanji I didn't bother to decipher]. Lovely for that iron, yanno. Pushing Daisies is a great show, but it makes me crave cheese and human contact. One of these things I acquired in the same splurge that netted me that bacon. The other is less easy to come by, which is ridiculous.

+I wonder if one reason I can RP Tim so well is I'm touch-deprived. Also, I wonder if this would be better or just ridiculously hedonistic if I added butter. Or some of that gouda.

+SHROOMS. Of course there are 'shrooms.

+The new fire alarm is much more obliging than the old one, which went off if I boiled water for pasta. Also, I'm weak & self-indulgent: +gouda.

+OH HEY, I have rice ready in the cooker! Fried rice, GO.

+Hmmm, gouda isn't really a melty-spready cheese, is it? More of an ooze-slightly and warm-nicely cheese that can actually be burnt against the frypan. Oh well! Live and learn, I say. Live and learn and serve awesome fried rice with appropriate mixed drinks.

+いただきます！


+I stand corrected, the gouda melted most obligingly once I mixed it all up. All over the bacon. The big fat slices of slow-cooked German bacon why yes I am making embarassing involuntary noises. With my mouth.

Spending the middle part of my day in Shibuya was the RIGHT choice. Navigating by way of little more than my experience in a video game set herein... also turned out awesome! I went into the 109 building solely on basis of it being an important TWEWY landmark, and god damn, people. That building is an experience in itself. It's an inside-out living organism, kind of a writhing flowing pulsating being of chatty shoppers and cheery store clerks and coats and hats and fashion gnomes and pretty boots and faux fur and a million other things. Storefronts sprout so thickly you start to wonder that they don't strangle each other. Brands call for attention, look at me, look at me! and end-of-year sales dial everything up to a code-yellow urgent.

SHIBUYA IS COOL, okay, there are lots of people everywhere . Yes I am a city girl. Scramble Crossing is the kind of area I am absolutely comfortable passing through. And alright, Shibuya in particular would be overstimulating on a daily or weekly basis, yes, because it's like Times Square, times six, only made for real people. Right now, though, I am soaking up the sheer density in stores and people and ads and streets and ideas and chatter and glorious, plush, well-dressed humanity in ways I didn't know were really in me.

Hell yes, Tokyo! I don't know if I want to live in you again, but you are a hella nice city to pass through!

According to the principal at Favorite Backwoods Elementary, Japan's current prime minister would not pass the JLPT Level 1.

This makes me feel a little better.

Only not, because Aso has not been supposedly studying for weeks or months. D|



ps I LOVE THIS SCHOOL. Everybody likes everybody and they all like to learn and fun things are allowed to be FUN and there's no peer scorn and the 5-6s are operating on a 7th-grade level and appear to be liking it. And the first-years are five 5-year-old boys in one classroom who GET ALONG. o_O b

The 3-4s draw pictures and fold origami and leave them in my mailbox. I think the building is kind of imbued with good vibes.

pps They danced with me when I sang Jingle Bell Rock at recess. We played Cops n' Robbers, and after I captured the entire school with only the devious aid of a 5-year-old I wasn't allowed to be a cop anymore. |Db They loved it.

... And now they're singing along with the music played during Let's Clean The School time. ♥

I adore this school and everyone in it.

We were deputized in the local police force for a day in order to be allowed to dress up in police uniform and march in the Traffic Safety Parade. I had my American flag along.

Then there was yoga this evening. My shoulder feels better'n it has in years.

Now there's a karaoke bar the next little ways over where we can go sing Beatles with an older Japanese crowd.

|D

My first day teaching alone went very well, I think. At the least the kids were enjoying themselves, and I was able to respond to class mood and class pace and change tacks accordingly. Praised by the principal (who was watching, and has evinced great interest in my lessons thus far) for getting a normally quiet 3rd-grader class up and running.

And hey, if enough people keep talking about how pretty I am - when half the time they don't expect me to understand it, even - I might but start believing it.

Oh and. Caught my skirt in my bike this morning, hauling it down & showing my underwear to three road workers and a shopkeeper - none of whom, I might add, were looking in my direction by the time I got myself unwound and straightened out. To their credit. Only discovered I'd actually given it a maybe two-foot rip... as I was headed to class. Yay fluttery skirts? The rip is totally invisible unless I point it out. But boo fluttery skirts in the bike gears, yes I am walking home today. Things I do not allow to ruin my day, part six.

... and after school I picked up lunch at the conbini and walked down to the pebble beach and ate onigiri by the Pacific all of 5min from my office.

My life is pretty okay.

Okay you guys

So I just had the best day, ever, period. So freaking awesome. I met up with eponymous_x &co at the Guggenheim and saw the Cai Guo-Qiang exhibit in all its glory- no webpage can explain or truly exhibit this and I exhort you all, if you are anywhere near NYC, to GO SEE THIS SHOW before it is gone. This man lit'rally makes explosions and explosives his medium for artwork. There are other beautiful and stunningly thought-provoking things he does, taxidermy and construction and clay sculpture. Go see, go see.

And then we went to Union Square for THE PILLOW FIGHT. A clutch of strangers with pillows thwapping each other, feathers EVERYWHERE, feathers drifting up into the air and blowing along with the wind and making a SIGNAL for where the fight was. It was beautiful.

And what should we see there on the edge of it? What should be parading along the side, chanting slogans and waving signs? Why, a campaign rally, of course – for what better way to reach The Youth than to campaign at an internets-organized pillow fight? And for whom, pray tell, are these fresh-faced activists-in-training cheering?

Why, Harvey Dent for District Attorney, of course!!

We got stickers and bumper stickers. Gotham City News was covering it, and the pillow fight behind it, as a strange escalation in the tense race for DA. Vicki Vale, on the scene, seriously for real you guys. I thought my face was gonna crack I was grinning so hard.

We took a time-out for food and Forbidden Planet, 'cuz why go to Union Square and not buy comics, amirite. They have a life-size Dalek in there now. I got some Teen Titans because I hadn't had enough Bart Allen in my life lately. And, you know, can never have enough Drake. Picked up some free Harvey for DA campaign buttons at the counter.

And then it was back to the pillow fight. We waded in and got to sit in the big pile in the middle. Feathers EVERYWHERE, cannot emphasize this enough - a guy on the subway afterward asked if we'd been attacked by birds. Whumpf bumpf shoompf! There goes another pillow, a cloud released into the blizzard. Every time one gets thrown out of the ring, some helpful soul throws it right back in and beans a combatant on the way. One pillow said OBAMA BOMB. One said 'デクスタ' on one side and '暗' on the other and had small bloodstains, very mysterious. One crowd favorite was bright red silk with Chinese characters all over it. THE FEATHERS. Trails of foam mixed in.

Ahhhhhh. A glorious, glorious day all around. And tomorrow is Easter. =DDD

Everything's worked out just as it should.