Smelly Green Muck! The update.
I had cow shit on me today. I just had to keep telling myself, it’s green mud—it’s green mud—it’s green mud. And it smells. Sorry, I get ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning:
Dad makes deliveries to the dairies here. There are a TON of them. Like, ever mile or two there’s another one and they go on for miles and miles. There are probably more dairies around here than there are residents in Twin Falls. So I decided I was going to work with Dad on the dairies, because I’ve never had a rural-based job before and wanted the experience.
Anyway, today was my first day in the Twin area and I went with my dad to measure a new dairy for a pallet and tank installment—that way he can make formaldehyde deliveries to them for the dairy cow footbaths. Long story short, the measurements looked like the installment would be really easy, so we ended up doing the dirty work right away.
The problem with this is that I was not dressed to be knee deep in mooing feces. I’m not so sure Anne Klein would like to know that her 150 dollar ash denim jeans were smeared in grass compost that had been broken down in four stomachs before appearing as the latest liquid pant stainer… so-to-speak.
Yep, I’m sad to say that my AK jeans are pretty shitty now. It’s not like I don’t take care of my clothes. But life in Idaho just isn’t very understanding of fashion. Speaking of fashion, I was a little out of place on the dairy. I mean, I was wearing Anne Klein jeans, pokka-dotted rubber boots (designer gardening boots), Viggos shades on a real crystal chain, and had gold eye-liner on. The Mexican dairy workers were looking at me like I came from the Green Acres farm… Darling I love you, but give me Park Avenue.
At least I didn’t wear my pearls. Anyway, tomorrow I get to go on real deliveries (including the latest addition to the route.) Exciting.
So yes, that was day one in Twin Falls, ID.
Oh, and on a side note. The property my dad put a down payment on… the one he intended to build a shop and house on… he just bailed on the deal, because he found a better property. One that already has a house and a shop and room to raise a few cattle and pigs on. So instead of building a new place and moving the summer after next, we’ll be moving to the new country home in a month! I just finished moving to the city of Twin Falls, and already I have to repack and move out to the country with my family.
Gawd willing, I’ll be able to move back to Tokyo soon. I’m not a country girl. I may look like it when covered in shit, but I’d much rather be in the metropolis that is Japan.
Anyway, I better get to bed now. I gotta early wake up tomorrow, and need my beauty sleep.
Oh! And I am buying Iron Man tomorrow. That’s not really news, but I’m excited. Ciao.
Ennui life and style version 09.16
It started about sixish. Actually, I can’t really remember. All I can remember is the spicy tofu. And the nigh empty theatre. I was promised our evening would last until 11 pm, if not midnight. I was told so, anyhow. But alas. Spicy tofu, three men dead, cosmetic surgery, and one flight to Venezuela. Then 10:21pm, and I’m already home. Alone. Tomorrow is his birthday, too. But I can’t be with him then. Nor can I ever as of the 20th. Unless he decides Thanksgiving is a go. Go. Please go. But I don’t count on him. So. I’m home at 10:23pm. He’s gone to sleep. I don’t blame him. So. Much.
My hair is crispy and it makes me wonder why I try at all. I need to shower but I don’t want to cry. Does that ever happen to you? The shower makes it seem okay to cry because no one can tell the difference between the tap and the tears? As if anyone would be showering with you to make the distinction. But no, you are crying alone, so there is no possibility for deceptions. But you fool yourself, none the less. Every time you convince yourself it’s just how life is and it’s no one’s fault. Shower water is wet like tears, it doesn’t mean you are crying. But I don’t want to shower after coming home. 10:30pm is not 11:00 or midnight. It’s not companionable. It doesn’t feel any warmer.
My hair is coated in toxins. Dusty. Style from an aerosol can. It’s hard without looking it. Like a lion. Or a glass of gin on the living room table. Straight up. I could drink it now. I thought it was water. I fell for my own set up. 10:33pm and already tricking myself into a stupor. My hair is hard. My head is hard. My heart is still beating. Always a good sign. I don’t expect it should have any difficulty. It’s a good heart. It has no enemies. Or takers.
…just many people close to it. But not enough to smother. I smother. I sigh for comfort. Or no reason. He sighs when he’s too tired to find reason enough. There’s always reason enough to stay until 11pm. Or midnight. And definitely 10:23pm. So he settled there. And now it’s 10:38pm, complete with crunchy hair, empty house, early evening, and leftover tofu stew. There’s just one thing to do now. Publish my ennui tonight, scheduled for appearance tomorrow, unglorified, uncanny, and unhappy. Unfair does not describe this night. Brittle does.
For Peer Review… amended.
I sent out my submission via email to the summer writer’s group, so this post has been removed.
The original plan was to have the group access the blog post with a password, but I had a few people complain that they were unable to get past the password part, so I decided to do things the old fashioned way.
That’s the story…
Strange Horizons Fund Drive 2008
Hello! Strange Horizons is having a fund drive, and they need your donations (even the smallest donations) to keep the site working! For more information on the fund drive, check out their Website! They have raised $745 so far! Let’s pitch in!
Maybe some of my readers are asking: what is Strange Horizons? Well, I will tell you, because I have stolen their “about us” text directly from their website without permission for your informational cravings!
Here’s the skinny:
Strange Horizons is a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction. The term “speculative fiction” refers to what is more commonly known as “sci-fi,” but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres. The magazine was founded in September 2000, and as we said then:
[Speculative fiction is] important to the world. These stories make us think. They critique society. They offer alternatives. They give us a vision of the future—and warn us of the potential dangers therein. They help us understand our past. They are full of beauty, and terror, and delight.
Even as the print publishing market for speculative fiction has contracted, the genre has expanded. A new generation of writers and artists has emerged: multicultural, non-traditional, willing to step past clichés. Strange Horizons hopes to give these rising stars another place to shine.
Strange Horizons has an all-volunteer staff, which enables us to pay our fiction and poetry writers professional rates. We are committed to expanding the readership, professional status, and literary appreciation of speculative fiction in all media, for all people.
Pretty sweet, huh? So what are you waiting for? DONATE NOW!
Three years is a long time to hate.
I went to the viewing ceremony and the funeral over a year ago now. I wrote a very formal letter in Japanese (using keigo) to his parents from all of us. I had my Japanese host sister help me to make sure it was absolutely perfect and honoring to them. I made sure to tell them just how hard their son had worked at his English and building strong relationships with Americans while he had lived in the US. I think they needed to know that people recognised his good qualities and still remember them, even across language barriors.
I prayed for Kiyoshi in Japanese, in his own religious prayer (from sokka gakkai), as well as offered him a prayer from my own beliefs. I layed some kind of herb in his casket along with about 3-400 others before he was cremated. A friend of mine introduced me to his father and told him who I was and that I was representing all the Americans who loved his son but could not make it there.
(I was unable to speak at that time; heavy emotion mutes even the most verbose of us.)
It was two of the hardest days of my life, but at the same time, I had an opportunity that most people in our strange situation never get. Two months prior to Kiyoshi’s death, his best friend Shoichi asked me if I minded if they invited him to hang out with us in a club. I was going to say “hell no, Kiyoshi and I can’t coexist in the same part of town, let alone at the same club” but for some reason, I told Sho: “Sure, why not?” and acted like I’d love to see the bugger again, which I still cannot for the life of me understand what possessed me to say that…
When Shoichi brought it up, I was not interested in ever seeing him again. Anyway, after three years of not speaking, we did invite Kiyoshi to go clubbing, and he and I both apologized and forgave each other for… what happened. Let’s just say it had been one of the most bizarre situations in the history of international miscommunication. But the return of friendship was almost instantaneous when he said: Jenai chan, sannen mae ni totte… gomen ne. Hey Jenai, about three years ago… I’m sorry. Two months later, he died.
Had that not happened, I dont think I would have ever forgiven myself for refusing to meet him again thus denying us both the chance to forgive. It was the single most lucky thing that has EVER happened to me. I prayed really hard at the funeral… and the whole time, I was hoping that his parents would read my letter and feel some kind of relief that there are so many people in America who will always hold their son in our hearts…
I don’t know why I thought of that today. Maybe it was because a whole year had passed right under my nose… maybe because the dead sometimes revisit us when we least expect it. Whatever the reason for my memory was, I’m happy I thought of the last time we saw each other, and how three years of hatred can be broken by simple serendipity. He was creep, but a honest one. I might have had a lot of trouble with him a long time ago, but that’s over, and I miss him. A lot of people do.
Back To Unconsciousness
I feel like I’m always the last person to see a movie. And in a capstone class such as the one I’m in, I feel like I’m the last person to know anything about movies in general. For example, if I hear that a movie is going to come out in theaters, my classmates heard about it in preproduction two years ago, and if not then, they heard about it in a magazine ten years ago when the director was daydreaming about the project for the first time. I try to think about what might cause me to be so out of the loop when it comes to those highly anticipated movies.
So I decided to look at my own DVDs and VHS tapes. I have upwards of ten different Japanese horror and monster films, the entire five seasons of Viva la Bam, all of She-Ra Princess of Power, Rainbow Brite, The Great Chipmunk Adventure, a robot anime I’ve owned for ten years and just watched for the first time last summer out of boredom… Let’s see, I have Tank Girl, Ladyhawk, the Dark Crystal, The Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, The 5th Element, Nanny McPhee, Silent Hill, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hard Day’s Night and the first two Resident Evil movies… I have Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lundgren, Excess Baggage, the Gold Box VHS Star Wars Trilogy, Sgt. Bilko, Titan A.E., Masterminds, Hackers, the animated Transformers Movie, Demolition Man, and Lawnmower Man 2… I also have my collection of random music video and concert tapes/DVDs, such as: Iron Maiden, about four different Japanese rock bands, The Beatles, and old burned videos of the bands I used to manage.
From the look of my collection, I have not watched hardly anything in the past five years… ironically those are the years I’ve been in college. What does that mean? Am I so uninterested in movies? That can’t be, because there’s entire rental store’s worth of movies from the last five years that I’m dying to see. Maybe it’s because I’m broke, and knowing that I can’t afford to watch new movies deters me from even keeping track of what’s coming out.
Maybe my year in Japan sealed my fate… when I first got off the airplane and walked into a rental shop (immediately and in that order), I could only identify maybe 10% of the films on the shelf. That was it. It was like being in a foreign country all over again. I panicked a little. I wondered if I was really in America, or if I had entered into an alternate universe that looked kind of like home but wasn’t.
And speaking of panicking, being back in America is difficult. I know what it’s like to wake up from a coma. Nothing has changed, but I’m missing a year of my life. All I have is this bizarre dream of living in a strange place in a time that feels decades removed. Did I really live in a house older than America’s constitution? Did I serve drinks in three different bars to pay for it? Was I really part of the women’s stage security at a dancehall? Did I really end up in a Japanese hospital, hooked up to an I.V. while the doctor told the nurse how lucky I was? Did I ever really leave?
I do this every time; it never fails. Every time I think about wanting to escape my life into a movie, I remember how little I’m aware of the options to choose from, and how few I’ve seen, and how many I can’t afford… and I felt after coming home from a dream. That dream life from a year ago that feels more like it happened two decades ago. I miss it, despite feeling so detached. Home is so different for me now that I don’t feel like I belong. If I have to feel like an outsider, I’d rather be one in a place that makes sense. I have to back to Asia. There’s no reason to feel alienated in my own country, when I can feel that way in a world where it’s allowed.
Sportsmanship. You’re doing it wrong.
This is another one that might not make a lot of sense to some of my readers (or all, what? …six of you?), but then again, it’s got some good advice that I didn’t make up, so you should read it. P.S., I’m in a foul mood right now, so I get to write this as cryptic and grouchy as I choose, but don’t let that discourage you from reading.
So I’m disgruntled. Yes, disgruntled with competitors who do not acknowledge those who defeated them. I am a competitive person. When I lose to (a) stronger opponent(s), I say the names of the person/people I lost to without shame or alternative purpose. The spirit of good sportsmanship depends on that virtue. Lately, though, I have noticed a decrease in that mentality.
A good friend of mine is an amazing woman and recently won a rather exciting award, and it kills me that this competitive numbskull, whom had competed against her, ignored her accomplishments just to make the “failure” feel less painful. This person demonstrated other unsportsmanlike behavior, but it would take a while to list all the craptacular details involved. Anyway, some people need to realize that no matter how good they think they are in their element, there will (almost) always be someone greater. Beside that, the only worthwhile competition is with one’s self.
On a related note, I have a hard time being okay with a person who would point out the accomplishments of another as an excuse for his or her own failure, rather than to honor the person for winning (it does happen, sadly.) It’s even worse when the loser assumes that the winner won for some unrelated reason (kind of makes you sick, doesn’t it?)
So I ask my readers to please give credit where it is deserved, when it is deserved, and be honest about it. Please do not give credit only when that acknowledgement will benefit your ego. Think about this: the number of times you will lose to someone else in a competition is often higher than the number of times you will win; so don’t fuss. Other people will respect your good sportsmanlike behavior (and be thankful to you for upholding the spirit of competition) if you compete more with yourself, and remain respectful of your opponents. Remember: experience, skill, or even age, has nothing on a strong heart. No matter how far in a competition you go, it’s only your strength of character that is truly deserving of any congratulations. You shouldn’t expect anything more.
My Pain. Because of a lousy 15%.
The following blog posted 05/16/08 has been retracted for religious, political, and medical reasons.
The author (me) would like the reader (you) to know that she does (I do) not plan to make retractions a habit on this (my) blog. …Unless it’s extremely necessary.
An example of extremely necessary could be anything from an alien abduction to total ozone depletion. You never know, those two things could demand a retraction of some kind.
Anyway, thank you for your understanding, support, donations, care packages, and booze.
